January 2025 Newsletter

A trip to NYC, cooking classes with 177 Milk Street, and a recipe for Italian hot chocolate

Snow day! Illustration by Daniela Bracco

Benvenuti! Welcome to Buona Domenica, a weekly newsletter of inspired Italian home cooking and baking. I’m a journalist, cooking instructor, occasional tour guide, and author of eight cookbooks on Italian cuisine.

A friendly reminder that REGISTRATION IS OPEN FOR FOOD WRITERS IN PIEMONTE, FALL 2025: Join Kathy Gunst and me next October for our second Food Writers in Piemonte workshop. Please send me an email at domenica@domenicacooks.com for more information.

Another friendly reminder that Buona Domenica remains on an abbreviated schedule until I hand in my book manuscript (early March). This means fewer posts—but just for a few more weeks. Today’s recipe for Cioccolata Calda, or Italian hot chocolate, is available to all subscribers. As always, paid subscribers have access to a printable version of the recipe, and to all archived recipes and posts.

BUONA DOMENICA PRINTS! There are still a few of Daniela’s beautiful illustrations available for sale. You’ll find details here. Shoot me an email if you want to know more (domenica@domenicacooks.com).

Click here to browse through the newsletter archive. If you’re looking for a particular recipe, you’ll find all Buona Domenica recipes—187 and counting—indexed here, ready to download and print—a function for paid subscribers. If you are able to do so, please consider supporting my work by becoming one. Grazie!

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Via Carota. Photo by Domenica

I spent most of last week in New York City on the set of the photo shoot for my forthcoming book. I look forward to sharing more, including outtakes and behind-the-scenes moments, in the months ahead. For now, I can tell you that when you put four creative women together in a studio, magic happens.

My trip was pretty well timed, as I conveniently missed the snow storm that socked Washington, D.C. and other parts of the Mid-Atlantic last Monday. (It took nearly two days for plows to dig out our little neighborhood.) New York, on the other hand, got only a dusting. But we did get bitter cold temperatures, along with wind gusts. Typical New York January weather, in other words, which I remember well from the days when I lived there decades ago. You just burrow down into your scarf and get on with it.

On my last night in the city, I took the advice of a couple of folks who answered my social media query about which restaurants to visit as a solo diner and walked the 1.2 miles from my hotel down to Via Carota, in the West Village. The air was frozen (21° F / -6° C) but holiday lights were still up here and there and the city seemed to sparkle.

I’ve been curious about Via Carota ever since I got the restaurant’s cookbook a couple of years ago. I love the thoughtful simplicity of the recipes and I imagined the food of the restaurant to be just as appealing. But I know it’s virtually impossible to snag a reservation, and I hadn’t planned on trying. However, my social media friends advised me that if I went early and asked for a seat at the bar, chances are I would score. I did.

Friends, I was not disappointed. Here’s what I had: bruschetta with Vermont butter, anchovies, and capers (above left); grilled artichokes with aioli; and a generous spoonful of zabaglione with raspberries, shared by the diner seated next to me after I shared my bruschetta). The place was cozy, with a sociable vibe and a friendly, not over-solicitous staff. The menu has a robust vegetable selection—a big plus for me— and everything I had was pretty much flawless (though I wouldn’t have minded a little more booze in the zabaglione!). It was a rich meal and I barely felt the cold as I walked back to my hotel. If you get the opportunity to visit this gem, do it.

Here are links to two recipes from Via Carota’s cookbook that I posted back in November 2023. (They are archived and therefore behind the paywall.)

Carabaccia: Onion and Bread Soup

And their recipe for olive oil panna cotta here:

Panna Cotta all'Olio

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LET’S COOK TOGETHER! COOKING CLASSES WITH 177 MILK STREET

Want to learn how to make some wonderful regional Italian pastas? I’m teaching a series of online cooking classes in collaboration with 177 Milk Street, and I’d love for you to join me.

The first class, on Thursday, Feb. 27, is a small-group online workshop in which we will make the signature pasta of Abruzzo, Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Abruzzese-Style Ragù.

DETAILS

ULTRA-REGIONAL HANDMADE PASTA: Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Abruzzese-Style Ragù

Date & time: Thursday, Feb. 27, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. EST (3 p.m.-4:30 p.m. PST)

Price: $69.95

Discount: Use the code PASTAPARTY at checkout for a 15% discount

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The second is an intensive course—a series of three online classes, spaced out over several weeks, in which we will make three iconic stuffed pastas: Classic Cheese-Filled Ravioli from Abruzzo; Agnolotti del Plin, a delicate meat-stuffed pasta from Piemonte; and Cappelletti in Brodo, tiny pasta “hats” simmered in homemade broth, from Emilia-Romagna.

