Category Food

Authentic Italian cooking…

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italian-pound-cakeIf you’ve been to Italy, you know that Italians have desserts, but they are simple and not so sweet. In fact, when I was young my Italian mother would make a basic sheet cake and only sprinkle powdered sugar on top — absolutely NO frosting! Of course, if it was a birthday, she would buy the traditional American birthday cake. Normally though, she would make just a plain cake. When she got “fancy,” she made pineapple upside down cake or strawberry short cake.

Years ago, I was in Italy and my mother said, “Let’s go visit, Silvana.” Off we went. As it was a visit, Silvana made us coffee and brought us a slice of cake that looked like this photo. My mother and I loved the cake. We asked Silvana for the recipe, it was a dry type of pound cake. Silvana said she made the cake from memory, no recipe, so it was hard for her to tell us the exact ingredients, but she tried.

Once at home, my mother and I tried to make the cake, but it was no good. Years have gone by, and I have not found a good recipe UNTIL a few months ago. An Italian friend posts different recipes on Facebook. She had a link to a website called, “An Italian in My Kitchen.”  This Blogger is from Toronto. She moved to Rome 20 years ago. She shares Italian recipes that she learned from her Italian mother/n/law. They are very good AND I think you would enjoy the stories she shares too.

On her site, she has a recipe for an “Italian Fresh Cream Lemon Cake.” It’s EXACTLY like Silvana’s cake!  Finally, it took a few years to find, but I have the recipe. I wrote a comment thanking this Blogger for making me so happy and bringing back Italian memories. She told me her daughter’s favorite cake is the “Easy Yogurt Cake,” which I will have to try next.  Thanks to Facebook for making sharing with our friends in different countries so easy!

Buon appetito!

Amazon Go -> Use their App, shop at convenience store with no cashier!

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iphone-shoppingAmazon has done it again, another new business idea. Have you heard, they have come out with Amazon Go, a new way of shopping by using the Amazon Go App. Right now, Amazon has a small test site close to their headquarters in Seattle. Amazon employees started testing this new technology at the beginning of December 2016. Their goal is to open this to the public early 2017.

Here’s how it works. You download the Amazon Go App, enter the convenience store where they sell bread, eggs, drinks, sandwiches, coffee, etc., put what you want to buy in your bag and “merely” walk out of the store. Shortly after you leave the store, you receive a receipt for your purchases from Amazon. Easy as that!

It’s interesting technology, watch how this works on YouTube video published by Amazon, “Introducing Amazon Go and the world’s most advanced shopping technology.”

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Seattle’s Space Needle

How many of you watched the cartoon show, “The Jetsons,” when you were young. If you did, you’ll remember how space age and into technology the show was, really futuristic. The show’s look was inspired by the Space Needle in Seattle and they lived in the sky to get away from the smog.

If you are not familiar with the show, see this YouTube video called, “The Jetsons Future of Technology,” where someone spliced together some clips from different episodes to show how the writer saw us using technology in the future in the 1960s…  and now over 50 years later it’s becoming a reality.

Stay tuned, let’s see when Amazon Go goes public!

Craving a Cronut®, visit London

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tower-bridge-londonBack in 2013, Pastry Chef Dominique Ansel introduced the first “Cronut®” in New York. Now 2016, he’s opening his first European Bakery in London. You’ll enjoy this YouTube video from the “Financial Times: The Cronut® Lands in London,” where Pastry Chef Ansel shares his story.

The Cronut® is the mixture of a croissant and a doughnut. He created the Cronut® when he didn’t have a doughnut recipe; however, he knew a lot about making croissants. So, he put his pastry skills to the test and with a “little bit of this” and a “little bit of that,” the Cronut® was created.

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Cronut photo from     Dominique Ansel’s website

I’ve never had a Cronut®. From the photo you can see that it looks like a tall croissant in the shape of a doughnut, very decadent for sure. Apparently, due to temperature changes between NY and London, when Pastry Chef Ansel arrived in London, he had to fine tune his Cronut® recipe before the grand opening. THAT must have been stressful!

Now is the perfect time to visit London, the US dollar is strong from what I hear, and you can see from Eater.com’s article, “Dominque Ansel London Opens to a Line of 200 Cronut® Lovers,” by Whitney Filloon that the Cronut® is a hit over there. When you come back from London, tell us what you thought! Are you now a Cronut® fan? Was it worth the trip? You can always go to New York first… London second.

The $100 Golden Donut

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The $100 Golden Cristal Ube Donut at Manila Social Club. (MANILASOCIALCLUB VIA INSTAGRAM)

There is something comforting about donuts. We like them at work in the morning, on the weekend and who doesn’t remember after a College party wanting to stop for a donut on the way back to the dorms.

