Invitation - Restaurant Day

A try-out for the apple-pie / Una prova per fare la torta

(Per l'italiano, vai giù)

On Sunday the 16th of February I will be a participant of the European Restaurant Day. As Food in the Streets I open my house to everyone who feels like eating a piece of delicious apple pie (with wipped-cream, if you like) and a cup of coffee or tea.

Restaurant Day is organized four times a year in 30 different European countries spread over almost 200 cities. As explained on the website it is

"....a food carnival created by thousands of people organizing and visiting one-day restaurants worldwide. The idea of the day is to have fun, share new food experiences and enjoy our common living environments together. "

Every restaurant is free to choose what to serve (breakfast, lunch, aperitivo, etc) and to ask a compensation from the guests.

This time Food in the Streets offers a so called merenda (from 16 to 18 o'clock) for which I ask a donation of five euros per person to cover the costs. While you are enjoying the pie we can have a chat about the projects I am doing here in Milan, for example the soon to be launced Old Milano Food Tour.

Don't forget to sign-up so that I can send you all the details foodinthestreets [at] gmail. [dot] com
Stay tuned for updates by following Food in the Streets on Facebook.

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La domenica 16 febbraio parteciperò al Restaurant Day. Come Food in the Streets aprirò la casa mia  a tutti colori che hanno voglia di godersi una fetta di torta di mele (con panna montata a piacere) e una tazza di caffè o te caldo.

Restaurant Day è un evento organizzato quattro volte al anno. Si svolge in 30 paese Europe, in circa 200 città. Come spiegano sul sito:

"Il Giorno del Ristorante è un carnevale culinario formato dalle migliaia di persone che organizzano o che vanno a mangiare in uno dei ristoranti che nascono in tutto il mondo per un giorno soltanto. L’idea è quella di divertirsi, condividere nuove esperienze culinarie e godere insieme agli altri degli spazi in cui viviamo la nostra quotidianità. L’evento è facilitato da un gruppo di volontari che, tra le altre cose, mantengono questo sito. Ogni ristoratore è personalmente responsabile di tutte le azioni legate alla gestione del proprio ristorante."

Ogni ristoratore è libero di scegliere quello che voglia offrire (colazione, pranzo, aperitivo, ecc.) e decidere di chiedere un'offerta dei visitatori.

Questa volta Food in the Streets offrirà una merenda (dalle h16 alle h18) per quale chiedo una offerta di cinque euro a testa per coprire le spese. Mentre tu stai godendo la torta possiamo chiacchierare sui progetti che sto facendo qui a Milano, per esempio il Old Milano Food Tour, che presenterò presto al pubblico.

Se vuoi venire a case mia per goderti una merenda speciale ti chiedo di avvisarmi tramite mail. Poi ti manderò tutti i dettagli per arrivare a casa mia foodinthestreets [at] gmail. [dot] com

Per rimanere aggiornata, segui Food in the Streets sulla pagina di Facebook.

Surprising contradistinctions

To all the farmers (and non): Visit the blog from Titi to find a simple, delicious and nutricious recipe

As I recently posted on my facebook page their might be a big gap between ‘urbans’ that spent most of their free time to get real food and the eating habits of nowadays farmers  - the producers of that food. To me this is a subject I had never thought about before, so I decided to dedicate a blog on this theme. I promise you to reveal some interesting facts.

For me, and probably also for you, a farmer is a healthy man or woman, strong, sun-tanned with red cheeks because of all the hard work in the outside air. Maybe this idea is too romantic in times where most farms look more like a factory than a place where animals and plants grow. But it is just an image I cannot get rid of.

A research on the future Common Agricultural Policy (executed under the commission of Slow Food Youth Network) taught me that the life of most farmers is not as idyllic as I wanted to believe. Most farmers still have to work very hard even though now there are machines that make the profession much easier compared to the situation less than a century ago. However, now other facts cause the workload, among others evoked by the (European) regulations and the powerful retailers that force the farmers to agree on prices that hardly cover their expenses. In the end it comes down to less staff but more work for those who may stay.

Since almost a decennium, we Europeans can get an inside in every day’s farm life thanks to a very popular television program that helps farmers to find a partner for life. I have skipped a few seasons but the new concept convinced me to turn on the television once a week again.

The most appealing part of the program is the part in which the potential partners visit the farm for a one or more days stay-over. This is where you get to know the real farmer and – more important - get an insight in what it means to manage a farm. In most cases, it means having your first coffee break when other people have breakfast, being hungry like an animal during lunch and hope to be able to stay awake to get your diner and dishes done. And that’s not even peak season!

Because of the busy lives of most farmers and the strong possibility of unexpected events (crops that need to be harvested before a rain storm, baby-animals that are born at a time they feel like it) the modern farmers find it difficult to have regular and healthy eating habits. Therefore, he (or she) often has to rely on the food that does not take time to prepare, is edible also while working and gives sufficient energy to stay up until the next possibility to have a break. Unfortunately, this often means fast food, high in fat and sugars and not very nutrient in the long term. A bad habit that is completely against the way we ‘urban people’ try to eat.

