The Railway Honiton

Banoffee Bread

JB — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:12:11 +0000

Banoffee Bread

Last time I tried to be clever, I attempted to make banana bread, real bread—brioche to be exact. Unfortunately, my dreams of making banana brioche the next big thing in the food world were never realized. Turns out, bread dough plus banana puree, and 15 minutes of kneading resulted in a dough and subsequent bread that was a disturbing ashen gray, taupe color with a gummy consistency. Not the most appetizing thing in the world.

So I return to banana bread as we all know it but instead of adding the usual pecans, I added chopped Heath bar instead (pecans always get soggy anyway), borrowing the idea from the British classic Banoffee pie, and voila! Banoffee bread. Clever, no? Any food with a portmanteau for a name is automatically cool in my book.

I was hoping the toffee pieces would stay crunchy after baking so the banana bread would be studded with pieces of candy. A few pieces retained the hard toffee crunch but most of the candy melted to form pockets of caramel-like goo inside the bread. Not exactly what I was going for but no complaints! Next time, I’ll have to add a little Northwest flair and use Almond Roca.

While there’s no coconut in the original Banoffee pie, I had an opened bag of sweetened shredded coconut and a dollop of leftover cream cheese that needed to be used up. So I mixed the two together and threw that on top. Banana bread meets coconut macaroon.

Banoffee Bread

3 large overriped bananas.
65 g packed light brown sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
80 g plain yogurt or sour cream
2 tsp vanilla
260g all purpose unbleached flour, (8.8 oz)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
3 1.4 oz. Heath bars roughly chopped (or other toffee candies, like Almond Roca)
Optional coconut topping: 1 tablespoon of cream cheese and 1/2 C of sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 170 deg celsius. Adjust the oven rack to the lower middle position or one level below the middle. Butter and flour a loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.

Optional – making the coconut topping: mix the cream cheese and sweetened shredded coconut until it is evenly mixed (I just used my hands). Set aside for later.

In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas until a few chunks remain. Mix in the melted butter, sugar, eggs, yogurt/sour cream and vanilla until smooth and evenly mixed.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together and evenly mix and aerate the ingredients. Add half of the dry mix to the banana mix and fold the batter with a rubber spatula a few times. Then scatter the chopped toffee and the remaining flour mix. Continue to fold the batter gently until there are no more streaks of flour.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Scatter the coconut mixture on top if using.

Bake at 350 deg F for 60 – 70 minutes, or until a skewer stuck into the banana bread comes out clean. Rotate the loaf pan 180 degrees about 30 – 40 minutes into the baking time. Keep an eye on the coconut topping, if it starts to get too brown, cover the top of the pan loosely with a piece of foil. I did this and rotated the pan about 30 minutes in.

Ze Chicken Adobo du Chef

JB — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:05:57 +0000

When I first made chicken adobo 4 years ago, I was a little apprehensive about the seemingly large amount of vinegar the recipe called for. However, the vinegar mellows with cooking and the sauce is amazing over freshly steamed rice. I prefer a 1:1 ratio of soy to vinegar. I reach for a milder vinegar like rice, white wine, or cider vinegar. I personally find plain white vinegar is too monotonous and abrasive. You can marinate the chicken as long as you want but this is rarely something I plan that far in advance. I usually throw all the ingredients together in a pot and let it sit for about an hour (sometimes I skip this part entirely if I feel particularly lazy).

Chicken Adobo
approximately 2 pounds of dark meat chicken (thighs and drumsticks)
120 ml soy sauce (low sodium preferably)
120ml rice or cider vinegar
250 ml of water
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
5 garlic cloves, smashed with the side of a knife
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
Optional: small yellow onion, thickly sliced

Optional step: Combine everything in a large bowl and marinate for 1 hour, up to overnight.

Bring everything up to a boil then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn the chicken halfway through the cooking process.

Remove the chicken and bring the sauce back to a boil and continue to boil the sauce until it reduces by about half to a slightly thickened syrup.

Optional: When I’m not lazy or starving, I’ve broiled the chicken (skin side up for a few minutes) in the oven to go the extra mile. You have to keep an eye on it because it will go from crispy to burnt in a minute under the broiler. I have heard of people throwing adobo on the grill but I personally have not tried this. I imagine if the chicken is super tender it may fall through the grates. Consider yourself warned and don’t blame me if this happens. Broiling/grilling is not necessary, the chicken is perfectly delicious without this final step.

