The Finest Italian: Art, Paintings, Jewelery, Decor, and Crafts: Page 2

Shaken, Not Stirred | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

As the holidays season approaches with all the cheerful lights, elegant evening dresses showing up in stores and many parties to attend, I am just on time to bring “to the table” some directions for easy, understated classic style to make many unforgettable stylish parties.

Being a designer with a passion for kitchen designs, good food and decorated tables, it is only natural that I would inform on the latest style and trends even when it comes to talk about the beginning and the end of a dinner.

My trips to Europe, other than visiting family and friends are an added excuse to browse in retail stores and take notes of all the beautiful merchandise, display styles, fill my eyes with colors and overflowing my mind with ideas. Invitations to friends’ homes are inevitable when I am there, they are my lifetime friends. Just that in itself is a precious opportunity to study their customs and learn what is going on across the Ocean.

My attention this autumn 2010 has fallen on the resurgence of the after dinner liqueurs, cordials, apéritif and digestive drinks, or “digestivi” as we Italians would call them in our language.
Digestive drinks have been used for centuries to help settle the stomach after a large meal. Often Italian meals last a few hours, when Italians get together for lunch or dinner can easily forget time!
Digestives also have the property of cleansing and detoxifying, facilitate digestion, eliminate toxins and at times help with reflux problems. They are made mostly with natural herbs, roots, tree barks and spices, infused in a base of alcohol. Due to all the herbs, they were originally considered more medicinal to resolve digestive problems than drinks to enjoy. It is recommended not to use them in large doses, because they are vasodilator, only sips will be favorable to the digestion.
Due to their bitter taste, digestives have had hard time appearing on the tables in the US until a few years ago. We can now find them in upper scale restaurants and in people’s homes along with aperitifs and palate cleansers between specialties. Fruit sorbets will do just that when served after a fish dish and also, to the contraire of digestives, they are vasoconstrictors and will ease the digestion by lowering the temperature in the stomach.

Apéritifs are a prelude to a good meal and often served one hour before lunch or dinner. In Europe going out for an apéritif is a way of socializing with friends or family. It is an occasion to see and be seen, gossip, to show off the newest fashion outfit and the best part is that ingesting an apéritif will enhance the appetite.
In order to make these kind of drinking activities even more fun and pleasant, we need to own special glasses. Holding an elegant, or an interesting designed glass in our hands exalts the pleasure, I know it’s a cliché, but we eat with the eyes first.
Please note the elegant 2010 new glasses collection made by Italian company Richard Ginori, producing ceramics, porcelain, pottery and glasses since 1735. This is pure elegance!
In my second book “Sins Of A Queen” I have included a small chapter on glasses to serve with apéritif and sweet wines.
Enjoy the following short excerpt:

“Glass to use with all sweet wines and wines made with withered grapes
Plain glass, fine crystal is better, small chalice, slightly bombe’ and stocky with a smaller mouth. This shape allows the unfolding of all the aromas in the glass and all their concentration in the nose.

Glass to use with all liqueur type of wines
It is a small glass, a bitter taller than the glass used for sweet wines with a larger mouth, which is made for the dry wines of the liqueur type. The larger opening allows the wine to rest on the tip of the tongue, which is the part of the tongue most sensitive to taste sweetness.

Glass to use with Spumante and sparkling type of wines
Tall and thin flute glass. The long and narrow body allows the development in the mouth of fine “perlage” meaning it allows to taste the thin bubbles or pearls in the young wines produced with the classic method of all sparkling wines.
Flute glass with belly and a larger opening, allows the oxygenation of the sparkling wine and the right development in the mouth of complex aromas found in mature grapes without compromising the savoring of the “perlage”.
Half flute glass is shorter than the flute. It is made to taste dry Spumante type of wines with a less refined “perlage” and larger bubbles. The tight opening allows a good concentration of the delicate aromas towards the nose and a slow development of carbon dioxide”.

Enjoying the beginning of a dinner with an apéritif and the end with a digestive is surprisingly addictive. Once you get used to it, you must continue on. Let it happen, shaken or stirred is a choice of style and life and not only good for James Bond. Ciao,
Valentina
Interior Designer - Visit my site: http://www.Valentinadesigns.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/2/eC2LVXANG5U

http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/0/kWuB7I8uJjg

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer with a passion for kitchens and cooking.
She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles, but especially loves to design kitchens and wine grottos.
She is the author of two regional Italian cookbooks:
Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity – http://outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna
Sins Of A Queen – is in the printing and due to be released around Nov.2010.

