BUONA PASQUA 2023

 

Above: cassatelle di ricotta and traditional lamb
pies, made by a friend's mother

Let's not forget it's doggy Easter too, so Bertie is enjoying partaking of these treats little by little. The "Canombella" is a word play on cane (dog), Colomba (the traditional dove-shaped Easter cake) and ciambella (a ring-shaped cake or bun) and the "Canova" on cane and uova (egg). Don't worry - the egg-shaped treat does not contain chocolate.

Buona Pasqua

A GOOD YEAR FOR CHAMPIONSHIPS

Italy, as you may have noticed, is having a very good year for championships but you may not have heard about one that has nothing to do with sport, namely the World Pastrycook Championship - La Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie, which the country won, for the third time, in Lyon on Saturday.

Chefs Massimo Pica, a chocolate specialist, Lorenzo Puca, who specialises in sugarwork and Andrea Restuccia, a gelato specialist, were given ten hours to produce a chocolate dessert for sharing, an ice cream cake and a restaurant dessert plus a chocolate sculpture and a sugar sculpture, both 165 cm high. The team executed all these tasks impeccably and I am delighted to say that the chocolate sharing dessert contained the Sicilian ingredient of Tarocco oranges. 

"Nothing to do with sport", I said - except that I imagine the training and preparation must have been just as rigorous for, as a cook, I am exhausted just thinking about having to produce all that in the time allotted! Anyone who watches Bakeoff programmes will have some idea of how difficut it is. Many congratulations, then, to the Italian team and also to their trainer Alessandro Dalmasso. 

The runners-up were Japan, France was placed third and the UK a respectable fourth.

I cannot reproduce the pictures but you can view some here.

MIMOSA DAY

In Italy International Women's Day is widely celebrated and its symbol is the mimosa flower, because it is plentiful at this time of year. Mimosa bouquets are sold in the street, sprigs appear with your coffee in bars and pasticcerie make mimosa-themed cakes like these:

Almost exactly five years after the loss of the woman whose idea the mimosa symbol was, I thought I should repost what I wrote on the day of her death, 12th March 2013. Teresa Mattei has always been, and remains, one of my heroines:

Born in Genova in 1921, Teresa Mattei graduated in Philosophy from the University of Florence and became an antifascist campaigner. During the Second World War she was known as Partigiana Chicchi.  In 1946 she became the youngest woman member of the Assemblea Costituente, the parliamentary chamber charged with drawing up Italy's Constitution, a document which she defended throughout her life.

It was Teresa Mattei who had the idea of making the mimosa blossom the symbol of International Women's Day [8th March] for the simple reason that the flowers are in season in early March and can be obtained at little or no cost. 

Of the potential of women in politics she said,

"Women, in contrast to men, seek knowledge, cooperation and solidarity. They are the bearers of new life. They do not see society as being divided into classes but as a multitude of men and women with the same problems. Women can bring this new spirit into politics, but we have to create the structures that can allow this to happen."

Referring to the Second Prodi Government and its six women ministers, of whom only two had portfolios, she went on to say,

"These poor women can have no influence, because a minister without portfolio is unable to do what a minister with portfolio can, that is, to use a budget to put a plan into action. This is a very serious situation."

I think that first sentence is a metaphor for women's powerlessness all over the world.

Teresa Mattei died in Lari [Province of Pisa] today (12.3.13) at the age of 92.  I'm glad she saw this 8th March and, as she is laid to rest, the mimosa blooms for her all over Italy.

You are not forgotten, Teresita!

ST. DAVID'S DAY 2018

Yes, I've had a long break from blogging, for health and other reasons but I've never let a St David's Day go by without posting and I will not do so now.  So HAPPY ST DAVID'S DAY, wherever you are!

Over at London Town Modica - Centro Linguistico Internazionale we've been celebrating as usual and even the Queen popped in:

Later we decided we needed more cake:

Whatever is going on in her life, a girl needs to keep on trying, so here are my St David's Day nails and top:

Bertie-Pierrine had a St David's Day haircut and is feeling very waggy:

And finally, some St David's Day music. I love this version of The Ash Grove:

Stay happy. Stay Welsh, even if you're not and stay kind!

(SLIGHTLY SICILIAN) CHOCOLATE REFRIGERATOR CAKE

Every cook, I imagine, has a favourite chocolate refrigerator cake recipe and this one, which I came across a few weeks ago, has now become mine. I did add glacé cherries and I "Sicilianised" it by using three different flavours of Modican chocolate (lemon, Zibibbo wine and cinnamon last time). As it is the season, I also added six chopped sticks of the candied orange peel so lovingly made at home or by hand in the pasticcerie here. Go on, try it!

