Transformation: changing my life one dish at the time.

 

Today’s word is transformation. Transition, rebirth, shedding the old to let the new surface, appear, and manifest itself. Leave the old behind to embrace the new. A new beginning, a new horizon, new mind-set, new limits, new goals, new aspirations.

This transitional season we are slowly abandoning to enter into Winter has brought, this year, a lot of council and wisdom. Construction needs destruction. In order to accept the new, you must be ready to kiss goodbye the old, the habitual, easy, well-known, old, same old. The new, on the other hand, is unknown and requires courage, determination, and trust. Transformations: inner and outer, just like the leaves on the trees are turning from green to yellow, red, and brown, in the same way my soul is turning colors. Again, at this phase of my life, I find myself changing, at the threshold of a new Era. I am learning to look at my life in a new manner, recognizing the opportunities that hide behind the obstacles that present themselves every day.  Learning to avoid drama and see that energy flows where intention goes, and that gratitude is the key to fulfilment. Acknowledging that the outer is the reflection of the inner dimension and learn to surrender to the amazement of synchronicity.

Just like Sue Monk Kidd writes in her book “The Dance of the Dissident Daughter”: “…synchronicity [is] that time when an outer event resonates mysteriously and powerfully with what’s happening inside. [These events] are more numerous during great shifts and upheavals”. She goes on saying: “If we pay attention, if we approach them as symbolic and revelatory, they will often illumine [the] way for us”. Leading us to the newness we are meant and supposed to face.

Entering something new is called an initiation. Something that ends and something else that begins. Death and Rebirth. Sue Monk Kidd writes: “Initiation is a sacred disintegration. Despite its pain, we carry the conviction that even though we don’t know where we’ll end up, we are following a soul-path of immense richness, that we are supposed to be on this path, that it’s required of us somehow. We move in a sense of rightness, of lure, of following a flute that pipes irresistible music”.

On this path things begin to unfold, to blossom, to take shape. This is the dimension of love, and of the lack of fear. Fear is something often so present in our lives, which must be identified and spotted. Just like we mentioned in one of the previous posts: fear is the opposite of love, and it gives us the idea that power comes from outside sources, leading us to believe that life is lived from the outside in, while the opposite is true, since life is to be lived from the inside out.

In a time when everything seems falling apart around me, I hang on tight to my certainties, and stand on my ground strong and tall. In this time when the outer is failing, I ignite the fire inside of me and let it come out in order to initiate a life from the inside out. I am done with a time in which the outer conditions the inner, now on the inner will determine the outer. I will work to stoke my fire inside and make it so strong and powerful that my light will be blinding to those who prefer the dark. I will go on in my life, move on from this chapter with a new power, beautiful and shining, which will bring about a new me: determined, bold, and fierce with heart full of love. As my evolution keeps pushing through, it is manifesting itself into a beautiful warrior goddess image. A woman, fulfilled and happy. Something that some days looks a lot like a cooking goddess.

Let us celebrate the transformation with a couple of very delicious recipes. With an ode to an autumn fruit, typical to the Tuscan region: the pomegranate.

 

 

For those who are not familiar with the pomegranate, it is a true gem of a fruit, its jewel-like seeds are sweet-tart and they are a delightful addition to all kinds of sweet and savory recipes. It can be described as a round fruit about the size of an orange with thick leathery skin that encases juicy, bright pink pulpy seeds, held in place by a bitter tasting creamy yellow membrane. Pomegranate is very rich in vitamins and antioxidants. It is delicious in juices and salads, but it is also often used in meat and fish dishes. Pomegranate are in season starting from September and are available until February. At first, when we first handle a pomegranate it might seem hard to get the juice seeds out, for this reason down below I include a Martha Stuart video on the easiest way to seed a pomegranate. Take a look and you will not believe your eyes on how easy it can be!

 

https://www.marthastewart.com/1094444/easiest-way-seed-pomegranate

 

Now that we know how to get to those yummy-ruby-red-jewel like seeds, we are ready to transform them into a few finger licking recipes. Just like people grow, change and transform themselves, in the same way food is transformed from its natural status, the way it exists in nature to an even more palatable way in order to create succulent dishes to delight friends and family. The first easy one is homemade pomegranate molasses: the color alone will make you fall in love with this food that you will be able to whip up in a heart beat. Just simmer pomegranate juice and sugar, then stir in lemon, or better yet, bergamot juice.

 

Homemade Pomegranate Molasses

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups pomegranate juice

3 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp fresh lemon or bergamot juice

 

Directions:

Combine pomegranate juice and sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Reduce heat to medium, simmer until reduced to 1/2 cup, about 30 minutes. Let cool. Stir in bergamot juice. Enjoy!

 

Just to keep things simple and nutritious here is another quick and easy recipe for a healthy lunch or dinner.

