The cook next door

I’ve just been tagged by Superfuji for “The cook next door” meme
So here I am…

1.What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?

I know I’m young but I’ve been cooking since I was just a child, just giving a help to my mum. I think that the first thing I cooked by myself was a cake, probably an apple pie…it was mum’s recipe and I was just 11-12 years old.
When I went to Bretagne for a summer holiday with my parents, we ate a lots of crepes in any way, the real ones made with “grano saraceno” flour, and as soon as we went back home me and mum spent so many evenings cooking crepes for dinner, that I learnt how to prepare the batter and I really enjoyed trying my own crepes…

2.Who had the most influence on your cooking?

MUM!!! Definitely. She taught me how to cook from the easiest dishes to the most difficult ones. I’ve spent so much time watching her cooking that I learnt a lot just from that. She usually called me when she wanted to make a cake, so she gave me the eggs to dived the yolk from the white and she told me how to whisk them properly…Cooking with mum has always been a wonderful game, we spent time together, laughing and playing with the pastry to create new way of biscuits, or making the filling for the “agnolotti”, or preparing the “ragù” for the lasagne…and everything else. Sometimes she was just reading a cooking magazine and she saw something interesting and then we simply tried it

3.What are your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest letdown?

The Kitchen Aid…mum bought it five years ago, paying a lot because it was really expensive at that time, but it is so useful that I use anytime I need it; an other handy gadget is the “Imperia”…Italian machine to make fresh pasta all’uovo…the sfoglia is perfect when you use it to stendere la pasta…

4.Do you have an old photo as "evidence" of an early exposure to the culinary world?

I have to ask…

5.Mageircophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?

I always thought that the Sacher Torte would have been really difficult, but I just tried and it has been a success…now I’m a bit worried about making Puff pastry…I still have to try…

6.Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like - and probably no one else!

I don’t know…I can eat chocolate with everything, but probably for a foreign could sound weird eating “Nutella Pizza” but it’s really indulgent…

7.What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don't want to live without?

Fish,(raw and cooked), vegetables and chocolate cakes,(muffins,cakes,ice cream, anything with chocolate!!!)

Three quickies:

.Your favorite ice-cream
I can spend hours in a Gelateria watching all the gusti, but I can’t resist to the ultimate Bacio&Cioccolato, sometimes even Bacio&Cioccolato&Cocco, which are Gianduja,chocolate anc coconut

.You probably never eat...
garlic…

.Your own signature dish

two years ago for my birthday party I made a new cheesecake: Mango&Coconut Cheesecake
My Chocochips&Coffee muffins
My Orange flowers’ water madeleine
My Tiramisù
My Curried chicken and pilaw rice
All the way I make my short pastry, never the same…

i tag Gia-Gina @ http://gia-gina.blogspot.com/

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