Italian food expert and long-time Gusti friend Katie Parla is on tour in the USA to present her latest book, Food of the Italian South. She is going to some of our favorite places in the country to share her collection of food stories from Campania, Molise, Puglia, Basilicata, and Calabria. Just the other night we were together at Archestratus, discussing the challenges of today’s food system and how to make Italian regional cuisines less exclusionary.
As part of her book tour, Katie went to the Pineapple Kitchen, to cook with Ariel Pasternak and Atara Bernstein, founders of Pineapple Collaborative. Pineapple’s mission is to bring women together around good food and we couldn’t be happier to see these inspiring women connect through real Italian ingredients.
To recreate the flavors of the South they chose one of the 85 recipes in Katie’s book, Sicchie d’a Munnezza. This recipe was practically made for the Gustiamo warehouse, it features so many of the amazing products that we import from Italy! Sicchie d’a Munnezza is Napoletano dialect for trash can, and this dish stems from the Italian tradition of giving a second life to food scraps and reducing food waste. It’s a rich and flavorful pasta from Campania with Spaghetti, Pine Nuts, Hazelnuts, Raisins, Capers, and San Marzano Tomatoes. All the Gusti pantry staples in a dish that takes only ten minutes to prepare!
Watch the video to see Katie, Ariel, and Atara prepare Sicchie d’a Munnezza and celebrate the food of the Italian South.