Monday May 18th, Italy moved on to the next stage in the Pandemia. We are allowed to leave our homes without a permission slip (papers we had to fill out and keep with us). We can also leave our towns and go to nearby towns in the region. In my village, our weekly market opened…
Lost Recipes-Salame Dolce
This is one of my favorites to keep in the freezer as a back-up dessert! Richer and fancier versions sold in pastry shops now have melted chocolate and chopped nuts added to make it more of a candy version. Rolling the outside edges in powdered sugar makes it really look like salame. Here’s the…
Torino – j’adore
I adore going to Torino. It reminds me a lot of Paris and has a feel of San Francisco about it. This week we ended our Ecole Chocolat tour with two days in Torino. Of course, one of the reasons was Chocolate! Torino has it’s own chocolate festival called CioccolaTO, TO being the initials for…
The Pleasures of Learning- ICAM
I think I am a perpetual student. I adore studying, hate tests, but love learning new things. For the past 7 years, I have been helping my friend Pam with her Ecole Chocolat Italian program for graduates from her online-chocolate school. We have been doing the Tuscan chocolate valley with visits and workshops with the…
Italian Amaretti Apricots- Summer Food Fest- Stone Fruits
As peaches, plums and apricots hit the markets; both my husband and I risk stomach aches daily from eating too much fruit. But how can one resist when buying right from the farmers, still warm from the tree. With a simple white peach, pureed and served with Prosecco, Italy celebrates summer with the Bellini cocktail-…
Cookies for Lent
Don’t ask me how cookies can be for Lent, but takes an Italian cook to create something sweet, even when one is supposed to be giving things up. The story goes that these dry cookies were supposed to help you while fasting during lent. Carnevale– is taken from levare carne– or to take away meat….
Hot Italian Kisses | Truffles
Probably one of Italy’s most famous chocolate candies is called Baci, meaning kisses. When I toured the Perugina factory in Perugia, they said that the original name was actually going to be cazzotti- meaning little fists or punches. Baci is a much nicer name for something so sweet. Italy has a history of adding hazelnuts…
Ode to the Eggplant- Melanzane al Cioccolato
The poor eggplant, melanzane in Italian; from mela–non sana, “not healthy apple”. The eggplant, like the potatoes, bell peppers and chili peppers are edible nightshade vegetables. When these foods were first introduced into the Italian diet, the first reaction was that they were not good for you and were often planted for their flowers in…