Tag: eating

Eating green during the holidays is possible. Here’s how to do it – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

Eating green at Christmas? You can, or rather you must. This holiday represents the ideal time to shelter at home with family and friends, sharing special moments and, of course, delicious meals. But what exactly does “good food” mean today? In addition to organoleptic qualities, food must respect criteria that go beyond simple taste. As Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, claims, food must be «good, clean and fair. Clean, i.e. produced according to environmentally friendly methods; fair, capable of guaranteeing respect for those who work there. Here are some rules to follow during Christmas holidays to adopt a greener approach to food.

10’000 Hours

Eating green: what food choices to make during the holidays

During the holidays it is time to favor high quality foods, possibly organic or from integrated agriculture with low environmental impact. Reduce your meat consumption and, when you choose it, opt for meat from controlled farms and organic. Prefer local, regional or national products to reduce the environmental impact of transport and, if possible, purchase them in bulk, to avoid unnecessary packaging. The choice of wine can also be oriented towards organic options. For those who want alternatives to meat, legumes are a valid option, providing high-quality proteins and ingredients for tasty recipes.

Avoid foods at excessively low prices, as they often hide hidden costs for the environment and workers. Avoid buying products from distant places and choose sustainable alternatives to endangered fish such as salmon. Opt for lesser-known, but equally tasty fish, a low environmental and seasonal impact, such as horse mackerel, zerro, tuna, tombarello, dolphin fish and red mullet. Also molluscs such as clams, mussels and oysters; and shellfish such as white shrimp (if coming from specific regions) and corn on the cob are conscious choices.

A sustainable celebration: don’t waste!

Reduce wasteespecially at the table, carefully preserving food and avoiding throwing away what remains. Avoid plastic films and prefer reusable containers with caps. When you go shopping, calculate the precise number of people and prefer bulk products to reduce packaging. When setting the table, avoid disposable plastic tableware and, if necessary, opt for compostable alternatives.

Too Good to Go together with Yougov have reported the data regarding the waste of Italians at the table during the holidays: the 40% of Italians waste over a quarter of Christmas food, with panettone leading the way, despite its high cost. However, they also emerge positive behaviors:

Eating in via Veneto, waiting for the rebirth of the sweet life – Italian Cuisine

Eating in via Veneto in Rome, the most famous street in the capital, was not easy. But something is changing. Because via Veneto is being reborn after years of oblivion and it is doing so starting from the kitchen. Roman and Italian-American.

The first scandalous striptease

It all began, officially, on 5 November 1958, with the party for the twenty-fourth birthday of Countess Olghina di Robilant at the Rugantino in Trastevere: here the Turkish-Armenian dancer Aïché Nana performed the famous striptease, ending up half naked in all the newspapers of the time. Rome had become the international capital of entertainment and social life, and its epicenter was Via Veneto. Due to the presence of the most luxurious hotels and clubs open until dawn, Via Veneto has been the meeting point for VIPs, actors, night owls and paparazzi for twenty years. Here they stayed and spent their evenings, among the bars, lobbies and hotel rooms that made the history of the street. AtHarry’s Bar Frank Sinatra played the piano and even today in the evening we dine with the background of the piano bar. Since 1962 he has animated Rome by Night and hosted Hollywood actors visiting the capital, but it has nothing to do with Venice, so there’s no point in looking for a plate of carpaccio.

The great beauty: a construction site

In 2013 it was the set of The great beauty by Paolo Sorrentino, a film that photographed the upper class of Roman salons, good and even decadent. «The great beauty It is to The sweet life like the Via Veneto of today is the Via Veneto of 1959. Now it is just a street of luxury hotels where it is in vain to seek the nocturnal atmosphere of the past” wrote Alessandra Levantesi Kezich, film critic for “La Stampa”, on the occasion of the his exit. Well yes, because it really is it is useless to come to via Veneto in search of cafés crowded with artists, intellectuals, stars and photographers. Over the years, other neighborhoods have made their way into the preferences of Romans and tourists and Via Veneto has remained comfortable on its laurels. Today Via Veneto is a construction site.

Between public and private, there is the project (already started) of redevelop the urban planning aspect and to relaunch the historic premises to bring back Via Veneto great again. Many prestigious hotels are currently closed or under renovation: the first hotel on via Veneto, the Hotel Majestic, inaugurated in 1889 and designed by the architect Gaetano Koch, author among others of the nearby American embassy building and the Bank of Italy building (Palazzo Koch), has closed its doors and has been acquired by Boscalt Hospitality (Rothschild) and will be renovated. The Westin Excelsior Rome, designed by architect Otto Mariani in the early twentieth century in neo-baroque style, has been bought and will close shortly for renovations. The Grand Hotel Via Veneto will be transformed into a Nobu Hotel and Restaurant, although it is not yet known when. Not far away, in via Boncompagni, work has begun on the new Mandarin Oriental. The only discordant note, for the Cafè de Paris, however, after the seizure and ten years of closure, the shutter still remains lowered and everything is silent. The street is still divided in two, to the south apart Signorvino it’s still all a construction site or bars serving American Breakfast for a few euros, whereas towards the north the rebirth has already begun.

