A public showcase where to display a private passion for elegant food, something between innovation and inspiration, tradition and what is inside the fridge. Sharing is the only mean through which solitude, insane competition and egoism may be tamed.
Never present an alarm clock inside a crocodile to James Hook!
When we move from speech as a non-spoken gift - able to map our world - to gift
as present, we may notice a striking
similarity. When we actually are careful about other human beings, suddenly we
became mindful about their likings. Gift
and present, donation, offer and thought, are somewhat all synonyms, yet
each of them declines the idea of giving
according to different linguistic roots and core-ideas: http://www.etymonline.com/
This episode in the Walt Disney cartoon Peter Pan is particularly touching,
because Peter never came across gifts in his entire life, he is a castaway, he does really ignore
the implications of gifts.
Where to watch Disney Peter Pan in English with caption
The gift is a way-of-being we impress on an
object/a gesture/a segment of time; we
have to uphold an accolade so to nominate (and treat) the object as a gift.
A gift should be a spontaneous message, an opening we produce to witness our
care, as concern or joy. Hence, the gift is opposite to violence: violence is
the act of taking what does not belong to us, giving is abandoning something we
posses to someone else without wishing to have it back, which would be borrowing.
The gift becomes the solid manifestation of the being infused in it: it is the
thought we made while choosing the gift itself, it is the Time we devoted to
the gift, it is the relinquishment of part of us we make over to the receiving
person. Moreover gifts are empowered by the surprise effect that doubles the
marvel. Christmas is a tricky momentof the year: everyone, somehow,
expects something, yet one does never know what to expect.
Two products from Piemonte (North West Italy): some apricots in Grappa,
a phenomenal hard liquor obtained by the grape stalks from the Alps & a boar salami from Cuneo, delivered
by Luke a food evangelist!
Pistachio nut creme, to Michelle from Simone: definitely the best choice.
Eataly is a new chain that focuses its attention on "alti cibi", high foods, trying to safeguard prices and quality: http://www.eataly.it/
Artichoke pâté, delicious on bread or pasta: to Michael,
who looks like Matt Dillon at his best!
First Moleskine of my life, from Isabel & John
Heidegger calls the Ereignis the event in which two beings meet together, a sort of
symbolic dialogue between two essences, otherwise not communicating. Ereignis is making something our own, a
process of acquiring for instance the presence of a single tree despite the
dense appearance of woodland. The psychological
evolution of Ereignis is not anymore
just the event or experience of
spotting something and isolating it from the context, but is the advent of a deeper comprehension,
through which we create a bridge between separate unconscious beings – the ring
and the finger thorough love, for instance. This is why gifts create bonds!
So to sum up, the Being is the living
spirit of things, through meditation and listening men are able to awaken this
being and receive it as a gift, which gives us conception. Then, as we gain
this idea of gift - as a natural form of giving -, we can export the mechanism
when we deal with human being’s relationships, where gifts rise to the stage of
symbolic conversations occurring amid responsive senses. Giving is a sign and
motion of constant remembrance, and it is a pity that in the consumerist era – a degeneration of Capitalism – gifts
are degraded to mere objects, commercial entities to feed the void of solitude,
worthy for their prices rather than
their value, idiotic display of power through money. Giving is also
custody: women are averagely better than men in processing and dealing with
feelings and emotions. This might depend on structural factors, such the
ancestral chance of giving birth, and the social aptitude to remain in the
cave, while men were hunting: so whereas men developed a skill based on
renewable sources of pleasure, women cultivated the skill of caring better of
what was already achieved.
Carve a mandarin with a sharp paring knife and let it dry on the heater for one hour
Add the desired chocolates: here Green & Black organic four tastes (butterscotch, white chocolate, dark chocolate and milk chocolate)
Wrap in an alimentary fancy sachet
and secure it with an elegant ribbon:
Franceska, the beneficiary, appreciated it profusely.
