An Italian in the US

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Fresh Produce of the Month - Roundup and announcement!

At last, after delaying the deadline and some more days of non-blogging, I can announce that the Fresh Produce of the Month Roundup is ready!
The subject was asparagus, and we have collected a good number of delicious ideas that can help you cook this delicious vegetable.

Let's start with Shibani, from 'Any one can cook'. She presents to us a wonderful dish called 'Asparagus stalks blended into a creamy soup'. Reading about this soup, served with bread and cheddar cheese, just makes me salivate. :)

Divya at Dil Se proposes a similar asparagus soup, accompanied by breadsticks. She makes the breadsticks too, and gives us a recipe for both soup and breadsticks! Thanks Divya :)

Then we have Asha, at Aroma!, who introduces us to 'Crunchy asparagus in chilli-garlic butter'. It's an amazing dish, which looks really simple and is prepared in the microwave!

Happy Cook from 'My kitchen treasures' prepares another wonderful Asparagus soup, with white asparagus, decorated with parsley leaves. I'd love to try this version too!

A special mention is to be given to my friend Sonya! She doesn't have a blog, and she just recently started cooking. She has prepared an Asparagus risotto. She didn't give me too many details about how she's made it, so I'm going to guess :) I'd think she has used something similar to this recipe for cabbage and brie cheese risotto, but instead of adding cabbage with the onion, she has waited till ~10 min to the end of the cooking and she has added asparagus pieces to it.

Bee and Jai at Jugalbandi gave us a recipe for 'Roasted Asparagus, Carrots, and Zucchini with Herbs'. It looks so colorful and delicious! And also, easy to make, which is the best combination. :)

Bhags at 'Crazy curries' presented another 'Asparagus risotto', prepared with wine and feta cheese in addition to the asparagus! Looks delicious, thanks Bhags!

And at last, my two contributions past the initial deadline: 'Tortine di asparagi e feta'

and 'Asparagi olio e limone' . The former recipe is an improvisation of a Sunday morning, whereas the latter is a classic, one of my favorite ways of serving asparagus.

So, we arrived at the end of this edition, too! I hope you are satisfied with it, and have some good inspiration for your next asparagus-centered dish! I really liked to read and summarize all of these delicacies. :)

For the next event, I believe we cannot miss the fact that strawberry season is starting!!! Who doesn't like strawberries? And they are a good source of vitamin C! So, let's see what kind of wonderful recipes everybody likes to try with this delicious fruit. :) The deadline will be July 21!

(strawberry picture given by Sonya!)

If you'd like to participate, follow these simple rules:
1) Put a post on your blog with a recipe involving strawberries. Add a link to this post on my blog and mention that it's an entry for the 'Fresh produce of the month' event. If you like it, feel free to place the logo of the strawberry-centered event on your post.
2) Send me an email with a link to your post, your blog homepage and your name. My email address is chemcookitATgmailDOTcom. Specify 'Fresh produce of the month: Strawberries' as subject.
3) If you don't have a blog just send me an email with your recipe and if you have a picture of the food you made, that's even better. I will add it to the round-up as well.

Monday, June 09, 2008

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Ricette con gli asparagi

Better late than never, here are my entries to the event that I host myself.. the 'Fresh Produce of the Month', this month centered on Asparagus!

Definitely quite in season during the past month, I had various occasions to prepare different types of food with this delicious vegetable. I'll present here two dishes: Tortine di asparagi e feta (Asparagus and feta tartelettes) and Asparagi olio e limone (Asparagus with olive oil and lemon).

