RICE CAKE

Here’s a typical dish of my hometown, very easy to cook and delicious. It is called “torta di riso”: I tried a couple of days ago and it was a great success. There are many versions and every family has its own. Here’s my mom’s recipe.

torta-di-riso

What you need

250 g parboiled rice
3 eggs
30 g parmesan cheese
250 g ricotta cheese
bread crumbles
aromatic herbs, majoram, oregano
salt
oil

How to prepare

Before starting to cook, turn on the oven at the maximum heat. Cook the rice in boiling water (remember to add salt) for 10-15 mins. Drain and put the rice in a big bowl. Add ricotta cheese, aromatic herbs, grated parmesan cheese, salt and the eggs.

Technically, you can add whatever you like to the mixture and try your personal variation: rice with peas, lettuce, ham, saffron, other kinds of cheese…

Mix well and put everything in a large casserole covered with oven paper. Level the mixture with a spoon but don’t press it too much. Sprinkle some bred crumbles on the whole surface to make a crispy crust and add three spoons of oil.

Put the casserole in the oven and cook it at 200° for half an hour. When you see it becomes yellowy and the borders are crunchy, it’s ready. Make it cool a bit and taste it. Here’s your lunch for today, and also for a couples of more days if you keep it in the fridge! Enjoy.

PUBLISHED

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Back from my weekend in Rome, I bring with me a lot of new ideas. I didn’t win, but parts of the blog are now published on a little book edited by the association and this is the best prize, I think. Also, the ceremony was very interesting: a pleasant meeting of young wanderers, people like me that love to talk about their travels, and share his thoughts, before throwing himself on a rich buffet. I’ve red beautiful poems, cartoons, blogs, and heard the stories behind them. Each of us went on the stage to introduce himself – very embarassing when I had to talk, much better when I was listening to the others. Everyone has his own personality, ehich is reflected on the way he tells his feelings about any experience. Personal, passionate, detached, simple, difficult, using a lot of words or just a few powerful ones – all differences modelled on our own interests, imagination and on how much we dare.

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METEO MADNESS

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Meteo experts – and pseudo-experts – are stressing us about an extraordinary new weather front coming in the next days, which will eventually bring more cold and snow. I can’t remember the name of the disturbance, but it must be some mythological Greek god, to indicate that it’s something enormously strong and inevitable. Like any other little nature process, I guess, but nobody cares about common sense. This is the coldest winter ever, while summer was the hottest ever and also, there are no more seasons.

A disgusting media soup of clichés is spreading everywhere through tv programs, creating a crowd of meteo-mad, like my grandma. She is totally obsessed with weather, which is her favourite subject and the first thing she asks me about every time I talk to her. Sometimes I wonder if she calls me only to know what’s the temperature in Milan – jus joking, sorry nonna. “Hi honey, what’s the weather like?”. A storm or a sunny day are a perfect topic of conversation, much easier than “How are you doing? How is it going at work? What are you studying about?” and so on.

It’s the same for news reports on tv: talking about the whatsoever storm is the easiest way to occupy those few precious moments of world attention. There would be many things to talk about, like wars, famine, politics problems, stories and experiences of people, school situation, drugs, crime, economy, movies, books, art, culture in general. But meteo is much more interesting, right?

 

meteo-satellite

WISH ME GOOD LUCK

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On Saturday I’m going to Rome for the award ceremony of a blog contest organized by a cultural association called “Il Cherubino”. I participated on November with almost no hope, and I unexpectedly arrived among the first three bloggers. A few abstracts of Students so far have been published in a book, which I’m going to catch at the ceremony, and maybe I’ll also get the prize. Who knows. Thank you all for following me and wish me good luck.

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PENSIERI DI GENNAIO

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In questi giorni sono in vena di pensieri profondi e positivi: sarà retorico, ma sono i primi giorni dell’anno e vorrei iniziare il 2013 con energia e serenità, o almeno provarci. Siamo in periodo di esami e ricominciare a studiare dopo un paio di settimane di vacanza non è per niente facile. Ancora più difficile è trattenere un po’ del relax natalizio e respingere il nemico stress, sempre in agguato per i perfezionisti come me. Per riuscire a godersela nonostante tutto – studio, genitori, amici da rimbalzare, treni, diete, liste di cose da fare, montagne innevate lontane miglia e miglia, viaggi ricordati o sognati – gli stimoli mentali non fanno mai male. In più, ho sempre amato le massime: fin da piccola, mi divertivo a scrivere su uno, due, tre, quattro quadernini, tutte le frasi belle che leggevo o sentivo in giro. Film, libri, canzoni, pubblicità, discorsi di amici o conoscenti: qualunque fonte andava bene, se le parole mi colpivano. Uno di miei tanti buoni propositi – che purtroppo per pigrizia e scarsità di tempo rimbalza da qualche anno – è quello di scriverle tutte online per condividere questi pensieri con altri fissati come me, magari in un nuovo blog, magari qui. Iniziamo con qualche spunto per vivere bene nell’anno nuovo, poi si vedrà.

Chi non sa ridere non è una persona seria. Chopin

La vertigine non è paura di cadere, ma voglia di volare. Lorenzo Jovanotti

Vivi come se dovessi morire domani. Impara come se dovessi vivere sempre. Mahatma Gandhi

La vita è come andare in bicicletta: se vuoi stare in equilibrio devi muoverti. Albert Einstein

La vita senza allegria è una lampada senza olio. Walter Scott

La vita è fatta di piccoli piaceri. Mc Donald

Si vive una sola volta. E qualcuno neanche una. Woody Allen

La vita è un biscotto, ma se piove si scioglie! Jim Carrey in “Una settimana da Dio”