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A friend just returned from Italy, and the highlight of their trip was "discovering" Delicia Limon. THey couldn't tell me much except that it had a lemon liquor and reminded them of tiramisu. Does anyone have a recipe to share? Thanks

Need to bring a Pasta Salad to a Father's Day Celebration. Anyone have a favorite recipe they'd like to share. (As a side note, I'm debating whether or not to substitute Whole Whole Pasta. Good or Bad Idea??? Anyone have any experience with cold Whole Wheat Pasta?)

For research for a piece I'm writing, and for my father-in-law whose mother's (lost) recipe it was, I'm wondering if someone one knows about this dessert confection. My FIL says it was definitely a dessert treat, not some kind of quiche-like tart. It had a double crust and was heavy on the spinach. It was sublime, I'm told.

July brings us the cooking of Sicily. I’m really pumped about this month of cooking, most especially to see how everyone else does with it. Last year when I cooked from Sicily (also in July), I had a great time; I would just find myself grinning while prepping the food. It’s so aromatic and exotic and full of weird combos that you don’t see elsewhere in Italy. Things you’d never think would work together wind up being the best dishes; I’d encourage finding some out-there Sicilian recipes and giving them a spin (my favorites from last year: duck with chocolate, cantaloupe caponata, baked pasta with and orange and cinnamon-scented sausage ragu). I’m going to try to acquire an actual Sicily cookbook this month, since usually I just go by the references in my other books. A booksearch on Amazon for Sicily reveals the following books: Ciao Sicily by Damian Mandola, Johnny Carrabba Sweet Sicily: The Story of an Island and Her Pastries by Victoria Granof Sicily: A Way of Life in 50 Recipes by Janine Saine Foods of Sicily and Sardinia and the Smaller Islands by Giuliano Bugialli, John Dominis The Flavors of Sicily by Anna Tasca Lanza "Pinch" of Sicily : A Collection of Memories and Traditional Recipes by maria sciortino Cucina Paradiso: The Heavenly Food of Sicily by Clifford A. Wright The Heart of Sicily : Recipes & Reminiscences of Regaleali, a Country Estate by Anna Tasca Lanza Sicily (Flavors of Italy , Vol 2, No 4) by Mariapaola Dettore, McCrae Books Southern Italian Cooking : Family Recipes from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Jo Bettoja Pomp And Sustenance : Twenty Five Centuries Of Sicilian Food by Mary Simeti Taylor Cucina Siciliana by Clarissa Hyman Bitter Almonds: Recollections and Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood by Maria Grammatico Sicilian Feasts by Giovanna Bellia La Marca Sicilian Home Cooking: Family Recipes from Gangivecchio by Wanda Tornabene, Giovanna Tornabene, Michele Evans Many Beautiful Things: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa -- by Vincent Schiavelli So, quite a bit to choose from, over and above the chapters on Sicily in the regional cookbooks we’ve been referencing. I have Schiavelli’s book and really enjoy it, Sweet Sicily is dessert-oriented but still very worthwhile. Classic dishes and preparations would take up pages, but suffice it to say, lots of seafood, especially compared against Sardinian traditional cooking. Sicily’s been ruled by nearly every Mediterranean power at one point or another and has embraced an elaborate layer of influences and dishes. Sweet and sour is a common preparation, but what is interesting is how varied the theme plays out: it’s a lot more than vinegar, sugar, raisins, and pine nuts. Chocolate is thrown in for a dash of bitter to balance out the dish in some recpies; in others the sweet comes from fresh fruit or honey instead of just sugar; in others the sour comes from citrus instead of vinegar. There’s a wealth of antipasti to choose from: many of them deep-fried. Pastas abound, but there’s also an interesting tradition of rice dishes and timabelle. Finally, vegetables are abundant and you could almost make a month out of vegetarian dishes, and a month more just on the variations on caponata, the sweet/sour condimento found here. Even more pages could be devoted to the elaborate Sicilian sweet tooth: gelato, cannoli, zeppole, bigne, cassata just scratch the surface of some of the more famous sweets originated or perfected here. Let’s get cooking! I’m really excited to see what everyone does . . .

