gennaio 22, 2010
Since my cousin Marghe gave me this wonderful book Cupcakes, small luxuries for your palate, by Luxury Books, I can’t help! I keep on leafing through it, looking at it, admiring it, dreaming on its glossy pages, running my fingers over the vintage cover, gripping the book in my hands as it was a treasure!
Every recipe is so interesting, but there was recipe… it has been love at first sight: clementines! This year I’m really victim of a clementine addiction, I used them everywhere, from Jamie’s clementine curd to a salad with fennel, clementines and block olives…
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Posted in Books, Dessert, Fruit, Muffins & Cupcakes 
8 Comments »
gennaio 20, 2010
As promised, here it is the perfect match for last week capon braised in tomato: cardoons, or, as we call them in my area, gobbi. Now you can find them quite easily in whatsoever supermarket – even in my town supermarket, not the best furnished shop in the world! - but in the past farmers made them working directly on an artichoke plant, taking away new sprouts. New artichoke sprouts could be cooked, if tender, in an omelette or a flan.
At the end of summer, the sprouts left on the plant were wrapped in a thick yellow paper and tied up, let grow in the dark, so that they remained white. Winter time is the perfect season to eat cardoons!
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Posted in Eggs, Italian Recipes, Second Course, Tuscany, Vegetables 5 Comments »
gennaio 18, 2010
#Pink# I’m not talking about one of the most popular Aerosmith song (even if I love it!) but I’m referring to the colour: it’s quite easy to understand that I love pink, you can tell it from my blog layout, isn’t it? Yesterday I was feeling like muffins, and I wanted them pink! I decided to use an Egyptian Hibiscus tea, a gift from a friend for Christmas. This was the first time I have made Hibiscus tea: what a wonderful aroma and colour!
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Posted in Dessert, Muffins & Cupcakes 8 Comments »
gennaio 15, 2010
Christmas has already gone, it seems like it has been ages ago (is it the same for you? I feel like I’ve been working for months, already). If I look back I can see a mosaic made of images and lights: Christmas boxes, giftrapped and dolled up, trees and butcher’s broom, mistletoe, Christmas sweets, snowflakes and Santa Claus. This is my Christmas imagery since I was a child, since I used to be mesmerized by Coca Cola advertisings.
Recently, I was in a memories mood, so I asked Grandma how was her Christmas time, and I discovered the simplicity and the value of people able to appreciate little happy moments. She told me that children used to receive gifts just for the Epiphany (la Befana, 6th of January), and it was all about sweets, toffees and oranges. I can barely figure out the suprise to find, in a cold and foggy winter morning, an explosion of colour and smell, an orange rich and flavourful, something to tickle your eyes and your heart. They didn’t use to trim the tree: they only made the Christmas crib, they went to the Mass on Christmas morning and they used to eat capon braised in tomato for lunch, with cardoons as side dishes. This used to be my grand grand father favourite dish!
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Posted in Italian Recipes, Meat, Second Course, Tuscany 6 Comments »
gennaio 11, 2010
Here I am after a great weekend at the seaside with my friends in Liguria. Once more I’ve had the proof that simplicity is fundamental and amazing! Whatsoever context you are examinig, you only need a few ingredients to make the recipe work. Fists quality ingredients, a simple and essential recipe, a pinch of magic… and the result could really leave you without words! This is true for Saturday’s fish recipes, for our weekend spent in between food, laughs, pictures and friends… and for this marmalade recipe, made just with sugar, lemons and vanilla.
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Posted in Books, Jam & Marmalade 6 Comments »
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