This is One Thing, a column with tips on how to live.
Here’s a thing that people not living in New York City apartments are welcome to mock: For the first time this spring, I have an actual kitchen pantry. This was no easy feat, requiring a major reshuffling of our stuff around the limited closet spaces on offer, as well as a trying, though cleansing, purge. But it was worth it, because for a while now, I’ve been getting increasingly anxious about not having a pantry, about only having enough groceries on hand to last a week or two, tops, at any given time. I think a lot of people are feeling a similar urge to stock up these days, whether from tariff stress or bird-flu fears or just the instinct to nest and fortify that can arise from times of, uh, general uncertainty.
But unless you’re already a pantry pro or familiar with the arts of prepping, it can be hard to know what to buy besides the advised “canned food and shelf staples.” And if you’re a food lover like me, those things aren’t necessarily the most appealing items with which to stack my newly installed wire shelves.
That is why I will be forever grateful to my mom for introducing me to a pantry-stocking secret weapon with a garrulous name in the Italian style: The Alessi Taste of Italy Holiday Variety Gift Box, Sampler of Culturally Inspired Soups, Risottos, Farros, and Premium Bread Sticks.
Once your eyes stop spinning and you parse all that out, you’ll see that what we have here is a collection of dehydrated mixes for soups and grains that you’re just going to add to boiling water. (Not the breadsticks, they can just go directly from their cute little sleeves into your mouth.) My mom, who along with her husband is often on the road visiting family, mentioned to me once that they rely on these when they get home late and need to eat something quick, but want to avoid takeout. While I myself am not a busy mom on the go, I do appreciate a low-friction, quick meal base that can protect me from the seductions of Grubhub, and so I gave it a try.
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Y’all, for about $45 (at the time of writing), you get this adorable briefcase full of risotto! And soup! And farrotto, which is really just, like, farro snuggled in a light sauce. There are 12 of the mixes (which claim to produce four servings—more on that in a minute), including dishes like Tuscan White Bean Soup, Risotto Milanese Style With Saffron, and Quattro Formaggi Farro, as well as four boxes of the breadsticks. The latter are a fun novelty for adding verticality to your charcuterie boards or stabbing into hummus; the grains and soups, I’m telling you, are actually kind of remarkable.
They are healthier than takeout, to be sure. They are indeed easy and quick to cook, requiring between 12 to 20-ish minutes of simmering time, depending on the grain (this makes them ideal for a WFH lunch), and the timings and water measurements are precise. The wizards at Alessi HQ have taken care to help you get these things right, and when I tell you that the “risotto” actually eats this close to real, stir-it-for-45-minutes risotto, I’m not joking. Not only that, but they all taste really good out of the bag—with a packaged food like this, I take for granted that I’ll need to adjust the seasoning, but these are quite perfect as is, including, amazingly, the salt.
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What you can do, though, is easily add leftovers from your fridge or toss in whatever additional, separately cooked produce or protein you’d like. The Alessi mixes are happy to stand as an excellent backdrop, accommodating your own whims and needs—especially the need to stretch them a little further than designed. And I would say this: In my experience, each bag produces something more like 2–3 servings, so you’re probably going to want to beef them up if you need more. But since you’ve already got dinner two-thirds of the way done just by tearing one open and putting fire to the pot, that’s a much easier bar to clear.
So, if your pantry is looking a little sparse right about now, get yourself one of these boxes. The order need not be occasioned by a holiday, but it will be a gift to your future hungry self—for which the only thank-you note required is an empty bowl.
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