When a woman in Marino, a small Italian town south of Rome, turned on her kitchen tap, she got a spurt of wine instead of water. "Miracolo!" she shouted, and ran outside to tell others. Word quickly spread, and soon residents all over town were filling bottles and containers with Frascati, the local white wine made from trebbiano and malvasia grapes.

It turns out the wine wasn't blessed from above after all. Plumbers were supposed to have connected the 3,000 liters of Frascati to the town fountain for the annual harvest festival, but they accidentally hooked it to the water supply instead.

"People were calling it a miracle which it wasn't--it was a mistake," said mayor Adriano Palozzi. Mistake or miracle, I'd be pretty pleased if wine came out of my kitchen tap.

In the past, I have been accused of being excessively generous towards the products that I have reviewed. This is actually a fair criticism; while I try to be very honest about the foods that I discuss, I also tend to focus on the positive and sometimes downplay the negative. Beyond that, I usually only review products that I really like, going with the idea that ignoring lesser foodstuffs is probably the best possible critique.

That having been said, I feel obliged to offer an analysis of La Cucina Italiana, a slick, beautiful monthly that touts itself as "Italy's premier food and cooking magazine." Recently, my wife, who is a huge fan of Italian cuisine, bought us a subscription, hoping that it would inspire me to expand my Tuscan table offerings. As soon as I opened the first issue, I was immediately impressed: the magazine was filled with beautiful pictures, interesting columns, and intriguing recipes. Admittedly, some of the editor in chief's remarks struck me as being self-aggrandizingly douchy, but I assumed that this was another example of the "Christopher Kimball Syndrome." This disease, named for the second-rate George Will clone who publishes Cook's Illustrated, is based in the mistaken impression that editors of low-circulation cooking magazines are actually celebrities, fit to comment on the broader world. While I disagree, I can't really fault La Cucina's Michael Wilson for his misunderstanding. After all, if food celebrity has somehow oozed into the world of food journalism, the fault probably lies in the system, not the lemmings who have gotten sucked into it.

I could forgive La Cucina Italiana its smug, superior tone if the recipes were actually any good. Unfortunately, they run the gamut from moderately passable to utterly vile. The best recipe I've tried was a basic method for roasting tomatoes. While fairly generic, it was also easy and produced a flavorful ingredient that beautifully perked up pasta. On the other hand, of the two caper dishes that I tried, one looked like dog food and tasted like the sink trap at a Korean restaurant. The other was merely bland, which made it vastly superior by comparison.

Unfortunately, we have a subscription to the magazine, which means that it will continue to occupy a proud place in our bathroom magazine rack, offering beautiful pictures of meals that border on the inedible. On the bright side, if kitchen wizardry doesn't do the trick, then high-end food porn might be handy for convincing our friends that my wife and I are serious about cooking!

An extremely versatile Italian egg dish, a frittata can contain many savory ingredients. Don't be scared by the length of ingredients for this recipe - if you can use short cuts, feel free. I made it for dinner Sunday night and it made a repeat appearance last night for dinner (love leftovers!) Perfect for brunch, this dish can bake while you finish setting your table and get ready for guests. You won't miss a beat with this sure-hit, extremely satisfying meal.

Tip: Whole Foods didn't have any sun-dried tomatoes in stock, but they did have chicken sausages with sun-dried tomatoes in them. While the sun-dried tomatoes weren't as prominent, it did the trick! If you have leftover pasta, whether it be penne or another short cut, use that instead of making a whole new batch.

I could sit down with this dish of pasta and melted goodness- and over the course of several hours, finish it off in one day. Sad, but so true. From the minute the aroma of the roasted vegetables hits the air, you'll be counting down the minutes until this dish hits your dining room table. Though, if you're like my mom or I, you'll have a hard time keeping your hands off the veges before they even get to the pasta! Since parts of the dish can be made ahead of time- you could be eating this sinful supper in under 40 minutes. Enjoy!

Mushrooms are one of nature's most precious gifts and with the drop in temperature, they're in season! Even with a light cream sauce, the mushrooms truly stand out as the lead roll in this must-add to your collection dish. By using an exotic mushroom blend: a combination of shiitake, cremini and oyster mushrooms- each bite brings a slightly different burst of hearty, rich flavor. Even if you make this dish for 2, don't cut the recipe in half. This dish is just as tasty reheated for leftovers!

Tip: Try to purchase mushrooms that are firm, with a fresh, smooth and dry appearance. A closed veil under the cap indicates a delicate flavor, while an open veil will provide a richer flavor.

Read on for the recipe from Cooking Light Magazine

Fresh, homemade tomato sauce usually doesn't get the "quick and easy" label. There's peeling, de-seeding, reducing... It's the sort of thing that's well worth the effort, but not always feasible. Or at least, it didn't seem so until now.