So, I knew my daughter was homesick when she said she was Googling donuts. While her Googling results did not find a place open in Ireland for late night delivery, she did come across the donut of all donuts. A golden donut, which costs $100 out of Brooklyn… and we both laughed with relief, because they do not ship Internationally yet!

In this Youtube video created by Barcroft TV, click here, you can see how Björn De La Cruz, executive-chef and co-owner at the Manila Social Club in Brooklyn, New York decided to create this luxurious eatable masterpiece.

I know… some of you are fainting, some of you are in an uproar saying your Dunkin’ Donuts at 99 cents is good enough and you would NEVER pay $100 for a donut, but before you write this off, consider that luxury and decadence comes at a cost. My daughter is into baking, so for her trying this donut would be “worth it” to find out WHAT a luxurious donut really tastes like. Now, we could be economical about this. Let’s say we ordered this golden donut to celebrate the New Year and we had 10 friends visiting. That would break down the individual cost of the donut to $10 each. Now, we’d have to be really accurate in cutting the donut into 10 individual bites, so we wouldn’t lose even one flake of gold. THEN we would make a toast and each eat our bite at the same time bringing in the New Year!  Eating gold on New Year’s Eve should indicate a prosperous New Year is ahead, YES?

So, I ask you… Is a golden donut worth $100?   What’s on your Bucket List?

Pasta Galore!

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image1If you like pasta, there is nothing better than going through an Italian super market. I was walking through the isles of the grocery store in Florence, Italy with my Italian mother and we came to the pasta section. As I looked at the choices with amazement, I asked her WHY with ALL the pasta choices she ONLY used spaghetti or penne pasta when we were growing up. She didn’t have a clear answer, she just kept dinner simple.

My mother was not a typical Italian cook. We did not have ravioli or tortellini.  NO — it was image2always spaghetti with bolognese sauce. Nothing wrong with that mind you, but when I went to another Italian’s house for lunch or dinner it was totally different from my house. My Italian girlfriend would cook with different pasta shapes and add vegetables to her pastas.

Lasagna was different too. My mother made lasagne with béchamel sauce, while my friend made hers with ricotta cheese. If you’ve ever had lasagne with béchamel sauce you can NEVER eat it with ricotta cheese again — it just tastes wrong! My opinion, of course.

image3As I continued on with my mother, we stopped by the produce section to find some tomatoes. Well, I had to smile… they had all kinds of tomatoes to choose from in big bins and our shopping adventure would not have been complete if we had not bought our parmesan cheese!

I think I was especially happy to see all the pasta, because in America the latest diet trend is “no pasta,” “no rice,” etc. and here I was in Italy, my Italian heritage, seeing all this pasta and thinking it’s not necessary to give up pasta completely.  Clearly, I was missing my “Italian heritage.”

So, here’s to exploring new recipes and going “beyond” the spaghetti style noodles! Changing your noodle shape does change the taste of your pasta.  AND REMEMBER, the pasta MUST be “al dente.”  This trip, I have to say, the pasta was almost “too” al dente.  I imagined the cook with his chef hat crooked trying to get pasta out as fast as possible!

Buon appetito (translation: Enjoy your meal)!

Back in Bavaria

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imageI love Munich. Many years ago, when my ex-husband was working for Siemens, he was given the opportunity to go on a one month assignment to Munich. We jumped at the chance. At that time our older daughter was 2 years old and I was working as a contractor, so we were mobile. What a great experience.

I don’t speak German, but that didn’t matter. Most people speak “some” English, so asking questions and getting around was not an issue. I remember going to Oktoberfest and being really surprised AND not in a good way. I thought Oktoberfest was like the inside of the Hofbräuhaus, instead it was a big outside Fair and the drinking imagewas done in tents and the weather was cold!

That’s Ok, it just wasn’t what I had visualized. There was a ferris wheel, different outdoor games, etc. I felt like I was at an American Fair. However, riding the train to Oktoberfest was fun, because people were dressed in their lederhosen and dirndles with the green hats and feathers. I took a photo today of this street singer dressed in tradtional Bavarian outfit.

It happens that my hotel has a view of the Hofbräuhaus. As I heard the singing, I remembered being in Munich for the World Cup in 2006.  All of the soccer players were coming in town from different countries, they had their jersey’s on and they were excited, the fans were too, so there was a lot of drinking and singing going on.

