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Cooking in Italian (Week 4) Cannoli Siciliani

I have to say I hadn’t never heard of the cannoli siciliani before attempting this cooking project. As I started researching popular Italian recipes, I took note of those that popped up more often. The cannoli were one of those. I looked further into them and I just loved the concept and the presentation of the sweet/desert.

Those colorful tips with pistachio nuts looked lovely. Later on, as I’d start looking for general recipes and vegan versions, I noticed that the original ones were fried 😁. That was no option for me. First, because IMO it’s not a healthy cooking method. And second — and most importantly– because I’m scared to death of frying anything. I’d never try that! So, that narrow my search to recipes that were baked in the oven 😊.

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Cooking in Italian (Week 3) Pizza Napoletana

By Walter Freiberg

When I was a child we used to buy pizza at a place that made it with a wood-fired clay oven. The pizza was very thin in the middle and had wide borders. It was just like a pizza napoletana. Except for one thing: they didn’t call it “napolitana” or even “Italian”. It was just pizza. But it was different than all the other pizzas we used to buy. And I liked that! Maybe I like that pizza just because of how different it was.

That pizza was the closest I’ve ever tried to a pizza napoletana. But I can tell that 25 years later, after learning about the Italian pizzas while I try to make one myself. This is one of the recipes I’m going to do even though I have never tried it made by others. In Buenos Aires there are pizzerias that make pizza napoletana. I would try one of those… if they had a vegan version 😁.

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Cooking in Italian (Week 2) Spaghetti alla Carbonara

By Walter Freiberg

There are many theories on the origin of the Carbonara. Some people claim that it was created many centuries ago, others say that’s a recent invention. This week I’ve heard that it might have started during the Second World War, as a mix created out of the Italian and North American culture. Supposedly, the American allies brought the bacon and eggs and added that to the Italian pasta. I don’t know if that’s how it all started, but it might be 😊.

I enjoy pasta, even though I have never kneaded it from scratch (this time I’m also using dry spaghetti). Regularly, I prepare a vegan version of the Spaghetti alla Bolognese (pasta with meat). I also like a lot lasagne, cannelloni, and any other stuffed (or not!) pasta. In the coming weeks, I intend to go back to other pasta-based recipes.

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Skill Building Project #2: Cooking in Italian (Week 1) Tiramisù

By Walter Freiberg

I started cooking my own meals in 2010. In October 2010, I took part in a plant-based cooking course for beginners. That’s how I got started. In 2011, inspired by my teacher in that course, a few documentaries, and books, I decided to become vegan. Since then, I follow a plant-based diet with no animal products: just grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. So, this is going to be a plant-based cooking skill building project 😊.

My goal with “Cooking in Italian” is twofold: I want to learn more about traditional Italian cuisine (in vegan versions) and I want to increase my vocabulary of fruits, vegetables, food in general, utensils, cooking techniques, etc. in Italian. In the next 12 weeks, I will try 12 different recipes. My main source for recipes and procedures will be YouTube videos in Italian. I also intend to use local ingredients (I mean, Italian ingredients. Stuff I can get in Buenos Aires, imported from Italy 😁).

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Chess in Italian (Week 12) Playing Blindfold Chess

By Walter Freiberg

This was the last week of the chess skill building project. The initial idea for my last lesson with Andrea was to play a couple of blitz games and then analyze them together. We did that, but decided to added something else: we would play the games without seeing the pieces (blindfold chess). There’s a setting on Lichess which lets you hide your pieces. You just need to go to Settings > Blindfold Chess (at the moment, you can find that all the way down in the setting’s page). It was a fun challenge, but very demanding at an intellectual level. Actually, it’s not recommended at all to play like this often.

To my surprise, in the blindfold games, I did much better than I thought I would. We played common openings, but Andrea tried to take me out of the books very early in the games so that I wouldn’t play automatically. I think having a good grasp of the coordinate pairs on the board (the name of the files, designated by letters from a to h, and the ranks, designated by numbers from 1 to 8) is essential to think your way through a game of this kind. Keeping in mind the pawn structures (your own and the adversaries’), as mentioned by Andrea, is also key to remember what moves are possible or not.

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Chess in Italian (Week 11) Deep Dive in the French Defense

By Walter Freiberg

At the beginning of this skill building project, Andrea (my chess coach during these months) suggested I picked one opening to play with Black versus e4 and one against d4. For some reason, I’ve always enjoyed more playing king’s pawn games (those starting with e4). That’s why I looked forward so much to focus for at least three months on the French Defense when playing with black pieces. And that’s what I did. During the past three months, any time I played against e4 I went e6. Then I would try different variants within the French Defense, but I’d stick to that for a long period of time. I think that e4 is more popular than d4 and c4 (the main openings), and that’s probably why it felt like the past three months I did a deep dive in the French Defense. I simply had more opportunities to play that opening.

Even though I love playing a wide variety of openings (and I do know the first 8-10 moves of many openings, both with white and black pieces), I have to admit that ‘specializing’ in just a handful of openings might be more fruitful in the long run. When you do something over and over for long periods of time you have the chance of getting better at it. Of course, doing the same thing repeatedly is not sufficient. You must also do it the right way. In chess, playing the same opening over and over again doesn’t guarantee you’ll become a master at them. You need to know the ideas behind the opening, understand it a conceptual level, learn different variants, etc. But if you stick to it for a period of time and practice well, chances are that you’re going to see some improvement.

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