MERCATO
Some photographs of cooking demonstrations held at Mercato on Saturday 10th November 2012:
More photos on Mercato’s facebook page.
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MERCATO, Adelaide, Saturday Cooking Class
Tag: About Marisa Raniolo Wilkins
MERCATO, Adelaide, Friday Cooking Class
MERCATO
Some photographs of cooking demonstrations held at Mercato on Friday 9th November
Friday 9th.
MORE PHOTOS:
More photos on Mercato’s Facebook page.
MA2SBAE8REVW
SICILIAN SEAFOOD COOKING, book review, SA Life
From the publication: SA Life, Adelaide, April 2012
SICILIAN SEAFOOD COOKING
By Marisa Raniolo Wilkins
Published by New Holland
RRP $45 (hbk)
As a passionate Sicilian-born
foodie (evident in her popular food blog, All Things Sicilian
and More) Melbourne resident Marisa Raniolo Wilkins
has produced a veritable encyclopedia of authentic
Sicilian seafood recipes – 400 pages and more than I50
recipes covering all manner of starters and main courses,
but also explaining how to make pasta (from scratch) and
vegetable dishes to accompany the seafood.
To tell this story with authority, Raniolo Wilkins delves
deep into the island’s history, infused with a personal
perspective. She explains the influences of many cultures
on specific Sicilian flavour melds, and events such as the
annual mattanza off the island of Favignana, the ritual o[
netting and gaffing massed migrating tuna.
Importantly, she assesses the issue of sustainability especially
with bluefin tuna and swordfish, and the historical Sicilian practice of selling and eating juvenile and infant fish – and offers alternatives to several traditional recipes to veer away from threatened fish species.
Other traditions are more straight forward, such as the
essential starter pasta chi sardi, the Sicilian staple from
the town of Palermo of pasta topped with sardines fennel,
pine nuts and currants. lt’s a very informative book,
brimming with pride and purpose.- DPS
Sweets: Tastes and Traditions from Many Cultures exhibition and the related one day festival event on 18th March 2012, The Immigration Museum
I have been part of a committee which has helped to develop Sweets: Tastes and Traditions from Many Cultures exhibition and the related one day festival event on 18 March 2012.
Sweets: Tastes and Traditions from Many Cultures exhibition and the related one day festival event on 18March 2012 at The Immigration Museum.
Represented in the exhibition are the Indian, Italian, Japanese, Mauritian and Turkish communities of Victoria.
To promote the Sweets: Tastes and Traditions from Many Cultures exhibition and the related one day festival event on 18March 2012, The Immigration Museum invited a group of Melbourne’s most celebrated bloggers to sample a large array of sweets from the communities represented in the exhibition. These are the Indian, Italian, Japanese, Mauritian and Turkish communities of Victoria.
Rosaria Zarro and I were the representatives for the Italian Community.
Sweets: tastes and traditions from many cultures exhibition
Explore the history and cultural significance of sweet food and find out why sweetness is important to so many. Different cultures use sweets for diverse purposes, including marking important rituals, celebrations and life events. Discover special sweet foods from Indian, Italian, Japanese, Mauritian and Turkish cultures, the ways in which many of them are made and the significance they hold. Featuring fascinating objects, lively photographs, multimedia and recipes, this exhibition will reveal unique perspectives on foods of the sweet variety.
Date: 15 March 2012 to 7 April 2013
Cost: Included with Museum entry ($10 for adults, children and concessions FREE)
Sweets festival
Succumb to your sweet cravings at this delectable one-day festival of food and culture, collaboratively developed with sweet-loving Victorian communities. Explore fascinating shared and unique traditions, rituals and contemporary practices surrounding sweet cuisines and refreshments. Enjoy a feast of toothsome food stalls, music and dance performances, cooking demonstrations and workshops.
Date: 11am to 4pm, Sunday 18 March 2012
Cost: Included with Museum entry ($10 for adults, children and concessions FREE)
SICILIAN LOCAL EXPERT AWARD
I received congratulatory email today informing me that my website has been recognised in the Sicily Local Expert Award- Charming Lady.
I feel very pleased and hope that you will look at some of the other websites that have been chosen for this award.
Photo above: Marisa in Via Bellini, Catania.
This is the email:
Dear Marisa I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to drop you an email to let you know that your website has been recognised in the Charming Italy Local Expert Awards, as we think your website offers some good information and advice for people looking to visit Sicily. At Charming Italy we are constantly on the lookout for blogs and websites that offer incredibly useful information for visitors. We thought it was about time that these sites were given the recognition they deserve, and so we created the Local Experts Awards which covers Sicily, Puglia and Sardinia.A great Sicilian blog which is all about food, food, food! Packed full of recipes and photos of mouth-watering Sicilian dishes which will tempt any would be visitor
We have created a badge (see above) which (should you wish to) you can place on your site to let your readers know about your award.
