Entries from August 2008 ↓

Last Saturday, August 9th, my parents and my sister went here for dinner to celebrate my birthday. Illy prepared a nice dinner based on octopus, sea bream and fresh salad from the back garden. All accompanied by a Franciacorta wine Barone Pizzini Brut. It was already the second time that I tasted this wine and I appreciated it.

The smell of this Franciacorta was elegant, mellow and the taste had notes of flowers and ripe fruit but the main impression was on the palate, it was creamy and persistent like any good wine.

Over again we confirmed our opinion that the sparkling wine of this region is excellent.

Coffee is an important element of any Italian’s life. We are worldwide famous for our espresso, moka and cappuccino, which have been exported and proposed in many versions at Starbucks or made popular and trendy by the famous Nespresso advertising and stores.
But what does coffee mean and represent for Italians in their daily life? Coffee is for us not only a drink, coffee is a ritual, is a break during the day, a social moment, a digestive drink after a meal.
Today I will start talking about Moka, which represents the traditional home made coffee, prepared with the coffee maker of Bialetti, the famous brand with the man with moustache. There are copies and adaptations of the moka maker, but believe me, the best moka coffee is still the one made with the original aluminium pot of Bialetti called Moka Express.
In every Italian house you will find a moka maker. There is something ritual in preparing coffee with it. In our homes the aroma of fresh made coffee is the first sensation of the day, it has something cosy and comfortable in it, it’s the smell that announces a new day, the signal for the late sleepers that it’s time to wake up, the conclusion of a family meal.
I think the aroma of coffee prepared with a moka maker is particularly strong because it’s not a filtered coffee with water passing slowly through the powder, like with percolators. Here we pour cold water in the lower base, then put the aluminium filter inside and fill it with coffee powder. On top of it we screw the upper part, which has a thin aluminium pipe inside. Through this pipe we get coffee once the pressurized boiling water comes up thanks to the heat of the flam (we use gas cookers), passing through the filter. It takes only few seconds for coffee to come out and fill the upper part of the pot and during this operation a delightful flavoured steam spreads in the kitchen and in the whole house.

Moka coffee is served in small cups, purists drink it without adding sugar, but personally I prefer it with some sugar in it. And for my breakfast I add to moka-coffee some milk, that I separately warmed up: this is served in a bigger cup and it’s called caffelatte (literally: coffee-milk). In this case I don’t add any sugar.

Yesterday it was my birthday. I consider it just as another day during the year but it was a good opportunity to have a nice dinner with Illy. For this special event we chose a menu easy to cook and really delicious: salmon with rice and fresh tomatoes.
The recipe is easy to prepare, we put the salmon in a casserole and we added olive oil, salt, chives and hot chilli on it. Finally we cooked the salmon in the oven for 25 minutes.
And this is the result:

We think that each dish needs a decoration before serving on table so we prepared the rice and 2 tomatoes cut in slices. Simple ingredients, quickly prepared and nice also to look at…

An Italian white wine from the south of Italy with strong smell and aromatic taste completed my nice birthday dinner.

This recipe is my suggestion if you don’t have any idea for dinner.

Something we have in common is that we are both incredible planners. We need to have our lives under control avoiding unexpected situations. Sometimes we say ‘What are we going to do this weekend? Let’s relax without planning anything’. Well, this is also a kind of planning for us.
Anyway, planning trips is normal for everybody, especially when you need to book planes and hotels in foreign countries or for a business trip. But in some cases it could be possible to leave without planning too much, for example when you do a trip by car and you have enough time available, you can also allow yourself to indulge on some details and to decide at the last moment.
In fact, we have different points of view regarding planning a trip.
For me the priorities are:
- what to see (cities, amenities, villages, art, etc.)
- where to sleep (I’m very selective regarding hotel rooms and especially bathrooms, which have to be very clean)
- what to eat and drink, where to shop
As I have a bad sense of orientation, I automatically forget to think about maps. I always think ‘Oh, we will find it, it’s easy!’
On the other hand Manu’s priorities are:
- where are the places to see
- where are the places to sleep
- where are the places to eat, drink, shop
- where is the closest hospital and which are the emergency numbers of the country (police, firemen, ambulance, etc.)
He accuses me of approximation (which I call “optimism”) and I accuse him of pessimism (which he calls foresight).
So, do you want to know what usually happens? Manu prepares dozens of different maps based on the places that I have selected. If we have to move somewhere walking, you will see me watching around unaware of where we are going and Manu with the map in his hand giving directions (and always exact ones!).
If we have to move by car and Manu is driving, I sit with dozens of maps on my knees and when the moment comes that I have to give him directions I first give very assertive instructions, then I start losing my sense of orientation (but still without confessing), then I start to panic, turning the map trying to find North, West, South… At this phase we are already on the opposite side of where we should be and in the middle of a big fight inside our car. Maybe it’s time to give up and admit that we need a car navigation system?