Basta!

Here's a New York Times article by one of my favorite cookbook authors, Mark Bittman. It's about a vegetarian restaurant -- known for rich, luscious meatless food -- in Nice, France, called Zucca Magica. Of the two Italian owners, Bittman writes:

Ms. Bolmida is from Turin, and her husband, Mr. Folicaldi, is from Rome, where they met. Their vegetarianism evolved slowly. “When I was growing up,” Mr. Folicaldi said to me, in a combination of French, English and Italian, “we ate meat, meat and more meat.” To hear him tell it, he first became tired of eating it. Then he met Ms. Bolmida, and the two became self-described animal lovers. Finally, he says, “We said ‘basta!’ to trying to pretend the slices did not come from a nice little pig.”

With the article is a fun video of Bittman making a dish he learned at the restaurant, chard stuffed with risotto.

I haven't made that one yet, but I've already made this recipe (twice) that I heard on the radio show The Splendid Table on Saturday. I used haricots verts instead of asparagus. On the show the author, Sally Schneider, said you could make it with just about any base for the egg -- from vegetable to starch. Simple and delicious!