COFFEE CREAM

COFFEE CREAM

Fresh and tasty in summer: coffee cream.

Do you make it at home?

You can find many recipes and various tips on how to prepare coffee cream, I decided to follow Grandma Angelina‘s instructions that Monica sent me.

But as you know I am obsessed with avoiding sugar, so I personally decided not to put sugar in.

Grandma Angelina says to use icing sugar and put it in the bottle first.

Yes: Grandma Angelina’s coffee cream is made in the bottle and the only energy you need is your arms, so in the end you eat it with well-deserved satisfaction.

Here is what I used

  • cream
  • cold coffee 
  • cocoa powder

Crema di caffè

Crema di caffè

I put first the cream and then the coffee into a plastic bottle.

Crema di caffèCrema di caffè

After closing the cap, all I did was shake the bottle for a few minutes until the desired consistency was reached.

Crema di caffè

I poured the cream into the cups and added a sprinkling of cocoa.

Crema di caffè

What do you think?

Crema di caffè

Have you ever prepared coffee cream?

The plastic bottle, including cap, is practical in this case.

How did you get on with it after the so-called ‘solidarity cap’ under the European regulation SUP or 2019 Single-Use Plastics directive became mandatory in July?

When the caps did not stick to the bottles did you behave differently?

Starting with the example of the bottle, perhaps you know of other alternative systems to the classic tools used in the kitchen, would you like to tell us about them?

THERE IS STILL TOMORROW.

THERE IS STILL TOMORROW.

There is still tomorrow which sees the directorial debut of Paola Cortellesi is the film that won the Audience Award, Special Jury Prize and Mention as Best First Work at the Rome Film Festival

Paola Cortellesi doesn’t need to be introduced, I always remember one of her gags in which she ironically listed all the things she has done, which are really so many and very different from each other, but which have the same feature in common: they are all done well.

I thank Elisa and her proposal: we went to the movies together fearing that we would have to use tissues to wipe tears and instead we mostly surprised ourselves.

The Friends.
In the movie: Delia and Marisa.

Emotion, however, was not lacking.

I, for one, was moved by the portrayal of a mother’s love for her daughter, who is played by Romana Maggiora Vergano in the film.

A love above all things, a love for which nothing is impossible, a pure and unwavering love.

Fragility and strength in a maelstrom of endurance and determination in which the ability to carry the crushing weight of a long interminable series of verbal and physical injustices and bullying, is catalyzed in the resolute will to seek a better destiny for Marcella.

Mother and daughter.

A crushed mother and a model daughter who does not understand Delia’s submission.

Succumbing and resisting at the same time, in a dance that is broken melody, is rock, is hip hop rap, is retro.

Marcella does not understand, but she will.

Marcella will look at her mother Delia and see the affirmation of a seemingly simple but extremely important gesture as a right, as a beginning.

Every change has a beginning.

There is still tomorrow represents “the music that changes” in a literal sense: I cannot fail to mention the repertoire songs from the soundtrack:
Aprite le finestre Fiorella Bini
Nessuno Naked Music
Perdoniamoci Achille Togliani
A bocca chiusa Daniele Silvestri
M’innamoro davvero Fabio Concato
La notte dei miracoli Lucio Dalla
Calvin The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
B.O.B. – Bombs Over Baghdad Outkast
The little things Big Gigantic featuring Angela McCluskey
Swinging on the right side Lorenzo Maffia and Alessandro La Corte
Tu sei il mio grande amor Lorenzo Maffia, Alessandro La Corte and Enrico Rispoli.

Surprising, isn’t it?

Surprising as what you don’t expect from There is still tomorrow: the ending.

Indeed, in my heart I hoped that Delia’s project would not be the obvious one, but at the same time I would not have guessed an epilogue like the one with which Paola Cortellesi invites everyone to a beautiful reflection.

Light yet explosive, simple yet disruptive, just like Delia, just like Paola.

Yes because Delia is Paola, she is Marcella, and she is our grandmother.

Delia is so many lives of giving up, Delia is so many years of suffering.

Like nothing at all.

THE BOOKBINDER OF LOST STORIES

THE BOOKBINDER OF LOST STORIES

The Bookbinder of Lost Stories is the book I read, again thanks to Monica.

 

Speaking of friendship, Sas Bellas Mariposas  and Mamaglia are skilled fan of the author: Cristina Caboni, so maybe they would like to tell us something about her.

In the meantime I would like to chat more about how I especially liked the parts that describe the binding process in the early 19th century.

Nowadays how long does it take to create a book?
There are several 24-hour delivery options on the web.

And each time we find ourselves with the usual question: have we gained or lost?

Recently with my husband we have been looking for someone who was still in a profession related to the traditions of the past, but here in the area unfortunately we do not have old style jobs anymore.

It is very sad to be aware that the precious chain of passing on knowledge and teaching patience and time needed to acquire skills has been interrupted.

By interrupting the oral tradition, we will deprive ourselves of the privilege of being able to know stories because there will be no one left to tell them.

So I would very much like to take up the concept of “binding” lost stories to unite them and to keep them living with us.

I spent a lot of time listening to one of my grandmothers telling about her childhood in a peasant family, talking to me about a seemingly distant era, about an essential lifestyle, about objects that we will never use.

My other grandmother, had less life to live but equally her tales remain indelible to me, as well as the memory her rice-fields worker  knees.

My great-grandfather, on the other hand, was a carter, and his traveling for work gave him the opportunity to meet and to marry my great-grandmother: German, in spite of the saying “wife and oxen in your own country …” jokes aside, theirs was a rather unconventional marriage considering historical period and social conditions.

But tell me please! I would love to “listen to you.”

If you have a craft to tell, if you want a story not to be lost, if you wish to pass on a tale, a thought, a concept, a proverb, an experience or even just a comment, I will be grateful and add it to the lost stories to be bound.

I WAS BORN ON THE DAY OF THE PIAZZA FONTANA MASSACRE

I WAS BORN ON THE DAY OF THE PIAZZA FONTANA MASSACRE

I was born on the day of the Piazza Fontana massacre, and I defy even those who are not superstitious not to see ominous signs in it.

I was born at home, on the kitchen table, like a fresh loaf of bread in the early morning

When my mother shaked my father telling “it’s time,” he just turned on the other side and went on sleeping.

How could I blame him? I was coming to dawn as importunate as an alarm clock.

I was born in Cilavegna and I am one of the last people to be able to say this: as of January 1970 it was no longer possible to use a midwife, and it became mandatory to give birth in a hospital. Since there were no hospitals in Cilavegna, from that date on, new babies saw the light elsewhere.

I was born in Lomellina, land of fog and mosquitoes, but my father is of Venetian descent and my great-grandmother on my mother’s side was German. I am basically a mixture.

I was born into a simple family, Ihad simple things and a happy childhood.

My maternal grandmother, who looked after me from the time my mother resumed her job as a clerk, had swollen knees from all her mondina days, and, unable to move nimbly, entertained me by telling stories.

The result was that, before I began to walk, I spoke perfectly without the classic infantile mispronunciations, and I knew nursery rhymes, prayers and numbers.

Words were my first games, my first friends, my first nourishment.

Nevertheless, the kindergarten debut was quite traumatic: my shyness was relentless.

I had not yet understood the pleasure of chatting and socializing, a concept I largely recovered after the middle ages of adolescence.

But let us proceed step by step: for the nuns who conducted the kindergarten, my interaction defect was not a noteworthy aspect, quite the contrary. Rather, the problem was created by my inability to fall asleep after lunch.

Standing still in my cot, I would silently weave the bangs of the rough plaid under which I was supposed to fall asleep instead.

I did not feel that I was creating a disturbance, but that was one of my first errors of judgment: I still have clear memories of the reprimand from Sister Antonia, who among the sisters was the better and quieter one.

Thereafter rather than the bangs I took to interweaving my attempts at intentionality with my grandfather’s big heart. He would work night shifts and in the morning, exhausted, instead of going to rest. he would accommodate my requests, effectively endorsing the intent to skip kindergarten.

A tumor took him away when I was only five years old leaving me a huge void and an unfulfilled desire in return.

He used to tell me “as soon as I retire I will teach you German.”

During the war he was used as an interpreter after a German officer, striking him, heard him reply in his own language.

I thought I would learn easily, that I would listen happily as with Grandma’s stories, but instead he could tell me no more.

When elementary school time came, there was no school on Thursdays, but by then I didn’t care much.

Some people still called us remiges: lined up in rows of two, hand in hand, with our overcoats over our black aprons from which sprouted the big blue bow knotted under the white collar.

It began on the first of October when the desks were still desks, and the folders contained a checkbook and a ruled notebook, small ones, with the blotting paper for the ink of fountain pens: witnesses to a writing that no longer exists.

… TO BE CONTINUED.

Pic by Massimo

VACUUM POT AND BALANCING SYPHON

VACUUM POT AND BALANCING SYPHON

We started from 1884 and the first espresso machine created by Angelo Moriondo but Lu author of the blog The Caustic Misanthrope,  in addition to tips on rice,  pointed me to the 19th century coffee maker!

It was originally the Vacuum: illustrated in this video by Trieste Coffee Experts: an event that brings us back to a place we have already talked about for its coffee supply chain

 

The Vacuum also called Vac Pot or Syphon Pot, was born in 1830.

In 1850 the next evolution: the Balancing Syphon Brewer.

The Balancing Syphon consists of two containers with a siphon tube connecting them.

Coffee is placed in one of the two containers, usually made of glass, and water in the other made of ceramic or copper.

An alcohol lamp heats the water, forcing it through the tube to the other container, where it mixes with the coffee.

As the weight changes, a balancing system based on a counterweight or spring mechanism is activated, which in turn causes the lamp to turn off.

A partial vacuum is formed, which sucks up the mixture originated through a filter, and returns it to the first vessel, from which coffee is dispensed through a tap.

 

Is your cup ready?

What do you say, wanting to make it a family affair, can we therefore say that Vacuum Pot and Balancing Syphon are the grandmother and great-grandmother of the mocha?

Certainly the names Vacuum Pot and Balancing Syphon sound more scientific than familiar, but their cruets also represent warmth, anticipation, and the ritual that foreshadows something good.

At this point the connecting links remain, and in this regard I think back to the enameled coffee pot with floral decoration with which my parents first, and my brother later, decorated the kitchen.

I then have this little one

what shall we call it?

And what about your coffee pot?

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