Serve the chicken over rice and spoon the sauce on top.

Compassion UK – releasing children from poverty

JB — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:22:49 +0000

Who We Are

Compassion is an international Christian child development and child advocacy ministry. Partnering with local churches, we are committed to the spiritual, economic, social and physical development of children living in extreme poverty in 26 countries, enabling them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults.

View a map of where we work.

Our Mission

Releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name

In response to the Great Commission, Compassion International exists as an advocate for children, to release them from their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enable them to become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.

Our Vision

As a result of our ministry to children in poverty, Compassion will be trusted by the Church worldwide as the leading authority for holistic child development and will be the global benchmark for excellence in child sponsorship.

Our Core Values

Compassion is a Christ-centred organisation committed to the Church. As such, we value: Integrity, Excellence, Stewardship and Dignity.

The Compassion Difference

Changing lives goes beyond changing external circumstances. The hope and inner transformation that comes from knowing Jesus provides the foundations for the most profound human development to occur.

Compassion’s holistic approach to child development is unique in that all our programmes are:

Christ Centred
Child Focused
Church Based

Christ Centred

Jesus Christ is at the heart of Compassion’s ministry. Every child who participates in a Compassion programme is given the opportunity to learn about Jesus and discover how to develop a lifelong relationship with God. This good news is modelled and shared in age-appropriate and culturally relevant ways – never by coercion. The Great Commission is at the heart of our mission and discipleship is at the core of our programmes.

Child Focused

Compassion’s ministry is focused on the individual child and his or her development. By working holistically with individual children to address their spiritual, economic, social and physical needs, we present every child with an opportunity to become fulfilled Christian adults.

What happens in the life of a child ripples throughout their environment now and in the future. We believe that changed environments may assist children, but transformed children will inevitably change their environments.

Church Based

The Church is God’s chosen instrument to bring hope to a hurting world and to deliver justice to the poor and oppressed. That’s why Compassion works exclusively in partnership with over 5,000 local churches in developing nations to deliver a holistic child development programme.

Only the local church is uniquely qualified to understand the real needs of her community and reach the children in poverty who need her care.

The local church creates an environment of unparalleled stability, giving children the opportunity to experience God’s love and acceptance.

Poverty facts:

NOTES

Here are some useful facts to include in your event. Choose one or two from the following list to add to the points you are making in your presentation. Remember that speaking from your heart about sponsoring a child is always the most dynamic and effective way of sharing with others about the issues surrounding child poverty.

- A child dies from hunger every five seconds.

- One third of the world’s children live in extreme poverty.

- One in every six children between the ages of 5 and 14 is involved in child labour.

- More than 2 billion people lack access to electricity and modern forms of energy.

- More than 1 billion (one in five) people live on less than $1 a day.

- Every day, 1,600 women and more than 10,000 newborns die globally due to complications that could have been prevented.

- Approximately 15 million children under the age of 18 have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

- 20 million children have had to leave their homes due to war. This is roughly the population of Australia.

- An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year, many for sexual exploitation or cheap labour.

- More than 10 million children under age 5 die each year. Two-thirds of these deaths – more than 6 million deaths every year – are from malnutrition and other preventable causes.

- Children under age 18 make up 49 percent of the population of the world’s least developed countries, compared with 21 percent of the population of the world’s industrialised nations.

- Approximately 143 million children in the developing world (one in 13) are orphans.

Sources: www.unicef.org, www.unep.org, www.one.org, www.who.int, www.freeworldacademy.com, www.nationmaster.com

Orange marmalade Italian macaroons

JB — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:10:18 +0000

These macaroons are Italian style, so not quite as tricky as French macaroons. This recipe creates the ultimate macaroons – a perfect amount of crisp outer shell, crunching through to light and fluffy meringue inside. As for the filling of orange marmalade butter cream, it is truly a taste sensation. The important things you will need are a good set of scales, electric whisk, piping bag and a sugar thermometer. This is serious baking.

Ingredients

Meringue

187g caster sugar

75ml water

62g egg whites (roughly two egg whites)

5ml orange food colouring

Paste

187g ground almonds

187g icing sugar

62g egg whites (rougly two egg whites)

Filling

180g milk

80g sugar

40g egg yolks

300g butter, diced

100g orange marmalade

1. Preheat the oven to 140C.

2. For the meringue, in a small saucepan add the sugar and water and mix until there are no lumps. Add the food colouring and place the saucepan over medium to high heat and heat until it reaches 114c.

