The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

La Leopolda, a very good restaurant in Pisa

A meal with friends. Some very old ones (Vincenzo, whom I met in Amsterdam immediately after I went to live there, 24 years ago) and some new ones like Maria, Vincenzo's sister who offered me and my dog Mirtilla a beautiful and comfortable room in her home in Pisa, plus Cristiana, one of Maria's closest friends.
Three ladies and a Pisano - Vincenzo is a real pisano, very direct and sincere, qualities I really appreciate - in a wonderful restaurant run by women in Pisa (La Leopolda, Piazza Guerrazzi 11).
The location used to be a railway station and is now a warm, welcoming place where you can eat some of the very simple and yet great plates of the Tuscan tradition.
Think of a tortino di carciofi con lardo di Colonnata (an artichoke flan with cannellini beans and wonderful, thinly sliced pork fat from Colonnata - a delicacy even for those who normally remove the fat from the ham like I do). We ALL chose it and we ALL loved it till the last bit.

The choice at La Leopolda is quite simple: two starters (the one we don't try is the steak tartare of chianina meat with green apple), five primi (first courses), five secondi and six desserts. Simple and yet difficult: what's it going to be??? Everything sounds extremely appealing. We chose to share three primi: spaghettoni con puntarelle e alici (with chicory and anchovy, actually more of a Roman dish than a Tuscan one), pappardelle con la lepre (thick tagliatelle-like pasta with savoury a tomato-hare meat sauce) and the wonderful testaroli cacio e pepe. Testaroli is a dish served in Tuscany - mostly the Lunigiana region - and Liguria that consists of little squares cut from thick pancakes made mostly of spelt flour and then served with pesto or other sauces. Here we eat them
with a simple dressing of extra vergine olive oil, pecorino cheese and black pepper.

After that primi, we go on with sharing and choose for the coscio di cinta senese arrosto con le rape (a wonderful pork roast made from special Cinta senese pigs) and the peposo, a earthy, sturdy stew with lots  (and I mean LOTS) of black pepper and red wine, something so good you'll definitely want to eat again if you appreciate the strong flavors that often characterize the Tuscan cuisine. It was my first peposo and I immediately fell in love with it. What a dish! Impossible to ignore it because of the thick, dark, spicy sauce and the wonderfully tender meat slowly cooked in wine. This is real slow food!

Since in the afternoon Vincenzo and I have been visiting the village where his grandpa came from - Palaia - we chose a wine that comes from that area, a 2004 red Toscana IGT Rosso Sangervasio (80% Sangiovese, 20% Merlot and 10% Cabernet) that perfectly matches the strength of the peposo.
After that, no desserts are necessary anymore even though the choice is tempting, for example the chocolate and pear cake or the goat cheese bavarois with a port, raspberry and chocolate sauce and a mascarpone cheese and coffee cream. A simple, strong espresso (simply called caffè in Italian) is more than enough.

La Leopolda changes menu quite often and the prices are really good. The most expensive meat dish - the tagliata di chianina with rocket - costs 16.00 euros. The average price for a meat dish is 12.00 euros. Bread and self-made bubbly water are two euros per person.
The food is great and the atmosphere warm and pleasant, the ladies do their very best to make their clients full-bellied and happy and, last but not least, the hand-written wine list is rich and varied. Mostly Tuscan wines with - quite a peculiar detail - only French bubbles. The restaurant is also dog-friendly and that makes a big difference for people like me who like to take their four legged friends with them as often as they can.
Another big plus: you can find the wine list online with labels and grape types for most of the available wines!
Definitely a place worth coming back when is Pisa, thus.
A big cheer for the ladies at La Leopolda: complimenti, ragazze!

Spaghettoni with puntarelle and pecorino cheese

 

Pappardelle con la lepre

 

Coscio di Cinta senese con le rape

Funny lady with flowers :)

Vacanze pugliesi - 2

When Valentina and I were at the beautiful agriturismo called Il Frantoio near Fasano where we had a fantastic dinner prepared with the freshest vegetables and herbs from their own land - they have lots of olive trees, a beautiful citrus garden protected from the colder winds of the winter, other fruit trees and a rich production of vegetables they use to prepare the meals for the guests and wonderful preserves in lovely glass jars- we shot a lot of pictures and enjoyed the food and the wine with some of the other guests, a group of actors that where in Puglia to play Shakespeare's  "Much ado about nothing" in the nearby Brindisi.
The appetizer they gave us was a simple and yet so tasty little something, as tasty as everything else in Puglia: the fave fritte (fried fava beans), extremely easy to make (see picture and recipe below).You can find dried, peeled fava (broad) beans in Middle Eastern stores. In Puglia they're also used to make the wonderful purée eaten with cicorie, a slightly bitter type of greens that grow abundantly on the Apulian land, and lot of olive oil extra vergine.
The fave fritte can be eaten with the aperitivo.

