The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

Gourmand Cookbook Awards: an adventure in Paris :)

From the 21st to the 25th of February I was in Paris. Not for a long weekend in the Ville Lumière, purely for relaxation and some good old compulsive shopping, but for a visit to the Paris Cookbook Fair. There was I, under the Pyramid of the Louvre, with a stand in the name of Choizes (my Dutch publisher) and my cookbook.

Onder de Pyramide du Louvre

Exciting! And fun! So many famous chefs (including the fantastic Annabel Langbein), writers, food bloggers, food photographers, foodies and cookbook publishers under one roof, something which I had never experienced before!
And Paris! It's not my favourite city in the world (that very special place is, of course, reserved for Amsterdam!) but in a weird way I feel very much at home there and I enjoy the atmosphere, the food and the beauty. Could it be it's because I speak the language quite well? Or perhaps because - I clearly believe in reincarnation - I lived there in a previous life? Who knows. It's a funny feeling. I quite dislike certain things in Paris - the arrogance in some shops and restaurants, a tad too much grandeur everywhere, and too many useless macarons :D - and yet I feel completely at ease there. 
 

Souvenir de Paris

 

The Paris Cookbook Fair is a super fun fair that makes the heart of cookbook lovers beat faster. Mine too, and this year not only because of the many books that could be admired (and bought) there, but also because my book "Cucina di casa mia" was nominated in the category Best Italian Cookbook 2012 together with all the other Italian cookbooks of the world received by the jury. Five books were eventually chosen, and out of those five three were selected for Gold, Silver and Bronze. And ... I won bronze! After the beautiful Pulpo by Russel Norman and Limoncello and linen water by the great Tessa Kiros I gained the third prize. What an honor! During the ceremony, I was slightly tense, nervously fanning the tension away at a table with a nice team of other winners, Gert Crum for Best Wine Book, Koen de Grote of Literalicious (also a third prize) and the publishers Minestrone and Lannoo from Belgium, a country that won many prizes. And when I saw my book and my name on the big screen,  along with the other two, I was veeeeery happy and the nerves just disappeared. :)

Flappetyflap... Nervous...

There it is, a bit far and not really sharp because of my shaking hands plus with the old cover, and yet... my book on the third place!

On the big screen! 3rd!

 

What a nice experience that was. Who would have imagined it when I started this book in 2011?
My applause goes to my publisher, Choizes, my mother Gabriella Formigoni who worked at the book and cooked with me, photographer Jan Bartelsman, stylist Jan-Willem van Riel, editors Bel & Jet, graphic agency Van Erkelens and all the people who have worked on the book.
And an applause for myself too, because I wrote a book that I'm really proud of. :)

Photo: cookbook paradise

@Frankfurt's Book Fair

 

Photo: greetings from Frankfurt

The view from my room. #Buchmesse

 

My 2nd cookbook is coming!

After almost 1 year of preparation and hard work (in August it will be one year exactly since we started working at this project) my 2nd cookbook will be a reality, at last! :)
In Holland and Belgium it will be available from half September and I can hardly wait!

It's called "Cucina di casa mia - recepten van een Italiaanse familie" (as you probably understand I wrote it in Dutch ;D), it contains 85 great family recipes, lots of anecdotes and cooking tips.

Moreover, it's illustrated with the wonderful photographs of Jan Bartelsman, one of Holland's most appreciated and famous food photographers. 

The styling - yes, I even had a stylist! - has been done by Jan-Willem van Riel, also very well known in the Dutch food world.

 

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My Mum, Gabriella Formigoni, has been fundamental is the making of this book: lots of the dishes in it are hers or from her parents, Nonna Isa and Nonno Angelo, and she helped me to "interpret" their handwritten recipes and, most of all, to cook all of them!
We worked 6 very intense days in the kitchen of my cooking school which had been transformed in a professional photo studio by Jan Bartelsman. Here you can see a few "action" pics taken by me during those days, last May.

There's also a little "making of" video made by my friend Francesco Cavaliere in which you can see the whole Cucina di casa mia team at work!
And for this occasion my pubisher made me a wonderful present: a song written expressely for the video by Italian-Dutch singer Veronique Sodano! Look, listen and enjoy! :)
And don't forget to pre-order the book at one of Holland's book sites like www.kookboek.nl, www.bruna.nl or boekenvoorjou.nl!
(under the video you can see some screen dumps from the latest version of the book, still to be corrected)


P.S. If there's any non-Dutch publisher interested in translating the book in other languages, please contact my publisher Willem Warbout at Choizes. Grazie!

 

 

 

Handy tool for wine lovers

Seen yesterday at a wine tasting organized by Dutch importer Vinites: "My Wine Record", a cute and handy little wanna-have for everybody who wants to keep a journal of the good wines tasted during parties, meals at restaurants, drinks at wine bars et cetera.

It's a little black book with a cool and beautiful design (Dutch design!) and it contains special so-called Record Labels that allow you to remove bottle labels without having to soak them or steam them off.

You stick a transparent Record Label to the bottle label and after a short while both can be taken off the bottle together without tearing the wine label.
Then you can stick everything onto your "My Wine Record" booklet and have your "wine souvenir" for ever and ever!

With your "My Wine Record" you can record all details about your favourite wines: red, white or rosé, where and when, with whom, the dish you enjoyed it with, types of grape, year, price and so forth.
Like this you'll always be able to remember those easy-to-forget details and keep a good record of your tastings.

It sounds like pure genius! It would be, if it always worked fine... I've tried it once with a bottle of Pinot Noir from Framingham's and it tore off only part of the label.
I guess it has to do with the different types of glue used for the labels. Hopefully the makers - Rogier van Camp en Mark van Elk - will find a good solution for that shortly.

In any case, I find this little gadget quite nice. If you don't have the whole label you can at least write down your own personal tasting notes on a stylish little notebook.

Visit the "My Wine Record" site here.