Holiday Greetings from the Alps

Free photo collage made with Smilebox

Team Delcious and Nonna Genia's Recipes come to life at Bella Baita

Normally what happens at Bella Baita, stays at Bella Baita, but on occasion I share some of our experiences with our guests, with their permission, of course. This holiday season brought us a group of adventuresome, fun loving, food journalists and photographer, from the Netherlands, who collectively work and free lance for the Dutch food magazine Delicious (in Dutch, naturally). Independently, they have a variety of projects on the trot.

Team Delicious plus Fabrizio, minus Suzanne

Their choice of Piedmont for the Christmas holidays reflected their ongoing love of this area's cuisine as they have been here on numerous occasions for work and play, just as they did this time. Merjin Tol, a food editor for Delicious and part of the Dutch convivium of Slow Food and fellow free lance food stylist, Nadia Zerouali have attended the Salone del Gusto on more than one occasion as well as exploring and sampling other Slow Food offerings here in the Piedmont region. Saskia van Osnabrugge, made up the third of this intrepid trio that ventured up to Bella Baita between our record snow storms, testing their mettle by learning how to get the chains on and off of their transports wheels. A bit of tutoring from Fabrizio and they soon got it down to a fine art. The spark plug in the group was Tariq, Nadia's son who kept everyone smiling and on track. No communication problems there, as he spoke Dutch to us and we spoke English with him and in the end we got there. Part of the holiday they were joined by the delightful Suzanne, another food editor for the mouth watering Delicious magazine. What a line up of talent.
They brought along a copy of the Christmas Delicious edition that featured their visually appealing collaboration with free lance food photographer extraordinaire, Saskia van Osnabrugge, that will have you running right out to buy up all the winter vegetables you can find. Check out Saskia's web site for a sample of her work that will tantalize you to discover more of her work. Merjin and Nadia's sites are in progress, but if you can read Dutch and love Arabic food, then I recommend that you run, not walk, out and purchase a copy of "Arabia", the recently published cook book that Merjin and Nadia's labor of love has produced, along with the gorgeous photography of another of their collaborators, Sven Benjamins, who did not make this trip, but, perhaps next time.

This intoxicating gorgeous cook book, come travel diary, will be a delight to their fans through the Delicious magazine. Fortunately/unfortunately, for me it has only been published in Dutch at the moment. Why fortunate you ask?, because I have had a quasi moratorium on cook book purchases, since I started working and living away from the US. It has been a hard habit to shake, because I love and lust after, beautifully photographed cook books that have wonderful stories to accompany the recipes. You guessed it, this one has all of those elements and whimsical illustrations that ties together this into a must have cook book package. If you have any Dutch friends that love Arabic food, then direct them to this book pronto! I, of course, will undoubtedly be breaking that quasi moratorium, as soon as the English version hits the shelves, and it sounds like that is already in the works. Merjin and Nadia cooked and ate their way thought out the middle east, southern Spain and Sicily with a variety of local experts. Now that I have spent a few days and meals with them I can only imagine what fun it must have been. They have a passion for real food made by real people and an elegantly simple style of presentation that will have you wiping the drool off your book.

Piedmont has been fertile ground for all of them and their foodie adventures, also known as work. This time was no different as they worked on a free lance project for one of my old favorites, the American cooking magazine, Saveur, in between skiing up at Sestriere.

They were working on developing some updated recipes based on recipes from a local cook book from the Langhe region, that I was not familiar with before, called, Nonna Genia.
This classic Langhe cook book is a combination tribute to the authors grandmother's cooking with some additional recipes by chefs of "Stelle del Piemonte" and to the trattoria by the same name in Grinzane Cavour, which I am assuming is run by this family. It is a classic collection of Piemontese recipes and indeed worth tracking down, now that it has been translated into English. It is available in Italian or English from here from in Italy from the Asti library or from Alta Cucina Inc in the US.

Working out in our guest kitchen

Team Delicious cooked up a storm, in our modest guest kitchen, while the snow fell on Christmas day. That kitchen had never seen such activity, even when we have taught some of our cooking classes there over the years. Merjin and Nadia made their interpretation of the books "Polenta with Cabbage" as more of a hearty soup and the "Pear Martine Tart" with the added attraction of on old fashion type of cherry to add another dimension to this delightful polenta based tart.

