Chicken & Asparagus Risotto with Saffron Cream.



Chicken & Asparagus Risotto with Saffron Cream

          INGREDIENTS    (for six people)

·        4 - 5 chicken thigh fillets, sliced lengthways

·        2 bunches of asparagus, approx. 3 stalks per person

·        4 cups of arborio rice                                                  - salt

·        6 cups of water                                                              - olive oil

·        60 mls of white wine (optional)                                  saffron                                                             

      

·     400 mls of cooking cream

           PREPARATION 

 1. Boil the Asparagus for 3 minutes. (Leave the Asparagus crispy)    Place aside.

 2.  In a Non- stick frying pan, on low heat place the rice with 2 cups   of water. Stir, add salt, let the rice absorb the water, and then add the third cup of water. Simmer until the rice is cooked.

 3. While the rice is simmering, in another frying pan on moderate heat, place olive oil and allow it to heat up, then put all the chicken in the pan and cook it until brown.

 4. Add the white wine to the chicken and wait until the chicken has absorbed some of the wine. Then add 300mls of cream, let simmer and add the saffron. Cook until the colour is yellow, and the cream  is cooked. Add a pinch of salt.

 5. Pour the chicken and sauce in with the rice, mix well. Add the      last of the cream and mix well.

 6. Serve in a wide bowl or plate, and place the asparagus on top. Drizzle a little oil, and crack some pepper for extra flavour and decoration.

Hypnotic dreams of the Italian lakes - Lago d’orta

Gloria Miller writes for Language Connections about her favourite place in the Lakes Region.

Lake Orta (Lago D’Orta in Italian) is the nearest of the major Piedmont lakes to Turin. It lies to the west of Lake Maggiore, and has been an inspiration to poets and writers for centuries. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who visited the lake in May 1882, believed that the experience changed his life forever, inscribed the date "von Orta an" ("from Orta onwards") as a preface to his masterpiece Thus Spake Zarathustra. Regarded as the most romantic lake in Italy it is 13.5kms long and surrounded by mountains covered in lush vegetation. The setting alone is breathtaking but the jewel in the crown is the island of San Giulio in the middle of Lake Orta, dominated by its thirteenth century basilica and convent.                                                                    

The place to stay is Orta San Giulio on the shores of the lake. A charming car-free town and not at all touristy – most of the tourists to the lake are the local Italian people from Piedmont and the well heeled from Turin. We stayed at the Piccolo Hotel Olina which was comfortable and well located. Also highly recommended is Orta Lake Holiday Flats – www.ortalakeflats.com.

Tian de legumes Provencal

A simple vegetable dish which can be served on its own with crusty bread or as a side accompaniment to roast or barbequed meat. Just a perfect winter warmer!

Ingredients

 500 grams of ripe tomatoes, sliced

 2 eggplants, thinly sliced

 2 medium zucchini, sliced thinly lengthways

 1 Large Spanish onion, sliced

 2 cloves garlic finely chopped

 2 tblspns fresh oregano

 2 tblspns fresh rosemary

 6 tblspns olive oil

 1 bay leaf

 salt and pepper to taste

 fresh basil leaves for the garnish

Preheat oven to 180 C. Combine the sliced vegetables, garlic and herbs in a bowl leaving the onion out, pour over half the olive oil and toss. Season and place in an ovenproof dish, putting the onion rings on top.

Bake for 45 minutes or until vegetables are cooked. Remove from oven, drizzle with remaining olive oil and garnish with the basil leaves. Yum!

A colourful life - Pablo Picasso.

With the Picasso exhibition about to open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, we look at the timelines of the artist and the world events that took place during his lifetime which influenced his work and way of thinking. 

                                                                                                



Although he spent most of his life in France, Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, on the 25^th October, 1881, his father a painter/ teacher at the San Telmo School of Arts and Curator of the Municipal Museum.                                                                                                                     
Aged 9 he started studying art and the family moved to Barcelona in 1895 where he studied at the Llotja School of Fine Arts. In 1897 he presented Science and Charity at the Fine Arts General Exhibition in Madrid and started studying at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid but in1898 he fell ill with Scarlet Fever and returned to Barcelona. Shortly after, he began frequenting the Quatre Gats tavern, a meeting place for avant-garde artists where he met Carles Casagemas who was later instrumental in Picasso going to Paris.1900 saw the artist hold his first one man exhibition at the Quatre Gats and later that year he and Casagemas travelled to Paris for the Universal Exhibition where Last Moments was being shown. The following year Casagemas committed suicide in Paris and Picasso spent the following three years between Barcelona and Madrid experimenting with his Blue Period and holding several exhibitions in Paris. In 1904 after three trips to the city, Picasso moved to Montmartre. 
                                                                                   

