My friend Patti is seen here inspecting fresh produce on sale in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. Patti is known for her culinary inventiveness, her imaginative PattiCakes fabled in legend and in song. Why? Let’s just say she offers creative spins on the simple pound cake, enriching the batter with such unexpected elements as slices of fruit, individual fine chocolates (especially chocolates with gooey centers) and much more. Upon the occasion of my dining in her Cambridge, Massachusetts, apartment’s Caffé Patti one evening, she ended the meal with the presentation of a PattiCake, announcing that she was on a diet and would not “partake.” I did. Mid-bite I realized something was amiss. What was in this thing, I asked. She said it was a wonderful new bite-sized fruit she was delighted to have discovered but she didn’t know the name. I asked to see the fruit, and she opened her refrigerator and produced a pint container of yellow cherry tomatoes. Buon appetito.