FEASTING WITH AN OLD FRIEND

My friend Carol King, who has recently returned to Sicily, and I decided to celebrate Ferragosto a day late this year, so I kind of cooked her a little meal:

The antipasti included olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh datterini tomatoes, mini sausages, bresaola and Parma ham topped with Grana cheese shavings, marinated mushrooms and - I must tell you about this - watermelon with salted cucumber. My original intention was to chuck the cucumber - peeled, deseeded, chopped, salted, left then rinsed, drained and chilled - into the salad but at the last minute I thought it would be a nice addition to the dish of watermelon. Turns out I was right!  The seemingly small apples around the antipasti dishes are actually azzaroli or Neapolitan medlars, which are related to hawthorn. There are mini-pears as well and they are a fine partner for the cheese.

The main course was grilled chicken salad with grilled nectarines. (Yes, I have a thing for grilled nectarines!)   I marinated the chicken in culinary rosewater before grilling and seasoned it with sumac afterwards. I used the dressing I invented for this recipe. The other ingredients were grilled peppers and rocket leaves.

For dessert, I made strawberry tiramisù and Carol brought along the delicious sweet treats on the right.

Everything on this menu can be made in advance and all you have to do is make the antipasti look pretty and assemble the salad.

HIGH DAYS AND......

Cicara Caffeteria's tiramisù                           Strawberry tiramisù                                 Katia Amore's tiramisù

There are high days, there are holidays and then there are "take me high" or tiramisù days.

Now this most beloved of Italian desserts is to officially get its own day and, just in case you need an excuse to make or buy and eat it, that day is 21st March.  It will be celebrated in 34 locations around the world and is the initiative of Eataly and Clara and Gigi Padovani, who have written a book about the dessert and its history, including the hotly disputed topic of which region of Italy can claim to have invented it. 

I've made traditional tiramisù, have followed Katia Amore's recipe for ricotta tiramisù and Matthew Fort's for a strawberry version, which I in turn adapted into an apricot one.

I'm not brave enough to join in the argument about the origins of the dish - I'm just going to continue to enjoy it!

A SWEET CHRISTMAS

At the Dolceria Primavera in Modica:

Frutta di Martorana can be seen above left and right. I loved the chocolate Christmas trees.

Torrone and cobaita are shown with the liqueur, and various flavours of Modican chocolate are on the right.

There has to be panettone!

 And how nice to see a gingerbread man!

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

All my recent posts have been about food and, at this time of year, why buck the trend? Here's how they make cupcakes at the Liolà:

KNEADING IN NOTO

No visit to beautiful, architecturally homogeneous Noto is complete, in my opinion, without stopping off at the Caffè Sicilia to enjoy ice cream and cake with unusual but delicate and harmonious flavourings so it was good to see their creator, Corrado Assenza, welcoming the remaining contestants of Bakeoff Italia - Dolci in Forno to his city on TV on Friday.

The technical challenge for the contestants was to produce their own replicas of Corrado Assenza's dolce dell'estate which contains, among other ingredients, a tomato gelatine, nectarines in a special syrup, basil, oranges, hibiscus, black pepper, gin and vodka:

Photo: facebook

If you read Italian, you can find the recipe here .

I have usually been to Noto in summer so I can't say I've noticed the quality of its winds but, judging from this episode, they must be rather choosy, for they blew only on the hair of presenter Benedetta Parodi, ruffling it gently while the contestants, also in the open air, sweated profusely.

The television audience was treated to stunning views of Noto while the judges enjoyed slices of Corrado Assenza's creation on a terrace.

You can watch the Noto episode here until 31.1.17.

Now we are all waiting for the final this Friday and I for one will be glued to my TV. I might even try some of the recipes soon but not before I've asked ny hairdresser how to get my own special breeze blowing flatteringly through my locks whilst leaving everybody else alone!

SLIGHTLY ITALIANISED PUMPKIN PIES

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers and friends. I hope you have a great day.

As you see, I've made some pumpkin pies and, though I say it myself, they're quite good!  [And yes, I have been lucky enough to taste pumpkin pie in the US.]  Now, the recipe I trust uses cream and milk in the filling but, as cream in America is thicker than the cream available here, a few years ago I experimented with mascarpone and, with a little [unwhipped] Italian whipping cream added, the pies turned out fine, so that's how I make them every year now.

I usually cook the pumpkin flesh down but this year I managed to find a can of pumpkin purée in Catania.

So here you have them - my slightly Italianised pumpkin pies:  

Buon Giorno del Ringraziamento!

"NOTHING TO BE DONE"

So while you're Waiting for Godot, you might as well eat tiramisù!

