Italy

Walt Disney inspired setting for Cross-country skiing!

| italianshamrock

Last week over 1 meter of snow fell up in the Italian Apennine mountains, and you know what that means right?!

Yeah you guessed it.  Fresh, deep, crunchy, powdery white stuff!

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Luckily (although it didn’t feel that way at 06.15 on Sunday morning when the alarm clock went off!) I had my third cross-country ski lesson at the Boscoreale Ski Centre so I got the opportunity to enjoy the beauty!

Boscoreale is a paradise for cross-country skiing, immersed in the middle of a stunning forest it becomes a winter wonderland postcard when it snows, and with more than 50km of tracks suitable for all levels from beginner to expert it is challenging too and never gets dull to explore.

The centre also runs snowshoeing (ciaspolata) and much much more.  You can check out more details at their facebook page (in Italian only).

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First time trying cross-country “off-piste”, felt so soft and fluffy I even thought it would be a good idea to fall over once or twice (lets be honest, I face planted the white stuff a record breaking seven times this weekend!!)

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“When snow falls, nature listens” Antoinette van Kleef

 

 

Pasta Fresca, the golden secret of Emilia Romagna

Image | | italianshamrock

I will never forget the moment when I first truly understood the passion that Italians have for food.

Shortly after I first moved to Italy from the UK, I was out dining with locals – the dish was tortellini alla panna (tortellini with cream).  An amazingly good, melt in your mouth experience but I was struggling with the generous portions and I decided to leave the plate unfinished.

Within seconds my dining companion exploded with the fiery outrage Italians are famous for, ‘but that dish has taken 3 years of love and tenderness to make – you can’t leave it!!!” He was serious.  I was speechless.

Nowadays of course I wouldn’t dream of such a thing, after all to quote the original Italian goddess Sofia Loren ‘everything you see I owe to spaghetti’ …..and tortelli, pizza, risotto, the list is endless!!

Anyway, back then I was still very much a ‘rookie’ when it came to understanding where my food came from and crucially the importance of tradition in the Italian kitchen.