Saskia plying her craft

How do I know you ask? Well, we all gathered together in our more spacious dining room after they braved the elements and put Saskia through her paces getting just the right angle and backdrop of our neighbors old baita to raise these dishes up to new heights of deliciousness, to share a fine Christmas repast!

Women at work

In spite of braving the elements or because of, the soup tasted heartily wonderful, even with the unintended element of smoky flavor that our pans lent to the dish, as the guests kitchen utensils were not really the best for making a perfect polenta soup. I actually really liked that aspect and even incorporated it into my interpretation of this dish recently. I'll be sharing my results and tweaks on these recipes here in the next couple of days. Do come back as I think you'll find the results worth a try out as an addition to your own winter repertoire of comfort foods.

Merry White Christmas to All!

It's snowing again and the snow is starting to pile up, so we're having a white Christmas here at Serre Marchetto. We wish you a peaceful and memorable 12 days of Christmas!

I've left you some cookies to tide you over till I find the time to do some more posting, and my Pan d'Oro that turned out pretty nice. My in laws thought so a well.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a great close up shot of it's best side, so you'll just have to imagine it. I adapted an old recipe by Paula Peck and the recipe from the label of my pan. I was pleased with the results. We'll see how the Pannetone turned out tonight. A tiny bit more tweaking for next time. Which I think might be for New Years with some fresh ice cream to go inside. Hmmm...

Buone Feste!!!!!

Holiday Festivities

It was my kind of Christmas visit and celebration this past week. We had old friends visiting from halfway around the world and made some new friends as well. We did a bit of sightseeing, to Monviso, which is not only the highest peak in our range of the alps, but also is the headwaters of the Po river, longest river in Italy. We enjoy taking our friends and family to our off the beaten path places that we love. Pian della Regina, is at the end of the road past Crissolo, and sets under the very impressive face of Monviso, 3,841 m (12,600) I love this mountain as it is such a presence in our landscape and is an imposing monolith that stands out in a crowd of mountains. Fabrizio spent a winter season there, years ago, running their on mountain "baita" operation, and has been treated as part of their family ever since. I am part of that extended family and we always find a warm welcome when we visit their "Baita della Polenta", restaurant/rooms and refugio, all rolled into one. The area is a bit past it's winter heyday when the small ski area used to really pull them in from Torino and beyond, but the lifts have aged and the family no longer has the will or resources to replace the lift that started just outside their door. It's a shame, as it is a stunning place and a fun hillside to do a few turns down. They still have a lift in town that runs on the weekends and they hosted the world mountaineering championships a couple of years back. Summer is still hopping with backpackers of all nationalities and mountaineers, making their way across the GTA, which is a famous footpath crossing the length of the entire European alps, and a popular trek in the summer. We love taking people over there as it is a regional park, a stunning drive, and a charming stop at the top of it all with warm friendly people there to look after you. Very worth while place to make the effort to experience, indeed.

Continuing on our winter tour of the valley we spent one day skiing Sestriere with our friends in slightly overcast weather, but otherwise pleasant conditions for skiing.

What a treat to go skiing. Christmas Day we got up at a reasonable hour, had breakfast and off we went to Prali on a gorgeous sunny day. The conditions were good, the sun was out and all was well in our world. We ripped it up all day and then came home for a feast fit for the occasion. Good wine, good food, good friends and family. Who could ask for more.

Both of the ski areas are fun and deserve more of a proper write up, so I think I'll save that for another day in the new year, when I'm up for writing more about these places, Prali especially, as it fits into my off the beaten trail and hidden gems catergories. Something to share, in the future, especially as I have a few more photos to trot out.

Happy New Year to all!

