Educated Palate: Lael & Giuliano Hazan’s Blog

In classic Bolognese, the sauce and the pasta are in symbiosis and enhance each other. This is one of those sauces that is best with homemade egg pasta, and is a delicacy that, in my family, we could eat weekly.

This is a sweet and creamy dessert that the kids love, yet is sophisticated enough for adults too. Lorella made it as a semifreddo in a glass for the adults, she then surrounded it with chocolate and created popsicles for the kids. Semifreddo in Italian means half frozen, and this recipe had the airy chewiness of meringue mixed with the sweet flavor of Nutella. A fun dessert for the entire family.

The creamy, rich white sauce is easy to make but requires a bit of patience. Don’t worry if it doesn’t thicken right away, it will eventually so don’t panic and add more flour.

The name Medici is intertwined with Florence.  It is a name that connotes intrigue, romance and drama.  The family members, ruling as the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, were inspired patrons for some of the greatest artwork of the Renaissance.  However, their might extended far beyond their borders, they produced four Popes and the Medici Bank was the largest in Europe during the 16^th century.

The remains of the families’ influence are not only found in the great monuments in Florence and Rome, they are also found in their vast archives.  Because of the Medici Archive Project, people from throughout the world are now able to have access to some of the more than three million private letters and documents that were once only accessible to scholars.

From the Medici Archive Project: The archive of the Medici Grand Dukes is one of the greatest yet least known Medici monuments. Established by Grand Duke Cosimo I in 1569, it offers the most complete record of any princely regime in Renaissance and Baroque Europe. Since this Archive consists mostly of letters (nearly three million filling a full kilometer of shelf-space), it offers an incomparable panorama of two hundred years of human history, as told in the words of the people most immediately involved. However, this unique documentary resource has never been catalogued and indexed, nor microfilmed and accessed by electronic means. Only now, with The Medici Archive Project, is it fulfilling its potential to revolutionize our understanding of the past.

Although salmon is not a native Italian fish, and is rarely seen on restaurant menus in Italy, it lends itself well to Italian preparations. In this recipe, it is baked in a pouch, which is an easy and forgiving way to cook fish, ensuring it will turn out moist and flavorful. The presentation is impressive and your guests will ooh and ahh both when the y see it as well as when they taste it.

Now when your local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm delivers a mountain of kale, you’ll know what to do with it. Both of our girls enjoyed this soup. In fact, our oldest, 11 year old Gabriella, brought it to school in her thermos for lunch and said that all of her friends were jealous. It is very easy to make and freezes well if you’ve made more than you need.

The wines bacari dispense by the glass are of the kind Italy excels in making: very young, light-bodied, exuberantly grapey, inexpensive and deliciously gulpable. Many are produced in the Veneto itself, including the most popular white, the fresh, soft, and gently sparkling Prosecco, and the most popular red, Merlot, produced in a simple, tenderly fruity style.

Italian pottery is prized for its beauty and individuality. Many people have heard of Deruta wear but there are so many other designs that are both historic and beautiful. In our house we use a classic ceramic design from the region of Giuliano’s family in Emilia Romangia.

Roasted potatoes are perhaps the ultimate comfort cold weather food.. What makes this dish Italian are the seasonings. The combination of garlic and rosemary is the distinctive aroma of Italian roasts. Breathing it is as one enters the house makes one’s mouth water in anticipation. For me, it is the smell of tranquility.

You can quickly and easily very finely dice an onion with only two cuts. A horizontal cut is not necessary as long as your lengthwise cuts follow the shape of the onion and resemble the spokes of a cartwheel. The important thing is to make all your cuts close together.