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The Distinctive Direction Of Italian Fall Fashions | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

A few months ago, I had the idea of declaring the month of October the month of Italian style. Many presentations will occur this month in the Bay Area, one of them will be the event I have organized with Frette store in Stanford Shopping Centre, Palo Alto, CA. Frette is an Italian house producing luxury bed and bath items since 1860. In October Frette is celebrating its 150th Anniversary with a new collection simply called “Anniversario”. It is my interest as a designer, to present the new Fall line and show my audience how to use it, in addition to talk about the distinctive direction Italian fashion and home design are taking this Fall 2010. Please, come to my events: Italian Life In Style.

Fashion and home design are two separate disciplines always intertwining and taking oxygen from one another. Since the beginning of time, the human body has been determining any project of building. The reflection on the human body and the introspective thoughts of it have been the vehicle that made people want to paint the body, to dress it, to build cities, to build homes and their interiors and to design to whole universe.

The Italian word “abito” (English: dress) takes from the verb “abitare” (English: to live, to inhabit). The dress is the first place we live in and our body offers infinite possibilities to relate ourselves to the surrounding space. Fashion gives us the freedom and fantasy to dress how we want and the freedom to compose our own style in homes.

To dress a home goes far beyond colors and fabrics, it is the thread, which resolves the human body’s architectural spatial challenges and satisfies the human desire to be surrounded by functional and beautiful objects. Dressing an Italian home interior is quite simple as long as lines and forms are kept at a minimal. As an Italian born, I can say that Italians live in antiquity, we open our windows and we are surrounded by history, but in our homes we are very modern, we like simple, straight lines and very few bold colors.

A leather red floor would be perfect for a home studio with satin chrome furniture frames mixed with glass, as much as a white/beige striped closet doors would look so elegant on a white marble floor. Play it tone on tone and never go wrong.
Italian kitchens are not at all fussy, they must be functional, color is optional, they are either very colorful, we like Ferrari red by the way, or very black, greige (combination of grey and beige) and rivers of white. Forget the kitchen knickknacks all together.

Italian living rooms are made for “fare bella figura” – an Italian philosophy to present a good image, to make a good impression. Our guests, when entering an Italian home, musty be greeted by beautiful things and be seated in an even more elegant room, which in some cases, the family hardly uses for themselves just to keep it new as long as possible.

Baths are made with the minimal essentials.

Take a look at one of the homes in Los Altos, CA I staged in the classic contemporary Italian style.

http://www.valentinadesigns.com/Staging/LosAltosEntryLivStaging.html

Space in Italy is the essence. Italy is a small country, its homes reflect the restriction of space. In comparison with American homes, I must say Italian homes are very small, but they are very fashionable and efficient. If you visit a building with eight apartments, you will see eight different home styles, each one being very creative and á la page. In one of those eight styles, you bound to find a classic antique décor too.

Fashion and home design are two sides of the same creative coin, they both thrive on ideas and innovations.
Dress your home according to your character and personalize it as you would put together your fashion ensemble in the morning.

Carry a color scheme from room to room, mix modern with antique pieces, play with patterns, make art out of your memories and cherished moments, show your personality, be extravagant in small spaces, don’t forget to decorate cozy outdoor corners and make a “bella figura” with the main entry. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.Valentinadesigns.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/2/eC2LVXANG5U

http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/0/kWuB7I8uJjg

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer in business since 1990 and a former Fashion Designer. She has been developing projects in the USA and Europe serving a variegated group of fun people. She blends well fashion and interior in any of her design work. She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles. Being Italian born and raised, Valentina’s design work has been influenced by Classicism and stylish, timeless designs. She will create your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away a comfortable living.
By the way, she is also the author of the Italian regional cookbook: Come Mia Nonna – A Return To Simplicity.
http://outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna

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Hollywood lives in cookie wonderland! | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

Love to go to matinees, especially when the expectation is high. Good film, good stories, attractive images, fantasy flies high, resulting in a few hours of daydreaming. That is time well spent.
I cannot say all of this about the film I saw last Sunday Eat Pray Love, a two hours and half wasted in the cinema. As an Italian born, I am totally offended about the view of Italy that Hollywood portraits.
Take a look of that scene in Rome when Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) is looking for a place to stay for a few months. She enters a dilapidated building, with no hot running water.
The owner of the house tells her to boil the water three to four times to fill up the bathtub. Liz responds the water will not be enough for a bath and the Italian woman rebuttals that she will have enough to wash the most important parts. What an absurdity! There is no house in Italy, old or new that doesn’t have hot running water. Italians don’t live in dilapidated homes, nor they rent them to travelers. We might be surrounded by antiquity, we open our windows and often see the beauty of history all around us, but Italian home interiors are very modern with sleek lines, chic décor, valuable furnishing and most of the time very avant-guard style. Where has Hollywood gone on vacation and experienced no hot water bath?

