#ItalianFood | Valentina Expressions

Light and Filling Food | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

14 May 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #EatingLite, #ItalianFood, #LiteFood, #LiteLunch, #MediterraneanDiet, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor, #VeggieDrinks

I am in the mood for a light lunch, something I crave when Summer is approaching.
Nothing better than shopping for food in my refrigerator, there is always something light and filling to cook, or something raw to put together and I don’t mean cold cut meats.

©Valentina Cirasola

First I will prepare a veggie mixage, powerful, filling and healthy. I will make a large pot to keep for a few days.
This is something to make into a warm soup one day and a power drink the next day.
If you make a soup add either croutons, quinoa or pearled barley, olive oil, Parmigiano cheese is optional.
If you make a veggie drink, spice it up with salt and pepper and drink it cold.

I will put together carrots, red beets, celery, red cabbage, collard greens, broccoli and lemon grass in a pot half full of salted water. The salt will keep the greens very green. Boil until tender. With a boat motor crush all the ingredients until you have a smooth reddish velute’. Spoon this creamy mixture into a bowl or glass.

My light lunch will also have one hard-boiled egg and five – six radishes sliced, seasoned with salt, pepper and olive oil, 2 oz. of bread I made yesterday and a couple of oranges from my tree. Italian espresso coffee, a hand full of dry nuts and one piece of chocolate will follow about thirty minutes later.

Notice the plates in my photograph? They are appetizers size plates, I can only fill them up to the rim, visually they look full and the brain already feels satisfied, but in reality the quantity of food is very small. Afterwards, when the food is gone, it will be so natural to have the sensation of a full stomach.

In restaurants I have the same attitude towards portions. My question is always the same: “how big is the plate?” and if the waiter says it is a good portion, I select something smaller. Personally, I don’t like to leave the restaurant with a doggy bag in my hands, I only order what I can eat, but that is just my Italian upbringing.

With this type of light lunch, you can allow yourself to eat more often during the day, enjoy small tasty meals and never get to the dinner table with the hunger stuck to your eyes.

Give me five ingredients and I will make you a royal dinner! What can you do with five ingredients? I like to know, leave your name down below. 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 is the author of two Italian regional cuisine books available in this page on the Books page and in various other places:
http://outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna
http://outskirtspress.com/SinsOfAQueen

Let’s Return To Simple, Shall We? | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

21 Apr 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Books Blog Tags: #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #ItalianFood, #MediterraneanDiet, #PugliaFood, #SelfImprovement

I knew I had a message for the world when I started to write my first book:
©Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity.

The book is about cooking in the Pugliese style. It is a cuisine of the South-East Region of Italy called Puglia on the Adriatic Sea. I come from there.

My first goal was to let people know about my Puglia as I have known it and to bring the simplicity of Pugliese food into many American homes.

Yes, there is elegance in simplicity. Food does not have to be outrageously contorted to be sophisticated. Besides, a twenty or thirty minutes cooking time to prepare a delicious Italian meal could be a real convenience to any busy person.

Surprisingly, there are some people who have bought the book and are using it to lose weight. After all the Mediterranean diet has been considered the best and healthier of all nutrition, my ancestors have eaten the kind of food portrayed in my book for centuries , which kept them healthy through their lives, why am I surprised that my book is also serving the purpose of losing weight?

This is good, other than being an attractive book, other than my personal artwork and funny stories, my book is helping people with real struggles.

Losing weight is one of the greatest challenge a person can have and just like everything, there must be an inner desire to want to make changes. Zach, the young man in the video below, is going through this challenge with humor. He is participating in his own life by taking charge and resolving the eating disorder of many years. We will root for Zach until he succeeds. Click on the link below to see the video Zach produced:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZsD-hNG6Po

Zach has been persistent in following all the suggestions that his weight control coach gives him and he diligently prepares food from my book at least three times a week.

He is losing weight while enjoying cooking at home and learning about my Puglia food, such a different type of food he was used to eat.

My book is also cost conscious, ingredients are easy to find in any local supermarket, no need to go to Paris to find them. All recipes are not expensive to produce and being made of a few ingredients, they also help staying on excellent low calories diet.
There are no mayonnaise, no ketchup, no other last-minute invented creams and combinations of not better-identified food.
The main ingredient is olive oil, often a sauce comes from cherry tomatoes, or from wine and garlic combination, lemons and aromatic vinegars are some of the condiments, sweets are mostly made with fruits.