 

 

Valerian Greens Salad with Pomegranate, Avocado, and Pine Nuts

 

1 dish full of Valerian greens

1 cup pomegranate seeds

1 avocado cubed

1/3 cup pine nuts

 

Mix all the ingredients and season with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.

 

 

 

Autumn Beauty on the Tuscan Mountains: savoring the delights of local foods

 

Autumn Beauty on the Tuscan Mountains means savoring the delights of local flavors, drinking spring water. It means eating hand-picked Porcini mushroom, it means drinking  home-made wine along with home-made cheese and local honey. Fresh fruit, naturally in season right off the back yard. It means fire-red scenery with strokes of yellow-green and brown. It means the sound of the rattling leaves caressed by a cool breeze, while warm sun rays kiss your cheeks. Autumn in the mountains in Tuscany means crystal blue lake water and the unmistakable smell of burnt wood. This and much more is Garfagnana, in the province of Lucca in Tuscany.

 

 

Last Sunday we took a day trip into the mountains. We set off from Lucca early in the morning, and we drove for roughly one hour and a half on small winding roads all the way up to 1500 meters above the sea level. Slowly slowly we entered into something that looked a lot like a slice of paradise, where everything is peaceful, calm, quite and serene. Stunning colors everywhere I looked, and a perfectly blue sky to frame it all in. After a morning spent smelling the fresh Autumn air and picking chestnuts off the ground we arrived to Castiglione di Garfagnana a small town known for a big building called Casone di Profecchia, which hosts people from all over throughout the year. This place is famous for serving the best local food all made from scratch for really affordable prices. Naturally, having said all this, this is where we decided to stop and have lunch. We enter this big building in the middle of the woods and we find a line of people waiting to be seated. Surprisingly we are all escorted by the waitress to our tables in just a few minutes. We get to have the nicest spot: under the window and next to the fire-place, which was sweetly burning two enormous logs of wood. We sit down and we are right away served the beverages, their local red wine and some sparkling water. In this restaurant there are no menus, the guests eat what they are given, and that was fine by us, since we were pretty certain that anything the waitress might bring us would be quite delicious. We start with some hors d’oeuvre: bilordo (blood salame), crostini with raw sausage, fresh home-made mozzarella and prosciutto (cured, seasoned ham). All served with freshly baked home-made bread and fried dough along with fresh stracchino cheese.

 

 

In the mountains this time of the year, it is the time for Porcini mushroom. People go into the woods especially on the week-ends and spend hours looking at the ground hoping to find the exquisite gift from nature. This year Mother nature has been very abundant with its presents and, from what I hear, the woods are full of lovely Porcini waiting to be picked. Soon enough after our delicious antipasto we were served a tray full of fried mushroom: soft and full of flavor on the inside yet crunchy and crispy on the outside. A real treat for the palate!

 

 

 

The cuisine in Tuscany varies from town to town, and up here in the mountains the way to prepare the batter to fry the mushrooms is different from the way my grandmother, who was from the valley, used to make it. The difference is that in my family, they would use not only white flour in the batter but also an equal part of coarse corn flour, which gives a more complex texture to it.

As we were sitting at the table enjoying the merry atmosphere of the early afternoon, the warmth coming from the fireplace and the sweet smells coming from the kitchen, we were served one more irresistible dish. Tortelli with meat Ragu’. This is a typical dish for the whole Lucca area. The way the sauce, called Ragu’, is prepared may vary from area to area, especially for what corcerns the spices. Some people use cloves and cinnamon, while others just salt and black pepper. Actually,  people even use differnt kinds of meat. Originally the recipe is made with equal parts of pork and beef. Some people use just beef, others also like to make this sause with sausage, in Italian called salsiccia, which gives it a deeper and tastier flavor. Anyway, it is prepared, I am pretty sure, it results into quite an exquisite dish. Here below, I am going to share the version made with beef and sausage. If among my readers there is someone who has a special ragu’ recipe and would be willing to share it with all of us that would make me very happy: learning new things is a lovely way to keep growing.

 

 

 Ragu’con Salsiccia

 

Meat sauce with deep flavor and succulent texture isn’t hard to make; it just needs time and a low flame. Usually salsiccia comes very well flavored at least with salt and pepperd, we can add some garlic and chopped oregano and sage to the meat as it browns.

 

1    pound Italian sausage, salsiccia

1    onion, minced

1   carrot, minced

1   celery stalk, minced

Olive oil, extra vergin

1/4 cup   minced flat-leaf parsley, plus extra for garnish

half a hand-full fresh thyme

half a hand-full fresh rosemary

3 Tbsp   tomato paste

1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, with its juice

Salt

Black pepper

 

 

Preparation

With the tip of a small, sharp knife, slit open the sausage casings. Crumble the meat into a wide heavy skillet and set over medium-low heat, add some olive oil. Let the meat fry gently. Saute’, breaking up any large chunks, until all the meat has browned, about 5 minutes. Add onion, carrot, celery, and parsley. Stir. Cook over very low heat, stir often, until the vegetables turn soft and are beginning to carmelize, and the meat is browned. This might take as long as fourty minutes or evern more, but your patience will be rewarded by the final flavors.

