"Clara Cannucciari" news and stories

• Though community-supported agriculture shares in Rhode Island were once as coveted as Red Sox season tickets, as increasing numbers of farms participate, CSA shares are just as desirable, if less coveted.
• The Providence Journal provides a football-friendly list of spirited food and drink to enjoy with the games.
• "Breathtaking" new Japanese steakhouse Ichigo Ichie presents food "presented with the same dramatic flair as the décor."
• The recipes of 93-year-old Clara Cannucciari have survived the Great Depression and stood the test of time, and "Clara's Cookbook" provides cheap, nourishing fare to today's hungry penny-pinchers.

Remember Clara? Back in January, I shared the YouTube series Great Depression Cooking, which features the 90-something Clara Cannucciari making the foods she ate during the Great Depression.

In the last few months, she's become a bit of a sensation. There are more excellent episodes, like the one above, plus CBS notoriety. (You can see that clip after the jump.) She's now got her YouTube channel, plus a website and a Facebook account.

She calls today's generation a bunch of whiners, and I'd say she's on the money when she talks about dropping out of school to earn money, huddling around the stove to keep warm.

Seeing that her recipes average about 50 cents a serving, have any of you taken a cue from Clara?

In this day of budget-minded cooking, it's helps to get advice from someone who's been there, done that.

Enter Clara Cannucciari, a 93-year-old great-grandmother from upstate New York. Her "Great Depression Cooking with Clara" videos have become a recent hit on YouTube and beyond.

"They're tasty," Clara says of her recipes. "They're good."

The series began as a project by her grandson, Chris Cannucciari, who posted the first "Cooking with Clara" video in 2007. The first recipe was pasta with peas, and episodes have included egg drop soup, peppers and eggs, and a dish known as the "poorman's meal" consisting in large part of potatoes and hot dogs.

This week's Foodie Flicks is going to be a little different. Rather than sharing a clip to help you on your culinary adventures, here's a look into cooking from the Great Depression, from the 90-something Clara Cannucciari. There are five episodes in the series, which feature Clara cooking up recipes from her past while reminiscing about life during the Depression.

In the above episode, she makes Pasta with Peas while thinking back to cooking techniques her family used to cut costs, and garage-renting bootleggers. It's quite sweet, a great way to learn about life back then, and a bit of a reality check on what actually constitutes "hard" living.