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!

Academia Barilla and Italian Chef, cookbook writer and TV celebrity Giada De Laurentiis started the New Year with a great announcement that we actually anticipated on this blog: the launch of a new product line of high quality, authentic Italian gourmet food products.

Giada De Laurentiis, a long-time friend of Academia Barilla, designed in partnership with us an exclusive gourmet product line of authentic Italian specialty food that opens, of course, with an Italian classic: 100% Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil, made exclusively with olives from Italy.

The gourmet product line goes further with a Balsamic Vinegar of Modena obtained from gently cooked grape must, grown and processed solely in the Modena area, and an hand-harvested, all-natural Sicilian Sea Salt with Fresh Lemon Zest that comes from a combination of the pure Sicilian sea water and the freshest lemons grown under the sun of Sicily, in the middle of the Mediterranean.

The “Giada for Academia” product line gets its cherry on the pie with Giada’s Tuscan Herb Mix, a mix of refined appetizing herbs that brings to your dishes tastes and aromas you can only find in the gourmet hills of Tuscany.

All these products are available through exclusive distribution at the Crate & Barrel stores in the United States.

Crate & Barrel made of Giada’s line the highlight of the month, as she presented the Academia Barilla gourmet food line alongside other hand-picked kitchen items from the Crate & Barrel catalogue, featuring Giada as cover star.

If you don’t live close to a Crate & Barrel Store, you can request their catalogue online, and then proceed to place your order from the web when you’ll have the catalogue (you will have to report a catalogue code to be able to place your order). Don’t forget to add to your Crate&Barrel order the new Academia Barilla / Giada De Laurentiis gourmet products!

We will be updating you soon on the availability of Giada’s products outside the US, or through the Academia Barilla online store – and, promised, we will publish some new gourmet recipes from Giada soon!

Let’s start the New Year with a couple of Academia Barilla gourmet recipes, a New Year present sent in by Barilla USA Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni. Chef Boni proposes today a delicious pasta dish, spaghetti with fresh herbs and Academia Barilla Pecorino Gran Cru, followed by a simple but yummy artichoke salad, that make a perfect complement to the pasta dish.

Chef Lorenzo Boni suggests to prepare the artichoke salad in parallel, so that you can be ready to serve a complete light gourmet meal at the same time.

In this cooking session just for friends at the Barilla US headquarters, Chef Boni got some help from Academia Barilla Italian Culinary Specialist and Iron Chef Judge Mario Rizzotti, the guy with wearing in black in the pictures below, who couldn’t resist tasting during preparation!

Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen!

SPAGHETTI WITH FRESH HERBS AND ACADEMIA BARILLA PECORINO GRAN CRU

INGREDIENTS
(serves 4)

- 1 lb of Barilla spaghetti
- 1/2 cup of Academia Barilla Monti Iblei DOP extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tablespoon of chopped mint
- 1/2 tablespoon of chopped marjoram
- 1/2 tablespoon of chopped chives
- 1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- 1 teaspoon chopped sage
- 1 tablespoons of chopped basil
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 3/4 cup grated Academia Barilla Pecorino Gran Cru
- 1 tablespoon butter
- salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

Boil the pasta according to the directions on the box, but cook it for a 2-3 minutes under the recommended cooking time.

When the pasta is half way cooked, mix all of the herbs together in a small sauté pan with the Academia Barilla Monti Iblei extra virgin olive oil and garlic. Sauté for 1-2 minutes.

When the pasta is ready, drain it, saving 1 cup of the water the pasta was boiled in and add this 1 cup of water to the mixture of herbs in the sauté pan. Then add the drained pasta to the sauté pan and gently mix. Add salt and pepper to taste.

When the water turns into a creamy texture, turn the heat off, and stir in the 3/4 cup of grated Academia Barilla Pecorino Gran Cru and butter. Gently stir.

Plate the pasta and place a few thin shavings of the Academia Barilla Pecorino Gran Cru on the top.

Serve and enjoy!

ARTICHOKE SALAD

INGREDIENTS
(serves 4)

- 4 medium sized artichokes
- 1 medium lemon
- Academia Barilla Black Olive Sicilian Sea Salt
- 1/2 cup Academia Barilla Monti Iblei DOP extra virgin olive oil
- 4-6 ounces of shaved slices of Academia Barilla Pecorino Gran Cru
- pepper to taste

PREPARATION

Wash, clean (removing the outer layer) and cut the artichokes in half. Slice the lemon in half and squeeze the juice into a medium sized ceramic or glass bowl.

Remove the center of the artichoke and discard. With the remaining artichoke, slice thinly and place in the ceramic bowl (the lemon juice will keep the artichoke from discoloring). Mix the cut artichokes in the lemon juice and drain.

Add the Academia Barilla Monti Iblei DOP extra virgin olive oil, a few pinches of Academia Barilla Black Olive Sicilian Sea Salt and pepper to taste.

Plate the artichoke salad and place a few shavings of the Academia Barilla Pecorino Gran Cru on top.

Serve and enjoy!

Today is the first anniversary of our Italian Food Lovers blog, we posted for the first time on December 21, 2006. Happy birthday, Italian Food Lovers!

It has been for us a very challenging year, trying to learn all the tricks of the trade of being bloggers, setting up a blogging team, writing engaging articles and blog posts about Italian food culture, events and, of course, recipes.

As a balance of our first year we would like to say thank you first of all our readership, all the users who are getting our regular RSS feed, all the users who left comments on our blog, and all the blogs and websites that are linking to our articles. And thank you to SooToday.com and to all the citizens of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, for giving us a Best of the Blog Award!

Then, of course, it wouldn’t have been possible to create Italian Food Lovers stories without the input of all our friends at Academia Barilla and Barilla USA, at the Academia Barilla Culinary School, the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library and, of course, to the Academia Barilla Italian Culinary Specialists Team in the United States!

Last but not least, a big thank you goes also to all the guest Chefs that shares their recipes and Chef’s tips with us. Next year we will have more and more inputs from top Chefs around the world!

Stay with Italian Food Lovers - 2008 will be an amazing gourmet year!