It was brought to my attention a couple weeks ago that I write about the villa staff in my blog posts like everyone should know know who they are, and that my followers at times have no idea who I am referring to. So over the next couple of weeks I am going to dedicate some of my posts to the amazing villa staff.
She is our amazing chef / baker. Cristina has worked at the villa for four years now, and she tells me not only does she love to cook, but she loves to EAT! A girl after my own heart, minus the whole cooking aspect 🙂 I told Cristina that I was going to blog about her, so I asked her some questions today so that I had some more info to share other than she is a wonderful cook! We spent about half an hour going back and forth, me asking, her answering and often times taking a short break to find the translation dictionary – ha ha! So therefore I apologize if some of my facts about Cristina are a little off!
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| Cristina peeling veggies for Ratatouille |
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| Preparing pranzo and cena |
Everyday Cristina prepares pranzo (lunch) and cena (dinner) for everyone at the villa. For lunch we generally have some sort of protein, pasta, salad and a side dish. About twice a week we are also spoiled with one of her amazing deserts! Lunch is enjoyed by all the villa staff, the professors and students, these is usually around 20-25 people. Yes, she does this EVERYDAY, I can’t even figure out how to cook for two people everyday – this lady is amazing. Dinner is prepared by Cristina during the day and left on the stove for the students to warm up later on that evening. One of the students asked her the other day if she plans out our weekly meals, she said that sometimes she does, but then other times she just comes in, looks in the freezer and makes it up as she goes… really?!?!?!
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| Pear Crostina |
So a little bit about our chef Cristina, her and her husband of three years, Gabriele live here in Castelleto. Gabriele designs motors for machinery, and he recently just traveled to China for work…. where I believe he really missed Cristina’s cooking 🙂 I’m pretty sure Italians aren’t used to Chinese food like we Americans are. They have one dog, whose name is Skezzo. I asked what this translated to, or why his name was Skezzo and the response I got was that the first few days that they had this new puppy (who is now huge), he was peeing all over the house…. hmmmm! I still don’t understand, but I’ll keep investigating this one.
The kitchen is such a happy place in the villa, there is always good food being prepared there, Cristina always has music playing on the radio and often times you will find her singing along. Then there is Lucia, our housekeeper (she will be featured in the coming weeks), when you get her and Cristina together they are a hot mess – a good hot mess though! They laugh uncontrollably, and I am often convinced they are laughing at me! My one big question for Cristina was what her favorite dish or food was… she really could not answer this as again she told me that she loves to cook and loves to eat, this is all she kept saying. And then all of a sudden it was like a light bulb went off in her head – MACARONS “amo macarons” she said. Well now I just feel awful that I didn’t bring her back any from Paris! She informed me that she loves them so much that she would kill for them, but she told me not to inform my followers – I explained that you would all understand.
Allora, well if she didn’t know what her favorite dish was, I would find out what her favorite restaurant in Genova was…. Voltalacarta, she didn’t hesitate on this one! But I am pretty sure that this lady doesn’t eat out much, because her own meals have to be as good, if not better then anything she could get at a restaurant.