This news from Zach using my book to stay healthy, lose weight and return to simple cooking comes at Easter time, a time to cherish, share and celebrate life, our family and friends and I celebrate you Zach! Thank you so much.
With this book I wanted to give the gift of health, youth and long life just like my ancestors lived with a smile on their face and the red on their cheeks.

Wishing you an Easter filled with joy! Buona Pasqua a tutti! Ciao,
Valentina
Author and Designer
www.Valentinadesigns.com

I Like Them Bitter | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

12 Apr 2011 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #CardoonVegetables, #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #CulinaryTips, #FoodHistory, #ItalianFood, #ItalianVegetables

“Eat bitter vegetables, they will purify the liver!” This was my grandmother’s admonishment every time she prepared vegetables, which was everyday.

As kids my two brothers always turned their noses up at this statement, it sounded an awful punishment, but not for me. I was an experimenter, I liked to eat since a very young age and taste, taste, taste everything.

In the spring time, Cardoni, Cardoon in English, a very long hard stalk vegetable is available in any market, at least in those markets which caters to their ethnic clientele. The younger shoots also called Cardoncelli, not to confuse them with cardoncelli mushrooms, are very tender and less bitter. In any case, young or well-grown, Cardoni is not a well-known vegetable.
It looks like celery, it is very bitter, fibrous, medium green color and the short leaves have a powdery feel to the touch. They are delicious in every cooking solutions, but most people not knowing what it is, get discouraged and leave it on the shelves of the supermarket.

The reason some vegetables taste bitter is due to the presence of phytonutrients that act as powerful antioxidants including some flavonoids and polyphenols. Most of these antioxidant nutrients are bitter. Be prepared, Cardoni are very bitter.

In my Italian culture, bitterness in vegetables is embraced wells for the variety of flavors components and for the perceived medicinal properties. In fact many of the Italian digestive and after dinner drinks are made from artichokes and/or many bitter herbs and vegetables, but please don’t tell me these particular drinks taste like cough drops, it is not true. To retain and enhance the bitterness of some vegetable, we Italians often use the sautéing method in garlic and oil, versus boiling or steaming them.

One way to cook Cardoni is with eggs:
Peel them with a potato peeler to eliminate the stringy fibers, cut them in small pieces, parboil in salted water for 7-8 minutes. Beat a few eggs, season with salt, pepper and Parmigiano cheese, set aside. Sauté Cardoni in garlic and olive oil until translucent, add the beaten eggs. Stir until the eggs become scrambled and well mixed with Cardoni. Adjust season to you liking. A robust glass of red wine is very appropriate.

Baked au gratin is another way to prepare them. Peel, chop and parboil in salted water like in the previous method. Butter a baking dish, arrange the Cardoni parboiled, add beaten eggs, season to your liking. On top add a lot of Parmigiano cheese, breadcrumbs and a few dollops of butter. Bake under the oven grill until the top is brown and the eggs are coagulated.
(Photo Cardoons at farmers market. Credit: blowbackphoto / iStockphoto.com)

Of course Cardoni in soups with potatoes, or baked with hot sausages, or lamb are equally a delight to eat . They are fresh and light, too bad they only come out in the Spring.

The tongue has receptors, especially in the back side. Keep the taste buds active by exercising all 50.000 of them with sweet, salty, sour and bitter food.
Don’t try to overcook vegetables to take out the bitterness, Cardoni are supposed to do a good job for you, cleanse the liver and keep you young.
My grandmother was always right. 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 is the author of two published Italian regional cuisine books, available in this site on the Books page, Amazon and in various locations:
©Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity – http://outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M
©Sins Of A Queen – http://outskirtspress.com/SinsOfAQueen

Centuries Old Mediterranean Diet | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

20 Mar 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #ItalianFood, #ItalianTableCustom, #MediterraneanDiet, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

As the economy has turned considerably sour, there has been some serious thinking going on in people’s minds and many have really shifted their thinking about what is really important and what matters to them.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

As a designer I have seen lot of kitchens being remodeled and rooms around the kitchen, family room, great room, dining room and even wine cellar to assure more comfort while we are staying at home. I have noticed that people are not eating out as much, but cooking and eating at home, making a meal together has become a social activity and planting food in the backyard to get more natural healthy food seems a new necessity. Suddenly family, friends and times we share have taken center stage in people’s life.

