The Good Life | Valentina Expressions

Wake Up Your Food | Valentina Cirasola |Author and Designer

26 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ItalianCuisine, #ItalianFood, #ItalianLifeStyle, #ItalianMeatRagout, #ItalianSauces, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

Caffettiera Drawing By ©Valentina Cirasola

Have you ever had leftover coffee in your coffee pot, or brewed coffee you did not have time to drink all to the end? Yes, I did. I drink only espresso coffee and if don’t finish the entire pot, I don’t want it anymore.
Espresso, like any other coffee, to taste good must be fresh brewed or nothing, but I don’t like to throw away good stuff, there is always a good use for coffee. Place it in a glass jar and let it rest in the refrigerator.

At the end of the week, in my house it is time for ragout, generally meat ragout, which will be part of the Sunday meal and one more meal during the week.
Ragout tastes good when it contains mixed pieces of meat, chicken, lamb, pork, beef, sausages and everything of your liking.
All the meat pieces are lightly floured, sautéed and browned on all sides in olive oil. After this first easy step, the meat goes in a platter to rest.
A triad vegetables all chopped up, such as carrots, onions and celery will be added to the same oil until almost translucent, the meat returns to the pot together with the vegetables, simple seasons like basil, thyme and sage, saute’ for a few more minutes, then the ragout gets happy with the addition of any red wine. Let the alcohol evaporate, add two large cans (16-20 oz. or more depending on the quantity of the meat) of peeled tomatoes and let it simmer covered for about one hour. Now is time for coffee. Before the cooking is completed, add one cup of left over coffee not sugared and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes more. That coffee not only will add a higher dimension of flavors to the ragout, but it will really wake up the meat with a kick.

Another application of coffee is after searing a steak. If you want to have some juicy gravy, add left over coffee not sugared after the steak has been seared on both sides and has beautiful grilled marks showing. The coffee will mix with the natural juice of the steak to produce that special gravy, which is so tasty and can be used as a flavor for potato purée. Don’t forget to season the steak after the addition of coffee.

Sweets are delicious with left over coffee. Beat ricotta to a cream, add sugar and cinnamon to you liking, then a half cup of leftover coffee, mix well. Serve in a dainty glass with Italian biscotti, crumbled or whole. It is a simple and super fast dessert everyone will like. Now, this dessert will wake you up and give you the energy for a few more hours of work if you need to. It is a good custom to stop a work activity around 3:00 pm for a little boost.

Left over food always find the way to my kitchen, never goes to waste. What is your left over food that takes different form and shape in your food creation? I like to hear your comments. Ciao,

Valentina
www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian interior designer with a passion for kitchen and cooking.
She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles, but especially loves to design kitchens and wine grottos.
She writes often about food and she is the author of two Italian regional cookbooks available in this site at the Book Page:

Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M
Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts

Also available in various locations:
http://outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna
http://outskirtspress.com/SinsOfAQueen
http://www.amazon.com/Valentina-Cirasola/e/B0031A02H2/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?r=1&ISBN=1432762060

Into The Vegetable Garden | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

22 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #CulinaryTips, #italianCooking, #ItalianTableCustom, #ItalianVegetables, #TenerumiVegetables, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

Tenerumi

How many vegetables people throw away because they are no known, or because nobody has ever shown the way to prepare them? This is the case of the tender fronds at the end the of the squash branches.
In Italy we call them ”tenerumi” and they are quite delicious. It is a very simple type food, a peasant food, the stomach doesn’t need complicated food everyday anyway and they can be presented quite elegantly, if you like.

First, when harvesting squashes, separate the large leaves, which are tough to eat from the small tender leaves at the end of the trail. Wash only the tender lease to get rid of soil impurities and cut them in diagonal to make a chiffonade.

Bring to a boil a pot pull of salted water. Salt will seal the green color of the leaves and they will not turn grey. Boil the leaves for about 10 minutes, take them out of the water with a perforated ladle, but do not drain the water.
In the same water, cook a short type of pasta, such as rigatoni, penne, rotini or ditaloni. Keep it “al dente”. The pasta texture and consistency it is very important for us Italians.

