Tag: games

Board games that will make your mouth water – Italian Cuisine


Our selection of the best food-themed board games designed for food lovers of all ages, from the most classic Monopoly Pizza to those inspired by successful television broadcasts

Despite technological advances in the video game industry, i table games they never seem to go out of style, and continue to be considered a pleasant pastime for evenings to spend with family or friends. For those who want to have fun by combining the passion for board games with that for food, here is a selection designed for all age groups; from those for children who want to learn to cook, to those of successful TV broadcasts to the more classic ones, there is something for everyone!

Appetite comes with playing: board games for all tastes and all ages

Let's start with a board game from the 90s, but still available, that is Spaghetti Spaghetti. For those who don't remember, the game features a game board with a drawn on it succulent plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce while each player is assigned a fork and a spoon to which colored threads are connected. Once the ingredients are positioned on the board, players will have to strategically remove them at each turn, making sure they twist around their wire; of course, the winner is the one who manages to rewind the wire-spaghetti first, and then to eat more pasta.

From the "Americanized" Italian cuisine of Spago Spaghetti we go to the burgers of Burger Party, a fun action game in which you have to stuff a succulent giant hamburger with ingredient cards to extract or steal from opponents, paying attention to colors and penalties.

Burgers are also the star food of a particular version of the classic Monopolyor rather aspecial edition dedicated to Bob Burgers, the animated series that airs on Fox. In Monopoly Bob’s burgerjust like in the sitcom, the players must impersonate the members of the crazy family protagonist, owners of a singular restaurant, reliving some moments of their history and moving among the cult places they frequent.

From their fun adventures, to another special edition of the most famous board game in the world, namely the Monopoly Pizza. In this game, on sale for just over a year, everything is taken care of down to the smallest detail, from the cardboard-shaped pizza box, to the beautiful pizza-themed tokens, to the slice tokens up to the varied and delicious variety of condiment cards . Each player must accumulate as much pizza as possible, but also to acquire titles and experiences.

As we know, the toys designed for young aspiring chefs, on the market since the 90s, are many and include simplified, miniature and colored versions of ovens, ice cream makers or machines for making cotton candy or candies. In the much smaller offer of board games to give to children who want to take their first steps in the kitchen, we report The ice cream game by Alberto Marchetti. available online, in toy stores or at one of its ice cream parlors. The gluttonous game created by the well-known ice cream maker from Turin, which over the years has distinguished itself for the excellence of its homemade ice cream, contains papers that correspond to healthy and excellent products and ingredients and a recipe book. In turn, each player must juggle recipes of flavors of ice cream and the expense of other ingredients to make new recipes.

Cooking games

If your passion is cooking broadcasts you cannot miss the board game of MasterChef Italy. At each turn a player must wear a chef's hat and distribute the ingredient cards with which the others will have to create a recipe, including title and presentation. As you relive them iconic challenges of the culinary show, or Mystery box, the Invention test and the dreaded Pressure Test, the best and worst competitors are voted each time with the tokens, up to final announcement of the winner.

Also from Clementoni is another board game inspired by a TV show, this time dedicated to aspiring pastry chefs, or Bake Off Italy. In this case the players challenge each other with cakes between technical and creative tests, taking turns playing the role of judge. Creativity, speed and cunning are the main ingredients of this game, suitable for the whole family.

You just have to turn off the stove and try one of these pastimes, for an evening in joy to spend with your friends and relatives food lover!


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Photo: Monopoly pizza board game_Courtesy of Hasbro.jpg
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DIY games from the past to keep children entertained at home – Italian Cuisine


Our advice on DIY games of the past that you can do at home to entertain or spend time with your children during the Quarantine: from the 70s top to a more complex but exciting treasure hunt

In this period of sanitary emergency and lockdown, one of the most common problems in Italian families concerns the closure of schools and the difficulty of having to manage children at home. With the intensification of routine household activities and the work obligations of parents, that of keeping children busy, alternating learning moments with others of leisure, has become a real challenge. If the toys available, the readings, the audiobooks, the drawing and maybe some healthy activities to be carried out on the balcony in the open air are not enough, you can resort to some DIY games of the past. Here are some ideas from different past eras. These are simple but cheerful ideas which, in addition to entertaining the children, allow them to transmit their values ​​and habits of the past as well as the educational concept that you can have fun even with few means and a little imagination.