I’d like to take the opportunity to congratulate you, and I hope you have a lovely week.
Kind regards,
Luke
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ADELAIDE REVIEW OF ‘SICILIAN SEAFOOD COOKING’
Most readers of this blog are not have access to the Adelaide Review, a long-standing, free publication of local issues and culture.
A friend sent me a copy of a review of my book Sicilian Seafood Cooking published in The Adelaide Review – how gratifying to receive this while I am visiting Vietnam.
This is the article, published in the February, 2012:
Sicilian Seafood Cooking
February, 2012
Marisa Raniolo Wilkins, New Holland. Reviewed by John McGrath ( Howard Twelthtree).
The title Sicilian Seafood Cooking sounds restrictive. Sicilians eat more than fish, surely? And how could anyone write a book about Sicilian food and just stick to seafood? Marisa Raniolo Wilkins has.
A practical, well illustrated book of 383 pages is crammed with recipes, tips, anecdotes and history combined with the culinary tricks that make the difference between a dud and a triumph. The romance of Sicily is so interwoven in the text that it need not be mentioned.
Marisa’s easy style and light touch give the impression that a further 383 pages could be written without repetition.
A chapter called ‘How to make a good impression’ is devoted to sauces and dressings that put the pretty summer frock on your best cooking efforts. The undefinable, because Nonna won’t tell you, is defined.
Statements like, “I find herbs chopped in a food processor taste grassy rather than fragrant…” are wonderful to read. Your carefully portioned out mound of herbs ground into, horrors, exactly the right word – grass.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, one of the founders of Futurism in the early 1900s gets a mention. He denounced pasta and championed rice. He may have been a titch strange, but he didn’t lack guts; wading into his country for eating the saintly pasta. Marisa tells us that rice was grown in Sicily before 1000 BC.
The first dish I made to Sicilian Seafood Cooking rules was pesce al cartoccio or fish in a bag. Everything sounds better in Italian; we have to face up to it. Fish in a bag is an easy scene-stealer. Follow Marisa and your dining room will smell like the ocean.
Another dining room star is pesce incrostato di sale or salt crusted fish. This is not easy. Have a few trial runs before inflicting this dish on guests. Buy a new hammer and wield it casually. But, above all, follow Marisa.
Tuna testicles are eaten in a recipe that, naturally, smirk, make extravagant suggestive gestures, is, of coarse, good for virility. Have you ever made a tuna/testicles/human link? I certainly hadn’t.
Fish stock is nasty for novices and professionals invariably get around it by using fish sauce. Fish heads and bones start to get bitter after 15 minutes when the vegetables have barely started cooking. The solution: use a saucepan for the vegetables, another for the fish bits.
Marisa doesn’t pretend that Sicily is without stain. The ‘Menu for the Incorruptibles’ honours the anti-Mafia magistrates and investigators who were killed by car bombs in a terror reign in the 80s and 90s.
All this fish can’t be eaten alone so there are many vegetable dishes and salads included. Nothing boring though. A lemon salad, which is mostly pith, for instance. I was taught that lemon pith is an emetic. The first time I tried this salad it was far too delicious than it had any right to be. But still I waited for the inevitable vomit. Nothing.
The lesson: trust Marisa.
For more media coverage, see:
http://allthingssicilianandmore.blogspot.com/2012/01/sicilian-seafood-cooking-media-coverage.html
MA2SBAE8REVW
SICILIAN SEAFOOD COOKING, ITALIANICIOUS and READER’S FEAST Bookstore. Recipe for Slow cooked goat in Nero D’Avola
This is the cover of the January – February issue of 2012 Italianicious magazine.
It is a beautiful bi-monthly publication about food and wine, Italian regional recipes, travel stories and features on Italian restaurants and chefs and cultural events both in Italy and Australia. The photos are also stunning.
The current editor, Danielle Gullaci, is continuing to develop the quality and look of the publication established by previous editor, Jane O’Connor. In the January-February issue Danielle has written a feature about me.
FUELLED BY PASSION
And these are the two beginning paragraphs:
“Although Marisa Raniolo Wilkins spent most of her early childhood in Trieste before moving to Australia with her Sicilian parents, a love for Sicilian food and culture has remained close to her heart. Her first book, Sicilian Seafood Cooking, represents eight years of hard work and a lifetime of culinary experiences.
