This small, easy cake, which goes by “torta magica” (magic cake) is a bit of a wonder, and can help get over tough homework, playground name-calling, rough sibling tumbling, scraped knees, and just plain boring long Mondays, so it’s a staple in our house. I found it on a Italian blog, who stumbled on it on pinterest, which linked to a Spanish-speaking blog, so it’s made it’s rounds around the world.
This kind of magic works for me too. With an imminent house move and work never slowing down, I like to take 30 minutes to bake, have a cup of tea and think, completely free of screens and distractions. It’s as good as singing in the shower.

BTW, there is actually real magic in this cake, the baking kind of magic: you mix the ingredients all together, but while it bakes, the layers separate into two parts: a custard base and a spongy topping. Then you dust with fairy sprinkles (confectioners’ sugar) and the kitchen is alive with magic…
Can you hear Mary Poppins singing? “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”

Have a “Magic Monday” (as we call it here), everyone.

This weekend i helped celebrate a friend’s 40th surprise birthday. I was asked to make dessert…something for an Italian themed menu. I knew i had to make Tiramisu’ (the famous Italian coffee, ladyfinger and Mascarpone trifle)…it is always a party hit. Not just mine, any version of it. But of course, mine was an extra hit (as the emails and facebook posts this morning can attest). I realized that i had never posted the recipe for it before on this blog. So hope this will make many happy!

My recipe is a slight modification of my grandmothers’ version. The thing i liked of hers is the use of the egg whites (which many recipes omit, just using the yolks, but brings a meringue lightness to the dessert). I also add some whipped cream…not much…just enough to make it even lighter on the spoon. Another secret from me is to sprinkle cocoa also in between layers not just on top, which makes it a little more chocolatey. I do like to cook the yolks, unlike many other recipes: it’s mainly for flavor, as i make a real zabaglione custard with the Marsala… plus it puts all questions around raw egg safety at rest!!!

Tiramisu’ – espresso trifle

6 large eggs, separated
1 cup sugar, separated
1 cup Marsala (sweet Sicilian wine), separated
2 (8-oz) containers Mascarpone cheese
pinch of salt
2 cups (1 pint, 1/2 liter) heavy cream, chilled
1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
4 cups brewed espresso coffee, cooled to room temperature
(optional: 1 Tbsp. vanilla or coffee extract)
2 packages Savoiardi (dried Italian ladyfingers, 7 oz. each package, about 18 ladyfingers in each)
1/4 cup bittersweet cocoa powder

1. Make the “zabaglione” cream: in medium metal bowl, beat the egg yolks and 1/2 cup of the sugar until the mixture is pale yellow and thick. Place the egg yolk mixture over a small pot of boiling water, making sure metal bowl does not touch the water. Gradually add 1/2 cup Marsala, continuously beating. “Cook” about 5 minutes, until soft, thick yellow peaks form. Set aside (ideally refrigerate 20 minutes). When cooled, beat in the Mascarpone, until combined, and smooth.
2. In a medium bowl, mix the heavy cream with the confectioners’ sugar, until soft peaks form.
3. In another bowl, with cleaned beaters, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt, until soft peaks form.
4. Gently fold the egg-white and whipped-cream into the zabaglione-Mascarpone mixture.
5. In a large glass baking dish (9″ x 13″), spread an even, thin layer of the filling cream on the bottom.
6. In a shallow bowl, stir together the espresso coffee, remaining 1/2 cup sugar, remaining 1/2 cup Marsala, and the extract, if using.
7. Dip one ladyfinger at a time in the coffee mixture, soaking a couple seconds on each side, and start arranging them in the dish, over the filling, repeating until they are snugly layered (you might have to trim some to make them fit).
8. Spread half of filling cream evenly over the first layer of dipped ladyfingers. Sprinkle half of the cocoa powder over the filling.
9. Make another layer of the dipped ladyfingers in the same way and finish with the remaining filling cream. Dust with the remaining cocoa powder.
10. Chill the finished Tiramisu, covered with surround wrap, at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.