Add the tomatoes, smash the whole ones with a fork and bring to a simmer, uncovered, until thickened, about 30 minutes. Mix tomato paste with 1 cup hot water. Add to pan, reduce heat to very low, and continue cooking until the ragu’ is velvety and dark red in color. About 10 minutes. Sprinkle black pepper and salt over the top, stir and taste.  This is a very versatile sauce that can be used to flavor and garnish all types of pasta, tortelli, rice, lasagne, can be used as a stuffing as well. Salsiccia is a well loved kind of meat that can also be enjoyed by itself , raw, spread on bread, grilled or even boiled. Any way you’ll decide to prepare it, you can be certain you will make your guests happy, just like we were for sure delighted to eat such a succulent treat, during our trip into the mountains!

 

 

 

 

August Goodbye: all time favorite, Tuscan bean soup

Everyday as the sun rises and the rooster crows, life presents itself anew. As the new east shining star fades away from the sky, the brightness of the new day brings with its fresh air hope and good intention. How can we turn and ordinary day into an extraordinary, exceptionally beautiful day, during which the incessant tide of life stops for a moment to show us that we are HERE in this eternal moment. How can we learn to slow down the fast pace of our lives to take time to listen to the birds sing, to appreciate the cooling effect of a breeze on a hot Summer day, look into our children’s eyes, and notice the flowers that remind us of the healing pleasure of beauty.

How can we find the way to a life that is fit to the measure and the needs of the human kind? I have found myself wondering about these quests often, since I had my children. Children come to us with an ancestral wisdom that for those of us, who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see, and the senses to feel, can guide us to a life of appreciation and gratitude for all those little things, that so often in our adult life go unheard, unseen, and unfelt.

My memory often brings me back to my childhood, during those never-ending, sun burning, hot Summer days, when the smell of the lovingly prepared lunches would find its way to my nose from my grandmother’s kitchen window. She would be in there, cooking while softly whistling along with her kitchen rag over her shoulder and some crumbs in one of her hands to through to her chickens, always loyally by her side.

Cooking was a real inspiration for my grandmother, she used to grow her own food, or else, for the foods she wouldn’t find in her garden she would shop every week from the “veggie man” who would come with his truck to our house. She had fun with food, and she was pretty adventures, she loved to discover new foods and new combinations. I remember she was a lover of avocados, when avocados were still quite unknown in Italy. She even grew an avocado tree, and even now that it has been years since she passed,  we still have it, it has become quite big by now, it does not produce fruits, though, since Tuscany isn’t a tropical climate.

My grandmother was truly an amazing cook, you could taste her passion for food in every single dish she prepared, that’s why it would be hard to pick one and say it was her best, but surely there was one that was my absolute favorite ever since I was a little girl: that was her Bean Soup. I’ll never forget that she used to always burn it, just a little, enough so that some of the pasta in it would stick to the bottom of the pot…and that right there, was my favorite part! She was a strong woman, one you would not want to mess with, she always had the last word, she created her own world just the way she wanted it, for many reasons I look up to her still to this day. Her tenacity, audacity and will are perhaps aspects of her character that I like to believe, I got from her.

Whenever I cook or create something, whether is writing or baking, I get in a state of relaxation, something that might look like an earthly nirvana. Now for instance, the act of  writing and sharing something I love, like a favorite recipe or thoughts, I especially care about, fills my heart  with serenity, a sense of freedom, and gratitude.

 

Zuppa di Fagioli  (Bean Soup)

 

 

“Serenity, selflessness, freedom of rage”, this is for Virginia Woolf the state of mind a writer should be in to connect with her inspiration and elevate our souls to higher dimensions while at the same time stay grounded to our earthly lives, view the body as good and recognize the “senses as delightful [as] they feed…the spirit”. By chance I picked up “A room of one’s own” this morning before I came and sat down to write. What an inspiration are Virginia Woolf’s words and yes, I could not agree more, the senses feed our spirit! Just like this tasty and warming soup, this is not only my favorite dish from childhood, but also a classic of Tuscan cuisine!

 

3 cups dried beans (soaked overnight)

Tip:

Every week I chose a legume, beans or lentils, that I soak overnight, usually on Sunday night. On Monday morning I rinse the legumes and place them in a crock pot and cook them for a few hours. I always put one long piece of Kombu or Wakame seaweed with my beans. This enriches their flavor and they, also, will be assimilated and processed by our digestive system more easily. This method of cooking the beans in a crock pot is very convenient.  If I have to leave the house for the day, I just set the heat on low. In this way I always have cooked ready beans in the fridge, ready to be used!

