Daring Bakers: Danish Braid

Danish braid

One summer afternoon, Sara-Piperita goes to her usual Support Group: Anonymous Daring Bakers Challenged With Some Basic Preparation, ADBCWSBP (meetings every end of the month, day vary).
As usually, she meets with her fellow companions (some very skilled!!!), but this time is her turn to step in front of everybody and speak about the dreadful challenge of all…
“Hi, my name is Piperita and I’m puff pastry (and similar) challenged…”
A cheerful “Hi Piperita” comes from the audience…
Then she begin, tears dropping form her eyes, to tell her story…
“My problems with puff pastry began many years ago. Everybody love to make puff pastry. And many people told me that it is so simple that even a child can do it… I never could… I was always too hasty, or too afraid, or the room was too hot, or the pastry simply wouldn’t puff…
I tried many recipes, work it in many ways, but nothing: I simply couldn’t… It has always been one of the big flaws of my life…”
When she finishes, everybody stand up and begin to hug her… She feels sightly relived…
Then Kelly and Ben come up to the group and they begin to explain that they have the perfect recipe for Danish puff pastry. [Danish is slightly different form "normal" puff pastry, as it uses yeast to boost puffness...]
Piperita begins to cry again, mummling: “No, no, I possibly cannot… I even tried Nigella Lawson’s recipe for Danish, where she allegedly says it’s possible to make it with a mixer, with not so many turns and time, but even with that easy peasy recipe, I couldn’t!”
Kelly and Ben try to comfort her, to convince her to give a try…
She finnaly surronder…
Sara- Piperita gave a try to Kelly and Ben Danish pastry…
Sara-Piperita isn’t anymore afraid of Danish pastry or puff pastry!
Sara-Piperita succeded!!!
Now she can concentrate on the rest of her unberable flaws…

Viennoiseries

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The world of wine would be safe forever if everybody would work like…

overview

Marco Sara, a young wine maker from Friuli, one of the eastern region of Italy: he has just 3 acres and he make just 3 wines: Picolit, Mufis and Verduz! One better than the other! My husband, who is a sommelier and he’s acknowledged among our acquaintances as a fierce wine critic, after trying them, said: “Astonishing!” That was a first, I can tell you! Thanks to Filippo Ronco, who told us we should try them!
Marco Sara's wines

Or like Emidio Pepe, a wine maker from Abruzzo, making bio-dynamic wines that will last for ever, like the astonishing Trebbiano d’Abbruzzo 2001 we were lucky enough to have at La rucola in Sirmione: a white that had no problem to cast all its flavors even over roasted lamb.
Emidio Pepe's wines

Or like Villa Corniole and its bronze colored Pinot Gris, made from a maceration on its skins for a few days : a color and a taste that you’ll remember for the rest of your life…
Villa Cornelie's wines

We had the pleasure and the honor to try those and many other wines at Terroir Vino, an interesting fair of wine producers mainly from Italy (but there were two French, and you could feel the different approach with communication: French are, astonishing enough, so nice when they come to wine speech!).
Forget Vinitaly and its Barnum circus: get back to basic! A desk, few bottles of wine, some pieces of Ligurian focaccia, and your glass: that will make your day and your tasting experience!

Day 5 to 6 Meknes and the King

Bab Monsour and Sunset

[Discalimer: I know I came back from Morocco like ages ago, but I know you want to know more about our adventures there ;) and by the way, I'm cooking almost nothing lately, so... :P ]

Leaving Fès, I decide to enter fully in Moroccan life: I bought a newspaper! We consulted our guide on which newspaper we should buy: not too much on the side of the king, not too Muslim, not too rightish… I know: we are crazy! We always look for the local counterpart of Manifesto or Liberation!!! And in French, of course, as neither of us could read Arab…
I anyway ended up with the wrong one (I’m capable of forgetting the title of a newspaper in 10 meters walk), on the side of the king, whom, by the way, is a very cool and good looking person, so it was kind of ok!
And we discover, just 4 minutes before to take the train to Meknes that the king would be there, in Meknes, for the agricultural forum during the same days we would be there! How exiting!!! On paper… Because at the end we just had two glimpses of his car and nothing else…
Back to our trip!
By the time we arrive in Meknes I have the biggest flu of last year: hate Moroccan thermal excursion! So I don’t remember much from the city…
I reckon it as something beautiful, with no too many tourists and all festive for the king…
I think there were some amazing monuments, as usually, but I was sniffing my nose constantly…
There is one thing I remember vividly: the Riad we went to!
Riad Feloussia, and Lionel and Sonia, its owners!
The Riad has only 2 bedrooms, one more beautiful then the other! the restoration of the Riad was undertaken by the owners altogether with Moroccan architects and carpenters, using traditional materials and trying to preserve the original feeling of the place! The bathroom in our room was bigger then our sitting room at home!!!
They even have a terrace looking on the main square: a treat you’ll want to enjoy even under the midday sun!
Uh, something I remember: not far from Meknes lays Volubilis, a Roman archaeological site! Very nice… Very hot and sunny, but very nice!

Volubilis and a French man with an italian hat! ;)

Uh, something else: Christians prisons! Creepy!!!

Christian prisons

Ah, and of course we got lost, somewhere, looking for an exit, but fooling ourselves inside a labyrinth of streets and covered alleys… We really felt inside a scenario of Prince of Persia! (actually I was constantly saying it… ;D)

We ate both on the street (in Meknes they have the best bread we ever tried in Morocco), in restaurants (Le Collier de la Colombe, where we had as a dessert a Pastilla au lait which was AMAZING!!!) and at the Riad.

Pastilla au lait

At the Riad we had the pleasure to eat camel tajine (actually dromedary): kudos Zora, the Moroccan girl who cooked it!!!

For more pictures, here!

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