Tag: gifts

Valentine’s Day chocolates: 5 recipes – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

Valentine's Day chocolates: 5 recipes


THE chocolates from Saint Valentine they are always the right gift for Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14. And since they are prepared with your hands and all your love, we are certain that they will be the best chocolates ever created. Furthermore, when there are two of you, sharing is part of the game, so have fun making a rich meal box of chocolates with the knowledge that then, most likely, you will enjoy them together!

When was the first box of chocolates born?

The first box of Valentine’s Day chocolates was launched in 1868 by the English chocolatier John Cadbury, also inventor of modern bars. Since then, 14 Februarys have passed and who knows how many chocolates have been tasted. Because when the fateful day arrives the question always arises: what do I give her/him for Valentine’s Day? And if a box of chocolates may seem banal, this is not the case if you created the little delicacies yourself with a lot of effort and love, choosing from new and appetizing recipes. In this way the little thought for the lover tunes in to a wave of tenderness: she becomes passionate and plays sweetly, taking her partner by the throat, because, as we know, everyone likes chocolate and you can choose between dark, milk, white or pink.

Chocolate tempering

Ignition temperature

Tempering chocolate is essential to making beautiful, shiny and shiny chocolates. Below we explain the basic procedure for 500 g of chocolate. Then melt a bain-marie 350 g of chocolate measuring the temperature with a thermometer, do not exceed 45 °C. Remove the bastardella from the bain-marie before the chocolate is completely melted: you will better control the temperature. Continue stirring until it has completely melted, then add the remaining chocolate, little by little, lowering the temperature until 31-32 °C for dark chocolate. If you reach the right temperature before the added chocolate has melted completely, you can remove it and finish the process. If, on the contrary, you were to go below 31-32 °C, return to the bain-marie for 2 seconds. For the milk chocolate the temperature to be reached is 30°CFor the white one 28 °C. Once melted, the chocolate must not heat up any further. As soon as it has melted evenly, it should be removed from the heat source, be it a stove, a bain-marie or a microwave oven and immediately poured into the molds.

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Valentine’s Day 2024 Gifts: Chocolates, Sweets (and Beyond) – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

Valentine's Day 2024 Gifts: Chocolates, Sweets (and Beyond)


There is nothing more intimate than eating together. Maybe this is why between Valentine’s Day gifts can never be missing chocolate, which is the food symbol of love, and also a little of sin. It’s that gift that, if you don’t do, the other person always feels a little bad about. And in any case, there must be chocolate for Valentine’s Day, even in addition to something else, be it a more or less precious object, or a special experience for two (perhaps a home-cooked dinner prepared by four hands).

Valentine’s Day Gifts 2024

A tradition but also, in our opinion, another excellent opportunity to eat chocolate. Also because for Valentine’s Day, maître chocolatiers and confectionery companies offer specialties, often in limited editions for the holiday, which absolutely deserve to be tasted.

Our selection

For this reason we have selected some of the most intriguing proposals, but not only. In addition to the inevitable chocolate, in our gallery you will also find sweets, tasting kits with sophisticated combinations that can make Valentine’s evening even more special, and themed accessories to set the table from breakfast to dinner. Why every moment is a good time to do something with – and for those – you love.

Christmas 2021: wine gifts – Italian Cuisine

Christmas 2021: wine gifts


The wine world is in constant ferment. Now a bottle is no longer just … a bottle. But it often contains storytelling and experiential content that is nice to share with the people we decide to give a wine. Today more than ever, the choice of which label to put under the tree cannot be casual. On the contrary, we can and must tailor it to the recipient. In short, friend or friend you have, wine – personalized – what a gift!

Metropolitan urban
The urban type loves big cities and, if he doesn't live there, he goes there on vacation as soon as he can. With a contemporary style and punctual attention to the fashions to come, because those of today have already passed, he is not satisfied with what the masses like, but seeks personal and personalized experiences.
The right gift is the possibility of creating a wine that is only hers. To offer it, Urban winery from Milan. The first "small town" production company in Italy created the Make your wine kit, a box with 3 bottles of “base” red wine, the same blend aged in steel, wood and amphora (peculiarity of the cellar). In addition, a corkscrew, tasting sheet and measuring cup, necessary to mix the three nectars as desired and thus create the formula of your original blend. Once conceived, you can even order a supply, even with your own label. The same assembly experience can be done directly in the cellar, under the guidance of a sommelier.
Winks to pop and the world of snowboarders ZAI Urban Winery. ZAI stands for Highly Innovative Zone and this Veronese winery is definitely looking ahead with its wine production … in cans. The modern comics-style packaging, colorful and light-hearted, contains reds, whites and bubbles. For the toasts under the Holidays, the most captivating is Gamea, 100% Garganega Verona Igt, vegan and organic, personified in an adventurous and independent woman-cartoon, who dedicates her life to nature and to the protection of the Planet.

Sartorial tastings
The discerning connoisseur loves wine but, above all, loves knowing its facets and dreams of a guided tour among the different labels, told by expert sommeliers and producers, tailor-made according to their tastes.
Please this typology Sommelier Wine Box, a wine club that for Christmas presents an offer consisting of exclusive and rare wines, from niche wineries and selected by the best sommeliers. The boxes suggest a thematic journey that takes place around three bottles of wine, linked by a fil rouge, like that of January, which explores the world of natural wines. Not only that: thanks to a set of targeted questions, it is possible to create a box calibrated to the palate of the recipient and … of the gift giver, because a precise price range can also be established: impossible to go wrong!
An all-round experience is the proposal to give (or treat yourself!) By Tannic Wine Bar, the wine shop with kitchen that the e-commerce brand inaugurated in Milan last year. Top events, the Master Experience, horizontal or vertical tastings of the highest level, from Sassicaia to Krug and Dom Perignon champagnes, combined with a tailor-made menu designed by chef Francesca Lecchi, for an intoxicating joy of the senses.

Mon amour bubbles
Its watchwords are refined elegance and refined excellence. And he always has a flute in his hand from which a fine perlage is released.
If you have to make a gift to someone who fits this description, the labels of the moment come from the hills of Prosecco di Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, registered in the list of Unesco World Heritage Sites.
If this excellence is combined with the signature of a great chef, Daniel Canzian, the result can only be a unique bottle, a perfect gift for those who are attentive to every stage of production. Is called Ancestral Two Valleys, can be purchased at the Milanese restaurant or online and is a limited production with zero dosage, refermented in the bottle in a natural way, coming from hand-picked grapes to ensure less stress to the plants and longevity to the vineyard.
The rarest production of Prosecco comes from the Asolo hills. The cellar is part of the Consortium Moltelvini which for the Holidays proposes "FM333", the first Cru Superiore Docg Brut Millesimato 2020, fragrant and original even in the aesthetics of the bottle in black and gold.
A really important gift? We move to Champagne for the cuvée Nec Plus Ultra 2008 from Bruno Paillard. The best vintages from 17 "Grand Cru", a selection of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir blended in equal parts, are the protagonists. First pressing, fermentation in small oak barrels for 10 months, second fermentation in the bottle and long aging in the cellars of the Maison, 12 years on the lees and 2 years of rest after disgorgement for an Extra Brut with a very low dosage. A champagne from conoisseurs that will leave those who receive it speechless and those who, in the upcoming holidays, will have the opportunity to toast with him or her!

Francesca Romana Mezzadri
December 2021

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