A few notes.
If you wish to skip step one with the double boiler, consider buying pasteurized eggs.
If you can’t find Mascarpone, you can mix 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese,1/4 cup heavy whipping cream, 2 tablespoons sour cream.
If you can’t brew real espresso, consider using instant coffee but make sure to increase the ratio of powder-to-boiling water for more strength
If you can’t find Marsala, use Brandy, rum, Amaretto di Saronno, or Kalhua
For a finishing touch, you can sprinkle some shaved chocolate and/or some coffee beans over each portion, before serving.

Sometimes i feel like a voyeurist of my own life, watching little vignettes unfold in front of me as i snap tiny moments into my smartphone. I guess that is why they call them “smart”: they have figured out things about us that we have yet to see… these little devices that make our life more simple at times and yet far more complicated than it ever was. I look through the pictures saved on the phone when i have a slow minute… re-living life, like watching a movie.

Somewhere recently (i think it was the wall street journal) i read that the more moments we capture on a cell phone, the more vivid our memories will be. How do you think memory is affected by “snapping” pics? Is it enhanced or are we detracting from imagination? Would love to hear different perspectives…

So here are a few collages, all from my cell, put together in an app (picframe, in case you are interested). And this is all written and posted from my cell. I am loving micro-blogging!

And, of course, lots of foods

Love baby potatoes baked in salt and inegar. Whipping up a frittata with leftover pasta is the fastest lunch.

We ate tons of apples over the winter. Sunday mornings we bake apple popover, in a cast iron skillet. For thanksgiving, dessert was French apple tarts.

Oatmeal with pears and maple syrup. Crepes with meyer lemon juice and sugar

Veggie lunches. Quinoa salad. Lentil soup with kale and carrots.

Chinese night: bbq ribs, scallion pancakes, rice, sauteed bok choy

Breakfast date: farm egg baked in celery cream with evoo toast

Lots of fruit salads (macedonia, in Italian). We like our fruit cut in tiny pieces not jumbo chunks!

And in Paris i had the most amazing fois gras at Robuchon. Plus a salad i want to repeat with boiled potatoes, truffles and microgreens.

Whimsy weekends with bacon and eggs

The fall was orange: lots of butternut squash and satsumas

On Christmas eve, linguine con vongole/clams and struffoli (fried honey balls)

Slow roasted chicken and vegetables plus panettone with chocolate sauce. How can you go wrong?

Butternut squash gnocchi and chocolate mousse, for friends

Loved sitting outside next to the fire with more friends over cheese and chicken alla cacciatora

When its chilly we make chili…and skillet cornbread

And when we are under the weather we make my friend Nicole’s healing soup, with cabbage, onion, carrots, celery, ginger, garlic and chili pepper. It really works!

On Valentine day, i made earl grey and orange zest tea-shaped cookies for my honeys, all 3 of them

Gnocchi verdi: with spinach and potatoes

Happy Friday to everyone…until next time.

Truth is I have become a little more lazy about blogging because it was taking too much time and energy, in it’s traditional format. However, where there is a wish there is a way… so i started exploring options for micro-blogging. It all started with instagram, a little photo app which many of you are familiar with (I am here: http://instagram.com/ztastylife). Click: I take a photo from my cell and voila’ it’s in the ether, shared with a fantastic community. But I was missing the words and the story behind each image, so I searched for a way to continue blogging… from my cell phone. This is the first test (using a wordpress app). I am writing this post with two thumbs (so excuse the typos). If it works out well, I might have found a new way to share photos, stories and recipes in a snap.

Life is speeding up via our hyper-connectedness… yet I am determined to take back the time saved from the gained velocity of technology and apply it to the low tech and more significant activities. Do you remember when internet first came out and we had time to make a cup of tea while the page loaded? Well, i think it is still key to make that cup of tea between navigations.

