Of course we are very proud of this, so a blog post is due. Last week Mimi Murphy of Gourmet Magazine listed the Academia Barilla Culinary School in Parma, Italy among the “world’s best cooking schools”!

Gourmet Magazine, who categorizes cooking schools around the world according to characteristics such as “Adventure”, “Healthy” or “Relaxed” in its Gourmet’s Guide to the World’s Best Cooking Schools, actually ranks Academia Barilla among the top 5 cooking schools in the world in the category “Luxury“. Because, as reported by Gourmet magazine:

“What brings the act of cooking to life? For some, it means stepping into a world within a world. Each experience, whether sumptuous (a French château) or simple (a palm-fringed Indian island), should have a certain glamour about it, a certain sense of style.”

The article published by Gourmet Magazine about our Culinary School is very nice, with comments from author Mimi Murphy such as:

“I picked up some over-the-top flourishes, like a “recipe” for a parmesan wafer: spread grated cheese on wax paper, microwave for 20 to 30 seconds (let cool for a few more), then drape around the bottom of a glass to form a cup”. (from: What I learned)

Or also:

“How easy it was to customize a class—via email—based on what I actually liked”. (from: Biggest surprise)

Please visit the link that follows if you want to read the full article on Gourmet Magazine, which includes an exclusive recipe for a Cream of Artichoke Soup with Porcini (the recipe Mimi Murphy learned and cooked at the Academia Barilla Culinary School).

Thank you Mimi and Gourmet Magazine for the wonderful article!

As we reported a couple of months ago, Academia Barilla partnered this year the GNAM Festival, the cultural event promoted by City of Parma and Solaris Fondazione per le Arti dedicated to the celebration of Gastronomy in Contemporary Art.

In the frame of GNAM’s cultural initiatives in and around Parma, a photo exhibition has been set up at Academia Barilla Culinary Center in Parma, Italy, a collection of photographs by Marcello Geppetti (24 photographies total), a “master paparazzi” who immortalized with over a thousands of unforgettable celebrity shots hundreds of moments of the Italian “Dolce Vita” of the 50’s, ’60’s and 70’s. The exhibition, opened to the public since April 16, will be accessible at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center until November 16, 2008.

We blogged about the exhibition a few months ago but, due to publishing rights on the photographic images of the exhibition, we have been asked to remove the images published in our previous post… =(

Never mind, we have a new set of authorized pictures that we are happy to share with you, showing the set-up of the exhibition, just to give you a feel of the ambient created by Geppetti’s work at the at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center.

The address to the Academia Barilla Culinary Center is Largo Piero Calamandrei, 3/A (c/o Barilla Center), 43100 Parma, Italy. Please call +39 0521 264060 for further information and opening hours.

Here we are finally with Barilla USA Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni, who we have called in at Italian Food Lovers by mistake a couple of days ago - sorry Lorenzo!

Chef Lorenzo Boni and his team have been the spine of the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend at the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Garden Chef Series. Pictured here below, you can see Lorenzo in action during the cooking demo, surrounded by an attentive crowd and… the full range of Academia Barilla gourmet products, which are all available online at the Academia Barilla online store.

As “resident Chef” for Barilla USA Lorenzo proposed several recipes to the participants to the event, and we are glad to be able to share with you the first one today, an easy-to-prepare pasta salad: Farfalle Piccolini Pasta Salad.

FARFALLE PICCOLINI PASTA SALAD
A recipe by Chef Lorenzo Boni
(serves 4)

INGREDIENTS

- Barilla Farfalle Piccolini pasta, 1 package
- Academia Barilla Monti Iblei extra virgin olive oil, 4 tablespoons
- 1 ripe avocado
- Cherry tomatoes, 2 pints
- Red onion, julienne, 1 cup
- Pine nuts, 1 tablespoon
- Academia Barilla Pecorino Sardo Gran Cru, grated, 1 cup
- Basil, 5 leaves
- Lemon juice from 1 lemon
- Salt, black pepper, to taste

PREPARATION

Cook pasta according to directions, drain one minute prior to the lowest cooking time; drizzle with a little oil in order to prevent the pasta from sticking together and allow it to cool down flat on a sheet tray.

Meanwhile, sauté the onion with 1 tablespoon of oil. Set aside.

Slice the tomatoes in half, season with salt and let drain in a colander.

Sauté the pine nuts over medium heat till lightly brown.

Dice the avocado. Combine all the ingredients with pasta, season with salt and pepper.

Allow the salad to rest for half hour at room temperature before serving.

Thank you Lorenzo for sharing with us your pasta salad recipe - we’ll publish more recipe of yours soon again!

More recipes from our Italian Food Lovers Chef Network. After yesterday’s wrongly attributed recipe, here is a new recipe from Chef Doug D’Avico of Trattoria N. 10 in Chicago.

Chef D’Avico today shares with us another recipe from the Chicago Botanic Garden show: Grilled Baby Octopus with Watercress Salad and Oranges. But since Chef D’Avico is also a Guest Chef participating to the Italian Food Lovers Chef Network, this time we file this post under the Chef Network category.

