Educated Palate: Lael & Giuliano Hazan’s Blog

If you don’t win the giveaway, you can still get the Loison products onlne at Life Style.  However, Loison wants to give you an opportunity of tasting panettone for yourself and are sponsoring a giveaway of their products.

Happily for Giuliano, one of our favorite holiday desserts does not need to be baked… Called diplomatico, it is a rich and creamy chocolate mouse cake that is foolproof, hence the name. It is frosted with whipped cream, providing a perfect canvas for decorating, which is, of course, the children’s job.

This elegant rack of lamb is delectable yet easy to prepare. It is an ideal recipe for when you want to impress your guests without being chained to the kitchen for hours.

And so, although our backgrounds were religiously and in many other ways diverse, there were moments at table where they coincided.

Usually prepared and served out of a small shack that may have a few plastic tables, piadina is a flat bread that is chewy but tender. Until not very long ago it used to be the everyday bread of Romagna. It is baked to order on a griddle (traditionally made of terracotta) and served with a variety of salumi, cured meats, and cheeses. One of our favorite toppings is sautéed mixed greens using a combination of mild and slightly bitter greens. It is both savory and soothing. Even without piadina, it is a side dish Giuliano often enjoys making. Made with Savoy cabbage, Swiss chard, and broccoli rabe, it appeared most recently on our Thanksgiving table.

We thank you, our readers, for joining us on this wonderful blogging journey, and we wish you and your family a delicious and meaningful Thanksgiving.  We look forward to your comments!

Not only do the ingredients look good together, the flavors complement each other perfectly. The simplicity of using only onions and marjoram, and patient sautéing to bring out the sweetness of the squash and grape tomatoes, makes this recipe distinctively Italian.

The leeks give a soft, sweet taste to this hearty soup and the chickpeas add an earthy balance. The prosciutto lends a savory flavor and Gabriella, our oldest, picked out the pieces to eat them by themselves. It is a perfect comfort soup, it takes less than an hour to make from start to finish, and most of the dish can be made ahead of time.

Cooking well is like the telling use of language: Expression must be vigorous, clear, concise. There can be no unnecessary ingredient or unnecessary step. A dish may be complex, but every component, every procedure, must count. …Do not arbitrarily shuffle the vocabulary of one cuisine with that of another to make your cooking (original). There is no more use for use for such a hybrid than there was for Esperanto.

Of course, most children won’t like anything remotely bitter, but I’ve discovered how to eliminate that bitterness, and our kids, who love artichokes, also love cardoons.