Despite the fact that her parents both hailed from Sicily, Marisa says that she was born on the Italian island “by accident”. Marisa’s mother had lived in Catania, Sicily, before moving to Trieste in northern Italy with her siblings; and her Sicilian father (from Ragusa) was stationed in Trieste during the war, learning to be a tailor. “
I was also featured in Italianicious magazine in the November-December issue when Mary Taylor Simeti and I discussed a Sicilian Christmas at Dolcetti, Melbourne’s little gem of a pastry shop. Naturally Pastry Chef Marianna Di Bartolo contributed to the discussion and we ate some of her delectable sweets. The editor was Jane O’Connor (now group editor of all Prime Media magazines), the three camera shy women and the photographer Patrick Varney of Raglan Images all had a grand old time.
Mary Taylor Simeti is one of my heroes – I think that sometimes it takes a “foreigner ‘ with a passion to rediscover and tease out the history behind the food ( not that she is a foreigner, she is part of Sicily, having dedicated so many years to it.).
Mary and I talked to Gus about his produce at the Queen Victoria Market.
The time before that Italianicious published an article and my recipe for Caponata, that was in December 2009 – February 2010 and the editor was Glynis Macri now Director/Editor of The Italian Traveller – Food, Wine and Travel Consultant.
Mr Bianco’s recipe for Goat with Nero d’Avola (recipe from Italianicious)
2kg goat consisting of shoulder cut into 150g pieces and 4 shanks
1.5 litres Nero d’Avola wine
3 onions, chopped roughly
200ml red wine vinegar
3 carrots, chopped roughly
3 celery sticks, chopped roughly
1 garlic clove, peeled
200g prosciutto fat
5 whole tomatoes, chopped
2L reduced beef stock
20 crushed whole peppercorns
3 bay leaves
1.5 litres Nero d’Avola wine
3 onions, chopped roughly
200ml red wine vinegar
3 carrots, chopped roughly
3 celery sticks, chopped roughly
1 garlic clove, peeled
200g prosciutto fat
5 whole tomatoes, chopped
2L reduced beef stock
20 crushed whole peppercorns
3 bay leaves
For the garnish:
12 baby carrots, peeled and roasted with olive oil, garlic and rosemary
4 potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters, then roasted with olive oil, garlic, sliced lemon and rosemary.
12 baby carrots, peeled and roasted with olive oil, garlic and rosemary
4 potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters, then roasted with olive oil, garlic, sliced lemon and rosemary.
Reader’s Feast Bookstore
The other nice thing that happened this week is that I went into Reader’s Feast Bookstore. Sicilian Seafood Cooking has been featured in their Summer 2002 Book Guide and has been written by Helen.
Helen is only one of the helpful, knowledgeable and personable staff who has been working with Mary Dalmau at Reader’s Feast for a very long time.
“Our bookstore will be a place of interest and enjoyment, peopled by committed and enthusiastic staff, who present a range of books to suit all visitors” Mary Dalmau, 1991
Finally my cookbook of the year is Sicilian Seafood Cooking by Marisa Raniolo Wilkins.
This incredibly substantial cookbook takes
us on a culinary odyssey through Sicily; It is
a book of love celebrating seasonal produce,
traditional recipes, methods and techniques
while providing us non Sicilians with suitable
alternative ingredients. The food is delicious
and the advice is such that you are never
alone while preparing these recipes. It’s as if
the grandmothers and aunts are beside you.
Happy Holiday Reading and Feasting.
Helen
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SHARKS IN PERIL. Recipe: Pesce in Pastella – fish in batter
In the weeks before Christmas, I received an email headed Sharks in Peril. It was sent by Tooni Mahto, Marine Campaigner from The Marine Conservation Society and was a call to action to reduce shark fishing. The gruesome practice of catching sharks purely for their fins was a special focus of Tooni Mahto’s message. Having watched documentary footage of sharks being hauled on deck and having their fins hacked off, before pitched back into the sea to writhe and drown, I can’t imagine how anyone could sit down to relish shark fin soup.
Many shark species are listed as endangered by all of the conservation associations. And shark is caught and sold under a variety names, the most common being “flake”, which disguise what is really on sale. Many seafood customers are not aware that Fish and Chips shops, especially, use shark, sold as flake for their battered fish. King George whiting and flathead tails are a sustainable and better tasting alternative to ‘flake’. Even before I knew “flake” was actually shark, I never liked the taste.
In Italy, shark is called pescecane (fish/ dog) but it is also called squalo, however it also has other names (palombo, verdesca, smeriglio, vitella di mare) and Italians like the rest of the world may not know that they are eating shark or an endangered species.
From Slow Fish, Italy:
I pescecani non sono una minaccia per gli uomini, sono gli uomini che minacciano (e pesantemente) i pescecani!
Sharks are not a threat to men, it is men who threaten (and heavily) sharks.
The Sharks in Peril email came with an invitation to cut out the shape of a globally endangered hammerhead shark, and within the shape to write a message, which could be sent to the Australian Government. The photo above is my best effort to get the message across.
The following quotes have come from the Sharks in Peril Appeal and I hope that it will motivate you to look at their website.
Walking into a supermarket or fish and chip shop the last thing you would expect to see is an endangered species for sale. There would be outrage if tiger, whale or panda were being sold. But you will find globally endangered hammerheads available, right here in Australia.
Every year a staggering 100 million sharks are caught and killed across the globe.
Huge consumer demand for shark fins and other shark products has made sharks among the most valuable fish in the sea.
As silently as sharks slip on to the menu, their numbers slip towards extinction.
While more and more nations are giving their sharks sanctuary, here in Australia we’re finning,, filleting and battering them into oblivion.
But this isn’t a distant problem in a distant ocean. Australian fisheries catch hundreds of thousands of sharks each year, sending shark meat to our supermarkets and fish shops and contributing hundreds of tonnes of fins to the shameful international trade in shark fin. Inconceivably this includes tens of thousands of sharks caught from within the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef including endangered species like the scalloped hammerhead.
N.B. If you have a copy of the first AMCS guide there are some changes to the classification of particular species of fish.
PASTELLA
Batter is called pastella in Italian and this particular one is mainly used to coat vegetables and fruit before frying, Using a heavy type batter is common for fish in Australia, however Italians generally use a much lighter batter to coat fish before frying ( light coating of flour or dipped in beaten egg first, then fine breadcrumbs).
Recipe from L’Artusi, La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiare bene (Pellegrino Artusi).
INGREDIENTS
100g plain flour,1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, 1 egg- separated, salt to taste, and a little water.
PROCESSES
Combine egg yolk with other ingredients (add as much water as necessary) and make a thick batter.
Rest for 2 hours.
When ready to use add beaten egg white (stiff).
Dip fish in batter and fry.
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BOOK SIGNING OF SICILIAN SEAFOOD COOKING AT READINGS (and Fennel Frittata)
EVENT | Thursday 17 November 2011 at 6:30pm
Marisa Raniolo Wilkins
Food, wine, book signing
Readings Hawthorn: 701 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122
The event was organised by Christine Gordon.
After this event I went home and made a wild fennel frittata and had it with a bottle of Rocky Passes Estate syrah – a very fine wine and the only bottle left over from the book signing event held in Readings in Hawthorn (Sicilian Seafood Cooking).
Friends Vitto Oles & Candi Westney own and run Rocky Passes Estate and they graciously donated the wine for the Readings event.
Vitto is the viticulturist and wine-maker of exceptionally good Syrah and Candi is just as important because she is responsible for the entertainment – the music concerts, performances and art exhibitions. Both manage the cellar door and the range of appetising Argentinian/Spanish inspired morsels (tapas) that are available when you visit their winery.
Rocky Passes Estate is at the spectacular southern end of the Strathbogie Ranges, near Seymour in Victoria. If you look at their wine label you will notice two eagles – these birds are often soaring above their very attractive property.
The winery is relatively new and had its first vintage of Syrah in 2004 and every vintage since has been highly rated by James Halliday. The winery is open Sundays 11-5pm or by appointment and Tapas also served onthe last Friday of the month as well as during art openings and special events.
I love wild fennel and when I find it I use it.
I have written about frittata in a previous post and as you see it is not difficult to make. The fennel can be replaced by any wilted green vegetable, for example spinach, endives, spring onions or asparagus.
Wild greens are superb or you can use bulb fennel, but keep the greens.You can vary the amounts of vegetables but as a general guide I would use 3-4 eggs to a cup of greens. For this frittata I used 12 eggs and it fed 4 of us (we were greedy).
Remember to use a spatula to lift the cooked part of the frittata as it cooks and release the uncooked egg. Need I say that I only use free range eggs?
Then flip it over – I used a pizza tray. Finally, slide the frittata out. At the Readings book signing event I accompanied the Rocky passes with green Sicilian olives (olive schiacciate), marinaded anchovies.
Marianna Di Bartolo from Dolcetti made more fish shaped biscuits for this occasion and once again these were perfectly matched with Brown Brothers’ Zibibbo.
![Zibbibo[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.allthingssicilianandmore.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Zibbibo1.jpg?resize=595%2C850)
And once again it was an other fine celebration for Sicilian Seafood Cooking.