I had never heard of farinata before but it caught my eye on display at my small local grocery store and I decided to give it a try. The package describes it as a Tuscan street food made of chickpeas. It said that it’s commonly eaten inside of a fresh baked roll but can also be eaten as a side dish, as a base with basil and cheese on top and some other things. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect – something more like a bread or something more like a hummus but I was game to try!
It was actually really easy to make. You basically take the mix, add water and olive oil, whisk it and bake it all in a pan.
What it ended up reminding me of was a really spicy polenta. It’s not as thick as a bread but it has that spongy thickness of a rice dish shaped like a bread. I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; like I said – polenta is the best I can come up with as far as texture. Either way, it was super yummy. I had it just on the side of my plate along with some homemade vegetarian chili (one of the few dishes I’m truly good at making), some rosemary and olive oil quinoa and fried mushrooms.
The little dishes that you see on the right there are dukkah spices. The dark one is dukkah in balsamic vinegar and the other is dukkah in orange olive oil. It’s basically an herb dip and I added it to the farinata although the farinata was tasty without it. I also put it on my quinoa.
. Basically this is just a book about the history of sushi. It shares how sushi became so popular in recent times. But what I really like is that it gives a lot of insight into how sushi goes from tuna in the ocean to a delicacy on a plate through sharing the personal stories of individual people along the way in that process, such as the buyers of fish at auctions. By putting faces to the process it makes it really easy to understand the in-depth and detailed economics and culture of the sushi history. Fascinating.
. I’m a huge fan of 
