I took a while to like pimento cheese. Once I learned how to make my own, using only a little mayo, I found my love for this appetizer, sandwich spread, or all-around tasty treat…..
Make some pimento cheese
Recent Posts
Cooking for a Southern dinner party
This evening a bunch of friends from grad school at UNC-Chapel Hill (Go Heels) are coming over for our monthly dinner together. One of us cooks each month and we rotate from house to house. I put a mess of chicken in seasoned buttermilk this morning when I got up, […]
Fagioli all’uccelletto (Beans bird style)
An old-style way to cook delicious beans for a side dish in an Italian feast. My recipe is adapted from Pellegrino Artusi’s La Scienza in Cucina e L’Arte de Mangiar Bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well, 1891). If you really want to go crazy deep […]
Sugo al Cipolle (onion sauce for pasta)
Sugo al Cipolle (onion sauce for pasta) Santa Marcella gave us this one in her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and it has been a house favorite since we first ate it. My version takes a while to cook, but it is so worth the effort, and it is one […]
Santa Marcella
Marcella Hazan. 1992. Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN-10: 0307597954; ISBN-13: 9780307597953. This is the first ‘international’ cookbook I bought, after a friend’s roommate recommended it. I love this book: it is the real basis of how I approach cooking. Marcella Hazan taught Americans how to cook […]
Rice — a cookbook
Rice: a Savor the South cookbook Michael Twitty. 2021. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9781469660240 Three great things come together in the lovely little cookbook: amazing author and cook Michael Twitty, rice, and UUNC (Go Tar Heels!). UNC press is doing a series of short cookbooks […]
Some Italian baking
Dinner party tonight is a Roman dinner — pollo alla romana, sauteed fennel, cannellini beans, bruschette, and some polpette di pesce on a bed of sauteed red onions. This Tuscan bread is for the bruschette, and the pizza di visciole (Roman cherry tart) s our dessert….
Pasta amatriciana
This is our favorite sauce, and has been for 30 years…..
“Everybody knows:” or, notes on recipe writing
Several years ago, my spouse went to Rome for a year of teaching in a study abroad program. He’s done this a couple of times, and it is a wonderful experience for us both: he gets to live in Rome for a year, I get to take trips to Italy […]
Basic Biscuits