Tag: BIG

Make a toast to celebrate life and dream big – Italian Cuisine

Stefano Cavada in his kitchen during the Veuve Clicquot Masterclass

Irene Berni, the great house of Valdirose

Dream big, bright and beautiful. It seems a contradiction at the end of 2020, and instead this is precisely the hope for the future that the Maison de Champagne Veuve Clicquot looks to. Never stop dreaming, not even of difficulties, and doing it big has been the motto of the winery since its foundation, made famous thanks to a young woman, widowed, and in a few years became La Grande Dame de la Champagne, one of the first its era and a pioneer of innovation in the world of bubbles. A daring woman who still teaches us today how necessary it is to be, just like right now. In fact, this crisis can be an opportunity to change our lives for the better, reinvent ourselves, chasing your dreams and finally turn them into reality.

It is not a utopia, and that is why Veuve Clicquot has brought together the community of New Makers, men or women, coming from all over the world and from every generation who have subverted established codes, changed the cards and shaped a new future. Authentic voices of a possible change, the New Makers constitute a young culinary avant-garde that breaks all diktats, an international community to which they have joined from Italy Stefano Cavada, South Tyrolean food influencer is Irene Berni, who changed her life to open her bed & breakfast in Tuscany, Valdirose. We went to ask them how bold they had to be in this past year and how big they dream for the near future, but to find out more, visit the Maison's website.

I also innovated my dreams
Stefano serenely admits "This year's programs have practically all gone wrong! But that's not why I stopped dreaming and starting new projects to develop. Indeed, the new situation we are experiencing has been an engine for creativity and the desire to do. The digital tools they allowed us to do a lot, and I spent whole days in my studio-kitchen, Essen, where I shared recipes every day, step by step ". It was a success “those who followed me, cooked, republished, asked me for help but above all they needed create relationship, to have an exchange, to interact and I also noticed that I wanted to know more. They have been brave, and many have done things they have never done before. I am happy to have given my small contribution and to have given a moment of courageor, to have helped to reach a goal and to have made someone at least a little happier ".

Many firsts in this 2020
However, the first few times were not lacking even for Stefano, who, accustomed to the TV, social or YouTube camera, had never conducted a lesson online, live, with the public connected from home. He did it for the #clicquotathome pilot project, cooking and teaching his chestnut flour tagliatelle, speck and mushrooms to the 20 lucky ones who grabbed a place in the two Masterclasses organized by Veuve Clicquot with the contribution of Tannico, who packed the boxes with all the ingredients and sent parcels all over Milan.

At Christmas, the same menu and a table joined by social networks
Now it's Christmas, will you spend it differently? “In Brescia, as a couple, for the first time away from my family in Bolzano unfortunately. But I will also cook the traditional menu and my grandmother's recipe for anolini and so even if only with a photo and a video call, it will be like sharing the table with my parents and my sister. And then we will make a toast, because we must not stop celebrating the important moments ".

It is in difficulties that one finds the strength to react

Irene instead we join her at home, the one that opens every year to her guests in Tuscany. Did you have to downsize the dreams you had? “I am a person who finds them in difficulties opportunity, and I would say that I had never found so many, but in my life all the most beautiful things have been the consequence of horrible events! I realized that difficulties are needed to find the stimulus and move in new directions. When all goes well, we get lazy. In this year I have looked for alternatives: I have realized the dream of making a digital diary, a new project, and working I have made sure that there was a positive side ".

Cleaning, and appreciating quality

"This year was also an opportunity for a strong reflection on one's life, on what makes us feel good, starting with what surrounds us. “By cleaning up most of our habits in our lives, we found ourselves appreciating the quality: of food, wine, sleep, time with family, primary things. This will improve us, today we are looking for more substance, we have learned to desire, to plan, to choose more carefully and I believe that those who do things well will benefit from it. I believe we have rediscovered the value of things, of quality, of importance. And even small things have become a party, of occasions that you want to celebrate. We do it at home with a toast, an exercise in gratitude that this New Year will take on a new value ”. We toast to the new, dreaming big and a bright and beautiful future.

Cooking minutes of pasta: finally written big – Italian Cuisine

Do you never find the indication for the cooking time on the pasta packages? You are not the only ones. And that's why something is changing …

When we cook the pasta we need to know mainly (and immediately) one fundamental thing: how many minutes it should cook. This information is always revealed to us by the manufacturer who writes it on each packaging. Yes, but how many times have you ever turned your package of pasta (front, back, bottom, top, left side, right side) in search of the fateful writing, finding it only after several seconds and after even thinking: «Is it possible that it isn't there?. Take comfort, you are not the only ones who have happened. And the proof is the birth of the Great Minutes Movement which, complete with a poster, aims to obtain from pasta producers a more visible indication of the cooking minutes written on the pasta packages.

More visible minutes, the appeal to pasta producers

This popular need was met by the Turin communications agency Hub09 Brand People who created graphics for fake pasta packaging imagining them as the Italians would like them and who launched the challenge to the brands of the sector: «Which brand will be the first to show that they listen to us? Which one to take such a decisive step as to become the most popular brand in the country? .

