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.
Don’t be afraid of the title, I’m still
running a food blog and I only wish to explain three concepts today, moving
from this provocative statement. Two are actually good news and achievements I
came across in the past few days. The last one, instead, is a horrifying and
frightful evidence that shocked me deeply. Moreover, Lent was just kicked off by this
reluctant February, which assisted the pope’s abdication. I always find
stimulating that even for non-religious beings, as me, this moment of the year
is invested by a higher sense of dignity: it is very likely that Lent coincides
with the re-birth of the spirit and we feel a natural desire of purification. This is indeed more anthropological than religious, but at the same time Lent works as the taming of an inner dragon:
Saint George and the dragon in Stockholm
Anyways, he fizzy promises
of Christmas somehow demand a fulfilment at Lent. Elena, a friend with the most inspiring andalusian eyes, turquoise as the skis of May and radiant as her own non-encompassable intelligent, introduced me to the laic dimension of Lent. Indeed, lent gives us a concrete
occasion to stick to a precise commitment: no sweets (yes it includes chocolate and donut), no meat (yes it includes Parma ham), no carbs (pizza where are you when I’m in
desperate need? Why you did abandon me?), no cheese (can men actually survive without Brie?), no beer, no coffee (doesn’t the brain switch off without?), no naps (how incredibly long an afternoon
can possibly be?) etc. And now the visual TEMPTATIONS:
Home made pizza: finally I found the recipe
A cheese stack
As Freud would put it: chocolate!
"To strive to seek to find and sometimes nap"
Again chcolate
Prosciutto crudo di Norcia, a must
Whatever might be the causes of our little
transgressions, during Lent we can prove to ourselves something: we possess the
know-how to overpower not just our small forgivable vices, but also the reasons
beneath our irresponsible self-indulgence. We can study our reactions and desires:
we could understand where about yelling yearns come out from and which is the
best strategy to take arms against them. This is not a will power wrestling
against our happiness: it is only a self-denial that corroborates our
knowledge; so to avoid that terrible vicious circle called compensation.
Compensation produces a lot of not-really-wanted goods
Mass production is something affecting
every segment of the industrial chain. Mass production as a unique aim: selling
more, perhaps at lower prices. To sell more we customers have to buy more and
in the most likely of the cases consume more. This whirlpool is literally
destroying the world and the despicable images you are going to see are a
tangible example of the side effect of this immature life-philosophy centred
only on the Present. We have to grow up: so let’s see what shocked me. I only
anticipate it was a rumour I heard but I never believed it was THAT bad! Watch MIDWAY BY CHRIS JORDAN, 4 MINUTES THAT SHALL CHANGE YOUR LIFE:
After this video, nothing seems to be able
to cheer you up and instead there are two commitments: one is called smaller portions the other, at least in
Edinburgh, is called responsible
consumption. Paying attention to our life style allegedly is the answer to
stop the ecosystem holocaust we are perpetrating day by day. I took my
resolution, or - at least - one of many resolutions in a long chain of
thoughts. In 2007, I stopped eating at chains: no more McDonald’s, no more
Burger King, no more Subways, no more Greggs, no more Pizza Hut, no more
Chinese restaurants, no more Starbucks etc. I recognize that there are thousands of people
working in these places, but I also see how easily these multinational food
companies could orientate a better ingredients finding and finer food offer,
BUT they aren’t simply bothered to enact this changing.
He's not me, btw :)
In 2011, I started sticking to respectful
produces, mainly organic (nowadays Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury propose a wide
range of products belonging to the organic family). Nonetheless, from now on, I
wish to stick entirely to the organic philosophy, trying, according to my
student wallet, to server myself at Real Food, Peckham’s, Waitrose, Farmers’
market and Earthy. For many friends, this may sound a choosy, snobbish and
perhaps foolish battle: as Don Quixote, I found my giants, my wind-mills!
I won’t become a
fanatic, I won’t turn the tables, I’ll just try to celebrate Lent throughout my
life. Today I stepped into Earthy for the first time, after Giulia suggested it
to me: the elegance of her person is actually mirrored by the loveliness of the
place. Food is tremendous and the wooden shelves, so relaxing and warm, reminded
me of the golden age when Mother Earth was a sort of self-producing garden.
Thank you Giulia, thanks of this discovery, for letting flowers blossom where
your feet just shuttled.
Earthy food
My
freshly established life conduct somehow resembles Madam Mirbel in Maudit soit
l’amour by Hermine Oudinot Lecomte
Du Noüy, a stunning novel:
Sans être ni belle,
ni jolie, madame Mirbel produisait sur les hommes une impression ineffaçable,
tant la finesse satinée de sa chair faisait ressortir la délicatesse de ses
traits, tant son élégance accusait une science admirable de la toilette, tant
son attitude aristocratique, la fierté exprimée par certains de ses geste,
révélaient la pureté de race et la noblesse d'âme. Elle était harmonieuse et
captivante (chap. I)
The author Hermine Oudinot Lecomte Du Noüy
Madame Mirbel, albeit she was neither
beautiful nor even pretty, happened to provoke on men an indelible impression;
so much the delicacy of her silky skin exalted her features. Her elegance
witnessed an admirable mastery over make up. Her aristocratic attitude and the
dignified essence of some gestures of hers disclosed the purity of her class
and the nobility of her spirit. She definitely was agreeable and fascinating.
