Hello, my dear followers!

I’m happy to see in my cozy blog where I’ll tell you everything about my life, job and hobbies and all the exciting, unusual things that happen to me. My name is Antonio Rossi and I work as a chef at an Italian restaurant in Florida. In my free time, I also learn playing drums. I’d love to become a professional musician, travel around the world and share my songs with as many people as possible. But so far all I can offer you is true Italian pizza and pasta. I like to try something new, experiment with products and create recipes of my own, and this is yet another reason why I started this blog. Here I’ll keep track of my best recipes and share some tricks that you can try in your own kitchen!

 

A trip to remember

Discovering the world

Today I’d like to tell you about my wonderful trip around Europe. That was fabulous! I could feel the breath of the Old World, its steady rhythm of life and the touch of history. Me and my friends had visited 5 countries in less than 3 weeks! That was just enough to take a look at each of them. We planned the route at random, but it worked out just fine. Our Euro tour included:

1. Czech Republic
2. Hungary
3. Italy
4. Germany
5. Austria

We used all types of transport and even went hitchhiking! I was surprised by the attitude of people we met. Even when they didn’t understand us, they still tried to be friendly and nice. I really liked that!

Wind of roaming

First, we plunged into the mysteries of the old Prague. I was excited to try local cuisine at several different restaurants. It’s particularly important for me, because my job requires me to constantly learn new tastes. In Italy, we spend hours in restaurants and trattorias, and local wines were just what you imagine when you hear the words ‘Italian wine’ – simply fantastic.

On our way, we got into a few memorable and even unusual situations. For instance, during our gondola ride in Venetia, the hat of a girl sitting next to us was blown away by the wind and my friend threw his arm forward trying to catch it – and he did it, but accidentally pushed the gondolier into the water )) Of course, we helped him back onto the boat, but his trust was broken 🙂

A sudden discovery

Then we found ourselves in Germany and finally Austria where I could get myself together after all our adventures. Once we were sitting in a small bar round the corner and drinking beer (which was fantastic, by the way). It was raining – you know, that cozy warm summer rain. I was watching the visitors, the by-passers behind the window and suddenly saw a picture on the wall. It was so in tune with the entire atmosphere of the evening that I had a strange feeling of being outside and inside that painting at the same time. The canvas depicted bright street lights, whimsical café signs, colorful trees wet with rain, people walking under the drizzle… The sidewalk and the background seemed to be filled with light. That stunned me. As I found out, that incredible café painting (you can see it here) was created by Leonid Afremov, some modern artist I never heard about. Now it hangs in my bedroom reminding me about our wonderful trip and taking me back to that magical night in Austria over and over again. Who would believe that a simple café shop painting can have such an amazing effect on a human soul!

It’s pizza time!

Hi everyone! Today I’m going to tell you how to cook everyone’s favorite Italian dish – pizza! It might seem complicated, but it’s actually quite easy. The most important thing is the choice of products. Some chefs think that you can use only Italian ingredients, but in many regions they are simply unaffordable. So don’t be shy to use anything you feel like putting in, even if it doesn’t look like any of the recipes you’ve seen. As long as the products you select are natural and high-quality, it all should go right! The trickiest thing is making the dough. That requires some skill and practice, so if you are new at this, I suggest you buy pre-made pizza dough. However, if you decide to go hardcore and do everything by yourself, remember that you should roll the dough only with your hands, no rolling pin! Now a few words about the sauce. It’s rather simple to make too: you’re going to need tomatoes, onions and fat. Just fry the onions until they are soft, add whole or mashed tomatoes (or even tomato juice) and leave it all in the pan for a few minutes. Classic recipe also requires putting in some basilica, but I guess it’s a matter of taste. You can either add it together with other ingredients, into the sauce or drizzle it over a ready pizza. To illustrate all this, here is a really cool video by one of my favorite pizza guys who will walk you through the entire process with passion and a lovely Italian accent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SJGQ2HLp8 🙂