Browse the gallery

Brands that have proposed new packaging

With the cry of "Pasta la victoria siempre" and slogans such as "Fight hard for cooking times", the movement managed to make its voice heard through social media. The Tuscan brand Fabianelli has launched in the past few days in some stores a new package with the writing showing the cooking minutes clearly and visible, while Garofalo pasta has created a new limited edition packaging and available from 3 November, "I fusilloni 13 minutes", with cooking minutes written in large letters. The new packaging of Gragnano Igp pasta was launched on the occasion of World Pasta Day of 25 October in response to the video you see below.

In short, it seems that the battle for large numbers is about to win!

Restart (in a big way) with new ideas: the example of Contraste – Italian Cuisine

The quarantine passed "on the bench" to create new formats, to be launched as soon as possible in Milan. Thomas Piras tells how, together with Matias Perdomo and Simon Press, he is ready for reopening. With more desire than before

First there was the period of social recipes, often with a beneficial purpose. Then the moment of delivery came and now we are in the era of take-away food. All interspersed with a sea of interviews on the problems of the moment and the future. Since the beginning of March, the most famous Italian chefs have lived the strangest days of their career, made up (alas) of words rather than deeds. For this reason, the Contraste team is deserving attention: the Uruguayan chef Matias Perdomo, his Argentine right arm Simon Press and the man from the hall and cellar, the Milanese Thomas Piras. Disappeared from the world – apart from some initial ironic incursion by the chef on social networks – to hide a different reality, made up of daily work, projects, plans and four plans for restarting. "Three had already left, while a fourth we have invented in the last few weeks," explains Thomas Piras.

Good wines at competitive prices

A project is linked to wine, Thomas's great passion. To drink, a nice name: a new distribution and import of labels that will aim to discover apparently second row terroirs, but with a precise philosophy and great personality. Reserved for professionals. «It is a project that we invented together with the producer and friend Marco Tinessa, collaboration regarding the selection that has been going on for some time. Now we will concretize it on a national level: it is a distribution that wants to place itself in the range between 10 and 30 euros in price (restorative price), avoiding those now inflationary wine areas . The second project is a real one urban pasta factory within the city in the Porta Romana area, to be precise with a double entrance in via Orti and via Curtatone. About forty seats and cocktail bars: urban style, signed by Fabio Ferrillo of the Off Arch study, with the work temporarily stopped by the emergency.

Pasta and empanadas

"Although pasta is always associated with tradition, Exit Urban Pasta Factory it will be a contemporary place, which also focuses on sharing , Piras continues. "We like the idea that one comes to have a drink with friends and then stops to enjoy a plate of pasta, maybe even a dessert. No appetizer, no second course to change the connotations of the Italian restaurant that focuses on first courses . The other two projects of the Contraste team are linked to the large production laboratory, which has been open for two years Lambrate, with the aim of relieving the Contraste kitchens from more routine activities and being able to reason with greater freedom on any new projects. It is here that the empanadas at the base of the third project will be prepared: it is called Empanadas del Flaco. Curiosity: el Flaco is the nickname of Simon Press (while Piras is nicknamed el Pelato and Perdomo el Gordo) who as a good Argentine had been proposing the idea for five years. Finally we are convinced, the first store will be on the way S. Maurilio, one of the alleys around via Torino: small, because the concept focuses absolutely on delivery, never as trendy as in recent weeks.

Origin Contraste Rotisserie

"We have combined Argentine experience and craftsmanship with a gastronomic touch also made of process, standardization and technologies. The product is made in the laboratory, shot down after a first frying and regenerated in the store. It works from every point of view after a thousand tests even blindly, we tasted the product made two weeks before and it is always at the top. And so we can be confident when the project, we hope, will expand ", explains Piras. If Empanadas del Flaco is the fruit of long maturation, the fourth project is really the result of comparison in the weeks of the pandemic: Roc, a gastronomy ready for online debut and destined to find a store between Porta Romana and Porta Genova as soon as possible. Roc stands for Rosticceria Origine Contraste, but there will be no connection in the vision nor in the image with the starry one in via Meda 2. Here too there is the desire to stand out from the current offer, not so much on the culinary proposal as on the way of prepare and serve it.

Ordered the day before

«We start from an assumption: the lasagna will be lasagna, the puree will be the puree, the eggplant parmigiana will be eggplant parmigiana, but there will also be bolder and more sophisticated dishes thinking of a rotisserie 2.0. We are looking for a memory of taste well known and shared. The difference is that it will not be possible to order day by day, but the day before with delivery on the following one, at the exact time . The advantage? «We will have the overall picture of the deliveries we have to make, of the shopping to be made: zero waste for us, well-managed food cost, lower costs and guaranteed freshness for customers. And the packaging will be entirely composed of biodegradable and heat-sealed plastics. We focus heavily on hygiene, personalization, labels, portioning ", explains the Constraste partner. Given the skill and experience of the team in catering – both in the starred Contraste and in the Exit bistro – it is striking that they are all different initiatives and certainly not inspired by the two venues. «Standardization requires a method that is not ours, we are not capable of it. Apart from the obligation to always offer the highest quality, we believe in a system where the right space must be left for people, who bring creativity , Piras closes.