Make Dolce Vita Great Again

First to lead the rebirth consortium, the InterContinental Rome Ambasciatori Palace, named in honor of the nearby American embassy. Built as the ambassador’s residence, then transformed into a library, it is the first five-star hotel to inaugurate the new course of the most famous street in the capital. One hundred and sixty rooms with a pure leisure vocation, a design that takes inspiration from the Roman style, a rooftop with a view and a restaurant NYC shoe which attracts an audience of American and local tourists; which in via Veneto still means Americans. Scarpetta NYC is a short circuit: a restaurant serving Italian-American cuisinewanted by a New Yorker, inspired by the concept of The sweet life, hence the name of the LDV Hospitality group. A foreign format that embodies Italianness abroad, and not an attempt to bastardize Italian cuisine to meet the tastes of others. Homemade pasta and bread, spaghetti with tomato sauce (and butter, very creamy) and steak house menus, just like in the United States. Much loved by expats, diplomats, American citizens of Rome and even traveling tourists who thus rediscover the flavors of home and a place where they feel transported to New York. Via Veneto is in fact an American outpost in Italy, it is no coincidence that the first Italian Hard Rock Cafe opened here, way back in 1998, and one of the most famous nightclubs in the capital (opened in 1972) is right in the area and is called Jackie O’ , named after the iconic Jacqueline Kennedy, JFK’s widow, who became Mrs. Onassis in 1968.

What to do after drinking and eating too much – Italian Cuisine

How to dispose of the excesses of particularly elaborate lunches and dinners? Here's how to regain well-being and energy and free yourself from the sense of heaviness

It is impossible not to overdo the table when in company. Who hasn't gone overboard on holidays? Food, whatever the occasion, is above all conviviality and pleasure. But what to do after you drank and ate too much? What are the precautions to follow on the same day and in the following ones to counter the effects of a particularly elaborate meal? "The first thing to avoid is eating only a salad or fruit, a mistake that is often made after lunches and dinners in which one has exaggerated with portions of food and quantities of wine and in general alcoholic and carbonated drinks," he says. the dietician Patrizia Gaballo. Instead, it is better to simply reduce the portions in the next meal and bring balanced menus to the table. "Another useful suggestion to follow is to choose foods that can help the body get rid of the" toxic "substances produced by metabolic processes, which risk promoting a generalized sense of malaise that can manifest itself with heaviness, headache, tiredness and swelling , says the expert. So here's what to do after drinking and eating too much.

The tips to follow immediately

After drinking and eating too much, avoid consuming any leftovers, which risk straining the body even more and feeling burdened. If you have eaten and drunk too much for lunch, you can also skip dinner. This helps the body to cleanse itself of accumulated toxins. If, on the other hand, you have exaggerated at dinner, you can skip breakfast when you wake up. To compensate and eliminate excess sodium and counteract fluid retention, the advice is to drink plenty of water, also thanks to the consumption of herbal teas and herbal teas and plants with a detox action. «Fennel, for example, promotes diuresis and counteracts the sense of swelling. Mallow, on the other hand, is excellent for the intestine, while the artichoke, thanks to its cholagogue action, stimulates the work of the liver, an organ involved in the metabolization of fats and substances such as alcohol ".

The tailor-made menu for the next day

The next day it is essential to bring easily digestible meals to the table. For lunch and dinner, yes to a large portion of vegetables. "Thanks to the richness of fiber, they help restore hormonal imbalances due to an excessive intake of carbohydrates with a high glycemic load, for example in particularly elaborate first courses rich in sauces, sauces and desserts," says the expert. "The supply of antioxidants, of which they are also excellent sources, instead counteracts the production of free radicals and inflammatory substances that damage cells. The ideal is to associate them with a single source of easily digestible proteins. So no to the classic salad with mozzarella and ham. Better to choose fish, to be seasoned with extra virgin olive oil, to fill up on fats that facilitate metabolism ". Two typical menus to follow the next day? "For lunch, a fennel and citrus salad with salmon, for dinner instead of raw radicchio dressed with extra virgin olive oil and scrambled eggs".