So back to the recipe:
Evoo as needed (be generous!)
1 fennel bulb, sliced thin, fronds reserved
3 yellow potatoes (yukon), sliced thin
1.5 lb. cod filet (“merluzzo”)
1/2 cup capers
1/2 cup white wine
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven at 400F
Oil generously a cookie sheet
Arrange a layer of thinly slice potatoes and fennel (you can use a mandoline) over the sheet.
Lay the filet on top. Season with salt and pepper. Complete with capers and half the fennel fronds.
Sprinkle with the white wine and some more evoo.
Bake until flaky, about 20 minutes.
Finish by serving with the fresh fennel fronds.

There was frost on the patio,

we wanted to stay cozy, inside.

“Let’s make cookies” I said

“Let’s see what jam is around…”

“Fig and apricot!” echoed the kids

“sounds perfect” I thought

We kneaded the butter and sugar,

then folded in flour, with just one yolk,

not too long, to make it a flaky shortbread,

a hint of lemon zest to brighten it up.

They used their tiny thumbs and filled the rounds with jam

15 minutes in the oven (their eyes, waiting – you should’ve seen)

….and then, we were all melting with joy.

Such a simple pleasure,

on a cold winter afternoon.

I call these melt-in-your mouth cookies “pollicini”, which means “little thumbs” in Italian, because after you roll out the dough in little balls, you use little thumbs to make an indentation that will “host” the marmellata (jam). You can use any jam you have around. We liked the fig jam the most, as nice contrast with the lemon zest in the dough, and it reminded us of Mediterranean summers. Apricot jam was delicious too. These cookies are very easy to make and child-proof. Unlike some other thumbprint recipes, they do not spread or melt too much, maintaining a good shape.

“Pollicino” also happens to be an Italian fairy tale, very similar to Hansel and Gretel, in which a little poor boy is led in the woods with his 6 brothers, but they find their way home after he leaves trails of stones, inspired by the stars in the sky. And so, for me, these cookies are the way back “home” on gloomy days.

This time of year, I see many people writing resolutions and I cringe a little: I have never been one to stick with January commitments… I believe changes come one-step-at-time, not all at once.

So mostly, I tend to see my whole year as an evolution process, where I learn as I go. I know myself too well to think that an impulse commitment will work, that a big resolution would stick. Rather, I aspire to apply micro changes, daily. Something does not work out? Ok, I take the hint and try it differently next time.
The typical “more-of-this, more-of-that” does not quite work for me. My life is a constant struggle to cut-out things (not add), to streamline (rather than increase), simplify (rather than add layers of complication), do/have/crave less (not more). Over time, I have found that I am content-er in the simple.

When it comes to my passions (food, photography, writing, reading, travel) I have many, too many… so I frequently struggle to focus and accept that just a little goes a long way. There is a serene realization that doing just ONE thing at a time actually yields more satisfaction and positive results, rather than trying to multi-task many things at a time.

In an era of MORE is BETTER, I believe that LESS is MORE.

What does this mean for this little blog o’mine? That maybe it’s ok to just post less frequently, maybe it’s ok to just post a quick thought/photo/recipe, maybe it’s ok not to have perfect photos (and too many of them)… hope you are with me! I have been saying (well, thinking) and trying to do this for a while, and have been inspired by one person in particular, Denise, who writes a gem of a blog, my aspirational space for expression.

So let’s try this now…
a. a few pics b. a small recipe

a.
In an effort to streamline “photo Friday“, here follow 3 selected diptychs of my holiday:

b.

In an effort to streamline recipes, here is a quick winning dessert: blender cioccolata mousse.
We had guests over one night over the holidays and I was not in the mood to bake but wanted a rich and delicious dessert without the effort.
I looked around the kitchen and all I had to start were eggs, cream and chocolate. Chocolate mousse came to mind, but I “cheated” with the process…
…this version does not call for whipping the cream and eggs separately, nor slow melting the chocolate. It comes together in 5 minutes in the blender.
Who knew? It was a fantastic improv.

Under my tree, this year, all I am asking is for “time”. Time to spend with my little guys, and my big guy.