Tis the season for Exchanges and Giving

Pasta di Meliga Biscotti
Cornmeal Cookies

I have been thinking about a get together that I shared with some girlfriends back in Colorado lately, the annual cookie exchange. My dear friend and colleague, Nancy use to organize it and put on the do at her house. It was a fun get together that sort of grew out of the other fun event she organized, the Women's annual hut trip. The hut trip was a back country ski trip into the Colorado Rockies to a remote trip to eat, drink wine and telemark around the hut, weather and avalanche permitting and a whole lot of gabbing going on. It was a great adventure every year and one I miss. The cookie exchange became another annual event that was also in the genre of eating, drinking wine and gabbing, but this one everyone brought their favorite home made cookies and exchanged them, making a nice selection for over the holidays when you had friends and families around with a nice variety without having to make all the different varieties. There was a catch of course, as one of our friends can attest to. If the invitee list was 12 women, then that meant that you needed to make 12 dozen cookies of the same variety, so that everyone got a dozen from each of the 11 other attendees. Sounds easy until you realize that 12 dozen cookies is a lot of ingredients and work too. One friend, who still hasn't heard the end of it, and didn't quite comprehend the fact that you needed 12 dozen cookies. She brought her 1 dozen, so everyone got one cookie from her batch, teased her unmercifully and a good laugh that year and a few other years as well. I hope you're reading and laughing along with me this year Miz "moore chardonnay".
So the years have passed and many of the friends that use to participate have moved away and so the cookie exchange that then turned into the food exchange ceased to exist except for in my mind. I wrote about it in passing last year and thought how I would like to do something for this year virtually. Then of course, life happened and I am down to the wire without getting it together. I still want to do something in honor of such a fun event and my friend that started it all, Nancy Feely. Nancy is now working with Habitat for Humanity Jordan

I thought it would be nice to have a Food and Charity exchange in her honor this year as she and her husband are coming to spend Christmas with us. They're meeting in the middle from opposite arts of the world to share the holidays here in Italy.
Naturally, I'm getting this off the ground, (that is if it even flies) late, but I say better late than never and at least i'll hopfully be in gear to bring it around next year earlier and better.
The idea is to have a virtual Cookie/food exchange here with a favorite recipe of your choice, be it a family favorite cookie or some special treat for the holidays and a mention and link to one of your favorite charities. I always especially enjoy Italian treats. Even if you don't have a blog, I will publish your exchange gift and charity here. The food gift doesn't have to be a cookie recipe, it can be any sort of festive food, quick breads, jarred treats, my friend use to give out the best cranberry chutney. Oh how I miss cranberries here in Italy. Anyway, you get the drift. I know it's last minute and I don't mind if it's just a few particcipnts, it's still a good time to put up something for the holidays and and mention your favoritie charity. A time for sharing. Can'tfind the time to participate? There is always next year. There are lots of other holiday events happening so I know it's tough to do everything. One worth mentioning is
Menu for HopeIV which started out raising money for the Asia tsunami victims 4 years ago and this year is putting the money towards the school lunch program in Lesotho, South Africa, so if you have the time, check it out and maybe bid on something that suits you. Jeni from the Passionate Palate wrote a nice piece on ideas for gift giving and charities also.
If you have the time submit something.

Here's how to participate:
1. Post on your blog before 18th of this month about something you like to make and share for Christmas and a favorite charity link.
2. Take a picture of the dish and send me a smallish photo, 100x 100 photo of it.
3. Add a link to Bella Baita View.
4. Please send an email to Info@bellabaita.com
5.and enjoy your holidays this year.
I hope to have the round up on the 20th or 21st.

Pasta Meliga Or Cornmeal Cookies

These are a Piedmont favorite. Rich buttery melt in your mouth treats and hence they are a bit fragile. They are normally made with one of those cookie guns that means you can have quite a stiff dough to keep the shape of the cookie. I don't have one of those, so I use a pastry bag with a star tip which works pretty well, but your hand will get sore squeezing these out. Mine don't hold their shape as well as they should and I think they could use with a touch more flour, especially as I am at a slight elevation (3,300 ft) and I do think that makes a difference. Those of you in the high country need to definitely add more flour.

300 g durum flour (pasta flour or all purpose) flour if you don't have access to durum
50 g more flour if you are baking at a high altitude
100g cornmeal, a good quality brand that is coarse without being grainy is a good choice. Coarse polenta is not a good choice as it will be gritty and sticks in your teeth.
300 g butter room temperature
200 g sugar
2 egg yolks
grated lemon peel, about 1/2 lemon

Whip the butter and sugar till fluffy
Add the egg yolks and grated lemon peel and blend thoroughly
Thotroughly mix in the flours.
Pipe out the dough while the butter is still room temperature.

Bake in a 350*F/ 190*C till light brown. they shouldn't pick up a lot of color
I bake in a convection oen , so they bake quite quickly, usually not taking more than 10 minutes, max.

La Befana has arrived!

Christmas holidays have been over for a week now in the states, but here in Europe I have always been surprised about the tradition of leaving up the decorations until the 6th of January, or 12th night. The British told me it was bad luck to leave the decorations up after the 6th, the Austrians had the local priest come thru on the 6th, burning frankincense throughout the house and applying a brand new chalk mark of the 3 wise men's initials above the front door to bless the house for the year and the Italians have witches everywhere and lots of candy and little gifts for the children today and all the grocery stores and banks and such are shut shut shut.

