Never as current as today will be our “motto” for the year 2021.

The 2020s led to many reflections on our way of living and thinking. I wish it was for her too!
May everyone’s small steps forward become great successes all over the world!

I do not know how you feel, but I have a good 4 kg to dispose of and moreover the Christmas binges make me feel like a ball. So I decided it was time for a healthy purification. I’ll get the best out of our mythical “Mediterranean diet”, which the whole world envies us and off we go. Raw vegetables, steamed vegetables, baked vegetables … as long as there are many vegetables to accompany the first for lunch and the second for dinner! For fruit I am a bit lazy in winter, I limit myself to fuji apples to munch on or baked with lots of cinnamon, or baked pears with melted dark chocolate on top (diet does not mean giving up, but eating less and quality) and kiwis ripe split in half and eaten with a spoon.

After a long restorative break, with chat, laughter, board games that animate the table, we arrive at the last dish of lunch: the dessert.

Here we give the best of us, every year a different dessert to try, a patient search for delicate recipes but at the same time of character. So far we have ranged from parfaits to cheesecakes from Sacher Torte to tiramisu, from pavlova to Mont Blanc. Great satisfactions but also small failures, there is, I always say to myself “those who do not create do not make trouble”.

This year to cheer us up a bit we opted for a trio:

shortcrust biscuits, almonds, dark chocolate

cream puffs with three creams

Tiramisu With pistachios

Oh I forgot! Obviously the super classic mascarpone cream to accompany the warm slice of panettone never fails!

Let’s move on to the explanation of the second dish. As we devourers of appetizers, we gladly leave the first in the evening, perhaps with a good hot meat broth, choosing lovingly handmade ravioli. Who knows maybe my son Tommaso will want to participate this year too, offering us his hats, taught him by his prof chef just this week!

So after the abundant appetizers as I said, the family is preparing to savor a second.

Fresh, light, fish never weighs down, on the contrary, cooked in this way it is appreciated even more.

The Christmas lunch for our family is always a moment of sharing where every family gets involved and tries out new recipes but woe to touch the cornerstones of tradition!

This is why we would like to share with you a super traditional menu that this year reminds us even more of our bond, the red thread that will follow us throughout our life and that will run through our family tree for endless generations. From the faithful recipe of the eldest person in the family like our great-grandmother’s Russian salad to shortbread cookies covered with a delicate royal icing made by the little ones, both fragile at this moment but with a great desire to live!

This week I will offer you the appetizers:

shrimp in pink sauce

Russian salad

Octopus salad

tuna pate

croutons with butter and salmon

For the first three recipes I have deepened sharing our preparations, you will find them by clicking on the photos.

Giuseppe Ungaretti

May is the fifth month of the year according the Gregorian calendar.
The name “may” derived from latin divinity Maia, goddess of abundance, fertility and awakening of nature. However according to the Christian culture, may is the month of the Virgin Mary.
In its early days there are also two important festivities: one dedicated to workers (1 may) and one dedicated to mums (10 may).

So for this month I would like to dedicate you three citations: one for nature, one for mums and one for Virgin Mary.
They are citations that close to form a ring.
This ring rapresents for me the union, loyalty, respect and the hope of a life that let it be our mother earth or the person who brought us into the world or “ the love” who waits us to our death.