The Good Life | Valentina Expressions

I was in the old far West | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

26 Jul 2017 4 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #HistoricalWoodsideCalifornia, #WoodsideCalifornia1800s, #WoodsideCaliforniaGeneralStore, #WoodsideGeneralStoreMuseum, #WoodsideSequoiaTrees

On the way to my friend in Woodside, California, I got lost in the hills, went around and around to find my way out, instead I stumbled in this little gem hidden among the sequoia redwood trees. Being the curious person I am, I took the time to browse around and found a pleasant surprise. This is the general store of rich Woodside area, where many American wealthy entrepreneurs of the late 1800 and the roaring ’20s lived.
Woodside was originally home to native Ohlone tribe. In 1769 Spanish explorers led by Gaspar de Portolá spotted the site while searching for an area where to camp the troupes.

Going to the General Store in Woodside, now a museum since 1947, one has the impression of stepping back in the old far West of the gold rush. Redwood trees surround the rugged area, the same wood which in the 1800 supplied the booming construction industry in San Francisco.

Dr. R. O. Tripp and M. A. Parkhurst built the General Store in 1854 and soon became the center of the town where notable families of the era attended their daily businesses. It operated as a general store, United States post office, dentist office, a stagecoach stop, a bank with the only armored safe in the area, a lending library and a community gathering spot. Today, visitors can see artifacts on display that reflect the varied activities of the people living in Woodside in the 1800.

Notable people of modern era living in Woodside have been George Whittell, Jr. who had an odd collection of exotic pets kept on his 500 acres, Steve Jobs, Willie McCovey player in the San Francisco Giant, Michelle Pfeiffer actress and Shirley Temple Black, the cute and clever girl actress who charmed the world over. The General Store is very secluded among the sequoia redwood trees, there is no public transport, visitors must have a car and drive through winding roads where at times it is possible to see some famous homes with horse stables, well hidden away from public reach.

The area is beautiful, it smells like a clean earth, silent, no city noises, every so often the gate or the top of a wealthy home appears, one feels in another stratosphere, the one of riches and powerful.
I have been living in California a long while now and I am still considering myself the tourist in my life. Summertime is made also for discovery and taking time to do things I normally wouldn’t do. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. She is the author of three books, all available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Unusual | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

23 Jul 2017 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #CaliforniaLife, #CaliforniaNature, #SantanaRow, #UnusualStreetAttraction, #WordPressPhotoChallengeUnusual

I planned to go to a vintage wine bar with a group of friends and asked them to meet me at the corner of….across from…. ,we will walk there together.
We got closer to the wine bar and someone surprisingly though I was taking the group to a church. The unusual façade, is in fact an architectural salvage from a gothic chapel. Inside, it is a very modern wine tasting room and hopefully we will pray to the best wines and best fun.
(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Not too far from there, if one needs to breathe some fresh air after the wines, can take a seat in the unusual street living room fitted with a real functioning fireplace. In the winter days, when it doesn’t rain, sitting there soaking the feeble sun rays is cozy and warm.

(Below: Street fireplace in the street living room)

The lizard is an unusual fountain shooting a thin stream of water down instead of up.

Sitting at the round benches, surrounded by a nice vegetation, one can watch the exotic lizards playing with water in another unusual fountain.

The unusual large shells spout water in clay basins. What do they do on a white mosaic, kitchen counter like square box? They should have been on a beach vignette spouting water on a mermaid.

I would love to know why the Left Bank, a French restaurant chose a fat chef riding a pig for their sign. Such an unusual choice, but very fun. Somehow, when I see this sign, I think of their food as homey, traditionally French and country good.

The usual flat blue, clear sky of Northern California has nothing unusual. Hardly, we have clouds or colors in the sky, it’s a bit boring to photograph, but at least we have a spectacular weather.

This is Santana Row, South of San Francisco, designed as a European fashionable street with shopping-dining at the street, expensive lofts and apartments up above. It has been designed with nature in mind, that’s the reason of so much lush vegetation and symbols of nature.