There is nothing more precious. I need no-thing, no boxes, no parcels, no wrappings, and no big accomplishements. Just good old fashioned time. And old family traditions, sweets included.

I have been taking every little bit of time I have left-over, lately, which is not much, to just “be present”. Whether it’s turning the clock on 30 minutes earlier in the morning to read the paper with my tea before the rush, or soaking up 5 minutes of sunshine mid-day, or sitting on the floor to play legos with my children, or reading them a story every night before bed. I have been trying to make the most of every hour in the week-end.

I don’t feel the need anymore to “do” stuff. You might have noticed the slower pace of my blog over the last few months… it is indeed a reflection of this new found attitude. I used to feel bad about not always having something to do, if a moment went by without having a plan or a project to finish. But I find this slower me more pleasant to “talk” to. She does not feel any less for doing any less. She is a woman who is starting to finally get what life is about. No, the Joneses won’t mind if she does not win the latest competition… in fact, the Joneses might like her a little more, for being a tad more humble and humanly. This new me is more relaxed, she sits for longer one-on-ones with family and friends to savor a conversation, she lets things go, she “breathes”.

Yes, she still really enjoys time in the kitchen… but with a different purpose, one of sharing and conviviality with those she loves. It’s her time, when she is stirring and chopping, and it’s communal time when the goods are laid out, we break bread, and the table becomes an offering to life itself.

As the holidays approach, the kitchen in our home becomes a winter wonderland, one covered in sugar and flour… as we bake our way through Christmas traditional Italian sweets. This post includes three classic and ancient “dolci di Natale” (Christmas sweets): “folarielli”, “torrone di nocciola”, “struffoli con miele”.
(And if you need more, here are other Italian traditional Christmas sweets I have made in the past, on the blog: Panettone, cuccidati, seadas, monte bianco, ovis mollis or thumbprint cookies…)

Buon Natale (or happy season, however you celebrate it)!!!
Amelia

“Folarielli” (packets of dried and candied fruit wrapped in lemon leaves)
This is an ancient tradition from Sorrento, which is, as you know, the land of lemons. It dates back to Roman times.
They used to be prepared months before the holidays and then served on Christmas after the main meal, together with a basket of fresh fruit and mixed nuts, before the era of commercial desserts. Folarielli (or fogliarelli or follovielli) means small leaf packets.
The dried fruit (typically sultana raisins and dried figs) are boiled in mosto (unfiltered grape juice cooked down to a syrup) then wrapped with candied citrus peels (lemon, orange, tangerine) in lemon leaves, tied into small packets with raffia. They are finally left in the oven to dry and to allow flavors to mingle. Because mosto is not easy to make or access, you can use wine instead.

Lemon leaves, as needed (NOTE: you can ask your local florist for them)
1 lb. (450 gr.) The best largest and juiciest sultana raisins you can access (in the original recipe grapes are slowly sun dried)
1/2 liter sweet wine
1/2 lb. (450 gr. sugar)
1 shot of cognac
2 cups candied citrus peels
Boil the wine and sugar until reduced by half, about 1-2 hours. This will act as the “mosto”
Allow the sultanas and the diced peels to soak in reduced wine and cognac for 2 days.
Drain, pat dry, and then slowly dry in the oven (~200F) for a couple of hours. Allow to cool.
Lay some lemon leaves in a circle, overlapping each other. In the center, place a tablespoon of candied peel and one of dried sultanas.
Wrap in a package that you will tie like a gift with rafia. Bake in the over at 300 for about 15-20 minutes, or until dried out but not browned.
Set aside, allow to cool, and enjoy on Christmas day!

Torrone alla nocciola (hazelnut nougat with lemon peel aroma)
This is my grandmothers’ (nonna Amelia) recipe. It’s relatively easy to do and so incredibly addictive!!! And I love 3 ingredient recipes. Don’t you?

