The Great Rice Compromise (Cinnamon Winter)

I was never that fond of white foods. Lack of color was a signal that it would be boring.
I’ve gotten better with age, but I still have to add something to normal boiled potatoes to find the desire to eat them - cheese, oregano and capers, diced boiled ham and cheese, artichoke hearts - anything. Grand Sasso blue and Marsican red potatoes come close to being edible alone, but still sea salt and freshly grated black pepper help them out.
Boiled white rice is still problem, even with butter and Parmesan I was never wild for it. Especially in elementary school.
Growing up I was adamant about it. Why eat lumpy pasty stuff? So it would sit there and a little verbal arm wrestling would pass. But not for long. I don’t know when she started (I was too little at the time) but Mom would doctor it by reheating the rice in milk adding a tablespoonful of sugar (Mary Poppins-style) and then tap cinnamon over it all to make a soup. The powdered cinnamon would form islands and swirls on the surface of the milk.
It was gone in a flash.
Since then sweet milky cinnamon rice soup has been one of my comfort foods. Years ago a friend with a cold with nothing in her apartment phoned me for advice on what to eat. There wasn’t much, and she had to substitute coconut milk for the bovine variety. When it was ready there was silence on the other end of the line. I hung up and let her eat and sneeze in peace.

Panzerotti (clogging arteries on brisk Friday afternoon in Milan)

I just got back from a Friday business trip to Milan. The trip was a whirlwind of appointments but still, as I crossed through Piazza del Duomo on my way from one meeting to anther, I felt something familiar call out to me and draw me in for a greasy tasty pause: Panzerotti from Luini.
Even though the Luini bakery is tucked out of site behind the back entrance to Milan’s up-market La Rinascente department store, it is an institution.
Luini means panzerotti, and panzerotti mean deep fried pocket pizzas. Puffy and a bit chewy, the dough is slightly sweet and very addictive. The classic version is simple tomato and mozzarella, other seasonal versions (mozzarella and ham, pesto and cherry tomatoes) and so on give you enough variety to harden your arteries almost every day, and when I used to work nearby it was hard to resist.
Originally just a bakery, it’s now traditional stand up street food at it’s best. Their other specialty is focaccia pugliese and other traditional baked treats from the Puglia (Apuglia) region of Italy.

Luini Bakery
Via Santa Radegonda 16, Milano