For those of you who don’t know much about the Bavarian dress, I took a picture of imagethis retail shop’s window, so you could see how the ladies would dress and what the men wear. I highly recommend a trip to Munich. It is so much fun and who knows, like me, ladies you might just go home with a dirndle. I’ve worn my dirndle to holiday cocktail parties many times. The guys would say I looked like a cute “Swedish girl.” So ladies, if you are single, dirndles are a good way to make conversation.

And men, “in Munich,” ALL guys wear ledershosen with bright colored shirts. You can do it too! Make sure you wear the red knee high socks with tassels. Am I scaring you yet?  You gotta dress the part AND don’t go on the ferris wheel if you’ve been drinking!

The traditional espresso machine…

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imageLike a good Italian, I owned a Bialetti Moka Express that I bought in Italy. I say, “owned,” because like a good mother I gave my little espresso machine to my daughter when she went off to College.

Shopping for my new Bialetti felt like car shopping. You know what you want, but every store you go to doesn’t have the exact size, color, price, etc. It’s exhausting, but you are determined NOT to go home without the car, or in my case, the espresso machine.

My efforts were fruitless – no one had the Bialetti brand! I was frustrated and we know what happens when we get frustrated and tired.  YES, we make “wrong choices!” That is what happened to me.

I stumbled on an espresso machine called, “Forever.”  As I picked it up, every thing inside me was saying, “NO, you can’t do this!”  Keep shopping and find Bialetti, stick with Italian tradition, but laziness took over. I was done, no more shopping.

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My “Forever” brand coffee maker.

In my defense, I “did” examine this Forever brand. On the outside, it appeared to “look” like the Baletti Moka Express. I unscrewed it, so I could see how it felt. I admit, it felt inferior like a “generic brand,” but I convinced myself that generic could be good and this machine was cheaper!  Why buy a Mercedes when you can just as easily get around town in a Honda, right?  It seemed so logical.

The reviews on Amazon say the “Forever” brand is fantastic! I am here to say that it has never worked 100% AND worse look at the discoloration of the coffee machine. Every time I made coffee I cringed and wondered if I was getting aluminum poisoning. Amazon says this is made in China. The Bialetti is still made in Italy.

SO….I went out and bought the Bialetti!  Why did I wait so long?  I don’t know!

I am so happy. I looked up to Heaven as the cashier was ringing me up and said, “Ok, Nonina, do you see?? I’m buying the Bialetti and I will have some biscotti in memory of you to celebrate our Italian tradition! I REALLY miss you!”

P.S. Just so you know, you NEVER use soap to clean your espresso machine. My goodness, my grandmother really yelped when I tried to clean her Moka Express with soap… she didn’t speak English, but it was clear to me from her huge eyes, quick hand movements and loud Italian voice that I was about to “ruin” the espresso machine. Phew, she stopped me in the nick of time.

P.S.S By the way, it is with sadness that I tell you that Mr. Bialetti died in February, 2016. Here is the article from the New York Times, February 20, 2016.  At the end of the article it says that his children cremated him and put his ashes in a large model of the Moka Express. It sounds like the genie in the bottle, right. Even better, if you were to rub the espresso machine, you’d be able to discuss your three wishes with Mr. Bialetti over an espresso. Brilliant plan!

Swedish Pancakes

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imageToday I thought of my ex-father/n/law who is in heaven. He was 99 years old just shy of turning 100 when he passed away a few years ago!  He was from Germany and loved breakfast. His favorite place to go for pancakes was “The Original Pancake House.” We would often go every weekend after church. A family ritual for Opa. His favorite pancakes were the 49er pancakes. A nice memory.

Oh, and in case you are wondering HOW I ended up at The Swedish Club, it’s because I received an email from a Midwestern Meetup Group inviting fellow Midwesterners to come out and meet new people while enjoying some Swedish pancakes.

imageUnfortunately, due to tough parking, I was 30 minutes late. The line for being seated was so long that I was too shy to go through the line asking, “Are you a member of the Midwestern Meetup Group?”  It wasn’t going to happen. Maybe if I had had a megaphone and made a Midwestern joke, but I hadn’t been prepared for such a crowd.

Inside they had a small band with the members dressed in traditional Swedish costumes. It reminded me of being in Italy and Munich when the older generation gets up and they know all the ballroom dance steps. It was very nice and felt family oriented. Their traditional outfit style reminded me of pilgrims or the Amish. I wanted to take a picture to share with you, but I did not feel it was appropriate.

imageMore pancakes. I work with two Ukranian Technicians and their mother’s often make crepe style pancakes, but instead of making them sweet, they add chicken or a vegetable and roll it up. Last week one of them shared with me a chicken crepe. He told me when he was young his mother made a lot of dinner dishes using these thin pancakes.

So, here is to pancakes, memories of Opa, AND being open to new adventures!