3. Once the temperature gets to 112c start whisking the egg whites on a slow speed. Once the temperature gets to 114C pour the sugar mixture into the egg white mix, taking care to pour the mixture down the side of bowl so it does not touch the whisk or whisk attachment.

4. Whisk at high speed for around five minutes and the meringue mixture should be glossy and soft, with peaks in it. James described it as “having the consistency of shaving foam”.

5. To make the paste mix the remaining egg whites, ground almonds and icing sugar and mix with a spatula until combined.

6. Now combine the meringue and paste mixture. James suggests adding the mixture in thirds for the most chance of success so add one third of the egg white mixture and mix vigorously until well combined. Add the second third, being careful not to overmix and then the final third. The key is not to over mix the mixture and knock too uch air out. The mixture is combined when it will drip slowly off the back of a spoon rather than running.

7. Prepare two baking trays to pipe the macaroon mixture onto. Secure the baking paper to the tray using a dob of the macaroon mixture in each corner, don’t grease the baking paper as this will cause the meringues to flop.

8. Fill a piping bag half full with the macaroon mixture and then pipe small circles, not much bigger than a 50p coin, with sufficient space between the meringues for them to spread slightly. To pipe the mixture, hold the piping bag nozzle about one centimetre above the service you are piping on to and squeeze the piping bag carefully to release some of the mixture while holding the nozzle firm to get evenly sized macaroons.

9. Before putting in the oven, bang the bottom of the tray on your kitchen work top to allow the macaroons to settle slightly.

10. Bake for 12 mins and then remove from the oven and leave to cool. The macaroons are cooked if they have risen, without browning and you are able to remove them from the baking paper without too much sticking.

11. For the filling heat the milk over a medium heat, in a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar together.

12. Once the milk comes to the boil add some of the milk to the egg mixture and mix with a spatula, then transfer the mix to the saucepan of milk. Continue to stir over a low heat with a spatula until the mixture starts to coat the back of the spoon then remove from the saucepan and mix in an electronic mixture or using a hand held mixer at a high speed until the mixture starts to cool.

13. Once the mixture has almost cooled add a third of the diced butter, mix at a high speed for three minutes and then add the remaining two parts of butter separately. The butter cream should become thick and creamy.

14. Add the orange marmalade to the butter cream and mix on a low speed until combined.

15. Once the macaroon halves are totally cool, pipe a small amount of the orange marmalade butter cream mixture onto half of the macroon halves then top with the alternate halves like tiny sandwiches.

Moqueca (Brazilian Fish Stew)

JB — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:04:49 +0000

On my holiday in Brazil, which I know you are all thoroughly sick of hearing about, I became completely obsessed with moquecas, the amazing Brazilian seafood and coconut stew. I tasted some excellent moqueca’s in Bahia at Paraiso Tropical and Panela de Barro, however it was in Rio that I learnt how to make one.
Ingredients
2 limes
2 tsps cumin
2 onions, sliced into rings
1 yellow pepper, sliced thinly
1 red pepper, sliced thinly
2 tbsp palm oil
200ml coconut milk
Salt and pepper
600g firm white fish such as cod.
150g prawns, shelled
Handful of fresh coriander, chopped

1. Mix together juice from the limes, salt and pepper and cumin and pour it over the fish. Leave to marinade for about 10 mins.
2. Heat a heavy based pan or wok over a low heat, add the palm oil and then the sliced onion and peppers. Cook for about 10 mins or until the onion starts to brown and soften.
3. Add the coconut milk, fish and prawns. Bring soup to a simmer, reduce the heat, cover, and let simmer for 15 mins.
4. Taste and adjust seasonings. Add a squeeze more lime here if you want. Garnish with coriander

Serve with rice or crusty bread. Serves four

Chef de Partie needed

JB — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 09:25:13 +0000

we are looking for a hard working passionate chef who enjoys working in a team, has a passion for food, enjoys working with superb fresh ingredients, and is willing to learn new skills.

