We are all talking about Christmas lunches, dinners, gourmet gifts to impress people we love, chocolate afternoon treats in front of the fireplace, lit by the lights of the Christmas tree and the flames of the fireplace. But what about breakfast? This year I want also an lavish Christmas breakfast, slightly different from the usual milk and cereals, soft and fragrant.

I want to start greatly the day that for me is one of the most exciting of the year with a soft tiny cake, whose flavours and fondant heart remind the typical Sienese ricciarelli. This is a very special tiny cake, where the lager beer gives a light malty aroma.

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My granddad Remigio used to walk with a cane, more for habit than necessity, and often waved it like Charlie Chaplin. He also had the same funny walk, and loved to wear his hat at a jaunty.

Once in a while, when mum was at work, I spent an afternoon with him in San Gimignano. Our main activity was going to the park to pick up the pine nuts. The park was right outside the city walls, with gravel paths surrounding the shady flower beds and big pine trees, huge.

Now the park is unfortunately different, they cut down my huge shady pine trees, but if I close my eyes I can still hear the gravel crunching under my child feet, and the balsamic smell of the pine resin, the birichicchero, as my granddad called it.

After the walk with my eyes pointed down in the winding gravel paths searching for the tiny precious gifts, I sat in the entrance of my granddad’s house, on a marble staircase, and opened the pine nuts with a small hammer that he kept just for us grandchildren. The hammer blows, a bit insecure, roared into the hall and the pine nuts shells flew everywhere.

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I received a gift. I was living one of those moments in your life when you need to find a goal, something to commit for, something so important to deserve sacrifices and long hours of work. I wanted to find out who I was, I wished to be able to define myself through a dream. In that moment, a few years ago, my passion for food, Tuscany and writing lighted up and showed me what was meant to be made.

I realized I had received a gift, I had been living for my whole life in the Tuscan countryside, one of the most beautiful areas of the world. I could share this passion, the love for my region and for our food and our traditions. That could be the goal I was searching for in the past, that could be the reason that would lead my actions, giving a meaning to my everyday life. This will be my job from January, I couldn’t ask for a greater gift than passion!

This was the ultimate gift, this is the first mental image I had when Gloria asked us to talk about gifts for the Italy blogging roundtable. Don’t miss, on the 14th of December, the posts about gifts written by Gloria and by the other participating writers, Alexandra from ArtTrav, Jessica from Why Go Italy, Melanie from Italofile, and Rebecca from Brigolante.

This said, I am also a material girl and I adore simple gifts, received and made. I love the rustling of decorated paper, untying glittered ribbons or wrapping home-made gourmet gifts with care and imagination for my dear ones and friends. Read the rest of this entry »

Those who know me now does not understand how I could have been such a picky little girl as a child. Unfortunately my skinny season lasted only up to 5 years old, when, after the tonsils operation, the enticing world of tastes and smells of the kitchen unrolled in front of my greedy eyes, turning me into a constant seeker of the most tasty and appetizing titbit, often even at the expense of Claudia.

She was born nine years after me, she was picky as a baby, lazy in eating and she really didn’t need much to feel full. I was different: every time it looked like I hadn’t eat for a week, and often – I am almost ashamed to tell you this – I used to keep a look-out for what she left in her dish, because ’Grandma she has finished, right? She’s not hungry any more, isn’t she? ‘

Grandma and Mum did their best to cook things that Claudia might like, to mark at least once a circle on the calendar, a prize for the rare days when my little blonde sister finished all the food in her plate (maybe those were the days when I was not at home). Read the rest of this entry »