Italian

Homemade Pizza with 00 Flour

July 5, 2015 by Charles 1 Comment

I had never heard of 00 flour when I first bought it. My regular grocery store had never heard of it. Even Whole Foods seemed unfamiliar with it.

Finally, after searching The Hill, Saint Louis’s Italian neighborhood, I found a grocer who carried this Italian flour. Having tried it, I’m glad I did; it makes an extraordinary pizza crust.

As Saveur notes, 00 flour is ideal for pizza crust because it is finely ground and because it has a lower gluten content than other flours. In Italy, flour is graded from 1 to 0 to 00, with 1 describing a rough grind and 00 describing the finest grind.

Gluten is the natural protein that remains when starch is removed from wheat grains. It creates the elasticity you feel when biting…

Cranberry-Chocolate Biscotti

March 1, 2015 by Charles 1 Comment

One of the problems of having a food blog is – quite obviously – making sure that you have food to photograph. This problem is particularly acute when making dinner or when otherwise cooking at night. Photography at night is a no-win situation. There is no natural light, leaving only the harsh glow of the incandescents. When it comes to dinner, there is the option of photographing on long exposures while the meal grows cold, or simply hoping for presentable leftovers. When it comes to other recipes, the challenge is saving enough for a future daytime photograph.

And that’s the rub here. I made these chocolate-cranberry biscotti …

Whole-Wheat Homemade Pizza

March 9, 2013 by Charles 1 Comment

Pizza is the ultimate convenience food. There is the restaurant pizza, ready in minutes, delivered to your table, warm and sliced. There is the delivery pizza, delivered to your doorstep with the push of a few buttons. In the freezer section, there are countless versions of the frozen variety, ready to be brought home and baked or microwaved in a manner of minutes. There are even pre-made pizza doughs and pizza crusts, leaving the harried home chef with some room for creativity and imagination.

To be sure, we’ve tried each and every one …

Garlic Free Pesto

May 8, 2012 by Charles Leave a Comment

Garlic can be — to put it mildly — a little strong. There’s a reason that it’s used to ward off vampires.

And if you ask Caitlin, garlic seems to have a particular staying power with me. I can come home around 9:00, some eight hours after having eaten lunch, and Caitlin will come up to me, and draw back, before demanding, “What did you eat that had garlic in it?”

To avoid those moments of recoil, …

Spaghetti with Homemade Pesto

May 7, 2012 by Charles 1 Comment

Sometimes the simplest dinners are the ones that shine and surprise.

This dinner was not inspired or born of a late-night epiphany. Instead, its origins were pedestrian and utilitarian. It was a question of practicality over originality. There was no high math.

It was Saturday morning and I was taking inventory in the refrigerator. I was checking expiration dates, volume levels, and the state of the fruit and vegetable drawers. Milk was running low and the sour cream was running bad. There was plenty of fruit, but not enough vegetables. The cheese still looked strong, but the herbs were getting soft. …