The figures with the rope

Let's start with a game popular in the 70s, a period in which a few colored balls, a bit of rope, an elastic band and a few other economic and household means were enough to spend time. Precisely in this era some historical pastimes were born, including hide and seek, tug of war, bell, a two three star, flag-stealer. A game called was very common among indoor games figures with rope, Or a very easy game for two, which today's grandparents certainly remember. To recreate it, you only need fifty centimeters of fine twine, even the kitchen one can be fine. The two challengers can place themselves in front of each other and, in turn, must weave the string between their fingers trying to create figures of any kind, for example a fish, a candy. The same game, done with the ecstatic and then widespread in many parts of the world, it is called Cat's Cradle or cradle of the cat.
For both, today's children can play with their siblings or parents, and if they live at home with their grandparents, let them tell you about it.

The top

Another legacy of the 70s is a game that we all know, or the spinning top. This toy can be easily made at home using recycled materials. In fact, a wooden skewer or pencil, sheets of paper or colored cardstock (also the one for pasta packs), scissors and glue or adhesive tape are enough to create a beautiful and functional top. The children, with the help of a coaster or a compass, can make a circle of paper quite often, color it to taste and then insert the skewer exactly in the center. To fix the top of the top, simply attach a plastic ball or a 1 cent coin to the tip of the stick. A fun idea can be to create comic or cartoon characters, colored patterns or educational on the card Newton's disc.

Origami

Many of the toys of the past had not only the advantage, as we have seen, of being created at home with poor materials, but also that of developing the manual skills and ingenuity of children. They are a perfect example of this paper origami, a fun pastime that requires only a few sheets of paper, perhaps colored, and some time. Among the great classics are theairplane and the small boat, but also more interactive and complex games such asorigami hell and paradise also called fortune teller or magic square. To build it, just take a sheet of A4 paper, fold it along the diagonals, take the corners and fold them internally until you have a square, then turn and repeat the same operation. Once folded, first in one direction and then in another, you're done! At this point you can decorate the sides of the origami with numbers and write something in the corresponding paper wedge. Parents can insert general answers, but also mathematical or general knowledge riddles and, of course, play together with their children. Fun for the whole family is guaranteed!

Camping inside the house

In this period, being forced within the walls of the home can have many repercussions on mood, including that of children. To give them a smile, a little bit of pri: the "camping inside the house". In the past, in fact, a little fabric, recycled materials and a little imagination were enough to build a camping tent, a small house or a fort in the living room or bedroom. An example of a do it yourself solution, in this sense, that is simple to implement is that of Indian hut. To build it, in fact, you can use three-five wooden sticks or broom handles to give life to the base of the tent, a rope to fix them and finally an old sheet or a blanket to cover the whole. To make the structure stable, you can also use clothespins, adhesive tape or nails, while to decorate the interior you can add rugs, cushions and Christmas lights. As an alternative to the Indian hut, and depending on what material you have at home, you can build one real cottage; in this case you can resort to a box, lifting and gluing the upper part so as to create the roof or, more simply, you can cover a table with an old sheet, in which to carve doors and windows. Finally, you can add decorative elements made with pannolenci, fabric or cardboard, and, of course, let children make a creative contribution to the project.

The treasure hunt

For creative parents, however, it may be interesting to brush up on a game from the past that can be a little more laborious at an organizational level, but that can be even more compelling. For those who did not remember the rules, the players were divided into two teams that, thanks to a series of scattered clues to guess containing instructions for discovering the next stage, had to get to find a mysterious object that consisted of the final prize. There home version and "lockdown" of the treasure hunt it can be thought of as a race between siblings or an adventurous challenge for just one child. For clues you may want to consider including some skill or memory test as well as some question or riddle concerning specific knowledge or subjects. The prize may perhaps consist of a sweet treat, a homemade toy or any other object that could represent a moment of joy and a small conquest. Of course, you can also choose to organize one treasure hunt that follows a themefor example that of pirates for boys and that of fairies or princesses for girls.

Whatever the chosen activity, the ideal is always to involve children in all stages of implementation, allowing them to make a significant artisan and creative contribution to the project and to feel useful and important. In the same way, parents and relatives can accompany the moment of the game to that of the sharing stories about one's childhood, so as to intrigue children and grandchildren and pass on what were their DIY pastimes.