Nosiola, a refreshing & fruity white wine from Dolomite Trentino (North-East Italy), perfect as a starter, and Marzipan, a thought to our lovely flatmate Andrea from Frederick and I. Valvona & Crolla never leaves us alone! http://www.valvonacrolla.co.uk/
The incapability of giving is not only a
symptom of avarice and greed, but is fundamentally a misperception of the idea
of relating to others, is the failure of
mutual socialization: these people are accounting as a natural instance to
get from others and not reciprocate, since they underestimate what they receive
and they overestimate what they give back; they take for granted a sort of
warship from the others, because they believe they are naturally sympathetic
and nice, yet they never consider the
importance hidden beneath the gift, they are incapable to see the other out
of their pleasure principle; therefore, they perceive gifts as tokens of a
shared-codified civilization and not as true channels of proximity. When guests
think that it is expected and consequential that I am cooking for them since I
love cooking, they utterly misunderstand the meaning of my welcoming and they
offend me intensely. Fortunately, I daresay, the majority of guests are as entertaining as those language-speak-processing students Frederick invited over for an exquisite dinner, a couple of days ago.
Self-gift: Hazelnut butter, 100% organic hazelnuts and a French organic Orange blossom honey, both from Real Food: http://www.realfoods.co.uk/
Chopsticks-cutlery from my sistaaa!
Another detail of this fab chopsticks.
Caramelized homemade onion relish for Zinga,
who emptied the jar in half a fraction of second!
Speech is an oral symbol, by some means a
tautological paradox. Gifts, instead, are tangible symbols, which lose part of
their effectiveness if taken out from the environment they were thought for:
try to give your mother’s perfume to your father and you won’t achieve the same
exact goal! Speech and language (or gifts) are not the produce of individual
identities, called men and women, but they are something higher than that,
because they aren’t linked to subjectivity, as many would think. So speech is
neither a human activity - as Wilhelm
von Humboldt stated more than one century ago - nor a mean of
expression - as Aristotle used to postulate more than two thousand years ago. Subjectivity is indeed a form
of violence we impose on language: we limit, we enclose, we describe, and
classify according to our momentary need, but we fail severely when we refuse
to make the effort to pierce through the veil of true meanings. Today (27
January) is also the genocide remembrance day, in memory for those millions of people
seen as a form of otherness with no
dignity or status, exploited as derogatory objects and slaughtered:
A torment inflicted to a slave
Spectacles stack in Auschwitz.
Gradual genocide of the North American Indians, there are profound considerations by Noam Chomsky on this subject.
Concentration camp of Bosque Rotondo, USA, New Mexico, 1864.
Let's return to less suffering topics, hoping to cast a light also on the idea of mankind. What should speech be then? If speech does
is not directly a form of representation of Reality, it must be something
different, a dimension of the spirit, a viewpoint and an aptitude toward the
same Reality. At the same time, gifts
are specific units inflated with extra-meaning. Offer a tie to someone who
appreciates only tracksuits and you will allegedly identify perplexity on his
face! This winter holidays have been characterized by a wide interchange of
gifts with my friends: food have been combined with imagination, taste with
elegance. Here are some results:
Portuguese tuna from Carolina
Deer bolognese to Carolina
Pecorino cheese from Sardinia with fig compote for Lou
Organic spreadable chocolate, luxury, but healthy, to Simone
Harrod's tea from Andrea and a deserved wok from Michelle-ma-belle
Martin Heidegger suggests that speech
should be an act of listening and listening up, but to what? Mankind – in spite
of pandering its tendency of seeking for definitions and technical observation
of phenomena - has the mandate to do something else, i.e. paying attention and
let speech speak, so to say. Nature (and for instance dreams) is somehow able
to speak to us even without the implement of words. Our mandate is that of
being attentive, to open our ears and receive the gift of speech. The world, in which we are absorbed in, has its own
voice of beauty that poetry is able
to dig out. When we listen to the inner voice of things, we also actually
develop our sensibility and care of what surrounds us. To make an example, a
natural lake might be a perfect place where to listen to the freshwater waves
and have picnics. At the same time, the same very lake can be seen (by
engineers and scalpers) as a source
of energy and might be latched inside a concrete dam. The landscape will
naturally suffer of this human intervention, unless it is carried on with a
considerate series of criteria, which often aren’t even taken into account. I
offer here four dams examples:
Santa Rosalia dam, Ragusa, Sicily: a low dam well integrated in Nature.
Beaver dike in Canada: it is incredible how they help the ecosystem. They are re-introducing beavers in Northen Scotland as well for this very reason.
Scary dam in Shasta, California, Colorado River: in my opinion this human works should be avoided
Whales (UK), Lake Vyrnwy victorian dam: built in the second half of the XIX century is particularly efficient and well crafted without being too massive.
