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Showing posts from May, 2011

San Patrignano... Inspiring, so why not here in the UK?

There can never be too many TV shows about Italian food and drink. Indeed Italy is the most perfect place in the world because it is so chaotic, so arrogant, so set in its ways of family-first, table-groaning, quality-not quantity, love, sex and above everything else, passion . So what has caught my attention to gromble about? Last night Antonio Carlucci, a well known, somewhat elderly, he'll pardon me for saying that, overweight, cuddly TV chef, famed for his mushroom risottos, visited N E Italy with an old friend, cooking as they go. You know the sort of thing. Personal reminiscences, slurps of fine wine, effervescing over a particularly smelly cheese or smouldering rabbit stew, more hand gestures than Simon Rattle, etc. Well forget all that (actually it was rather too 'its all about love' for me anyway). These portly chefs visited a place near Rimini called San Patrignano . Its a massive (2,000 'guests') community complete with hospital, vinery, cheese-factory, e