Archive for the ‘contests’ Category
Peas with Pancetta Plus Divina Cucina’s Secrets from a Tuscan Kitchen Cookbook
My friend Judy Witts Francini kindly sent me a copy of her handcrafted cookbook, Secrets from My Tuscan Kitchen, and has even more kindly offered to give a lucky Bleeding Espresso reader a chance to win a copy as well.
To enter the random drawing, all you need to do is comment on this post by 11:59 pm (CET) on Tuesday, March 30, 2010.
Trust me, you’re going to love this cookbook. Not only is it absolutely full of tasty recipes from appetizers to desserts, Judy’s cookbook is also aesthetically pleasing and a cook’s best friend with each page facing the recipes blank so you can add your own notes.
If you don’t know, Italian cooking is very regional, i.e., what you’ll find in Calabria, you probably won’t find in Piemonte, and vice versa. So for those of you who want to get a great taste of what eating in Tuscany is like, you must see Judy’s cookbook, which is based on her own experiences of living in the region for nearly 30 years, particularly as influenced by her Tuscan mother-in-law.
You can read more about Judy’s cookbook and how you can order your own at Judy’s website, Divina Cucina. You can also keep up with Judy at her blog Over a Tuscan Stove and on Twitter @divinacucina.
Of course I wanted to share a recipe with you as I shared Judy’s book this What’s Cooking Wednesday, so I chose something I knew that would be a big hit here. Judy has two recipes for peas in the book, one with pancetta (Piselli alla Fiorentina) and the other with cooked ham (Piselli al Prosciutto); I actually ended up combining the two recipes to adjust for what I had handy (ran out of garlic!), but what I made was closer to Piselli alla Fiorentina, so here you go.
Ah, also, I did leave out the sugar, as P freaks out when he tastes sugar. The peas were definitely sweet enough, and this dish was delicious…and talk about easy peasy! Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Piselli alla Fiorentina
- 1 lb peas
- 2 oz pancetta, cubed
- 1 clove garlic, sliced
- 2 tbs chopped parsley
- 1 tbs sugar
- Salt
- 8 tbs olive oil
1. Place peas, garlic, parsley and olive oil in a saucepan. Add salt to taste.
2. Add enough water to cover peas.
3. Cook over low heat, covered.
4. Just before the peas are done, add the pancetta and sugar. Serve with their sauce.
Buon appetito!
Remember to comment for your chance to a win a copy of Judy’s cookbook!
Giveaway: The Separated Woman’s Guide to a Bright Future
Today in honor of International Women’s Day, we have a special guest post and book giveaway geared toward women — separated women, in particular. Just leave a comment on this post by 11:59 p.m. (CET) on Sunday, March 14, 2010 to be eligible for a free copy of The Separated Woman’s Guide to a Bright Future.
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Annette Jones is the author of The Separated Woman’s Guide to a Bright Future. In addition to being an author, Annette has an adult teaching degree, has trained as a Practitioner and Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), and now has a private consultancy practice and also conducts two franchises in the retail environment.
Annette was born in Manchester, England and moved to Sydney, Australia with her parents at the age of eight. In 2000, Annette married her second husband, but after a separation, divorced in 2006. She is now enjoying the fruits of her journey and has a happy, loving relationship on the Gold Coast after previous stays in Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea, Queensland, and Brisbane.
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Hi and Welcome! My book is written to support and guide women through the process of separation and divorce and to inspire women to empower themselves through one of the most challenging parts of their lives. Lots of info, lots of ideas… and lots of fun; this book can help turn lives around!
Before writing my book, I spent many months researching databases on women’s issues and stories and interviewing a range of women who were divorced, separated, married or single. One overwhelming thing came from all of this: that women need to nurture themselves and each other to take control of their lives, loves and futures.
My book developed in three sections:
1. A practical guide to separation: What to do about property, children, money etc.; seeking legal and financial advice from trained professionals who have your best interests at heart (not the dearest but the best for you).
