Benvenuto!

AH! Pasta. It�s synonymous with Italy. It is food for the soul, for the heart, for the stomach. It is comfort food at its best. There are so many variations, so much you can do with it. The very word makes your mouth water.

Once you get hooked to fresh, home-made pasta, you might like to lighten your workload by buying a machine to help you. You can choose between a hand-operated one and a motorized one. The former will roll out the dough you knead to the appropriate thinness while with the latter, you just need to put in the eggs and flour, choose the nozzle which will produce the shape you want, and relax � the machine will take care of it.
So much for hands-on Italian cooking.

Pasta Facts

Pasta is an excellent food for diabetics, as it digests very slowly and does not trigger a glycemic response.
It is a rich source of carbohydrates
The oldest macaroni recipes come from Sicily – they are macaroni with eggplant and with sardines. Both are still popular.

Minding Your P’s and Q’s with Pasta

• Serve pasta in shallow bowls. Your guests will find it easier to eat it this way than if you serve it in flat plates.
• Pasta is traditionally eaten with only a fork.

Coco Lezzone

This family-run restaurant is low profile. You�ll have to be really keen to find it, lost as it is in a maze of alleys near Arno. You won�t get anything fancy, no secluded tables, no artful lighting, and no sophisticated ambience. What you�ll get is family-sized tables set in tiny rooms, and authentic, satisfying Italian food that will draw you back to this part of town time and time again.

The ribolita, the riganoni al sugo, the involtini (veal-wrapped veggies) and crocchetto di filetto (veal meatloaf, spiced with basil, in an island of tomato sauce) are out of the world. But so are the common fare like Tuscan bread and soup, and the simple clear broth. If you want the famous bistecca al florentina, you’ll need to order ahead. If you want to taste their famous salt cod, go on Fridays, and in truffle season, don’t miss a visit to Coco Lezzone the place is packed with personalities, be it from the fields of sports, arts or media. That�s the icing on the cake, plus the reasonable rates.

Badia a Passignano Riserva

This DOCG rated wine is made from 100 percent Sangiovese grapes grown on the Badia a Passignano estate in the Chianti Classico area. Alcohol: 13.5% Vol.

The Background

The vineyards are located in an area that has been inhabited at least since the Etruscan period and has a history of wine production that goes back over a millennium. They surround a fortified abbey, owned by the Vallombrosian monks, which is one of the finest examples of this type of building.

The Antinori family bought the 325-hectare estate around the abbey in 1987, and also got the use of the monastery cellars. Here, Piero Antinori conducts his highly successful experimental work with Tuscan wines. His goal is to produce wines that more readily reflect the unique identity, personality and peculiarities of the Tuscan soil, as expressed through the Sangiovese grape.

Complex, with a roundness and elegance, yet modern in its intense fruitiness, accessibility and soft tannins, the wine has a deep cherry color. The flavors are of concentrated cherry, chocolate and vanilla.

The 2000 vintage was blessed with favorable weather patterns right through the grape cycle. Ripening was slightly earlier than usual, and a “green harvest” started just after mid-August, which resulted in excellent mature grapes being brought in.

Riserva was produced from bunch-selected grapes from the estate of Badia a Passignano, harvested between mid September and the beginning of October. The grapes were destemmed, lightly crushed, and macerated partly in 50 hectoliter wooden open fermentors and partly in stainless steel tanks. After alcoholic fermentation, most of the wine was transferred to French oak barrels for malolactic fermentation. The wines were then racked, and after careful blending of the different vineyard lots to produce the master blend, most of it was returned to the barriques for ageing. It was bottled and kept for at least another year before release.

The Swiss Connection

The label of the wine, with a representation of Badia a Passgnano and a vine leaf, is made using a unique process used to produce Swiss bank notes. It was designed by Piero Antinori, to symbolize the authenticity of the wine, because it is impossible to reproduce or counterfeit the label. The labels were engraved and printed in Switzerland by descendants of Christoffel Froschauer, whose firm has been printing Swiss National Bank notes since 1603.

Fennel

What’s that warm, slightly sweet aroma? It comes from this little seed – well, fruit, actually –a favorite ingredient in European, especially Italian cooking. It’s called fennel It was written about by Pliny, and has been known for ages in India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and other parts of south and south-east Asia. Native to the Mediterranean region, it was popularized throughout Europe by Imperial Rome, and is now a naturalized herb in the USA and grown in various other parts of the world as well.

There are different varieties of fennel, including Florence fennel and sweet fennel. In color it varies from bronze to pale green.  It is treated as both an herb and a spice, and all parts of the plant, including the bulb, can be used. In Italy, the bulb is often served lightly sautéed in olive oil and seasoned with salt and fresh cracked pepper. Even the pollen, called Spice of Angels, is an exotic ingredient.

The medicinal properties of fennel have long been acknowledged, in the Orient as well as in Europe. It is used as a carminative, purgative, diuretic, digestive and hunger suppressant, mainly. Emperor Charlemagne considered it an essential part of the imperial gardens. It has also been attributed with power to ward off evil and even as anti-venom.

In Italian cooking, fennel is used to flavor sausages, salami, roast pork and other meat preparations and to add piquancy to sauces and pasta. It is considered an ideal herb for fish in most of Europe. The leaves can be used in salads, and also in bouquets garni. The fruit can be used whole or ground into powder. They are also sometimes used to flavor cakes and confectionaries.

One of the oldest herbs known to man, fennel still maintains its place in the culinary arts.