I've been doing this for so many years, it's hard to come up with different menus. However, this is my preliminary menu for an interactive dinner party for my office. This is an event that is primarily for our summer clerks, but we have lots of lawyers and their spouses here, too. EVERYONE must get involved in the cooking or plating of at least one of the dishes. It's this sense of teamwork that makes this a lot more fun than your traditional dinner party. Oh, there will be 30 people crammed into our house for this event -- Yikes. I've liberally stolen ideas from Charlie Trotter, Mario Batali and others. I'd like some comments and suggestions about this menu. I think I may have to re-do the salad, as I don't have a local source for duck prosciutto (and I don't want regular prosciutto). Help me come up with an Italian-ish salad that I can do instead. Let me know if you can think of any other things I'm missing. Oh, and if my Italian is off, I don't care! Antipasti Grilled Pesto Shrimp Rosemary Foccacia 2003 Campi Flegrei Falanghina (Campania) 2004 Campi Flegrei Piedirosso Per e Palummo (Campania) Minestre Fregola and Clams in Tomato Broth 2002 Pira Dolcetto Fornaci (Piemonte) Insalata Mixed Green Salad with Duck Prosciutto, Roasted Fig and Balsamico Dressing 2004 Anselmi San Vincenzo (Veneto) Pesce Slow-Roasted, Thyme-Infused Wild Salmon with a Sangiovese & Mushroom Risotto 2001 Torre Sangiovese di Romagna Riserva (Emilia-Romagna) Carne Tenderloin of Beef with Gorgonzola Butter, Sauteed Rapini & Pancetta 1999 Bolsignano Brunello di Montalcino (Toscana) Dolce Chocolate and Valpolicella Crema NV Botter Prosecco (Friuli-Venezia-Giulia)

Lardo di Colannata(o), to me....6-12 month Cured pork fat back w/ herbs. Apparently a profound, ethereal culinary experience. After reading Bill Bufords book "Heat" ( a great book about many things...Mario Batali included) I am facinated to know more about this product. Experiences, recipes and musings wanted. I MUST learn how to make this incredible, venticle stiffining fat of the Gods. I'm also in search of the "perfect" pig...if there is one, to provide his backside, so I might persue my curing delights. (i.e. a mail order heritage or heirloom pig site who can provide me the fat back needed in the USA)

For March we will be focusing on the cooking of Friuli Venezia-Giulia, the northeasternmost region of Italy. As I’ve said several times, I find this to be, second or even equal to Sicily, the most exotic Italian cooking I’ve worked with that could still be called Italian. So I’m pumped to be coming back to it particularly in March. While certainly there’s no shortage of robust winter-esque fare (if you’re still laboring under cold fronts and snow, you really need to give the soup la jota a spin), there is also a surprising delicacy to many dishes that lends itself well, in my opinion, to the transition to spring. Friuli Venezia-Giulia appears to be a relatively recent “discovery”, at least in U.S. cooking literature, though it is now being recognized as a formidable cuisine in its own right. Both Ada Boni and Waverly Root wrap FVG and Trentino up with the Veneto under the broad heading of “Veneto”. Claudia Roden’s FVG chapter is woefully short. But there’s also Fred Plotkin’s La Terra Fortunata, an immensely informative book. In fact, I’d almost say too informative: I’d have liked to have seen maybe 20 pages shaved off of the long intro chapters for a few more recipes in exchange. But you can’t argue that you don’t know a hell of a lot more about the region coming out. There’s also, to a limited extent, Lidia Bastianich’s first cookbook, La Cucina di Lidia, which, while it has a number of pan-Italian standards, also focuses significantly in on her upbringing in and around Istria. There’s a whole chapter on game, and even one chapter devoted to making prosciutto! Housekeeping note: The polls are still open for Q2 voting and only two people have PMed me with their choices so far. Think Spring, and think three regions that you’d like to pair with those months on up through June, the start of summer.

