Tag: starry

From snowboard to starry boards. For Handicap antennas and B.A.S.S. – Italian Cuisine

A supportive dinner brought together the great names of Italian cuisine to raise funds in support of the Antenne Handicap association and for the Bass an aid that allows disabled people to try snowboarding

The beautiful slopes of Courmayeur and its constantly moving gastronomic scene welcomed in the best way the Slurp event… !, created and conceived by the brothers Eric and Barbara Grange, natives of the Upper Aosta Valley and in love with Italian cuisine and of sincere projects.

Eric thus explains the birth of Slurp ..!: “I warned Francesco Musa, friend and owner of the Au Coeur des neiges resort, who saw a beautiful thing in this initiative and first supported us and then helped in all respects in the 'organization. We did all this to help a friend, Andrea Borney, and the guys who thanks to him can make big dreams come true. "

This is how some of the best craftsmen and ambassadors of Italian culinary art met at the Au Coeur des Neiges in Courmayeur to raise funds for Antenne Hadicap, the Aosta Valley association that for years has had the objective of facilitating access to sports practices for people with disabilities and to encourage the promotion of activities aimed at them. A beneficial purpose in a festive atmosphere, a perfect combination to make known an association that has revolutionized the sporting world of the disabled Valle d'Aosta and national, allowing many children to ski independently, even if suffering from serious motor diseases, with the BASS, an acronym for Borney Adapted Snowboard System, a snowboard conceived, built and patented by Andrea, and which allows people with cognitive and motor problems to practice sport in freedom and safety and practically in a semi-autonomy. The B.A.S.S. it is the flagship of the activity of Borney who, a snowboard instructor for some time, has sought over the years the best tool to bring disabled people to sport, and then ended up building it. On the ski slopes of the Courmayeur area, beautiful and accessible to all, the protagonists are undoubtedly the boys of Antenne Handicap, but on the table were the creations of the chefs who lent themselves for this evening with a high rate of generosity, as well as that sponsors like KIA and 360 ° Spin who didn't back down and honor the cause.

A search for the product and the combination led to a 9-course tasting dinner that began with the buffalo mozzarella from the Barlotti dairy and the salami of Simone Fracassi, the undisputed king of Tuscan pork butchery, and ended with desserts, including the famous Peaches of Prato, work by Paolo Sacchetti. To enchant also the wonderful pizzas of Gennaro Nasti del Bijou di Montmartre (with sausages and friars and foie gras), the spaghetti with the traditional anchovy sauce of the matrix Pasquale Torrente, as simple as full of the fragrance of Cetara, an unforgettable crispy risotto to the Chianina cap by Emanuele Vallini, a dish that has restored ancient splendor to fried tripe, elevating it with Acquerello rice and sublime deer and cooked to perfection by Saverio Sbaragli of Tosca in Geneva. There is also space for Giovanni D’Antonio, the home chef who presented a salad with hot tomino cheese and a sour yogurt sauce that enhanced the simple creativity of the pairings. Giancarlo Morelli was very absent from the evening, to whom everyone's best wishes for a speedy recovery went and who had to be from the brigade before his skiing accident.

The Italian spirit was expressed not only with food, but also with the Punta Helbronner beer of the Microbrewery Courmayeur, produced with the water of Mont Blanc, a drinkable American Pale Ale and interesting in structure, as well as with the white wine Daphne of Cave Gargantua, Aosta Valley family winery that presented the blend consisting of chardonnay and pinot gris, and the wines of Marchesi di Barolo. Just this winery has enchanted those present with a wonderful Barolo that has sublimated the deer of Sbaragli. Generous and elegant dishes, perfectly in tune with the evening, which allowed Antenne Handicap to take a big step forward with its projects, increasingly linking the name of Courmayeur to that of accessibility.

Starry streets: the excitement of a journey by car – Italian Cuisine

We stayed at Villa de Winckels, among the hills of the Val D'illasi, curves and stellar cuisine

This is the era of travel with a click: from the sofa we can go around the world. With very few euros, we can fly hundreds of miles and spend 24 hours stolen from our everyday life in another city.
And yet, the car remains an incredible way to travel: think of tackling an itinerary among vineyards and trees full of cherries, to climb higher and higher on the hills, alternating your gaze with forests in vardi valleys, to then descend, make a last curve and find yourself a surprise villa of the sixteenth century, immersed in jasmine, and in a moment a glass of Soave and a slice of abolished in hand.
Exceptional right?
This, besides being a simple example of what all of us in Italy can enjoy a few minutes away by car, is nothing more than the perfect recipe of the Alfa Romeo “Strade Stellate” format: a team of Giulia and Stelvio in training, a tour of the most beautiful landscapes, discovering the territory and the Italian starred cuisine.