1 large red onion

3 garlic cloves

2 carrots

4 Tbsp olive oil

½ cup white wine

1 cup tomato preserve or sauce

3 tsp sage

Salt and pepper    

 

Over night soak the beans, the next morning cook them. I usually use a crock pot, add 1 Tbsp of salt and let it cook for several hours until the beans are soft.  

Pour olive oil in the pot of your choice and turn heat up to medium. Dice the onion and place it in the pot, add minced garlic, cut the carrots in small pieces, and the minced sage.  Sautee for 10 minutes, during th first 5 cover with lid. When you uncover the cooking pot and all the steam comes out don’t forget to stir. Let simmer for another 5 minutes lowering the heat slightly and stirring. Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes with no lid. When the onions seems wilted add the white wine and turn the heat to medium high. Let the liquid evaporate. When your “soffritto” looks juicy but not watery add the beans with the water in which they cooked. Cook on slow heat for two hours. Add salt and pepper to taste.   

You can serve this dish with small pasta, ditali rigati is my favorite, or else the traditional way to serve this dish is with spelt.What is spelt? It is an ancient grain widely recognized for its many health benefits. Triticum spelta is a hardier and more nutritious cousin to modern wheat. Also, spelt is the most widely spread crop of the norther part of Tuscany called Lunigiana, whose tradition and heritage are worth discovering.

Enjoy this nurturing and healing dish, and let it bring you a feeling of serenity, peace, and freedom. With love.

Casentino: through the woods of Tuscany, a heritage worth discovering

What an amazing planet this is! Everywhere I go nature never fails to enchant me with all its beauty and abundance! This time I will share with you all, my trip to Casentino, which is in the heart of Italy, at the border between two regions: Tuscany and Romagna. Italy is run in the middle from north to south by the Apennine mountains, where the woods are magical, the people friendly and welcoming, and the food fresh and genuine. When you travel through the small towns of Casentino it feels like the time stopped, the people preserve ancient skills that have been passed down through generations. Here the eggs come from local chicken coops, the vegetables from the neighbor’s garden, the cakes home-made, the bread made from scratch. Here the people wake up early, breed animals, take long walks,and pick berries in the woods.

This is the area that, in the years 1200, Saint Francis chose for his religious calling. As a young man, he abandoned all his material belonging to dedicate himself to the monastic life. He was a lover of nature and animals. In his memory, in the country side of the city of Chiusi, you can find a Sanctuary called Santuario della Verna. Austere and magnificent at the same time. The building is situated on the side of a mountain in the cracks of massive rocks, as you walk the narrow paths that take you from the main entrance of the sanctuary to the various small chapels around the main building, steep staircases made of stone guide you to the cell that used to be the place Saint Francis lived in. Despite the hot weather you could feel the cold radiating from the rocks covered with green moss.

The sanctuary is located on the side of Mount Penna, where you can take hikes that allow you to discover enchanted corners of the forest or breath-taking views over the Appenine mountains. The whole area of Casentino is sparsely populated and the nature is uncontaminated. If you happen to be so lucky as to visit these suggestive places the best option for boarding is certainly the “agriturismo”. This alternative kind of tourism, which could be explained as a farm-stay, it is actually much more than that, it is perhaps the best way to really fully immerse yourself and experience Italy’s countryside.   Typically, an “agriturismo” is an independently owned farm that the owners have decided to use partially for accommodation purposes. I love staying in agriturismo not only because they are always located in charming beautiful places, but also because they serve the best local food ever!

Before leaving home one of my students gave me a tip about a quaint little place to stay, the places’ name is “Agriturismo La Chiusa”, located in Stia. We got to this place before sunset, the sides of the mountains were golden from the light of the setting sun. The building made of stone, was standing in the middle of this small valley at the bottom of rolling mountains, tall and stern. A white horse was strolling and munching on grass right in front of the house. It felt like, in this place, time had stopped a long time ago.

We got out of the car to stretch our legs a bit, which were all crumpled up from a long car ride, a smiling middle-aged man leans out from the terrace of the building to greet me. I have a nice chit-chat with this gentleman who turned out to be the owner of the agriturismo. I ask him if we could stay for the evening and have dinner by them, but very politely he informs me that they do dinners for guests only on reservation and that they were having a party on that night, which made it hard to add new people, but that we were more than welcome to stay a while, look around and enjoy ourselves there. I thanked his hospitality but decided to move on to find a place to eat since it was getting dark soon and we were all very hungry. We leave this charming, stuck in time place, on a white gravel road, leaving behind us a romantic rural existence with its brilliant colors and the sound of birds chirping and chickens cooing.

As we kept driving in the lonesome mountains of Casentino, pops out from nowhere a brown sign showing us the direction to another agriturismo called Borgo Tramonte. We climb further up the mountain on very narrow curvy roads with a stunning panorama below us. In front of us we see a picturesque group  of small stone buildings, two swings and a fire-red sunset framed in by a scented bush of purple lavender. We see a young lady standing in front of what we supposed to be the main entrance of the facility and with a heart full of hope we ask if they have extra room for us to stay for dinner. She greets us politely and welcomes us inside while she goes into the big kitchen to confirm with the cook. We follow her to a cozy room with a big fireplace, she starts setting the table and tells us to make ourselves comfortable since we were welcome to stay with them for dinner. With a relieved heart we sat down, eager to try the delicious creations of such a generous and kind cook, which opened her arms to four starving travelers.