In the afternoon we also went to Alberobello with its typical trulli, the lovely buildings with their cone-shaped roof that make this Apulian town so characteristic.

Valentina made a showreel with some of the pictures we've taken during our little trip. The beautiful jazz music is from Gianni Ciardo, a comedian, actor and musician from Bari.

Sentimental Journey: Apulia from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo.

Fave fritte

Serves: a lot

250 gr. dried, peeled fava beans (broad beans)
sunflower oil for frying
salt

Fry the dried fava beans in abundant hot oil until crunchy and golden brown, sprinkle with sea salt and serve immediately.

Images (Il Frantoio, Alberobello and fried broad beans): Valentina Prencipe

Vacanze pugliesi - 1

After the very, VERY busy November and December months - so busy I didn't feel like writing anything on my blogs neither did I really have the time and energy to do it - it was high time I had a little holiday to recharge my batteries that were pretty depleted.
What better way to do that than going South, to Bari in the beautiful Apulia region where I grew up, to get a bit spoiled by Mum and Dad, to spend quality time with family and friends and to overeat as I usually do when I'm there?
My friend Valentina says that when she's with me we always get some food, one way or the other. I wonder why. :D

We got dined and wined alright, the two of us. We went roaming around Puglia (the Italian name for Apulia) in her cool black Volvo - funnily enough most Italians seem to prefer cars that are NOT Italian even though that does not include me, the 3 cars I've owned were and are all made by FIAT - for great food and beautiful places, something of a passion we both share, and got ourselves interacting with some fabulous chefs and great producers that were more than happy to let us try the results of their culinary talents. All of them where, of course, kind of  "twist my arm!" occasions. ;D

On our way to stunningly beautiful Masseria Il Frantoio in the vicinity of Ostuni where we had dined the evening before (more about it later) we visited a fantastic caseificio (a cheese maker) in Speziale di Fasano, a little village, and bought all sorts of cheeses for our little colazione al sacco (packed lunch), from wonderful, juicy nodini (little mozzarella's in the shape of a knot, nodo in Italian) to lovely fresh ricotta and giuncata (soft, fresh and delicate cheese, better eaten on the very same day), smoked cacioricotta (a harder, ripened ricotta made from a mixture of cow's and sheep's milk) and a yummie caciocavallo ripened in the local Primitivo wine. Of course when lunch time arrived Valentina and I couldn't resist the temptation of eating the nodini with our hands right out of the plastic bag accompanied by some wonderful crunchy tarallini, the little ring-shaped bread sticks typical of this region, and that while still driving!
I guess there's really nothing that can stop us from getting food into our mouths...

Freshly made mozzarella is too good to resist...

At home, after our tour, tarallini and smoked cacioricotta with a good glass of wine

Extra cooking holiday in Tuscany!

The two culinary holidays in Tuscany in program for September and October 2008 are fully booked so Cristina, Michael and I decided to organize an extra one in November to accommodate those who couldn't join the previous two groups (max. 10 people per group).

This new cooking holiday is going to take place from November 9 to November 16 included. Seven days of cultural and culinary pleasures in one of the most beautiful agriturismi of Tuscany, Il Cantastorie, run by my friends Cristina Demagistris and Michael van den Heuvel.

This culinary week includes 4 hands-on cooking lessons given by me, a couple of dinners out, excursions to beautiful and interesting places including lunch and a 7-night stay at "Il Cantastorie".

You can find the whole program here.

Join me for a week of real Italian cooking delight! :)

Nicoletta

Self-made gnocchi ready to be cooked

Wine tasting

Cooking together

The entrance to the kitchen

Cooking Holidays in Tuscany, April and Sep.-Oct. 08

Cooking Holidays in Italy with Nicoletta Tavella
of Italian cooking school La Cucina del Sole

Update 2008: HERE YOU CAN FIND THE LATEST SCHEDULE OF THE 2008 CULINARY HOLIDAYS IN TUSCANY

NEW!
October 14-21, 2007
COOKING HOLIDAY IN TUSCANY!

