Sharing my life call and an Italian tarte

Some time ago my dear friend Sumaya of Pukka Paki asked me to write an introductory piece for her other food-platform Food Niche Collective. What came out is quite an explanatory piece about my newly-found life call that I would like to share with you all.
Let's all jump to the Food Niche Collective blog then.

Comforting Italian Trifle

Comfort.

What is comfort to our eyes? The feeling of home? A completely relaxed body? Or conversely a hyperactive session of our favorite sport? A visit to a museum can be comforting to many, but just because we stand still for hours in front of a magnificent piece of art it doesn't mean that our mind isn't going 100 miles an hour.

Generally we tend to associate the word comfort with something soft, fluffy, enveloping and translating this abstract and deep feeling into food is quite an interesting endeavor.
Certain ingredients can, by themselves, elicit such an emotional response so much so that we may find ourselves savoring luscious sour cream by the spoonful directly from the tub in these deep moments of need. The texture of fatty rich food makes us melt into expressions of pure enjoyment, probably an instinctual response to the fact that we are well provided for the cold season.

Swiss-chard and almonds gnudi and a book review

At the beginning of the past week I was surprised to receive a phone-call from a delivery agency who communicated me that they had a parcel from England to deliver.
The hours went by and the sun rose again, around 10am the delivery man rang the bell and I had my mysterious pouch in my hands.
It was Giuliano Hazan's new cookbook "Hazan Family Favorites". I immediately brought it with me in my usual coffee shop and started my reading meal. Page after page, I wanted to get a clear idea of this book so to write a proper review that you all would appreciate.

They do say to never judge a book by its cover but in this case you should. The book design has been so cleverly done that right from the front cover you have a taste of the warm oranges and dark terracotta colors you will meet inside.

Cooking classes and my Tomato sauce

March is starting to look like a pretty busy month. Long time has passed since I had so many deadlines and possibilities to earn some money.
Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I have started giving cooking classes in my town, Bonn. It took some time for the city (represented by the Volkshochschule) to realize the need of offering public classes in English but once they started I was right there to offer my contribution.
Nothing better than some tasty Sicilian food, right? So I decided to offer two classes delving on Sicilian cuisine (one of them for vegetarians) and so far the answer has been excellent!

Cuccia and devotional eating

In many of our cities, the past weekend has been dedicated to the celebration of Carnival; it sure has been around here in Bonn.

With Bavaria, North-Rhine Westphalia is the German region where "Karneval" is mostly felt and longed for since the 11th of November when the preparations for the celebrations start (at 11:11am to be precise).
Till last year this fixation with the number 11 sounded unexplainable to me but all got cleared out last autumn. The 3rd of October marked the 11th anniversary of the Unification of Germany and the celebrations were set to take place in Bonn.
During those days, me and a friend of mine took the chance to wonder around the city and got attracted by a known-to-be-there-but-never-heard-about museum. It turned out to be the Museum of the Bonner Shoah.
While wondering through its corridors we had the luck to be approached by the museum director who very kindly offered us a guided tour.

Healthy Sicilian spring-rolls

Two months have passed since I last shared something with you and last time it was actually Nelly who gave us a glimpse of her baker's (actually frier's in that case) creativity. In this period not much has happened except the visit of my family and a lovely trip to London. First things first, in August my family payed me a visit for almost the entire month while my sister was following a language course here in Bonn. We had a lovely time all together, sharing the daily rhythms. Between one shopping spree and a restaurant to visit, the days flew by fairly fast without much of the feared stress. All went smooth also because the weather was quite mild, though as every good Italian would do, we didn't stop complaining it was either too hot and wet or too wet tout-court and duvet worth.

Back in love

Before loving the others we must be able to love ourselves.
I don’t know who said this, because I am sure that such a deep truth must have come out in human history quite a few times.
I am loving myself and my life more and more these days. Something has changed, something that can’t be touched or described or interpreted; me for one I am not sure of what happened. The only secure thing is that it isn’t the effect of drugs, except my daily cup of coffee I am almost vices free (sigh).
It just happened this week, last Tuesday to be precise; after a dreadful weekend of self commiseration and depression I sort of started seeing the sun shining again. In total truth I believe that this “miracle” has a cause but one step after the other.

Rejuvenation is Yellow

The world of food bloggers challenges never stops to produce pleasant surprises. It was just last week that Cathy of ShowFood Chef popped by my blog and left a comment. I then had the pleasure to discover her blog and the PaperChef challenge!
This is quite the kind of challenge I prefer. What is it about? Monthly a series of 4 ingredients are drawn randomly from a list and a theme is picked by the monthly-host. Our duty is then to produce as many recipes as we wish featuring these ingredients and inspired by the chosen theme. But get a look here for a more complete description, have a look here.
The host for this month challenge is Cath of Prospect: the Pantry; the ingredient drawn were Honey, Ricotta, Dill and Eggs and the theme was Rejuvenation.
To me, all of these ingredients speak of life, spring, sunshine, grass; it was quite easy then to put together my two entries.
The first concentrate on the symbolism of the egg as a life bearer and this thought bloomed in me as a:

Deviled egg with ricotta and dill mousse over a Honey-Dark Chocolate sauce.

The pistachios post

We in Sicily are quite blessed by the production of yummy almonds and pistachios. The city of Agrigento has a festival for the blossoming of the almonds tree that grow in its countryside and in the Noto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noto valley. Pistachios are instead grown on the sides of the Etna volcano in the city of Bronte. We use both nuts quite a lot both in savory and sweet recipes but while almonds are more assertive, pistachios are quite subtle in taste (and more expensive too).
Almonds are omnipresent in my pesto sauces but I have not worked extensively with pistachios before; I have then decided that it was due time to face the nut.
In this post, you will find a series of experiments I made with them, mostly savory with a great classic as sweet. Let me know what you think of them.

Double potato salad with green onions and pistachios