Il Pane della Ninna Nanna (Lullaby Bread). Neither very sweet nor pizzalike in the flat, savory pie sort of way, this is a gold-fleshed, orange-perfumed cakelike bread that, if baked with care, will be tall and elegant, its crumb coarse yet light and full of the consoling scents of yeast and butter. Fabriziana is one of the several “middle” names of the Roman countess with whom I learned to bake the confection in the cavernous old kitchen of her villa that looks to the gardens of the Borghese. Ours were clandestine appointments, with our yeast and our candied orange peels and the tattered recipe book of her mother’s cook. You see, Fabriziana had never cooked or baked in her life, had never made anything from a pile of flour and a few crumbles of yeast. Forbidden in the kitchen as a girl, her adulthood has been always too fraught with obligations to permit interludes in front of the flames. But in the years we have been friends, she has always demonstrated more than a kind interest in my cooking, sitting once in a while, rapt as a fox, on an old wrought-iron chair in my kitchen as I dance about. And one day when I told her I was searching for a formula for an ancient, orange-perfumed Roman bread, she knew precisely where to find the recipe. Trailing off in some Proustian dream, she said she hadn’t thought of the bread in too many years, it having been her favorite sweet at Christmas and Easter. Once she even requested that it—rather than some grand, creamy torta—be her birthday cake. She told of poaching slices of it from a silver tray during parties and receptions, stuffing them deep into the pockets of her silk dresses to eat later in bed, after her sister was safely asleep, so she might share them only with her puppy. So it was that we decided to make the bread together. Wishing to avoid the chiding of her family and, most of all, her cook, we chose to do the deed on mornings when the house would be safe from them. It was wonderful to see Fabriziana at play. Flour and butter were forced under her long, mother-of-pearled nails, and her blond-streaked coif, mounted to resist tempests, soon fell into girlish ringlets over her noble brow. With a few mornings’ worth of trial, we baked Fabriziana’s lullaby bread, the bread of her memories. And once, on a birthday of mine, the countess came fairly racing through my doorway proffering a curiously wrapped parcel that gave up the telltale perfumes of our bread. The countess had learned to bake indeed.
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
A savory-hot salsa made with mixed nuts (like the kind dubbed cocktail nuts meant for snacking) gives roast salmon a kaleidoscope of textures and flavors.
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
A dash of cocoa powder adds depth and richness to the broth of this easy turkey chili.
This one-pot dinner cooks chicken thighs directly on top of a bed of flavorful cilantro rice studded with black beans for a complete dinner.
Round out these autumn greens with tart pomegranate seeds, crunchy pepitas, and a shower of Parmesan.
Make this versatile caramel at home with our slow-simmered method using milk and sugar—or take one of two sweetened condensed milk shortcuts.
This is the type of soup that, at first glance, might seem a little…unexciting. But you’re underestimating the power of mushrooms, which do the heavy lifting.