Dear Otea:

What's a combination of flavors on your table as wild and surprising as the combination of patterns you've shared with us?

Cara Mia:

You can stack all the careful cookbooks and lookbooks to high heaven on top of your table. And beside them, there will always be the craving creature who is you!


The perfect combinations exist at the cocktail hour where your body and the world’s body of work can clink coupes in a glorious “cin cin.” Balance is never a notion on a pedestal: It never rests, so long as your own beauty still breathes. Whether color or pattern or flavor, the secret is to let it remain touchable against your fingers and imbibeable against your tongue.


When I’m feasting, I invite my head, my heart, and my stomach to all come along. The fantasy of a candied violet that opens my mind to crystalized prettiness. The bitter chicory that brings my heart back to the rise and fall of my home’s hills. The pink prosciutto sheets that satisfy and satisfy, giving their life to give me more of it. What a delirious gift to bundle this triplet together in a sweet-bitter-silky bouquet!


Play freely with your proportions. If you’re so stuffed with life’s sugared puff pastry that you’ve lost your edges, try a drop of astringent orange aperitivo. Let its brightness create space for you to admire all that exists apart from you. If you’ve gone so deep into the salt of the earth with vine and root, mix your beets with the uncunctuousness of pignoli or aioli. Let the oil and wax relax you into a richness that cushions and coats.


The true art of fritto misto is found when you let the flavors of this world become you—fitting the feast to the skin of your desire, while still getting good and served by nature’s cornucopia of destiny.


Trust that what graces your table has always been invited. Whether by the strange bounty of nature or the strange bounty of your own nature. Reach for all of it with more of you.


Un abbraccio forte,

Otea