#rita-sodi

#rita-sodi

"Growing up, the business was always part of our daily life. It wasn't just work-it was a family tradition passed down through generations."

"We eat in the bar and have a glass of wine and a truffle pizza. We love that."

The dinner collab cost two hundred dollars and was held at Bar Boulud. It was great, but something didn't feel right. 'I'm pretty dope,' Quié said. 'Which has got me through amazing doors and into amazing kitchens with some amazing chefs. But my community don't get a chance to partake in their delicious food.'

Coconut milk is India Doris' favorite ingredient in the kitchen and she uses it for everything. It adds that creaminess and a little bit of tang.

The dough is what really makes a Sodo pizza stand out - the sourdough base is made using flour from heritage grains and is fermented for 72 hours to make it light and digestible. But the toppings are no afterthought, with the team sourcing ingredients from local producers, including mozzarella and burrata made in Acton, pepperoni and nduja cured in Islington, honey from Walthamstow and leaves from a salad farm in Dagenham.

This story starts with mass migration. In the late 19th century, economic conditions in Southern Italy had deteriorated and millions of Italians set sail for America in search of opportunity and the gold-paved streets of which they'd been told. Many settled in the northeastern United States, sometimes strictly segregated by region. In New York's Little Italy, Sicilians lived on Elizabeth Street, Calabrians on Mott. The newly settled immigrants did their best to cook familiar foods with the ingredients available in this unfamiliar country. Their children did the same, and then their grandchildren. Dish by dish, Italian American cuisine was born, a hybrid culinary tradition that has become inextricably woven into our country's foodways.

Start with our cover star, food director Chris Morocco's one-hour bolognese that uses a pantry shortcut, Chinese black bean sauce, to kick up the umami. Then make his Green Chile Puttanesca Pork Chops where jarred jalapenos and guindillos offer buzzy heat and brightness to counterweight the rich meat. Senior Test Kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic also shared wintry vegetable dishes that can stand on their own.

One of the most alluring and easy desserts to make is chocolate pot de crème, a fancy French name for chocolate pudding and even though there are few ingredients, and the prep is easy, it is best to pay attention as to how to make this dessert served to royal families as far back as the 17th century. To get that creamy texture and dense, decadent taste, use the best chocolate you can find.

Pasta and peas was one of the staple meals my mom made for us growing up. We probably had it at least once a week. She learned the recipe from my grandma Tina, and it was a simple, inexpensive dish to throw together-just pasta and frozen peas cooked with a bit of chicken broth and aromatics topped with grated parm.

The benefit of soaking and cooking (or, better still, pressure cooking) your own beans are many: less packaging; money saved (a 500g bag of dried beans costing 2.50 will yield 1.5kg cooked beans, while some 400g tins can cost more or less the same); the suspiciously coloured but flavourful and starchy bean cooking water; and some personal satisfaction that you actually remembered to soak the beans in the first place.

Alice is the kind of place you tuck into your back pocket and casually gatekeep. Perfect for a cozy date night with your favorite fling in the cityor yes, your long-term partner who still knows how to flirt. You descend beneath a historic Greenwich Village brownstone and suddenly feel like you've entered a velvet-lined jewelry box of small, glittering pleasures. Low light. Oceanic blues. Candle glow. A hum of conversation that feels conspiratorial rather than loud. The prosecco is marvelous, and it knows it.