For me, nothing in a garden beats the smell of basil. It gives me vivid flashbacks to my nonna making sauce, to my mother making sauce, and now, to me making sauce. Being Calabrese, pesto isn't part of our usual cuisine rolodex. We let the Northerners keep their green paste. However, I'd be lying if I didn't say I enjoy a good pesto from time to time (just don't tell my parents). We grow both sweet basil and lettuce leaf basil in our yard. For this particular recipe, I used t

My mom likes to tell a story that took place thirty years ago. She was pregnant with yours truly, and she had constant cravings for pickles. She was eating one jar a day, sometimes more. After she gave birth she didn't eat any more pickles for years, until one fateful day, the gods would see that I would try my first pickle. It was a B&G Kosher spear and it was life-changing. From that moment on, I loved pickles. Pickled cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, peppers–whatever I cou

At this point in the summer season our garden is overflowing with a bounty of veggies, but none are more prominent than the varieties of tomatoes we have. With this bounty of heirloom tomatoes and a container of ground turkey in the fridge I decided to whip up a new recipe for dinner last night. We usually use ground beef for our meat sauce, but I wanted a lighter meal as it's been really hot and humid these past few days and I enjoy eating lighter in these situations. The gr

Is a garden without tomatoes still a garden? Tomatoes, or 'pomodori', as we Italians call them, are the cornerstone of Italian cuisine. Tomato sauce, or 'sugo' as we call it (not 'gravy', not now, not ever) is the holy grail of the week's meals, often consumed on Sunday for dinner (which is generally a multi-course, multi-hour event that begins around 3pm). Some of my earliest memories as a child are going out to Riverhead, NY to pick tomatoes off the vine at Lewin Farms. I c

It's not often I get to make a corn pun, so I went with it. Overused? Certainly. Funny? Maybe. Are you all ears? I hope so. Corn, first domesticated from the indigenous peoples of Mexico around 10,000 years ago, comes from the Native American word meaning "sacred mother" or "giver of life" as corn has, and is, a dominant crop here in the United States. Throughout my three decades of life, we never tried to grow any corn because we: A. don't have much space B. usually buy farm

Fabam vita sunt. Beans are life. Broad, flat, string-less seams. Tender, easy-to-cook, and flavorful. The Romano bean (Italian flat bean), often sold as "snap beans" are a fast-growing and high-yielding crop. As far as I can remember into my childhood, my parents have been planting and using these beans. We've pickled them, made them into pasta dishes, made them into both warm and cold salads, stewed them, and much more. Their culinary versatility and yield through the fall h