ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#14 Flowers, what a treat!
Edible flowers are nothing new, but every time we see a handful of jasmine or violet petals in a dish we are surprised and even a little astonished, facing such versatility.
The use of flowers in cooking dates back thousands of years, but thanks to the tests of two top chefs, Michel Bras and Marc Veyrat, they became more and more important ingredients in the world of haute cuisine. In the so-called "edible landscapes" flowers play an important role, not only for their texture, their smell and the sparkling colors, but also because they convey a gentle, poetic world. Often chefs who love edible flowers do in-depth researches with botanists to create different varieties that fit their dishes.
Catering’s growing demand has allowed the birth of companies dedicated to this specific purpose, which continuously look for new flower varieties around the world and offer them to the highest and boldest bidders.
Today we find a few species of edible flowers on supermarket shelves, but there are almost forty different types. Enjoy them, but also make sure you know them before tasting, to avoid unfortunate accidents.
Good Rebirth… and appetite!
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#13 Resilience, an essential capability
Among the crucial abilities that are necessary during life, there is one that is usually underestimated compared to some more obvious emotions or reactions: it is resilience. In psychology, resilience means "the ability to cope in a positive way with traumatic events, positively reorganise one’s life when facing difficulties and rebuild oneself remaining sensitive to the opportunities that life offers, without alienating one’s identity." In other words, resilience is knowing how to manage important and disturbing changes, adapting to the new situation while maintaining your own essence. Everything can reinvent itself thanks to this marvelous capability, keeping uniqueness unchanged even in adversity. A real quiet renaissance perpetuates and manifests itself as self-healing, as affirmation of oneself in spite of everything. In this wonderful individual path we believe that together with awareness also a kind of lightness grows, a lightness that must not be confused with the vacuous superficiality and that goes hand in hand with the power of wisdom. The lightness of joy and patience. Happy Rebirth, may it be resilient and smiling.
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#12 The beauty of a scented home
Aromatherapy is a very ancient practice, based on the awareness of the importance of aromas and their effects on personal well-being. Aromas, even the simplest, change our state of mind, they predispose the body to tune in with the environment and to perceive it as their own.
Our soul smiles even just walking into the house, before turning on the light, if a congenial scent welcomes us. Scents are not just the finishing touches in home decor, they are not stylistic quirks: they are first welcoming smile, the first handshake, the first sensory gratification for anyone who crosses the threshold. Wellness, calm, energy, each essence meets our inner self through the smell in an original way.
That’s why it is nice and gratifying to find your own ideal mix, among the infinite olfactory nuances at our disposal. Because beauty is not only a matter of sight, it fully involves our sensory relationship with the world, from the warmth of a caress to a forgotten melody, starting from the special scent of our abode
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#11 That smell of leather recalls of...
An old armchair in the corner of the grandparents' house, the Dad’s overnight bag, left every night on the chest, a belt Mom used to wear in the nights out with friends ... we usually do not pay attention to the common thread that binds these objects, until one day a cream, an oil, a new perfume suddenly bring us back there, back to hours, days or years. It is not important to know exactly when, it is a timely reminder, the olfactory memory suddenly gives us back a moment, a situation, and this suddenness surprises us, leaving us speechless for the astonishment and emotion to find ourselves back in time. Moreover, as Marcel Proust writes in “Swann's Way”:“
But, when nothing subsists of an old past, after the death of people, after the destruction of things, alone, frailer but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, smell and taste still remain for a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, on the ruin of all the rest, bearing without giving way, on their almost impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory.”
Happy memories, happy rebirth!
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#10 Pepper, the aromatic Rebirth elixir
Pepper is an amazing plant, it is simple and at the same time rich of fine qualities. There are several varieties, like for example white pepper, green pepper, gray pepper, pink pepper and the long one. Anyway, black pepper is the most widely known, above all it is largely used in cooking.
Piper Nigrum comes from India, it is a perennial plant and it has numerous beneficial properties, known since ancient times. Among the most famous, it has digestive properties, thanks to the piperine contained in pepper’s fruits. Piperine has another less known merit: it stimulates the production of pigmentation, helping the treatment of skin diseases related to the lack of melanin.
Pepper is highly antioxidant, besides it prevents ageing of skin and the formation of wrinkles; for these reasons it is widely used in cosmetics, especially in creams and essential oils.
Moreover, we can underline other benefits coming from the use of pepper: it is renowned as antibacterial, antidepressant, expectorant and slimming.
Do not hesitate to get this incredible gift of nature; everyone will find it suitable for their own needs and will be sure to enjoy a pungent, invigorating Rebirth!
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#9 When the skin is thirsty
The skin is a major organ for our well-being, the largest of our body, often underestimated in its demands. Among these, one of the most important is hydration. It affects all skin types, as not only "dry" skins, but also "fat" ones can dehydrate. When does this happen?
We talk about dehydrated skin when the moisture level is below the minimum threshold (10%). A dehydrated skin has a lack of water, so it is fragile and inelastic. Its colour may appear gray. These conditions - that may occur in particular times of stress - make it vulnerable and it can be easily attacked by external agents. What should we do in these cases? First, it is important to drink at least 1.5 L of water each day, in order to help the skin's natural hydration. Then there are some simple everyday gestures to remember: do not use aggressive cleaning agents, preferably use cold or warm water for washing, apply a good moisturizer, suitable for your skin type, both in terms of texture and ingredients composition. A Rebrth for each skin type!