In another pan, sauté a couple of shallots or green onions in olive oil, add a couple of chopped tomatoes, or a basket of cherry tomatoes split in half (I like cherry tomatoes better), cook for about 10 minutes, then add the boiled tenerumi leaves to the sauce and let the flavor combine for a few more minutes. If you like a bit of heat, add some chili pepper to the sauce. Tenerumi have a bland flavor, but that is good too, if you like to keep it bland.
Adjust the sauce with salt and pepper to your liking, mix cooked pasta in it and serve warm with a generous sprinkle of Parmigiano or Pecorino cheese.

This is very simple and healthy version. For a richer taste, it is OK to combine sausage cut in small bites, or pancetta (Italian bacon) while sautéing the onions. Potatoes go well with tenerumi (squash leaves) in place of pasta, or Italian rice Arborio to make a risotto as usual. With or without the starch element, squash leaves are delicious vegetables to pair up with a piece of salmon, or a steak and a nice red wine served in a goblet.

Photo ©Valentina Cirasola

Another type of leaves which goes to waste are the carrots leaves. They are delicious in quiches and frittata, or sautéed first and mixed in a meatloaf.
Fennel fronds are also not understood leaves, they are good in soups, in roasted lamb with peas and/or combined with eggs.

In American markets, I have difficulties finding these kind of leaves, they don’t make it to the shelves of the supermarkets. The solution was to grow them myself, otherwise what it the purpose of having my own garden? Flowers are beautiful, but food grown in my orchard are even better for my health and soul.

Simple and peasant food is the reason why in the past peasants were healthy and rich or noble people had gout. If you want to lose weight go for the greens and not for the shakes! Ciao,
Valentina
www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian interior designer with a passion for kitchen and cooking. She operates in USA and Europe.
She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles, but especially loves to design kitchens and wine grottos.
She writes often about food and she is the author of two Italian regional cookbooks available in this site at the books Page:
Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M
Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts

The Memory Of Food | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

19 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #IrsinaLucaniaItaly, #ItalianEatingHabits, #ItalianFood, #LardAndAnchovies, #LucaniaItaly, #SouthernItalianCuisine

Have you ever heard about the memory of food? If you have ever lived in another country besides the one you live in, or in different ways than the urban life, then you know how food is supposed to taste.
You would remember, or your palate, I should say, would remember a buttery lettuce, the crispness of a radish, the flavorful crust of home-made bread, or how a juicy apple tastes like a real apple and not like a potato.

As a girl going with my family up to the Italian country side was such an exciting event every time and not only because of the winding road around the mountain.
I knew that once we arrived to Irsina in Lucania (Italy), we had left the urban life for sure and entered into an ancient time, where life was very slow and still is, food took center stage in everybody’s day and where people care about what mattered the most to them.
Irsina is a very small town of a few thousand of people including animals, a small Hamlet where my father was born. Nostalgia for his roots brought us to go back there from the city of Bari at least once a month. We knew that besides enjoying my father’s family, we would enjoy the typical mouth-watering dishes of home-made food, wines, breads, sausages and several other food variety preserved under oil or vinegar, such as eggplants, mushrooms, artichoke, peppers, fruit and much more. Most of the food in Irsina is based on home-grown agricultural produce, meats, cheeses, fresh fruits and vegetables, today as many centuries ago.

My Grandfather, nonno Ciccio, was the village artist. Many churches of the village and surrounding towns commissioned him to build almost life-size Christmas characters to fill the Presepe (Manger).The statues were carved in wood and then hand-painted. They represented various people of the village, the butcher, the sheep herder, the doctor, house wives, kids, anybody living in his fantasy.
He built almost life-size wood miniature of villages, animals, houses, street views, fountains, then he placed all the wood characters and filled the scenery of a Manger. They were beautiful, tall, almost real, they stood proud to come alive at Christmas and to be part of the nativity scene.

