Spreading a little Cheer with Beer!
I got a little present yesterday. A quite unexpected, but very nice thought from one of the students from the recently finished Human Resources Master.
Being a philosophical kind of guy, he obviously thought that an Englishman such as myself would probably appreciate a good bottle of beer. He was right! What a nice thought.
The Abbaye de Bonne-Espérance beer, which I’m sipping now, is very good, and I like the name too. Sounds as though he is making some reference to the English course of mine he recently attended - I hope! And knowing this guy, the choice of name would not be a surprise.
To your good health and many thanks Mr La Greca! All the best for the future too.
Job satisfaction at its best!
Celanto a settembre, Milan - a great little restaurant
We went out this evening with some friends, and they took us to an interesting restaurant which, it has to be said, is a little out on a limb. This is something of a shame because the place has a nice relaxed atmosphere, and more importantly, great food and wine. Our friends had already been there a couple of times, and on both previous occasions, the restaurant had been virtually empty. What a great shame.
This restaurant, which is modern in style and attractively decorated in white, as you will see from the photos on the site, is called ‘Celanto a settembre‘ and is located about 10 minutes by car from Piazza Loretto in Via Teodosio, 102, Milan. There is a map here - click on ‘Dove Siamo’. For some reason, I cannot see the photos when I access the site via Firefox, whereas by using IE7, I can see them in all their glory…
Although the food served in the Celanto a settembre is based on Italian cuisine, it is not traditional Italian cooking, but it is this touch of originality which made it so fascinating for me, plus the fact that the food was excellent, and the standard of presentation of the dishes being very high indeed. The service was good too, but seeing as we were almost the only people in the place, this was to be expected.
Now to the good part. After starting off with a couple of glasses of a very nice Portuguese white, I ordered a ‘Gelato di parmigiano con pere e uva’, which was parmesan ice cream (really!) with pear and grapes, and it was very good. My other half, Cristina, and friend, Sergio, had ‘Timballo di spada con crema di melanzane’ - a sort of mini-flan made with swordfish and served with cream of aubergine, again very tasty. Giorgia, our other friend, opted for the ‘Timballo di carciofi pecorino e bottarga’, which again was a type of flan, only this time with artichoke, pecorino cheese, and ‘bottarga’, which was thin slices of what I think is smoked tuna fish. It too tasted as good as it looked.
The starter was followed by a first course of Spaghetti with prawns, squid, and clams, served with dwarf tomatoes and spinach shoots, which Giorgia went for. My other half ordered Gnocchi stuffed with baccala, again with dwarf tomatoes and clams. The presentation was lovely and the taste did not disappoint either.
The guys, Sergio and myself, instead chose a main course of the intriguing squid stuffed with sea bass and artichoke, all on a bed of stir fried artichoke and served with scampi. Wonderful. The first and main courses where served together, so no waiting around while someone finishes the first course before the main course is served.
For pudding my other half went for the ‘Crema Catalana’, which is an oven cooked cream dish, whereas Giorgia got the hot chocolate tart which came with a pineapple and rosemary sauce. Instead I chose a more traditional chocolate mousse with strawberry sauce. The desserts where superb too.
Wine? Oddly enough we went for a red with all the fish, and the owner recommended a bottle of wine from the Alto Adige (Trento) area, and it was an excellent, quite light, red, a 2002 Sass Roà, Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact one of the other attractions of this restaurant is the very extensive selection of wines on offer. Over 400 of them in fact!
The price of all this goodness? Just over 200 Euros (about £30 a head) for the four of us, however we did have a bottle and a half of wine and the red we went for was not the cheapest the house had to offer.
The Celanto a settembre is open at lunchtimes and stays open until midnight during the week, although it is closed on Saturday lunchtimes and all day Sunday. They do, however, accept orders for private parties on Saturday lunchtimes and on Sundays at lunch and dinner time, if requested. I don’t know if English or other languages are spoken, but I’m going to ask them for some photos, so I’ll update this post when I find out.
Would I recommend this place? 100% yes. The food is fabulous and the menu is highly original. Everything is prepared by the owner, Carlo. It’s just a slight shame it is a little off the beaten track, although a tram does pass right in front of it. But, I think it is well worth, as is often the case, moving off the beaten track to check it out.
Good food, good wine and good company, which all added up to a lovely evening. What more can you ask?
Using RSS - A Nice Video Explanation of How to Use RSS Feeds
This is a nice simple explanation of what RSS is. I shall be using this little video with my students.
With thanks to the guys on the Common Craft site.And thanks to Juha Ylitalo over at his Juha Ylitalo Photography Blog for putting me onto this.
I was going to post a few photos
But I can’t. I did want to show you some photos of a little event I went to today which is being held at Milan’s Triennale exhibition centre. This event is for 2 to 6 year old children and is called ‘Vietato Non Toccare‘ - information in Italian. ‘Non toccare’ is ‘Do not touch’, and ‘vietato’ means ‘forbidden’, so ‘Vietato Non Toccare’ is ‘Not touching is forbidden’, or, perhaps a nicer translation would be simply ‘Do Touch!’.
This event is in course at the moment and its purpose is to encourage young children to touch and experience their environments. There are lots of activities, such as climbing in and out of big boxes, opening and examining other boxes, creating stories from pictures, and colouring and drawing. I guess the whole set-up acts as a kind of natural sensoral activity to stimulate the learning process.
Learning process or not, our little four year old loved it, as did the children of two friends of ours who came to the event. In fact, it was quite difficult to drag our sprogs away. Just the thing for a cold and damp Sunday morning in February.
I also thought that the event might have been just the thing for taking a few nice photos, so went armed with my camera. Now, I noticed that at the entrance to the building, there was a sign that basically said ‘no photography‘. Shame, I thought, but I will abide by the rules.
Only, the parents in the children’s play event area where taking photos right left and centre, so I thought, what the heck, I will too. I did take a few snaps until one of the young men running the event said ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t take photos’. I looked a little perplexed and then pointed out that everyone else was. He accepted this and said that he was going to tell the others to stop snapping away.
He did try to stop the happy parents from snapping away, but nobody listened to the poor chap and everyone kept on photographing their children having fun, as most parents would do. Yours truly got his camera out once more, and was told off a few more times, albeit very nicely. My bolt on flash unit is a bit too noticeable and rather too powerful, and does not lend itself too well to the taking of semi-clandestine photos, I noticed. One of the parents there did ask if I was covering the event for some magazine or other. I was hardly fading into the background.
Anyway, the reason why I should not have been taking any photos, and why this post will remain photoless, is that Italy’s privacy laws effectively state that children under the age of 18 cannot be photographed without the photographer having first obtained the parents’ written permission. I, and the other 20 or 30 parents could have been arrested for what we were doing. Now that would have been an event.
Worth checking out, the ‘Vietato Non Toccare‘ event runs until the 30 March. From Tuesdays to Fridays it is open from 5:00pm, whereas at weekends and during school holidays there are a series of 90 minute sessions at the following times: 10.30 - 12.00 - 2.30 - 4.00 - 5.30. It’s a nice way to keep the little ones occupied and there are supervisors too.
Bring the kids, but leave the camera at home, possibly!
PS Some of the photos I should not have taken seem to have come out quite well.
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