2. Your time following a break up: Nature and nurturing yourself, healing, dreaming, doing and finally re-entering the world of fun and love small steps at a time.
3. Socializing, such as dancing and dating: Whether it is the Salsa, burlesque, jazz, Belly Dancing, Latin Dancing or Tap, go for it! You’ll be amazed what it brings out in you.
This book will make you laugh, cry and think, and I will definitely help you “act.” If you’d like to act right now, here is purchase information for the book.
Some quick tips for “How to Survive Separation”:
Do:
1. Attempt to work things out for property settlement with your former partner.
2. Be realistic and get the facts about your entitlements in a property settlement.
3. When you decide on a property settlement, do have a solicitor advise on the settlement.
4. Monitor your children (if you have them) for behavioural changes.
5. Make time for yourself every day, time to nurture and care for yourself.
6. Do surround yourself with supportive friends and family. Girlfriends are wonderful at this time for you. They’ll support you, entertain you, laugh with you, cry with you or just be there for you.
7. Do take a moment, take several moments to sit quietly by yourself and ask, “Where would I like to be two years from now, what would I like to be doing, where would I like to be living, and how do I want to be feeling?
8. Get Grateful. What DO you have in your life right now that you are thankful for? Make a quick list of 10 things.
Don’t
1. Necessarily employ the best family law solicitor money can buy or one with the most impressive credentials and experience, as your partner may just use a common law solicitor.
2. Don’t speak ill of your former partner.
3. Don’t go on a spending spree.
4. Don’t jump into a new relationship straight away.
I hope you enjoy my book, and I would like to leave you with a final quote:
Find out who you are and do it on purpose.
~ Dolly Parton
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Thanks Annette! Remember to comment to enter the contest,
and Buona Festa della Donna!
E-Book Giveaway & Guest Post by Author Elisa Lorello
As part of the WOW blog tour, Elisa Lorello stops by Bleeding Espresso today to talk about something that has within the past few months become near and dear to my heart: e-books!
Since I treated myself to an iPod Touch two months ago, I’ve become a proud e-book convert after *swearing* I would never get used to the feel of a gadget in my hand instead of all those gorgeous pages. Of course I still love paper books, but getting used to e-books was *much* easier than I had imagined–and talk about instant gratification. I can pick out a book and have it literally in my hands in SECONDS.
Elisa is the author of Faking It and Ordinary World, and has offered up some free e-copies for lucky BE readers. Just leave a comment on this post by midnight on Sunday, February 28 (Italy time), and you’re eligible. You can get extra entries by tweeting or posting about the contest on your blog and/or Facebook (four possible entries total). Be sure to let me know about your extra entries via e-mail, Twitter, or FB.
Now, here’s Elisa!
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E-books Are My Friend
E-books and e-readers have been the target of some doomsday scenarios. “Watch out, they’ll destroy the publishing industry as we know it.” “Bookstores will be no more.” And while it’s true that the e-reader (namely, the Amazon Kindle) has rattled booksellers, I’m not ready to paint it as the Big Bad Wolf just yet.
Maybe because e-publishing has been good to me. Last month, my novels Faking It and Ordinary World hit the Kindle Store Bestseller list. Faking It even cracked the Top 10! The Kindle Store was able to provide me with the mass distribution that chain brick-and-mortar stores typically refuse an independent author. That, in turn, provided me with a readership and recognition.
But that doesn’t diminish my love for the tactile book, or bookstores. Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC, for example, is one of my favorite places to be and one of the first places I show off to my out-of-town visitors. Moreover, if I’m not at a coffeeshop to write, then I’ve snagged a comfy chair so I can read a book. And my home is cluttered with books on shelves, nightstands, coffeetables, you name it. It’s a comforting feeling to be surrounded by books.
So who said you had to love either one or the other? Since when did a pleasurable reading experience become an ultimatum, warranting the kind of loyalty you’d show for your favorite sports team? My bookworm friends who own e-readers say they haven’t stopped buying (or reading) tactile books. The e-reader is a tool of convenience, great for travel, for example.
