Three Things
The best chocolate, a bold noodle salad, and greetings from Italy!
Buongustai e lettori! This week’s newsletter is coming at you all the way from Lecce, where a dozen intrepid Dinner: A Love Story readers and I are experiencing the best of Puglia, and where I plan to open a second DALS office very soon — but only if it can be right here on this hotel rooftop with this exact view of Lecce’s most famous Basilica. So far we have pasticiotto’d, we have burrata’d, we have spritz’d we have Negroamaro’d. I have discovered a deep love for Italian chicory greens, and I have learned that you cannot shape homemade orecchiette without first knowing how to shape cavatelli. (I know! Where have I been?) A detailed, dedicated dispatch about all this and way more is coming soon, but the meantime, I have a treat for you: This week’s Three Things will be guest-written by a triumvirate of my favorite writers and Substackers: Hetty Lui McKinnon, from To Vegetables with Love, chimes in with your new favorite noodle dish to anchor a vegetarian spread; Melina Hammer, creator extraordinaire behind the bea…