Wow! In this post I described a strange spice that a Shilpa brought me from India some months ago.  Back there I didn’t know much about it, just that it’s good with tea. In fact I didn’t even know the name, thanks to zreen for telling me!

Today I googled for that name and found that can be used to heal bronchitis, is an expectorant and can be used in general to alleviate lung infections. Cool, this is exactly what I needed and I have plenty of it at home!  I’m definitely going to use it a lot in these days.

Thanks Shilpa, zreen and patrick!

Here I am, just back from FEFF. I managed to watch 23 movies in 5 days. And I survived!

In the next few days I’m going to write about the movies I watched, but first I’d like to talk about a dinner we had in Udine.  A friend of us, Flavia, suggested we try Osteria Lo sbarco dei pirati in the city center and I’m very glad she did.  Thanks Flavia!

Lo sbarco dei pirati is a  picturesque place with plenty of traditional stuff hanging from the roof, that warm feeling you get inside mountain huts and a funny owner.  At first he tried to talk friulan (the local dialect) but we could barely understand what he was talking about.

After a very good goulash we ordered gubana, a traditional nut-roll cake.  The owner asked if we wanted it “with slivovitz”.  We said no, mostly because we didn’t know it, but that was a terrible mistake.  The owner reacted as if we murdered somebody, as if gubana with no slivovitz were a criminal sin!  You know, in Italy we care a lot for our traditions and if somebody tried to eat salamina without pure I would react the same.  We had to quickly retreat to re-establish the cosmic equilibrium.

After eating the cake we discovered slivovitz is a strong and bitter distilled liquor and makes a great pair with gubana!  Well, you have to be careful because you can get drunk eating cakes, but it’s definitely worthwhile.  Eventually I researched on the pedia to find out this is the generic name for a sort of plum brandy typical of the slavic area.  Good to know!

Cooking is hard stuff. There are recipes out there that would take advantage of project management methods. Take for example Cappelletti in brodo, a soup you can have in Emilia Romagna. To make it you have to prepare a broth with beef, chicken, pork sausage and vegetables, than save the broth for later and grind the meat together with parmigiano cheese, some grated bread and a little nutmeg until you have a uniform compound. Then, you make a mixture with flour and eggs, stirring until you get a compact and dry but still soft yellow bowl of dough. Then you make it flat with a rolling pin and cut it in squares 4-5cm wide. Then you put a small take of meat compound in each square, bend it and close it with a clever usage of your fingers, in the typical cappelletti shape. Then you make it rest for 8 hours, to make it dry and solid. Finally, you cook it in the original broth. Since recipes like this can easily keep you busy for a couple days, you should better get organized…

Grom is a gelato place in Florence. Well, they actually had their main shop in Turin and then opened branches in some other Italian cities. I think it’s one of the best gelato places in Florence, if not the best, and in fact I go there frequently.

One month ago I remember they announced the imminent opening of their new shop in Manhattan and I thought that was surely going to be a big success and now reading some blogs I know it is. Go Grom go!