I read that at the Harokopio University in Greece, researchers examined 50 published studies and more than half a million people who went under test and found that those who followed a traditional Mediterranean diet had a less risk of developing the metabolic syndrome which is the combination of conditions that increases the chances of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Mediterranean diet is made of all those foods the industry of “loosing weight” tells us not to eat: carbohydrate in general, grains, sugar, chocolates, wines, even fruit and so on. Have they realized that our body needs all the elements of the nutrition, oils, fat, carbohydrate, cheese, meat, salt, sugar and so on?
The key of the Mediterranean diet is quantity and portions, not elimination of one or more nutrients.

For example 2 oz. of pasta per person once a week, as I mentioned in both of my books, is not a tragedy, but a huge plate of pasta with all the condiments, the toppings and the cheese is. Butter, another example. Anything cooked in butter tastes luscious, but if we substitute it with olive oil, even when making cakes and sweets, we get the antioxidant from the olives and the monounsaturated fat, which is very good for the heart. On that note, eat olives as much as you can, any time of the day and all types, use olive oil on your skin anytime you can, you will see that your skin will turn soft and supple very soon. My grandfather used olive oil on his hair, they turned white, but he had a voluminous and thick hair until the last moment.

In the Mediterranean diet all meals end with fruit and not with sweets. If there is no more room in the stomach for a piece of fruit at the end of the meal, then it would be best to eat it before the meal. Fruit plays a major role in detoxifying the system, supplying a great deal of energy for activities of everyday life and especially when people are in the process of loosing weight.

The consumption of food variety in the Mediterranean diet evolves in the following fashion:
A. Daily consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals, and low-fat dairy products, meaning all the cheeses containing water, such as fresh mozzarella sold in water, fresh ricotta, robiola, taleggio and chèvre cheeses, just to mention a few;
B. Weekly consumption of fish, poultry, nuts, and legumes;
C. Red meat intake is kept to a minimum, a couple of times a week;
D. A moderate daily consumption of wine or other alcoholic beverages, always with meals.

Do not overlook all the legumes, they contain all the proteins the meat has without the animal fat. In my second book ©Sins Of A Queen I touch on this subject:
“All beans contain oligosaccharides sugar (simple sugar found in carbohydrate) that the human body cannot process. The lining of the small intestine cannot break down and absorbed the large molecule of oligosaccharides, because the body does not produce the enzyme that breaks them down. Many people have problems when eating beans. Adding a hand full of bay leaves to the beans during cooking helps the digestion immensely”.

In my first book “ ©Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity, I talk about the value of some overlooked vegetables:
“Spring onions are energetic.
Celery is diuretic. It is also good dipped in red wine.
Chicory, or dandelion is diuretic, tonic, a cleansing and a laxative.
Artichoke reinforces the liver and prevents diseases of the liver.
Fennel is much used in pharmaceutical industry as an aromatic substance and is a good source of water.
Lettuce is calming.
Radishes is stimulating, modest in nourishing value, but rich in vitamin C.
No wonder we eat so much of all this! “

Eat and drink purple things anytime you can. Red wine, concord grapes, blueberries, eggplant, purple cabbage, purple cauliflower. That deep rich color come from polyphenols-compounds (antioxidant), which reduce heart disease risk and may even protect against Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research.

Our ancestors did not know sodas. Skip soda, even the diet type. Scientists recently found that the caramel color added to cola drinks might double the risk of metabolic syndrome (combination of conditions that increase your chances of heart disease, stroke and diabetes), just by drinking one or more regular or diet sodas every day. Furthermore, the sweet fizzy flavor of sodas sends a message to the brain that sweet stuff is good and conditions it to crave more sugary foods, which can lead to weight gain.
If you need a boost of energy during the day, eat fruit.

Drink water,  an essential element for all healthy body functions. Please don’t drink water stored in plastic bottles, but choose filtered water through activated charcoal, which removes the impurities and leaves the water-soluble minerals.
In the Mediterranean diet, at the end of the meal, we drink warm water, warm tea or coffee and even warm liqueurs. The warm liquids help dissolve oils and fat ingested during eating, while cold water will solidify the oils in the food leaving those particles attached to the walls of the intestines. Not good at all.

Eating five small meals a day is less stressing on the digestive system. It is easier to process small amount of food instead of large meals; smaller amounts of food deliver a steady stream of nutrients, blood sugar, and energy to our body throughout the day. Eating this way also reduces the risk of heart disease.