Tortine di asparagi e feta / Asparagus and feta tartelettes
Steam a few asparagus for ~7 minutes. In the meanwhile, thaw a sheet of puff pastry and fill some tartelette shapes with it. Prepare a mixture of 2 eggs and ~1/2 cup of shredded feta cheese. Add salt, dried oregano and black pepper. When the asparagus is ready, cut it into pieces that can fit the tartelette shapes. Place on top, and cut away the extra pastry dough, so that in the end it just fills perfectly each shape. You can fold a little border of dough over each shape. Bake in the oven at 350 F for about 20 minutes, until golden.
One puff pastry dough sheet was a lot for the six tartelettes I prepared, so I made an extra small cake with the leftovers:
Both the tartelettes and the cake were really good. I was very happy of this quick recipe that I made up based on what was in the fridge. Moreover, this was the first time I used my tartelette pan. It's in silicon, and it worked really well for this. The tartelettes came out very easily from it when they were ready, more beautiful than ever!
Because this dish came out so well, I'm presenting also for the 'Monthly Mingle' event, centered on Hors d'oeuvres and Appetizers, which I'm right on time for! This lovely event was started by Meeta at 'What's for lunch, honey?', but this month it's hosted by Mansi at Fun and food

Here is one last tartelette, shown here to make you feel like trying this recipe out. :)

Asparagi olio e limone/ Olive oil and lemon asparagus
This is the easiest and my favorite way of eating asparagus. To make it, just steam the asparagus for ~10 minutes, and serve them with a sauce made by mixing together with a whisk ~4 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp lemon juice and salt. Then, sprinkle pieces of parsley leaves on top.. Delicious!
This time I tried a mixture of green and white asparagus. The white asparagus is cultivated without light, and using more UV light. I never tried them before, and knowing that they are supposed to be a delicacy, I decided to buy them. I wasn't too impressed by them. The green asparagus have much more flavor, at least to my taste!

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Cibo in Germania

Finally I have some time to complete my little series about the trip to Germany! The last post was meant to be dedicated to German food.
I was quite impressed by the quality of the food found in all the restaurants I went to in Germany. When I was by myself in Cologne I was really mostly randomly choosing places to go, and I always found something good. However, I didn't go to many 'traditional German' places. It is quite true that traditionally, German people like a lot of meat (sausages especially) and potatoes, which is for example what we were given all the time at the conference in Mainz. Since I'm not too much of a fan of this food, I went to different places. For example, in Cologne there were restaurants presenting food from all over the world, and I tried both a Thai and a Spanish place which were really good. Such a variety would be impossible to find in Italy, for example.
More in details, in Mainz, Vardha and I went to a really good 'international' restaurant, called 'The Holy Spirit', which was in a building that used to be a church, and I had a delicious trout, while Vardha had a quite good pizza. Both the atmosphere and the food were very pleasant.
I had the best food with Michael, in Constance. He knew where to go! When I arrived, we went in a nice little place which had very good wine, and where I tried a traditional German dish which wasn't meat-centered, and made me very happy: 'Kässpätzle'. Spatzle is a type of hand-made pasta, shaped similarly to the Italian trofie, in small bits, and that contains eggs. The version I had was served with a lot of cheese and onions on top. It was really delicious! Too bad I forgot to take a picture of it.
Then, when we went on Richenau, we had the best fish dish ever in a small place on the island. There was such a nice atmosphere: they grilled the fish on the spot, and everybody was seated together with the other customers, at long tables. Again, I was too hungry to remember to take a picture.. :(
But actually, some of the best food was what Michael gave me for dinner at his place. He said that in Germany people usually eat just some open-face sandwiches with ham and cheese and butter. The bread he had and the one we bought at Richeanu were just amazing. And the cheese and ham,.. too good to seem true, especially after living in the US for such a long time! Of course I forgot to take pictures again, but in this case, I asked Michael if he could be so kind and take some pictures for me next time he had his supper. :) And here is an example of a wonderful dark bread (I didn't try this particular type, but dark bread is one of my favorite). Thank you Michael! :)
I must admit: German bread is better than Italian bread!! I would have never thought I could say something like this, but it's really true. The variety of breads that they have is just tremendously superior to what we make in Italy as our daily bread.
Another really good German food are the cakes. Michael got me to try a delicious 'Mohn cuken', i.e. a cake made with a lot of poppy seeds. It was really good! Again, no picture :(
But here is an example of a typical window of a bakery in Germany (this is in Cologne).
This place was specialized in strawberry cakes, so I tried a slice just before leaving. Wonderful. :)
Another specialty in Germany are cheesecakes:
I usually don't like cheesecakes in the US. They are too sweet and rich for my taste. But I had to try one in Cologne, because they told me that they were a specialty. So I tried a cheesecake with cherry, and to my surprise, it was light and tasted a little like flan, instead of a heavy cheesecake. I really enjoyed it.
As a last food-related thing, I will show here 'currywurst'. I had to try this. It's the most typical street food that you can find in Germany. It's hard for me to imagine how they came up with this combination: it's a big sausage, which they serve with what they define 'curry', meaning a thickish sauce with the spice that everybody in Italy (and evidently also in Germany) think of when the word 'curry' is mentioned. Now that I know something about Indian cuisine, I understand what a weird concept this is. Nevertheless, there is a 'curry' spice, and it's the one used to top this sausage. Obviously, you have to have 'curry-wurst' with beer. So here was my order:
I must say that I really enjoyed both the curry-wurst and the beer. I usually don't like beer and can never finish a whole glass (not to speak about a pint..). But this beer was light and not too bitter and was perfect with the food, on a sunny day. I was so happy while eating this street food, so different from what I usually like :)
So this is basically it with my food experiences in Germany. I tried also an ice-cream in a 'gelateria italiana'. The owner and the waiters were really Italian (it turns out that most places that claim to be Italian in Cologne are really owned by and employ mostly Italian people). But the gelato.. quite disappointing :( - I guess one really has to go to Italy for a good gelato :)