This week, Pim has shared a 15-Minute Tomato Sauce recipe that looks super tasty and requires minimal effort and time. It's so quick that even if the steps take longer, it's still not a big investment of your in-demand minutes. This is basically an easy blanch, peel, squeeze, and saute process that results in a fresh-tasting, pulpy tomato sauce that can be whipped up as your dried pasta boils.

Yum.

Opening up a box of pasta usually isn't a sensory experience, save for the sound of cardboard ripping, or noodles splashing into some boiling water. Heck, even homemade pasta can seem surprisingly bland, even if its made with a myriad of flavorful ingredients. For the most part, it just offers a nice, rich color. But then there is egg pasta, the classic.

For some reason, my forays into pasta didn't start with the egg variety. I started with whole grain and spinach, moved onto beet and plain flour with water varieties, and came late to the egg pasta game. No kitchen hardware was used -- just a ring of flour and some hand-kneaded pasta. (My first time, I didn't make the ring large enough, the egg started spilling over, hence the lack of a nice ring in the picture above.)

It was the best looking dough I ever made, and I sectioned some for fresh pasta, and some to be dried. This is where the magic comes in. The dried pasta has an insanely delicious and warm smell to it, similar to an Italian cookie. It's quickly become one of my favorite foodie smells, ranked with the likes of coffee roasting and bacon frying. It's also the perfect homemade food to give as gifts -- nestled in a basket with some jars of sauce, antipaste, and dried mushrooms, the pasta will give off a surprising and welcome aroma when it hits the air and the recipient's nose.

Try it for yourself. It's amazing such a great smell can come from something so simple.

Yesterday, my fridge was in dire need of a cleaning out -- not with disinfectant and a sponge, but with a hungry stomach willing to devour a whole ton of almost-bad veggies. At first, I was thinking about a veggie casserole. Then I remembered that I had dried some homemade egg pasta into fettucini and lasagna noodles. Ding, ding!

Picking up some fennel and cheese at the store, I decided to make a Pernod/Anise-flavored kitchen-sink lasagna. It was oh-so-good (even if I had to wait until 10 PM for it to be done), and shows just how versatile the classic dish is.

Instead of spinach in my ricotta, I sauteed some bok choy with a sprinkle of anise seeds to mix in. And then I set about preparing my lasagna's two layers. One consisted of the fennel, misc. peppers, and onion, with some anise seed sprinkled in as it sauteed, and the other consisted of quickly fried petit pan squash slices. Meanwhile, I reduced a quick sauce of a can of chopped tomatoes, some spices, and some Pernod.

All layered and baked, there was a nice freshness from the vegetables, with the Pernod adding a good zap of flavor to make up for the missing meat. Anise flavor in Italian food is just magic, so if you have any good recipes, please share them below.

I first experienced the combination of hazelnut purée and dark honey at Slow Foods' cheese festival in Italy. The Piedmont region of Italy is known for its hazelnuts. You can find the most succulent rich hazelnut cakes and cookies. My favorite hazelnut concoction was hazelnut purée and dark honey. My first taste on toast brought about a dionysian state of gastronomical enchantment. The sweet nutty flavors and intensely smooth creamy buttery texture were all so overwhelmingly perfect!

When I returned from my trip, I looked all over NY for another hazelnut and honey mixture. And, I was surprised by the many shops that carried this delicious treat. Recently, Time Out New York had an article about one in particular from southern France called Avelline. This was probably my favorite one that I tried.

How does one enjoy hazelnut purée and dark honey?
Besides eating it plain on toast, you can use it as a condiment with cheese. I suggest you pair it with Montgomery's farmhouse cheddar or Stilton Colston Bassett. You can even pair it with a variety of nutty pecorinos.

I am on a buffalo milk cheese kick. It started last week with Burrata. This week, I tried a firm buffalo milk aged ricotta-style cheese called Barilotto. This one is all about its subtleties. It's similar to Ricotta Salata, an aged sheep's milk ricotta that is lightly salted. Unlike the Ricotta Salata, it's not nearly as salty. Instead, Barilotto leaves your mouth with a deep sweet flavor.

Barilotto, like Calcagno, is aged in southern Italy, in Campania at Casa Madaio. It's salted and pressed to release its moisture. The clean taste of this cheese seems to melt extra slowly on the palate. If you're eating this cheese for the first time, I recommend that you first try it alone or with a dry white wine. Bariltto can give your dish that extra je ne sais quoi. It's particularly delicious added to a fennel and arugula salad. You can also have it in a watermelon, basil, and pine nut salad.

Where does one find this unique cheese ingredient?
NY cheese shops, such as Formaggio Essex and The Bedford Cheese Shop, carry it. It's available at restaurants nationwide. Ask your local cheese monger!

Preserved meat counter at an Ipercoop supermarket in Italy. From Flickr user cary b's Flickr.

I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.