MateraCorner

Nonno Ciccio used to make trenchers, a rectangular or circular flat piece of wood on which meat, or other food, is served or carved. On the trencher he would serve lard and anchovies, one of the dish of his liking that I have never forgotten. He cut the lard from the prosciutto and sliced it paper-thin. He arranged it on the trencher very neatly and inserted one anchovy fillet between each layer of lard, then he chopped parsley coarsely and threw it on top, a swirl of olive oil, home-made crusty batard bread, a nice goblet of home-made “no name” red wine and we could not wait to sit with him at that rough table to eat that delicacy!
At every meal, in the middle of the table, there was a braid of sun-dried chili peppers and a jar of olive oil flavored with chili peppers. Red wine, chili peppers and home-made food was the reason of my grandfather red cheeks. He was a happy camper! While I am writing, I can taste again that delicate flavor of prosciutto fat mixed with the salty and fish flavor of the anchovies. The balance and contrast was perfect with the acidity of the dark green olive oil of those parts.

Fancy, elegant hotels and farm houses in the South of Italy have revived the trenchers, in lieu of ceramic plates to serve appetizers, munches and some very particular old dishes that hold the aura of antiquity and need to be presented with a bit of choreography.

Don’t be afraid of eating some fat and other food that have fallen out of the fashion. Our body needs all food type and every little piece of nourishment without deprivation. That’s the way to stay healthy and happy, the rest will come by itself. Ciao,
Valentina
www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer with a passion for kitchens and cooking. She operates in the USA and Europe.
She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles, but especially loves to design kitchens and wine grottos.
She writes often about food and she is the author of two Italian regional cookbooks available in this site at the Book Page:
Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M
Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts

Shaken Not Stirred | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

18 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #CordialGlasses, #CordialLiqueurs, #DigestiveDrinks, #ItalianAperitive, #ItalianFood, #ItalianLifeStyle, #SinsOfAQueen, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

Last month of October I had the idea of celebrating the month with several events featuring the Italian Life In Style and bringing some directions for easy, understated and classic style for your parties.

Being a designer with a passion for kitchen designs, good food and stories related to food, it is only natural that I would bring “to the table” the trends to make unforgettable stylish parties.

My trips to Europe, other than visiting family and friends are an added excuse to browse in retail stores and take notes of all the beautiful merchandise, display styles, fill my eyes with colors and overflow my mind with ideas. Invitations to friends’ homes are inevitable when I am there, they are my lifetime friends. Just that in itself is a precious opportunity to study their customs and learn what is going on across the Ocean.

Amaro Lucano

My attention last autumn 2010 had fallen on the resurgence of the after dinner liqueurs, cordials, apéritif and digestive drinks, or “digestivi” as we Italians would call them in our language. Digestive drinks have been used for centuries to help settle the stomach after a large meal that sometimes can last for a few hours. Italians are famous for getting together for lunch or dinner and easily forget time!

Digestives also have the property of cleansing and detoxifying, facilitate digestion, eliminate toxins and at times help reflux problems. They are made mostly with natural herbs, roots, tree barks and spices, infused in a base of alcohol. Due to all the herbs they were originally considered more medicinal to resolve digestive problems than drinks to enjoy. It is recommended not to use them in large doses, because they are vasodilator, only small sips will be favorable to the digestion.

Due to their bitter taste, digestives have had hard time appearing on the tables in the US until a few years ago. We can now find them in upper scale restaurants and in people’s homes along with aperitifs and palate cleansers between specialties. Fruit sorbet will do just that when served after a fish dish and to the contraire of digestives, they are vasoconstrictors and will ease the digestion by lowering the temperature in the stomach.

Alessi

Apéritifs are a prelude to a good meal and often served one hour before lunch or dinner. In Europe going out for an apéritif is a way of socializing with friends or family. It is an occasion to see and be seen, gossip, to show the newest fashion outfit and the best part is that ingesting an apéritif will enhance the appetite.

