Italian

Start with a radicchio and watercress salad tossed with Sherry vinaigrette, and pass crisp semolina rolls with the pasta. Wrap up the meal with chocolate-covered biscotti, assorted grapes, and some good brandy.

(BRACIOLE DI VITELLO AL ROSMARINO) Romagna is famous for its grilled foods, and the aroma of meats sizzling over a wood fire is common in the countryside. Try this with a local dry red wine such as Sangiovese di Romagna or Gutturnio.

The traditional dish of Trapani.

A light and pretty treat with intense fruit flavors.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

A rich, earthy first course or side dish.

Sweet and tart at the same time, the compote is spooned atop creamy chilled custard for a satisfying Italian dessert.

Here's an easy granita (a grown up snow cone). If you like, top it off just before serving with a diced melon salad made from cubes of cantaloupe, honeydew, and watermelon that have been tossed with a bit of sugar and thinly sliced fresh mint leaves.

Mint and capers grow everywhere on Sicily, and anchovies are always available. Here they enhance another island crop: artichokes.

This surprisingly rich-tasting custard has much less fat than the classic version made with egg yolks. In another twist, we call for vin santo instead of the conventional choice, Marsala.

The extra-virgin olive oil from Countess Lisa-Contini Bonacossi's estate is a favorite of mine and an important element in Lisa 's great cooking. She has an easy going style, changing recipes according to what's in the garden and larder, and is hard to pin down about quantities. Lisa slices her zucchini with an electric meat slicer. I use the 3-mm. blade of my food processor to slice by hand, not with the machine. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Lemon juice is an integral part of this classic dish. Choose the smallest clams possible, and make sure not to overcook them.

Just serve any of these dishes with a salad and some bread and you've got an easy, complete meal. You can find good-quality prepared pesto in the refrigerator section of your supermarket.

Ciro Verde of Da Ciro restaurant in New York makes great thin, crispy-crust pizzas. One Saturday at i Trulli restaurant Ciro gave us a pizzamaking lesson. He told us how he had learned to make pizza in Naples and gave us pointers on how best to use a wood-burning oven and how to improve our technique. A highlight of this session was Ciro's recipe for this tasty pie stuffed with robiola cheese and drizzled with truffle oil, which he claims to have invented. First, the dough is flattened with a rolling pin to elminate air pockets. Then the dough is pierced with a docker, an instrument that punctures the dough and helps to prevent it from puffing up too much in the oven. The flattened disk of dough is baked without any topping. When it is partially done, it is removed from the oven, split in half, and spread with cheese, then baked a second time until brown. Just before serving, the pie is drizzled with truffle oil. Since it is so rich, we like it best cut into wedges as an appetizer. Robiola is creamy cow's milk cheese. Soft fresh goat cheese is a good substitute. If you don't have truffle oil, which is available at many gourmet shops, the pizza will taste great anyway.