I see no difference between the e-book as one more reading experience option just as audiobooks are an option. In fact, I often listen to an audiobook during my daily commute or road trips. People download audiobooks on their MP3 players as well.
I think e-books and print books can peacefully co-exist, and I hope they do. I even think my protagonist, a writing professor and published author, would own an e-reader and be spotted in Harvard Square, a latte in tow, reading her husband’s favorite books. You could count on it.
Ordinary World is currently available in print and e-book at Lulu.com, and in e-book at Amazon Kindle Store.
About the author:
Elisa Lorello was born and raised on Long Island, New York. In 1995, she moved to southeastern Massachusetts, where she attended University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth for both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Her career in rhetoric and composition studies began in 2000, and since then she has been teaching first-year writing at the university level. Currently, Elisa lives and teaches in North Carolina and is co-writing her third novel. She is happily single.
To learn more about Elisa and her other writing projects, please visit her blog I’ll Have What She’s Having: The Official Blog of Elisa Lorello, or her official webpage at ElisaLorello.com. You can also follow Elisa on Twitter @elisalorello.
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For more information on e-books in general, check out these great articles written by Sara (of Ms Adventures in Italy fame) at her tech blog, When I Have Time.
Remember to comment for your chance to win some e-books!
Book Giveaway: The Mystery of Lewis Carroll by Jenny Woolf
One of the best things about having this blog is the frequency with which I “meet” kind, like-minded people.
Case in point: A while back, I got an email from Jenny Woolf, author of The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created “Alice in Wonderland,“ who wanted to chat a bit about blogging, book promotion, and the like. I quickly offered Jenny space here to introduce herself and her book as I, too, was fascinated to learn about why she chose Lewis Carroll as her subject.
I became even more interested in the back story once I started reading through The Mystery of Lewis Carroll (Jenny had sent me a proof copy). I love biographies in general, and this one about a legendary literary figure who has been portrayed in so many different lights does *not* disappoint. Even though many scholars have written about Carroll, Jenny managed to uncover something that no other researcher ever had before. Fascinating!
Haus Publishing has kindly offered up a free copy of The Mystery of Lewis Carroll for one lucky Bleeding Espresso reader, but you must have a mailing address in the UK, Europe, or the Commonwealth (where the publisher has distribution rights). If you’d like to win a copy and meet this criteria, please leave a comment below by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, February 21.
I will be announcing the winner on the Bleeding Espresso Facebook fan page and via Twitter @michellefabio. If you’re not a fan or following, please correct that!
Here’s Jenny, who you can also read at her blog, From Somewhere in Time and follow on Twitter @jennywoolf:
I loved Alice from when I was seven, and first became enthralled by her adventures. And I ended up writing The Mystery of Lewis Carroll because I wanted to know more about the man who had created my favorite book.
I started, like anyone would, by reading the biographies of him. But you know, I didn’t entirely believe any of them. As a journalist I’d written many magazine profiles, and I was well used to subjects and their friends trying to pull the wool over my eyes. So I wondered if Carroll had been using the Victorian equivalent of “spin” to hide various aspects of his own life.
I wasn’t thinking of writing a biography at this stage – I just wanted to understand Carroll. So my next approach was to start looking for little-known and unpublished documents that might illuminate him more.
I had some luck when I found his personal bank account, unseen for over 100 years and mouldering away in a bank archive. With my husband Tony, I transcribed, annotated and self published it as “Lewis Carroll in His Own Account,” and the BBC quickly got in touch and asked for a radio programme about it.
I did the programme . . . but I still didn’t think of writing a biography.
No, I wanted to create a highly illustrated, imaginative and colourful multimedia project to describe Carroll – because by now I’d discovered he was actually a fascinating, unusual, likeable, (although tricksy and secretive) person.
But publishers are conservative creatures. In the end, my multimedia dreams evaporated and I ended up writing a biography after all.