You can believe me If I say that our hearts were filled with joy just as much as our stomachs filled with hunger, when we  found out we could stay for dinner. After we ate  we were amazed by the quality (and quantity) of the food we had. For starters we were served a typical dish from the area: tortelli di patate, which is stuffed pasta with potatoes in a sauce of salty butter and sage, topped with grated parmesan cheese.

To follow they brought us pork roast, steak, and roasted potatoes, they dug up from the dirt a couple of hours prior. The food was so good we could not refrain but helping ourselves to seconds.

When we thought we could not fit anything else in our well fed bodies, we were presented with a home-made chocolate mousse, topped with candied cherries and a home-made, heart-shaped, butter cookie. I usually don’t eat dessert after dinner, but that time I could not turn it down, and I am glad I didn’t. All the dedication,  passion, and  hospitality was transferred to the food, which made it all the more delicious.

By the time we finished eating the lovely sunset had left its place to the dark night, and down in the valley all the lights had come on like little stars. We were so glad our guardian angel somehow had shown us the way to this place, so cozy, warm, and welcoming.  We will certainly be back, perhaps in the winter months, when the snow will have kissed the tops of these mountains. Thank you lovely place: Borgo Tremonte!

Reclaiming a new archetype

Years back when the kids were little and we were living in the US, I had a subscription to a magazine that to this day I remember fondly and I wish I could again put my hands on, the name of the magazine is “Mothering” by Peggy O’Mara. I remember pouring through those pages which would help me keep perspective of things during those days in which,  dirty laundry, meal plans, groceries, nap times, walks to the park, nursing was all I cared about. I was fascinated with my life, some days I felt like I was playing house, I loved all aspects of it, well, almost all, with the kids I had a second baby-hood myself, we read so much together that we could wrap the earth around twice with all the books we read. It was fun, humbling fun. The mothering experience certainly transformed me, helped me grow into a better version of myself, I have done things I had no idea before I could do, and I have discovered myself, years into my mothering experience, as powerful as a lion, and at the same time as vulnerable as a lamb. I realized the amazing honor of being responsible for the two lives of the two most important human being on earth for me, my children. As Peggy O’Mara points out in one of her articles “In becoming a mother a woman also gives birth to herself” and this is exactly what happened to me.

How do we become mothers? How is the becoming a mother perceived by society? What does mother mean? The original model of the mother is the Great Mother, represented in many traditions by Mother Earth. Some representations of the Great Mother are Mary in Christianity; Durga a mother goddess in the Hindu religion, and Kuan Yin in the Buddhist religion, to name just a few. All of these Mothers from the different traditions convey a sense of strength and power, why is that our society so often associates mothers with weakness and why the same woman who can birth a baby is easily overpowered and victimized by her role? Just like Mother Earth our strength can be gentle as a breeze or powerful as a hurricane, these two forces coexist in us just like in nature.

Going back to my previous blog-post and to the idea of the transformation of man and woman into its best potential, a very important stage of transformation is the one of a   women becoming a mother, in this process she embodies  the archetype of the Great Mother, as Peggy O’Mara says with her eloquent words “she recognizes her own INDOMITABLE spirit”. The woman awakening to her unique power gives birth to a new version of herself, she is born anew. It is in this delicate process that the couple must find the perfect equilibrium that allows them to keep growing close together. Keep seeing into one another that corner of paradise where at the end of each day, when everything has been said and done, the couple can quench its thirst and feed its hunger in an atmosphere of love and respect.

Many women have experienced the unleashing of deep creative impulses during this amazing time, they realize the energy of a creative power innate in most of us and they start discovering new aspects of themselves. While this image of the creative mother is the most powerful, and beautiful way to perceive the shift of a woman into motherhood, some women tend to embrace the dark side of the stereotype, which suggests that any distraction from the task of motherhood compromises a woman’s devotion and they buy into the perspective that being a mother means self-sacrifice to the point of self-destruction or martyrdom. This attitude on a woman’s part, is not only detrimental to herself but also to the delicate equilibrium with her partner, which from a place of commiseration is impossible to maintain. Therefore, us women must learn to take care of ourselves in order to take care of others. Caring about our needs and ourselves must not be viewed as a selfish act, on the contrary making sure that we are serene and fulfilled we make sure to project this onto our family, since the mother is always the barometer of her family.

The mother is the balance keeper of her sanctuary of love, her home, where she cares for herself and her family, she is the cook, the counselor, the maid, the doctor, the gardener, the secretary, the queen, and everything else that is needed from her, and she gladly fulfills all these roles.