So, in the end, I have to speak in defence
of the argument “dimensions matters”! Well, indeed they do, but I find
particularly hilarious that cuisine overturns love-rules and suggests as more
exquisite those indulgencies, which have smaller portions. In Italy we call
them peccati di gola, gluttonous sins so to say, but they
aren’t really sins, let’s consider them as naval tilts to avoid the sea-rocks
of monotony:
A titbit with Peckams' delicacies: matured cheddar, smoked oat-biscuits, Wilkin & sons ldt Essex strawberry jam
The size of a tart I baked for Roberta...
...she loves strawberry jam and so here we go,
with a strawberry tart!
Tiramisu is a worldly known dessert. My Japanese
friend Takuto-san used to call it Tiramis
(which sounded to me as Sir
Hiss in Disney Robin Hood)! Some friends of mine, as David, make it with
Madeira cake (or Pan di Spagna), following a peculiar recipe that has a great
success in Rome. I allegedly prefer tiramisu with lady-fingers (or sponge
fingers, if you please), called in Italian Savoiardi, since their origin is the
tiny mountain region of Savoy, where the former Italian monarchy once had their
household estates. Then we sold it to France…and now it is possibly in better
hands!
Savoy, whereabouts!
Lady (sponge) fingers or Savoiardi
Here you may find the home made recipe of lady fingers
A curious combination of unfortunate events
brings the majority among children in Italy to crave FOR YEARS for Tiramisu:
because of the coffee, it’s an openly a denied pleasure! A solution of water
and sugar – the 0 version - often takes the coffee place and the feeling of
fulfilment is immediately turned in deprivation, mockery, and paternalism.
Once we grow up, we put off denialism and pass through the initiation of coffee and finally even the
yearned tiramisu falls in the hollow jar of our stomachs: this is the 1.0
version. Since decaffeinated coffee in Italy is not really an option, the
society prevents the youth to come across this beverage until your rational
system is well-formed, yet why?
When you keep ignoring things since you cannot achieve,
understand, want to face them
The answer is twofold but simple: coffee keeps
you awake and a. parents do not wish
to tell fairytales until 5 o’clock in the morning; b. the active principle may cause a cardiac arrhythmia. So when
finally we are capable to bear the thrilling effect of coffee we discover that
eating tiramisu at night may cause insomnia or some disturbances of the sleep.
Quite a few friends I am familiar with
cannot actually have coffee since they start immediately feeling tachycardia:
overall my best friend Martina, who drinks tea only. Some others understandably
refuse to have coffee late in the evening! So as soon as we are able to come
across the 1.0 version of tiramisu, many have to withdraw from the competition!
My father, for instance, would never have coffee after four o’clock in the
afternoon and then he will look reluctantly to the idea of tiramisu. This is a
big problem and it increases, when the day after people has to work. I happen
to realize how work - despite
allowing means of sustenance - complicates enormously the way in which you have
to deal with your active and resting life. Is it possible to modify the recipe
without provoking mayhem and revolution? YES WE CAN, AND ITS NAME IS BEERMISU
or Birramisu, in Italian.
NOW WE CAN
Katie™ - an Italo-American friend, fond of
literature and culture, a practical being in touch with spirituality,
adeventure and sport, and who mixes up solely the qualities of both continents,
- once suggested me to replace coffee with an ale beer. At the beginning I was
not really sure the experiment would have lead to a nice result, yet I had to
change my mind. So I choose Leffe, a
Belgian ale I increasingly started to fancy. Despite this strict
recommendation, I am not really into beers. The choice of Leffe was possibly more in my mind rather than on Katie’s lips. In
conclusion, I think the recipe I am about to suggest could be varied and
modified according to taste. Let’s see how the 2.0 version of tiramisu, the
BEERMISU, may come to life:
Leffe in one of its nicest formats
A nice size glass (at least for me, that i'm not
an heavy beer drinker)
Michelle loves coffee, loads of coffee,
waves of coffee, without coffee her soul does not wake up: all this is renowned
among our mutual friends! Yet when she wishes to go to bed early then it
becomes less appealing to indulge in something, which stimulates you your
nervous system.
Michelle in the morning
At the same time is a crime to put mascarpone off just because
of coffee. Is there a solution? It was the right occasion then to try BEERMISU.
We wished to exchange a post-Christmas “hello” with two other stare crossed couples:
Isabel&John and Michael&Elektra. So one of the main ingredients - good
friends - was there! And quite casually, the event took the appearance of an
anticipation of St Valentine’s day, because of the tray!
The most scary and lovely angel
Now the procedure: REMEMBER REMEMBER, the Tiramisu or the Beermisu has to be done at least 8 hours before the meal it's thought for, otherwise the mascarpone cheese won't solidify into the fridge.