GRILLED BABY OCTOPUS WITH WATERCRESS SALAD AND ORANGES
A recipe by Chef Doug D’Avico
(serves 8)

INGREDIENTS

- 2 lb Tenderized baby octopus
- 4 limes, juiced
- 1 cup Academia Barilla Monti Iblei Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1/8 tablespoon Crushed Red Chili Flake
- 2 tablespoon Italian Flat Leaf Parsley, chopped
- 1 tablespoon Rosemary, no stem, chopped
- Fresh Ground Black Pepper, to taste
- 1 Bunch Hydro or Organic Watercress, Trimmed
- 1/2 Head washed Radicchio leaves
- 2 Oranges, segmented and juices saved
- 1/4 cup Toasted pine nuts
- Academia Barilla Sea Salt flavored with Blood Orange, to taste

PREPARATION

Remove the head and beak from the octopus and put into a metal bowl.

To make the dressing, take the juice from the limes, olive oil, chili flake and chopped parsley and rosemary, combine and season to taste. 

Pour one third over the octopus and cover. Refrigerate for a couple of hours. Before grilling, drain any liquid off the octopus so you don’t cause a flare up on the grill.

You can season the octopus before you grill it. Grill the octopus over a medium high heat and weight it down a little bit so it gets a little bit of char.

To serve, arrange the watercress and radicchio in the center of a serving platter. Cut the octopus up in small pieces and pile in the center of the greens. Garnish the plate with the pine nuts and orange segments. Drizzle the salad

With the rest of the dressing, add a little bit of the Monti Iblei olive oil and fresh ground pepper, and a pinch of Academia Barilla Sea Salt flavored with Blood Orange. Serve.

Thank you Chef D’Avico for this new recipe and sorry again for yesterday gaffe!

We look forward to having you again as guest at our Italian Food Lovers Chef Network!

We did a terrible mistake at the Italian Food Lovers Editorial Team. We got a bulk of very good content from the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Chef show, and we messed up with recipes and their attribution to the Chefs participating to the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend.

Yesterday we published a recipe for a yummy Sautéed Wild Mushroom Bruschetta, and we said it was a recipe from Barilla USA Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni, while the recipe is actually from Chef Doug D’Avico from Trattoria N. 10 in Chicago, a friend and Guest Chef at the Italian Food Lover Chef Network.

Chef D’Avico, pictured here above with Stefanie Sette from the Academia Barilla USA Marketing Team, participated to the Garden Chef Series at the Chicago Botanic Garden and shared with us two recipes he performed at the Chicago show: the Sautéed Wild Mushroom Bruschetta, and a yummy Grilled Baby Octopus with Watercress Salad and Oranges that we’ll publish very soon - stay tuned!

We apologize to Chef D’Avico for the mess, and also of course to all our readership and, last but not least, to Chef Lorenzo Boni, who also sent us a couple of recipes that we will publish in the next days.

At this point, we’ll republish the recipe again, also with the image sent us by Stephanie with the actual dish prepared by Chef D’Avico in Chicago.

SAUTEED WILD MUSHROOM BRUSCHETTA

A recipe by Chef Doug D’Avico
(serves 4)

INGREDIENTS

- 8 oz Wild Mushrooms, cleaned and trimmed of any fibrous ends
- 1/2 ea Medium sized sweet onion, julienne
- 3 tablespoon Unsalted Butter
- 2 fl oz Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 3 fl oz Sweet Marsala
- 1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
- 1 ea Good quality Baguette
- Academia Barilla Pecorino Sardo, shaved
- 1 tub Truffle Spread
- Fresh thyme leaves for garnish
- Sea salt to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste

PREPARATION

Pre-heat a 12” sauté pan over med high heat till hot. Add the cleaned mushrooms and tablespoon of the butter and cook till the mushrooms are soft and are starting to release their water. Cook for 3 minutes longer and then add the sliced onions.

Add the remaining tablespoon of butter, season with a little salt and pepper and continue cooking for 3-5 minutes over the med high heat and cook till the onions start to caramelize. Do not burn.

You want to cook the mushrooms and onions till the liquid is all most evaporated. Remove the pan from the heat and add the Marsala carefully as the alcohol will catch on fire when you return it to the stove.

Reduce the Marsala by 2/3 and then add the cream. Bring to a boil and reduce to a sauce consistency, about 2 to 3 minutes. Check the seasoning and remove from the heat keeping the sauce warm till ready to use.

Cut 8 pieces of bread from the baguette about 1/2 inch thick on a 45 degree bias.

Toss the bread with a little splash of olive oil, salt and pepper. You can toast the bread in a hot oven or grill for a couple of minutes to warm the bread.

Next smear some of the Pecorino Sardo cheese on each piece of bread and sprinkle a few fresh thyme leaves on top.

Arrange 2 pieces of bread per plate and divide the mushroom sauce over the four plates. Drizzle a small amount of the olive oil over each plate and few thyme leaves and serve immediately.

Thank you Chef D’Avico for this easy-to-prepare gourmet recipe, and sorry again!!!

We will publish the second recipe from Chef D’Avico at the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Garden Chef Series soon!