The first stop: Villa De Winckels

The risotto by Roberto Merzari, chef of Villa De Winckels, also won an award during Expo Milano. A cuisine of research, refined, strictly seasonal typical of the Venetian cuisine – about risotto to taste the Vialone Nano of these areas – with a strong passion for the product, both by self producing in large quantities, from cold cuts to fresh pasta up to the pastry shop.
Villa De Winckels has a very ancient history, stones on leaning stones from the 1100s and 1400s, now for several years a place of good food and good drink: a unique welcome.
From here we started, a tour of the excellences that will run throughout Italy.

To take part in the next stages: Strade Stellate

Coffee in the kitchen (starry) does not come just after a meal – Italian Cuisine

Coffee at the restaurant does not come just at the time of dessert but is an ingredient on which research is done. The chef Marcello Trentini, Nespresso coffee sommelier, is a pioneer: he cooks and serves it as a cocktail combined with his tasting menu (and with this contemporary finanziera)

The coffee at the restaurant it is always an unknown quantity, often it does not measure up and literally leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It is not the fault of the mixture, but of impromptu baristas and old machines, maligned and working too little – which means a bad espresso. And a bad memory of a dinner.
"The importance of coffee in the restaurant has increased exponentially and is a more sophisticated and versatile ingredient than it may seem" – explains "Il Mago ", aka chef Marcello Trentini of the Magorabin restaurant in Turin, a Michelin star – "As with all the other ingredients there has been continuous research and there is much more awareness on both sides, so much so that it is increasingly difficult to find customers who do not understand the difference between a good product and any one".

Nespresso Coffee Sommelier since four years, Trentini has a close relationship with this ingredient, and clear ideas. "Coffee is a pop ingredient in Italy, but it can not be cheap. Now it is clear: rather than eating a poor caviar, a very good onion better. Arabica or Robusta do not mean anything, flavor and aroma depend on the variety, the roasting, if it is in purity or is a blend … a universe of nuances and aromas that enrich your kitchen and your cultural baggage of cook, without prejudices. From Turin I can say that coffee is part of us, we are the inventors of Italian espresso. We have a very Turin-style, canonical approach to coffee, which is why I like to discover new horizons. For years I have dedicated at least one dish to a specific cultivar and I use it together with wine ".

Coffee and fish? It can be done

In the kitchen the coffee is used with meat: "Deer, lamb, chicken .. In Stockholm, at the end of the course to become Nespresso Coffee Sommelier, I used it together with fish. I cooked a fillet of white fish at low temperature in cooking oil with green apple cubes, shitake mushrooms, coffee reduction and coffee powder as pancakes over fish. Over the years I made a cod with coffee and a risotto with coffee: a real caffelatte, rice cooked in buffalo milk and creamed with peel and lemon juice and then served with a truffle of cocoa mass and coffee to be grated over it".

Not just wine: coffee as a pairing

You drink it, but not necessarily at the end of a meal. In a journey combined with the tasting menu, in addition to pairing with wine, other solutions are sought to balance the flavors with care, but also the alcoholic performance of the evening.
One of the historical dishes of the Magorabin card is Agnello / Nocciole, a leg of lamb in Lazio cooked at low temperature, then lightly smoked in a vacuum and burned in the barbecue. "It has a very crispy crust but keeps a pink flesh inside, the contrast is strong, and we serve it with a natural hazelnut cream. Simona (Beltrami, sommelier, partner and wife of the Magician) has studied for this dish two pairings, one alcoholic and one non-alcoholic coffee-based ".

Nicaragua Master Origin, in a drink

On the occasion of the launch of the new Nespresso Master Origin, the Magorabin maître, Alberto Bonanno, has created a cocktail with Nicaragua to combine with Contemporary financier with prawns, cauliflower and almonds of the chef. It is prepared starting from this unique coffee based on Arabica Black Honey, with aromas reminiscent of caramel, linden honey, grilled bread and gianduia chocolate. The coffee is cooled in a mixing glass with ice, stirring with a stirrer, drained, mixed with extra virgin olive oil of Nocellara del Belice 100%, and garnished with an orange twist and a sprig of thyme.