When thinking of food that represents spring, fresh new vegetables come to mind immediately. In Rome one of the most frequently seen spring vegetables are fresh fava beans, often eaten raw with pecorino cheese. A favorite springtime dish – almost a symbol of the beginning of spring – is vignarola. It consists of a mix of fave, fresh peas and artichokes that are sautéed in olive oil with spring onions. The name is said to come from the word vigna (grapevine) because the vegetables used were typically grown in the spaces between the grapevines. As in most Italian dishes, there is no one recipe written in stone: the vegetables are generally in equal proportion with the artichokes prepared Italian-style, outer leaves and fuzzy choke discarded until only the tender parts remain so that they can be sliced. The most traditional recipe also uses shredded lettuce. Some people add mentuccia (a wild mint similar to pennyroyal) and some versions contain guanciale or pancetta. It’s a simple, bright-green, fresh and delicious medley that can be a starter, main course or a side dish.
Year: 2017 (page 2 of 3)
There are still a few weeks left to see the Met Breuer’s retrospective of Marisa Merz. Merz, who was born in 1926, is the only female member of the Turin-based Arte Povera movement and spent much of her career in the shadows of well-known men, including that of Mario Merz, her husband. This exhibit brings her into the forefront and her works are revelatory, both intimate and grand. Arte Povera’s distinctive trait was the use of cheap or discarded materials to create works of art that are often on a monumental scale. Marisa Merz arranged her works in her house, rather than in a gallery, and they seem to have arisen from her home life and base regardless of their size. There are about 100 pieces in this show and it is strange, moving and beautiful, worthy of its name: “The Sky Is A Great Space.”
In Italy Carnevale means not only costumes, masks, playing jokes, parties and parades but also eating lots of sweets at a time of year when excess is celebrated. Most of these – like frappe (or chiacchiere), castagnole and cicerchiata – involve different forms of fried dough. Instead, the Neapolitan ricotta cake called migliaccio is a baked dessert. Its origins can be traced to the Middle Ages and its name derives from the Latin word miliaccium – the traditional bread made of millet flour. Up to the 1700s the term indicated a sweet made by peasants using millet and pig blood (considered particularly nourishing). The Catholic church discouraged the use of blood because it associated it with pagan traditions. Gradually it was substituted by the use of eggs and ricotta, eventually becoming today’s cake which is made with semolina flour. Traditionally the cake is cooked in a copper pan but nowadays it’s more common to see it in an aluminum cake tin. It’s a light(ish) cake, not too sweet, usually with a citrus fragrance. There is no one “original” recipe but this one makes a nice airy cake and a good way to participate in the revelries.
Carnegie Hall has organized a festival dedicated to the music and arts of the Venetian Republic – La Serenissima, or “Most Serene Republic.” The Republic grew from Byzantine settlements in a lagoon to a great maritime power and commercial center that was essentially a crossroads between East and West. It flourished for over one thousand years until it fell to Napoleon in 1797. The festival traces the cultural evolution of the Republic with a series of Venetian-themed events of concerts, opera, theater, art and lectures that are taking place at Carnegie Hall but also in other venues.
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