Entries from August 2008 ↓

On the 20th of June we had a romantic dinner in Munich, the place around the terrace was a fusion of modern and old buildings. With two dishes of international cuisine, we decided to drink a South African wine: Shiraz produced by La Motte. It is a renowned winery of South Africa and our first impression of the smell in the glass was amazing. I caught Illy’s glance and she assented. We are talking about a delicious wine. In fact we appreciated very much this wine. It was a little strong, 14 degrees, the color was dark red and the taste was spicy, just everything my palate wanted that night.

Glass after glass we emptied the bottle and I said to Illy: is the bottle volume really 75cc? Maybe less…..

PS: I took a look at La Motte distribution and I found that it doesn’t distribute in Italy, isn’t the web site updated? I hope so.

My grandmother told me you never cut basil with a knife, but you only chop it with your fingers right away into the dish you are preparing, otherwise it will loose its flavour. Also, the best way to keep its aroma is adding it at the very last.
I really don’t know if it’s true or not, but you will always see me chopping basil leaves with my fingers.
That’s why last night I scared Manu to death when I yelled “NOOOOO!!!” when I saw him cutting some basil with a knife, that he dropped immediately, backing terrified and staring at me like someone that just woke up after a nightmare.
I know, I’m sometimes a kind of exaggerated, but I’m a maniac of certain kind of practices and traditions, especially of those that I learned when I was a kid, while helping my mother or my grandmother.
Basil is an herb that is cultivated in every Italian garden or terrace, it just needs warm and sun and it’s delicious with so many summer recipes, even the most basic pasta with fresh tomatoes gets a “royal” flavour when you add few leaves of fresh basil: not surprisingly, its name seems to come from the Greek basileus that means king…

After my breakfast, every morning I take my bag and I move to work, in the center of Verona, by bus. Last Friday everything was quite and the bus was in time but at a certain moment many persons on the bus began to do strange movements. For example a woman in the front part of the bus moved, almost running, to take a free seat at the end of the bus, another boy sat down in a seat in competition with an old madam although she should always have the priority. The humidity level was high and the driver didn’t turn on the air conditioning, is this the reason for this chaos? Maybe. Again, someone pushed a young boy against the window, someone that wanted to stay at the end and others that wanted to go ahead of all to see the street created almost a traffic jam on the bus. It was like 5th Avenue in Manhattan……
I thought, hey Manu this is Italy, in fact I looked out of the bus and many cars and scooters drove undisciplined. In a street market everybody thought it was his turn to pay the check without respecting the line, just like a flock around the shepherd…

Is this a civil country or a big chaos?
Maybe foreign visitors find this behavior very funny.

The Italians are so chaotic but nice anyway…

As Manu’s parents love cultivating salad and vegetables in a small portion of their back garden during summertime, we are also lucky to benefit weekly of a big variety of delicious and healthy products.
In this period we are eating a lot of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, courgettes, cucumbers, French beans, basil, rocket and various types of salad. Besides that, we regularly go to a farmer for excellent potatoes, onions and fruits at very correct prices. Also in Italy we are suffering the big price increase of food and we try to find an alternative to the supermarket, not only saving money, but also gaining in freshness.
That means also that we have to use our fantasy to cook all these vegetables in different ways.
These are some simple and tasteful recipes:
PANZANELLA
This is typical of central Italy, it’s made with some slices of rustic bread softened with few glasses of water. The bread must be wet and soft but not overwhelmed by water. Once made this operation you add chopped vegetables as red onions, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, capers then canned tuna and anchovy. You mix all together seasoning with salt, pepper and extra-virgin olive oil. Leave it some hours in the fridge before eating.
GAZPACHO see previous post
COLD RISE
Cook in boiling salted water a reasonable quantity of rice (we use ‘vialone nano’ rice from our region, but also other varieties are fine for it), after ten minutes drain the water away and put the rice into a bowl adding extra virgin oil, waiting till it gets cooler. Add chopped tomatoes and peppers (and any other variety you like). Add a small quantity of capers and olives, then a diced mozzarella, canned tuna fish and finally basil. Before adding salt, consider that capers are usually quite salted, so you better taste before. Last time I also added some paprika powder at the end.
TORTILLA
I like to give this Spanish name to my omelette, because it’s colourful like those you eat in Spain…
Break 3 eggs (or more, depending on the number of persons) in a bowl and whisk them, then add a half glass of milk and 3-4 tablespoons of flour, salt and pepper and continue whisking till it’s well mixed. Add chopped vegetables as: a half red onion, two medium tomatoes (removing their liquid before) and small green peppers. Heat a medium size non-stick frying pan with two tablespoons of olive oil. Pour the mix of eggs and vegs and level it carefully with a wooden spreader. After few seconds reduce at minimum heat-level and cover the pan. Leave it 10 minutes cooking slowly and check regularly, but keep covered, till you see that the eggs are cooked also on the surface.

GRILLED EGGPLANTS OR COURGETTES
This is a very easy way to cook these vegetables that can be combined with every dish, like meat or fish, but can also be added to a mixed salad. Just grill (you can use also a non-stick frying pan) thin slices of eggplants or courgettes and put them in layers into a casserole. Season every layer with salt, pepper, extra-virgin olive oil and if you wish also some chopped basil or parsley. Ideal is to leave it resting few hours before eating.