You will be cooking in a brigade of 3, 6-7 shifts per week minimum two days off always sunday/monday

wage depending on experience plus tips, food & fun

please e-mail cv or call Mel/Jon on 01404 47976

you must hold all valid working permissions.

Spaghetti alle vongole :

JB — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:23:55 +0000

A Friday night favorite at our place is spaghetti with clam sauce, one of the signature dishes of Neapolitan cuisine. It is surprisingly easy to make, fun (if a bit messy) to eat and—if you have some good, fresh clams on hand—really, really tasty.

The only real bother, if you want to call it that, to the dish is purging the clams of their sand. Even a bit of sand will render the dish inedible. These days clams (like mussels) often come with little or no sand in them, but you can never be entirely sure, so it is best to soak the clams in very well salted water (I add a whole fistful of salt) for at least an hour before cooking. (Some recipes recommend several hours and several changes of water, but I don’t find this necessary these days.) Mixing in a bit of cornmeal is said to encourage the clams to purge their sand.

Rinse off your clams and put them in a saucepan large enough to hold them all with lots of room to spare. Splash in some dry white wine, cover and turn the heat to high. After a minute or two, uncover and mix the clams with a slotted spoon to see if they have opened. Once all of them have, then remove the saucepan from the heat and keep the clams and their juice warm. (Check out the juices; if you see a fair amount of sediment, you may want to strain the juices through a cheesecloth.)

In the meanwhile, being to cook your spaghetti in well salted water. While the spaghetti is cooking, gently sauté some crushed garlic cloves (I like to use 2 cloves per person for this dish) and apeperoncino in a generous amount of fruity olive oil and when the garlic is just beginning to turn color, add a few pomodorini (cherry or grape tomatoes), sliced in half lengthwise, to the oil. Allow them to sauté for just a minute or so, then using a slotted spoon, transfer the clams (still in their shells) into the skillet. Then gently pour over the clam juices, leaving any sediment behind in the saucepan.

Allow the clam juices to reduce a bit, mix well to season and reheat the clams. Add a handful of chopped parsley. At this point, your pasta should be ready; if not, turn off the heat so that the clams do not overcook. When the spaghetti is cooked but still very al dente, add them to the skillet and mix well, simmering the spaghetti for a minute or two to allow them to absorb some of the juice without allowing the dish to dry out. Serve immediately.

NOTES: As for many Italian dishes, the quality of the ingredients that go into the dish are critical to the quality of the dish itself. Use best quality, imported spaghetti—nothing ruins this dish like mushy pasta! The oil should be the deep green, fruity kind. The garlic should be absolutely fresh. And the clams should preferably be the small, sweet variety. In Italy, the clams known as vongole veraci are the most common variety for this dish, although the tiny clams called lupini (not to be confused with lupini beans) are especially prized for their tiny size and sweetness. Elsewhere, I find Palourde or ‘Surf ‘ clams (the first one are pictured above) are excellent; both have the small, thin shells and sweet flesh that you are looking for. In a pinch, littlenecks—although a bit too large—will also do. If you can’t find small clams, you may want to use the clams out of the shell and cut them into pieces. Some very large, hard-shelled clams, however, like the Quahog, are simply too tough to be palatable in this dish. If you don’t have peperoncino on hand, you can used crushed red pepper flakes, but add them only just before adding your claim juice to avoid them burning and turning bitter. Some versions call for black pepper instead.

Besides the right ingredients, there are two key points of technique to bear in mind: Don’t skimp on the olive oil, which should be very abundant to ensure that the pasta has the right ‘slippery’ consistency. And don’t overcook the pasta. Of course, you should never overcook the pasta, but it is absolutely critical for this dish. In fact, as indicated above, you should slightly undercook the pasta as it needs to simmer for a minute or two in the sauce.

In Naples, where this dish originated, the typical pasta is vermicelli, a spaghetti-like long pasta. Spaghetti are probably the most common pasta elsewhere in Italy. And linguine also make for a fine choice.

There are three principal variations of this dish. The ‘mother’ recipe follows the method above but is entire in bianco, leaving out the pomodorini. The second version is in rosso, calls for the addition of tomato to the garlic and oil base to make a kind of sugo di pomodoro. The above version, which adds a few pomodorini, represents a kind of middle ground and is my personal favorite, while I find that an actual tomato sauce covers up the delicate taste of the clams. The same technique can be used with just about any mollusk, including mussels. Many Italian recipes call for steaming open the clams directly in the skillet with the garlic and oil, but I find steaming them open separately is a ‘safer’ choice if you have any doubts about lingering sand in the clams.

