"rome" news and stories

Assuming you've been eating nothing but turkey for the last four days (we have!), these giant ravioli from Da Augusto in Rome, Italy probably look pretty appetizing right now. Even if you haven't been subsisting on Thanksgiving leftovers, freshly made pasta is nearly impossible to resist.

And don't worry, they're not stuffed with turkey. Filled with ricotta and spinach, and topped with marinara sauce and grated Parmesan cheese, they're about as far from Thanksgiving cuisine as one can get.

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• Think you know a lot about Italian food? Think again.
• Speaking of Italy, plan your next trip to Rome, Sicily, or Milan.
• Did you know that Sting and his wife made their own olive oil and honey and that it's coming to America?
• The perfect tomato sauce.
• An A to Z guide to Italian grapes.
• Italy's best restaurants?
• 100 hours of solitude in Venice.
• This month's recipes: Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Soup with Cheese Panini, Lemony Rice-Parsley Salad, Tuna, Olive, and Bread Salad, Watermelon and Arugula Salad with Walnuts, Ham and Cheese Stuffed Veal Chops, Rosemary-Grilled Chicken with Mushroom Sauce, and a Prosecco-Saba Cocktail.

Garlic. Is it possible to even conceive of Italian cuisine without the pungent bulb? We've all experienced bad garlic, usually in the form of cloves that have been browned to death in oil and are ladled on top of the dishes at family-style Italian pasta mills. I swear those places much have a huge vat of this "garlic" prepped in advance daily. I'm all for banning that type of garlic, which would certainly never be found in the kitchen of a real Italian chef. Only the fresh stuff will do. Or will it?

There's a garlic debate raging among chefs and eaters in Italy, and it's not about freshness. It's about eliminating garlic from Italian cooking entirely. Sicilian chef Filippo La Mantia, who has a hot restaurant in Rome, declared that he'll never use it. Like others in his camp, he feels that garlic smells terrible and overwhelms delicate flavors. The antigarlic contigency has a powerful ally in former Premier Silvio Berlusconi whose has a well-known aversion to the stinking rose. Carlo Rossella, a news director for Berlusconi's Mediaset has even started a list of garlic-free restaurants and is pushing for places that serve garlic to have separate, garlic-free menus.

I'm not holding my garlic breath with worry over the stinking rose vanishing from Italian menus, though. Italians ate 108 million pounds of garlic in 2006, up 4.3 percent from the previous year, according to farm group Coldiretti.

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• A recipe for a traditional Easter Meringue.
• Cooking lessons from Rome.
• Maine tomatoes are red, ripe, and ready.
• A little history on Chinese-Indian cuisine.
• Which matzo is the best?
• Be careful when handling your Easter chicks.
• A sampling of winters-end red wines you might have not tried yet.
• This week's recipes: Baked Chicken Legs with Tomatoes, Haroset with Dates, Pasta and Chickpea Soup, Passover Fritters, and Ricotta Cheesecake.

• There's no boredom with mushroom ragout.
• What it means to be a young farmer in the 21st century.
• My mom used to make boiled dinner for herself all the time, but not with corned beef (ugh).
• There are currently over 300 restaurants in the U.S. certified as green.
• The Globe taste tests breakfast bars.
• Cauliflower is usually called broccoli in Rome?!
• What are your favorite budget wines?
• This week's recipes: Easy Alphabet Soup, Pasta with Cauliflower, and Raisin Soda Bread,