Around the room, high shelves enshrine brightly packaged products with names ending in "o" — Stella D'oro biscotti, Polly-O ricotta, Progresso bread crumbs.
So do intensely flavored ingredients like caramelized onions, cheese or mushrooms; extra fat like cream or bacon; and binders like bread, ricotta, mashed potatoes or eggs.
Ricotta in a bread pudding, fromage blanc to enrich a risotto, and blue cheese on pizza or bruschetta are a few of the more innovative recipe ideas.
After a couple of days of drinking negronis and looking at churches, we drove an hour west to Il Granaio, an agriturismo just outside Modica where vast plates of local fruit, ham, ricotta, eggs and bread were laid out for us each morning.
Mr. Coluccio said he seeks Brooklyn suppliers, like Salvatore BKLYN ricotta, Bien Cuit breads, Brooklyn Cured sausages and Steve's Authentic Key lime pies, and will sell fresh pizza dough from DiFara in Midwood.
He can also cook almost anything; a recent spur-of-the-moment dinner featured homemade gazpacho, ricotta figs and rosemary bread.
Sit on the patio and feast on salted sardines, crusty bread with ricotta, capers and tomatoes, and whatever seafood the owner caught that morning.
When tomatoes are warm or at room temperature spoon them over ricotta, and serve with bread, sprinkled with more salt if desired.
WHAT WE LIKE Artichoke hearts with basil and pecorino, ceci bean salad, zucchini with bread crumbs, ricotta gnocchi, pappardelle with Bolognese, garganelli with mushrooms and white truffle butter, rainbow trout, flatiron steak, short rib, panna cotta, butternut squash cake, espresso.
It makes fantastic use of stale bread, sausage, ricotta salata, carrots and spinach, somehow extracting the maximum flavor (and texture, especially in the case of the croutons) from each while blending them perfectly.
