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!

Today you can enjoy the second recipe from the Academia Barilla-Lamborghini New Year’s Eve gourmet menu designed by Barilla USA Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni, where each gourmet dish is dedicated to a specific Lamborghini car model.

After yesterday’s appetizer inspired by the Lamborghini Diablo, the Octopus salad, today we move on to the soup with another recipe from Chef Lorenzo Boni: Borlotti beans and Porcini mushroom Soup with barley and Academia Barilla Toscano extra virgin olive oil, dedicated to the convertible Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder!

BORLOTTI BEANS AND PORCINI MUSHROOM SOUP WITH BARLEY AND EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
(a recipe by Chef Lorenzo Boni)

INGREDIENTS

- 2 lbs borlotti beans, canned
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 sprig rosemary
- 1 lb Porcini mushrooms
- 1/2 cup barley
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- Academia Barilla Natural Sicilian Sea Salt with Black Olives, to taste
- Academia Barilla IGP Toscano Extra Virgin Olive oil, to taste
- black pepper, to taste

PREPARATION

Sauté chopped garlic in olive oil and rosemary. Add beans with their own jus, tomato paste and a cup of water and let simmer for 1/2 hour.

In a separate skillet, sauté the diced Porcini mushrooms in oil, salt and pepper for two minutes. In a separate pot boil barley and drain.

Process the beans in a blender until smooth. Pass through a fine colander.

Add mushrooms and barley and simmer five minutes.

Serve with Tuscan olive oil and chopped parsley on top.

WINE PAIRING TIPS

Enjoy this earthy soup with a light Borgo Conventi Pinot Grigio 2006.

The Academia Barilla - Lamborghini NYE gourmet menu comes back tomorrow with the recipe for your NYE entree: Ravioli filled with fresh Ricotta and Parmigiano Reggiano, topped with Pecorino Gran Cru, inspired by another icon of the Lamborghini car range, the Gallardo Superleggera.

See you tomorrow on Italian Food Lovers!

Last week Academia Barilla has been quoted in a video interview published on business video social networking site Vator.tv.

Vator.tv is a professional network and marketplace for ideas and businesses where anyone, across all industries, at any stage, can share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video.

Bambi Francisco, Chief Editor and Reporter at Vator.tv (and also CEO and co-founder of the video social networking site), meets in this interview Vator.tv guest-host Tony Perkins (founder of the RedHerring magazine and the Always On conference series) to discuss and introduce some of the video submissions from innovators from outside the U.S..

The Vator.tv video report also features a segment of a video interview to Academia Barilla President Gianluigi Zenti, alongside with other video contributions from founders/CEOs at companies worldwide.

The Academia Barilla video segment is taken from a video posted by Academia Barilla on Vator.tv last February, republished here below on Italian Food Lovers.

Stay updated with Italian food Lovers for more online photos, videos and interactive content about Academia Barilla!

Just a quick post to highlight the recent article published yesterday by the American Farm Bureau (AFB).

Stefphanie Gambrell, author of the article and Domestic Policy Economist at the American Farm Bureau, discusses Italian food culture, the DOP (Protected Denomination of Origin) program that provides quality control and brand protection to products such as Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma. We talked a lot about DOP in our early posts on Italian Food Lovers.

Gambrell quotes in her article one of the main passages of Barilla’s guiding principles: “Creating, cooking and eating food is much more than simply meeting a basic human need – it is an art“. The statement is exactly what stands at the heart of Academia Barilla’s philosophy, that puts Italian gourmet food culture at the center of all its initiatives, as our blog readership is well aware of.

She also emphasizes the role of Barilla and Academia Barilla as the major players in the Italian food industry, and in the promotion, marketing and distribution of authentic Italian cuisine in the United States.

You can read the full article by the American Farm Bureau at this link - the article is also available in audio format, available both for online listening and mp3 download at the AFB site.

What do you think of our Balsamic Vinegar series of posts? Please send us your comments at the bottom of each post.We love Mario Gambigliani - he has made himself completely available for Italian Food Lovers, and taught us everything we needed to know about Modena tradition and Acetaia operations in the production of DOP Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena. Thank you Mario!

And we are very lucky: not only is Mario’s family a producer of Traditional Balsamic Vinegar for more than a century and an half, but he also is one of the top experts in Italy for Balsamic Vinegar, and Chairman of the Consorzio for Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, the certification body for balsamic DOP certification. So we couldn’t have had a better guide in our exploration of balsamic vinegar!

Before leaving Villa Magnolia, the family villa where Mario keeps the top cru of his balsamic production in an acetaia under the roof (he explains why the roof in this post), and after giving us a few tips on how to properly perform balsamic vinegar tasting the professional way, Gambigliani wanted to spend also a couple of words on his relationship with Academia Barilla as an artisan producer and production partner. Check out the video here below.

Academia Barilla is very active in supporting local farmers and producers of traditional Italian gourmet products. By partnering with several production districts across Italy, Academia Barilla aims to preserve and promote not only the production of gourmet regional specialties, but also the local traditions in making such gourmet delights.

This approach to the so-called Corporate Social Responsibility, a step ahead the more popular concepts of fair trade or corporate social sponsorship / charity, consists in a dedicated support to local artisan producers with long-term partnership agreements, focused not on merely production volumes, but on a profitable growth for the producers, their markets and their capabilities to sell their products.

Academia Barilla fully supports its network of local farmers and producers with all its knowledge on food markets and an actual worldwide commercial and distribution structure, so that producers can focus on the quality of products, and an organic growth of their local production business.

For its effective business model and the consequent positive social impact, Academia Barilla has been recently recognized by the Harvard Business School as a business case model. Harvard Business published an Harvard Business Case on Academia Barilla, which has been presented in Boston last month, as reported in one of Carla’s previous posts.

I definitely need to come back on the Corporate Social Responsibility topic in the future blogging activity, we even started a tag on the subject, so you can track the subject easily.