Sunday, June 08, 2008

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Estensione della scadenza di 'Fresh Produce of the Month'

Sunday, June 01, 2008

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Budino con carote e anice stellato

Before I continue my story about Germany, I have to write a post about a pudding that I made two days ago. I prepared it on purpose thinking I wanted to make something with a lot of milk, and healthy in general, for the 'Beautiful Bones' event hosted by Foodblogga this month. However, we got to eat this dessert only last night, and so I couldn't post the recipe with pictures on time for the deadline of the event. The roundup is already up! Oh well. I'll ask if this can be a super late entry, but in any case, please go check the roundup out, because it's wonderful!

Budino con carote e anice stellato / Carrot and star anise pudding
I invented this recipe, based on a traditional pudding recipe from Piemonte. The original version is Bunet, which I already posted about here, and has chocolate, coffee and amaretti cookies. But I wanted to have a completely different and fresher and healthier taste, so I substituted the cookies for grated carrots, and I boiled star anise in the milk for a while to give its taste to the pudding. I didn't use chocolate or coffee. The result was really delicious, I was very happy.
Ingredients:
4 eggs
3 small carrots
1/2 liter milk
4 tbsps brown sugar
4 tbsp white sugar
5 star anise pods
1 tsp vodka or rum or whatever liquor you like

Boil the star anise pods in the milk. In the meanwhile, grate the carrots (I used a food processor), and then add them to the milk. Add 4 tbsp brown sugar to the milk and carrots, and keep cooking for ~30 min. After this, remove the anise pods and let the milk and carrots cool down. In the meanwhile, separate the yolks from the whites. Beat the yolks and 2 tbsp white sugar, then add the liquor, and the cold milk and carrot mixture. Beat the eggwhites until firm (add a tiny amount of salt to help this). Gently fold the eggwhites in the rest of the liquid mixture.
Caramelize 2 tbsp of white sugar on the bottom of a baking pan (shaped as those used for bread loaves). Pour the mixture on top of the caramelized sugar in the pan, and place in a larger pan filled with hot water (at a level such that it arrives at about 3/4 of the height of the baking pan with the liquid mixture inside). Put this sort of 'double pan' in the oven that must be preheated at 370 F, for 40 minutes. Serve cold.

