NINE FIFTEEN

Did you know that British sovereigns usually choose   a dish to mark their Coronation Day?  That’s definitely a good way to match History and enogastronomy, one of the best expressions of the culture of a community!  On today’s occasion (6th May 2023) King Charles and Queen consort Camilla shared the "coronation quiche" recipe via their social media. The quiche  is described as "a deep quiche with a crisp, light pastry case and deli cate flavours of spinach, broad beans and fresh Tarragon ”.  You can eat it hot or cold with a green salad and boiled new potatoes and that’s perfect for a ‘Coronation Big Lunch’, that is to say for street parties across the country to celebrate His Majesty the King and get in touch with family, friends and neighbours.  Watch here or read here the official recipe for the quiche.  Whether you are a royalist or not, this is a day to remember in hist ory!  Enjoy your meal!  P.S. In the picture you can see the delicious Coronation quiches made

Dear Students,  As a teacher, this time of September is always full of high hopes and great expectations for what is going to happen. New classes to meet for the first time, old students to greet again after the summer break.  Will we get along well soon? I’m sure we will. Yes, we will, provided you realize that all my interventions at school  serve your dreams .   By the way, what are your dreams? Cristal clear already, or still cloudy and misty?  Try and get an answer after reading/listening   this poem  by Langston Hughes, one of the most famous American poets of all time. Ah, guess the title!  Enjoy your new school year! 

 Dear Students,  Happy to meet you again after all this extremely challenging time!  I hope you are well and that Covid-19 hasn’t been too difficult to face for you and your families.  I’d like to greet your back to school days with this wonderful poem by Black American poet Amanda Gorman,  The Miracle of Morning (April 2020), a hymn to solidarity, empathy and optimism even in the tragic times we have experienced.  Let’s read it scrolling down this page or listen to it together clicking on  this link  and discuss it.  Enjoy the poem and the new school year! I thought I’d awaken to a world in mourning. Heavy clouds crowding, a society storming. But there’s something different on this golden morning. Something magical in the sunlight, wide and warming. I see a dad with a stroller taking a jog. Across the street, a bright-eyed girl chases her dog. A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries. She grins as her young neighbor brings her groceries. While we might feel small, separate, and all a

Did you know that the European Union has 24 official and working  languages ? Did you know that learning foreign languages is good for your health, social relationships, and future job?  ‘The limits of my language mean the limits of my world’: do you understand the meaning of this famous quotation by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein? Celebrate  the European Day of Languages , taste the richness of Europe!

After the long summer break, let’s start the new school year finding inspiration in a very special kind of art: street art. Read about Banksy, one of the most celebrated street artists in the world, at  this link  and then scroll down his official  Instagram account .

Exciting ‘English Cooking Demo' inspired to Jamie Oliver's recipes with the young students of IPC Tandoi Corato, class III C! #MenuOfTheDay: Starters: Shrimp Cocktail Main course: Fish and Chips with Mushy Peas Dessert: Blackcurrant Cheescake. Thanks to the excellent young cooks and Prof. Giovanni Lagreca for the supervision.  Stay tuned for the video recipe!

There was an interesting conference on food design yesterday in the school where I currently teach.  The pretext was the presentation of a book titled ‘La cucina di design. Cibo, tendenze, moda’ by a dear colleague and friend of mine, Loredana La Fortuna. The topic was food design, an issue analyzed from the critical lenses of social semiotics, definitely an unusal perspective for the students of a ‘Professionale Alberghiero’.  Food is not just what we eat. It is a language and, as such, it can express several meanings concerning family and national traditions, lifestyle, environment, hierarchies, gender roles, religion, cultural politics and ... Art, as Loredana’s book highlights.  Therefore, studying food means studying culture. I really recommend the reading of this book edited by Progedit (Bari 2016) to all the students and people interested in deconstructing the contemporary trend of ‘foodism’. Thanks a lot to all the participants to yesterday’s school event.