recipephile

Villa Tuscany

Hello Everyone

Finding a place of solitude is often a challenge in New York. To help combat this problem, my friends Jim (1) and Nate created a wonderful respite on their New York city rooftop. Overlooking an old church and water towers, their space, appropriately named Villa Tuscany, is sprayed with fresh herbs, beautiful flowers and numerous tomato plants. A group of us took advantage of Villa Tuscany on Saturday and together we prepared a wonderfully refreshing vegetarian meal that included:
- My version of Caponata
- Corona Beans sautéed with Spinach
- Fennel, Radicchio and Lovage Salad
- Roasted Red Peppers with Havarti Cheese
- Sardinian Flatbread

Most of the ingredients for these dishes were purchased at the Union Square Farmer's Market that takes place every Wednesday and Saturday. (For those in San Francisco, check out the Farmer's Market on the Embarcadero and for those in Columbus, visit the North Market and ask for Dave Wible to give you a tour and tell you all about the vendors in his space.) Farmer's Markets are great because you can find the freshest of the fresh. Be sure to make friends with the vendors as they are always a wonderful source of creativity, knowledge and inspiration for just about any meal.

I hope you enjoy this version of RecipePhile. Please free to send me your own recipes, ideas and feedback. And if you want to forward or add someone to the list, please do.

Have a great week.

Michael
"Always remember that food is about more than eating...it is about thinking, buying, preparing, enjoying and most importantly... sharing."

P.S. - Note that the numbers in parentheses are footnotes!

Pork With Italian Dry Spice Rub

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the first edition of Recipe-Phile. This is my attempt at not only documenting the food I make but also sharing it with my family and friends. (It will be less about recipes and more about ideas on how to prepare good food.) Please feel free to pass this along to whomever you think will find it useful and if they'd like to be added to my mailing list tell them to drop me a line. If you do not wish to receive this, drop a line and I'll take you off my list.

This week's recipe was inspired by my friend Jon (who shares the same level of respect for food that I have) and recently married friends Heather and Jim. On my last visit to San Francisco, Jon and I prepared a great meal of Baby Back Ribs with a spice rub. As a wedding gift, I gave Heather and Jim a dinner party as a present. I did a variation for Heather and Jim on what Jon and I prepared. The following is the tasty result.