Was reading Scott Conant's "New Italian Cooking" today. He makes an interesting statement in the chapter on pasta. When making fresh pasta, he pre-freezes it to make it "tender but strong". He states that the frozen pasta doesn't absorb as much liquid as would fresh, resulting in the pasta holding its shape better- not so much expansion, without it becoming "flabby", and that the flavor is less diluted. When I make fresh pasta, I usually try to make just enough for that meal, so I don't often wind up with that much extra. I have frozen excess at times- especially when making stuffed pasta, such as ravioli. Not sure that I've ever made such an empirical observation that the frozen was all that different from when I had it fresh. Has anyone heard this before? Tried it, or had any experience with fresh/fresh vs. fresh/frozen?

For the most part I'm a California wine lover, mostly an ex-French wine drinker, who also adores German wines. When it comes to Italian wines I really don't have much if any knowledge other than occasionally buying a bottle of Chianti Classico a couple times of year just for random drinking around the house. This year for our Christmas dinner we went to an Italian restaurant that I enjoy and ordered a bottle of Barolo. It was a 2000 Costa Di Bussia Barolo. We enjoyed this wine enough to go seek out bottle of it at our local BevMo. At the restaurant the bottle was $52 while at BevMo it was $29 and was still the lowest priced Barolo. OUrbottle at the restaurant had was a beautiful rich garnet color. The nose danced with different nuances and floral tones of roses and violet. Body wise we found it to be very light yet still elegant and with nice smoothe finish. Needless to say we were impressed enough to go buy another bottle and start thinking about buying other Barolo's. I know Barolo is primarily nebbiola and to this point the only other nebbiola I've bought was at Viansa which was decent but nothing special. In terms of Barolo's which ones are reccomended? Which ones are good values? What should one look for in a Barolo?

In April of 2004, I had the good fortune to travel to the home of my ancestors in Sicily. One of the first towns that we visited after Palermo was Erice (pronounced EH-ree-chay), which sits atop Mount Erice on the western side of Sicily just above the seaside town of Trapani. Erice is the home of Maria Grammatico, a justly famous Sicilian baker. Everything we tasted was just so delicious! Different from the kind of sweets that my mother baked when I was a child, but still wonderful. Just next to her shop was a fabulous display of her work. I am trying to match names to the photos that I took so that I can bake some of these delicacies at home. Can you identify and/or post recipes for these pastries? Even if you just have a name, it would be helpful in trying to locate a recipe. Thanks very much. Figure 1 – Display Case with Beautiful Pyramids of Pastries ======================= Figure 2 - Désirs (?) (Desirs for the search engine) ======================= Figure 3 - Sospiri (?) ======================= Figure 4 - Belli e Brutti (?) ======================= Figure 5 - (?) ======================= Figure 6 - Palline al Cioccolato (?) ======================= Figure 7 - (?) ======================= Figure 8 - (?) =======================

Buenos Aires is populated by millions of descendents of Italian immigrants. Nonetheless, most bakeries sell a pasty, tasteless bread and in some cases an absolutely insipid bread baked in electric ovens. The great exception is La Pompeya at Ave. Independencia 1912 (w/ Combate de los Pozos). This is a great find that I learned about years ago on Canal Gourmet. Founded in the early 1930, Italian immigrants are said to have gotten off the boat in Buenos Aires with little more than slips of paper with the address of the bakery. Now, as then, the place is well worth the trip to find it. This bakery has nothing to do with the Italian pastry shops that dot the lower east side of Manhattan. La Pompeya is as working class as the neighborhood it is situated in. The bread I go for is the round kilo loaf of country bread. It is crusty and made for bruschetta. Don't be put off by the dark salesroom. There are all sorts of surprises to be discovered and tasted: canoli shells, pan dulce for the holidays, flaky sfogattielle, and fresas, large round donuts of dried bread, which I have never tried, but are for moistening with olive oil to make a poor man's bread salad. It's a two hour round trip for me to La Pompeya but I am always a happy camper those Saturdays that I make the trip. The country bread freezes perfectly.