Previously-- Midnight Sausage: Donaueschingen, Germany

Yesterday, I set aside a few hours to make pasta, which was a bit of a mess when the eggs toppled over what I thought was a nicely built tube of flour. Once I got it all worked out and rolled out an assortment of pasta, I went about making a spaghetti dinner for myself. But even with a freshly made sauce and pasta, it sounded boring.

So, I set out on an inspiration hunt. A quick peek in the fridge revealed some cheese that I was still meaning to eat. Then I spotted a freshly washed french onion soup bowl in the cupboard. And then I spotted my small fry pan that had a little bit of lemon olive oil left over after frying up the sauce's mushrooms. Voila!*

The noodles got tossed in the oil, and then in some of the sauce, before being placed in the bowl. Then it was topped with another scoop of sauce, a suburst pattern of cheese, and some leftover fresh basil. I threw that in my toaster oven's broiler while I tossed up a salad, and in no time, I had a quick variation on the normal pasta. The cheese melted into a perfect, thorough covering, and the pasta had a nice citrus hint that worked well with the sauce. It was definitely worth the slight extra effort, and next time I might even go another step towards the french onion route and add some crispy garlic bread under the cheese.

*Edited

I first encountered Burrata during a trip to one of Genoa's oldest markets - Mercato Orientale. When I sliced into Burrata a luscious cream slowly oozed out from the center. The cream tasted slightly like a fresh ricotta. I spread the cheese over crusty bread and drizzled olive oil over it. Burrata is essentially a creamy spreadable buffalo milk mozzarella. In Italian, the name "Burrata" means "buttered." Unlike Mozzarella, Burrata's center is filled with cooked Italian cream.

Burrata is produced in the southeastern region of Italy, called Puglia. It was not until 1920 that this rich smooth cheese was invented. By the 1950s, the production of Burrata increased. This probably had to do with the fact that the cheese recycles leftover pieces of mozzarella. During the cheese making process, Burrata is formed into a pouch that is filled with scraps of leftover mozzarella and topped off with fresh cream. Traditionally, the cheese would be wrapped in asphodel leaves. The leaves serve as indicators to the freshness of the cheese. As long as the leaves are green, the cheese is still fresh. Today, the cheese is not always wrapped in these leaves.

Unfortunately, Burrata is not easy to find in the United States. This has to do with its fragility and freshness. In Italy, Burrata is typically eaten just a few days old. It does not have a long shelf life. So, the pouches of this cheese that you find in the U.S. are normally flown into the country. I am skeptical about purchasing the cheese from online vendors. I would suggest that you buy it from a cheese monger who you trust will tell you when the cheese arrived. Continue reading to find out how it can be the perfect summer treat.

What do you do when you have old, leftover pancetta that really needs to be eaten, a whole pile of tomatoes, and an insanely tasty baguette? Meaty bruschetta. Yesterday, I knew that I wanted something a bit more than just veggies on bread to go with my salad and mashed potatoes. So I decided to make things meaty, and it was beyond tasty.

Just fry the heck out of some pancetta with some diced onion until it's dark and crispy. Then toss that with some chunks of fresh tomato, a little bit of garlic, and some freshly ground salt and pepper. Meanwhile, give your baguette a preliminary toast with a little olive oil and garlic drizzled on it. When the toast is ready, throw the mixture on top, grate some cheese over that, and bake it for a little while until the cheese melts.

Have any bruschetta variations of your own? Share!

When I first started my career in the cheese biz, I had no idea how many pecorinos there were. The category includes essentially all Italian sheep's milk cheeses. Pecora in Italian means "sheep." Most of them are produced in Tuscany and Sardinia. Calcagno is a pecorino that's hand crafted in Sardinia, and then, it's aged in southern Italy in the Campania region.

I find that most pecorinos are nutty and tend to dry out rather quickly. Calcagno is an exception. Cutting into a fresh wheel of Calcagno is like diving into a feathery bright green meadow with vibrant flowers and the smell of blossoms. The first characteristic I noticed about Calcagno was its exquisite floral aroma. Then, I was struck by its creamy texture and its crunchy protein crystals, the white dots in the cheese. Although it's a hard cheese, it seems to melt like butter on the palate. Finally, I was swept away by its complex finish ranging from flowers and cashew nuts to lemons and apricots.

We can trace Calcagno's brilliant flavor to its production. It's produced from the milk of sheep that are grazing on natural pasture and are sotto cielo, under the sky. Sotto Cielo has become a movement by farmers who want to preserve the tradtional ways of farming and taking care of their animals. Currently, there is a problem in Italy with many animals living on concrete indoors and rarely seeing the light of day. The sheep that produce the milk that creates Calcagno are living happily sotto cielo. Calcagno is aged for four to six months in natural caves
in Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park by one of Italy's best affineurs -- Casa Madaio. Suggestions on the best way to enjoy Calcagno can be found after the jump.