Do you feel confident enough to create a recipe from scratch? That was one of the reasons I bought Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everday Cooking” so I could feel more confident dissecting a recipe and making it my own without messing up the right ratios (and turning a cake [...]

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January is probably my least-favorite month. For the productivity freak inside me, it’s great because I’m full of ideas, lists, and empty notebooks. But for the animal being inside, I’m longing for sun, and not gray, or rain, or even snow. Since I moved to Milan, I have grown to dread January – all of [...]

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I’m thinking today we could all use a bit of comfort. For those who are in the Northeast and want the storm to be past and over (with their homes and loved ones intact), and for the rest of us who refresh Twitter feeling helpless…we could use a bit of comfort, right? Meet Pecorino Romano [...]

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His name is Tonino. He has two bicycles in his garage: one he’s ready to lend you with a moment’s notice, and one he says is “personal” and hangs on the wall. You know it’s that second bike which holds his memories. He used to ride 100km a day, but now he doesn’t ride as [...]

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One of the things I look for during summer is big platters of raw vegetables at parties, barbecues, and in supermarkets. They’re not super popular here in Italy (though I sometimes see them at aperitivo), and when I see pinzimonio (raw vegetable appetizer with a dipping sauce of oil, salt, and pepper, and sometimes vinegar) [...]

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