So when I asked Fabrizio what La Befana means to him, he says that if you're good you get chocolate and small gifts, but if you're bad you get coal.
So we both got a bit of chocolate today!
He also said that she's mean, so she takes Christmas away with her. Hence the tradition of taking down the Christmas decorations on the 6th, is away with Befana (which looks a bit like a derivative of the world epiphany)

Here's an excerpt from "Christmas in Abruzzo" about Befana and another by the About site. Fabrizio sang me the little ditty when he saw that I had included it. It seems to be a childhood rhyme. And tomorrow, well...it's back to work for everyone and the yuletide season is over and put to bed for another year, Bye bye Befana!

The Befana

(Italian) La Befana vien di notte con le scarpe tutte rotte col vestito alla "romana" viva viva la Befana !! Porta cenere e carboni ai bambini cattivoni ai bambini belli e buoni porta chicchi e tanti doni !

(English) The Befana comes by night With her shoes all broken With a dress in Roman style Up, up with the Befana !! She brings ashes and coal To bad nasty children To the nice good child She brings candies and many gifts !

"What we nowadays call the Befana is an image coming from immemorial layers of cultures and symbols. On the one side was the Christian tradition of the Epiphany, the first "revelation" of Christ as man and God to the Magi who came with gifts for the Messiah. On the other side were the many folk and pagan traditions connected to the New Year, and to the twelve days following the winter solstice which in the centuries came to be superimposed on the Christian Christmas cycle.

The name Befana appeared historically for the first time in writing in a poem by Agnolo Firenzuola in 1549. She is portrayed like an old ugly woman, dressed in dark rags who during the night between 5th and 6th January flies over the houses riding her broom and entering through the chimneys (in modern apartments through a keyhole). Into the socks that children left hanging near the fireplace she leaves candies and gifts for good children, black coal (actually black sugar today), garlic and onions to the bad ones. Parents of course would always include some coal over the gifts, to cheat their children. And the night before the family leaves some wine and cakes for the old lady."

Another version from About:Italian Language

"La Befana: Kindly old witch who brings children toys on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. According to the legend of la Befana, the Three Wise Men stopped at her hut to ask directions on their way to Bethlehem and to invite her to join them. She refused, and later a shepherd asked her to join him in paying respect to the Christ Child. Again she refused, and when night fell she saw a great light in the skies.

La Befana thought perhaps she should have gone with the Three Wise Men, so she gathered some toys that had belonged to her own child, who had died, and ran to find the kings and the shepherd. But la Befana could not find them or the stable. Now, each year she looks for the Christ Child. Since she can not find him, she leaves gifts for the children of Italy and pieces of coal (nowadays carbone dolce, a rock candy that looks remarkably like coal) for the bad ones."

New Year, New Adventures and most of all New People!