While Galileo no longer is on the tip of everyone's tongue on this thread, as some of you may know, the chef is from Piemonte, a northern region of Italy that is currently being explored in a thread you will find in Italy & Italian Cuisine: This Year's Resolution I should explain that this new thread devoted to the cooking of various regions of Italy was inspired by a terrific thread by eGullet member Kevin72 who spent a year exploring the food of Italy, region by region. The popularity of that thread has inspired a new collective effort in which interested eGullet members are learning more about the foods and dishes of regions that Kevin was not able to explore, or to return to provinces of Italy whose riches deserve further representation. I am posting this, in part, to bring this effort to your attention. However, in conjunction with that forum's thread, I would be interested in anything residents of this area have to say about local resources or trends in restaurants. I am reminded somewhat of the movie, Big Night where there was a valient attempt to teach the meatball-and-spaghetti crowd about the pleasures of risotto (a specialty of Piemonte, by the way) and the elegance and diversity of Italian cooking. While Silver Spoon is gettting a lot of hype, one trend is towards publishing cookbooks that focus on specific regions, replete with bibliography, and often information about the cultural history of that region as it impinges upon food. Now that we are a long way away from the problems that plagued the characters played by Tucci and Shalhoub, can it be said that restaurants are following the same trends that publishers are? Are we beyond a distinction between Northern and Southern Italian food? For example, I have mentioned Galileo above. I understand the restaurant has its own cookbook, filled with typos, which nonetheless offers recipes that represent Piedmontese cooking. For those of you have eaten there, have you noticed that the menu reflects the chef's regional loyalties? What about Dino's where Venice's winged lion serves as its logo, yet diners seem to praise the prosciutto plate more than anything else? If you have any tips for shopping for hard-to-find ingredients from specific regions, please share. If you'd like, please send me a personal message if you intend to participate in the year-long venture on Italian Cooking. (Note the reference to cheese at Whole Foods in the thread linked above.)

The pasta making is coming along well (thanks guys!), to the point where I'm now able to both make pasta and make a decent sauce simultaneously without botching one or the other too badly. Tonight's was fettucini in a creamy smoked salmon and walnut sauce. It wasn't terrible, but it was quite dry (the walnuts didn't help this) and felt like it was lacking something. Does anyone have a recipe for making an incarnation of this dish that will blow me away? Or tips that will set me in the right direction. I still have plenty of salmon and walnuts leftover, and I'm game to try again. [For what it's worth, here's what I did tonight: sautéed some garlic in butter, then added the walnuts and salmon for the 10 seconds it took me to get the cream and pour it in. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and a bit of fresh parsley, and let it simmer until it reduced a little, then tossed with the fettucini. Then came on eGullet to complain about it ]

Forgive me if this question has been answered in another thread but I'm trying to remember/find the name of an Italian restaurant I ate at 6 years ago in either Kirkland or Redmond WA. It is set in a very small strip mall toward one end facing the street. The Chef used to be the personal chef to the Prince of Monaco (I think). I had the most flavorful Buffalo Tenderloin there and the host of the dinner ordered many wines from their HUGE wine selection. I once saw the website for this place but I can't for the life of me remember the name of the place. Anyone know this place? It's supposed to be highly rated. TIA, Bob

I saw an ad on tv for this thing: Pasta Cooker Ya think it really works?? If so, I think it would be a pretty great product. If all I had to do was add boiling water from a tea kettle, I would probably make pasta more often. Apparently the lid functions as a drain - so no big ass pot or colander to wash. The website says that it will be available soon - but I saw an ad for one available now. Has anyone tried this thing??

