26/06/2013

Sighs of Love

In the Amalfitana Coast, in southern Italy, there is a small pastry boutique with a hundred years of history. A century ago the owner of the place invented the Sigh, a little dessert to eat all in one bite. In a Sigh there are all the flavors of the sun and the sea, the beautiful coastline and its inhabitants. If you want to make a declaration of love to a woman, you have to give her a Sigh and you will be certain to have her love. It takes twenty minutes to prepare a single Sigh. Once cooked, the dough must then be manually filled with lemon cream, then soaked in lemon liqueur to finally be coated with frosting. But once ready, if you have the fortune to try one, you will experience that wonderful burst of flavor explode in your mouth. Pure love! For this reason it is called Sigh: this is what happens every time you eat one, like when you sigh thinking of the person you love.







Stefano Tripodi 
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11/06/2013

Anchovies of the Mediterranean Sea

There is a small seaside town in southern Italy, a few kilometers after the town of Salerno, where for hundreds of years the locals produce Colatura di Alici (anchovies juice). The town is called Cetara, it’s beautiful and fragile, embraced by mountains and bathed by the Mediterranean sea.

The monks who lived there began to extract the juice of salted anchovies and to store it in wooden barrels. Today the locals are doing the same in small workshops. The Colatura is a precious condiment that can be used with pasta or on bread or in salads. The anchovies are put in wooden barrels covered with the salt of Trapani (in Sicily) and then matured for years. The result is this precious nectar that you should definitely try. Unfortunately for the foreigners, you can get this pale yellow culinary jewel only by visiting their shop on location. But it’s worth the travel.








Stefano Tripodi 
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28/05/2013

The Man And the Sea

There’s a small and beautiful region in Italy between the end of Campania and the beginning of Basilicata called Cilento. The sea is salty and wild and the men are living on their own, looking at the sky with glazed eyes. Saverio is one of these men. In the morning he goes down the mountain to a small beach, through the familiar trails. The water is emerald green and the wind is blowing through all the little yellow flowers. Saverio takes his old motor boat and reaches the small harbor of Scario. The boat collects a handful of people and brings them on his small beach. There are few rules: speak with a whisper, no music, no phones, only the silence broken by the sound of the sea.


Saverio offers cold cuts and cheese produced in the mountain village of San Giovanni a Piro. Wine is home made, it’s a kind of a red sparkling wine, very fresh and sweet. The bread is soft with a great crust baked in a wood oven; special, because it remains soft for days. But the most wonderful specialty are the small sweet marzipans garnished with candied orange peels, that Saverio’s wife prepares every week for their guests. We were lucky enough to discover this distant corner of paradise. You have to know how to listen and keep your ears open down to the harbor to know when Saverio will come back to pick up another group of people to give them half a day of serenity.








Stefano Tripodi 
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23/05/2013

In a Beautiful Place

We are in the southern Italy. Near Naples, between the mountains of Positano and Sorrento, live many households who work the land and produce everything in-house. They spend their lives on these clods of earth above the sea without cars, internet or television. Their greatest reward, every day, is the landscape, clean air, amazing food and simple nature. We went to visit them, going up the mountain for hours before discovering their homes. From there you can branch out several paths leading from the mountains to the sea.

Salvatore cultivates the ground and his wife is in the kitchen preparing canned legumes. The work is tiring and the days very long, but the life here has a completely other kind of value. We ate sitting on the ground and Salvatore showed us their products. Grapes in anise-flavored liqueur, tomatoes dried in the wind and in the dark, wild garlic and bread buns wheat. We ate a wonderful eggplant parmigiana, washed down with white wine, falling afterwards asleep under a lemon tree.







Stefano Tripodi 
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27/03/2013

A Delightful Break

A Delightful Break

On a rainy day in Milan we had the desire to sink in a comfortable armchair in a warm and cozy lounge. We like the rain in the end of winter, it’s nice to look at, while drinking cherry juice or hot tea. In the center of the city, in an old house used as a location for photo and movie shoots, we improvised a really nice and tasty coffee break.

A traditional Saint Honoré gave us the warmth we had lost, tender and fragrant, incredibly good, with its vanilla aftertaste. On the second outfit we tasted a wonderful cheesecake with strawberry jam, a couple of cupcakes with maple syrup and nuts, and cookies with cinnamon, ginger and raisins. To accompany worthily we thought of a pomegranate tea. Here’s what you can do when the sun does not want to come out. The food is very therapeutic at times, rich flavors and a full belly helps us see things in a different way. And when it comes to sweets, we are right on track.




Stefano Tripodi

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