This past year has been quite a memorable one for a variety of reasons. Fabrizio and I came back here to the Italian alps in 2002 to live in his family home that his family built. With the 2006 Winter Olympics as a driving force to return and start the B&B where formerly there had only been the family restaurant, now retired and passed on to someone else, we arrived to try to breathe new life into Serre Marchetto. We have met multi faceted challenges along the way to try and transform the family business into something that stimulates our interests and supports us in a way that plays to our strengths and resourceful creativity. 2006 has proved our efforts has been worthy. Our business has started to take off and lead us in directions that were mere ideas that are now starting to take shape and legs. We have met so many people especially this past year between the run up to the Olympics and a steady stream of visitors since, from all over the world. To say that Fabrizio's parents, friends and neighbors have been surprised to have so many different countries find their way here is putting it mildly. Actually so are we!
As one of our guests put it, the internet works. Which brings me to to the original point of this blog, which was to send some cookies to some people I have "met" on the internet. What an incredible experience to have virtual friends as well as live guests too. Keeps me busy trying to keep up. I'm still a bit new and amazed by the world of the internet having only started using a computer when I started working in Europe a few years ago and wanted to try and stay in contact with my family in the states. I have met so many incredibly accomplished and inspiring, ordinary people, whose passionate lives and writing border on extraordinary. So much that I find it's hard to get some of the things I need to get done sometimes, as I am drawn into other peoples lives and expertise in my desire to discover more and more and more. I'm sure many of you must feel the similarly? Perhaps being an ex pat and struggling thru rapid Italian and Piemontese conversations all the time, I am even more drawn to the fountain of the internet.
Anyway, along the way I have discovered an amazing group of ever expanding food bloggers and a quite diverse network of people with an incredible depth of interest and expertize thru My Blog Log.
I felt compelled to send some cookies to a few people that have shown an interest about what I'm doing for a variety of reasons. A fellow expat here in Italy has been decorating Ginger people in her native Hawaii for a few weeks for the holiday season. Rubber Slippers in Italy
She has some great stories and amazing food. Particularly inpressed with her Sardian ravioli amongst many. Lora of the Power of Trinity asked me which cookies I made and so the picture above depicts a few of the ones that I have pared down the list to this year. Josh of The HOV Lane mentioned that he might like to stop by and have a few cookies if his tour included the Alps. Perhaps when gets thru all 50 states, he'll hop the pond and visit with us over here.
For many years when I worked for the ski resort of Copper Mountain in Colorado, my colleagues and I use to make hundreds of cookies for the holiday season. My particular favorite time of the baking year is the yule time, even though it was the busiest time. We made ginger houses for various units around the village and many various cut out cookies with little bags of colored frosting, sprinkles and draggees for the village and visitor children's cookie decorating party hosted by Copper Village. Most personally satisfying, was the employee party where our cookies were a prominent feature and always a topic of conversation later on. I still am unable to resist having a few decorated cut out cookies around every year. Also on the pictured plate are the traditional Butter balls, which go by many names, a pasta frolla coin, and Hazelnut sables. Missing from the line up are a few of my favorites, like occhio di bui (Ox eyes), local Baci Dama(lady kisses), linzer hearts, stain glass cookies, and English toffee bars just to name a few. Perusing some of those food blogs I keep mentioning, they had a lot of great ideas that I think might become my new favorites. I always try to have some type of cookie here as we have a fair amount of guests stop in and it's nice to have a home made cookie to go with that expresso or tea when the time comes. One other thing I miss, that I hope to some day start up here, is the cookie exchange. One of my dear friends use to have us over for a girls night and usually we kept it to 12 women. Everyone brought 12 dozen of one type of their current favorite cookie separated into 12 plates. So that everyone left with 12 different kinds of cookies. You sometimes found some new favorites and didn't have to make so many different ones yourself. That worked for a few years until everyone decided that many cookies were sometimes too much, so they then it turned into a food exchange and all sorts of interesting things got exchanged. One of my personal favorites was cranberry chutney. So there's an idea for you next year to have a bit of fun with. Perhaps I'll have a go on the internet with some of the food bloggers and see how that goes. In the mean time, new year, new adventures and always a reason to come to Italy and visit with us in the alps .....
Blessed Be to all of you known and all of you that I've yet to meet.
Marla (aka Pasticciera)

Have A Merry Merry

We're having a great time here in the alps for Christmas. We are anticipating our far flung guests with lots of preparation for food, drink, decorations and general merriment. I hope all of you will have a wonderful holiday and that the real Santa and his helpers find their way to your home.
If you find you're looking for an Italian Christmas in the Alps, we hope you'll consider visiting with us here at Bella Baita Mountain Retreat, your home sweet home away from home, and base for discovering Piedmont's mountain charm!

Last Minute Giving Idea

Down for the count till the holiday officially begins. Inundated with lots of requests for money for this or that or so many to buy for. Honestly It seems to me that a few small meaningful or useful gifts amongst the immediate family and friends is quite enough. Of course with children it's always fun to see the excitement of "children's faces looking up holding wonder like a cup...". that is of course before they get older and jaded. Sigh...
My suggestion for Christmas or any other time of the year is a great gift giving idea from some folks in Portland Oregon. They are called mercy kits from Mercy Corps and for as little as $35 you can give a struggling family a selection of seeds for a family garden or for a bit more a goat for a gift that continues to give year after year. These kits are useful and tailored to all parts of the world, the US included and embrace many ways of enabling people to help themselves. There are other gifts that you can purchase, where your recipient will receive a wreath or easter flower basket or some other lovely and thoughtful gift, where part of the purchase price goes to the many varied projects that Mercy Corps have implemented. Rebuilding kits for Katrina, children's food kits, rain forest kit, just to name a few. Book mark their site and think about a meaningful and generous gift throughout the year that will not only bless the giver and the receiver, but connects you in a way that isn't easily forgotten.
My wish for all of you is health and contentment.
"I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting."

Cheers!