Our friend Rory Harrington (@captainwine) put on another of his wonderful wine tasting events at Sotto (the one Italian restaurant in Los Angeles that Joe always wants to go back to) last Wednesday, this time focusing on the wines of Calabria! Perfect as we wrap up our time with the food and wine of this wonderful region of Italy, the “toe of the boot.”

Rory featured a lovely rosato and six wonderful reds, topped off by a Ripe del Falco Cirò Riserva from 1997.

Continue reading Calabria at Sotto at Our Italian Table.

Our introduction to the wines of Calabria is epitomized by our welcome at La Puzelle, a wonderful agriturismo near the small hill town of Santa Severino in central Calabria. We arrived at lunchtime on a hot day, after a drive of several hours. Leaving our luggage in the car, we wandered through the gate looking for an office where we could register and orient ourselves. Instead, we encountered proprietor Salvatore Vona, who waved us immediately into the dining room, where lunch was being served.

Continue reading Calabria: Le Puzelle Pitcher at Our Italian Table.

The Tyrrhenian Sea off the Calabrian coast is chock full of the majestic swordfish (pesce spada) that migrate through this region in late spring and early summer on their way south to the Strait of Messina. The town of Bagnara hosts an annual swordfish festival to celebrate the year’s catch as swordfish is served in traditional Calabrian preparations from simply grilled to mixed with pasta to steamed as in the preparation below which is common in this seaside town.

Continue reading Garlicky Swordfish Calabrian Style at Our Italian Table.

We travel to the “toe of the boot” for our next featured ‘regione’ in Italy – rustic Calabria.  Our family visited Calabria back in 2007.  Our plan was to visit a cousin of my father, Bruno, who lived in Florence but spent his summers at his little apartment near the sea in Calabria.  Year after year, he invited us to visit. When finally we were able to make the trip, we learned that Bruno was unfortunately too sick to travel that summer so off we set determined to still have an adventure by the Italian sea. 

Continue reading On to Calabria! La Famiglia, La Spiaggia e Liquirizia at Our Italian Table.

We were in Ojai, California last weekend and I went to a small yet very diverse farmers’ market on Sunday morning. I came across some interesting onions that I knew I’d seen before, but I couldn’t place them. The farmer called them “torpedo onions” and described them as very spicy. I bought a bagful, determined to figure out where I had seen them before.

Upon getting home and with the help of Google search, I remembered these as Tropea onions or Cipolla rossa di Tropea — sort of.

Continue reading Zuppa di cipolla rossa di Tropea (Tropea red onion soup) – kind of at Our Italian Table.

I was very excited to learn about the WordPress photo challenge from my blogger friend over at My Sardinian Life! Every week, WordPress sends out a theme for the week’s photo challenge. What better way to dust off my gigantic library of Italy photos as well as shoot some with a fresh eye! What fun! So for this week’s theme I chose this photo. It was taken in 2007 while sitting on a balcony in Calabria in Scalea.

Continue reading Weekly Photo Challenge: Through at Our Italian Table.