pizzoccheri Archives - Quatro Fromaggio and Other Disgraces on the Menu

Another year! The good news is that this blog is still active and luckily keeps being found by those searching for Italian specialties like pizzoccheri or canederli or Italian misconceptions like my 6 Italian myths. The bad news of course is that I haven’t posted any new articles or recipes this year. I know, it’s terrible – but it’s also okay, given that social media has taken the place of blogging in many ways.

But I did resume podcasting (yay!) and produced 16 new episodes with as many guests and collaborations this past year! This continues to be a lot of fun for me and I’ve already started to work on a new round of episodes to hopefully reach my dream milestone of 100 episodes very soon!

Here is a list of the episodes this year. Thanks again to all of my wonderful guests!

79 Introducing Valeria and Benedetta from Local Aromas with Valeria and Benedetta Bianchini
80 Dining Out and Traveling During a Pandemic with Raffaella de Amicis
81 Questions Italians in North America Can’t Help But Wonder About with Sim Salis
82 Dissecting Ragù alla Bolognese with Tina Prestia
83 Introducing Cooking with Mamma Marzia Cookbook with Marzia Bellotti Molatore
84 Introducing Christine from Italian Dish Podcast
85 Introducing Local Aromas’ Advent Calendar and More with Valeria and Benedetta Bianchini
86 Christmas Traditions from Growing up in Sicily, Canada, and Milan
87 Introducing Eva from Electric Blue Food with Eva Grosso
88 Chinotto – The Other Way of Drinking Dark, a solo podcast on the somewhat obscure Italian soda
89 Introducing Kristie Prada from Mammaprada
90 Italian Words Gone Wrong – Mistakes on the Menu, another solo podcast, a reading on one of my older blog posts
91 Introducing Podcaster Wendy Holloway from Flavor of Italy
92 The Quest for Authentic & Original Recipes, with Diana Pinto
93 Introducing Becca and Sarah from Dietetics After Dark Podcast
94 Podcast Recording, Editing, and Production, with Sound Designer Geoff Devine

On a personal level, we keep well here in southern England, still working from home and enjoying plenty of homecooked food. We pretty much spend our time planning meals, cooking, cleaning the kitchen, and being grateful for having a dishwasher. As the government lifted all social distancing measures exactly two weeks ago, we are far from back to normal, unfortunately. Traveling is still not really possible, including to and from Italy which of course breaks our hearts. But we enjoy our area, which is wonderfully green after a very wet summer, and spending time with our cat Rascal, who just turned 19, overall doing great and still a great source of comfort and inspiration to us both.

I hope you’re all well, wherever you are, and please get in touch for collaborations, to be on the podcast, or just to say hi – I’d love that 🙂

Marzia Bellotti Molatore from Bella Cibo introduces her first cookbook titled Cooking with Mamma Marzia – Authentic Italian Recipes for the Whole Family.

In the episode, Marzia describes how much this cookbook means to her and the importance of creating family traditions in the kitchen. In the second part, Marzia talks about a few of the recipes featured in the book: Casatiello Napoletano (savory stuffed bread), polenta Taragna (buckwheat polenta with cheese), pizzoccheri, pesce all’acqua pazza (“crazy water” poached fish), vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce), and crostoli (fried sweets)!

You can order Cooking with Mamma Marzia on www.mammamarzia.ca. You can hear Marzia’s touching story from her own voice on episode 71. For daily updates, Marzia is also on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.