While I can’t say that I was born with a wooden spoon in my hand, I definitely had a passion for cooking and food from an early age.  That’s thanks mainly to my mother and a few aunts who were/are wonderful cooks.  But when I studied abroad in Venice as a junior in college (back in gasp 1997), I started to cook for myself a lot more.  I didn’t have the money to go out and that was just what you did there- and why not when you have the most amazing ingredients on hand.

So as I was heading home I bought a cookbook – it was my first.  Entirely in Italian, it contained the highlights of Venetian recipes, although it was clearly not meant for locals, as my host pointed out.  It was slightly challenging to use – you need to know grams instead of pounds, for one thing.  But it has never let me down and I like to use it now as a source for inspiration, which is how I came up with this dish.

Bigoli with garlic scapes in Anchovy Sauce