Thanks for Reading!
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Enjoy the reading.
Your cookery writer, Monica
While I write that newsletter, I'm in Villabassa, a small village in Puster Valley, Italian Tyrol. These are places I know well and where I feel somewhat at home since I have been coming up here for more than 30 years now.
I have written a travel itinerary dedicated to Puster Valley.
Back to us, I've been here to work for a couple of weeks now. It will be a summer of writing, research, and work. I have a lot of things to do!
However, I'm happy because I started to tick off a few voices from my to-do list.
The new blog is online
The NEW BLOG is finally online. And if you take a look to give me feedback, I will be glad. Your opinion is important to me.
I have moved more than 600 recipes (300 written in Italian and as many in English), and, at the moment, I still need to correct a few things. Equally, I trust you will find my new virtual kitchen welcoming and easy to use.
I also designed a new logo: instead of the old colored tortellino, I chose a black and white rolling pin. I realized it on Canva, and I hope you will like it.
You will find a page dedicated to cooking classes
Yay! I've been wanting for a long time to give order and continuity to this activity that was not regular until now. This way, you'll know where to find updates on upcoming courses, both those I will do in my home in Bologna and those that, from May to October, I will do in my country home. On the page, you'll find all the info and some photos.
Something Personal
Louisa May Alcott wrote:
I often wonder if those childhood games didn't influence my later life, as books have been my comfort and passion, building stories a pleasure never abandoned.
I want to share something personal with you.
I have vivid memories dating back to when I was only three years old. These memories aren't induced but rather very clear and accurate. Additionally, even as a young child, I somehow taught myself to read.
One of my earliest childhood memories is playing with books and magazines I would find around home. I would flip through the pages and look at the illustrations.
Grandma, when we still lived in the flat in downtown Imola, where I was born and raised, would sometimes sit next to me, pointing out and pronouncing the letters aloud.
For sure, I was four years old when we moved home, and my parents realized that I was reading the books I was holding.
Since it was something everyone learns to do, sooner or later, they did not give the affair any importance. The only measure was to move some books to higher shelves.
I have been reading non-stop for both leisure and work since I started.
In the first grade, teacher Renata would take me by the hand and accompany me to the following classes to borrow some books since I had already finished reading the ones available by mid-year.
I could write many pages to tell you what it has meant to me to read so much and so omnivorously: about the power of words, the wings they have given to my imagination. Again, about the stories they have suggested to me.
And also the freedom of thought I matured. It has been a freedom that sometimes brought me suffering, but it was even my salvation when I thought I was a failure. And believe me when I say those were not the best five minutes of my life, five to speak.
Or again of the peripeteia into which certain books have dragged me.
Maybe I will one day.
Light and shadow
In this society that admits only success, those who struggle end up on the margins. Some time ago, I shared a moment of personal difficulty. I hope my story can be helpful to those going through a critical phase. No one should feel wrong or be alone in the face of a problem. In addition to the post, you will find a good recipe for ricotta tart.
A sweet ricotta tart (crostata) to celebrate a new awareness
The importance of a (good) book
Authoritative reports indicate that illiteracy levels will increase in the coming years.
It sounds unbelievable, I know. The habit of quickly scrolling through pictures and videos will be one of the main reasons for this catastrophe. We are moving away from writing and reading, and there is no more dangerous path than the one where we leave to others the discernment ability that comes from having a mind trained to think.
All this seems enough to make us want to find our way back to reading by looking for books that can hold us back and, if we need a boost, join a book club.
If you are here, it is clear that you are a reader. And I would love to hear your voice on this issue. Have social media taken time away from reading? How much do you read? Do you have children and grandchildren? What is their relationship with books?
A book does not change lives, but words can make us more conscious people and help us guide the change we would like to trigger around us. They certainly help develop independent thinking, which should always be the compass that guides our decisions.
If you have one or more books to recommend to me and our community, please write the author and title in the comments. If you have time, add a sentence or adjective to help us understand what kind of reading it is.
Below you can find my reading advice.