To end with some good news, there are already farmers that where inventive enough to find solutions to this everlasting problem. The same research that inspired me to write this blog, also discusses some of the simple but effective approaches to this problem: CSA members could fill-in their volunteering hours as cook or farmers introduce of a kitchen police for the staff. Simple solutions that have effective results.

If all that is not going to work, he can always use the heat of his machines to prepare the most recent harvest. Isn’t that how we all dream farm life should be?

Learning the hard way

It all seems very luxurous, but by using fresh and local products the cook created a delicous but economic lunch

Last week I told you about the difficulties I sometimes have when deciding what product to buy in the supermarket. A lack of transparency and confusing information might does not make it easier to choose the right product. This week I will deal with another question: the restaurant.

Some people just go out of their homes and enter a place at the moment they get hungry. For them it does not really matter where they end up, as long as the prices and looks of the location suit them. Others cannot go out without their smartphone, acting like the crystal ball giving an answer to all your questions. In case a smartphone lacks, a preparative internet search might offer the same results: finding the best restaurant available for a certain price and quality.

I can be a bit of both. Sometimes I simply trust my intuition and hop in a place that looks good and offers a menu for a price that seems worth the quality of the products and service offered. But often, especially after some negative experiences, I really want to be sure that I am going to spend my money well and then a visit to a restaurant is preceded by a long internet search. Sometimes successful, sometimes not.

You would expect that in Italy it is easy to find a good restaurant. But nothing is more true than that, especially not in the more touristic locations, which aren’t always avoidable. The general rule is the simpler a place looks, the busier it is and so the food is good. But these rules have many exceptions: it might be cheap food with a similar quality, it might be very salty (to compensate for the missing flavours), it might be expensive food with a cheap quality, etc. So attention is needed even here.

During the last months I had some reasons to go out for lunch or dinner. Most times I was prepared and decided up front where to go or brought a list of good options based on the opinions expressed on the internet. Visiting sites that host reviews of restaurants and the like might be useful but it can also be really confusing. If after five positive reviews someone is negative about something that is important for me, I might decide not to go there. Poor man who owns the restaurant, because this is only based on a single impression by someone I don’t even know.

I unfortunately (?) have found out that the price isn’t always a good indicator for the quality of the food. Some weeks ago I enjoyed a very good three course lunch menu including wine, water and coffee paying only 10 euros a person! It was an incredible but positive surprise after eating such a delicious lunch made with love, and local, seasonal products. While actually it is just this simplicity that makes it cheap: a small choice of dishes (2 starters, 2 mains) and the use of products that are from close by and in abundance. No waste, no transport costs and fresh quality. But at the same time it might happen that you spend twice as much for a much less convincing experience. And that is where I get upset.

In my opinion, someone who decides to run a restaurant or works as a chef should only want one thing: give his guests a good meal. He has off course the right to make some money out of it, but he should not do that on the expenses of the costumer. Personally, I rather pay fifteen euros for a good quality lunch than ten euros for something that gets its flavour from the salt added. 

However, the choices I am making will remain difficult. Each day again I learn from the consequences of the decisions I made. Maybe someday it will be easy, maybe not.   

To choose (or rather: make decisions)

It looks all very attractive, but what to choose?

As someone who made its profession of talking and thinking about food, it is often difficult to make decisions regarding to this topic. While buying groceries at the supermarket, choosing what to have for breakfast at my favourite pasticceria or when deciding which restaurant to enter. At some moments I find it really difficult what I should use as indicator that can help me to make these decisions: is it the look, the price or should I choose that what I’m used to take?

It might be my sign (I am a Libra) but I have these doubts almost daily. At the supermarket I can spend minutes in front of the shelf filled with tomato sauce, wondering what is the difference between one product and the other. I am even capable of choosing one, but changing it for another one after another round in the shop. Why is there such a big price difference between one container and the other? Off course I don’t like to pay a price which doesn’t even cover the production costs, but who can give me the guarantee that the more expensive products mean also an honest price to the ones who did the hardest work on it?

It doesn’t help that I often watch documentaries or movies (like this one, in Dutch) digging into the real story behind our daily food. The package can give some hint on the contents (“prepared only with Italian grown tomatoes” or “less salt”) but that might only be done to confuse you. Even if the label tells you that the tomatoes are grown close by home it does not say where they were processed. Further research might show that your local tomatoes have gone a long way before arriving in your kitchen.

Some people say that similar products from different brands ‘come out of the same factory’. That might in fact be true. However that does not mean that the same production process is used for the product from brand A as well as that of the same type of product from brand B. The quality of the product usually is linked to the price, so if a commissioner pays a low price to the manufacturer he has to compensate for the flavour with cheaper ingredients. Have you ever compared the amount of salt per 100 grams between a bag of potato chips of four euros a kilo and one that costs twice as much?

However, the choices made in a supermarket are relatively controllable. You can check the labels on contents and usually the country of origin of the product (check the barcode to understand how this works) and if you are really curious check the website of the producer to understand their values and the company’s approach to for example sustainability, the treatment of their staff and other things that matter to you. But how to do this when you are to eat out of your own house?

Visit this blog next week and I will tell you more about this.