During the first decade of the century many events took place that              influenced the artist. Toulouse-Lautrec, Gaugain and Cézanne all died,     the German expressionist group Die Brücke was formed, Matisse formed the Fauves at the Salon d’Automne in Paris and Gaudi finished Casa Batlló and started Casa Milà in Barcelona.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

1905 was the beginning of his Rose Period and during the early years in Paris he made the acquaintance of many famous identities such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Leo and Gertrude Stein, Matisse and Braque, with whom he developed Cubism in the period 1908–1914 but that work came to a halt when Braque was mobilised for the war. 
                                                                                                                                          In 1916 Jean Cocteau introduced him to Serge de Diaghilev, director of the Ballets Russes, who offered him work with the Ballet. In 1917 on a trip to Italy with the Ballet, he met the ballerina Olga Khokhlova, whom he married the following year. When the Ballet Parade opened in Paris, the curtain, wardrobe and set were by Picasso.                                                                                                                                         After his marriage, the Matisse - Picasso Exhibition took place in Paris and then Picasso continued work with the Ballets Russes, travelling to London for The Three Cornered Hat  premiere and in 1920 his third work with Diaghilev, Pulcinella  in Paris. That year Joan Miró visited his studio and the two became friends. 
                                                                                  
Paolo, Pablo’s son was born in 1921 and in 1924 the Ballet Mercure opened in Paris displaying again Picasso’s talent. During the years 1925-1927, although not directly involved, Picasso participated in meetings of the Surrealist movement due to his friendship with several writers. In 1927 he met Marie -Thérèse Walter with whom he had a long affair and a daughter, Maya.    
                                                                                                      
In 1928, due to the collaboration with Juli González, Picasso began metal sculpture, a milestone in his artistic development. Salvador Dali visited him in Paris and in 1930 Picasso bought Boisgeloup Castle in Normandy where he moved to in 1931 to set up a sculpture studio. 1932 saw the Barcelona Museum of Art buy the Lluis Plandiura Collection, containing 22 works by Picasso. In 1934 Maya was born and he separated from Olga.  
                                                                                                                                              From 1936 to 1939 the Spanish Civil War raged and Picasso backed the Republicans. Franco won the war, leading to 40 years of dictatorship for the country and Picasso vowed not to return to Spain while Franco was in power. Of course by the time the civil war was drawing to a close, World War II was underway and Europe was dividing yet again. In 1937 after the Germans bombed Guernica in the Basque Country, he painted the work of the same name which he presented at the Spanish Republican Pavilion during the International Exhibition in Paris. After this he went to Switzerland to meet Paul Klee. In 1939 his mother died and Picasso moved to Royan with Dora Maar the photographer.                        The following year he wrote his first play Desire Caught by  the tail.                    .                                            

          Guernica      

In 1943 he met Françoise Gilot, the young painter, who would become the mother of his children Claude and Paloma.                                                                                

In 1945 he began exploring the possibilities of lithograph with Fernand Moulot and 1946 was the year of the MoMA Exhibition in New York – 50 years of his art. He then started work on the Grimaldi Palace, which years later, would become the Picasso Museum in Antibes. In 1947 he moved to Provence with Gilot and began potting. In 1953 they separated and Pablo met Jacqueline Roque with whom he would stay for the rest of his life. In 1955 they moved to Villa La Californie in Cannes and later to Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins.                                                                                                                                         Las Meninas was painted in 1957 and in 1958 he purchased Vauvenargues Castle near Aix-en-Provence.

The Picasso Museum in Barcelona was founded by the artist and his friend Jaume Sabartés, with the agreement of the city council in 1960 and in I963 the Museum opened to the public under the name of The Sabartés Collection (given Picasso’s opposition to the Franco regime), housing both Sabartés’ works and those of Picasso purchased by the Museum. Sabartés died in 1968 and Picasso paid homage to him by giving the Blue Portrait of Sabartés and all the series of Las Meninas to the Museum. Two years later the artist donated another 900 works that had been kept at the family home in Barcelona to the Barcelona Museum.                                                                                                                                                     
In 1971 eight of his works were hung in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, the first time a living artist’s works had been installed there and on the 8^th April, 1973 Pablo Ruiz Picasso died in Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins and was buried in the gardens of Vauvenargues Castle.