Erica De Mane

Recipe: Spaghetti Carbonara My Way It’s the mid-1970s, and I’m out to dinner in “the city” with my sister Liti, my good friend Barbara, and a few gay boyfriends, driving the 30 minutes or so, depending on traffic, from our Nassau Country ranch house to a place called the Grotta Azurra, in Little Italy, a [...]

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A fish mosaic from Pompeii, 79 A.D. Recipe: Farro Tagliatelle with Shrimp, Pancetta, and Leeks Farro pasta, I’ve come to realize, can be a beautiful thing, especially if you buy a great artisanal brand such as Latini. Figuring out proper sauces to match farro’s robust flavor can be a bit tricky at first. Anchovies are [...]

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Cicerchie after soaking. Recipe: Minestra with Cicerchie, Lamb Shank, and Rosemary Cicerchie are small dried beans that look to me like old rotten teeth but are in fact an older, more primitive form of ceci beans. Aside from looking like beaten, yellowed teeth, what they most resemble, in the bean department, are miniature dried favas, [...]

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Caper flowers, plus a few buds. Recipe: Cavatelli with Sicilian Tuna, Capers, and Celery Leaves Here’s a pantry pasta of the highest order, using two of Sicily’s best products, tuna preserved in olive oil and salt-packed capers from the white hot island of Pantelleria. This particular pasta gave me the chance to use up the [...]

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Still Life with Plums, by Georges Braque. Recipe: Italian Plum Tart with Cardamom and Basil As all my cook friends know, this was an incredible summer for fruit. There was so much heat that the sugar content went through the roof. I’ve just started tasting this year’s apples, and they are amazing—firm, heavily perfumed, and [...]

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Recipe: Chicken alla Cacciatora, Late Summer Style It’s the time of year for tender transitions. Isn’t it that way with your cooking too right now, as you try to integrate a little depth into your dishes without completely relinquishing that summer vibe? This is a cooking truth. We’ve got that settled. With this little ache [...]

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Recipe: Ciambotta with Baked Eggs, Savory, and Ragusano Cheese Does the end of summer scare you, make you feel like diving head first into a big red watermelon and never coming out? I sometimes feel that way. Got anxiety? I’ve found that a good solution is to gather what I can of the waning summer [...]

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Tomato plant, by Picasso Recipe: Tomato Torta with Crème Fraîche, Parmigiano, and Thyme Once or twice a year I make a summer tomato tart. It happens when Barbara Calamari arrives at my apartment with a big bag of the Italian heirloom tomatoes she grows each year at her upstate palazzo (except for last year, which [...]

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Still life with eggplant, Picasso, 1946. Recipe: Eggplant Rollatini with Ricotta, Mortadella, and Arugula Southern Italians love to stuff and roll food. You’d almost think they didn’t have enough fun in their lives and were desperate for entertainment. Making food rolls is fun, and it’s a big feature in cucina povera, since it stretches a [...]

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Recipe: Pomodoro Crudo with Capers, Almonds, Peperoncino, and Basil I was recently talking with my friend Eddie, who’s just started doing some serious cooking, about good things to do with summer tomatoes. He wanted to make something impressive but relatively effortless, and pomodoro crudo, a raw tomato sauce, was the first thing I thought of. [...]

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