An inside look at digital food photograhy.

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I know food photography is not everyone’s passion. I had no idea it would be one of mine and I love it! Things don’t ever seem to look quite as good in photographs as they do in real life, unless real care is taken to preserve the shot. Take your time, take a lot of pictures, walk around and capture your subject from all different angles and vantage points and do not, I repeat, do not use your flash… especially with food. According to Wikipedia food photography is defined as a still life specialization of commercial photography, aimed at producing attractive photographs of food for use in advertisements, packaging, menus and/or cookbooks. Or in layman terms: ‘Food Porn’ resulting in a food boner!

Food is sexy and it can seduce you! Continue Reading…

Sardinia and its Illegal Cheese

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There are countries that offer far more adventurous eating opportunities than Italy. To someone like Andrew Zimmern, Mr. “if it looks like something no one should eat, I’ll eat it,” Italy likely ranks far down the list of places to go for cuisine that’s exotic or strange.

Unless, that is, you go to Sardinia in search of illegal cheese.

Italians love their cheeses, and you’ll find varieties of cheese made from cow, sheep, and goat milk throughout the country. There are certainly distinct differences among the cheeses of Italy, but only one rises to the level of “shocking.” And that’s casu marzu. Continue Reading…

A Garden Grows in Brooklyn

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Amidst the stone and steel high-rises of New York City, “outdoor space” typically means a small terrace overlooking the East River (if you’re rich) or a fire escape overlooking a dumpster (if you’re not).  Scattered throughout New York City, however, are community gardens, little urban jewels that provide us city-dwellers with a lush respite from New York’s hustle and bustle.  The St. Mark’s Avenue community garden in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn is just such an oasis. Continue Reading…

Some Fava Beans and a Nice Chianti

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After a frigid and seemingly interminable winter, daffodils have begun appearing here in New York City.  As the days grow warmer and longer, I find that I no longer crave the soul-warming sustenance of winter’s slow braises, stews, and baked pastas.  Instead, I hunger after lively flavors that sing of springtime, and nothing typifies spring more than the classic pairing of fava beans with pecorino cheese.

Fava Beans (Vicia Faba) and Pecorino are an ancient combination, borne of the Tuscan culinary wisdom that makes the most of what is fresh and readily available.  In the spring, Tuscan sheep begin grazing on young spring grasses.  The sheep’s early milk becomes marzolino, a “little March” cheese whose herbaceous pungency pairs beautifully with the creamy, tender fava beans that appear each spring. Continue Reading…

Siena and its Famous Panforte

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History is everywhere you look in Italy, and although the word “history” might make you think of buildings and monuments there’s plenty of history in the food, too. An excellent example of a food tradition that has stood the test of time is Siena’s famous panforte.

Panforte, which means “strong bread, is a dense and heavily-spiced cake that’s full of nuts and candied fruits and usually topped with powdered sugar. There’s some indication that a similar cake, then called “pane pepato e melato” (pepper and honey bread), was used to pay taxes in Siena as early as the year 1205. While you’ll find panforte well beyond Siena’s borders today, this record from the early 13th century is where Siena bases its claim that the treat was born there – and you’ll even find it called Siena cake in some parts of Italy. Continue Reading…

On the Subject of Italian Cooking

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Italy recently celebrated it’s 150th anniversary as a unified country. To many Americans it comes as a surprise to learn that Italy is such a “young country,” but of course the regions that make up Italy represent some of the oldest cultures in the World. In fact, Italy is the source of one of the worlds oldest known cookbooks and perhaps the oldest with surviving text. Written in Latin by a Roman four to five hundred years after the birth of Christ, the book is known as Apicius or sometimes by it’s subtitle De re Coquinaria, which translates to “On the Subject of Cooking.” This remarkable text served as the model for all cookbooks for well over a thousand years and provides a fascinating view into ancient diets. Many of the foods we associate with Italian cooking were actually brought back to Italy from the new world by Christopher Columbus, including tomatoes! Still we can see the origins of modern Italian cooking in Apicius. The full text of a translation from the 1930s is available for free at the Project Gutenberg website. Divided into 10 books, it seems that the entire work does not survive, since there are no sections for breads and cakes, even though bread is mentioned as an ingredient throughout. Continue Reading…

Farm Fresh Vegetables, delivered!

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I don’t’ know you, but I freak out when my doorbell rings after 6 pm! A chill conquers my spine and my brain inevitably starts processing all the plausible excuses I can arm myself with in order to get rid of any solicitor I might end up facing at my front gate. Who is it going to be this time? Girls Scouts? Bible Aficionados? The occasional gardner or painter? Shall I use the “Sorry I am Jewish excuse” or should I use my kids… “Sorry my daughters are in the bath tub, have a good evening”, or the more truthful “I am cooking dinner, sorry cannot chat or I am going to burn my meal”. All my excuses usually work pretty well, and at the end I do not even feel that bad, as I am sure that a polite rejection is the least that can happen to solicitors by trade.

However, a few weeks ago, as I was truly engaged in a cook-a-ton, I just called on the wife to take on the 6.15 bell ring at our door: “Deeeeeb, can you get it? I just can’t deal!”. After a few minutes of chatting at our front gate, Debi came back into the kitchen and slipped in my hands a couple of pages of paperwork… with my name on it! WTF! I thought the whole point was to get rid of whoever had showed up, not sign some papers with my name! Wife, what did you have my buy?

Continue Reading…

From Jell-O to Tuscany!

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This will be my ‘introductory’ post,a bit long,but info i thought interesting to share.I thought it time,to start writing with Gabriele on our blog finally. After 6+ years of filming and having Gabriele stuck at the computer, editing and doing all the posting, I must say, Thank You my Darling! And Thank you, to you all, for years of support and patience, while we waded through, started a family, and tried to share our stories and recipes of Tuscan Food, on a somewhat of a regular basis. I consider Under The Tuscan Gun to be ‘our voice’, it is… it’s how we live, but in truth, Gabriele writes the posts, and our voices are different. I am neither a writer, or a chef… Just someone who has opinions, likes to talk and, loves to cook and eat. While Gabriele is editing/typing away, I’m in generally in kitchen, taking his command at the stove, or giving kids baths, folding laundry, helping with homework… life as we know it now. Continue Reading…

The Lexicon of Sustainability

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When Debi and I were about to start shooting Extra Virgin this past summer, our dear friend and executive producer Janelle gifted us with a book; “I took a bike ride to a county fair, and when I saw this I thought of you guys” she said as she dropped it in my hands.

My mom taught me not to judge a book by its cover. I personally like to fall for a publication just because of its cover, I like being lured into a book just because the cover brought me to action… In this case, a big black and white picture of farmer-ly rugged hands carrying a half dozed fresh eggs simply swept my mind away to my youngest age, when those hands could have been my grandma’s and those eggs the ones from our chickens. “SLOW, life in a Tuscan town” by Douglas Gayeton kidnapped me from the moment I laid my eyes on it; I poured a glass of wine and sat down in the kitchen for a good hour, while the girlfriends were catching up, and explored my homeland through somebody else’s experience. Douglas has lived in Tuscany for a few years and was able to capture in this book many essential features of the “natives of my country”; with incredible simplicity he conveys a powerful description of what he saw through the lenses of his camera by creating composite collages and pencil-writing the soul and the mechanics of each piece he creates. Continue Reading…