1 lb. (450 gr.) hazelnuts
1 cup sugar (you may make part of that honey, e.g. 1 Tbsp or 2)
1 lemon
To prepare a good torrone of this type, it’s ideal to use an old copper (not tin-plated) skillet as the basic tool of your trade (do NOT use a non stick pan!).
Put the hazelnuts and the sugar into a saucepan over lively heat and stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the sugar liquefies and then caramelizes. This process should take 15 minutes. Now wet a kitchen counter surface (marble is best) with a little water, turn out the hazelnuts onto it, grate the peel of one lemon, and with the help of the lemon crush the hazelnuts so that you obtain a single layer. When this has cooled, you can easily break off pieces of it and preserve them in a glass jar – or eat them on the spot!!!

Struffoli (little fried dough balls, seasoned with honey and orange zest)
This is another ancient recipe, with Middle Eastern or possibly Greek influence, due to the honey and citrus zest.
It is the children’s favorite Christmas dessert, as they can pick up hundreds of little fried dough balls and then lick their sticky hands.

For the dough:
3 ½ cups flour – 5 eggs – 2 tbsp vegetable oil – 3 tbsp sugar – ½ tsp baking powder – 1 shot-glass Anise liqueur – salt – vegetable oil for frying
For the coating:
1 cup honey – 2 tbsp sugar – 1 lemon peel – 1 orange peel – 2 mandarin peels
Sift and mound the flour, make a well in the center, and into this well put all the other ingredients. Prepare a good, consistent, elastic dough, at first with the aid of a fork, and then with your hands, working the dough vigorously. Cover the dough with a napkin and let it stand for about an hour. Then take small quantities of the dough, roll it between your fingers into the shape of tiny, thin tubes, and cut these into little balls that you’ll arrange on a napkin.
When this operation is finished, it will be time for you to fry all the little balls in plenty of hot oil. When they’re pretty, golden, shiny, and crunchy, use an appropriate tool to remove them from the heat. Let the oil drain off and place them on paper towels so that as much of the oil as possible is absorbed.
Now, make the coating by liquefying the honey with the sugar in a saucepan. Add 2 tbsp. water and the grated, fragrant citrus peels. As soon as a light foam begins to form on the surface, the coating will be ready to receive the struffoli. Pour them in and stir them around a bit; they will shine brilliantly.

The daily occupations constantly refilling my cup, without room for a breath, have been a distraction away from my writing.
So I welcome this quiet evening, as I am alone in the home, listening to the rain tap on the windows, a pot of tea simmering on the stove, my belly full with dinner, and a piece of salted chocolate by my side. No work to do tonight (or at least no urgent fire to extinguish), which has been rather unusual.

A new book awaits me next to the bedside, but the here-and-now says “sit and say hello to your friends in the ether, you have not written in a while, you really have not shared some goodness with them in a little too long”. So I head to the kitchen and test a recipe for the coming Thanksgiving. My mother will come to visit from Italy for this all-American tradition, which I have so gladly acquired, for some family time. Even though we talk daily over the phone, I miss her physical proximity, the small talk, the sitting together over coffee and cookies in the afternoon.

This dessert can be a rather welcomed light sweet something after a heavy Turkey and starch meal. It is also rather simple in concept and fits with the season, colors and all. I see it as the merging of two worlds: the old and the new, which, in many ways, is what my life is all about. An Italian dessert entering an American feast. And this dessert does it so unassumingly. I think it is going to become one of my new Thanksgiving favorites.

By the way, “pere ubriache” means “drunken pears”, and I rather like this visual, of a pear (the most feminine of all fruits), bathing in a warm spiced wine, relaxing, taking her time, absorbing the fragrances, softening her skin, mulling, becoming herself.

(On a side note, I hope to post a long overdue “Photo Friday” at the end of the week. I’ve missed it)

as people are louder than ever…

at the end of a hot August,

the umbrellas closing down,

the schools back in business,

the extra-ordinary receding for the ordinary,

the rains timidly starting, yet seeping into our bones already,

the hurricanes doing what they do best: destroying.

There is a sense of ending,

an infinite longing

- as we are left with a sea-urchin skeleton and dried seaweeds from the ocean -

a longing for freedom, open hearts, longer days, gone days, chins juiced by peaches.

