038: Is there Italian food without pasta?

Living Villa Cappelli

While that is a bit sacrilegious to talk about Italian food without pasta, it can be done. And rather easily. Anna Vocino, joins us for the second part of her interview where we talking making "noodles" from vegetables and how to eat Italian food without eating sugar or grains.

Topics we cover:

• How Paul has been foraging for wild asparagus this spring
• What wild asparagus is like
• How we have been preparing them, including a frittata, a mussel and asparagus frittata, an asparagus and shrimp pasta sauce, a pizza rustica with asparagus
• How artichokes are so much bigger in the United States than in Italy
• Italians eat so much more seasonably
• Since Americans haven't really grown up with it, they have a hard time even knowing what's in season
• Spiralizing vegetables
• My spiralizer reviews, based on my experience and hearing from others
• I have this spiralizer. The good: it's cheaper and smaller so it fits easily in a drawer. The bad: it's not so easy to use and sometimes I feel just chopping the vegetables extra fine would be faster.
• This is the spiralizer Anna has, the Paderno. The good, from what I've heard: it's easy to use and very fast. The bad: it's another large kitchen appliance to keep up with.
• This is the spiralizer I use. The good: smaller so it fits in a drawer and cheaper. The bad: it's actually not super easy or quick to use, and you're always left with a bit of vegetable end at the end which can't spiral, and it's hard to clean.
• Paul packing up our new dry pepper flakes which is part of KTM line
• Anna's husband Lauren and his new show. There's a sneak peek below.
• Our favorite restaurant in New York City: The Red Cat
• The chef at Red Cat Jimmy Bradley
• How you can easily eat no sugar, no grains with pasta just substituting out a simple other ingredient to put your sauce on
• Older peoples obsession with bowel movements
• How when you happen to be on a reality TV show or an actor like Anna, you can get fan mail way after the show originally aired
• Starting our new section of the podcast featuring Mama Cappelli
• Anna's favorite podcast of ours talking about Italian Weddings.
• The show Don of Ceremonies
• How all of Anna's recipes are amazing. Check them out on her blog here: AnnaVocino.com
• Her recipe for Curried Rice is one of my favorites
• How Anna and Vinnie and their fans are buying up all our oil
• How people are getting to experience really fresh extra virgin olive oil

Click the pizza crust to get my 5 favorite Anna recipes.

Here's just a taste of some of her work: