Italy Puglia cooking classes and wine tours

This is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
fresh figs
almonds
bay leaves
lemon zest

PREPARATION
Cut the figs in half, without breaking them and let them dry in the sun on a wooden board for about 10 days. Turn them upside down very often.

For more information about Puglia cuisine, our cooking classes and wine tours in Puglia Italy please write at info.stile@gmail.com

One of the many things we love about the summer in Italy is that, because of the hot weather, we have more excuses to eat lots of ice cream.
We love trying different ice cream artisans and for sure there are many we will be happy to recommend in Lecce.
Lemon granita is what we use as our benchmark to understand how good an ice cream artisan!
Many people think that Lemon Granita is similar to a Lemon sorbet.
There is a main difference which is the fact that Lemon Granita has no eggs, no milk and no cream in it. Just lemon juice, lemon zest, water and sugar!
On a very hot day, (today we are expecting 40° C!), I and Marika like going around Lecce and have a granita for breakfast, aperitif, lunch and as an after siesta drink.
Our favorite Lemon Granita is the one made with little sugar and a grated lemon zest in it!
For breakfast we would have a Coffee Granita with a croissant (the Sicilian way); for aperitif the Lemon Granita; after the siesta the almond granita.
There are many flavors you can choose: lemon, mint, coffee, strawberry, almond, kiwi, mandarin, prickly pears.

This is the recipe to make the Lemon Granita:

Ingredients:
300 grams of sugar
1/2 Litre of water
2 glasses of lemon juice
1 grated lemon zest

Preparation:
Boil the sugar and water for 5 minutes. Then cool it and add the lemon juice and grated lemon zest. Boil everything again for 2 minutes. Let it cool down again and put it in the freezer in a metallic container. Turn the mixture while it is freezing every 20 minutes. The Granita will be ready after 3-4 hours.

Don’t forget to try if you come to Puglia!

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If you ever arrive in Lecce any time from 1 to 5 pm you will certainly think this is a gost town.
All houses will have their shutters down.

All shops will be closed and most bars and restaurants will be empty.

Nobody will be around apart from a few tourists desperately looking for open churches or monuments.

The only proof that humans are around may be a bottle of wine with a few glasses left on the table after lunch in a private home.

For those wondering what goes on from 1 to 5 pm in Lecce and everywhere else in Puglia, the answer is very simple: it’s siesta time!
All people go home to have lunch with their families and then, they go to bed for a long siesta…before starting their day again which goes on until very late at night.

After 5pm, little by little people start waking up again: first you see a man riding a bike, then a lady knocking a neighbour’s door…until when you see all the ladies gathering in front their house and chatting about their plans for dinner.

Many medical studies demonstrated that having a proper and seated lunch with our family improves our well being and lifestyle. Moreover taking a short siesta reduces the risks of many heart and health diseases…..of course when associated to a healthy way of eating.
In general I and Marika like this relaxed lifestyle and for the past few years, since we are back home in Puglia, we “have been forcing” ourselves to take an after lunch siesta every day, even just fo 15 minutes. There won’t be anything else you coud do otherwise: you can’t call anyone because all phones will be off; you can’t go shopping because all shops are closed. The only problem with taking a siesta is that once you get used to it, it’s very hard to go back and not take it anymore!

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4– 8 servings
- 1000 grams mussels
- 1 carrot
- 1 garlic clove
- pinch red chili
- 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
- leaves of parsley, chopped
- 2 tbs white wine
- 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
- 500 grams of hand made tagliatelle

Do you have any other recipe with mussels? Please share it.

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What a wonderful joy for me and Marika to wake up this morning!

This is our recipe:

- 1/2 glass freshly squeezed orange juice;

- 500 grams of flour;
- 250 whole grain flour;
- baking yeast (natural is better);

- 6 eggs;
- 1 yolk;
- 1 tsp sugar;
- 2 tsp sea salt;
- 1 lemon zest;
- 1/2 glass extra virgin olive oil;

For more information, please contact us at: info@stilemediterraneo.it

For more information visit the Squisito! 2007 website.

Today the stones of Matera are almost uninhabited, but right up until 1952, they housed 15 000 people until the Italian state declared that the inhabitants be re-housed due to sanitary regulations. The urban settlement which is dug into the rock at Gravina di Matera is the only one of its kind and consists of an intricate network of alleyways, steps, grottoes, arches, kitchen gardens, terraces and chimney tops. The hydraulics system is also completely unique in that it was dug into the ground where cisterns were created to enable the inhabitants to take advantage of a fresh water supply. The inhabitants of Matera slowly came to the surface, so to speak, building rooftops and small, kitchen gardens. A perfect example of historic art concerning human space carved into the limestone or ‘tufo’ rock face.
Towards the end of 1993, the Sassi of Matera were declared as part of the World Cultural Heriatge of UNESCO he patrimony for future generations of humanity’. The Sassi are renown as one of the 365 wonders of the world.

In 1994, Matera was awarded a prize from the European union for the best territorial urban programme. Many churches in Matera were erected between XIII and XIX centuries, the majority in Baroque style – evidence that the town’s people developed in unison with the grottoes. At Matera (55000 inhabitants) one may enjoy a variety of interesting historical influences as well as the ‘new city’.