Grazie mille for Laura Thayer’s lovely review of Cooking Up an Italian Life on her Ciao Amalfi blog. Laura is an American art historian and travel writer who has the good fortune (sigh!) to live near Amalfi.

I crave panzanella in August. This home-spun jumble of stale bread, succulent tomatoes, aromatic basil, olive oil, wine vinegar, cucumber and onion is restorative. Each refreshing bite perks me up, makes me feel more  like a budding flower and less like a scorched weed.

I first tasted panzanella in the countryside outside of Florence. Friends told me that the dish evolved as thrifty country cooks combined stale bread with juicy seasonal produce to create a quick, inexpensive salad.

These days, the challenge to putting together a good panzanella is in obtaining ingredients that will give the dish a genuine flavor and the proper texture. The keys are the bread, the tomatoes, and the olive oil.

Bread

Panzanella requires a rustic whole-grain loaf–with no fat or sweeteners–that won’t dissolve into goo when moistened. (LaBrea Bakery whole grain loaf is one commercially-produced example. To find a store near you, go to La Brea Bakery.) Many so-called Italian breads are made from white flour and dough enhancers and are just too fluffy to hold their crumb. If you’re a baker, you can prepare the Italian Wheat Berry Bread for the panzanella. If you think your bread won’t hold up to the water bath, I recommend skipping that process. Instead, simple toast the bread lightly and then cut it into cubes before tossing with the vegetables and dressing.

Tomatoes

Choose very ripe fruit that’s grown in your area. I like heirloom varieties which are like tomato-juice machines.

Olive oil
The fruity taste of extra-virgin oil is essential. When it’s mixed with the vegetables and basil, it produces a seasonal elixir.

While I prefer the classic simplicity of the following recipe, you can add protein or other vegetables to a panzanella to make it a one-dish meal. Add-ins include lettuce, radishes, celery, fennel, prosciutto, canned tuna, Parmigiano Reggiano, Gruyère, capers, artichoke hearts, hard-cooked eggs and roasted red peppers.

Panzanella (Tuscan Bread and Tomato Salad)

Makes 6 to 8 servings

1 loaf (about 1 pound) rustic Italian Wheat Berry Bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, dried

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar

Salt and pepper

1 1/2 pounds ripe locally-grown tomatoes, cut into chunks

1 medium cucumber, peeled, quartered lengthwise, sliced

1/2 medium red onion (about 4 ounces), halved and thinly sliced

1/2 cup slivered fresh basil

Place the bread in a large bowl. Cover with cold water. Allow to soak for 30 to 60 seconds until bread is saturated. Test by squashing a piece between thumb and finger. Drain. Scoop the bread in cupped handfuls, squeezing out excess water but taking care not to pulverize the bread. Transfer to a platter. Continue until all the bread is squeezed.

In a large bowl, whisk the oil, vinegar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add the tomatoes, cucumber, onion, and basil. Toss. Add the bread and toss. Season to taste with pepper and more salt, if needed.

What’s your go-to Italian summer dish? Tell us about it.

Every coastal region of Italy has a seafood stew. Tuscany— or more specifically the port town of Livorno—has cacciucco (ka-CHOO-ko). While the word is fun to pronounce, the dish is even more pleasurable to eat.

I yearn for cacciucco in the spring. It was in primavera that I first tasted cacciucco at Trattoria Benvenuto in Florence and I haven’t been the same since.

Some say the dish must have at least five types of seafood to correspond to the five Cs in the word. The more fish and shellfish, the better the flavor. And select good quality red wine and artisanal quality bread with good texture to soak up the amazing broth.

Choose the freshest fish available. Use one type or as many as three or four, to comprise 2 pounds. Sea bass, monkfish, cod, halibut, swordfish, shark, tilapia, turbot, catfish, or red snapper are all good choices.

As for the shellfish, in this recipe, I’m using littleneck clams and shrimp but baby calamari, octopus, mussels, or scallops may be substituted.

Cacciucco

Serves 6 to 8

3/4       cup olive oil
1          large red onion, coarsely chopped
4          large cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2    teaspoons dried crushed red-pepper flakes
1           cup dry red wine
1        can (28 ounces) crushed plum tomatoes
1/2       cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
24       littleneck clams
24                medium or large unpeeled shrimp
2 to 2 1/2         pounds mild white-fleshed fish fillets, cut in 2-inch chunks
3          cups cold water
6 to 8 thick slices Rustic Bread, toasted

Heat the oil in a 6-quart Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and pepper flakes. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until soft. Add the wine. Increase the heat to medium-high. Cook at a brisk simmer for 5 minutes or until the wine no longer smells of alcohol. Add the tomatoes, all but 2 tablespoons of the parsley, and salt. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat until sauce simmers gently. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, for the flavors to blend.

