Al dente ...

Bucatini Amatriciana
Serving: 4

• 100 g pancetta, diced
• Extravergin olive oil, for brushing
  
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
  
• 1 fresh chilli, seeded and chopped
  
• 500 g tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced
  
• 350 g bucatini pasta
• 40 g pecorino cheese, freshly grated
  
• salt

Brush a flameproof casserole with oil, add the pancetta and cook over a low heat until the fat runs. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-6 minutes until lightly browned. Add the tomatoes and chilli, season with salt, cover and cook for about 30 minutes. Cook the bucatini in a large pan of salted,boiling water until al dente, then drain and toss with the sauce in a warm serving dish adding the pecorino cheese.

An Alpine flavour

Grappa is a fragrant grape-based pomace brandy of between 37.5% and 60% alcohol by volume of italian origin. Literally "grape stalk", most grappa is made by distilling pomace, grape residue (mainly the skins, but also stems and seeds) left over from winemaking after pressing. It was originally made to prevent waste by using leftovers at the end of the wine season. It quickly became commercialised, mass-produced, and sold worldwide. Some grappa, known as prima uva, is made with the whole grapes. The flavour of grappa, like that of wine, depends on the type and quality of the grape used as well as the specifics of the distillation process.

Grappa was originally made in the northern Italian town of Bassano del Grappa, and some contend that this is the origin of the name, rather than from the Latin graspa.

In Italy, grappa is primarily served as a "digestivo" or after-dinner drink. Its main purpose was to aid in the digestion of heavy meals. Most grappa is clear, indicating that it is an un-aged distillate, though some may retain very faint pigments from their original fruit pomace. Lately, aged grappas have become more common, and these take on a yellow, or red-brown hue from the barrels in which they are stored.

A mediterranean recipe

Pasta alla Norma

Serving:4

• 350 g spaghetti
• 2 Aubergines (eggplant)
• 4-5 ripe tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• fresh basil
• seasoned ricotta or pecorino cheese (for grating)
• extravergin olive oil

Once sliced, the aubergines are to be sprinkled with coarse salt, placed under a weight and left for the juices to run out. Sautè the chopped onion, the crushed garlic ad a few basil leaves in 4-5 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan. Toss in the tomatoes, roughly chopped, with a pinch of salt and reduce it all gently (15-20 minutes). Rinse the aubergine, dab dry and brown with olive oil in a frying pan. Boil the spaghetti in salted water, drain al dente and stir into the tomato souce, dredging with grated seasoned ricotta cheese. Add the aubergine, diced finely, a couple of sliced basil leaves and another liberal sprinkling of cheese.

What else?

This is one of the "tastiest" moments of the Roman week. On Tuesday evening  we all meet at an incredible place to enjoy a light dinner with an exceptional variety of cheeses, "salumi", wines, breads, olive oils, and many other Italian local specialties. Limata is one of the most famous "formaggeria e salumeria in Rome.

Limata has been founded in 1950 and always searched for high level quality standards, personally and directly selecting producers from all regions of Italy of any kind. This is why you will have the rare opportunity to try special matchings of cheeses with sweet mustards, of delicious dried cherry tomatoes with daily produced "burrata" and many more...  

Some other examples of rare combinations: Castelmagno d'Alpeggio, even "mature", together with white water mellon sauce, the Vedeseta of the Val Taleggio with the green tomatoes chutney , the extremely rare Bagoss di Bagolino of the Val Caffaro "married" to the red onions chutney.

Why not try the salame from Felino e il "doppio cucito" from Varzi, the deer's and roe's "mocette", accompanied by delightful wines and followed by a selection of chocolats and sweet specialties

What else?

Deep amber

Malvasia is officially translated into English as ‘malmsey’, but this is confusing as that term more usually refers to the wine from Madeira, rather than the grape. Malvasia derives from a Greek, Μονεμβασία, or monem-vasia, “a place with one entrance”. Monemvasia is a fort on Greece’s Southern Laconian cape.
The Malvasia of Lipari wine has been controlled by denomination of origin (d.o.c.) from 1973, with a production of approximately
1,100 hecto-litres a year, produced with a minimum of 95% white malvasia grapes, plus black grapes (called “minutidda” by the
locals, or Black Corinto by the official denomination).



According to how much we have specified before, It is difficult to say what it is the historical origin of “Malvasia of the Lipari” (you’d need to complete a scientific survey to compare the various vines, and in particular those of Laconia with the Cretan version), and it’s worth noting that the first historical document referring to Aeolian malvasia is cargo note of a notary public from Messina, dated 1653.



The vine today is cultivated in rows; while the old system has almost completely disappeared, the last examples being in Malfa (this was a low trellis network called prieule, with squares of 1.40 x 1.40 metre within those of 5 x 5 metre).

“Withering” is used in the production of malvasia wine: the grapes, after a very careful harvest, are laid down on so-called “cannizze” (mats made with local canes).



Here they wither, dry, slowly, for 10-20 days, according to the weather. There is a daily procedure of “scannizzamento” and “incannizzamento”, that is, the labourers move the cannizze into the light during the sunny hours and into the “pinnate” (special ‘huts’ with an open side) over night or during wet or rainy days.





When the bunches are very dry and withered they are taken to the presses, and squeezed until the last drop.

The juice is then placed in chestnut or durmast barrels and allowed to ferment. It then undergoes two decantings to clarify it, one in January and the other around March. From April, there’s nothing else to do but enjoy what the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani called, in 1700, this “rare and delicious drink” that “is deep amber in colour, generous and yet mellow, that entirely fills the mouth with a lovely fragrance”.

Bottles of Malvasia delle Lipari actually produced in Salina Island .... empty!!