Christmas Recipes From Sorrento Italy

Olga Stinga sends Italian Christmas Recipes from Sorrento Italy


Christmas Recipes From Sorrento Italy:

Discovering Sorrento Christmas Tradtions and Learn Italian At Sant'Anna Institute with Olga Stinga

In Sorrento, cooking is a family matter.  In the past, recipes were verbally transmitted from mothers to daughters.

In my family, cooking is a way of life, it is a way for us to connect, share and bond.

My mom still keeps an old copy book where her mother (my beloved Nonna Pasqua) wrote recipes and now I am doing the same.

I have my own copy book where I write recipes, especially the ones for Christmas cakes.

In my family Christmas time means Struffoli and today I'd like to share with you my recipe.

Below you will find the English and Italian versions of my recipe so that you will be able to practice your Italian and, maybe, you will consider a visit to Sorrento to learn Italian at Sant'Anna Institute (www.sorrentolingue.com) where I am the Director and the Head of the Italian Department (with the passion for food and cakes!)

Buon Natale a Tutti, Happy Holidays.....and....See you in Sorrento!

Struffoli
(by Olga's Grandmother, Nonna Pasqua)

Igredients:
1 kg of flour
16 grams of salt
100 grams of sugar
8 eggs
greated zest of 2 oranges and 2 mandarins
120 grams of butter

To decorate:

mixed candied fruit
tails and aniseed mixed
honey orange blossom
orange zest
candied cherries

For Frying:
lard and olive oil (peanut oil)

Method:
Dough flour, sugar, citrus zest, salt and 4 eggs

Stir for a few minutes and then add the butter and the other 4 eggs

Mix all ingredients to obtain a dough.  Work the dough by hand so as to be smooth and elastic.  

Divide the dough in half and then in other parts........

........spinning each piece to obtain sticks not too thick. Flour thoroughly and keeping them close cut small cubes, the size of chickpeas.  

Flour also and gradually pour into a colander, shake until no extra flour.   

Then fry them in hot oil.

Once the struffoli float up in the oil, please take them out of the oil immediately.

Once fried place them on paper towels and let cool.

At this point, add the candied fruit, orange peel and honey.  Mix evenly....and transfer to a plate and then decorate with colored candies, candied cherries and aniseed mixed.

Struffoli are ready!  Delicious!

Earthquake relief event in Assisi

Anne Robichaud has allowed me to share a recent event in Assisi to raise funds for the recent earthquake disaster relieve.   http://www.annesitaly.com/

You can read the entire story and enjoy the many photos at http://www.annesitaly.com/blog/in-assisi-solidarity-is-music/

In Assisi, “Solidarity IS Music”….

 

…….….as the black T-shirts of the Florentine jazz musicians, Funk Off, proclaim. And on an early October Sunday, their trumpets, saxophones, clarinets, drums and cymbals blared out the message through Assisi’s medieval alleyways, just In case you’d missed it.

The appeal shouted out? To share in three days of music and solidarity sponsored by Umbria Jazz as a benefit for those left homeless in the August 24th earthquake. Over sixty of Italy’s most renowned jazz musicians – often on center stage in Perugia each July during the Umbria Jazz festival – responded immediately to the call to come to Assisi for three days of benefit concerts on September 30, October 1 and October 2. Big names on Italy’s jazz front, all the musicians were listed in yellow lettering on the backs of the T-shirts.

Answering the call to solidarity, wineries, local farmers and grocers provided the foods for a jazz dinner on October 1st (between afternoon and evening shows at Assisi’s theater, Teatro Lyrick) – and for pasta dishes and lentils served on Sunday in Assisi’s main square. All the Umbria specialties of the festival were cooked up and served by volunteers. At the evening jazz concerts, other volunteers sold the black “Musica e e’ Solidarieta’“ T-shirts at the theater entrance. An Assisi hotel, Hotel dei Priori, hosted all the guest musicians. (An astounding show of solidarity as this is “high season” in Assisi; during the week of the Feast of St. Francis, October 4th, hotels are sold out in this town).

“Why choose Assisi for this Umbria Jazz solidarity event – and not Perugia?” I’d asked the founder of Umbria Jazz Carlo Pagnotta before the Saturday night concert of famed jazz pianist Stefano Bollani. “Because of Assisi’s links to an earthquake: that of September 1997. We sent out a call for solidarity then, too, with musicians playing as a benefit in Foligno.”

A Sardinian folk group in colorful traditional costumes joined locals and visitors in clapping to Funk Off’s final number: they’d be performing next (a prelude to the October 4th festivities). Funk Off would be heading on to Norcia to play for those living in tents now following the earthquake.

The Funk Off fans lined up in front of our medieval city hall to choose one of three dishes representing areas suffering earthquake damage: pasta all’amatriciana (for Amatrice in Latium, near the epicenter), pasta alla norcina (for Norcia, here in Umbria) or the zuppa di lenticchie, lentil soup of the famed lentils of Castelluccio (here in Umbria, also with quake damage). Smiling volunteers took payments and handed out receipts while others dished up the goodness.

Read more about this solidarity event’s link to Assisi
Read more on Assisi area solidarity
See – and hear – Enrico Rava with Stefano Bollani, two musicians here in Assisi
Feel the emotion of Paolo Fresu’s trumpet, also here for the benefit
See and hear two performers, pianist Danilo Rea playing with Paolo Fresu
Read about – and see!- Funk Off at Umbria Jazz
Click here for more on Funk Off at Umbria Jazz
Read about our amatriciana benefit dinner
Read more about the August 24, 2016 earthquake – and solidarity

Cooking vegetarian in Puglia: a small glimpse of this fall event

Italian cooking

 is more enjoyable with a local wine.  

The cooking and wine school in Puglia, Italy offers a wide assortment of custom events that make a trip to Italy more than museums and monuments.   

But it is Ylenia Sambati who will 

be the reason you return to Puglia. 

  

A lifelong vegetarian, I have asked Yle to share Italian-vegetarian recipes with me to post on Home to Italy as well as puplish with La Gazzetta Italiana newspaper.  


Now you can learn a healthy way to cook Italian dishes during a a special week of cooking (click here for details), learning and experiencing the area near Lecce.

The perfect setting for cooking lessons at the school

 Here is a small sample of a cooking lesson
with Yle

You can take cooking lessons everywhere in Italy.   But an experience with Cook in Puglia is so much more.

"Meeting Yle more than 3 years ago was one of the unplanned events that can leave a lasting impression.   
When I return to Puglia, I never feel like a tourist, but like a friend returning home."