The nomothetic
act of Adam of giving names to things is the innocent antecedent to what has
become our world, where everything is measured, catalogued and spoiled as a
source of income. In the Greek tradition the passage from ignorance to
knowledge is slightly different and more rational: there is no archetypal man
such Adam. Distinct creators forged in several occasions and of different
natures men, that’s why we have the five ages of gold, silver, bronze, heroes
and nowadays men. Gaia (Earth or the Great Mother) burgeoned out unconscious
men, because of her fertility: whereas Gods are rational Titans enact the emanation
of instinctual impetuosity, they literally emanate a sort of will force.
Prometheus’ allowed men gifts, through which start developing, he showed them
how to stand on their legs, to benefit of gods’ meat leftovers, and to use
fire, which is the chance to direct the light of intellection autonomously
where needed. The fire is the tool through which men were able to cook (we need
fire in a culinary blog!) and to see things plunged into darkness. Prometheus
was a Titan, therefore not a proper god, that’s why Zeus could chain him to the
Caucasus for 3000 years, since Hercules freed him. What differentiates men and
gods is the destiny (mòira), ones are
mortals, and the others aren’t, moreover men can become slaves, because with
death they lost a battle of supremacy.
Prometheus Being Rescued by Hercules by Christian Griepenkerl (1839-1912)
Ring of fire as Johnny Cash sings
Laetitia Casta depicted as Mother Earth
Illumination of Adam naming the animals, Parker Library, Cambridge (UK)
Heidegger suggested going back to a
different form of orienteering into
Nature. We have to reconsider the hermeneutic
circle, i.e. the circular process of interpretation of Reality, as an act
of meditation, expectancy, holding and anticipation. Nature then offers us a gift – that of leading us to the
authentic interpretation of Herself – and through this mirroring, we will be
able to deal better with ourselves and our counterparts. The only way to reciprocate
this gift is that of understanding and feeling how we can actively respond to
our authentic needs and claims: we cut our nails when they are too long, but we
wouldn’t amputate a foot to prevent nails to grow. Then why should we tear down
entire forests, if we can just trim the branches?
Deforestations always made me sad
Reforestation
Cactus gift
Small pots garden tools by the French brand Pylones
Speech is then beyond good and bad – moral
instances are created by language in a second instance –, authenticity is more
connected with what makes us feel better, in a range of actions, which do not
include at all shooting at people, only because we are insane or lunatic.
Things around us are and are not, there is a being dwelling in them - a daímon or character - which could
produce a resonance with the metaphorical diapason
we have inside ourselves: Hottentots won’t recognize Botticelli's works as pieces of artistry! This vibration might be called perception and it is the basilar
quality of speech. Then the development of speech produced language, and with
language we are now able to communicate with others and persuade others.
Nonetheless, this ramification should be subordinate to the first operation of
staying next to things to understand their inner being and to receive it as a
given-gift, not as something we should
ransack.
DeAgostini visual dictionary, how to improve your vocabulary in five different languages
A diapason
Venus' semblant (detail of the Birth of Venus), Botticelli, Uffizzi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
Hogmanay is an
odd cheerful word and so its pronunciation, Hug-mê-nay.
Except for the Scots and some enclaves in North America, this term might sound
obscure. And it may appear exotic both to the English neighbours and to the
linguists, since the origin of the word is still widely debated. I choose it
for a reason. Hogmanay includes several inner sub-traditions, among which that
of exchanging gifts, an idea I fancied since I heard of it: if you wish to
learn more, have a look at
I have to divide gifts in two stems: the private gifts and the public ones. This year I was particularly lucky. It is difficult to receive only things you like, with no exception, and I tried to reciprocate this overflow of kindness with the same spirit! Here, I would like only to witness the experience of the public ones.