It takes 21 to 30 days of repetitive behavior to form a new pattern in the brain. Once the pattern is formed, it becomes an automatic behavioral response. While developing new healthy habits, the good habits will replace bad ones. Stay on track with healthier food, adopt the Mediterranean food to reduce the risk of obesity and cholesterol, eat everything in moderation, have a glass of Pinot with your meal every day and don’t worry about anything else. Above all laugh anytime you can, start to love your body and put your wellbeing, happiness self confidence in the center of your life. Ciao,
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com

Author of two regional Italian cuisine books. They are both about the Mediterranean diet, both available on the Books page here in this site.
Come Mia Nonna–A Return to Simplicity
Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts
http://outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M
http://outskirtspress.com/SinsOfAQueen

Planting Food, Beauty And Relax | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

14 Mar 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #Gardening, #HomeGrownFood, #ItalianFood, #ItalianLifeStyle, #ItalianTableCustom, #SpringPlanting

Photo ©Valentina Cirasola

Yesterday was a beautiful March day, I wanted to take advantage of the sun, the warm day and my good disposition. It was the right time to think of planting seed for new food. In many European countries is still snowing in March and is the same in Italy, but here in California, in the climate zone 7 and 8, March is the perfect month to plant. My family in Italy is getting jealous!

March is the right time to start feeding houseplants again and repot when necessary. Get the soil tested if you are planning to do some serious food and fruit trees planting. This is the month to start seeds indoor, prune trees and shrubs and get all the garden tools ready for your Spring planting. If you have wet soil in the garden, it is better not to walk on it, use stepping-stones. In my garden, I have many rows of them around plants and vegetation, they are decorative and don’t get your feet wet or dirty.

I started with Turbo onions, which is a lovely round onion that stores well and the Red Baron red onion, strong-tasting which produces a heavy crop.
I planted shallots, a more delicate onion, which I use more for fish dishes and some other delicate dishes. I want some asparagus and started some crops indoor, such as aubergines the kind called Diamond, originated in the Ukraine. It crops relatively quickly from a sowing in March.

Started cauliflowers, cabbage and tomatoes. Tomato seeds also do well indoor. I got the gartenperle type, small, cherry size, sweet and tasty, grow in beautiful colors as pink-red, deep ruby-red, pink to rosy red. They are great for containers and even hanging baskets. I make a lot of fast and delicate sauces with them. Tomatoes are always a big surprise, they either come out in overwhelming large quantity, or nothing at all.

In mid March plant some early potatoes if the weather where you are permits it, I will.

I bought a few packets of mixed salad-leaf seeds, can’t do without salad in my garden, it’s so easy to grow and need not much care. Put a few seeds on to the surface of your compost and don’t cover them with a thick layer, they need to breathe.

Towards the end of March when the soil has warmed up, I will want to plant some climbing French beans. I have already prepared the soil and placed cane poles in place. Later I will make two holes at the base of each pole and a couple of seeds per hole. Then, I need to be patient.

Between my food I also plant some beauty. Some begonias, dahlias, dusty miller, geraniums, impatiens, marguerite daisies, marigolds, all annuals to beautify my crop.

Photo ©Valentina Cirasola

While thinking of food crop, I was also thinking of cooking in the garden. I made a very simple outdoor cookery device out of a clay pot and bricks.
No cement or mortar, the bricks are just laid one on top of the other in a circle, the clay pot sits inside of the circle. Inside of the pot more bricks form a flat surface for the wood chips and a grill sits on top of them. Food will be placed on the grill. A clay cover with a whole in the center to allow the steam to escape will keep the food cooking for long time.

This is slow food at its best and I am prepared for relaxing weekends, a good time for writing more books and more blogs, or having some friends over.
I really don’t care what goes into my car, but I really care what I put in my stomach.
Please leave a comment below, I can help you with any of your design challenges, including landscape too. I now offer design consultations on-line and without going outside my office I can create an “outdoor room” for you, or the most beautiful space of your dream. Ask me for details. Ciao,
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola has been in business as a designer since 1990. She has helped a variegated group of fun people realizing their dreams with homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. She designs artistic landscape as a complement to the residential design concept as a unity. Author of three books available on:
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Brewing In Architecture |Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

11 Feb 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #AldoRossiDesigner, #AlessiKitchenProducts, #CoffeeBenefits, #ItalianCoffeeMakers, #ItalianEspresso, #ItalianFood, #ItalianKitchenGadgets, Alessi

Getting up in the morning with that roaring sound of my Italian professional espresso maker really gets my blood going. Aside from the sound of birds chirping outside my bedroom window there is no better sound I like to hear in the morning.
Espresso, my lifetime lover I can’t do without it. My coffee has always been the same type for years, a blend of Brazilian green coffee beans that I toast myself to my liking. Espresso requires special Italian machines to make it frothy, thick and short.

