Home At Last! with Patty Gironda

Butterflied Pork Seasoned With Fresh and Dried Herbs Fresh Garlic and Rosemary Tied Porchetta Marinating For Roasting I'm seriously doing some "armchair traveling" in the kitchen this week! Old photos and video shot during our trips through Germany, Switzerland and Italy have caused wonderful food memories to resurface and off I run to the kitchen to see if I recreate some of our favorites! My first porchetta sandwich was savored at Terranouva's weekly market-held every Friday on the town square in central Tuscany. I remember the young woman explaining the process as we waited for our crispy pork sandwich served on a nicely crusted roll. As we enjoyed our first bite of the heavenly pork she waved us back and presented us with a neatly wrapped package filled with Fried Polenta! Sure that we had just been presented with a piece of heaven we strolled the market "ooh-ing and aah-ing" through the stalls filled with fresh fish, cheese, cured meats a...

Tuna Fish and Cheese Pasta I remember exactly where I was when I first tasted this heavenly pasta! Surprisingly enough, it wasn't Italy! Bacarach, Germany, a small town along the Rhine River, wasn't my favorite German city but I enjoyed it's proximity to many fascinating historical sites and wineries-including Rudesheim and Koblenz.  A Room With A View Rudesheim was a quick trip from our roomy apartment in a quiet neighborhood of Bacharach.We enjoyed the narrow streets lined with pretty timbered buildings-each of them filled with wonderful crafts that made the trip worthwhile. Beautiful hand-blown glass, Christmas shoppes filled with traditional glass ornaments and handcrafted nutcrackers made for a nice day of shopping. Restaurants offering traditional German fare as well as salads and light pastas made for an easy day-trip!

This was a very successful experiment and one that I will definitely continue to work on.  I might consider ordering German flour from GermanDeli.com for a more authentic German taste . . .although this was very good with the flours I had on hand. My goal was to bake a loaf similar to the brown farmer's bread that I enjoyed as a child while living in Germany. I started with the basic bread recipe that I have on the Home At Last! website-but changed up the recipe by swapping out a cup of rye flour for one of the five cups of flour.  I have made just about every combo I can think of. This particular loaf was rye, unbleached, Italian flour and a white whole wheat. Everything else was the same except that I spritzed the oven through-out the entire bake process (about every ten minutes) and added a jar of water to create a crispy crust.

Southern traditions are the backbone of my holiday experience. I must have a piece of Pecan Pie around Thanksgiving to jumpstart my Christmas celebration. O.K., a piece of Pecan Pie and a generous helping of Cornbread Dressing and a dollop of fresh cranberry sauce . . .if I am being truthful! With that said, there are so many other traditions that I have adopted as my own. Pleasant childhood memories and traditions shared by others while growing up in Germany are as much a part of who I am and how I celebrate! Friendly German families eager to share their customs and traditions with me have provided a lifetime of Christmas memories. At the beginning of December I head to the International Farmers Market in search of Pfeffernusse, Stollen and chocolates from Germany. In the pictures (above) I have the first four steps in creating chocolate covered cherries soaked in German Kirchwasser. A tradition I first experienced as a young teen in Germany. Another favorite memory sha...

  As many of you may have noticed I'm not cooking very much these days. (We aren't eating too well, either.) Renovations of our wonderful old house keep us busy-when we aren't producing or editing for television. Nearing the end of our stewardship of this fabulous house, we are in the final renovations . . .updating bathrooms-adding much needed storage and general re-decoration. One of the hidden pleasures of all this hard work is stumbling upon keepsakes from our travels abroad. This hand-painted champagne flute is a perfect example of a great summer vacation spent along the Rhine River in Germany. After discovering UNTours on Oprah we rented a roomy apartment in Baccarach, Germany. I think we rented our apartment for two weeks-giving us plenty of time to explore, relax and enjoy local history. We attended a summer festival along the Rhine in Bopart, sipped local wines at a 400-year old winery in nearby Cologne and drifted quietly along the Rhine River-experiencing the...

My mailbox is filled with emails from friends and associates expressing anxiety over the current economic "slow-downs" in communities across America. As a small business owner most of my life, even in good economic times the challenge has always been how to stand out in a sea of small businesses and creative thinkers. I strongly believe that my success can be measured by the quality of life I have enjoyed over the years. There have been a few flops, some fabulous successes and then the fifteen or so years in between. I started my first company at the tender age of ten years old. It was a "bread route" on the Wiesbaden Air Force Base Housing in Germany. I remember watching an older kid carrying a bag of groceries for his mom and thinking I could do that. I had access to a wagon. . . I was strong and most importantly I had a captive audience in the housewives not wanting to carry heavy bags of milk, cheese and eggs in the hot sun. I envisioned a new day and enjoyed g...