Turin Lights and a Bicherin to Ring in the New Year

Today is one of those blustery kind of days, where all you want to do is burrow in a cozy spot with a good read. I find that a special coffee drink can do wonders to elevate the mood. These short days of winter can leave you longing for  a bit of color and merriment and it seems like this long holiday period this time of year is  in fact a time of lights and merriment and feasting on all of the wonderful foods that have been put away for this very time of the year. The harvest and  hard chores are done for now and so, why not a bit of holiday cheer? One of my favorite ways to dispel the mood and bring a bit of occasion to an ordinary gray winter day is to make a Bicerin(Bee-chair-reen). What in the world is that, you are probably asking, unless you have visited this part of the world and have partaken of one of Turin's specialties.  

Il Bicerin ...photo by Regione Piemonte

Turin or Torino has a long standing love affair with chocolate and coffee. They have a choclate festival for a month in late winter and if you wander around the core part of Turin, you will find many pastry shops and cafes with chocolate as a main feature. Gianduja chocolate or chocolate hazelnut milk chocolate shaped into a gianduiotto shape, dates back to 1865 and has been said that it came about due to Napoleon's blockade and the need to make the chocolate stretch a little farther and this taste sensation was born.  Lavazza coffee hails from Torino  as well as many other local roasters not so widely known outside of Italy. Caffe Al Bicerin was established in 1763, but it's famous coffee concoction didn't really come together for a few more years down the road after a bit of experimenting. The Bicerin as it came to be known consisted of layers of coffee, chocolate and milk and syrup. The original cafe guards it's recipe protectively, but anywhere you go in Torino you will find a myriad of variations. Oddly enough there is a bottled chocolate hazelnut liqueur call the Bicerin, which the original recipe never calls for hazelnut, but the liqueur is delicious and goes together very well in this drink. I made mine today with the bicerin liqueur in the bottom of the glass, a layer of espresso next and topped off with some slightly whipped heavy cream. Oh yes, it lifted my spirits, not only because it tasted so good, but because it looks delightful as well. It's easy enough to make at home and who cares if it is slavishly authentic to the original, experiment around with chocolate or chocolate hazelnut, espresso and whipped cream and you will find these winter afternoons aren't so desolate after all. In fact it's a great special drink to make when you have someone to share with as well. I'm giving you a recipe for two with a chocolate milk base, to vary as you like. You could very easily drop a hazelnut chocolate in the milk too for the Bicerin liqueur effect.

My home style version of Il Bicerin

Il Bicerin

Serves 2

Warm together

• 1/2 c (150ml) half and half or whole milk, with a bit of heavy cream for rich version
• 3 oz (90g) semi sweet chocolate, chopped fine, do use a high quality brand

As I don't have a double boiler, I usually put the chocolate and milk/cream together in a small metal bowl and set it over a smaller metal bowl with hot water and melt it together this way. Whisk together when hot and melted. Remove from heat and let stand over the hot water to keep it warm, but not boiling.

**I just used my Bicerin, chocolate hazelnut liqueur today instead of the chocolate mix as an easy alternative.**

• Brew 2 cup pot of espresso or make two shots of espresso
• Whip some heavy cream (1/2c/ 100g) to thicken but not to full peak for your top layer. You can sweeten the cream it if you like, although I didn't as the liqueur was plenty sweet.

To assemble

Heat your clear glass cups or glasses with hot water to keep your drink warm and not break it when adding hot liquids.

Pour the water out.

Divide the chocolate mixture between the 2 glasses for your bottom layer.

Slowly pour half the espresso over the back of a spoon to get the layer effect into each glass.

Add your cream to the top and serve with some of those cookies you have hanging around the house for a appealing pick me up from old world Europe. Now imagine you're in a cozy cafe and the spell will be complete. 

Turin Advent calendar and Nativity scene

Buon Anno and Happy New Year to you my dear readers. My wish for everyone is a brighter 2012!

Pasqua, Pasquetta, and Primavera musings

Our wild cherry trees in bloom

Springtime in Italy's northern mountains is well and truly underway. As always the weather is a source of conversation and speculation. We had summer like temperatures in the early part of April tricking our wild mountain cherry trees into thinking that they were late for an important date and beginning to bloom before most of the trees had even thought about leafing out and almost a month earlier than usual.  A few day trips around in the valley and plains where fruit production is one of the main farming endeavors we saw blossoms galore, cherry, pear and apple all just a wee bit early for comfort. Mountain weather can be most unpredictable at best and down right heart breaking at times. So far so good. We have weathered a couple of cold snaps and our fruit trees haven't been nipped in the bud, so we'll revel in all this primavera glory. 

Staffarda Abbey with Monviso in the background

Easter has come and gone now and what a week it was. It seemed everyone had spring fever and an itch to get out of the house and go somewhere, anywhere, even if, just for the day.  Our SerreMarchetto neighborhood was bustling with activity with all of the extended family up for Easter lunch. 

Easter lunch with friends and family

Peasant Bread, Easter Egg bread and Chocolate Torte
My contributions to lunch

We did our part to make a group passeggiata after pushing away from the remnants of the epic holiday lunch to do the ciao ciao with our neighbors and survey what was new in our surrounding woods. We caught up with who had been chopping wood on their property, what was in bloom, what already had berries, the wild blueberries, very surprisingly, who was fixing us their property or putting out some replacement flowering shrubs and on and on till we stumbled back home to face a couple of drops of grappa and coffee before we put together some of the leftovers and a smal bollitto misto, before the dispersal home. 

Friends from New York looking towards home

Passeggiata photo at our SerreMarchetto overlook

Then comes Pasquetta, or little Easter, the Monday after Easter is national picnic day. It seems sometimes to almost be more important to Italians than Easter. Everyone heads to the hills or seaside or flees from the family to picnic with their friends. 

Fair Fare

This year was triply interesting because Pasquetta also happend to fall on April 25th, which is Liberation Day, when the allied forces freed Italy in WWII and it happened to be the last Monday in April which happens to be the ongoing Pinerolo semi annual fiera or fair. 

Italian Liberation Day WWII

If you couldn't find something to do Monday, it wasn't for a lack of offerings. We managed a couple of the offerings. We drove to Pinerolo to take in the fair and see if there was anything we couldn't live with out, and were rewarded with a couple of hand painted platters, one decorated with olive branches and the other with local favorite icon, porcini mushrooms. On our way there we stopped for the town marching bands and military displays. I could have stayed longer at all of the different festivities, but we had a bbq to attend and the ribs were calling our name. The show rolled on. 

Master bar b que chef cousin Paolo

Italian ribs and sausage

We hadn't been to our cousins place before and it is a nice oasis in the fertile flats of the Po river valley. The grass was tall, the weather warm with a gentle breeze and apricot trees that had fruit big enough to start thinking about ripening. 

Green apricots April 25, 2011

Incredible. 

They are at least a month or so early. I was truly astonished. 

Pasquetta Picnic

Another round of eating, and some family tales and fellowship before heading home with the holidays being truly over. Well, at least until May 1 when there is yet another  holiday, the Italian equivalent of Labor Day. 

Whew, these holidays are hard work.