Hello there:) I had an issue with some Italian buttercream on the weekend that curdled on me after I added some Cannoli filling for taste. My buttercream consists of : 12 or 1 cup of egg whites 2 1/4 cup of sugar + 1/4 cup water heated to 240degrees 6 sticks of butter 1tsp vanilla Once I made the Italian buttercream it looks spot on but then I added 3/4 cup of cannoli filling => ( Impasta Ricotta, confectioners sugar, mascarpone, marsala and vanilla). Adding the cannoli cream made it taste absolutley delicious, was such a same I had to throw it out! I am just wondering if there is some unwritten rule about what I can flavour my buttercream with Thankyou for your help! -- Jane

Please help me name this Italian pastry / confection mystery: - Obtained from an Italian bakery in Toronto - Flown in just for Christmas - Leaf shaped - Gingerbready with candied fruit on the inside - enrobed in dark chocolate Thanks so much!!

Ciambellone (Ring Cake) is an Italian favourite of mine and I would like to recreate it at home. Can anyone help? Thanks

I am planning to make some squid ink pasta. Does anyone have any tips as far as how much ink to use? Also, any tricks for insuring that it won't turn my guest's teeth black?? (This happened to me in a restaurant -- NOT a good look).

So this month's thread will begin the topic of the cooking and cuisine of Lombardia, due east of Piemonte. Obviously, Milan is the best-known city of the region, which also offers the Lake district along its northern and western borders. Like many of the far Northern regions of Italy, Lombardia embraces risotto as its primo of choice. There is, of course, the famous, saffron-tinged risotto alla Milanese (another dish with many conflicting stories of its origin), the sine qua non accompaniment to osso bucco alla Milanese. The common theme I've run across in the limited cookbook literature I have on Lombardia is that there is a definite juxtaposition of the cooking of Milan and then the cooking of the rest of Lombardia. Milan's cooking is more about convenience, getting things done quickly, and has come to embrace global traditions and cuisines. Surrounding Lombardia, though, bears more in common with Piemonte and the Veneto, utilizing lots of sturdy braises and other hearty, slow-cooked countryside fare. So, as I've said, I'm not aware of much out there, cookbook-wise, that is devoted exclusively to this region, at least in the U.S. I'm sure more industrious and thorough eG'ers will prove me wrong, though, so don't disappoint me! Hopefully Hathor will venture along in a bit and hit us with another excellent regional writeup like she gave us for Piemonte. Let's do it!

Throughout the year, a number of eGullet members will be cooking their way through Italy, moving from region to region each month. I brought the project to your attention in this forum's thread on Barolo since we began in Piemonte. I would like to provide a link to the first month of the project once more, since the subject of wine has been brought up by more than one of our members. In addition to opening bottles of wine to go with our meals, we have served risotto, trout and braises that were prepared with red wine. Please consider this an invitation to check in on our progress and pipe up from time to time. At the beginning of each new month, when cooks survey the local cuisine, your comments on the wines of the region would be appreciated. In February, we are moving on to Lombardy. Plans for March should be finalized some time soon.

I have been charged with making dessert(s) for a Tuscan dinner. I'm thinking cantucci with vin santo. I've found a recipe for a very simple apple cake that might also work. Anyone have any other suggestions?.

I had gaeta olives last night for the very first time. They provided a lovely salt component to a dish of seared tuna, alongside shaved fennel salad with truffle cream and roasted beet carpaccio. Where are these lovely little morsels from? What are your culinary experiences with them?

Recently, I picked up a bag of this: Optimally, what would you sauce this with?

Hi, I'm new here and I have tried searching the eG forums regarding this topic but without success. Is it possible to make an italian meringue buttercream less sweet? The recipe I am using is basically RLB's Mousseline Buttercream; it tastes light and yet luxurious and piped beautifully on cupcakes. Most of my relatives who tasted it commented that the buttercream was much too sweet! They liked the texture of the buttercream but not the sweetness. Is there any way of reducing the sugar in the recipe? Also on a side note, is there such a thing as an unsweetened buttercream? If so, could anyone recommend a recipe? Thanks!