Announcing the launch of a new website gallery dedicated to Burgers.

Modular Food™ by Joia is has been an exercise in creating imagery that illustrates just how simple, cool and fun it can be to evolve multiple dishes from a few base products.  Joia™ is a new Hudson Valley-based company with a mission to bring locally-sourced and produced, hand-cut, slow cooked foods back to the table again. This 1+2=3 project was designed using loads of graphic food imagery to illustrate just how easy it is to work with Joia™ through its website and collateral materials. Whether heated and eaten as they are or used to innovate new dishes, Joia Modular Meals™ save hours of sourcing, preparing and cooking whole ingredients into healthy and delicious meals.

To learn more about Modular Food™ by Joia™, visit: www.joiafoods.com

Few things to me can be as satisfying and heart-warming as a few slices of a good salame with freshly-baked, rustic bread and a nice glass of wine. Honestly, does it get any easier, tastier or any more Italian than that?

The biggest issue at hand, as you often read in my posts is about the quality of each ingredient in such a simple preparation. And finding the right ingredient, in this particular case, can more or less challenging, depending on where you live.

Growing up, I was so used to freshly baked bread that I would have never, ever imagined one day it would have become a luxury that I could afford to enjoy only once in a while. We used to have so many great bakers in the small town where I lived that my family bought fresh bread alternatively from three or four of our favorites because each excelled in a particular bread which would influence our choice for the day.  So one day we bought from one baker, and the next day from another but one thing was for sure – we purchased bread daily, religiously. Except for Sunday, when all the bakers were closed. Bummer.

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Expensive I know. Too expensive!

But if you get an opportunity to put your hands on one of these precious nuggets, here are few possible ways to enjoy it.

But first, if you must hold it a day or two before you eat it, put it in a glass jar with risotto rice (Arborio, Carnaroli, Vialone Nano…) or with some fresh eggs. The rice or the eggs will absorb the fantastic aroma and when you cook them, after having consumed the truffle, it will feel like eating truffle again.

White truffle, contrary to black truffle, is not supposed to be cooked with a dish but is thinly shaved, raw on top of it. Above are some of my favorite ways to enjoy it:

• Shaved over raw beef seasoned with extra virgin, sea salt and a raw egg yolk

• Shaved over fried or scrambled eggs

• Shaved over homemade tagliolini tossed in butter and Parmigiano