Barns at Wolf Trap • Saturday, June 27, 2026 • 7:30 p.m. As we head towards American 250, I will concede that the Barns at Wolf Trap might be an appropriate setting for Rossini’s La Cenerentola, although I’d have preferred the Kennedy Center. Part of the larger Wolf Trap complex, the performance took place in …
Category Archives: italy
Rebutting Radical Chic…nella Cucina Italiana
In a fit of radical chic, the Financial Times published Marianna Giusti’s interview with Marxist academic Alberto Grandi, in which the latter “debunks” (a popular activity these days) Italian food traditions, most of which are admittedly as new as Italy’s prosperity. It’s not a difficult task to take on if one has read more than …
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M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. XIX
Here’s a pre-Thanksgiving Day meal complete with primo, secondo and contorno. I was most excited about the contorno and had been squirreling away supplies from the dining facility for some time for it. The primo, a dish more suited to Italy’s hot summers, came out surprisingly well, and the primo, a simple soup, rounded it …
M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. XVIII
Ragú Redux Ragù. Pride of Emilia-Romagna, the rich, wine-and-broth simmered stuff which is indescribably comforting on a cold, foggy day in the Valpadana. And of course, a testament to its inherent goodness is its bastardization worldwide as “meat sauce” or, in an attempt to put an “authentic” spin on it, “bolognese sauce,” or, even worse, …
M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. XVII
Pasta con tapenade e sgombro It was “Italian night” at the dining facility the other night so I picked up a vat of black olive tapenade, thinking I’d do something with it later, despite the fact that tapenade is a Provençal, not Italian dish, but why not? Surely there is some kind of Mediterranean goodness …
“San Martino, ogni mosto diventa vino”
Republishing this for the 103rd anniversary of Armistice Day — It’s not only the 100th anniversary of Armistice, now Veterans, Day, it’s also San Martino, an autumnal feast day in Italy that celebrates not only the fourth-century patron saint of beggars, but also the maturation of new wines. The great Giosuè Carducci also wrote a …
M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. XVI
Two dishes today. One is a variation on the previously-posted risotto-in-a-bag dish. It was “Mexican night” at the cafeteria Wednesday and I was generously given by the server a large quantity of cooked shrimp, presumably for use in shrimp tacos. Having lived not too far from the Sea of Cortez recently, I can’t imagine why …
M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. XII
Caponata Siciliana – September 17 This will be the last for a bit, as I’m off to the land of good and accessible food soon enough. I found myself with far too many good fresh vegetables and jarred items the other night, so I improvised a caponata. There are a lot of regional variations, but …
M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. I
In the model of a less-evil Milo Minderbinder, I thought I’d show people what kind of food one can whip up with limited resources in a war zone. Having a full range and stove helps, but the crucial ingredient is, of course, an Italian PX. August 7 Starting simple — bieta (or bietola in Veneto) …
Le elezioni
One of the many small pleasures in Italian daily life is picking up a thick edition of one of the dailies and reading through it over a strong morning coffee (or two, if one still has jet lag). Yes, such paper monsters still exist, and the thick, clotted Latinate prose and strong opinions make, as …