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"Buon Giorno a tutti! Tanti saluti da Italia!" Welcome to another recipe edition from Adriana's Italian Bakery.

This week's Italian recipes:
  -Stuffed Peppers
  -Insalata di Tonno, Patate e Capers
  -Spaghettini with Shrimp, Tomatoes, and Capers

Try them for your next family gathering this spring!

We hope you enjoy the recipes in this week's issue and the complimentary news article report from "Only In Italy.com" .

Enjoy the issue!

Yours Truly,              
Adriana Ciccarello       

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Recipe: Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

4 red peppers
1 eggplant
1 zucchini
50 grams of leek
100 grams of cooked ham
garlic
oregano
olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions:

Wash the zucchini and cut in thin slices. Chop the leek with a clove of garlic and cook over a low fire with a dash of oil. Add the zucchini. Cut the eggplant in small cubes and add to the pan, cooking for about two minutes. Add a pinch of oregano, salt and pepper.

Cut the peppers in half the long way, remove seeds and white strips, wash and dry and place them on a greased pan. Fill with the cooked vegetables and top with the chopped ham. Add a dash of oil to each pepper half and cook for half an hour in the oven set to 180 degrees (C). Serves 4 people.

That's it!

Recipe: Insalata di Tonno, Patate e Capperi

Insalata di Tonno, Patate e Capperi
Tuna, Potato and Caper Salad

Ingredients:

1 6 ounce can of quality tuna packed in olive oil
2 large Idaho potatoes
2 ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoons capers
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions:

Scrub the potatoes and boil them for around 30 minutes. They should be cooked through, but still firm.

Slice open the tomatoes, gently squeeze out the seeds and cut them into wedges.

To make the dressing, finely chop the garlic and put it in small mixing bowl with the capers, dried oregano, vinegar, and olive oil, then stir.

Remove the potatoes from the pot and allow them to cool just enough to handle them and peel them while they are still warm. Slice the potatoes in half lengthwise, then into 1/2-inch pieces and place them in a salad bowl.

Break apart the tuna meat and add it to the bowl with the potatoes, then add the sliced tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste, then pour the dressing over the salad and toss. Add more olive oil and vinegar if desired. Serve immediately.

That's it!

Recipe: Spaghettini with Shrimp, Tomatoes and Capers

Spaghettini with Shrimp, Tomatoes and Capers

Ingredients:

For 1 lb spaghettini

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup yellow onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
1 lb fresh, ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2 in dice
1/2 tsp chopped fresh oregano or 1/3 tsp dried
1 1/2 Tbs capers
3/4 lb fresh medium shrimp, peeled, deveined if necessary, and cut into 1/2 in pieces
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Put the olive oil and onion in a large skillet over a medium heat and cook until the onion has turned golden brown at the edges. Raise the heat to medium-high and add the tomatoes. Cook rapidly until most of the liquid has evaporated but the tomatoes have not broken down completely. You may need to raise the heat even more but be careful not to burn them.

Meanwhile, bring 4 quarts of water to a boil in a large saucepan or pot, add 1 tablespoon of salt, and drop in the pasta all at once, stirring until the strands are submerged. Add the oregano, capers and shrimp to the sauce in the skillet and season with salt and black pepper.

Cook until the shrimp turn pink, about 2 minutes, then remove the skillet from the heat. When the pasta is cooked "al dente", drain it and toss it with the sauce. Serve at once.

That's it!

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Only In Italy!

"Only In Italy" is a daily news column that translates and reports on funny but true news items from legitimate Italian news resources in Italy. Each story is slapped with our wild, often ironic, and sometimes rather opinionated comments. And now, for your reading pleasure:

Italy Has a Racist Culture, Says French Editor.

The Observer - Sophie Arie - August 8 - A leading French journalist has prompted a debate over racism in Italy after he published a claim that Italian customs officials have a 'cretinous attitude' to any non-white person entering the country. In a letter this week in the left-leaning Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, the editor-in-chief of the French newspaper Le Monde, Jean-Marie Colombani, accused Italian border police at Venice's Marco Polo airport of 'harassing' his 20-year-old adopted son, a French citizen of Indian origin.

He said he had watched helplessly as his son was subjected to 'totally unjustified humiliation' and had been left 'deeply disturbed' every year for the past five years when his family arrived in Italy for their holidays.

His son's luggage was always searched and he was asked questions about his private life and challenged about his nationality. 'It is almost as if Italy is also falling into a populist atmosphere that is in fashion, with the same old temptation towards xenophobia,' Colombani wrote.

He acknowledged that border police at airports across Europe have intensified security checks since the 11 September attacks in 2001, but, he said: 'German or English police, when they do spot checks, do not display this systematic interest in colored people.'

The open letter offended Italian leaders and members of the public but many non-white Italians and immigrants responded with claims that they are systematically treated as lesser beings.

'I cannot deny this risk [that Italy is sliding into xenophobia],' Italy's Interior Minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, said in a letter in La Repubblica. 'But I see a culture of welcome and respect for others that is still well rooted in our country.'

Pisanu apologized for any isolated incidents but said his police forces were not racist, inviting visitors to Italy to report any unjustified excesses or harassment.

Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, defended the Italian police for doing their job in times of high security alert, pitying them for having had the misfortune to 'disturb' an intellectual of the 'gauche francaise'. 'How did they dare, these Italians? These macaroni,' he wrote mocking the Frenchman in the same paper.

The Italian press has rejected Colombani's accusation, complaining that racism is not Italy's but Europe's problem. Newspapers pointed out that Israel's Ariel Sharon had called on French Jews to move to Israel to escape rising anti-Semitism in France.

But the success of an anti-Islamic tract by the veteran Italian war correspondent Oriana Fallaci, who says Europe is turning 'into Eurabia', added to fears that unabashed racism is winning an ever-wider audience in Italy. The book, Oriana Fallaci Interviews Oriana Fallaci, sold 500,000 copies in a matter of hours. Stocks of the volume, sold with the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, were exhausted and a new edition is being prepared.

'I say what I think and that is what people think but almost never say,' said Fallaci. 'They have found someone who gives a voice to their silence.' Many buyers said they read the volume because they wanted to know how extreme the extremist anti-immigrants were becoming.

Racism monitors say non-white Italians and colored immigrants are treated systematically with less respect than white Italians in Italy.

'We are still at a stage in this country where colored people are considered different and treated, if not as inferiors, as children,' said Luciano Scagliotti, representative in Italy of the European Network Against Racism.

"Francese...Per favore!" Italians are not known to be racists. We just like to have a little fun with the people who cross our borders.

The French have no sense of humor. On the other hand, Italians think it's very funny that they are trying to rewrite history:

-This is a country that was conquered in a couple of afternoons and turned into the top producing country for the Nazis during the war.
-They still try to convince everyone that they were part of the big invasion. The French weren't part of any invasion. They were already invaded! How can you be part of an invasion in your own country?
-For the love of Napoleone! The French did everything for the Nazis except trim Hitler’s moustache and they would have gladly done that as well.

Italy also laughs at France's contribution to world cuisine. You know what they gave us?
1.) The Soufflé: something puffed up with a lot of hot air and full of fattening crap.
2.) Cordon Bleu: sausage and eggs (heart disease on a plate).

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