Add the clams and shrimp; stir. Add the fish and stir gently. Increase the heat to high. Cook for 2 minutes or until liquid starts to bubble. Add the water. Cover and reduce the heat so the mixture simmers but does not boil. Cook for 10 minutes or until the clams open and the other seafood is opaque in the center. Discard any clams that will not open. Spoon over bread set in pasta plates or large shallow bowls. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley.

What Italian seafood stews have you savored and where? Tell us!

Story and Photographs by Melinda Rizzo

The Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence.

Florentines are accustomed to waiting.

From Michelangelo to Botticelli, DaVinci to Galileo, Florentines have cultured their passions into pearls, like a single grain of sand nestled deep inside an oyster and emerging over time to become a gem of the sea.

This year was my 30^th, or Pearl, wedding anniversary.

To celebrate this milestone, my husband and I opted to take a trip to Florence, the heart and breath of Italy’s Tuscany region.

In January, we made the decision to travel to Italy at the end of November. Planning and executing this trip—one in which we’d invited a cousin and were traveling with our 12-year-old son—took time and patience. Patience, you might say, of the Florentines.

I’ve never considered myself a patient person.

Cathedrals take time to build, often centuries, still Florentines seem content to wait knowing their labors are never in vain.

The Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, commonly know as The Duomo.

As Carl Jung, a 20^th century Swiss psychiatrist would contend, any work with purpose regardless of its nature, ultimately provides satisfaction and even pleasure for the worker.

Prosciutto crudo (air dried and cured pork) from Parma and arguably the pride of its area, can take as long as two years from start to finish to be ready for consumption.

Two years for a ham and cheese sandwich, but what a sandwich it makes! Prosciutto for me, and my son, is porcine transcendence.

Does anyone ordering a prosciutto focaccia pressed and toasted, consider the amount of time it took to create the ham? A moment of mastication melts these buttery mouthfuls, and they are gone.

Florentines linger over osteria menus . . .  along alleyways . . . and outside the windows of leather shops.

Street performers sing operatic arias. They pump life into an accordion’s complication.

They strum a guitar or play the love theme from Florentine Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film Romeo and Juliet in the Piazza Signoria, where I rented our apartment. They spend time and care honing their musicianship. For those who love music, they offer kinship without translation.

Street performers share their art in exchange for spare change dropped into a basket poised at their feet. Skilled musicians bear witness to patience and waiting.

Witnessing the patience of Florentines: to execute a 17-foot-tall statue of David in marble, paint the mythological birth of Venus over the ocean waves or slice tissue thin prosciutto from the seasoned hindquarters of a pig, taught me a thing or two about this most elusive of virtues.

Consider the amount of time it takes for someone to carve mounds of
Nutella, vanilla or tutti fruitti gelato, into tempting, irresistible towering creations
decorated with fruit slices, nuts or plump, glistening blackberries and shiny
currants.

Florence Awaits continued

One in an occasional series of Q & A profiles of  “wannabe” Italians

Melissa Muldoon is a freelance graphic designer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through her firm, Melissa Design, she creates graphics  for Web and print.  Raised in the Midwest, she studied studio art and history at Knox College. At the University of Illinois at Champaign, she worked as a teaching assistant and earned a Masters degree in Art History. Deciding she’d rather be “doing” art rather than “talking” about art, she pursued a career as a graphic designer. She is married to Patrick Muldoon and has three boys and a beagle. Her passion for art opened the door to Italy for her. During college she participated in a study abroad program in Florence and discovered a country full of history, culture and tradition, yet overflowing with contemporary style and quirky idiosyncrasies. Her love for art brought her “home” to Italy for the first time.

Q: Living “Italian”. . . Is it a great way to live or the greatest way to live?

A: Ma dai! Non c’e’ un modo migliore! Come on! There is no better way to live!  

Q: Why?

A: Let me just start off by saying I am a classic type A personality. I am impatient, competitive and a list maker. I don’t know what I like better, adding things to my “to do” list or checking them off.  I’m usually up late finishing a project or starting the next. I zoom from one appointment to the next and despise sitting in traffic or wasting time at stoplights. Now, while a type A lifestyle is great for getting things accomplished and moving ahead in life,  it may not be the sanest way to live.

Fortunately for me, I found Italy and discovered how to “live Italian.” Italy is my alter ego. It balances out my yin and yang. When I am in Italy, time slows down and I relax. I let go and go with the flow. My senses are reawakened and my creative side is nurtured and flourishes. I savor meals and notice things like the multi-colored marzipan pastries elegantly displayed in the panetterie and bars, or the wheels of cheese stacked up like oversized building blocks in the corner markets. I feel the cobblestones, worn and rounded by time, under my feet. I hear the clang of the church bells and the ronzare of the Vespa bikes. I meet the most interesting people, Italian locals and fellow travelers, and develop long lasting friendships.

Settimo Dalla Ricca escorts us through the Grana Padana cheese factory in Mantova.

Read more about Melissa's Inner Italian