Pouring the beer onto the sponge fingers with a wee jug
A fizzy pleasing effect for hears and eyes
Dispose the sponge fingers in the heart tray:
here I was using a Beck's beer.
Dusting the mascarpone cheese with cocoa powder
Decoration: as soon as the cocoa powder will be moist,
you can draw a beer mug on it!
Here are the ingredients:
5 organic eggs
[whisk the whites apart with half the sugar] 500 gr of Mascarpone cheese 120 gr of fair trade caster sugar
[had the second half to the cheese] cocoa fair trade powder
[as much as needed] Sponge fingers
[according to the tray]
I recently discovered that tiramisu was
served in brothels from the ‘700 at least as an aphrodisiac dessert, and the
proprieties of caffeine were hopefully transmitted to the imminent performance. This
said: I think that if your partner is fond of beer, which gives a sweet
delicate taste to the berrmisu, then you may attempt this recipe and see what
happens, perhaps the placebo effect shall do the rest! Happy St Valentine day
to all!
Depiction of a brothel
Beautiful women's street: where prostitutes used to exercise
in Florence
·Mixed organic salad with nuts, vinegar beetroot, organic cherry tomatoes and dried apricots (Real Food) and Robur oil:
·Mixed salad with organic avocado and apple (Real Food), organic champignon mushrooms, roman lettuce (Tesco), dates, dried apricots, organic lemon and Robur:
·Plain basmati rice (Tesco Finest) with Savoy cabbage stripes and Robur oil as a golden necklace:
·Organic broccoli(Real Food) with spelt orecchiette (NaturaSì)
enriched by this greenish Robur oil touch:
·Organic lentils soup with seasonal organic vegetables (carrots, potatoes, celery, red onion), perfumed by thyme and basil, empowered by Robur oil:
·Oven vegetables with
bain-Marie scotch minced meat (Tesco Finest), gently brought to cooking with Robur oil and organic
balsamic vinegar:
Rudimental home made bain-Marie
I let the veggies roast alone and only in the end I added the Robur oil
·Croquettes with cheesy heart
dived into Robur oil that leaves them light and crispy!
·Fried duck free range eggs
with red chilli in Robur oil, escorted by organic Waitrose lettuce and seed
bread:
NB: the chef Michel Roux jr recommends not to use your best balsamic vinegar or your best when the dish has to cook more than a certain amount of time: doing this, you behave irrationally and senselessly. When you roast vegetables in your delicacy dressings, they lose their peculiar organoleptic flavors. My last three experiments aimed to prove that Robur oil can be implied in hot preparations, yet it is certainly better to taste it pure, hence added at the end of the cooking process (with fried eggs and croquettes this is simply impossible!).
In the bain-Marie preparation, the oil does never come into direct contact with the flame and the taste remains brilliant! This said, quality ingredients rarely can go wrong!
Nel post precedente la Storia dell'olio Robur
Osserviamo qualche esempio (da crudo a cotto):
·Insalata
mista bio con noci, barbabietole all'aceto, pomodori ciliegia e albicocche disidratate (Real food) e olio Robur:
·Insalata mista con mela e avocado biologici (Real Food) funghi champignon bio, lattuga romana (Tesco), datteri e albicocche disidratate, limone bio e olio Robur:
·Riso
basmati (Tesco Finest) con striscioline di verza e olio Robur come collana dorata:
·Broccoli
biologici(Real Food) con orecchiette di farro (NaturaSì)
arricchite con un tocco verdeggiante di olio Robur:
·Zuppa di
lenticchie con verdure biologiche di stagione (carote, patate, sedano, cipolla rossa), profumata da timo e basilico, valorizzata da olio Robur:
·Verdure al
forno con carne tritata scozzese a bagnomaria (Tesco Finest), gentilmente portata a cottura con olio Robur e
aceto balsamico di Modena biologico:
Rudimentale e casalingo bagnomaria
Ho lasciato arrostire le verdure da sole e solo alla fine ho aggiunto l'olio Robur
·Crocchette
di verdure con cuore di formaggio tuffate in olio Robur, che le lascia
leggere e croccanti!
·Uova fritte
d’oca allevata a terra con peperoncino in olio Robur, accompagnare da lattuga gentile e pane biologici di Waitrose:
NB: lo chef Michel Roux jr raccomanda di non usare il proprio aceto balsamico o il proprio olio migliore quando un piatto deve cuocere oltre un certo lasso di tempo: così facendo, ci si comporta in modo irrazionale e avventato. Quando si preparano delle verdure arrostite con dei condimenti di pregio, questi perdono le loro peculiarità organolettica. Gli ultimi tre esprimenti avevano lo scopo di dimostrare come l'olio Robur possa essere usato anche in preparazioni calde, ma è sicuramente più saporito in purezza, pertanto aggiunto alla fine del processo di cottura (con le uova fritte e le crocchette è chiaramente impossibile!) Nella preparazione a bagnomaria, l'olio non giunge mai a contatto diretto con la fiamma e il sapore rimane dunque inalterato. Detto questo, con gli ingredienti di qualità raramente si sbaglia!