It was really good. Next time I make it, I'll use a smaller pan, or I'll double the doses, so that it will become thicker. Also, I think if one has time to let the milk cook longer, and cool down longer, less anise pods could be used, as they would have a longer time to infuse their flavor to the milk.

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Turista a Colonia

I have now some time to continue to post about my trip in Germany, after a few days of interruption.
After visiting Michael in Constance, I left for Cologne by train. The sceneries were beautiful, again. I was particularly struck by the intense yellow of some fields that were visible here and there on the hills we were going by. Here is a picture I took from the train window, which captures at least some of this beautiful color.
I arrived in Cologne in the early afternoon, and went to my bed and breakfast to deposit my luggage. It was an inexpensive and yet quite nice room, in a very lively neighborhood at walking distance from the Cathedral and the Rhine. Here is the room:
If you ever want to reserve a bed and breakfast in Germany, I recommend using this website. It worked really nicely for me, and you can pay less than half of what you would pay if you went to a regular hotel. Plus, you will feel at least a little bit immersed in the normal life of the city you’re visiting, as the rooms are simply part of apartments were people live.
Walking up the stairways in the building where my room was reminded me a little of visiting a friend in Torino. There is something similar in the way buildings are built everywhere in Europe, which is very distinct from the apartments and houses in the US. I must say, there is something about walking in a city in Europe that makes me feel instantly at home. Possibly this is just a superficial feeling, and I’m not sure if I would really feel more at home in a city in Germany compared to Berkeley. In the end, I’m Italian, and the unity of Europe as a nation has not really sunk in the hearts of the people, so that nobody would ever define himself or herself ‘European’. Yet, it is something that I have noticed quite a few times. It must be the architecture, the many people walking around in the streets, all the shops, cafes, restaurants. And the churches, the museums, and in general, that feeling of history that I only recently realized saturates the air of Europe.
During my first afternoon I walked around downtown and visited the impressive Cathedral that makes Cologne famous. It’s an amazing building. Its façade is so tall that it was impossible for me to take a picture of the whole of it. So, here is the upper part:
And here is the lower part, with the monumental entrances.
All its facades are quite impressive. Here is another of them, seen from the square where two of the main museums of Cologne are. In particular, on the left side of the picture you can see the museum of Germany history, and on the right side, the Ludwig museum of modern and contemporary art.
During my day and nights in Cologne I was completely by myself. This was a new experience for me, and I was somewhat happy and concerned at the same time about it. In the end, it was good, although I must admit that I do prefer traveling in the company of a good friend or two. On the bright side, being by myself, I was able to visit a number of museums, churches, and parts of the cities that I wouldn't otherwise have had the possibility of seeing. I don't know how many people would have agreed with my rhythm.. on the other hand, I would have probably enjoyed more the nice atmosphere of cafes and restaurants, had I been with someone nice to talk to. I did a lot of people watching and tried to live in the present as much as possible, but in the end, the best was always for me to explore new things rather than sitting somewhere. So, here are some of the wonderful things I saw.
On my first afternoon, I had a stroll around the cathedral and on the Rhine river before dinner. The atmosphere is really nice:
I love cities built around a river.. obviously that's one of the things I like of my own hometown..
After dinner, I explored a lot of the city. I was particularly impressed by how lively it is. There are groups of people everywhere, sitting at restaurants or pubs, outside. In a particular square (Altmarket) there are tables with small stands, where people have wine and cheese and bread, sitting friendly close to each other. And when I went home, around 11 pm, the streets were even more crowded than in the middle of the day.
The day after, I spent most of my morning inside the Cathedral. I decided I wanted to climb up the tower, even though I read that there were 520 steps and no elevator. I decided my knees would have to bear it, because who knows in how many years would I go back to this wonderful place? I wasn't disappointed. The view is breath-taking, both when you're still inside and when you finally get outside.