Another stereotype is the scene of a boisterous group of young lads going after the women tourist pinching their bottoms and vocalizing their pleasure. Italian men might have done that in the 18-1900s when education was a privilege of the élite, but that custom no longer exists in the civilized Italy. Italy is a very modern and vibrant country. We have everything the world wants from style and beauty to good manners and to the art of knowing how to live well, but we also have all the problems of every modern industrialized country. Italians have a high level of education, men don’t have time to spend their days pinching ladies derriere, they are too busy keeping up with the tough demands of the European Union as much as Italians in general don’t loose their days eating spaghetti and pizza all the day long. It is an archaic myth, Hollywood!

In the film Liz (Julia Roberts) is in search of herself and her purpose. For a year she takes a yuppie vacation around the world, her hair is well highlighted for the entire trip and she is somewhat well dressed. That is not what people do when they are lost in life and want to find a new direction. I believe when people are questioning their life is because they want to find a deeper meaning and discover their soul again, certain futile aspects of their life might and will pass in second order, but not in this film. Ok, I forgot, this is Hollywood and I want to be critical.

All in all the scenery is OK, Hollywood could have done better with the means it has, it feels more like a travel log than a film with a spiritual meaning. It teaches us that anytime there is an obstacle in a marriage, it is better to break it up and go on a world trip, instead of understanding each other and work it out. Good teaching for the young generations……!
OK, so last Sunday I spent my two hours and half in a very boring seat, I guess Hollywood needed my $11.00. Ciao,
Valentina
Interior Designer

Author of the book: Come Mia Nonna–A Return to Simplicity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnq8baaAq0M

Booksite: outskirtspress.com/ComeMiaNonna
and the author of the book: Sins Of A Queen, due to be released around Nov.2010.

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Benvenuto Cellini – Italian Goldsmith

Cellini's "Saliera"

If one were to name a single Italian artist who most perfectly embodies the turbulence and the genius of late Renaissance Italy that artist would certainly be Benvenuto Cellini, unexcelled goldsmith, sculptor, painter, musician, but also a lawless murderer whose life was marked by violent conflict whenever his immoderate appetites were thwarted or his professional preeminence challenged. Benvenuto was also a successful military man, hailed as a hero at the Siege of Rome in 1527, rewarded by the Pope for his military prowess, and a distinguished participant in the conflict between his native city of Florence and its rival Siena. As if all this were not enough, Benvenuto was also the author of an acclaimed Autobiography, which is relentlessly self-promoting but magnificently captures the spirit of those restless times.

Benvenuto’s life is the stuff of film and legend. His travels spanned the great centers of Italian art, Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice. He was a friend of Popes and kings, spending several years at the court of Francis I of France, immersed in court intrigues and controversies. During his stay in Rome he murdered a couple out of jealousy, because he was in love with the MAN. He was for a period jailed in Castel Sant’Angelo, from which he tried to escape in the best tradition of a Dumas novel. He suffered both legs broken in the process, and was nearly executed but for the timely intercession of powerful friends.

But it is of course his art that has made him immortal, and of all the art forms in which he excelled his predilection was goldsmithing and the carving of intricately beautiful objects. Some of his most notable works are the Saliera (The Salt Cellar), carved in gold, ivory and enamel, pictured in this article. The Saliera itself has a checkered history: made for Francis I of France it eventually made its way to the Vienna Museum, from which it was stolen in 2006. Only recently was it recovered and restored to its former home in Austria.

Famous are also his gold medallions, among which we may mention “Leda and the Swan”, also in Vienna, “Hercules and the Nemean Lion”, in gold repousse’, and “Atlas supporting the Sphere”, in chased gold. An outstanding Cricifix carved in ivory is housed at the Escorial, outside Madrid. And his “Perseus with the Head of Medusa” is a magnificent example of his larger sculptures.

Cellini died in his native city, Florence, in 1571. Straddling the end of the Italian Renaissance and the birth of Mannerism, he was truly a figure of myth, incomparable artist, swashbuckling adventurer, at the mercy of strong passions, and an accomplished author.