Italophilia

I am thrilled to welcome you to my new stand-alone Pomodorista blog. If you are an Al Dente blog reader than you already know a little bit about me. If you are a new reader, allow me to give you a little background. What is a Pomodorista? When you add an “-ista” ending to an italian noun it signifies one of the following: 1) a person of that profession i.e. a dentist would be dentista 2) someone who participates in activity i.e. collezionista would be a collector, or 3) a person who follows a doctrine or movement i.e. anarchista would be an anarchist. Pomodorista falls under the umbrella of all three. During the summer of 2009 I found myself doing a stage, or kitchen apprenticeship on the island of Capri just off the coast of Naples, Italy. I was assigned to the pasta chef, and consequently every morning after setting up my station, it was my job to cut up thousands of cherry-sized pomodori (tomatoes), and make the sauce for the day. I cut so many tomatoes, that I came to appreciate the uniqueness of each one. As I sliced hundreds upon hundreds of tomatoes (always with a serrated knife…

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