In order to make these kind of drinking activities even more fun and pleasant, we need to own special glasses. Holding an elegant, or an interesting designed glass in our hands exalts the pleasure, I know it’s a cliché, but we eat with the eyes first.
(Photo right: Alessi glasses)

In my photo on the right, I am showing tasting wine glasses, curved lip side for white wines and regular lip side for the red wines, all in one. On the other side, I am showing the elegant 2010 new glasses collection made by Italian company Richard Ginori, producing ceramics, porcelain, pottery and glasses since 1735. This is pure elegance!

Richard Ginori

In my second book “Sins Of A Queen” I have included a small chapter on glasses to serve with apéritif and sweet wines.

Enjoying the beginning of a dinner with an apéritif and the end with a digestive is surprisingly addictive once you get used to it. Let it happen, shaken or stirred is a choice of style and life and not only good for James Bond. Ciao,
Valentina
www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer with a passion for kitchens and cooking. She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles, but especially loves to design kitchens and wine grottos. She is the author of two regional Italian cookbooks available in this site at the Books Page:
Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity

Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts

Who Says A Salad Must Be Green To Be A Salad? | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

17 Jan 2011 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #ItalianFood, #ItalianLifeStyle, #ItalianSalads, #ItalianTableCustom, #SinsOfAQueen, #SouthernItalianCuisine

Photo-Drawing Collage ©Valentina Cirasola

Who says a salad must be green to be a salad?

Try tomatoes, oranges and black olive salad. Add lot of fresh basil leaves, salt and a bit of chili peppers, if you like a kick.
Don’t forget a few swirl of good quality extra-virgin olive oil, a Leccino oil from Puglia, accompanied with a fresh crunchy Pugliese bread.
This is a salad to first impress your guests with and then to die for it.
Its refreshing, very summery, juicy and very ancient Italian salad.
Find it in my book: Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity.

The book is making people who want to live a long happy life, really happy. Ciao,
Valentina

www.valentinadesigns.com

Author of two Italian regional cookbooks:

©Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity – watch the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M

©Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts

Both books are also available in this site at the Books Page and also in various locations:
http://outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna

http://outskirtspress.com/SinsOfAQueen

Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0

Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Sea-Urchins or First Newly Wed Night? | Valentina Cirasola |Author and Designer

12 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #BariPuglia, #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #ItalianLifeStyle, #ItalianTableCustom, #Octopi, #SeaUrchins, #SouthernItalianFood

Sea Urchin

Fish in Puglia is a sacred saint subject! It is a very serious matter. People eat it at least four times a week and every time is a ritual.
“Il fritto misto”, or mixed fried fish is always eaten with the hands when brought to the mouth is almost like playing the harmonica with the flesh and the bones.

Many fish sauces or broths are always used as condiments to pasta or rice and the fish cooked with those sauces becomes the second course, this way the preparation time is well spent and we have two substantial dishes at once. It is also a good way to save money on food. Pugliese cooking is today, as it was in the antiquity, a frugal cuisine.
One characteristic aspect of the fish in Puglia is the ritual of eating it raw on the bank of the Adriatic Sea.

In Bari, there is a place called: “N-Derr’a La Lanze”, a centre of the mariners’ life of the old city, where fishermen leave their boats to rock on the calm waters of the port and where they sew their nets and curl octopi for hours. Curling octopi it is a spectacle to see! It is an ancient practice that goes back to the late 1500’s and is only done in Bari.

The City Council governing Bari in the 1500′s established that the curled octopi had to be sold in a roll of one Kilogram at the price of 3-1/2 grain, which was the money value at that time. The curling serves the purpose of tenderizing the octopi, which then will be eaten raw with only a glass of white wine and a piece of fresh country Pugliese bread.

Much seafood, or as we call them “frutti di mare” are eaten raw, such as sea truffles, mussels, clams, razor clams, oysters, sea-urchins, smelt fish and others found in the Mediterranean Sea. Sunday meals especially are not complete without seafood.
We have an old Barese saying that goes: “It is better to eat sea-urchins and seafood than to consummate a first newlywed night”. In other words, sea-urchins are only good when they are freshly caught, retaining briefly their color and taste of the sea, but marriage, when built on solid foundations, is always there.

