Spanish Pesto Tortellini

A pasta dish, involving ricotta and spinach tortellini, spiced sausage and white wine, preferably 'vino de aguja', or rather, a bubbly non-champagne white, served chilled.

First, prepare the accompaniments: bring cauliflower to preliminary boil, while frying chopped onions and minced garlic cloves (1.5 per person). Add spiced Spanish salchicha (something not as tough in texture as chorizo) to the pan, then, remove the cauliflower from the boiling water, and chop.

When adding the tortellini to the boiling water, add the cauliflower to the frying mix. If onions and garlic begin to brown, isolate or remove them, then heat at end of preparation.

Tortellini should be spiced with dill, salt, oil and white pepper. Fried accompaniments should be spiced with basil, ground bay leaf, garlic, tarragon and black pepper. Flake or grate a soft (but not wet) cheese to be served over finished dish.

When tortellini is ready, mix with accompaniments, serve with dash of extra virgin olive oil, green pesto (2 to 3 tablespoons per plate), flaked cheese, oregano, serve with wine.

Oooooh Risotto

2 cups arborio (risotto or short grain) rice
6 cups chicken broth
2 hot chorizo sausages
1 medium sized onion
2 cloves garlic
small bag fresh spinach
8 button mushrooms
1/2 red pepper
salt
white pepper
tsp thyme
tsp rosemary
zest & juice 1 lemon
2 tbs olive oil
tbs butter
1 cup parmesan cheese

sauté diced sausages with peppers in 1 tbs olive oil. set aside. on medium heat, cook garlic and onion till translucent, about 2 minutes. add rice and stir till rice turns slightly translucent, about 3 minutes. turn heat up to medium hot, continue to stir and add chicken broth slowly, 1 cup at a time. continue adding broth and stirring mixture. add sausage pepper mixture and season with salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary to taste. lastly add spinach, zest and juice of lemon, butter and top with parmesan cheese. serve immediately.

Complex Foods from Scratch: Unabridged Authenticity

If you're looking for an experience of authenticity, try making original, expressive foods from scratch. Make the base ingredients, select and refine the trimmings, do something not prescribed by recipe, in print or on television. Break the rules, waste some time, and put a little feeling into food preparation, and you'll find the art of eating makes more sense.

In a time when people are endlessly running about, trying to escape the rigors of the clock, the train schedule, the now-now mandate of e-mail, the digitalized artifice of a world trying to simplify itself, it may be that giving a little more effort, stepping out of the mainstream that keeps things moving too fast, devoting more time than is normally advisable to basic needs like food and eating, can put things in perspective, and bring satisfaction.

There is now a "slow-food" movement, which seeks to put thought back into the culinary process, to bring people's minds to bear on what they eat. First: to know what's being eaten. Second: not to seek convenience above all, but to seek value, the quality of the process, the ingredients and the experience of eating.

Announcing Cucina!

Cucina is a collaborative online project to promote and explore new directions in cuisine and in the enjoyment of everyday circumstance. The richness of the culinary arts, expressed through the simple pleasure of creating new combinations of flavor and space, scent and sublime appreciation, is the heart of our project.