Oct

7

Ending on a sweet note

October 7, 2008 |


I’m back home I feel a little bit sad but I had a wonderful vacation. The weather has been almost perfect I didn’t recall such a warm sea in September, a real delight for a person who is always cold like me. I rested, relaxed and now I’m ready to face the cold winter full of energy and new ideas.

My stay in Calabria has also been a culinary adventure as you may have seen I rediscovered some old dishes like the Pasta and Potatoes and learned some new ones. The last days I got a chance to talk with our cook at the beach and he really revealed  some tricks to me but I’ll tell you about them in a future post.

I spent the last days buying all the specialties to bring back home and as I wrote previously almond paste is one of them. This time I also bought some almond cookies as a little gift for friends and family. We don’t find this kind of sweets in the North of Italy and if we find them they’re not like these ones anyway.

When I taste them I go in a different dimension: soft almond pastries lightly scented by coffee beans, berries, candied citron or honey.

This year I couldn’t resist and I visited Antonio, at the Caffè al Corso in Tropea, a couple of times. He’s a really good pastry maker and his specialty without any doubt is almond pastries. He prepares them fresh every day, he grinds peeled almonds and mixes them with the same amount of sugar, then he adds, depending on the pastry he’s preparing, honey, almond slivers etc. He also has his secret ingredients but he didn’t tell me anything about them of course.

I hope the picture does them justice, if not you’ll just have to go there and taste them for yourself.


Comments

4 Comments so far

  1. Nicodemo on October 8, 2008 10:38 am

    Ciao Patty
    As you and me and many, many others do share one thing in common,our love of Calabrian food. Dear Patty is there any thought of you writing a book on the Foods of Calabria, using receipes of the whole of Calabria?. Possibly including one from from my town of Mammola,which would be Stucco for which it is World Wide famous.
    Happy Writing and Cooking
    Nicodemo

  2. Linda on October 9, 2008 10:12 am

    How strange to see a picture of these cookies today! My sister-in-law and I were just talking about them yesterday when we saw them in a bakery. My cousin makes them around the holidays and gives them as gifts and everyone looks forward to their tin of them.

  3. Francesca on October 14, 2008 4:44 pm

    Hi Patty, nice to know your interisting blog about italian tradiotional recipes. Great!

  4. admin on October 16, 2008 3:01 pm

    Nicodemo, thanks for the thought but writing a book is something I haven’t considered doing yet. I’m curious about your recipe though and if you want to share it I would be happy to try it.

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