Please forward this article to anyone you think might be interested in reading it and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Thank you. Ciao.
Valentina
Visit the designer: www.valentinadesigns.com

Come Mia Nonna–A Return to Simplicity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M
Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts
Available in this site at the Books Page and also in various locations:
outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna
http://outskirtspress.com/SinsOfAQueen
http://www.amazon.com/Valentina-Cirasola/e/B0031A02H2/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Robert Taitano, a friend and business associate of www.wine-fi.com says:
“Valentina – an International Professional Interior Designer is now giving you an opportunity to redesign your palate”.

I Survived A 13 Courses Dinner | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

02 Jan 2011 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #italianCooking, #ItalianCulture, #ItalianEndOfYearDinner, #ItalianFood, #ItalianKitchen, #ItalianTableCustom

New Year’s Eve in almost every Italian homes is like history repeating itself. A 13 courses Lucullian dinner awaits to be consumed. Soon after Christmas people start planning their New Year’s Eve, whether it will be in a club, restaurant, or at home with family and friends, the end of the year is an important day of the entire year. It is a common believe that whatever one does on that evening and the first of year, one will do it for the rest of the year, therefore no crying, no paying bills, no arguing, only cooking, eating, laughing and spending a pleasant passage into the new year.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

The street markets and stores stay open at least until 5:00 pm for those who need the last few ingredients, or to find the last-minute outfit for the evening.
The people who stay at home to celebrate with their loved ones, end up cooking all day long. It sounds like an awful stressful activity to do right at the end of the year, but in reality Italian people love to cook in company of other people and even with their guests. Lot of laughter and camaraderie goes on during the cooking and that is one of the many reasons food in Italy taste so good, we make them with love and pleasure.

It is customary at lunch to have a small snack of vegetables and a fruit, but at night the New Year’s Eve dinner is an act of culinary cleverness and serious professionalism. The dinner table is well set, but not overly decorated with useless stuff, the food will take a center stage on the table of this evening.

Orange Appetizer

The dinner for this special night consist of 13 courses by tradition, one for each month of the year and one more in honor of the new coming year. It seems a whole lot of food to brush off in one night, but starting at 6:00 pm when everybody sits down at the table, until midnight when the champagne bottles pop, there are six hours of nothing but food paced with intervals and slow enjoyment.
It starts with many antipasti of different kind, but a mixture of raw and shell-fish is the king for this night, as it is for all the eves before an important holiday.

The evening continues on the note of fish. Any type of pasta with any fish sauce is served as a first course and grilled, fried or baked fish as a second course.

Olives and savory munchies fill the table to help passing time between those courses which need to be cooked fresh on the spot, to encourage conversation and wine drinking. In some families between the first, the second and third course, it is customary to pass a small portion of lemon or orange sorbet as a palate cleanser. What a delightful and fine dinner practice!

After the most important part of the dinner is served, all the minor plates will be parading such as, fried vegetables, fried puffy dough, food preserved under oil or vinegar, dried fruits and nuts, fresh fruit, typical regional home-made sweets and cookies, along with the store-bought sweets.

One specialty must never be forgotten before midnight strikes and that is cooked lentils with a swirl of olive oil and basil leaves. The popular belief is that each lentil represents money, more lentil a person can eat, more money that person will make. Needless to say we consume a large pot of lentils every end of the year just to wish ourselves a good financial stability.

At midnight the champagne is popped, kisses, hugs and laughter fill the air, accompanied with panettone, a typical Italian sponge cake sometimes filled with chocolate, sometimes with champagne cream, or tiramisu’ as I like, or candied fruit.

