Easter's round the corner...

Easter is nearing quickly (it falls on March 23rd this year), and it's time to start planning. Though customs vary from place to place in Italy for other holidays, lamb is pretty much constant for Easter, and it is the one thing you can be almost certain of encountering at an Italian Easter meal, be it roasted (chops), Roasted (the leg), stewed, fried, or with eggs, cheese and peas, Neapolitan style. Then there are Easter Breads, rich breads with all sorts of additions, which are enjoying a comeback -- there's one on the cover of a food magazine this month -- and there are the classic savory Easter pies, along the lines of Liguria's Torta Pasqualina.

To finish up? You could make a Pastiera Napoletana, the traditional orange-laced Neapolitan grain pie, or, if you want to do something quite different, make Sicilian black rice of the sort that's traditional in Messina.

A few menus:
La Pasqua Romana | La Pasqua Napoletana | Una Pasqua Toscana | An Alternative Easter Eve Dinner | Felice Pesah! | Pani Pasquali, or Easter Breads