La bella figura in Amarcord.
Montasio melts onto asparagus straight from the hot oven.
Recipes:
Roasted Asparagus with Montasio and Lemon Zest
Calamari and Watercress Salad with Chives and Pistachios
You’re not fat, so why are you dieting? I hear this all the time, but the truth is I used to gain a few pounds every year just going about my business eating gobs of mozzarella and downing bottles of semi-cheap wine. I started to notice a touch of dumpiness. I was stunned. A few extra pounds on my five-foot-one Sicilian/Neapolitan frame are, I’d say, equivalent to at least ten on a normal person. It’s so unfair. When I began mentioning my weight to people, that’s when I got laughed at or, worse, condescended to. But if I continued at the rate I was going, I figured in ten years I’d be truly huge. How fat do you have to be before you can knock off a few pounds without offending such friends? Dieting as an act of betrayal? Forget it. Everyone has a right to be comfortable in his or her own body, and personally I feel more comfortable without a bulge of blubber hanging out over my belt loops. Call me narcissistic. If that’s narcissistic than getting up in the morning and combing my hair and putting on deodorant is narcissistic too. I also wasn’t in the mood to develop diabetes, as many of my aunts and uncles and grandparents had. They seemed to accept that as an inevitable part of aging. Getting “the sugar” was like sprouting gray hairs—just happens. But I’m now enlightened, and unlike my grandmother, I now know that it’s not inevitable that you get dumpy and diabetic when you pass forty. You just need to change your tack. There’s no getting around it. I had to start paying attention. (more…)
Erica De Mane 