Academia Barilla’s Italian Culinary specialist Francesco Zimone is very busy this week with a series of gourmet tasting events in California.

We just received an email from Francesco, who was very excited about the success of last Monday’s dinner at the Palmeri Restaurant in Brentwood, LA.

Those who follow our blog with regularity already know that Academia Barilla partners Chef Ottavio Palmeri and his LA Restaurant for a series of themed Italian dinners that take place every first Monday of each month, with Chef Palmeri designing the entire menu getting inspiration from the Academia Barilla range of Italian gourmet products.

Let me quote Francesco for more details on last Monday’s dinner at Ristorante Palmeri.

Last night event at Palmeri was amazing, thank you so much for the support with recipes and the blog coverage.

The formula of the event is getting better and better. I was dressed in Academia Barilla Chef’s attire and we started dinner with a shot of Pomodorini pelati (peeled cherry tomatoes), black olive salt, Monti Iblei extra virgin olive oil and basil.

Next on the Palmeri menu was Pesce crudo con un tocco di Riviera Ligure (raw fish with Riviera Ligure extra virgin olive oil), followed by Involtino di melenzane (stuffed eggplant) with a touch of Monti Iblei extra virgin olive oil, Peperonata (Bell Peppers salad) and Involtino di pescespada (stuffed swordfish) covered with Balsamic Must (with additional Balsamic Must on a side for Balsamic tasting).

We closed dinner with one of Ottavio Palmeri’s top Sicilian specialties, a Cannolo Siciliano served with some Hand-Cut Pears with Balsamic Vinegar on the side.

Every client got great attention and then they left with a can of peeled cherry tomatos and a recipe. Everybody asked and signed on my business card the products they loved. I told everybody they could find the products at Bay City Stores and soon also at Bristol Farms - and Chef Palmeri already started working on next month’s menu!

If you live in the LA area you should absolutely try to join the Academia Barilla and Palmeri teams at the next gourmet dinner, scheduled for Monday April 1, 2008.

You can refer to our blog post from last month to get all the restaurant contact info, including a Google Map for your driving directions.

Want to catch-up with Italian cookbook writer and Food Network celebrity Chef Giada De Laurentiis and get an autographed copy of her popular cookbooks, Everyday Pasta, Everyday Italian, and Giada’s Family Dinners?

Just head tomorrow, February 20th between 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm, to the Crate&Barrel store on Union Street, in San Francisco, CA. During Giada’s book signing there will also be free sample tastings available for guests, made with Giada’s new Italian Gourmet specialty foods created in collaboration with Academia Barilla.

Space is limited, so please contact the store for more information and booking. Below find store info, including a Google Map for driving directions to the Crate & Barrel shop:

CRATE & BARREL
55 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 982-5200

Get driving directions on Google Maps

As suggested by the Food Network Recipe Fan Club on their blog, you can also wish Giada big congrats on her first new little baby, a girl due in April!

Today we would like to introduce a couple of interesting publication that can be of interest for our Italian Food Lovers readership.
The first one is The New Regional Italian Cuisine Cookbook, written by Reinhardt Hess, Cornelia Schinharl, and Sabine Sälzer.

Reinhardt Hess is a Munich-based Bavarian food and wine journalist who has a special love for Italian and other Mediterranean foods and cooking styles. Cornelia Schinharl is a food editor at Graf und Unser, a major German book publisher, the author of several cookbooks, and an expert on Italian cuisine. She lives in Munich and visits Italy often to discover new foods and new wines. Sabine Sälzer is a world renowned cookbook editor.

When food lovers open this cookbook they’ll find themselves on a lively excursion through eight distinct and innovative culinary Italian regions. It’s an illustrated, recipe-filled cookbook and a coffee table guide to Italy’s people and traditions, from the Alpine Piedmont area in the north to the southern island of Sicily.

The book is structured into separate chapter for each of the eight regions, each opening with a landscape photo followed by several photo-filled pages describing the region’s people, their way of life, and their locally-produced foods and wines. The rest of each chapter is devoted to the region’s recipes.

Two dozen or more recipes per region are introduced, each of them illustrated with plenty of photos, and presented in the typical Italian style for hearty five-course dinners. The authors present great ways to prepare and serve meats, fish, pasta, sauces, fruits, vegetables, soups, salads, and desserts, and also offer suggestions for regional wines that go perfectly with each delightful Italian meal.

Among the several reviews for this cookbook, a couple of them caught our attention. Mat Schaffer at the Boston Herald reviewed it as “… A pictorial tour of Italy, its culture and customs. It’s like a gastronomic visit to Italy.”, while the internationally renowned Chef and restaurateur Mario Batali defines it “Definitive in a way that few books attempt, the recipes in this beautiful tome reflect the delicious diversity all dancing under the umbrella of Italian food. This beautiful book captures (Italy’s) entire boot in its mellifluous magnificence.”

Published by the NY-based publisher Barron’s Books for its Educational Series, the book is available at major bookstore worldwide, and also online at this link.

We really like this cookbook, even if it skipped our beautiful Emilia-Romagna region during the virtual Italian gastronomic tour - as our readers know, Academia Barilla and the Academia Barilla Culinary School are headquartered in Parma, the heart of the Italian Food Valley.

If you want to add to your virtual gastronomy tour Parma’s culinary traditions, culture and recipes, we also strongly suggest to check out world-renowed Chef and cookbook writer Giuliano Bugialli’s “Parma, A capital of Italian Gastronomy“, Academia Barilla’s first venture as a publisher.

