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04/16/2001 Archived Entry: "The Best Italian Easter Cake"

Buona Pasquetta. Happy Easter Monday. I don’t celebrate myself, but all of Italy does. It’s a national holiday there, a day traditionally devoted to family picnics. In my adopted city of Naples, it used to be the day people took their pizza rustica, also called torta rustica, and drove out into the country to eat it. Pizza rustica is a pie made with ricotta and various diced cheeses and pork products – dried sausage, sopressata, pancetta, prosciutto, etc. Pizza, as you must know means pie. Torta, as you may not, means cake. It’s all the same.

My dear friend Alison Alifano, a native of Smithtown, Long Island, makes her family’s “Easter Pie” every year with her father. It’s a great Alifano tradition. You can find her family’s recipe in my book “Naples At Table.” I don’t have to make it myself these days because Alison always brings me a nice big wedge. She delivered it to my door this morning. (She lives only two blocks away.) I ate a sliver already, but I’m saving it to savor tomorrow, when I will have more calories to spare.

One reason I have none to spare today is that last night I devoured another Easter treat, La Colomba Pasquale, the Easter dove cake. I don’t like this cake all that much, but I received this particular one from my friend Beatrice Ughi of esperya.com. It was the best Colomba I have ever eaten. So I ate the whole thing, with the help of only one friend.

When I went on-line this morning to learn more about this incredible, irresistible cake, I found out that Beatrice doesn’t really care for it either. That is until she ate this version. But I’ll let you read what she has to say. Click on esperya or the cake name, and perhaps you’ll want to buy one for yourself. It’s not too late, she says, even though Easter is over.