I know that what I do, what I value, in the myriad of great problems of the world, is of no importance.
The girls in Iran, the imprisoned journalists, the children dying of hunger…. What importance can a typical soup made with selected ingredients have?
Yet, a few days ago, I received this review:
It must be good because this is our third time at Marcella’s wonderful school. I almost hesitate to call it a school because it feels more like a home. Marcella, Marta, and Mina (I hope I spelled that correct) really take care of you. And then the classes we have taken from Giovanni, pastry maestro, are amazing. He has so much knowledge and generosity to share everything. Our first time was the 3 hour cooking class – amazing. A couple of years later Giovanni and Marcella created a pastry course specific to our needs – incredible. And today was a bread class. They just keep getting better. You will come away with new skills, in depth knowledge, and maybe even new friends as the staff are simply wonderful people. As Marcella says – “If we could all just do a good job and be happy with our work it would be a wonderful world.” And when you are at Giglio Cooking School – it is a wonderful world. Sean Sauber
We had a wonderful conversation after class. We said that we have no power and even going to the vote doesn’t seem to count for much. Governments continue to wage war on each other, continue to incite the masses with the means of persuasion that we all seem to know but into which we fall like ripe pears. We have no other means to spread peace other than to do our job well and distribute our smiles. Put like that, it seems like an idiotic thing to do. But I am convinced that the real revolution starts from the bottom. By buying vegetables from farmers for example.
Twenty years ago, when I went to the USA for the first time, I was struck by the uniformity and insipidity of the food in such a large country with so much diversity. Today I have the impression that Americans are starting to realize this: their food and their restaurants seem better to me than 20 years ago. I don’t know if I can say the same thing about Italy. Here I prefer to remain silent about the reasons because it would open up an endless controversy.
Put simply and simply: making a good soup, with selected and natural ingredients, creates economy (not finance) and creates happiness around the table. If today I do it, and I continue to do it and tomorrow you do it and the day after tomorrow there are four of us doing it, good soups grow exponentially. The demand for good ingredients would grow and the market would adapt to new consumer needs.
Utopia? Meh!
Do you have other ideas?
In the meantime, I’ll give you a recipe:
SPRING SOUP
Ingredients:
Fresh peas in the pod *)
Potatoes
Carrots
Green beans
Cherry tomatoes
Garlic
Fresh onions
Fresh parsley
Fresh basil
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pastina (small pasta for soup) or broken pasta
Take off the peas from the pod. Dice the peeled carrot and potato.
Take off the ends to the green beans and cut them in short segments.
Dice the cherry tomatoes and take off the seeds. Mince finely two small spring onions.
Put all the vegetables in a pot with one litre of water (4 cups).
Bring to boil and let it simmer gently for 15 minutes.
Put a pot of water to boil, to use in case of need.
Meanwhile mince basil and parsley.
When the vegetable are soft, add the minced herbs, two table spoons of extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt to the soup. Let it simmer for a few minutes.
Toss in the pastina – or broken pasta – directly into the soup and cook.
Serve optionally with grated Parmigiano Reggiano or an extra drizzle of olive oil and fresh ground pepper.
*) the quantities are indicative, and they go by “feeling”. This is a sweet and delicate “minestra” that my mom used to cook in the summer. She had no measurement and she loved to serve it with a spoonful of fresh handmade pesto