Sometimes I think heaven must be one continuous unexhausted reading (V. Woolf)
I have a thing for the works of an American author who is quite famous in Italy for a movie adaptation of one of her books. Although, almost no one remembers her name.
The movie in question is Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle stop cafe, and the author is Fannie Flagg. Do you know her?
I wish I could write like her. I wish I had written her books, all of them, from first to last. Fannie Flagg makes you think, smile and even laugh out loud.
How many times I have thought how nice it would be to jump inside the pages of her books and find a place, at least for a while, in that world painted in such vivid colors that it seems true. It is not a perfect, pristine space, but Flagg always knows how to straighten out a situation using justice and humor.
And so it is that a mean man comes to the end he deserves, falling into a sewer.
Or that a diagnosis of death leads the sad protagonist to wait for it while discovers that a new Life is waiting for him around the corner. Her characters are always genuine and poetically original. Like that Miss Alabama who, having decided to end it all, still wants to get it right and takes care to defrost the refrigerator.
Flagg is not known as a food writer. She is a writer who gives food the role, I think, it also has in our lives: it is comfort, a gesture of love and nourishment, and pleasure. Sometimes a mere presence in the background, you have to eat.
At the bottom of some of her books, not always, you will find a welcome surprise: the recipes that tickled your palate while reading. Guy, her salted caramel is among the best I have ever tried.
Here are some titles for you:
Daisy Fay And The Miracle Man
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Standing in the Rainbow
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
A Redbird Christmas
Can't Wait to Get to Heaven
Two recipes for celebrating herbs
Both recipes can serve as appetizers. The former also works well as a side.
Recipe. Baked zucchini gratin
serves 4
Ingredients
zucchini, 400 g
breadcrumbs, 20 g
grated Parmesan cheese, 20 g
chopped aromatic herbs*, 12 g
salt, olive oil to taste
*I used some celery leaves, basil, thyme, parsley
Method
Cut zucchini into 3-millimeter-thick rounds and place them, without overlapping, on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper lightly greased with olive oil.
Mince the herbs and mix them with Parmigiano, breadcrumbs, and salt.
Spread the mixture over the zucchini rounds and add olive oil.
Bake in a preheated oven, 180C degrees (356F), for about 15-20 minutes.
That dish works well warm and also at room temperature.
You can store it in the refrigerator for a few days.
Recipe. Plums and apricots with herbs and cheese
Kitchen Note
For filling plums and apricots, I have tried either semi-soft cheese (the one in the photo) by mashing it with a fork to add the chopped herbs or robiola cheese (if you use soft cheese, don't forget to keep it in the refrigerator for an hour before serving).
My mom, who yet cooked both newsletter recipes, told me she used goat cheese and loved them.
Lastly, using honey instead of herbs, you turn it from an aperitif into a dessert.
serves 4
Ingredients
4 dried plums, pitted
4 dried apricots
cheese, about 50-60 g
chopped thyme, chives, basil to taste
Method
Mix the cheese with the finely chopped herbs.
Score the plums and apricots on one side and fill with the flavored cheese, helping yourself with a teaspoon.
Serve apricots and plums with bread and speak or prosciutto crudo (or other goodies).
Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Ciao!
Although August is traditionally a vacation month in Italy, my newsletter does not go on holiday. Since I'm working a few hours at the pc every day this summer, I want to fulfill my newly made commitment of a bimonthly newsletter. You will hear from me on August 14, which, in this part of the world, is the eve of a significant day, Ferragosto Day.
Thanks for Reading
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If you enjoyed this post, please click on the little ❤️ below ⬇️.
Ciao Monica! In risposta alle belle cose che ho appena letto nella tua newsletter...
1) anch'io ho iniziato a leggere e a scrivere autonomamente a 4 anni e non mi sono più fermata, ho libri e puzzle in ogni dove 😅
2) sono assolutamente d'accordo per lo spettro di un pesante analfabetismo di ritorno e sul fatto che i social media abbiano gravi responsabilità per questo dramma..nel mio piccolo, ho chiuso ogni account da tempo.
Continua così 🤗