April 2023

LASAGNA BOLOGNESE

My latest quest was to find an authentic recipe for lasagna. There are plenty out there, and they have some commonalities. The tomato/meat sauce is a Bolognese-type. Instead of mozzarella, they use a béchamel sauce, most insist on homemade lasagna noodles. So, my first order of business was to be able to cook an excellent rendition of the authentic recipe. And after only the second iteration, we are close. We used our son, Pete’s recipe as the starter, and we made very few changes. After about eight iterations, this featured…

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Black-eyed Peas

THE BLACK-EYED PEAS (music): The Black Eyed Peas (Southern side dish). In the early 2000s, the group, The Black Eyed Peas, had a song that I still play to this day that I just love called “Pump It.” It was the first rap song I really liked, and I loved the way it was arranged. I thought I’d begin my recipe narrative with an homage to their music. And I wonder if the Black Eyed Peas ever eat black eyed peas. But down to business. I have visited the south,…

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