Giuliano Bugialli’s cookbook celebrates the art, culture and tradition of the city of Parma, an extraordinary mix that you can find in our traditional plates. The Parma cookbook contains dozens of typical local recipes explained through stunning pictures and detailed descriptions, and infuses gastronomy tradition with culinary innovation, according to the true spirit of Parma.

The cookbook is available online at the Academia Barilla online store. Its luxury hardcover makes it a perfect gift - maybe the right gift idea for next Valentine’s Day?

We have introduced several times Academia Barilla’s Italian Culinary Specialist and TV Chef celebrity Mario Rizzotti, but we keep getting more and more content about his Italian food experience, and we want to share it with you.

Do you remember when we blogged about the “And they Came to Chicago: The American Italian Legacy”, the documentary produced by Chicago-based Modio Media? Now the documentary is available also on DVD and, if you are interested, you can order it online at the Modio Media’s site.

To better promote their documentary the guys at Modio Media published online some key video sequences, among which are a couple with our Mario Rizzotti, such as the one here below. Here Mario introduces Chicago Cooking instructors Dede Frank and Roseanne Pileggi, who teach a class on Italian-inspired cooking.

In this video Mario Rizzotti joins with them in the kitchen while they are preparing Linguine with Olive Oil, Capers, Lemon Zest and Anchovies - listen to the Chef tips from Dede and Roseanne, especially on how to make a perfect soffritto with the anchovies.

While hanging out in the kitchen, Mario offers his expert advice on how to taste extra-virgin olive oil, on avoid abusing garlic “not to kill food with it” as Mario says, or to pay attention to the cooking time of the pasta to make it “al dente”. Mario Rizzotti’s Chef tips include adding fresh Italian parsley and some bread crumbs at the end, “to add textures” as Mario explains.

Final note: the Italian extra virgin olive oil the Chef used in this recipe is Academia Barilla’s Monti Iblei, available also online at the Academia Barilla online store.

Buon appetito from Academia Barilla, and kudos to Modio Media for the great movie production!

After introducing the “Discover Barilla” project last week, we have another important announcement about our parent company’s online activity. Barilla, the world’s number one pasta maker, announced last week its second annual call on pasta lovers to help fight hunger in the United States with the launch of The Celebrity Italian Table Cookbook.

To create the cookbook, Barilla US asked 5 of America’s favorite celebrities, one of the world’s leading Italian chefs and the most prominent party planner in the U.S. to help celebrate the Italian Table in 6 different ways.

Hollywood celebrities Stanley Tucci, Marisa Tomei, Debra Messing, Natalie Portman and Chris Daughtry shared their favorite pasta dishes with us. Chef Mario Batali recreated these dishes and developed a special menu for each party, while David Tutera developed creative and stunning table designs to make each experience special.

Barilla’s Celebrity Italian Table Cookbook offers the following celebrity-inspired recipes and table settings:
- Romantic Night with Chris Daughtry’s Rigatoni with Basil and Gorgonzola
- Celebratory Feast with Debra Messing’s Penne alla Vodka
- Girlfriends Gathering with Natalie Portman’s Penne alla Puttanesca
- Dinner Party with Marisa Tomei’s Farfalle “alla Marisa”
- Family Dinner with Stanley Tucci’s Spaghetti al Tonno
- Babbo with Mario Batali’s restaurant favorite Fettuccine with Zucca

The Celebrity Italian Table Cookbook is available online for free download at www.celebrityitaliantable.com for the entire month of February. For every downloaded copy of the cookbook, Barilla will donate 1$ to America’s Second Harvest, the US Food Bank Network. To thank the celebrities for their participation, Barilla is also making an additional $5,000 donation to America’s Second Harvest on their behalf. Follow this link for a cookbook preview, or this link for a direct download.

Since 1997, Barilla has been a supporter of America’s Second Harvest, donating over 5 million pounds of pasta. Donations are distributed among more than 200 member food banks serving all 50 states, the District of Colombia and Puerto Rico.

“Today in America there are more than 35 million people, 12 million of whom are children, who are at risk of hunger,” said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of America’s Second Harvest. “We are grateful to have Barilla’s continued support for our fight against hunger. It’s easy to do your part by simply downloading this year’s cookbook.”

“Barilla is passionate about supporting hunger relief and passing on Italian traditions that show others how to bring people together around the table,” said Kirk Trofholz, president of Barilla US. “We are thrilled to partner again with America’s Second Harvest on this campaign and be part of such a highly worthwhile cause.”

Beside of the main fund raising for Second Harvest, The Celebrity Italian Table website proposes a photo contest, with the help of the online community of Gather.com: upload your Italian Table pictures on ItalianTable.Gather.com and every week a winner will receive a Barilla gift basket filled with pastas, sauces and olive oils. All weekly winners will be also eligible to win the grand prize of a $500 gift certificate to Williams-Sonoma. See the contest website for details.

More precious resources for all Italian food lovers are available at ItalianTable.Gather.com, such as premium articles by Barilla on how to host a pasta party, or the complete “Pasta 101: A Quick Guide for Making Perfect Pasta Every Time“.

Don’t forget to download your Celebrity Italian Cookbook today - your download will help Second Harvest, and will make all your friends happy next time you’ll invite them for an all-Italian, celebrity-inspired lunch or dinner!