A Guest, a Celebration, and a Rat in the Kitchen
He's a cute rat!
Letter from the Kitchen
Tomorrow, my very first podcast guest goes live everywhere you listen — and I could not have asked for a better person to open that door with me.
Elaine Trigiani is an olive oil producer living and working in Tuscany, and she is one of those people who set her mind to a dream and is playing it out. I have tasted several of her oils — two of them are in my kitchen right now, one is Tuscan, the other Sicilian — and listening to her talk about how they are made only made me love them more. If you have ever wondered about the information and misinformation about olive oil, everything is addressed in this interview. What a start!
And then there is Easter. In Italy, Lent is taken seriously — meat, cured meats, and rich dairy come off the table for forty days. The fast is quiet and deliberate. But Easter Sunday? That is the grand finale. The salumi and rich dairy come back and grace every table. My version of Torta Pasqua — ricotta, ham, and egg-studded in crust— is crowd-sized and a celebration of food. Whole eggs are cracked and baked right into the ricotta. I have been making it on Easter morning for years.
One more thing — I want to introduce you to Remi. He is my new culinary chatbot on the website, a little rat very much in the spirit of a certain animated chef. Ask him anything. He is in Beta, waiting for app store approval, but already on the site and ready to help. Check the bottom right corner.
Last Week, You Answered
You Held onto Those Spices
Last week I asked: “What’s the oldest spice in your cabinet?” The answer came back loud and clear. 75% of you reported spices five years old or older.
The cure for an aging spice cabinet is not restraint. It is a good spice blend.
Making your own blends brings together the spices you already have and gives you something to reach for on a Tuesday night when dinner needs to happen in thirty minutes.
Homemade Curry Powder bonicellicookingclub.com
Italian Seasoning Blend bonicellicookingclub.com
Join Me at the Table
French Bistro Classics — Kitchen Studio, Twin Cities
Step into a Parisian bistro without leaving Minnesota.
We’ll work through the kind of food that makes you slow down and actually taste things — a remarkable French onion soup, handmade pasta, Coq au Vin braised low and slow until the kitchen smells like something you want to move into, and Crème Brûlée with that perfect, crackling top.
All of it, in a beautiful kitchen, with good people around the table.
🪑 View Class Dates & Book Your Stool →
These classes are limited to 6 people and fill up quickly.
What’s Happening in the Kitchen
New Little Chef
Meet Remi
In case you missed it above, my new culinary assistant is live on bonicellicookingclub.com. Ask him culinary questions, recipe ideas based on what’s in your fridge, or any technique you’ve been too embarrassed to Google. The app is in Beta while testing — stay tuned.
The Podcast Hook
Episode #3 — Available 7:30 am tomorrow — Friday, April, 3rd
Inside the Olive Oil Bottle
Everything you thought you knew about the term “first cold press” and “extra virgin” is more complicated than the label suggests. And the color of olive oil? Means nothing — unless it is orange.
April 3rd — Episode 2: Elaine Trigiani goes inside the olive oil bottle. You will never buy olive oil the same way again.
April 17th — Episode 3: Mary Lower on hacking salt the Mediterranean way.
May 1st — Episode 4: Josiah Christensen from Pleasant Valley Mushrooms — the health science of different mushroom varieties and why they deserve a permanent spot in your kitchen.
New episodes every other Friday after that. Bi-weekly, every time.
The Skill: The New Basics
Homemade Ricotta —
It’s Worth Your Time
Fresh ricotta has a clean, milky sweetness.Oftentimes, store-bought ricotta has a grainy texture and slightly rancid flavor. Once you make ricotta from scratch, the container at the store starts to taste like a compromise.
The Quick Win This Weekend
Use it in the Torta Pasqua, or spread it on good bread with honey and flaky salt. That alone is worth the twenty minutes. We love it with pesto on French bread with a drizzle of olive oil.
The Most Common Mistake
Heating too fast and without a simmer plate. Ricotta needs a gentle heat. Small bubbles at the edges — not a rolling boil.
Rules of Thumb
Buy pasteurized: Ultra-pasteurized products negatively affect yield
Buy local and fresh: The better the ingredients, the better the ricotta
Drain time: 10 -15 min for spreadable; 20–30 min for baking
Use the whey: Substitute it for water in bread dough.
Recipe Spotlight
Torta Pasqua — The Easter Table’s Grand Arrival
The Soul
In Italy, Easter is the triumphant end of forty days of restraint. Then Easter morning arrives with dishes like Torta Pasqua: a golden crust stuffed with ricotta, ham, and eggs.
The Bridge
The key ingredient is the ricotta — and I always make it from scratch (see The Skill above). A full batch goes into the dough. If you’re short on time, look for a whole-milk ricotta with a short ingredient list: milk, buttermilk, vinegar or lemon juice, salt, and nothing else.
Get the Full Printable Recipe →
The Mediterranean Edit
This Week, I’m Loving…
A few things worth knowing about. Never more than three.
Pick 01 — Flour
Caputo Gluten-Free Flour
My go-to for gluten-free pasta that doesn’t sacrifice texture. Caputo engineered this specifically for Italian applications — pasta, pizza, pastry — and it has a nutty background note most GF flours miss entirely.
Pick 02 — Equipment
Pasta Fresca Machine (On Sale Now)
If you’ve taken one of my pasta classes, you’ve seen this in action. Outside of classes, I use it when I’m in a rush or making pasta in volume. It’s currently on sale at King Arthur at a price I genuinely could not believe.
Cookbook Chronicles
They Say Don’t Look
Behind the Curtain
This week I’m pulling back the curtain on the part of cookbook writing nobody talks about — and it is not recipe testing. It is organization.
Deciding what goes where, what belongs together, what the reader needs to know before they can understand the next thing — that is the actual work. And for all of my computer programs, a great deal of it is still happening on paper spread across my kitchen counter.
Because here is the thing: when you are writing, testing, and photographing, you have to be able to find that work. A recipe that cannot be located is a recipe that does not exist.
This must be why I keep writing new recipes — it is considerably easier than organizing the ones I already have. But I am doing it. Slowly, deliberately, one stack of paper at a time.
Question for you: What do you use to organize your recipes? A binder? A notes app with fifty untitled documents? Tell me below.
Before You Go
This Week’s Reader Question
I’ve been thinking about olive oil a lot this week — between Elaine’s episode, the Torta Pasqua, and the bottle sitting on my counter right now.
Do you have a favorite brand of olive oil? Do tell.
Drop it in the comments. I read every single one.
Until next Thursday — keep a good olive oil on the counter and don’t be afraid to use it.
— Chef Laura
Midwest Meets Mediterranean · Every Thursday at 7:30 AM CT · bonicellicookingclub.com
Olive oil - I use Elaine’s Piero Harvest 2025. It is on my counter and I use it for salad, finishing etc. For more general cooking, I use Costco Kirkland Organic Extra Virgin Cold Extracted. It is in a container in my spice cupboard and easy to reach while cooking.
I use Paprika software for recipes, meal planning, grocery lists, menus. Everything, all in one place.