Tag: school

Gennaro Esposito opens a cooking school for “special” kids – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

In the new kitchen of Casa Mehari there is everything: it is like that of a restaurant, with all the necessary and safe equipment for the kids to work with, alongside professionals who will guide them with courses designed for starters. They will give lessons on pbaking, pastry making as well as actual cooking, but also dining. «Seeing the enthusiasm for all these new tools was exciting. We’re giving him a push, we’re telling him “you put yours, we give you the space to move forward” he says, his voice full of emotion Maria Trapanese, for everyone the beloved Mariolinasoul of La Bottega dei Semplici Pensieri, who on this project will work with the social enterprise La Scheggia, which is instead dedicated to supporting young people who are victims of addictions.

The new “Casa Mehari restaurant”

In the kitchen of Casa Mehari they will be together and the kids involved, all around 20/30 years old, will immediately put the teachings into practice: both to be employed outside and to create a real restaurant inside the boss’s former villa, which has a beautiful garden complete with a swimming pool. Small convivial moments are already being organized alongside the many cultural events of the associations it hosts, but the aim is to have a real Casa Mehari menu, like in a restaurant. «All this has made the kids very responsible. They feel they have the tools to build a future, to make it”continues Mariolina.

Inclusion and «motivation

«Cooking is one of those jobs that can stimulate all the senses, says Gennaro Esposito when we ask him why cooking, in his opinion, is proving to be a privileged tool for redemption with many other highly successful projects – above all PizzaAut – involving children with disabilities. «We need to stimulate their sensitivity, show them that there is a job in which what counts is creativity, and not disability. There is a lot of talk about inclusion, but in reality there are always few concrete attempts. I would rather talk about motivation: you have to give people motivation to make sure that they come out, that they show talents that you would never have thought of. But they are useful patience, feeling, love, to show a new path to those who often live in the belief that they have no right to access the dynamics of real life: for this reason we will never work hard enough. We must not give up: we must continue to explore with them, to believe in ourselves first. Everyone: institutions, schools, private individuals, citizens. No one excluded.”

Green Food Week: pink risotto (also) arrives in Milan – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

Eating healthy starts from a very young age: it also starts from here Green Food Weekthe week dedicated to sustainability in the kitchen created by the association Foodinsider and dedicated to school, university and company meals. Having just begun, and always eagerly awaited, it is an opportunity to reflect on the impact of the food we eat, to which the Municipality of Milan and Milan Catering they participate punctually with great enthusiasm. This year – within the framework of the project Horizon 2020 School Food 4 Change – they (also) thought of a particularly inviting way to involve the very little ones on February 8th.

Green Food Week in Milan schools

February 8 will in fact be the day dedicated to Green Food Week schools, with new menus in primary schools in all the cities that have joined. The symbolic dish created by the Municipality of Milan and Milano Ristorazione is abarbarisotto”. A fun and intriguing name for beetroot risotto: a healthy and low impact dish made with local and seasonal ingredients to show the little ones how much it can be tasty and fun to eat foods that are good for us and the environmentand also how important it is to know what you eat.

In fact, the initiative will not be limited to lunch: educators and teachers, with many useful ideas provided by Foodinsider, the Municipality and Milano Ristorazione, will show the students how food is born, where it comes from, why it is important to choose ingredients that come from places as close as possible and that they are as vegetal as possible. The rice used for risotto, for example, is grown in the Cascina Battivaccoin the Barona district, a stone’s throw from the city center, while the yogurt comes from Cascina Campazzo, in the Ticinello park. Children will be able to bring all this back home and relive the experience with their parents also thanks to other useful and practical advice made available for adults on foodpolicymilano.org. There are also recipes, very easy. To try, at the bottom of this article, you will find the recipe for barbarisotto.

The commitment of the Municipality of Milan to sustainable nutrition

«This year too we are joining the Green Food Week with special attention to describing the care for food and the environment that characterizes the choices in our canteens: we do it in a healthy and fun way, coloring the greenest menu of the year pink” he explains Anna Scavuzzo, deputy mayor with responsibility for Food Policy and Education of the Municipality of Milan. «Each of the dishes offered he continues, «tells the commitment to plan, cook, distribute, administer and evaluate meals for girls and boys in the city. Starting from the choice of raw materials that are attentive to the environment and health: organic, short supply chain and km0 products are now a permanent presence on the menu and this has made it possible to reduce CO emissions₂and by over 34% in a few years, between 2015 and 2022. All these actions can become even more effective if they become common heritage, starting from those who experience schools every day”.

The menu for February 8th, for Green Food Week

The menu for February 8 is exemplary: the children will eat organic apples for the mid-morning snackfor lunch – after the beetroot risotto – meatballs with organic soy and organic carrots as a side dish, other fresh fruit and 0 km bread with organic flour. Finally, for a snack, natural yoghurt with short supply chain and Km 0 in paper jar. A good, healthy, environmentally friendly menu: the overall impact of the school menu on Green Food Week is 140 TonCO₂and against an average of 222 TonCO₂and the ordinary menu.

