May 14

May 14 A Guide to Conca dei Marini

If you ask any Neapolitan about Conca dei Marini, they will enthusiastically tell you that the sfogliatella pastry was invented there. Like many pastries of the middle ages, cloistered nuns invented the sfogliatella. It seems that while the cloistered men made alcoholic tinctures to maintain their independent cash flow, their sisters of the cloth were busy making sweet treats. And so was the case of the sfogliatella. The Santa Rosa Convent soaring above the tiny port of Conca dei Marini is where the ricotta stuffed and amarena cherry studded shell shaped pastry was born.

Jul 27

Jul 27 Plum Tart Tatin

Kristin Melia

Recipes

There are a lot of great recipe genesis stories. Everybody seems to know the old tale of the Earl of Sandwich, so obsessed with his cribbage game that he ordered his servants to bring him a conveniently portable meal. And thus was born the now ubiquitous sandwich. There is also the fondly recounted story of the chocolate chip cookie. Apparently some intrepid cook in Massachusetts lazily threw chocolate bits into traditional cookie batter hoping the chocolate would evenly melt to create a chocolate cookie. The bits remained in tact and now we have the beloved chocolate chip cookie. Yet another story of accidental invention in the kitchen is my personal favorite, the Tarte Tatin!

Jul 19

Jul 19 Fagiolini Pugliesi (Green Beans Apulia Style)

Kristin Melia

Recipes

This week I have decided to become a paragon of efficiency. Usually these bouts of manic organization last roughly 24 hours and then I burn out in the bathtub where I can be found reading gossip magazines and drinking crappy chardonnay. It has thusly come as a shock to me that I am now on day three. If there were a Container Store nearby, I would have visited no less than 67 times by now. Alas, all I have is some crackpot everything store off our main piazza that sells things like clothes pins and canning jars when what I really want is an overpriced, aspirational closet organization system that makes me feel as if I have FINALLY MADE IT IN LIFE! Then I remember—I don’t even have a walk-in closet. #whitegirlproblems

Jul 6

Jul 6 Scialatielli con Gamberi e Zucchine (Pasta with Shrimp and Zucchini)

Kristin Melia

Recipes

This year I spent yet another uneventful Fourth of July in Agerola, which now makes it the third consecutive year that I have been outside America for the holiday. As it were, in addition to being the heralded anniversary of America’s independence from Britain, the Fourth of July also marks my independence from America or rather the date on which I left my native country to ridiculously establish my life as an “ex-patriot” in Italy. Two years ago, I was en route to Napoli, Italia. And as it seems that my invitation to Taylor Swift’s Fourth of July party was lost in the mail, I have spent the day reflecting, somewhat nostalgically, on just what sort of mad woman I must have been to leave a perfectly nice life in Washington, DC to live in Agerola, crazy-town, Napoli, Italia.