Liguria

I think any Genoese recipe is bound to be interesting, and this simple spinaci alla genovese recipe doesn't disappoint. For starters, it includes golden raisins and anchovies!

That's not as weird as it sounds. A lot of Italian cooking uses anchovies as a seasoning, in small quantities; it's way more interesting than salt! And the golden raisins are also used in a lot of northern Italian recipes, along with pine nuts and various spices, all thanks to the region's medieval dominance of Mediterranean sea trade from the Orient. Venetian cuisine is equally fascinating.

This is the classic partner  to Pansotti, a traditional Ligurian ravioli filled with Preboggion (a mix of herbs of the Italian Riviera). We can't get that, so I had to use a store-bought spinach ravioli. But the Walnut Sauce is the star of the show... I saw a few recipes, and this one from the charming blog A Small Kitchen in Genoa looked really good. 

It was certainly easy enough. I made only two changes: she calls for fresh marjoram and I substituted the more readily available (in Massachusetts in April) Oregano, and she skips the common step of soaking the walnuts in boiling water (which I did, without the unnecessary step of rubbing off the skins). 

So we had this with spinach ravioli, and it's not Genoa, but it was still mighty tasty!