One type of very common machine for family consumption is made for a stove top and produces one cup (small machine) up to twenty-four cups (very tall). The other kind is the café type with a few levels, one for each cup, a selection to make one or many cups at once, the cappuccino and steam feature, temperature/pressure gauge and more buttons that you know what to do. You get the picture, it is a professional machine, which performs for high traffic cafés.

A coffee maker in Italy like everything in my country must have style, we just don’t settle for functionality, we want beauty in the kitchen too.

Italian architect Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) using architectural features of Italy designed many attractive famous espresso makers all produced by Alessi. He is considered to be the greatest Italian architect of the second half of the 20th century. It has been said: “Aldo Rossi is an author of abstraction, geometrical patterns and silent evocation created some of the most intensely poetic works of architecture and design in his age”.

In his products he utilizes geometrical shapes to make profound design statements. Aldo Rossi designed the Pens espresso makers, La Cupola espresso maker in 1984, la Conica espresso maker in 1988. All these designs reflect the harmony and the beauty of the classic architecture of Italy. Aldo Rossi has been called ‘a poet who happens to be an architect’. His theory on the nature of design is about offering an alternative to the technological and functional emphasis of modernism. Italians love to roll around in antiquity even when making coffee. Our eyes rejoice in the presence of a Brunelleschi’s cupola, Medieval Towers or Palladian’s architectural details. Now transfer all that beauty into food and gadgets to serve those food and you have pure pleasure. Espresso for Italians has the same importance as tea for British. It is one of the many pleasures of the day in the Italian life and it is good for you.

I read a very encouraging article on the New York Times about coffee health.
In some researches has been found that caffeine might prove to be a way to stimulate hair growth in men going bald. Coffee could protect people against multiple sclerosis. Habitual coffee consumption is associated with a substantially lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
Higher coffee and caffeine intake is associated with a significantly lower incidence of Parkinson’s disease. Harvard Medical Study says coffee drinking may help against heart disease. Women who drink coffee are (much) less likely to commit suicide.
Abstinence from Coffee drinking leads to early death.
Who would have ever thought of all these benefits!

With this in mind, let us keep the habit of making coffee, but let us brew it in the classicism of Italian architecture where romance is written on buildings the world admires. (All photo credits: Architect Aldo Rossi).
I am here ready to help you with the selection of special objects, gadgets and kitchen wear and to design that special Italian kitchen for you. 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 – 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

Dinner At 7:00 pm | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

05 Feb 2011 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ItalianDinnerCustoms, #ItalianEatingHabits, #ItalianFood, #ItalianLifeStyle, #ItalianTableManners

Dusk is coloring the sky with ochre color and tone down shades of red, the evening will be arriving soon, the aroma of food is filling the home, the clink of wine glasses and flatware is making the air festive.

You just get dressed beautifully, take a bottle or two of wine, or dessert as a gift to the host and show up at 7:00 pm at your host’s door. If the invitation comes from an Italian family, be ready to do some serious eating and enjoy the most delicious food always prepared by the host.

In Italian homes the dining table is never decorated in a fussy way with useless objects on it. The table is dressed for food, Italian people entertaining with tasty simplicity, but they get you with food. The menu valorizes quality, variety and simplicity. Appearance of food is an important part of what makes our food so appetizing, especially when the table is filled with food of bright vivid colors. Food is the most important subject in the Italian culture. We get up in the morning and we already talk of what we are going to eat for lunch, or dinner. Shopping for food falls in the daily chores and in between work, family and errands.

We take out our small trolleys to the market and fill it with fish, vegetable, charcuterie, meat, cheese (let’s not forget the cheeses, please) and fresh breads. It seems like a whole lot of food, but it will last for a few days. A few items are bought daily, the majority will serve to make the simplest and most flavorful food.
(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Let’s go back to dinner at 7:00 pm. When you get invited by an Italian family at 7:00 it always means dinner, not after dinner drink get together, as some people think. In fact a few days ago, some friends of mine were telling me about their disappointment when they invite people of different race in their home for the evening and they come with a full stomach with the answer is “sorry we already ate, we can’t eat anymore”. Imagine how the host feels after cooking all day and really looking forward to sit down with friends to relax. And how about all that food that goes untouched, not good. My suggestions was to specify that the invitation is for dinner and not for goofing around after dark. On the other hand, those people who eat at 5:00 in the afternoon might think that dinner at 7:00 pm is too late and refuse the invitation. Oh well, we can’t please everybody. Italians love to eat dinner with the moon rays, not sun rays.

