Parmesan and provolone are as different as night and day, but both of these cheeses are as important to Italian cuisine as Sophia Loren is to Naples. Parmesan is a cow’s milk cheese that is made in huge wheels and aged for a specific time. Parm...

The best part about having stuffed food on your menu is that, in most instances, the dish can be prepared ahead. Take stuffed peppers, for example. There is no way you can do stuffed peppers to order and make it work. The same goes for stuffed shells...

Bruschetta and Crostini are essentially in the same family of Italian appetizers, yet each has its own distinct personality. Add one or the other to your antipasti menu (if you add both it might confuse your customer). Generally speaking, if you are ...

I could (and often do) make a meal of crusty Italian bread, Gorgonzola cheese, and a lusty Italian red wine (such as Barolo, Chianti Riserva or Barbaresco). The Gorgonzola I would select would be Gorgonzola naturale, which has a more assertive flavor...

Some clarification on Pecorino Romano and Romano is in order. A true pecorino Romano is made from Sheep’s milk (pecorino translates as “little sheep”) and comes from an area around Rome (though pecorino is made in many regions of It...

The idea of sweet pizzas, which involve a sweet sauce in some fashion, is a relatively new direction on the culinary highway. I devoted a chapter to “Dessert Pizzas” in my cookbook, The Ultimate Pizza Cookbook, which came out in 1995. In ...

Caciocavallo (kah-ch’yoh-kah-VAH-loh). With a name like this it has to be good (to borrow a slogan). Caciocavallo, also known as “Horse Cheese,” is an interesting cheese. One theory behind how this cheese got its name is that i...

I think it’s high time that we look a bit deeper into the riches that Italian sweet treats has to offer. It’s simple to take the easy way out –– not having to create, make and worry about desserts at all. But by doing so, you ...

Here’s the story: An overgrown crimini mushroom goes by the name of portobello. To put it another way, once the brown crimini gets to be around 4 to 6 inches in diameter it becomes a portobello. Here, we are dealing with a big brown mushroom wi...

All of us in this business are well aware of the excellent canned tomatoes at our disposal, so it goes without saying that we use them –– a lot –– in various ways, whether it be a sauce for pasta, or to ladle onto a pizza crus...

Here we are, October and National Pizza Month. It’s time to celebrate! For some operators the summer has been slow, but now that kids are back in school, pizza is back on the menu again for social and school functions, and home meals for families o...

We all strive for consistency. In sports, you’ll hear players and coaches say all they ask from officials is that they be consistent. The word choice is interesting. They don’t demand accuracy, they demand consistency. In baseball, for ex...