During the day, leisure women do their best to spend free time there. Night crawler people and single women looking for exiting adventures crawl the streets and drinking joints in the evenings. The first few years of its existence, the place was quite deserted and stores could not make it. In fact, I decorated a beautiful shoe store, carrying European stylish shoes and closed in six months’ time due to lack of customer traffic. Now, Santana Row it’s an unusual busy place, very different from any American shopping centers, people seem to enjoy every bit of this European street feel, away from Europe. Life is good. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

As a designer in business since 1990, I am interested in helping people designing their interior and exterior spaces with an overall feeling of peace, relaxation and harmony that will draw them home eagerly. I am always looking to add that special touch with original findings to the spaces I design. Color is the focus of my business today, changing people’s energy and life force just by introducing them to colors they would have never imagined. Vogue Italia magazine, Gentry and many prominent magazines in California featured my work, I appeared on RAI, National Italian T.V. and nonetheless my story continues. Find copies of my book on colors ©RED – A Voyage Into Colors and the rest of my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Order | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

15 Jun 2017 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ArchitecturalOrder, #ModernArchitecture, #ModernBuildings, #SeattleSkyline, #SpeakingEngagements., #WordPressPhotoChallengeOrder

Recently I was in Seattle for a couple of speaking engagements. I had a few days for me to be a tourist and enjoy a city I had never seen before. My first impression of the city was the same as San Francisco, the roads go up and down, some are very steep to climb on foot or in the car and at times stop signs are placed at the very top of the hill, leaving the car in a vertical position. Weather was cold, gray, windy and the sun peeped into the clouds on and off during the day.

I have always loved the order of classical architecture, but I have discovered order in the cement jungle of the modern cities as well. (Click on each photo to view it larger).

The geometric cluster of buildings propped on the hill overlooking the Bay create a very playful skyline order.

The classical pediments at the top of this corner building, caryatides of native Indian framing windows, balustrades and dentelle work disguise the boxy modern building behind it.

The verticality of these two towers orderly lead in a downtown street of business and shops.

Modern cities must have color contrast for interest, but the order is in the windows, all the same size, where even the reflection in the glass has an order.

Light and dark in order.

Tall and short order. A very tall building shields this classical elegant building in which Banana Republic store resides. Cheap merchandise sold in a classical architecture…..

In this photo geometric order steals the scene. Glass building, brick stairs, horizontal and vertical windows, dark and light buildings, this corner has an appeal thanks for the greenery. This is the view from the rowdy Irish pub I ate. Beer and food were delicious.

Seattle is a very modern city, bustling with people, amateur musicians cheers the streets, traffic is congested, young people eat in rowdy pubs, and buildings are vertical, just like all the new cities of the Middle Age, when churches and cathedrals were built to reach God and the competition between the patrons who could pay to build the tallest church was high.

For me it’s always a good thing when I can combine work and pleasure. The trip was profitable, lovely people came to hear me speaking on the subject of Colors and sold a lot of my book: RED-A Voyage Into Colors was a hit. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian interior designer in business since 1990. She is passionate about colors and all expressive arts. She is a “colorist”. To her, selecting art means to bring out the best energy of her clients and nourish their soul. She trots the world and loves to write travel notes, from which she draws inspiration to design home interiors of her clients .
She is the author of her book on the subject of colors: ©Red-A Voyage Into Colors available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Reflecting | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

14 May 2017 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/reflecting, #LondonMemories, #MothersDayReflection, #Reflecting, #WordPressPhotChallengeReflecting

Taking photos is a sort of amusement we all do. Professional and non professionals photographers, we all want to lock time in place and remember those moments years later. I remember when photos came out of a film and printed on paper. In the back of all my paper photos there is a note and a date. Without those notes attached to each photo, I would completely miss a piece of my life. A photo reflects and records fashion, customs, or manners of an era. It records a landmark that might be no longer there. It reflects people expressions, emotions, good and bad times. Often, we can hear words spoken in a particular situation captured in the photo.

In the London tube, looking at this picture, I can still hear the stranger coming down on the other side, fervently inciting with a “ravish her!” the man who was kissing me on the neck as we were climbing. That man later became my husband. The reflection of that passionate moment, leaves on in this picture. (Click on each photo to view it larger).

London Tube

Carnaby Street was the reflection of a changing society, pop art and fashion reflected the rejection of anything traditional, old ideas and conventionalism. Objects of consumerism started to show up on the market. I saw my first wood hand massagers and didn’t know what to think of it.

Wood Massagers

I saw hanging legs moving like can-can dancers showing a new style of pantyhose in a store resembling a sleazy theatre backstage. Pantyhose was the reflection of a changing fashion.

