Eating | Rick Bailey

Learning to Like It

January 28, 2020 by Rick Bailey

“Are you bringing the nuts?” my wife asks. I hear the bowl ring as she pours out her granola. She’s sitting at the kitchen table. It’s a mix we buy, part of our new health regimen, along with intermittent fasting. Our holistic doc has said, repeatedly, you can break the rules, you can abuse your body, until you’re sixty. After that, to be in it for the long haul, you have to think about nutrition. So, some supplements. So, the […]

Categories: Eating, Essay • Tags: Beaujolais, Kale, Nutribullet, Organic, Smoothie

Lentils, not Freckles

January 13, 2020 by Rick Bailey

Tizi suggests a new menu item for New Year’s Eve. A local tradition in Romagna, her region of Italy. I’m sure I’ve heard the word “lentils” before in Italian and decide to try it out. Use or lose it, right? “But why lentiggini?” I ask. “For good luck,” she says. “And it’s lenticchie. Lentiggini are freckles.” Lentils, not freckles. I don’t think I saw or ate a lentil until I moved to the Detroit area. The Saginaw Valley, where I […]

Categories: Eating, Recipe • Tags: romagna, San Marino

Rabbit Relax

January 10, 2020 by Rick Bailey

Two words, a friend of mine’ll get a little crazy. “Bone broth.” We have a box of it in the fridge. (Yes, a box.) It came in handy this morning. I’ve got some rabbit quarters on the stove, cooking long and low and slow. Olive oil and garlic (the more of the latter the better), salt and pepper, fresh rosemary. They brown gently, front and back, getting a tan in the pan. Some white wine extends the cook, quarter […]

Categories: Eating, Recipe • Tags: Good food, home cooking, italian food, Rabbit

If I Were a Chicken Thigh

January 9, 2020 by Rick Bailey

This is how I would want to be cooked. Lay me down in olive oil and onion. I woke up today thinking about olives. It was 4:00 a.m., my usual time to wake up thinking about something. This morning it was olives, and lunch. Confession: I often wake up thinking about lunch. A fond reminiscence in our family is how food-oriented my father-in-law was; well, a better word is obsessed. He too often awoke with food on his mind and […]

Categories: Eating, Recipe • Tags: black olives, cacciatore, chicken, comfort food, Good food, Italian cooking, italian food

Cheesey

January 8, 2020 by Rick Bailey

Certain things, you think: I shouldn’t eat that. We had people over for dinner a couple nights ago. During the cheese phase of the evening, we unwrapped a chunk of Tuma, a very mild #pecorino. Much later, during the good-night and clean-up phase of the evening, the Tuma was left on the counter, exposed to the air. What happens if you leave cheese out for 3-4 days? Tuma yellows. Think butter. Yesterday morning at 5:00 a.m. the chunk was still […]

Categories: Eating

Panforte: Best Served in Slab Form

January 7, 2020 by Rick Bailey

While we’re in Italy, Tizi accumulates treasures. Mainly chocolate. Over time we’ve put providers on our maps, in Rome, Florence, Siena, Venice. When we’re hanging out in San Marino and Pesaro, which is usually the case, her go-to place is Cioccolatteria & Confetteria Talmone. Now we have a new place, in nearby Fano. But…, but… We time our visits so we can be in Santarcangelo di Romagna for the feast of Saint Martin, aka festa di San Martino. It’s a […]

Categories: Eating, travel • Tags: chocolate, cioccolata, Dessert, panforte, Pesaro, San Marino, santarcangelo di romagna, toscana, tuscany

When the Artichokes Spoke

January 3, 2020 by Rick Bailey

I listened. The first time I tasted artichoke, I was already in college. As far as I know it was not an item they stocked at Pat’s Food Center in Freeland, the one-stoplight farm town where I grew up. If I had seen one at all, it was probably the likeness of an artichoke on someone’s apron.

Categories: Eating, Recipe, Uncategorized • Tags: artichokes, Carciofi

Alien Pleasures

December 31, 2019 by Rick Bailey

This morning at 5:00 a.m., when I sit down next to her on the couch and hand her a cappuccino, my wife detects something foul on my breath. She takes the coffee, turns her head, and gently pushes me away. “What did you eat?” We stayed with the kids last night at our daughter’s house, while she and her husband went out. Later today I’m driving up to visit the county clerk for marriage and birth certificates. She’s making a […]

Categories: Eating, Essay, Uncategorized • Tags: che schifo, fano, hot dogs, Italian language, leftovers, pagnotta, romagna, San Marino, slang

At Delinda, Serious Joys

December 1, 2019 by Rick Bailey

Full disclosure. These are our relatives. My relatives by marriage, and how lucky I was, am, and will always be. (When Tizi’s cousin Pierpaolo shakes my hand and says, Come va, cugino? How goes it, cousin? I sort of pinch myself. How did this happen?)

Categories: Eating, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: Marecchia valley, Rimini, romagna, San Marino, tagliatelle