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The House of games (culinary) is only that of Giancarlo Perbellini – Italian Cuisine

The House of games (culinary) is only that of Giancarlo Perbellini


He doesn't look for the covers, but he knows how few the kitchen and the tastes of the public, not just stars. Its premises between Verona and the world prove it. But it is in the "bomboniera" of Piazza San Zeno that "Perbe" expresses his vision, certainly particular

There's a beautiful film by David Mamet, great American author, who calls himself The house of games (1987). It is the film that marked the passage of the author from the screenplay to the director and confirmed the skill of Joe Mantegna. A successful thriller, but above all a story full of tension, surprises and deceptions. Maybe it's a stretch, but for us the home of the culinary games currently is Casa Perbellini, not (only) for the name of the sign that is not the first nor will it be the last to have a call of intimacy. Not even because, something even rarer, it is structured as a house on the ground floor, which overlooks on the splendid Piazza San Zeno in Verona: entrance from a small door, a hallway with a small counter, the open plan kitchen-living room, the new pastry area. It's the House of Games because Perbellini – one of the most classic Italian chefs in history and character – has decided to overturn so much, if not all. And here we go back to the film. There is the positive tension of a whole brigade composed of young people. The continuous surprises in the ability to create very Italian combinations, but not classic. Deceptions in a playful sense: you expect something from a dish and discover exactly the opposite.

Pastry chef was born

For the use and consumption of the few who do not know him, Giancarlo Perbellini – Veronese della Bassa, born in 1964 – raised in one of the great families of Italian pastry, he dedicated himself to cooking since his youth. After the inevitable apprenticeship between Italy and France, he opened his first restaurant in 1989 in Isola Rizza, winning in three years the Michelin Star and repeat it in 2002. In 2014 he moved to Verona, creating a new format for the star category: a "home" where haute cuisine is made, paying for what it is worth. It is not a place for "bistronomies", nor even a modern tavern, nor the umpteenth "local second" of a great chef. And it is "cuisine du marché" because the shopping is done in the morning, seasonality is total, there are no freezers or cold rooms. All with a smile, but also with a strict professionalism in the open kitchen and in the dining room, where, not surprisingly, the person in charge Barbara Manoni he won the Michelin Guide award for best service in 2019. And the cellar – Perbellini's historic passion – is fabulous, with authentic rarities.

Off to young people

Five seasons after the opening, immediately greeted by the double star, the chef from Verona put his hand to the restaurant: without changing its nature, he substantially renewed the brigade, not because the previous one was scarce (indeed), but because of the need not to stop. The new sous chef, returned from important experiences, is the Marco Stagi from Bergamo. «I chose it because it sees the kitchen as opposed to how I see it, in terms of education and history. Ours is a meeting of opposing visions that then become complementary and this, in my opinion, is the secret to evolving. The kitchen of Casa Perbellini is immediate, of great emotion and I want to maintain this spontaneity through ever-increasing simplification and the search for essentiality. Marco is the right person: the current card is the first one made together and it is a tangible sign of the change underway . Realized by a greater offer in the pastry shop and from new menu for vegetarians which is called Verdurando and costs 124 euros.

Italianity, but not traditional

There was talk of culinary games. The main one is linked to the menu Who chooses … test where the brigade prepares a series of dishes whose ingredients are the ingredients chosen by the customer. Three or four in rotation, in our case cod, celery, almonds. A menu – in full integral – served at 132 euros per person. And then there is the Assaggi tasting (156 euros) which together with a few classics – the best known is the Sesame wafer, sea bass tartare *, goat cheese with chives and liquorice sensation – expresses the top of Casa Perbellini, the new creations and the revisitation of recent ones. Dishes, like the ones we show you in our gallery, where it is hard to find something that is not Italian, but not necessarily the regional tradition, the usual family madeleine.

A complete network

But not for a form of culinary sovereignty. On the contrary: Perbellini is one of the Italian chefs who travels most around the world and loves ethnic cuisine. «But because by dint of looking out and no longer having our ideas, it seems that we can no longer do without soy sprouts and yuzu. I believe that we must promote our cuisine as much as possible, in the world but also at home, since foreigners have never been so interested ". The chef preaches well and scratches better: beyond La Pergola restaurant in Bahrain, is engaged with various partners in a galaxy of venues in Verona: the excellent Locanda dei 4 Cuochi, the pizzeria Du de Cope, a place dedicated to fish such as Al Capitan della Cittadella, the lively Tapasotto for author's stops and Dolce Locanda that reflects the ancient passion for pastry.

The success of the Milanese Locanda

And then there is Locanda Perbellini, in Milan: for many the best bistro under the Madonnina: direct dishes, but always with the touch of an author, informal and quick service, the right value for money that even holds in the most expensive city in Italy. Total success, which comes from the variation of the work done to the parent company. Where behind the simplicity that you bring to the table, there is a very modern rewrite of the concept of bistellato – or in any case of the local for gourmet – that will surely find imitators. All the more thinking that many restaurants at the same level seem to be "blocked" by recognition and are not making progress. Perbellini, on the other hand, seems to be able to revolutionize his cuisine, maintaining its balance and innate class. A sleight of hand, in conclusion. Or, better, of talent and wisdom.

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