Hanging Legs

Covent Garden reflected British life, traditional looking stores with wood trims, café with windowpanes, tea time English style. I recall one tourist, an Italian woman, saying to her man the espresso coffee she ordered was not even good enough to wash her feet in it. She had no idea I was listening and understood everything she said. If I didn’t have this picture of Covent Garden reflecting that moment, I would have forgotten that funny episode.

Covent Garden

Street fashion

Wigs

This is really strange, but this reflecting theme took a different meaning for me. Now, so many years later, I am reflecting on the reason I was attracted since a young age to an Anglo-Saxon country, me, a Mediterranean girl, full of life, who loved to improvise and organize things on the spur of the moment. Leaving Italy, family and friends behind to go live in a speaking English country was difficult and the hardest thing I have ever done. In am reflecting on what attracted me to people so different from me, in background, culture, language, beliefs and customs. What attracted me to people saluting with “I see you later, or I call you later” if it doesn’t mean anything? It could mean next year just as well. I am reflecting on the reason, I get to be on my friends’ schedules when I want to have their company for a casual cup of coffee, lucky me! Was it supposed to be my destiny?

I am still reflecting why on mother’s day I have no longer a mother to celebrate….Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

It’s Easy Being Green | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

27 Mar 2017 4 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: # https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/it-is-easy-being-green/, #ItalianFood, #Pesto, #SpecialityPastaDish, #SpinachPesto, #WordPressWeeklyChallengeGreen

It’s easy being green in my kitchen. Vegetables abound even though no one in my family is vegetarian or vegan. Every meal is composed of various food, complemented with vegetables prepared in all possible ways. We eat everything, nothing goes to waste. There are no enemies at my table the “infamous calories”, we don’t believe in counting calories. We enjoy our food. Simple as that.

People who have eaten in my house, ask me why my food is simple and full of flavor. The answer is equally simple: I don’t need to produce complicated food every day, but I want to eat savory food, with layers of flavor easy recognizable one by one, inside of which every spice comes through vibrantly fresh. The secret is the freshness of every ingredient. In my kitchen, there is nothing pre-packaged, pre-made, nor pre-organized by the food industry. I go to market to get fresh food and I return every two-three days. My vegetable and spice garden produces a small quantity of food, if the season goes well, and I take full advantage of that too. (Click on the photo to view it larger).

What was green on my table today? Fusilli pasta with spinach pesto. When basil is not available, use spinach, arugula, or parsley.
It takes almost 15 minutes to make it, all the ingredients are raw except for the cooked pasta.
Before starting the preparation, very briefly toast a hand full of pine nuts in an iron skillet over the stove, or in the oven for 5 minutes. Be careful, they burn easily.
Now, wash all the spinach. Drain the water, but leave them a bit wet.
In the food processor, put all the spinach, 3-4 cloves of garlic and grated Parmigiano cheese (I used pecorino for a stronger flavor).
Turn on the machine and from the top hole, add olive oil a little at a time, until spinach have become a cream.
Drop the green mixture in a skillet, add pine nuts, season with salt and pepper to your liking.
Cook pasta al dente for no longer than 8 minutes. Drain the water, add it to the skillet with the pesto mixture.
Toss and turn, let it marry well. Serve this delicious green pasta with more cheese to add at the table.

This is a green dish to cook and eat at once, good for summer or winter. It will surprise you how easy it is being green and to eat green food.

Oops, I goofed, I should have used a yellow plate with this green dish. Food photography should be equally appetizing. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is the designer who cooks. She has a deep interest in food that led her as an autodidact in the studies of food in history, natural remedies, nutrition, well-being and learning food of the world. She wrote two books on Italian regional cuisine and one book on color theory, in which she included one recipe for each color. Robert Taitano, a friend and business associate of http://www.wine-fi.com says: “Valentina – an International Professional Interior Designer is now giving you an opportunity to redesign your palate”. Get your copy of Valentina’s books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Graceful | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

25 Jan 2017 4 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #Graceful, #https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/graceful, #PouringWines, #PugliaFood, #PugliaTravel, #WordPressPhotoChallengeGraceful

What do you do when outside is cold, damp and lonely? You go inside a family owned restaurant and find comfort and warmth in food. That night we did just that. The day had been relatively warm, a sudden drop of temperature was not expected for the night, but the prospect of being received in a restaurant built in 1900 with the tufa stone was too exciting to miss it. Gracefully, we were seated in a small room reserved just for us. The light yellow colored walls, the natural texture of the exposed tufa stone and the sparse décor were an invitation to feel at home.
I had no doubt food was going to be exceptional. Here, under the curved vaulted ceiling, nothing mattered that night. (Click on the photo to view it larger).

