Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

The days before Easter Sunday are hellish for supermarket workers in Italian-American cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, and Providence. That's because every Italian woman, whether practicing Catholic or not, will be storming her local supermarket to purchase an obscene amount of eggs. (My mom used to buy between 12-15 dozen every year.) Lord help the poor dairy manager who runs out of eggs.

It's a sight to see. A gaggle of women trying to box one another one, in an effort to select the best eggs. It's the older Italian ladies who are most successful; they have honed their skills over the years. After all, they need to stockpile eggs. How else will they make  deviled eggs, braided sweet bread, sausage bread, and a host of pies?

Every Italian Easter table will have one or two savory pies, such as pizza chena (meaning "full pie"), a massive two-crusted pie filled with eggs and various Italian meats and cheeses and pastiera Neopoletana, a time-intensive pie made from ricotta cheese and soaked wheat kernels. The jewels of the Italian Easter table, however, are the sweet pies, namely custard, ricotta, and rice. Custard pie should be dense, creamy, and mile-high. Italian ricotta pie (torta di ricotta), an Italian cheesecake closely associated with Easter, is typically laced with citrus flavors but can also be made with nuts and/or chocolate.

It’s hard to believe that we’re already approaching Labor Day weekend – the summer just flew by. According to the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association (HPBA), Labor Day is one of the most popular holidays for barbecuing - after 4th of July and Memorial Day.

So most likely, if you’re not hosting a gathering, you’ve been invited to one. No other side dish embodies a cookout quite the same as coleslaw. When made correctly, it’s the perfect accompaniment to savory barbecued meats and vegetables.

The trick is to create a crisp salad with fresh vibrant flavors that isn’t too sweet or too soupy. This is one of my favorite “dressings” for coleslaw. It can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator until you’re ready to toss with the cabbage and veggies.

I'm still rolling through my office, trying to organize every inch of it, with the help of my friend, the professional organizer. We're making great progress. Tops of my desks have stayed mostly clear. My files are filling up. I'm finally seeing blank space on the shelves in my storage closet, the result of some purging.

There is much more to do before the job is done. My organizer strongly suggests I get my cookbook collection all in one place and that place should be my office. Cookbooks live on shelves in the storage closet in my office, on shelves and in a bookcase in an extra bedroom, in a pile next to my bed and a few on the ottoman in the living room. I shudder when I think of consolidating this enormous number of books into one space in my office. I fear the "organizer" will tell me to start choosing cookbooks to put in a "give-away box."

One of the best things of being a food photographer is the access to new tastes, flavors and recipes. Because 100% of what we do at our studio is actually edible, you’ll find me on set most days asking this series of questions to Adam, my food stylist partner:

a)     I’ve got the shot. Can you review it and tell me if there’s anything you’d like to change?

b)    Ok, fantastic. Looks great. We’re done. Can I eat this?

I can’t really remember a day where I haven’t dug into a casserole or broken off a piece of bread or stolen a cookie. I often tell myself that it’s part of my job and that I actually should know what things taste like. When I photograph a cookbook it’s inevitable that people will ask me what the process was like and if there was a favorite recipe. Why shouldn’t I be prepared?

Recently a rather unfamiliar dessert landed on my shooting surface. Ok, let me back up. Unusual for me. But then again I’m not a Sweets kinda guy, generally. But this item, Banoffee Pie, is an English favorite that we were shooting for Cooking Channel and it really caught my attention.