Creating an Italian antipasto or charcuterie platter requires careful selection of ingredients but it’s not rocket science. An Italian antipasto plate usually includes marinated vegetables, e.g., roasted red peppers, pickled eggplant, grilled zucchini—olives, salumi, cheese, and, of course good bread. With antipasto, simple is best. Each decision the home cook makes has an effect on the experience of the eater. […]

Like most Italian cocktails or aperitifs there’s a great story behind The Bicicletta, or Bicycle, cocktail.  Legend has it that The aperitif was named after the elderly men who swerved all over the road while riding home after a few afternoon drinks at the café. The story sounds about right and remind us of how Count Negroni invented the popular Italian cocktail […]

Introducing Scordo Cooks: 20 Easy Pasta Recipes eBook ! We’re pleased to announce the launch of our first eRecipe collection – Scordo Cooks: 20 Easy Pasta Recipes eBook.  For the first time, we’re bringing together our top pasta recipes in one easy to use format that can be viewed on your desktop, laptop tablet, or mobile device. The goal for our […]

Pasta all’Amatriciana Recipe Given the recent earthquake centered in and around the town and comunes of Amatrice in the province of Rieti, in northern Lazio, we thought we’d post our recipe for Pasta all’Amatriciana which is referred to as Sugo all’amatriciana or alla matriciana. This traditional Italian pasta sauce is made everywhere in the Lazio region near Roma and is based on […]

Head to any barbecue (or grigliata / cookout) in Italy and you’ll most likely encounter cooks utilizing extra virgin olive oil, a strong open flame, salt, protein, and lots of rosemary – this is Italian style grilling with no heavy barbecue sauces obscuring the high quality meat or fish)!   One of our favorite foods to grill is wild shrimp (preferably […]

We love trying new Italian food products and one thing we’ve come to realize is that the more simple the product the better tasting it tends to be (especially if the ingredients are world class).  Recently, we had the opportunity to try a Sicilian Pistachio Spread with Extra Virgin Olive Oil made by Il Cole Del Gusto in Lazio and […]

Calabrese Mustard Greens Mustard greens are one of the most nutritious green-leafy vegetables on the planet and have more vitamin A, carotenes, vitamin K, and flavonoid anti-oxidants than many generic or everyday fruits and vegetables.  Like many of the greens we prepare our mustard green recipe includes extra virgin olive, minced garlic, and red pepper flakes.  We also quickly blanch the vegetable […]

Gnocchi with Pesto and Canned Italian Tuna When researching our recipe for Gnocchi with pesto and canned Italian tuna we kept seeing recipes that focused on baking the ingredients and our immediate reply was why would you bake your Gnocchi with pesto and tuna dish?  Our dish focuses on high quality Italian tuna packed in olive oil and homemade pesto and […]

Recently I was going over a recipe with an Uncle interested in food and especially anchovy sauce and when I reached for a bunch of clipped recipes from the NY Times Food section he thought I was crazy for being so “old school”  We can debate endlessly about how one ought to save recipes (digitally or with a good scissor), […]

Basic Whole Wheat Bread Recipe A good, easy to make, basic whole wheat bread recipe should be in every home baker’s arsenal.  Our version of a Basic Whole Wheat Bread recipe is adopted from the classic cookbook, Beard on Bread Book (who acquired his recipe from Myrtle Allen, owner of Ballymaloe House, a country-house hotel near Cork, Ireland).  We like this recipe because […]