I just now realize that I have been carried away by my thoughts, and it’s almost time for dinner! What can I cook tonight? Any idea my friends? Let me get to work and come up with some idea that I will surely share with you all in my next blog post, stay tuned folks!

With Love.

 

On a Summer Sunday Morning

Happy Sundays morning world! Even though it is quite late already, my family is still fast asleep, so I’ll take some time for myself to do some writing and blogging. it is still a boiling hot summers over here, the flowers are all droopy and exhausted from months of unstoppable heat. We had some episodes of rain here and there, but other then that it’s been petty much like living in the desert since the middle of June. I am not complaining though, I just adore the Summer in Italy, I love all about it, the heat, the poppies, the sunburnt yellow rolling hills, punctured by slim, tall cypresses, the sea, the sand, the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, the sound of the crickets, the hot sun, the sunflowers, and the wine, sipped along with a delicious sea food dinner, sitting at a table listening to the sea.

This is perhaps the one dish, along with stracchino cheese, that I mostly missed living in the Mid-West. Lightly fried, crispy squid. Yummy! Another really exquisite Summer dish that comes to my mind and that it is perfect on a hot night, eating al fresco with friends is prosciutto (seasoned, raw, cured ham) with figs. What I especially like about this dish is the combination of the tickling salty flavor of the prosciutto and the sweet juicy taste of the figs. A must try!

Since we talked about squid, prosciutto, and figs, we cannot leave out another all time favorite of mine: beets and their infinite wonders! I just inspired myself to a yummy lunch, since I have fresh little purple beets waiting for me in my garden. As I am done writing, I’ll run outside and take out of the ground its precious gifts and will cook them for my family for lunch. Here below I will share this quick and delicious recipe that all of us can prepare and be sure to impress our family and guests!

Beets with Goat Cheese and Balsamic Vinegar

 

Beets are simply beautiful! Their color, their leaves and the way they half stick out from the dirt in the garden is a treat to the eyes. Beets are delicious steamed, pickled or roasted. Their smooth and earthy texture allows this root vegetable to be savored on its own, as a complementary food to a main dish, or accompanied by other foods. I shall not forget to mention raw beets, favorite ingredient in juices. Try as morning juice a fresh squeeze of beets, carrots, orange and spinach, this elixir of fresh foods will energize your whole system…deliciously!

As far as our recipe goes, I believe that beets and goat cheese is a match made in heaven.

The balsamic vinegar accentuates the combination and brings the flavors together.

Whenever I can, I chose local goat cheese that I find at farmer’s markets, the taste of fresh goat cheese is incredible! The quality of the vinegar also helps to make this dish special: if you have the chance try balsamic vinegar aged in wooden barrels and you’ll taste what my friend Laurie calls the “nectar of the Gods”. Mix all of these ingredients and you can be sure that the result will leave your guests in awe.

Tip:

Never discard the juice of beets, whether raw or cooked, it works wonders as a natural  dye. The color of the raw juice is a stunning, vibrant, intense pink, while the cooked juice is more of a brown-yellow color. Use vinegar as mordant to fix the color on the fabric or wool you are dying.
6 beets

1 package of chevre or goat cheese

3 heaping Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 handful of pumpkin seeds

salt and pepper

Cut the green part of the beets off, stem and all and save for another recipe. Wash the beets and scrub them if necessary (It will be necessary if they come from your own garden…yum!)

Place the beets in a sauce pan with water and a tablespoon of salt and boil until tender (to test for readiness you may try to stick a fork in the beets).  Drain the water and let cool for ten minutes. Peel off the skin and cut the beet in cubes. Crumble the goat cheese and add the pumpkin seeds. Incorporate the condiments: salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Gently stir and enjoy how the goat cheese turns into a vivacious pink as it touches the beets!   

Enjoy!

 

 

Ode to Joy: the sweet flavor of blackberry-peach tart

Today, or perhaps I should say yesterday, since I have been up for almost 24 hours straight by now,  I have been so lucky as to go pick up my children at the airport in Rome after two month in the USA with their Daddy. Seeing them pop out of the crowd and walk towards me with their big luggage and with their uncontainable beautiful smiles made my heart almost explode with joy. As I was looking at my children getting closer and closer to me, I have been once again reminded of the infinite blessing that children bring in a parent’s life, what an amazing opportunity for growth they offer every day, again and again. Years back, they have been my mentors and guides towards the rediscovery of a life full of joy. Observing children, they help you understand that everything around  is a miracle, and a possible source that creates happiness. Being happy is truly a choice, a life style, an inner state.

Joy is really to be found deep within, to feel joy is a spontaneous and contagious gift of grace. It can be inspired by a blooming flower, the song of a  bird, the purring of a cat, the laughter of your children. When we experience joy, we become messengers of it and infect those who we encounter in our daily life and along our path. It is in this state of mind, heart, and soul that life starts opening up: the doors we are meant to cross along our path start opening up like spring flowers in the sunshine, after a thunder-storm.