You can find some rather horrendous versions (I’d call them perversions) of this dish online. One common variant among Italian-American sources is the addition of oregano to clam sauce, something to avoid since the assertive taste of oregano completely throws off the balance of flavors. You may be tempted to use bottled minced clams and clam juice, a common ‘shortcut’ often found in online recipes, but frankly, you’ll lose all the charm of the dish. Commercially available minced clams tend to come from larger, tougher clams and lack flavor. And I’ve even seen some recipes that call for using a roux of butter and flour to thicken the sauce—the very thought of it makes me cringe.

One final note: unless you want to commit culinary heresy—and ruin a lovely dish in the process—do not under any circumstances add grated cheese to your clam sauce! Mi raccomando…

Bistro Classic : Lapin a la Moutarde .. on the menu this week !

JB — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:07:10 +0000

You rarely come across rabbit in mainstream shops in The UK, but in the Languedoc they are always in plentiful supply, from tiny butchers to big supermarkets.

Rabbit can be slightly more pricey than chicken or simliar bird meat, but it’s incredibly lean, with hardly a pinch of fat on it.

So take extra care in how you cook it: wrapped in a protective cocoon of Parma ham, perhaps, or slow cooked on a low heat.

Lapin à la moutarde isn’t a bad place to start if you haven’t cooked one before. It’s a classic French bistro dish, called a few other names too such as Lapin à la Dijonnaise, but they are all basically the same thing.

Rabbits, rabbits, livers and all

Either you start with a sort of marinade, and slather lots of mustard onto your chopped up rabbit then roast it.

Or – as we prefer – you fry it in a pan then cook it in a stock, adding the mustard (and possibly cream) near the end.

Some recipes you come across also involve baking the rabbit in the oven. But let’s stick with the much easier way, with frying pans and hobs and so on.

The ingredients are simplicity itself:

1 rabbit, jointed (there’s no big deal – chop off all four legs, then cut the body in two)
2 tablespoons olive oil (ordinary, not extra virgin)
A few lardons or a slice of chopped streaky bacon
1 onion, peeled, roughly chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled, thinly sliced
Two sprigs of fresh thyme or tarragon if you have it (or 1/2 a teaspoon of dried thyme or tarragon)
1 glass of dry white wine – a Chablis is fine – or a dry cider
2 glasses of chicken stock
2 tablespoons crème fraiche (optional) – or cream will do
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley
Salt and pepper
About 4 teaspoons of Dijon mustard

This last measurement will all depend on how hot your mustard is. (You could also restrain the heat and add a little more texture by using half as much Dijon, combined with the same amount of old-fashioned grainy mustard. That’s a gorgeous combination in many “mustardy” dishes.)

Heat the olive oil in a deep casserole. Fry the lardons/bacon until they just start to brown. Remove them from the pan to a dish on the side.

Brown the rabbit pieces briefly, then remove them from the pan. Turn the heat down low.

Fry the onion gently until “transparent” and soft. Stir in the garlic.

Add the white wine/cider, deglaze, and let the liquid bubble away until half of it has evaporated. Add the chicken stock and thyme/tarragon, return the rabbit to the pan.

Put a lid on, cook slowly for 90 minutes to two hours until lovely and tender. Top up the stock with water if it looks like it’s drying out.

When almost ready to serve, stir in mustard to taste, and then the crème fraiche if you’re using it, and sprinkle with the parsley.

Now if that isn’t perfect winter comfort food, with mashed or roast potatoes, I really don’t know what is. The only thing it has going against it is that rabbit has quite an amount of tiny bones.

Chocolate + Water = Chocolate Mousse . . . A little Molecular Gastronomy

JB — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:53:48 +0000

I figure I am a Chemist, so it’s time to research the hot area ofmolecular gastronomy that has been on fire over the past few years. I utilize my chemistry a lot with my recipe develop already to get the flavor and texture I want. Cooking is a series of chemical and physical transformations.