DETAILS

INTENSIVE: ITALY’S REGIONAL STUFFED PASTAS with Domenica Marchetti

Dates & times: Thursday, March 13; Thursday, March 27; Thursday, April 10. All classes in the series run from 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. EST (3 p.m.-4:30 p.m. PST).

Price: $249.95 for all three classes in the series

Discount: Use the code PASTAPARTY at checkout for a 15% discount

What’s on the menu:

• March 13: Ricotta Cheese Ravioli in Tomato Sauce

• March 27: Agnolotti del Plin with Butter and Sage

• April 10: Cappelletti in Brodo

• Plus, all the skills & tool recommendations you need to confidently make countless other stuffed pastas at home

If you can't attend all of the sessions in real time, don't worry: You'll get the recordings, at-home challenges and recipes to watch and work on on your own time. Between sessions, students will have access to a chat platform where you can ask me questions and share photos of your stuffed pastas.

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RECIPE: Cioccolata Calda | Italian Hot Chocolate

Cioccolata calda, served in my favorite tiny tumblers, made by potter Gabrielle Schaffner*

I’m back home now, where there is still plenty of snow on the ground and flurries whipping around in the wind. It reminds me of when my kids were little; on snow days, we would zipper, snap, and button them into their snow pants and boots, mittens, hats, and scarves, and send them outside—practically immobile beneath all that clothing—to play with their friends. Eventually, red-cheeked and numb with cold but also sweaty, they would trudge home and warm up with cups of Italian hot chocolate.

If you are not familiar with cioccolata calda, it exists in that magical realm between a drink and a spoon dessert, very dark and thick, barely sweet and with a bitter edge. The first time we took our children to Italy, when they were eight and six, it happened to be a cold and drizzly November. I was researching my first book, and the trip wasn’t focused on entertaining the kids. There was lots of driving from hill town to hill town in search of regional soups and stews, which they didn’t mind too much, once we got to our destinations, as in their eyes they looked like fairy tale places.

Hot chocolate was what we bribed them with so that I could get my work done. It quickly became a daily ritual for us to stop at a bar late in the afternoon after walking around in the chilly mist. My husband and I would toss back espressos and the kids would have their hot chocolate. Our daughter would drink hers hot, while our son would wait for his to cool and then eat it like warm chocolate pudding.

When we got home, I devised my own recipe. Be forewarned that it is obscenely rich, and that once you’ve had it you will never go back to Swiss Miss.

*A note about the beautiful little tumblers in which I like to serve cioccolata calda: They were made by Massachusetts-based potter Gabrielle Schaffner. We’ve been friends on Instagram for years, but had never met until this past week, when she and her wife, Laura, also an artist, happened to be in NYC at the same time as I was there. Serendipity! We made plans to meet one morning for breakfast, and so now, I can happily say that we are friends IRL. You can learn more about Gabrielle’s work and see examples on her website.

Serves 2 to 3

INGREDIENTS
1 cup (240 ml) whole or low-fat milk
3/4 cup (170 ml) heavy cream
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 to 3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons cornstarch
Whipped cream for serving (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Measure the milk, heavy cream, and cocoa powder into a saucepan and set it over medium heat. Begin whisking to incorporate the ingredients, and reduce the heat to medium-low or low if necessary to prevent it from boiling.

2. When the mixture is warm, gently whisk in 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Continue to cook over a gentle flame until the cocoa and sugar are dissolved and the mixture is steaming hot. Add a little more sugar for sweeter hot chocolate.

3. Measure the cornstarch into a small bowl. Spoon a little of the hot chocolate mixture into the bowl and stir it into the cornstarch, smoothing out any lumps. Pour this mixture into the saucepan of hot chocolate and continue to whisk over low heat for another couple of minutes, until thick and smooth but still drinkable.

4. Pour into cups and serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

Click below for the printable version, available to paid subscribers.

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The next Buona Domenica newsletter will publish in early February, with a bonus recipe for paid subscribers between now and then. As always, thank you for reading, subscribing, and sharing. Don’t forget to click that little heart icon at the top of this post, as it brings visibility to the newsletter. Grazie.

Alla prossima,
Domenica