Red Winter Salad || Insalata Rossa Invernale

 

I once said that red is the color of fall.

I am not regretting my words, but I thought about reformulating the concept while putting together this salad the other day. I now think it is a matter of nuances – a bright orangy red gives way to a deeper, more purple-like red as fall turns into winter.

I like to think about the visible light spectrum as a circular line and the route of the earth as a parallel circle. Each nuance of the spectrum corresponds to a day, a week, a month of the year, and the cycle is infinite. Now, this precise time of the year must correspond to magenta and purple red. By the time spring comes, red would turn into bright green and delicate sprouts and leaves will make their appearance. We have to make the best of this season with the beauties and colors it has to offer before it is too late.

Eating with the seasons has this magic feeling to me –my imagination is boosted to greater heights with every dish, and my entire self feels in harmony with the surroundings. It is truly fascinating. I am deeply convinced that nature knows best, and all I can do is second it. Saying that colors signal specific health benefits, and that nature gives us certain foods in a specific season to meet our bodies' needs is nothing new. However, it is an often forgotten or neglected principle. An easier way to remember could be by means of color coding: eating with the seasons often means eating with colors. For this reason, the color of this salad is unforgettably bound to the color of winter.

Brussels Sprouts, Chestnuts and Orange || Cavoletti, Castagne e Arancia

 

This recipe will start the SS series –the name might sound intimidating but trust me, it is not. This series is actually pretty tasty, rather healthy, quite sustainable and surely enjoyable. I am talking about the Series on Seasonal Sides (and Salads). Ha.

You might know by now that I am a tireless supporter of a seasonal (and possibly local and organic) diet. I am always pretty upset by the extensive presence of peas, berries, tomatoes, bell peppers and zucchini around in winter –at the supermarket as much as on the internet. Not to mention the Christmas craziness featuring cherries and melons (I am talking about the Northern Hemisphere, of course). It really makes me mad.

As a final thesis for my BA, I investigated the symbolic meanings of food: place, time, culture and identity, status and tastes. What does that food has to say in terms of time, place, identity? Have you ever thought about food in these terms? When did it happen that we gave up these values? Isn't it important to know your food — where it comes from, how it is produced, when it is the right time for eating a specific thing in a given place and why? Where ends the right compromise and starts the conservative thought?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup || Zuppa di Cavolfiore Arrosto

 

Back home (the old home) for a while, I found myself surrounded by well-known feelings, situations ad habits. I also found myself surrounded by grandma's and grandpa's food again: chicken, eggs, frozen vegetables picked during summertime, and fresh winter produce such as Savoy cabbage and cauliflowers. My grandpa for some reasons that he is not willing to explain plants a huge amount of cauliflowers. He doesn't like them so much, he says –perhaps because he doesn't want to be bothered cooking them– so we end up with tons of them in our refrigerator every other day. Tons.

In my family, cauliflowers have always been eaten steamed or boiled, seasoned with garlic, olive oil and salt, period. Never a soup, never raw, never roasted. Only when I went to live by myself did I discover other ways of making good use of this delicious winter vegetable: pasta, soup, stews and raw couscous. Yet, I never roasted it before. You don't desire what you don't know, they say. This, until I saw this soup. It might sound like I discovered hot water, but still…In that exact moment I realized how much flavor I lost on the way because of my habit of boiled veggie soups.

Smoked Trout Lentil Salad

 

This new year starts with an open-hearted thank you for all your kind words and congratulations on my new married life. You have no idea how much they meant to me, to us. I save and savor them especially now that times are getting harder and it's time to be stronger. J. will be far for a while, and I am temporarly back at my parents'. No words added.

We went to Rome for new years –a trip that turned into an unplanned honeymoon– and ejoyed some of the best pasta dishes of our past and possibly future life. Cacio e Pepe at Roscioli, ammatriciana at L'Arcangelo, and fettucine con sugo d'involtino (meatroll sauce fettucine) at Da Felice. Not to mention the outragious amounts of pizza bianca from Forno Roscioli and pizza in teglia from Bonci we swallowed without batting an eyelash. All of it was the carb fuel for our infinite walks and wanderings around the whole city, savoring the old and the new, the monumental and the tiny, the crowded and the hidden.