Italy my love

We spend few weeks in Italy, at the beginning of the summer. The Alto Lazio, where we stayed, is a region about 45 minutes from Rome. As a person that lives in high volume I needed about 5 days to slow down and realize that slow is fun. It was wonderful to see that people still live simple and humble life close to Mother Nature. The food was great!!!!!!! The ingredients were amazing. I cooked a lot in a wood fire oven, Pizza, Bread, lamb, beef and a lot of vegetables …. Fresh ingredients, cooked simple with a lot of love charged our battery for the next 6 months!!!!!!!!!!

Celebrating Chocolate: Cakes, Brownies, and Bars

my new chocolat book ,the winer of Bronze medal of the www.independentpublisher.com for 2011 .

My Italian mama

Every person how loves food will be happy to have an Italian mama, I have one here name is Roberta she lives in Milan all her life and she is 82 years old!!!
For the last 15 years she is teaching my all about Italy and she knows a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!
Roberta is a friend of my wife parents for more than 50 years.
From the first moment that we meet it was clearly that she is my mama!
Most of what I know about Italian food I learned from here and every time we meet 50 % of the time we talk about food and wine Roberta has so much information that I can spent a whole life next to here and I still will have more to learn.
Last time that we meet I photograph her wail she was preparing a risotto with porcini and safran .
If you just look on the pictures you can feel how good that risotto was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Enjoy.

Homemade Olives

For more than 6500 years men is growing olives to produces olive oil and pickled olive in a large verity of ways.
For me olives are the strongest symbol of the Mediterranean as a person how lived all his life in Israel olives for me is the base of all.
I have an olive tree in my yard the tree is about 40 years old and it is considered yang for an olive tree.
Every two years the tree gives olive and this year the olives were very nice and I said to myself that this year I mast pickle my olives.
For that project I had assistant from my children that collect the olives from the tree.
And after that I want with them to my Arab friends to learn how to do it right.

The 1 step

The 2 step

The 3 step

The 4 step

Pizza a palla

6 months ago I was in Italy.
The visit was to work with Italian flour and matching them to the Israeli test.
At this visit 2 days was dedicated only for pizza, as a person how is going a lot to Italy I thought I know all about pizza I can’t tell you how I felt when I realized that I need to learn so mach !!!
In Italy there are so many tips of pizza and every region has is on version of pizza.
In Rome they eat pizza teglia it’s a pizza that is baked in trays.
In Napoli they eat the classic round pizza that is not to crispy.
In the north they eat to tips of pizza one is a round pizza that is very crispy and pizza a palla a long and oval pizza like the shape of the peel that is very crispy.
To mace pizza palla you need-
1000 g pizza flour
600 g cold water
3 g fresh yeast
20 g olive oil
27 g salt
How to do-
Nix all the ingredients at low speed for 3 min put the salt and mix at medium speed for 7 min.
Divide the dough to 8 and shape them in to round balls cover in plastic and let them set in the fridge for 24 h.
After 24 h look at the photos how to do it!!!!
Enjoy

my new book

this is my new book .
it’s a book for food lovers !!!!
you can find it on amazon .
link to amazon

Fancy diner

A very good friend of main had celebrated 40 last month and here fantasy was to celebrate the event on a very long table with all here best friends .

After 3 weeks of planning we finely did the event and I was uncharged of to food.
I created a menu that is half Israeli half Italian.


The event was a big success and the gusts talked about it for a week.


Enjoy!!!!

Avner

Italian sourdough

2 months ago I was in Italy training in Molino agugiaro the largest pizza flour manufactory in Italy.
During the training I come across a very old sourdough about 85 years old and for me it was the first time to work with something like that!
In the end of the visit they give a small piece to take with me.
I made the simplest dough here –
1000 g flour
400 g sourdough
680 g water
25g salt
I can’t tell you what a wonderful bread came out amazing flavor and aromas the kids loved it so much that they finished it will it was still hot!!!!!!!!
http://www.agugiarofigna.com/Default.html

The typical Israeli market

Many years ago somebody wrote that Israel is the land of milk and honey. Here are some photos that I took in the markets of tel aviv. Now you can understand what it means the land of milk and honey !

Great orange salad

As we are in the middle of the spring I just want to show you this great simple salad.
All you need for that is:
3 oranges’
30 gram top qolity olive oil
Salt, black pepper and sum fresh thyme.
Cat the oranges’ to slices and put them on a serving plate.
Sprinkle the olive oil ,salt ,black pepper and thyme and let is sat for 30 min.
Serve with a glass of red wine and enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!