I couldn’t help noticing Giuseppe, the waiter pouring our wines with grace. He was elegant, attentive not to spill even a drop on the tablecloth of that precious wine, pouring from the left of the guests as the Bon-Ton requires, the seriousness of his motion, all said to me: “Here, you will be treated with class and grace“.
In my capture, Giuseppe looks totally absorbed in his task. Pouring wines is an art of its own, it requires knowledge, elegant manners, subtle motions and grace.

Wine represents the labour of many people and nature’s generosity, when it wants to be generous. The gracefulness of the people of Puglia towards food and wines tells how much respect they have for the land. Preparation of food is sacred, eating happy food prepared with love keeps people healthy.
Knowing that someone will take care of us, offering the best food they can prepare in one night it is grace to me.
The guests in that trip to Puglia are still talking about that night. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinaexpressions.com/trips-to-puglia-2/

As a writer and cultural promoter of Puglia, my native land, it is my intention to let readers feel and experience a new ”wheel of emotions”. I want to encourage them to visit areas of Italy not beaten by massive tourism and through stories of art, architecture, fashion, food-wines, shopping, I want them to create their special adventures and live it up in Puglia! Check out my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Rice Possibilities | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

10 Jan 2017 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ItalianFood, #RiceSpecialities, #Risotto, #RisottoMuffins, #SaffronRisotto, #VegetarianFood

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

“Rice borns in water and dies in wine”. I wrote in my first book: ©Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity. Let’s start the year with something delicious: Saffron Risotto.

Risotto is a staple food for most of us Italians. It is not a fancy specialty as it might be in foreign countries. Arborio or Cannaroli type of rice, stubby, high starch content, is the type of rice needed to get the right creaminess in a risotto. Toast it in olive oil and a dollop of butter, softens with white wine, add all the ingredients and cook it slowly by adding a few ladles of warm broth at a time until juices are consumed, and rice is cooked to a perfect cream. Some people make it sound so difficult, instead it is the easiest food to prepare in 20 minutes or less. I like to add saffron to get a wonderful a yellow color.

Improvising many other dishes with leftover food from the simple risotto, it’s easy and the possibilities are endless: muffins, rice frittata, rice ramekins, rice torte, just to name a few. They are ideal for parties, make them fresh, don’t serve leftover food to your guests..

Risotto with mushroom: Cook the rice as mentioned above. In a skillet cook the mushroom. At high heat and 1/2 glass of water cook mushrooms only to let water out, then discard it, it would be bitter if you use that liquid. Add garlic and ginger in olive oil, bring the mushroom to the skillet, let them saute’ and marry together about 10 minutes, season with salt, pepper and parsley. Serve with the risotto mixed in or as two separate entity as in my photo (above).

Risotto muffins with asparagus. Cook the rice as mentioned above, or if you like to take short cuts use the Mahatma Yellow Rice. It’s not the same thing as making your own risotto, but it saves time, 10 minutes and it is ready. While this is going, prepare asparagus as you like. I brush them with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then grill them. After the rice is done, cut the asparagus in small pieces, mix in the rice, add one egg and Parmigiano cheese, fill a non-stick muffin pan with this mixture, sprinkle Parmigiano cheese on top and bake at 375ᴼF until golden brown. Serve on a bed of mixed greens as in my photo (below).

Risotto Muffins with veggie and meat. Mix in the risotto some leftover veggie, ground meat, one egg, spices, season to your liking, fill paper cup cakes, drop them in the muffin pan and get a new taste. Bake at 375ᴼF until golden brown. (Photo below).

Risotto Squash Ramekins (single portions). In the oven, roast a butternut squash seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, sage and olive oil. When done, scrape the pulp off the squash shell and mix it with the risotto. Butter and fill ramekins with the mixture, sprinkle Parmigiano cheese and breadcrumbs. Bake at 375ᴼF until golden at the top. (Photo below).

