Sicilian Pasta e Broccoli in Support for Sandy

Last week the New York area got hit by a terrible "hurricane" that crippled the city and the surrounding states. From this side of the Ocean, we couldn't help but feel the angst of the people getting ready for what was to come. Those who didn't have to evacuate were getting ready to live without electricity for a few days.
Being from Sicily, I am used to loosing electricity power almost at each storm that hit my town, but this never last more than a couple of hours. I can't imagine what it means to remap our life around camp stoves and charcoal grills with the fear that most of the food was spoiling away in a dark and warm fridge.
Furthermore, when trees fall not only the power lines are affected but also the telephone ones are and this is enough to send far-away siblings into fibrillation.

The pistachios post

We in Sicily are quite blessed by the production of yummy almonds and pistachios. The city of Agrigento has a festival for the blossoming of the almonds tree that grow in its countryside and in the Noto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noto valley. Pistachios are instead grown on the sides of the Etna volcano in the city of Bronte. We use both nuts quite a lot both in savory and sweet recipes but while almonds are more assertive, pistachios are quite subtle in taste (and more expensive too).
Almonds are omnipresent in my pesto sauces but I have not worked extensively with pistachios before; I have then decided that it was due time to face the nut.
In this post, you will find a series of experiments I made with them, mostly savory with a great classic as sweet. Let me know what you think of them.

Double potato salad with green onions and pistachios

Tonight’s Dinner – Penne rigate with creamy-spicy Tuna sauce

Here we are, at the end of another day; the last day of Carnival somewhere but here, the day of sleepiness. :p Carnival finished yesterday night and today the mood in the city was very relaxed, quiet, melancholic… Well… I am not such a big fun of the Carnival as it is declined here in Bonn; but it is nice to see people having fun (as long as you don’t have to pick up all the barrels of beers emptied every day).
What did I have for dinner tonight? Yesterday, before falling to sleep, I realized that it was quite long time I did not cook Italian “cotolette” (breaded and fried slices of beef) but, naturally, I forgot about them again this evening only for being reminded by my mother (they were also having cotolette for dinner, what a coincidence!); I was already planning of cooking myself some pasta in tuna sauce. This time I wanted to try some creamy tuna sauce. So here you are the results (sorry, no picture today… just forgot about it :P)

What do you need?