It is important to welcome joy: knowledge, truth, and life, they are all vehicles and expressions of it. This is an awareness that will start to transform our attitude towards everything that surrounds us: family, work, relationships. It will radically change the way we look at things, chores for instance usually viewed as hassles, as dradgery can be trasformed and become an act of love. Cleaning our homes, our sanctuaries, where we always return after a day of running around, or after a vacation, will become an act of joy, nurture, and love. This reminds me of Kahlil Gibran’s word’s in saying: “work is love made seen”. Work, speak, cook, from the heart and life will start to make sense, you will be on the path of light, which will take you to a place you will never want to leave.

Cooking, is there a more delightful activity?! Through the preparation of food we nurture our loved ones, we share a part of ourselves, we show how much we care.  I love to receive my children home from school with the sweet smell of a freshly baked snack. Sometimes I daydream thinking that this smell will be the kind of smell that, once they grow up, will always make them think of their childhood.  

 

 Blackberry Peach Tart

This is a favorite of mine! I love the deliciously sweet and tart plus that mild kick of sour  flavor of blackberries combined with the juicy sweet taste of Italian peaches. During the hot italian Summers  I rarely buy fruit at supermarkets, I prefer either farmers markets or to go directly to the farm mylself and often pick the fruit straight from the trees or from the dirt. I always try to eat organic produce or at least make sure they do not spray their fruit and vegetables. Here below is my version of blackberry-peach tart. The dough recipe is a gift to me from my friend Rita in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

 

For the dough:

2 cups white all purpose flour

8 ounces (2 sticks) of butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup heavy cream (you may add more until you get the dough into a ball).

 

For the filling:

1 pound peaches

1/2 pound blackberries

1 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1 egg, slightly beaten

 

Making the dough

Pour the flour into a bowl, cut the the butter into cubes and add it to the flour.

With a hand pie mixer break up the butter into the flour until it is of the consistency of

big crumbs. Add sugar, salt, mix and then add the cream and with your hands try to form a ball.

Once you have a ball, divide it in two, flatten the two pieces of dough to have to chunky disks, wrap them ion saran wrap and refrigerate for one hour, or for up to five days.   

 

Making the filling

Combine the peaches, blackberries, and the lemon juice in a medium saucepan over  high heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the peaches and the blackberries release their juice, about 10 to 15 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve 1 1/2-2 cups of juice. Return juice to saucepan over high heat, stir in sugar and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for five more minutes. Transfer jam to a bowl, and let cool, stirring occasionally.

 

Preheat oven at 375

On a lightly floured surface roll out one of disks that you kept refrigerated. (For this recipe we use only one disk, so you can save the other one for another dish for the next day or use up to five days. It also freezes very well!) Roll out the disk to 1/8 inch thickness. Transfer the round to a baking sheet lined with butter and flour (or parchment paper if you prefer). Poke holes in the bottom of the tart with a fork. Spread the jam on top and turn the hanging ends of  the dough over so that they can irregularly rest on the jam. Lightly beat your egg and with kitchen brush, the top of the tart (this will give it a shiny look!). If you wish for a fancy look you can add coarse sanding sugar on the top.         

For a successful tart the baking is key. When you put your tart in the oven at first set your grid on medium low level, insert the tart and bake for half an hour. After half an hour change your grid to the medium high level and bake for another half an hour. The top of the tart should turn chestnut brown and the jam should have jelly like somewhat bubbly consistency.

If you like this tart is delicious served fresh homemade whipped cream!

Voila’, things are back in place: the house is full. The kids’ voices fill up my heart with joy as the smell of a deliciuos sweet tart tickles my nose, I can tell it is about ready to come out of the oven! Life is good.

 

 

 

 

Queen of the day

I adore this image and the meaning of these three lines of words, which so well summarize a very important paradigm: be worthy and you shall receive. Wearing a crown is a privilege but it is also a commitment to be the best possible version of yourself. Anytime you wear a crown or that someone gives you a crown, with it they elect you to queen of their hearts. Your children, your spouse, your parents, your friends,  are handing you their hopes, their trust, their hearts, never break them. Stand up tall and proudly wear your invisible shining crown, for yourself for it is beautiful shining light and for others which enjoy and rejoice in your light.

To love and be loved will give peace and a feeling of plenitude to your heart. The feeling of plenitude, for most of us has little to do with our material possessions. Plenitude thrives in a happy heart. It is like a song, like a melody, learning to dance to its rhythm is a slow and sweet discovery of a life full of joy and gratitude.

Happy Birthday to me, I will celebrate my special day by feeling the queen of this magical August day, and will make wishes while I watch for shooting stars falling in the night sky tonight.

ODE TO JOY

This morning nature has come to rescue me

To silence my mind

To open my heart

She came with her gently silky hand

To caress my weary forehead.