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
THE OLIVE, THE SACRED FRUIT OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
Fundamental ingredient for Rebirth, the olive has been depicted pictorially well before Christ: testimonies of primitive olive -pressing machines are kept in museums in Crete, Israel and Egypt. Oil was shown not only as a food but also as a medicinal, cosmetic and energy source. The importance of the olive and its fruit comes to us from the ancient times: the Greek myth attributes to Athena the birth of the first olive tree, the tree of peace and well-being, that the goddess gave as a gift to the people of Attica to light night, dress wounds and provide nourishment.
Sometimes habits lead us to forget how lucky we are in being children of the Mediterranean Euroregion, heirs to a light culture and an environment spontaneously generous and rich. It is enchanting to grasp the beauty and goodness of what surrounds us and it is also helpful to rediscover that harmony too often lost between offices and PC.
The natural presence of vitamin E, whose nutrient and antioxidant properties are recognised, and the right amount of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, make the Extra Virgin OliveOil an irreplaceable product.
Average composition of an olive:
Oil 15-20%
Water 30-60%
Sugars 19%
Fiber 5.8%
Protein 1.6%
The 96-98% of the oil is contained in the pulp, while only 2-4% is contained in the seed.
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#8 | Alchemy of a city
Venice, with its uniqueness, left indelible traces in the soul of the artists who arrived in the Lagoon. Among these famous travelers, even a young English Lord was kidnapped from this decadent and at the same time lively charm: George Gordon Byron. The young poet, once left England because of debts and scandals, had embarked on the Grand Tour and finally arrived in Venice where he lived for about three years, from 1816 to 1819.
At Palazzo Mocenigo on the Grand Canal,where he lived with two monkeys, a fox and two hounds, he composed part of the Childe Harold, Beppo and the first songs of his masterpiece, Don Juan, alternating writing with several love encounters, swimming to the Lido and visiting the Jewish Cemetery or San Lazzaro degli Armeni, great places to fuel his romantic spirit.
Venice has played a key role in theformation of Byron: he had a certain spiritual affinity with the city, given by “the gloomy gaiety of the gondolas”. Paradoxical city, full of contrasts (as Byron himself), Venice became the muse of the English poet, with its luxurious carnivals and the decadent glory of a declining city. Byron made famous the bridge that connects the Doge’s Palace with the prisons inventing the name "Bridge of Sighs”, for the prisoners’ sighs seeing for the last time Venice and freedom:
I stood inVenice, on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each end:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O’er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her thousand isles!
(Childe Harold, IV, 1)
LordByron, Selected Poems
Oxford University Press
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#7 | My kingdom for a coffee
If, as the Chinese philosopher Tien Yi-Heng, we drink tea to forget the din of the world, we have a coffee cup to face the world with indomitable grit. Rebirth often goes through a ritual, and so much has been said and written on the noble art of making tea, while, indeed, it is very underestimated that of coffee: certainly more pragmatic but no less refreshing. The Italian tradition is intrinsically linked to this dark and fascinating drink, and the majority of the population greets the morning with this ritual. Campania is up to the strictest observance of the ritual: the coffee you drink must be extremely hot, sugarless and served in the chicchera; do not even try to ask for an americano coffee and do not dare to linger threatening to cool the mystical drink, or you may risk a fight with the bartender. People living elsewhere do some variations, contaminating the purity of 'tazzulella’ with local habits: in Rome coffee is served with cream, in Milan it is always more complicated (cold or hot macchiato, single or double, in a large cup …everyone for themselves!), in Lecce the heat is mitigated with 'ice coffee’, and so on with the multiple variants typical of our beautiful peninsula, which never makes us forget the beauty of a lonely five-minute coffee break or, instead, talkative break with some colleagues or friends. In short, coffee is one of the greatest pleasures of life, harmless, carefree, very democratic but pleasing transversely.
Happy Rebirth, 100% Arabica.
ALCHEMY OF REBIRTH
#6 A journey in the Mediterranean scrub
Italy holds many treasures, often forgotten or ignored, one of these is undoubtedly the scrub: one of the most important Mediterranean ecosystems.
Let’s go exploring this wonder of nature, full of unparalleled colours, flavours and fragrances.
The Mediterranean scrub derives mostly from the ancient Mediterranean evergreen forest, which covered a large part of our peninsula. It is composed by shrubs with little but persistent leaves, between 50 cm and 4 m high. The scrub can be divided into high scrub and low scrub, according to the floristic composition and to its structural development. The high one is composed by species whose foliage can reach 4 meters high: holms, corks and ilatri. These are complemented by fragrant juniper and arbutus berries and mastic trees. The low scrub consists mainly of shrubs and bushes, like spurge, myrtle, broom, rock roses and rosemary.
This kind of vegetation is distributed mostly in hot and dry areas andgrows on shallow and rapidly draining soils: the preservation of the hydrologicalfunction of the maquis (i.e. Frenchname) is very important. The microenvironment of the scrub is a real biodiversity treasure: in fact, it contains a wide variety of animal species that find shelter and food in it.
So, if you are walking on rough trails of the CinqueTerre or if you are in Sardinia’s Giara di Gesturi,look around, try indeed to close your eyes and let yourself be carried by the unmistakable aromas of the maquis: a unique botanical heritage that has inspired poets, perfume makers and dreamers.