These days when I need a recipe in a hurry, I turn to the web. But if I have time, I turn to the legion of cookbooks that we have collected over the years. Besides the cookbooks we each brought to our marriage, we have a number of books rescued from the estates of loved ones who are no longer with us.

I recently wrote about two books of mine that I have long treasured. They are books on French cooking by an interesting author named Edouard de Pomiane (1875-1964), a medical doctor and food scientist who also presided over a popular radio show in France during the 1930s. He espoused a philosophy of simple cooking, which is unusual when you consider the complexity of most French cooking techniques.

Pomiane wrote a lot of books, but these two are the ones most easily found translated into English…

Struffoli are a delicious Italian treat that we used to enjoy as kids. I wrote this tiny piece back in 2001 for a national food magazine. They paid me for it, but never ran it. No idea why. No explanation why. Freelance journalism is known for this sort of fickle behavior. Editors love things, then hate them. This article was deliberately short, intended for the magazine’s front-of-the-book section. It was supposed to run with a recipe that I provided. The article has never seen the light of day—until now…