This is the top of the tower, from its inside:
And here is a detail of a window, from inside:
And here is a view from outside! How beautiful this is. The big building you see in this picture is St. Martin, a beautiful church.
I love this picture with a detail of the Cathedral, and the modern shape of the roof of the Ludwig museum. It's amazing how the two constructions don't clash, even though they are so different and yet so close to each other!
Here is a better view of just the museum:
When I finally descended, I went back inside the cathedral, to breathe in once more this sacred Gothic atmosphere. Here is a picture that captures only a fraction of it:
I think this was one of the best parts of my visit. After this, I walked around, and "found myself" in front of the chocolate museum! How could I say no to a visit inside? It looked like a cool building, on a small island on the Rhine, and there were lots of people inside. In fact, it's a wonderful museum. There are lots of panels about the scientific facts related to cocoa growth and harvest and its transformation into chocolate, together with other panels describing the social issues related to the labor and the unfair wages of the people who grow cocoa in Africa and South America. I really liked these explanations, which were totally missing in the 'Death by chocolate' exposition that I went to some time ago in Napa Valley.
There are also some more fun parts, of course, like this amazing chocolate fountain:
We were given small pieces of wafers dipped in the liquid chocolate.. :)
What I also found amazing is that there is a whole floor dedicated to the industrial production of chocolates. After the liquid chocolate is poured into the molds, a particular machine 'shakes' the molds so that the chocolates become flat:
Then, the chocolates are dried, and moved by special machines:
The chocolates are then moved on a single line by a machine, then wrapped by another one, and finally placed in small bags and weighed by a person... quite a tiring job this must be:
My other favorite touristic activity (in Europe, at least) is to visit churches. In Cologne, there are a lot of really beautiful ones. I'll show you here some views of insides and outside of these sacred and wonderful buildings.
This is St. Andreas, with both Gothic and Romanesque arcs:
And this is a detail of the ceiling:
This is a statue that's inside, which really touched me:
And here is the beautiful organ.
German churches seem to have maintained their organs in wonderful working conditions. I heard some of them playing just while visiting the churches, then I heard the Cathedral organ playing during a Mass that I attended. I also specifically went to the St. Apostles basilica to listen to an organ and choir concert. It was the Derby choral union, and they played the Te Deum by Haydn and the Requiem by Faure. It was really wonderful. I hadn't been to a classical music concert in ages.
This is the inside of St. Severin:For some reason, its simple setting, and its circular apse really touched me and made me feel part of a higher reality.
This is a detail of the outside.
I saw one of the most wonderful views of the cathedral from a balcony in the Ludwig Museum. Nobody was on the balcony - I guess no one went all the way up to this hidden part of the museum, so I had it all for myself and took a lot of pictures. Here are the best.
Here is a detail of the facade:
And here is the back:
Then, since I was alone, I had a lot of fun taking pictures of myself with such a beautiful background. Here is the best shot I took (I was just stretching my arm and had the camera pointing towards me) :)
The Ludwing museum itself was very interesting. I am not a big lover of contemporary art, so I didn't appreciate all of it, but I did enjoy many parts. I think actually the part that I loved better was a temporary exposition, 'Paula Modersohn-Becker und die Agyptischen Mumienportraits'. It was a comparison between the portraits painted by Paula Modersohn-Becker and those found in Egyptian tombs. I didn't know this author before, and it was a big discovery for me. I loved her portraits. Here is a self-portrait of hers, that you can see if you visit the exposition:
(Image borrowed from the museum website)
This will end my post about my adventure in Cologne, I hope you enjoyed the little virtual tour. In summary, it's a beautiful and lively town, filled with history and art, a worthwhile stop if you're traveling throughout Germany. My next post will describe some of the food I had while I was in Germany!