Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska

Italian Recipes

Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano with Recipe for Spaghetti with Eggplant and Tomato Sauce (Pasta alla Norma)

Andrea Camilleri

Andrea Camilleri, photograph by Pensiero

(From Greece)

English language books are hard to find on the island.

I carefully select those to bring with us, focusing on books we’ll both enjoy and want to reread. After several years, most books recede far enough into memory that rediscovering them is a pleasure. ...

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Culinary Experiments with Devil’s Club Leaf Buds

I’ve always played with my food and eaten with my fingers. As a child, these habits got me into trouble. As an adult, they led me into the kitchen. There’s no more satisfying way than cooking to play with your food.

My favorite kind of playing with food involves foraging. Rooting ...

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How to Harvest and Use Wild Dandelion Greens

Pile o' Dandelions

The dandelions are coming! The dandelions are coming!

Actually, the first dandelions of the season have arrived. They’re still few and far between, but I found enough to make a salad.

Dandelions are at their best in early spring, when their flavor is sweet and mild. As flower buds develop and blossom, ...

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Love, Italian Style (with Recipe for Anchovy-stuffed Peppers Basilicata)

Dad

My Dad has had a long love affair with Italy.

It started with Giovanni, an Italian who lives in the Ligurian town of La Spezia and who worked in the same field as my Dad. When they met, the two hit it off immediately and, eventually, became fast friends. ...

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National Dish of Sicily: Pasta with Sardines and Fennel

Sicilian Pasta with Sardines and Fennel

 

After returning from language school in Taormina, Sicily, my sister continued to crave Sicilian food. She discovered a recipe for Sicilian Pasta with Sardines that was so good she ate it for dinner, and then for breakfast and lunch the next day.

Pasta with Sardines is one of Sicily’s classic dishes, ...

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The Best Kale for Soup: Lacinato aka Tuscan aka Dinosaur Kale

Kale

Today I woke up without a voice. My throat hurts. I feel a cold coming on. Winter virus season has arrived.

My mother-in-law hung up on me when my squeaky pseudo-voice led her to believe she had the wrong number. I wanted to disabuse her of this notion, but I couldn’t ...

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