She whispered in my ear soft loving words of reassurance,

She delicately blew in my face star dust

to reawakened my senses.

She used a white dove’s feather to dust away sorrow from my eyes

and open them to all the beauty that surrounds me.

She sent a hummingbird to remind me that work is love made seen

and everything, every single gentle presence is a confirmation that the universe is joy

and I am held on the palm of love.

With Love and Gratitude for you ALL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foodie heaven

Eating is a necessity, but eating well is an art, once someone said, and I could not agree more. I just recently took a trip to a beautiful land, a corner of paradise, were the beauty of nature blends perfectly with the delights of its colors, its scent and naturally, its food. The fertile land of the island of Sicily, has gifted me with memories forever stuck in my mind and heart.

What can better describe a full sensory experience than this beautifully arranged platter of food composed of some of the most popular traditional Sicilian ingredients, such as Caponata, (recipe described in a previous post), smoked red tuna fish, fresh anchovies, thinly sliced raw tuna and sword fish, octopus salad, ricotta salata, sun-dried tomatoes, and stuffed peppers.  Try to picture yourself in front of such a plate of food, sitting at a table of a quaint restaurant in the small town of Erice, where during the Summer months, the sun is so bright and strong that you cannot forget to wear a hat at all times.

When you are in Sicily you cannot skip dessert, the sweets in this region are so amazingly delicious that you won’t believe it. The most well know Sicilian dessert is the Cannolo, which is often served with a special type of coffee: pistachio cream coffee, which, I must admit, is one of the best things I ever tasted!

Imagine all this feast on your taste buds, the smell of the sea, the gentle breeze and the breath-taking view of the ruins of the ancient temples. All of this and much more, you can find in Sicily!

I cannot forget to mention the sea, the beautiful blue water and its fish, so present in the Sicilian cuisine. The most famous is red tuna, very prestigious and a real treat for its special flavor. My favorite way to eat it is barely cooked on the grill and coated in pistachio crumbs. Check it out below!

For whoever would be curious to visit this amazing island, I would recommend the small village of Erice, with its famous patisserie owned by Maria Grammatico and considered the best one in the whole region, there you’ll find her almond paste cookies, cassata, and cannoli, along with delicious jams and preserves. All naturally home made from scratch.

All of this great food can easily be washed down with some of the most famous wines of the region like Marsala, Nero D’Avola or the sweet white wine called Zibibbo or Passito di Pantelleria ideally sipped on the beach gazing the sea.

Cheers!!!

With Love.

Special thanks to the artistic eye behind the camera lense: @Simone Ciaschi http://www.facebook.com-Simone-Ciaschi

 

Big Magic

 

The beginning…

God bless lines, queues, and all waiting time, so dreaded by modern life where we are always crazy busy running like headless chickens from one duty to the next.

I have been waiting in line quite a bit in these last few days, for renewing passports, for paying fees, at the hairdresser and so on, and since my life, just like most other people’s these days, is awfully busy, I had to surrender and take the time to stop and think.

Luckily, I am blessed with my guides, my angels, my Goddess, my lucky stars, who look over me and showed me the way to this book, I am now reading: “Big Magic”.

This book is Elizabeth Gilbert’s last work, and as always in my life this is the one book in the whole universe that I am supposed to be reading in order to receive the  answers to the very questions life is presenting me with. How would you call this, if not: Big Magic? So here I am, listening to the message coming from the book and taking up the courage to open my blog and say yes to life! I am opening my arms to let the star dust in, and walk towards my dreams.

Fun is the key to freedom and happiness. Writing for me is fun, but not only, writing is a catharsis, it is what I need to do in order to connect to my higher self, to that invisible shining thread that connects me to the universe. When I write I become a tool, a mean through which something much greater than me communicates. I am saying this because when often times I write something and I go back and reread my work, I feel like it wasn’t me the author of what I put down on paper. Every time I must sum up something it feels hard at first but then as I am writing, sentences start to make sense and they melt to each other as magic.  Creative living spent writing, cooking, reading, dancing, painting  is what makes me happy, makes me the better version of myself. Therefore I could add using Elizabeth Gilbert’s words: “All I know for certain is that this is how I want to spend my life-collaborating to the best of my ability with forces of inspiration that I can neither see, nor prove, nor command, nor understand. It’s a strange line of work admittedly. I cannot think of a better way to pass my days.”

Through my writing I would like to bring sunshine in the life of my readers, help them tap into their creative life, trust their inner voice and their intuition. A healthy and happy mind needs a healthy and happy body, which is fit and well nourished with yummy foods. Cooking, just like writing, inspires me immensely: I never get tired of finding and trying out new recipes, new foods, new ingredients, and new combinations. I am looking forward to sharing my love for food through all the recipes I gathered during my life in all the different places I lived and travelled. Let’s start this journey of sensory pleasures together and support one another towards the life we always dreamt of!

With Love.