Dancing on My Table

There are still a few spots left on my Sicilian cooking classes….

I’ve just been on Radio NZ with Jim Mora talking about Sicily and Marsala. I’ll be giving a Marsala tasting on the classes – it’s always a revelation because Marsala is well known in cooking but it is not so common to serve it as an aperitif or digestive. It is delicious! I love the richer sweeter ones in cooler weather at the end of a meal, around the fire. Bliss.

Sicily is fascinating. Through history it has been invaded and plundered over a dozen times, but with each round invaders came new ingredients. The Greeks brought honey, wine and olives, three essentials of the Sicilian table. The Romans brought grains and pulses. The Arabs and Spanish Moslems, known as the Saracens, brought citrus fruits, eggplants, spices…

And the Normans left their mark with blue-eyed children.

The Biuso family are most likely traceable back to the 11^th century Normans!

The result of all these ingredients, and cooking methods, too, such as spit-roasting, is a cuisine of great contrasts, of simple, peasant food sharing the table with elaborate baroque dishes.

Sicily is larger than life – it’s as if someone is shining a great spotlight on it, and everything appears more colourful, more fragrant, more powerful. It wakes up your palate and your senses, in a really good way. Come along to the class and experience a taste of Sicily for yourself.

Ah….which one shall I drink tonight?

AUTUMN FEAST

Join us for a delicious autumnal feast fresh from our garden and the market featuring seasonal produce including porcini mushrooms, cavolo nero, polenta, walnuts and olives, rocket and sage, apples and feijoas, and fresh eggs from the chooks of course. And we are going to have FRESH PORCINI MUSHROOMS!!! These will be picked at dawn from a secret location in Christchurch and flown up specifically for the class. It’s VERY exciting! I’m also hoping to have fresh borlotti beans (fresh ones are so amazingly fudgey), AND I will show some groovy things to make in the latest kitchen toy, a dehydrator.

Class runs from 1.00-4.00pm approximately

$125.00

Saturday 20^th April

FLAVOURS OF SICILY

Sicily’s cuisine is exotic, colourful, powerfully flavoured, a heady mix born through centuries of invasions from the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans and Spanish.

It’s a cuisine of contrasts, with ornately garnished Baroque dishes sharing the table with others given the simplest of treatments. Seductive? Oh yes! Addictive? Absolutely!

Class runs from 1.00-4.00pm approximately

$125.00

Thursday 2^nd May OR Saturday 4^thMay

Borlotti beans

Remo, my better half (well, that’s debatable of course!) was born in the gracious but spirited city of Palermo and his mother, the late Mamma Rosa, remains one of the most intuitive cooks I have met. She was fearless in the kitchen, hyper-tuned in to the hissing, sizzling, bubbling cacophony around her and she turned out stunning food day after day. Best of all she taught me to make much of nothing. That’s a Sicilian skill. Although the family moved to Tuscany then to Genova (this is where I met Remo) and absorbed some of the traditions of these regions, Mamma Rosa’s heart remained firmly in Sicily. Expect the unexpected because that is typical of Sicilian cuisine. There will also be a Marsala tasting and a tasting of Sicilian specialties.

To book a class, email your choice to biuso@clear.net.nz

I’ll reply and confirm whether there is a space on your chosen class, then once payment is received I will confirm your place. For regular newsletters go to www.juliebiuso.com

I cannot walk past a pile of borlotti beans without wanting to grab a bunch. They’re pretty stunning with their stripy pinky pods and randomly pinked beans. I’m hoping to have a pile to cook on my autumn class

Autumn Feast Saturday 20^th April.

With dirt and twigs still attached, the first of the season walnuts caught my eye at La Cigale market on Saturday. I had to have some! And you can too…over the next few months they’ll be available at many farmers’ markets around the country. Don’t think about going, just GO! You’ll get the pick of the produce too. Farmers’ markets reflect the true seasons, with the first of each fruit or vegetable appearing long before mainstream supermarkets stock them.

Fresh crop of walnuts not to be missed