Salvator Dali, Sacrament of the Last Supper: incredibly visionary
Last supper, Byzantine Museum, San Giorgio, Venice: a byzantine view
What my friends
and I actually did was simple: each of us had to buy a present, maximum price allowed
5€. In the end, the idea of gifts is that of giving, right? Subsequently, each
anonymous gift was marked with a number and put into a straw basket. Then
numbers were distributed to guests. Far from being a gourmet basket gift, it
was, nonetheless, reach of delightful ideas. And it was truly mirroring the
people who made the presents, since honey soaps and candles were there too,
cohabiting along with origami, chocolate computers and chocolate candies from
Butlers. None of these gifts appeared on Ebay the following days: what a
success! At midnight, we prompted the gift distribution and it was a positive
moment: excitement was fused with expectations and casually everyone received
something matching her/his own taste:
Three weeks
passed already by since my Hogmanay! Three hectic weeks of crossed tasks,
filled of bureaucratic deadlines, study organization, gatherings (few yet
positive) and frantic scheduling for the close future. This is frankly insane:
aren’t we supposed to hibernate during winter? Someone may easily contest me saying this, since what I am describing is the adult life effect. Fair
enough. Yet my perception of these three weeks is sincerely different and
deeply nostalgic. Hogmanay for me is just there, round the corner of Time, so the
logs creeping their whispers in the fire, so the laughter is still echoing, so
the food is steaming and songs and jokes reverberate, as a bee trapped into an
empty box:
Hogmanay this
very year has been intense and new. We were many people, nested in an Apennine
hut on the hills surrounding Bologna, yet already on the hill-slop pointing to
Florence. The house belonged to a different epoch and mentality. It grew up in
height like a tree, and chambers and rooms where on the sides of the main hall
way as branches. Since different families use to dwell during summer time
there, every corner of the house display a unique personality. And again since
these people, connected by various links to the same family tree, infuse new
lymph to the mansion only in summer, people are able to feel a sense of
desertion and neglect:
Donald Duck family tree
Lady Oscar's eyes: nothing can be so blue!
The stars, since
woods and nothingness surrounded us,
were as blue as the eyes in Japanese cartoons. The chill was pretty biting and the
contrast between the fireplace area and the rest of the house procured a
significant temperature leap. Paradoxically, even if we ate consistently - and
even if the food was really the double in relationship to what we needed - at
the same time, it was interesting the way, my friends and I, coordinated the
evening. The majority of us agreed it would have been better to cook all
together. Then someone suggested we shouldn’t spoil all our energies cooking
and we opted to prepare something there and bring some courses from home. The
result was we had to cook there even if we had already a great deal of food
brought from home.
The rolled out dough cut in rhombus
Crescentine
(those that rise) were the Queen of the party. They are made out from a pizza
dough, they have to rise, then you can roll it out in pieces with the rolling
pin, create several rhombus and fry them in lard (old greasy unfashionable way)
or sunflower oil (modern lighter crispier way). As soon as they inflate, you
can take them out with a skimmer and serve them with salami (mortadella,
salame, coppa), ham (cooked or crudo), stracchino (a creamy cheese) or
squaquerone (an creamier cheese), antipasti, and – why not – spreadable
chocolate! How morally corrupt we are!
Frying the rhombus in abundant sunflower oil, using an aluminum pan.
Then we had a
quiche: I brought back from Scotland a Bleu
d’Auvergne, a French blue cheese, which conveys the taste of the Stilton
and the creaminess of Roquefort. Worth eating. Michelle suggested me to add an
egg to the pastry and the result was unexpected. I reduced the amount of water
needed and the texture of the dough turned out fabulous. 200 gr of white
flower, 100 gr of unsalted butter, 1 egg, 20 ml of ice-cold water (instead of
80 ml), and a pinch of salt. All the rest is appearance: yet the idea of the vegetables disposition derives from the animation movie Ratatuille:
Golden, rich, irresistibly perfumed!
Cutting the quiche into a wheel of taste
This was
followed by a courgette and Shetland potatoes omelette, which should have been
a home-made mayonnaise sauce. Unfortunately Isabel could not achieve her aim,
possibly because of the heat of the room and we turned the attempt into an
omelette (frittata), closer, perhaps, to a Spanish tortilla:
4 egg yolks, 2 spoon of apple vinegar, the juice of 1 lemon and salt and
pepper. We had to incorporate the egg whites since they weren’t needed for the
mayonnaise, but it would have been a great loss and a pity to dismiss them.
Not a bad attempt, Isabel! Your food is cheerful as your character
Then, I regret
to say this, in the morning cotechino
with lentils and antipasto piemontese
and oven baked aubergine parmigiana
and a couple more things that I cannot remember.
Here you can find the antipasto piemontese recipe, unfortunately in Italian only! Piemonte is a wealthy italian region at the borders with France, Turin is its county seat. On the other border there is Lombardy, whose major city is Milan. Above there is the tiny region of Valle d'Aosta with the Mont Blanc and below Liguria, where Genoa lays and where pesto is done!
