A train station sandwich is positive proof that I've arrived in Europe. When the airplane touches down on the runway, I'm not there. As we wait for our luggage and stumble through customs, we aren't there. When I make my way through Rome, from the airport to the train station, with three children and a month's worth of luggage, the journey may be coming to an end, but the trip has not yet begun. I have to have the sandwich.

Have you ever smuggled delicious pancetta home from Italy? Yes, smuggled. As in, broken the law. At the end of this month, your actions may be retroactively legal. (No, I am not a lawyer, so I actually don't know if you are absolved. So don't go calling the feds and confessing, okay?) The ban on importing salumi, at least some of it, has been lifted.

To capture the entire sense of a place between the covers of one cookbook is no small task. Yet, here is a photo of bobbing fishing boats that feels so close that I can practically smell the salt water. And a woman making fresh couscous that I want to scoop with my hands, and a basket of silvery fresh-caught anchovies for dinner, and spirals of yellow pasta, and...and...and. Sicily is one of those cookbooks that transports and inspires. If Sicily holds a special place in your traveler's heart, this is a book you will cherish. If visiting Sicily is dream of yours, this book might just transform your "some day" into "right now." 

Take a look at this cup of coffee. It looks like a good little cup of espresso, doesn't it? Looks are deceiving in this case; there isn't a bit of coffee in this photo. Want to know what it is? 

Italian cuisine is near and dear to many of our hearts, and so I think we can all nod in understanding when Nigella Lawson says, "It was when I was sixteen or seventeen that I decided to be Italian." Nigellissima is an ode to her younger self and to the food she fell in love with way before Nigella Lawson became a household name. These are simple, nourishing Italian dishes that are as satisfying to make as they are to eat. 

When I went to Parma, Italy a few months ago, I asked everywhere I went if someone, anyone, would let me into their home kitchen for a tour. It wasn't until the final day that a taxi-driver's dispatcher offered her mother's place right in central Parma.

Lina Germi and her husband, an electrician, live in a house originally used as wine shop and trattoria in the early 1800s. Signora Germi, a tiny woman who wears a tie every single day, says that despite her retirement, she works more now than ever, feeding her children, nephews and grandchildren, and she has a freezer full of handmade tortellini to prove it.

More

As it is the rest of Italy, it goes without saying that the food in Parma is wonderful and abundant, but thanks to the producers of Parmeggiano Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma and Balsamic vinegar in nearby Modena, this northern Italian region is also known to many as the true culinary breadbasket of the Italian nation.

I'd been to Parma once before, more than a decade ago, just as my professional passion for food and food stories was setting in. All I remember is sitting on a cobblestone street eating the most astonishing plate of cantaloupe and prosciutto I'd ever had, watching the passeggiata (nightly social stroll), and drinking so much local sparkling Malvasia wine that we bought a case from the restaurant to schlep home.

This trip was different. More

A week ago I was in Venice, Italy, for a short trip, and of course I had to check out the market while I was there! (I already showed you these artichoke bottoms, which were everywhere there.) Venice is a strange and beautiful city. There's nowhere else quite like it: a city of palaces and walkways floating on the sea. It has a tiny population — just about 90,000, if you count the surrounding islands — but it receives millions of visitors every year. So the most famous market, the Rialto, of necessity has something of a tourist flair. Take a peek! More

Last night at a little bar in Venice, Italy, we snacked on rounds of artichoke bottoms, soaked in oil and marinated in spices. Tender and cool, they were a lovely start to a meal — flavorful and not too filling. Today I saw how these things are sold: by the half dozen, bobbing in water at the market! More