Dinners in the evening will extend well into the small hours of the night. It starts with an apéritif and hors-d’oeuvres of different kind, wet with prosecco sparkling wine. Conversation, jokes and laughs fill the air until every guest is in. Then the real dinner start, either sitting down or self-service type, in either case, the plates are ceramics and the cutlery are not plastic. This is for the respect of the guests and for the respect of food.
Dinner consists of many different courses from pasta or rice, fish or meat and various vegetables.
Wine, wine and wine is served.

In the winter the fireplace is on making the evening really cozy, in the summer all the windows and doors to the balconies are open to get the fresh breeze in.

Conversation shifting from politics to religion, from gossip to intellectual subjects keeps the night young. Italians love to talk about everything, political correctness is not the center of their world.

The evening dinner ends with a cart filled of cheeses to roll around the guests, more wines to pair with the cheeses variety and later, the same cart will bring the desserts, cookies or pastries. Thank goodness Italian sweets are not that sweet so we can indulge in more than one portion. Conversation continues smoothly with coffee, teas or more wines for people like me who don’t drink coffee at night.

At this point, soft music comes on, some guests will leave and some will remain, but those who will stay will enjoy a very nice glass of Port, Whiskey or Brandy culminating the conversation in something really intellectual, pleasant and interesting.
It’s an honor to eat at someone’s dining table, breaking bread together is an act of sharing love, intimacy and friendship since the beginning of time.

Dinner at 7:00 pm is a serious business for the Italians, don’t go unprepared. 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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M
Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts

This Is What The Convent Passes Today | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

30 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ComeMiaNonnaReturnToSimplicity, #italianCooking, #ItalianFood, #ItalianLifeStyle, #ItalianTableCustom, #SinsOfAQueen, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

In my Italian family planning a weekly menu was one of the many things to do at the end of a Sunday: preparing books satchel for the next school day, ironing some clothes, polish shoes and basically getting things ready for the week while my parents compiled lunch and dinner menus for each day of the week. In Italy, due to the long lunch break, the majority of people go home to eat and relax for at least two hours in the North and four hours in the South. Planning the weekly menu is a good way to save money on grocery, in that once the menu is set, for our own convenience, we don’t get out of the set path. The food must be fresh and for that reason we go to the local street market everyday with the list of the menu in our hands to buy the necessary food and only if something is not available on that day we change our plans, but generally markets carry just about everything in season we need.

Buying in season is another thing that distinguished Italians. Produce cultivated by local farmers that don’t travel long distance are very good for us, they are not picked before maturing time and they will not go the phase I call “from green to trash”.
Have you ever experienced buying bananas not totally ripe and three days later are rotten already?
I hate it, because I hate throwing food and money away.
Vegetables and fruit in season have more nutrition, taste so much better,
flavors are enhanced naturally by the sun and not induced by machines, colors are vivid.

Preparing the weekly menu is one way to stay healthy and keep the weight stable. In my family we never bought pre-made food, or take away.
We knew exactly what to prepare.

However, as teenagers, my brothers and I, not always agreed with our parents on food. There were times when we fussed and stomped our feet on the floor protesting against the food we did not like. The answer from mom was always the same: ‘this is what the convent passes today” and we had the choice to eat it or starve. Guess what? Eating whatever it was planned for that day was always easier than starving. With Italian food one can’t go wrong any way.

Now living in America, I prepare my weekly menu only for dinners, but I make enough for the next day lunch. Not once, since I have been in US, I have gone into any fast food joints. Lucky me! Thanks to the good teaching, I don’t crave those food, I don’t know how they taste, so I cannot miss something I have never tried.

Programming our weekly meal is healthy, keep us on track, we can control the intake of salt, sugar, spices and fat, we know what we are eating and we can save money. At home the serving portions are never vulgarly enormous. Have you noticed how moderate home eating is versus eating in restaurants?
I like to go out to restaurants and discover new food, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t make an everyday habit.

I wished more parents would say to their children “this is what the convent passes today” instead of opting for children food and give in to their requests.
Just a suggestions.
Leave a comment in the box below, love to hear your opinion. 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 is the author of two regional Italian cookbooks available in this site at the Books Page: 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

Also available in various locations:
http://outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna
http://outskirtspress.com/SinsOfAQueen

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

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

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