Remember, all the ingredients are already cooked, it is only matter of marrying them together the second time when you have leftovers. Give a leftover an intriguing new taste. This is very easy, promise! Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

A Day In The Past | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

29 Nov 2016 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #CharlesDickensFair, #VictorianColors, #VictorianEngland, #VictorianFashion, #VictorianInterior, #VictorianStyle

Sometimes I wonder if I was born in the wrong century. The late part of the 1800s up to the end of the 1930s is a time I favor the most. That was the time of strait-laced language and refined sensibilities, but I find that period full of modern energy as well. Innovations started to change the way people did things and if you watched Downton Abbey, you know those people had seen some good examples of innovations from the advent of telephone and electric light, to bread toaster, refrigerator and curling iron. With a little reluctance, they embraced the arrival of the technology and it was a non-stop of inventions from then on.

(Above: Bread Toaster circa 1890 by Landers, Frary & Clark)

(Above: Victorian sterling curling iron late 1800)

Various historical style movements and exotic décors influenced the architecture at the end of 1800. The revivals of Greek, Gothic, and Renaissance designs were fused with contemporary engineering and adapted to the new technology. We all love the Art Nouveau of Victor Horta, a Belgium architect-designer whose designs were fluid, sensuous and in harmony with nature.

Nature had become the main muse for all artists, they used flora and fauna in any ornaments. They brought all the natural shapes found in nature to embellish buildings and decorative arts.
The same fluidity was found in women’s fashion. From the Victorian time characterized by bustle skirts, sexy corsets, plumes and laces to the straight shorter dresses of 1920, fringes and cigarette holders. Women had a regal, elegant poise and even in the simplicity of some of their dresses, they carried an aura of sophistication.

I am wearing a cul de crin

Fiddle shop

At the corner bar

Sailor’s house

Street women

Group

Queen’s soldiers

Victorian interior

Inventor shop

Hat shop

I like to go to the Dickens Fair every year before Christmas to feel that strait-laced language and refined sensibilities we have lost. It makes me feel happy being in the past for only one day. The comical part of dressing up with a ton of layered clothes is the moment a woman needs to go to the restroom. I am sure women of that period mastered their needs, but modern women still wonder how they did it.

Live performances on stage are true to the period, the actors in the isles of the compound act out pieces of street life as it would have been in old London, there are many shops to visit with rigorously Victorian style merchandise for sale, there is even period food, everyone working in the fair is trained to speak with old English expressions and I am happy. Yes, I know I have already lived in that time. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Designer Valentina Cirasola is a creative master in the art of living who makes little distinction between work and play. She expresses her creativity in the homes she designs or decorates, in her book on the subject of colors, in the accessories and furniture she designs, in her cookery books and in the way her energy influences people around her. Do you need a special attire? She is ready to design an original piece for you whatever the occasion. Get a copy of her books here:
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Friday Fun | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

13 Aug 2016 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #Aperitif, #AppetizersFood, #FridayTapas, #https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/fun/, #ItalianCharcuterie, #WordPressPhotoChallengeFun

Do you have a ritual in your life, something you do that makes you feel good? I do. Two rituals set me in place. The first and most important is a spiritual ritual to start the day: my salutation to the sun in the morning.

The other is Friday Fun – Tapas Chez Moi at 7:00 pm to celebrate a week of work. I prepare morsels of a variety of food cold and warm, finger food, cheese, breads and charcuterie board, all to accompany wines, bubbles, conversation and music. Some of my friends discover new food, some enjoy food their palates already know and the night evolves in a convivial gathering. (Click on each photo to view it larger).

Aperitif is not a modern invention, I am only continuing the ancient Roman tradition to appreciate working brakes during the day and spend them with a fun activity: food, wines and company.
Today we have the bad habit of meeting people for lunch to talk about business, it is actually scheduled on purpose to save time and to pack as many possible appointments or activities in one day. Romans disliked talking business during apéritif time. They conducted business either in patricians’ office-home, or while swimming in spring water and even in the sauna.

Let’s travel back in the Roman’s time and their taste, we might find some affinity to our fun apéritif of today. Apéritif in ancient Rome started around 4:00 pm with a “gustatio” a tasting of various small bites, as we do today, then a “cenula” dinner followed ending in a “comissatio” a type of debauchery, where one person was in charge of the guests drinking shifts, in other words, that person decided who was going to drink and who wasn’t. Sympathy or antipathy for a person guided his decisions, which invariably caused heated discussions among those guests who didn’t get the chance to have many rounds of drinks during the night. This “comissatio” fun drinking party went on until the small hours of the night in company of wines and complacent women.

