I don’t remember what we had for dinner the first Christmas Eve that Dan and I were married. But there is a photograph of me on the second one, a wine glass of skim milk in front of me (I was pregnant) along with a lamb chop on a gold-rimmed plate. A lamb chop is, […]
Maria Mangano
Posted inFood & Drink
Mad about eggplants
In David Ruggerio’s Italian Kitchen, he writes, “Eggplants are to Italians as sex is to nymphomaniacs.” How true. My knees weaken at the thought of a pot of Sicilian eggplant sauce, rich tomato red, studded with glistening chunks of garlicky eggplant, waiting to be ladled over a steaming plate of spaghettini. And don’t forget about […]
Posted inNews
Father figures
My father is the youngest of 10 children of Italian immigrant parents. His father was killed when he was 8, struck by a skidding car when he got off the bus en route to work one icy February morning in 1936. “Death came in a black sedan” was the flowery way the local paper, The […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Berry good
The most over-the-top thing I ever did with a berry was make this enormous, elaborate creation for our annual Christmas Eve party–Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Chocolate Raspberry Trifle. By the time I’d bought all the ingredients (including several bars of Lindt Excellence bittersweet chocolate, six pints of fresh raspberries at mid-winter prices, and a bottle of […]
Posted inNews
Valentine’s Day, a brief history
The history of my husband, me and Valentine’s Day is pretty minimalist. On Feb. 14, 1984, I had just started working as a staff attorney at the N.C. Court of Appeals, and we went out to lunch with a mutual friend. She wasn’t trying to set us up (he had a girlfriend); she just insisted […]
Posted inGuides
Sweet success
“Sweets are near and dear to my heart,” says Magnolia Grill pastry chef and co-owner Karen Barker. “I find them one of the easiest ways to make people smile.” Barker then flashes a grin of her own, and with good reason. Not only is Barker pastry chef and co-owner (along with chef husband Ben) of […]
Posted inFood & Drink
One taste tells you why they’re called “golden apples”
“Love apples” is what 16th-century Brits called tomatoes when they were introduced to Europeans by Spanish explorers who toted them back from the New World. So did the French–pommes d’amour. The Germans called them apples of paradise, the Italians, golden apples, a phrase that lives on in the Italian word for tomato, pomodoro. But the […]
Posted inNews
The Triangle’s Best Gift Guide
The ice has melted, but you’re still digging out at home and at work–and your holiday gift-giving needs have only gotten more urgent. Not that this was an easy task before the storm hit–Laura Ingalls Wilder might have been thrilled with an orange in her stocking, but that just won’t do in the 21st century. […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The Best Food at the State Fair Isn’t on the Midway
Every October, two days before the State Fair opens, I hit the road between Durham and Raleigh, ferrying a box of my husband’s bounty–blueberry preserves, peach-ginger jam, zucchini relish, Nana’s mustard pickles–our daughter Dino’s brownies and muffins, and copies of carefully filled-out entry forms. It is State Fair Delivery Day and hopes are high. Will […]