TUSCANY, October 14-21, 2007: We cook at agriturismo "Il Cantastorie" next to Montecatini Terme (in the Pistoia province), a lovely resort with a breathtaking view on the beautiful green valley with lots of olive trees, charming and peaceful surroundings and a fantastic, brand new professional kitchen where every evening we will prepare a complete meal with dishes from different Italian regions, Tuscany included of course!
During each hands-on cooking lesson we will prepare a complete four-course meal and then eat together at a nicely set table. We will explore the dishes typical of the rich Tuscan tradition and that of other Italian regions and drink wines that go perfectly well with what we cook.
We can choose between the Roman, Tuscan, Milanese, Piemontese, Neapolitan and Sicilian cuisine, or pick several other Italian regions. We could also dedicate a lesson to the yummiest antipasti (the rich starters and nibbles, the "Italian tapas"), other interesting dishes from the Ancient Roman cuisine or from the Italian Renaissance and of course the fresh pastas that make the Italian cuisine so famous: ravioli filled with ricotta and spinach, tagliatelle, spaghetti alla chitarra and maltagliati, all of them with their own specific sauces that will make our cooking experience complete.
For our cooking lessons we always use seasonal ingredients of the very best quality.

PROGRAM (slight changes are possibile):

The cooking lessons are given in English by Nicoletta Tavella, chef cook and owner of Italian cooking school La Cucina del Sole in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Nicoletta was born and raised in Italy and and teaches Italian cooking since 2001. She published het first cookbook "Antipasti" in 2006. Before becoming a cooking teacher she has been a professional interpreter and translator for 15 years.

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13-14 October arrival at agriturismo "Il Cantastorie"
14 Oct.    welcome dinner cooked by Nicoletta

15 Oct.    morning: free;

              afternoon (starting at about 17.00 hrs): cooking lesson with dinner

16 Oct.    morning: visit to Pistoia's historical center with a professional guide, then lunch in Pistoia;

              afternoon (starting at about 17.00 hrs): cooking lesson with dinner

17 Oct.    morning: stroll in the woods around the estate with an expert game keeper. We'll be looking for wild edible mushrooms that we will use during our cooking lessons.

              afternoon (starting at about 17.00 hrs): cooking lesson with dinner

18 Oct.    morning: free;

              afternoon (starting at about 17.00 hrs): cooking lesson with dinner

19 Oct.    morning: visit to a wine maker, wine tasting and lunch

                           OR visit to an artisanal chocolate producer, tasting and lunch

              afternoon (starting at about 17.00 hrs): cooking lesson with dinner

20-21 October departure

Prices

• Price € 945,00 based on a 2 persons room (extra for a 1 persons room: € 180,00)
• 7 night stay at a 3-star hotel in the centre of Montecatini Terme incl. breaksfast
• Welcome dinner cooked by Nicoletta at "Il Cantastorie" on Sunday evening by arrival
• 5 cooking lessons at "Il Cantastorie" in its professional kitchen
• 3 excursions incl. lunches

Transfers from and to the airports of Pisa and Florence are possibile, upon request and for an extra fee.

For info and for booking this October cooking holiday in Tuscany
please call Cristina and Michael at "Il Cantastorie",
tel. +39 0572 67 44 96
of send an e-mail to info @ ilcantastorie.eu (without spaces)

Cristina and Michael speak English, Italian and Dutch

Click on pictures to enlarge. For more pictures of "Il Cantastorie" click here.

Nicoletta Tavella, the cooking teacher
(photo: De Telegraaf)

Click on pictures to enlarge

Culinary holiday in Italy

In October I'm going to cook in Italy again. To be completely honest, I'm going to let other people cook in Italy. :)

Together with Strada Nuova I've organized a week-long cooking holiday. We had the "tryout" with a small group during October last year. The holiday has been fantastic and the people in the group were extremely nice, curious about the local eating habits and products, and very, very enthousiastic. We've had fun, seen and tasted a lot of food and wine and, most of all, we've cooked lots of nice Italian stuff!

This Autumn we're going back to Nepi - about 50 km from Rome.
From a culinary point of view, this is de-fi-ni-te-ly my favourite season. I'm namely crazy about chestnuts, truffles, porcini mushroom, polenta, you name it. And I find a cozy after-dinner fireplace totally irresistible.
But, I admit, we could be in for some "unpleasant" surprises. Last year, for example, we've had fabulous sunshiny days and we've used the fireplace just a few times. :)

I surely hope the weather is going to be as nice as last year's. Warm sunny days are the perfect natural excursion-enhancer. And Rome in the Autumn sun is one of the things in life that make me deeply happy. A visit to the ricotta and pecorino maker, the great olive oil producer and the many local markets in the area is, of course, much more pleasurable when the sun is shining. And we're definitely going to visit the beautiful markets! First of all to learn how to buy "the Italian way" and IN Italian, and then to see, smell and taste everything that can be seen, smelled and tasted. After that, we're going to prepare everything we bought in the best and most appetizing possible way, and then - you can be sure about that - we'll eat everything we've made accompanied by some great local wines!

Should you wish to receive more information about this culinary holiday, please click here.

Arrivederci in Italia!