One of the most favorite apéritif food was chicken in Salsa Apiciana with cumin and cilantro, all spices brought to Rome from the Middle East, a sign that Rome Empire was expanding in the Mediterranean Basin. Romans liked to drink spicy wines such as Paradoxum a wine flavored with ginger and laurel leaf and the Mulsum a wine flavored with honey. Romans concocted their own fun cocktails by mixing white wines with red wines, it’s almost as we mix our cocktails today.

Bread has been one of the staple food in every culture. Romans too had their own specialty bread the Libum, a type of sacred bread also used in wedding ceremony as a symbol and a good wish for the newlywed to break bread together forever.
It was a privilege to break bread with someone sitting at the dining table with the Romans. Today, breaking bread together has the same meaning. We would not dare to sit and eat with people we don’t like.

Catinus (bowls) and Patella (flat plate), crocks and clay for eating and drinking embellished the table of Romans.

More modern tableware embellish my Friday Fun table, my food is tied to my traditions and these in my gallery are some of the most popular food among my guests. Enjoy.

Caviar and prosecco

Roasted baby octopi

Roasted onions, arrugula and olives

Italian charcuterie

Savory closed tart with broccoli rabe

Citrus salad

Baked avocado, eggs and kipper

Sweet peppers from garden

Frittatine mozzarella and prosciutto

Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is the designer who cooks. She has a deep interest in food that led her as an autodidact in the studies of food in history, natural remedies, nutrition, well-being and learning food of the world. She wrote two books on Italian regional cuisine and one book on color theory, in which she included one recipe for each color.
Robert Taitano, a friend and business associate of http://www.wine-fi.com says:
“Valentina – an International Professional Interior Designer is now giving you an opportunity to redesign your palate”.
Get your copy of Valentina’s books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Carnevale Will Be Over Today | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

10 Feb 2016 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #CarnevaleCostumes, #CarnevaleFood, #CarnevaleInPutignano, #ItalianCarnevale, #PugliaTravel, #PutignanoCarnevaleMuseum

(Farinella)

Carnevale will be over today. Celebrated all over the Christian world, Carnevale ends with celebration of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), rich food, dances and laughs, giving the way to Lent fasting.
In my homeland of Puglia (Italy), Carnevale in Putignano is as famous as Venice Carnevale. For over seven centuries Putignano was a protectorate of the Pope and for about two centuries the town was under the dependence of the Knights of Malta, a very powerful religious organization. Its inhabitants were always into agriculture work, which produced the renowned healthy Puglia’s country food. In addition people of Putignano produced quality hand-made crafts like cotton and felt creations and the most exquisites internationally known wedding gowns. (Click on each photo to view it larger).

(Birth)

In the last fifty years Putignano became known for its Carnival floats. The symbolic costume of Carnevale in Putignano is “Farinella”. The name of Farinella comes from an ancient farmer’s dish made of chickpeas flour and roasted barley mixed with sauces or it accompanies fresh figs. Flour in Italian translates in farina, thus “Farinella” means light flour. The costume even though takes origins from an ancient dish, it is really a fairly new creation, invented in 1953 and it almost looks like its counterpart Neapolitan Pulcinella costume. The figure represents a happy joker dressed in a patched up costume of many colors, it has a blue collar around the neck, hat and shoes with small bells attached. It looks good on kids. Carnevale ends on the Mardi Gras day with the parade of colorful floats more than twenty-two feet tall, hand-made by skillful local artisans, followed by the symbolic funeral of Carnevale represented as a pig.

(Putignano, Puglia – Italy)

(Chiacchiere – Carnevale Cookies)

The typical cookies for this event are Chiacchiere, meaning chitchat, very friable type of cookies that make noise when we eat them and sound as if we are chatting. Chiacchiere cookies are like cherries, one pulls the other and can never have only one. I take my traveling groups to visit the Carnevale Museum in Putignano, open all year. There we can admire the handwork of the artists who invent the characters, or imitate them, as some of the visitors do.

(Happy travelers in my group)

If you are thinking of going to Puglia, check out my Puglia page: https://valentinaexpressions.com/trips-to-puglia-2/
Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola will host one or two trips a year to Italy with the intention of showing Italy with the eyes of a designer born in those parts and let people experience the ”wheel of emotions” they don’t even know exist. She will take her groups to the non-commercial Italy, areas not beaten down by massive tourism. Valentina will guide the tours through art, architecture, fashion, food-wines, shopping and special adventures organized for people who want to live it up! Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w