Or almost. Actually I prefer to think of it as a portrait. Because it doesn’t start at the beginning and end at the end like most biographies do. Instead, it takes ten important themes in Lewis Carroll’s life, and examines what they meant to him. From Alice in Wonderland to photography, from his little girl friends to his religious and supernatural interests, from his family to his sex life, I hope that it will offer a glimpse of the kind of human, emotional, eccentric and utterly unique person that he was.
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The Mystery of Lewis Carroll was published in the US on 2 February by St Martin’s Press and will be published on 1 March in the UK by Haus Publishing.
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Remember to leave a comment to win your copy! For those not eligible, please still feel free to leave your comment or question for Jenny–or even your own personal Alice in Wonderland memory (please tell me you’re not eligible though)!
World Nutella Day 2010
**World Nutella Day Celebrates 5th Anniversary on February 5, 2011**
For those who don’t know, Nutella is more than just a “chocolaty hazelnut spread,” it is a way of life.
From childhood memories to oozing hot crepes, from breakfasts on vacation to free-spooning sessions on the couch, Nutella is prominent in the memories of many children and grown-up children in the world.
Three years ago we gave it its own holiday, and this year we’re continuing the tradition.
Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso (and Shelley from At Home in Rome, in spirit) solemnly declare Friday, February 5th “World Nutella Day 2010” – a day to celebrate, to get creative with, and most importantly, to EAT Nutella.
It’s Easy!
Make a recipe using Nutella. Eat Nutella with a spoon. A big one. Make art with Nutella. Wax poetic about Nutella. Cuddle with Nutella. Strike a pose with Nutella. Re-live your first experience eating Nutella. Offer Nutella as a sacrifice. Have a Nutella-eating contest or a Nutella party!
- Do something, anything with Nutella. Make a recipe, take a picture of yourself eating it with a BIG spoon, make art, wax poetic, re-live your first experience eating Nutella. Have a Nutella-eating contest or even a Nutella party!
- Take pictures and/or upload a video then blog about it ON February 5th, 2010. In your blog post, include links to Ms. Adventures in Italy, Bleeding Espresso, and World Nutella Day as well as the World Nutella Day 2010 badge/button (below – right mouse click, Save image…). Please try to post ON FEBRUARY 5 so that we can create a true chocolaty hazelnut wave across the blogosphere on World Nutella Day!
- Email nutelladay [at] nutelladay [dot] com with the subject “Nutella Day Entry” and include:
- Your Name
- Your Blog’s Name
- Your Blog’s URL
- Your Post URL/Permalink
- One 150×150 pixel photo
Some other ways to participate:
- On Twitter, tweet your love for Nutella and include #nutelladay in your tweet! @NutellaDay will retweet some of the great ones!
- On Facebook, update your status to proclaim your love and link to www.nutelladay.com! And make sure you’re a fan of World Nutella Day Facebook Page on Facebook! We’ll be posting some special content that day to the FB Fan page, too.
- A handy guide on How to Host a World Nutella Day Party at Home!
We will post the round-up of all submissions on Monday, February 8, 2010, but in the meantime, please feel free to post this announcement on your blog to spread the word!
And if you want to use an organic or other type of Nutella substitute, go for it! It’s all about the chocolate and hazelnut love!
Check out the last three years of World Nutella Days for inspiration:
- World Nutella Day 2007 Part I and Part II
- World Nutella Day 2008 Part I and Part II
- World Nutella Day 2009 Part I and Part II
As well as:
- The Top 10 Signs You’re Addicted to Nutella
- Nutella Virgin? 50 Ways to Eat Nutella and Nutella Lover Types
Be sure to also add your photos to the Nutella Day Flickr Pool and your videos to the YouTube Nutella Day Station and for all the information you need, check out the World Nutella Day Press page, where you can also download the World Nutella Day 2010 press kit!
See you on the 5th!
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
Calabria Guidebook
Recipes