Tiramisù at Cicara Caffeteria , Modica

THE ALTRUISM OF COOKS

I've always thought that most cooks are naturally helpful and unselfish, willing, as they are, to share their recipes at the drop of a cranberry and to give tips and encouragement to others. But last Friday, on Bakeoff Italia - Dolci in Forno, we saw a quite extraordinary example:

In this seventh episode of the fourth series, the contestants who had already been eliminated from the contest were invited back for a cookoff in which one of them could be reinstated. They had to make the ever-exacting Ernst Knam's seven-layered torta extreme and the twist was that the contestants still in the competition, not the show's resident judges - Knam, Clelia d'Onofrio and Antonio Lamberto Martino  - would do the  blind tasting. Then the two best cakes would undergo scrutiny from the resident judges. The cakes chosen were baked by contestants called Annalisa and Stefania but neither seemed very happy. After a few minutes, we learnt why; they both felt that there was another cake on the table which was better than theirs and that their peers had made a mistake in their tasting. Obviously, in pointing this out, they had sacrificed their own chances of being allowed back into the competition. Presenter Benedetta Parodi asked the resident judges to taste all the other cakes, which they did, and they agreed with Stefania and Annalisa that the best cake had been baked by a contestant called Bartolomeo.

How nice to see such altruism in a reality TV show!

You can watch the episode here until 31.1.17.

A BIT OF A DO

I'm not known for my monarchist leanings but it would have been churlish not to dress up for the Queen yesterday, wouldn't it?

After all, one has to hand it to the Queen!

And over at London Town, Modica - Centro Linguistico Internazionale, we decided to have a bit of a do. Many thanks to Cicara Caffeteria and Delizie D'Autore.

The Queen arrived a day late because she couldn't fit us in yesterday. But today she popped in for a nice cup of tea and our students had some questions for her.

These included the most important question of all which is, of course, a culinary one!

Buon compleanno, Maestà!

MARSHMALLOWS - ALLA SICILIANA

I had been wanting to make Hope and Greenwood's Raspberry Marshmallows for a long time, but raspberries are very difficult to get hold of here.  Mirtilli [whortleberries] however, are not, so I decided to give it a go with these. On the same day, I found a few raspberries and blackberries in the greengrocer's so added these, too.

Another requirement for this recipe is liquid glucose.  The owner of our local pasticceria very kindly offered to give me the tablespoonful I needed but I wanted to make the recipe with something I knew I could get again, without asking him for a favour.  I had read that good old British Golden Syrup is a reasonable substitute and I had some that I had bought in Catania.  I am glad to be able to report that it worked!

My slices are not as tidy as "Sweet Miss Hope's" but wow, they were good!

FEASTING AND FIREWORKS

The festive season cannot end without my showing you what I ate on Christmas Day, can it?  I was very happy to be spending the day with friends and to partake of focacce, grilled meat, fruit and perfect crème caramel prepared by Neapolitan chef Pino Mainolfi [on the left in the pictue] whom I enjoyed meeting. His blog [in Romanian] is here.  I made and took along my second Christmas cake of the season:

I spent New Year's Eve at home because I was worried about the effect the inevitable fireworks would have on Bertie-Pierrine, whose first Christmas with me this was. She didn't seem overly peturbed - I was probably more frightened than she was, for Italians do not do things by halves - but I was glad I was here with her.

A lot of town councils all over Italy had banned New Year fireworks out of respect for the environment and animals and thus it was in Palermo, Catania, Siracusa and Ragusa, but not Modica. Nevertheless, a nine-year-old child in Palermo Province had to have his hand amputated after an accident with a firecracker and there were 190 firework-related injuries in Italy as a whole on New Year's Eve.  Is it worth it? 

If I sound like Scrooge here I would just like to say that I am outclassed in that respect by Telecom Italia, who managed to send their email bills out on Christmas Day. Now, that should be illegal as well!

TORTA 2015

Here is my 2015 Christmas cake for London Town, Modica - Centro Linguistico Internazionale:

Buon appetito, ragazzi!

PANETTONE FOR A QUEEN

Lucky lady and queen of pop Madonna received a distinctive, seasonal gift following her three tour appearances in Turin last weekend, namely a Sicilian panettone specially made and personalised for her by young pastry chef Mario Fiasconaro. 

Traditionally made Fiasconaro panettoni contain only the finest Sicilian ingredients, such as citrus honey, Avola almonds and Bronte pistacchi and Madonna's cake was "carved" to reveal a sugar sculpture of the singer on stage during her tour.

Madonna's personal chef Travis Dorsey visited the festival Una Mole di Panettoni, also in Turin, to receive the gift on his employer's behalf and is said to have been very impressed, particularly by the beautiful aroma of the cake.  He promised to take it to Madonna's hotel suite so that she could enjoy some "sweet" post-performance time.

Let's hope the lady's health and beauty régime allows her to partake of this Sicilian delight!

AN EXCUSE FOR CAKE

Today Queen Elizabeth II becomes Britain's longest-reigning monarch and at London Town, Modica - Centro Linguistico Internazionale we've got cake to celebrate!

Grazie, Delizie D'autore!

GOING NUTTY

I enjoyed being taken out for dinner on Saturday and took advantage of the occasion to go nutty!

For the main course both my friend and I had fillet steak in a pistacchio sauce and there was an interesting contorno to share. Then my friend chose pannacotta with caramel whilst I couldn't resist one of my favourites, parfait alle mandorle [almond parfait] which was.....well, perfect!