The 13 courses dinner is over after midnight, but the night is young and it is the first day of the new year. Outside, people shoot fireworks from their balconies and windows. It is important to welcome the new year and celebrate it any way people can. If people celebrate this first day, they will be celebrating many more times during the year, so the old folks saying goes. Then at 5:00 am in the streets is time to taste freshly made croissants, hot from the baker’s oven with a warm frothy cappuccino to fight the cold temperature of this winter night spent in boisterous festivity.
Buon Anno, Happy New Year to all and peace in the world.

I would love to design your kitchen and show you the way to comfort and good cooking through a functional space. Contact me, I am at your service. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.Valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer in business since 1990 with a special passion for kitchens and cooking. She operates in the USA and Europe. She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles, but especially loves to design kitchens and wine grottos. She also the author of two Italian regional cookbooks available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

The Table Is A Lady | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

25 Jan 2010 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #HowToDecorateTips, #ItalianLifeStyle, #MiseEnPlace, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor, #ValentinaInteriorsDesigns, Tablescape

In my Italian culture, the table has a masculine connotation when is used for various tasks: paying bills, writing personal notes, rest all the groceries that are waiting to be placed in cupboards and fridge. This is the case when the table is called “il tavolo”.
A curious thing happens when the table is dressed up for food, meaning for breakfast, lunch or dinner, suddenly it becomes a feminine genre and it is called “la tavola”.

This is my observation: In every part of the world, when a woman is invited to go out to a restaurant, she gets well dressed up and prepared for a few hours of fun. Is it for the respect of food, or for the person who invites her, I don’t know…? Perhaps it is only the anticipation of the simple pleasure of tasting food, smelling the aromas and flavors paired with good wines, while resolving life’s problem at the same time. I think that the answers to most questions in life are generally found around a dining table.

Ever since Roman times, food have been the special occasion to be invited to, breaking bread with people meant then, as much as it does today, to be trusted enough to be part of the host’s special circle. Even though the Romans ate half laying down on the “triclinium” a type of chase long, their low table in front of them was highly dressed in the fashion of the era and the guests had to appear in elegant attires. Think about the great holidays of the year and how much efforts women take to dress up the table. The purpose of that is to show off the food and enhance the flavor with the decorations on the dining table and all around it.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

We eat with eyes first; a golden roasted Thanksgiving turkey would not look good if the dining table was not well dressed, right? For the holidays, I arrange tablescapes for my Clients and I teach others the secrets of a well balanced decorated table, just so the pleasure of being seated with nice people, eating and conversing can be prolonged well into the day. A decorated table also has the property of limiting calories, because it dictates a slow pace of eating, induces conversation, people diverge their attention on life matters and food becomes the way to a general pleasure and not the center of attraction.

On the contrary, when people eat away from the table, on their lap by the T.V., on the floor, on the sofa, they tend to eat more and until their favorite show is over, they have ingested an enormous amount of food, damaging themselves day after day. Driving, eating and drinking is the worse, as the attention is somewhere else and not on the road. At night, before I retire into my sleeping quarter, I prepare “la tavola” for the next day breakfast: tablecloth, which changes according to my mood, a scented candle to be turned on in the morning, place settings composed of plates, cutlery, cloth napkins, a coffee cup turned upside down on its saucer and the book I am reading at that time. I want to ease into the morning with a calm and quiet beginning, treating myself to comfort and beauty, accompanied by the sound of classical music and the fresh food I will prepare on the spot. My lunches are always sitting down for about an hour. I never work through lunch, or eat at my computer. Dinners are the delight of my every day, a relaxation time cooking familiar food and enjoying again a dressed up table for the evening.

I don’t eat at the Queen’s table everyday, but I want to be the Queen at my table each and every day. It’s the good life!

Please forward this article to anyone you think might be interested in reading it and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Thank you.
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior and Fashion Designer, working in the USA and Europe. She combines well fashion and interior in any of her design work. She loves to remodel homes and loves to create the unusual.
Author of the book: ©Come Mia Nonna–A Return to Simplicity on
Amazon http://goo.gl/xUZfk0 and Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
Author of the forthcoming book on the subject of colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors.