The Dolce Vita Diaries » Your Stories

French Fairy Foodmother: Anne-Laure Ropars teaches us to cook again

dolcevitadiaries — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:20:41 +0000

In late 2009 we received a friendly email from a French lady called Anne-Laure Ropars inviting us to have a look at her new recipe blog. Now we get lots of those every week, but when we set eyes on the Tasty Diaries, we knew we had found a kindred spirit.

Tasty Diaries is a free weekly newsletter written by Anne-Laure, a real foodie who lives in London with her beautiful Anglo-French family. Hailed by the Times as “… charming and inspiring… a weekly missive of kitchen tips and colourful, seasonal recipes…”, it simply arrives in your inbox every Thursday with exciting, simple and nutritious recipe ideas for the week to come.

Anne-Laure’s food philosophy is that home cooking is always best, but it has to fit around today’s families hectic lifestyle. This is why she features “workweek recipes” that are always quick and straightforward to make. Her inspiration comes from traditional and modern French family cooking, books, old magazines and other blogs. Anne-Laure also regularly invites Michelin starred chefs to create weekend menus for Tasty Diaries, which she cooks herself to show that it can be done by a ‘normal’ person and then makes it accessible to everyone.

These days we look out in anticipation for what Anne-Laure has come up with for the week, and soon we know you will too. Check out this week’s newsletter and subscribe by clicking here.

Premier Food Blogger: Paula Jones

dolcevitadiaries — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:19:14 +0000

Paula Jones, a blogger on Italian food being featured in our series on Nudo’s international foodie friends, is one of our favourite discoveries of the past few months. Not only is she a much-loved blogger at Bellalimento.com, but she is also quite the foodiepreneur (yes, food entrepreneur) turning her passion into a profitable online media business and recently launching a second blog at PaulaDoesPasta.com. So we asked her to share a bit about her background and her food philosophy with us. Here’s what Paula had to say:

I was born in Georgia, but had the honor of being raised around the States & Europe. One of my many homes was in Italy. Where I fell in love. Yes deeply, madly, passionately, head over heels in love with Italy from the moment my plane landed! I loved and continue to LOVE everything about Italy! It’s culture, its people, its architecture, and especially its food.

I am not a professional chef. I am just a cook. Someone who is passionate about food, especially Italian food. My recipes are all authentic and come from the many years that I lived in Italy & from my trips back to visit.

Bell’alimento is Italian for ‘beautiful food’. My food philosophy is simply “beautiful food doesn’t have to be complicated”. Italian food is about simple, quality ingredients that are combined with love and are meant to be shared with family & friends! Punto! (period) I share my passion for Italian food and my recipes on my foodblog at www.bellalimento.com

Read her guest post recipe for DolceVitaDiaries.co.uk by clicking here.

Guest Post: Paula’s Spaghetti Aglio Olio e Peperoncino

dolcevitadiaries — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:22:43 +0000

This might possibly be one of the quickest & most simplest dishes you will ever make. It has only 4 ingredients but those four ingredients come together to make an incredible display of fireworks in your mouth! It’s an explosion of flavors that you won’t soon forget. The first time I ever had Spaghetti Aglio Olio e Peperoncino was at a little place in Montereale Italy called the Spaghetti House! They had EVERY kind of spaghetti you could have ever wanted & then some! You would NOT leave hungry. Mamma & her boys made sure of that. They even had mezzo plates so you could indulge yourself with two types of spaghetti! Boy I miss that place! I don’t think I ever got through all of the types of Spaghetti they had, I’d get hung up on a few favorites, but mannaggia they were just so good I couldn’t help myself.

Spaghetti Aglio Olio e Peperoncino is simply Spaghetti with garlic, oil & chili pepper. I know you might have thought peperoncino sounds like pepperoni but IT’S NOT, it is indeed a spicy hot red chili pepper!

What you’ll need:
1 lb box of Spaghetti
1 small red chili pepper – seeded & minced
4 med-large cloves of fresh garlic – minced
6 tbsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
salt

What to do:
Into a large pasta pan, add enough water to boil pasta. Season generously with salt. When boiling add your spaghetti & cook until al dente. WHILE the spaghetti is cooking, into a saute pan (large enough to accommodate the pasta once it has cooked) add your olive oil, garlic & pepper. Cook over low-med heat until garlic starts to turn golden (do not allow to burn) When pasta is ready, drain WELL & transfer pasta into pan with oil. Toss together and allow to heat through for approx 1-2 mins. Serve immediately.

Buon Appetito!

Read more about Paula Jones and her great recipes at Bell’Alimento.

Guest Post: Diana’s Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Nudo olive oil

dolcevitadiaries — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:10:12 +0000

Diana Bauman from A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa shares this delicious recipe with Nudo olive oil from her blog with us this week. We think you’ll never look at those green old sprouts the same again.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb Brussel Sprouts, cleaned and halved

8 slices Pancetta

4 cloves garlic

Nudo Olive Oil

1/2 red onion, sliced

1 slice of bread

Method:

1. In a large ziplock baggie, toss the brussel sprouts, 3 pressed garlic cloves and 2 tbls Nudo Olive Oil.

2. Empty the contents into a ovenproof dish and roast at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

3. While the brussel sprouts are roasting, in a pan heat 1/4 cup nudo olive oil. When the olive oil is heated through, saute a slice of bread until browned on both sides. Set aside.

4. When the brussel sprouts have finished roasting… In the same pan that you sauteed the bread, add the onion and saute for about 3 minutes. Do not let them get fully tender. Add the pancetta and heat through for an additional minute.

5. Add the brussel sprouts and heat through for an additional 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

6. In a food processor, blend the bread and 1 – 2 cloves of garlic.

7. Sprinkle on top of the brussel sprouts mixture and finish by a last drizzle of Nudo Olive Oil!

You can read more about Diana’s food philosophy in our previous post. Thank you for sharing Diana.

Local Food Champion: Diana Bauman

dolcevitadiaries — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:00:09 +0000

Diana Bauman, the first blogger to be featured in our series on Nudo’s international foodie friends, is an organic vegetable grower, chicken rearer, local produce supporter, homemaker, mother, graphic/web designer and a world class blogger. So many things in one and still doing her bit to save the planet every day. But not just doing – really living her philosophy. Her very popular blog, A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa, recently featured a delicious recipe using Nudo oils. So we asked her to share her food philosophy with us. Here’s what Diana had to say:

Growing up as the daughter of immigrants to the USA, I was raised eating traditional foods and grew up in an environment where meals were created from scratch using whole ingredients.

Unfortunately, the industrialization of our food system in the United States has compromised the health and well being of its citizens by means of processed foods and meats and dairy containing hormones and antibiotics. My philosophy is simple: eat food in its natural form as God made it.

I am an advocate of supporting local family farmers who have a passion for raising pastured animals without the use of growth hormones or rampant use of antibiotics and thus shop at our local farmers markets. Also, I grow my own vegetables organically at home and raise my own backyard chickens.

From what I grow and buy at the farmers markets, I can preserve and freeze fresh local ingredients to use during our extremely cold winter months. It’s a step that I’ve taken to self sustainability.

Why do all of this? Our health is dependent upon it and above all else, the health of our children. Because of this, I strive to cook the way that my grandparents did in hopes that my children will learn the important skill of cooking using REAL FOOD to nourish themselves and their children to come.

Tony and Jean Maguire

dolcevitadiaries — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:08:44 +0000

In all honesty, when we first wrote in our adoption booklet ‘and you can come and visit your tree, you can even give it a little hug’ it was half as a joke. The thought that people would traipse hundreds of miles to visit an adopted member of the botanical world seemed fanciful to say the least.

But then they started to come. Sometimes unannounced, on our doorstep, bing! as if teleported from another world, here were real life customers. ‘Hello’ they would say ‘we’ve come to see our tree.’ Isn’t that marvellous? I love the be-botheredness of people sometimes. The common cliché is that in our age of convenience and comfort, people have become physically lazy, unmotivated, apathetic – why venture out of your comfort zone when the world can so readily be brought to you. Twaddle! I say.

One day probably about four years ago now, Tony and Jean arrived on our doorstep. They weren’t unannounced, they had been planning this trip for quite some time, as Tony’s thorough and charming e-mail correspondence testified. They had Cheshire cat grins and within seconds so did we – you know how some people have an enthusiasm more contagious than swine flu? Well that’s them. We were soon getting down to some serious coffee drinking as they grilled us about all things Nudo. I say they grilled us but actually these two already knew their onions. They had not only read but clearly digested and assimiliated any piece of olive related information we had ever sent them; in fact Tony even quoted things back to us from our information booklet so there was no room for bluffing. Pretty soon, he would be correcting us in achieving the perfect form of the polyconic vase.

We had a lovely time with them and still stay in touch today. Their boundless enthusiasm – for Nudo but more importantly for life – has bustled us out of many a disillusioned moment. If you’re reading this T + J, thank you!

Do you have a story about Nudo or an experience in Italy you would like to share with us? Send your story and some photos to stories@nudo-italia.com – we’d love to hear from you.