Hoping the fall harbors peace, predictability, the warmth of home,

and a romantic luggage of memories to savor with a steaming cup of tea.

Who am I fooling? I am missing you already, season of salted tomatoes, beech-tree shadow, deep blue waters…

- the metallic winter is already chilling my horizon’s rim and not-so-bare-feet -

but, we’ll meet again… so long, summer.

Pics are from the last summer days. Enjoy a long week-end.

(The previous photo Fridays: #1 here, #2 here., #3 here and #4 here, #5 here, #6 here, #7 here, #8 here, #9 here, #10 here, #11 here, #12 here, #13 here, #14 here, #15 here)

(scroll straight down if you just want the recipe, and none of my writing nonsense)

“I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.” ~Haruki Murakami, “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”

 You see, lately I have had a lot of thoughts on my mind about the human experience, why we are here, why we are the way we are, who am I, who are we, who are you, will we really ever get to know another person (let alone our own selves), why is everything spinning so fast around us and we barely can stop to observe what is right in front of us, why all the noise and business, what will remain of us after we are dead, and so on… You too know the drill: seeking answers to the most elementary questions. I never stopped asking those questions over the years, but lately I must be going through some form of adolescence, together with my older son who is approaching pre-teen years, and questioning everything. I rather do like that, though. It’s through the questions we ask, not through the answers we get (or might not get), that we grow.

 “I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. It’s hard to put into words, but I guess it’s like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.” ~ Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

I was traveling for most of the summer, with my family of four, away from my usual universe, from the local distractions, from the people I know.
This was a healthy detox, might I say, as it helped me readdress a few priorities and look at my life from the distance. Although jumping right back into the pond has a seductive way of absorbing and magnetizing you, I am trying to ride the wave of a fresher, more “me” perspective of life. I had hoped for adventure, and adventure brought me a hunger for a quite return, for home, for routine, for predictable mornings.

 “Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.” ~ Haruki Murakami

It takes some considerable strength to go beyond comformity, to be ok with not fitting it, to know that whatever you do is not always going to be liked, to live according to your principles and wishes. While I do not consider myself a rebel, I do feel that I frequently defy the common path, just by exploring new things all the time and not walking in a row, trying to discover unusual approaches. I should be ok with it, since it is what my heart says… but human nature has a funny way of making you feel uncomfortable if you are not just like the next person, it is a defense mechanism, probably set in place for self-preservation. The different is frequently targeted as weak in the animal kindgdom… but the different is also the one that discovers new food and water sources by testing unknown boundaries.

 “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking” ~ Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood”

 While I enjoy exploring the world, discovering new boundaries, sometimes, I feel like a nomad. My roots are a feable remembrance of my original stance and my core is made of branches leapeing out to the wind. When you are a nomad, it is indeed exciting to be adaptable to new soils, and flourish wherever you are planted, but if wind comes blowing fast, you might not be as planted as you would expect, and it will take time to find similar souls. Sometimes I feel that people can barely blow in my face for my leaves to be shaken up. In the end, we are all human (I tell myself, rarely them), and I try to respect everyone’s stance, curious to learn what made them who they are and what they are seeking in life. Human nature fascinates me, especially people’s curiosity (or lack of it).

  “Each person feels pain in his own way, each has his own scars.” ~ Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

 Anyhow, I digress… sorry for my blabbering… I was feeling like doing a little stream of consciousness this morning…
…but I should stick with seasonal produce and kitchen conundrums such as: what to bake with fresh, ripe plums and cherries…
And so I did that too. My very first post of this very blog, almost 3 years ago, was a recipe I have cherished for long and is a very predictable and welcome presence at our home, especially in summer: plum torte.
So, while I settle my ponderings, I enjoy a slice of mundane cake with stone fruits to remind me that summer is after all the sweetest season and I am thankful that my travels were safe. I am home.

You can watch me bake this torte (from a small TV segment I recorded on Atlanta’s channel 11 news):