It is worth underlining a trend: Milano Ristorazione has developed a change in the purchasing of raw materials which has led, in the period 2015 – 2022, to a decrease in 34% of CO emissions₂ equivalent. A theme on which the Municipality of Milan has been working for some time: it joins the initiative Cool Food Pledge, promoted by the international research center World Resources Institute, which involves the public and private sector in monitoring the environmental impact of collective catering menus. For this reason, together with other cities such as Copenhagen, New York and Toronto, the Municipality evaluates the results of the gradual changes made to the menus from 2015 to today, in particular regarding the promotion of proteins of plant origin, through the introduction of more vegetables and legumes.

The recipe for “barbarisotto”

Ingredients for 4 people

Method

Rinse the rice in a bowl of fresh water, drain and leave to rest.
Wash the fresh celery, peel the carrots and onions for the preparation of the broth, add the vegetable stock cube.
Cut the beets into pieces, blend them, adding the liquid if present and a part of the broth.
Prepare the sauté with the quarter of chopped onion and add the rice, toast it and then add the broth, adding it when necessary during cooking.
Halfway through cooking, add the beetroot smoothie and continue to cook, stirring occasionally.
Leave the rice al dente and stir in Parmigiano Reggiano.

“Stories of Intrecci”, two families together for the education of young people – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

“Storie di Intrecci”, this is the name of the project written jointly by two families who are different on paper but close in vision. Both preside over two foundations which, together, are now intertwined to achieve a common goal: the training of young people who live in a difficult social fabric. “Storie di Intrecci” will in fact start from Caivano and the “Francesco Morano” Higher Institute of the town on the outskirts of Naples.

A project written and yet to be written in the coming months by the Scudieri Family and the Cotarella Family, with their respective Foundations, involved in different sectors, from automotive to quality agri-food, from fashion to hospitality and training. A concrete response to the appeal of the Principal Eugenia Carfora of the Morano institute who, some time ago, had expressed the desire for the “adoption” of the most difficult scholastic areas by foundations and institutions, capable of allowing the presence of teachers excellent, capable of making children fall in love with study and educating them on feelings.

The intertwining of two families to rediscover their roots

The “intertwining” between the two families was born among the vineyards of Pantelleriabut the similarities between the activities of Scudieri family and Cotarella family there are many and expanding the active collaboration to other projects to be carried out together is inevitable. Wine, food and wine, hospitality, on the one hand, technical know-how and innovation on the other, therefore, inspired the idea of networking the skills of the Cotarella Foundation and the Scudieri Foundation for the children of Caivano, responding to the appeal of the Principal Eugenia Carfora to make the school a “dam” against petty crime, combating school dropout. Starting, precisely, with the rediscovery of the land and the roots, which means, among other things, the valorisation and promotion of quality agri-food as a factor in the development of the territory.

A moment of the presentation of Stories of plots at the court theater of the Royal Palace of Naples

The project in concrete terms

The two foundations, together with Obicà e Intrecci, Sala’s Higher Education Academy, to the Adler Group and the Cotarella family they will support specialized high-level training courses in the field of technological innovation and hospitality. In particular, they will create work orientation and training internship courses for the students of the Morano Institute in the fourth and fifth classes, then they will make professionals in the field of electronics, PLC programming and mechanics available to the school, on the one hand, of catering and hospitality, on the other, for insights and comparisons; finally, they will award scholarships to the most deserving students, leaving the institute in 2024, both in the technical and hospitality sectors.

The commitment of the institutions

Various institutions, both local and national, participated in the recent presentation meeting, inside the suggestive court theater of the Royal Palace of Naples. Among these, the Councilor for Youth Policies and Labor of the Municipality of Naples, Chiara Marciani, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies Claudio Durigon. Also the Minister for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and ForestryFrancesco Lollobrigida who sent a video contribution of greeting, followed by Regional President Coldiretti Campania, Ettore Bellelli. Last but not least, the creators of the project, Paolo Scudieri, President of Adler Group and honorary President of the Scudieri Foundation and his son Achille Scudieri, CEO of Obicà and President of the Scudieri Foundation. AND Riccardo Cotarella, founder, together with his brother Renzo, of the family wine business, as well as President of Assoenologi and Union International des Oenologues. Near him, Dominga CotarellaCEO of the Cotarella family and President of the Cotarella Foundation, who together with the sisters Enrica And Martha guides family activities. The Principal Eugenia Carfora also spoke at the meeting, wanting to underline how important the intervention of the institutions is but also that they do not soon forget the promised commitment.

To make your dreams come true

«Whoever enters the Morano Institute can dream and the two Foundations give our children the opportunity to dream and make their dreams come true. In addition to instructing the kids, we need to bring out their talents, their passions, with the awareness that without the rules you won’t get anywhere”, added the principal. The last interventions were entrusted to the magistrate Catello Maresca, Ambassador of anti-mafia culture. And to Marco Mezzaroma President of Sport and Healthwhich reiterated the presence of the State on the territory of Caivano, confirming the end of the works for the Delphinia Center by May 2024 as already announced.

Gordon Ramsay Recipes