While researching two main figures in molecular gastronomy, Herve This & Heston Blumenthal, I heard about making a chocolate mousse from just chocolate and water. Brilliant! Of course, chocolate is a solidified fat/oil phase with emulsifiers such as lecithin in it already! So it is possible to make chocolate mousse with no eggs, no milk, no cream, no added sugar. Brilliant! I’ve made lots of emulsions before. An emulsion is a stabilized mixture of two immiscible liquids where a surfactant/emulsifier stabilizes the phases. Many emulsions are oil/water emulsions, with dietary fats being one common type of oil encountered in everyday life. Examples of emulsions include butter and margarine, milk and cream, and vinaigrettes.

So I decided to try different methods, and see what it tastes like and how the texture turns out. I figured that the chocolate (oil phase) would be the continuous phase and the water would be the internal droplet phase. There are two major considerations for texture – the droplet size and the crystallization of the chocolate upon cooling.

My empirical results were as follows . . . okay, I’m sounding too much of a Chemist. It works! Awesome, rich, clean chocolate mousse using just chocolate and water. I tried 2 different methods and ended with different textures, depending on how quick it is chilled:

Herve This’ Chocolate Chantilly

200 ml or grams water
225 grams quality bittersweet chocolate (a scant 8 oz), chopped coarsely or chips

Place the water and chocolate into a small heavy saucepan over medium heat to melt. Stir the chocolate in the pan until completely melted.

Have ready two bowls, one that will sit inside the other. Into the bigger bowl, put some ice and a little water, and place the smaller bowl (preferably metal) on top of the ice bath. Pour the melted chocolate into the smaller bowl and whisk over ice – the mixture will gradually thicken and take on the appearance of whipped cream, at which point it is ready to serve. Portion it into cups. Mine were not thick enough, so I tried 2 different way to chill it – a slow chill and a fast chill.

For a lighter & softer mousse, put in fridge for at least 2 hours. For a more dense mousse, almost a pots de creme texture – place covered in freezer for 15-30 minutes, then move into fridge to set for 1-2 hours.

What does it mean to be Italian (Un Rital)?

JB — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:00:22 +0000

I’ ll never forget when I was very young, someone asked me if I was French, I said
yes, my Father quickly said, Oh No Battista, you are Italian, don’t ever forget that !
My Grand Mother (La mamma) gave me the best gift of my life, she took me to Italy where I experienced my true Italian culture. The feelings of Love and sharing of families I’d never meet before, how lucky to be born an Italian.
Growing up in a predominately Italian neighborhood in France really kept my roots alive.
All my friends were Italian/Sicilian or at least latin and mad about Food.

Our Home was always filled with family and friends. Saturday night my Aunts & Uncles would start arriving carrying there cakes, salami, liquors, pasta, wine and breads. My Dad would set up his famous Poker table, they would eat Sausage at Midnight, coffee, coffee & more coffee with Grappa of course, they played cards til 3 or 4 AM. I remember my Uncle Al & Aunt Marie leaving and going to 4:00 AM Mass.

Sunday, I awoke to the smells of My Mum Rabbit stew cooking……
Did my Mother ever sleep? She was still in the Kitchen where I saw her the night before. Family would stop-in all day eating my Mothers delicious food. She could feed an Army in minutes. My Mom shared her life Loving Food

Being Italian means you’ll never grow old, your culture keeps you young at heart.

Our Dancing, Singing, visiting our families all around the Country, for Weddings, Retirements and Funerals. Watching our new Italian Generation grow, I Love Being Italian

Jacques, My son.. Dark hair, Olive skin and an italian temper all ready !

Here are their collective thoughts about what it means to be Italian.

People stick to their word. La parole é sagra (the word is blood).
People are generous
Italian men are romantic.
Hospitable with big hearts
Stubborn and proud
Not greedy
Jealous
Outgoing for others and not necessarily for each other
The taste of food is important, lot of pride about how good the food is in Sicily- especially vegetables and fish. Buona forketta (good eating).
People enjoy making things by hand
There is a pride in taking care of the land that was passed down. They enjoy working the land. They pointed out that this is particularly true of Italians.
Things here are changing because of progress
A dowry for daughters is important, and mothers make things by hand for them. They crochet blankets and bedspreads. They particularly like to make something special by hand for first born grandchildren. (When talking to some younger people before this about dowries, they shared that it wasn’t important to them anymore and that they had asked their mothers not to make one for them).
Parents are possessive of their children – mothers of daughters and fathers of sons.
People are also possessive of their ideas.