Last week we were invited to La Festa della Castagna, a feast of fine, or rather bourgeois, food and drinks to celebrate the chestnut, the beginning of winter and the beauty of my friends garden. Now these party's usually take place around october to officially open the chestnut-season, but then there isn't any snow falling yet. And how pretty is a fire cooking up some chestnuts in the white snow!?
We thought we should bring something sweet to the celebration, so we bakes two chocolate cakes. I dusted them with a little 'zucchero al velo' (sugar like a veil) meaning powdered sugar, leaving out the shape of a chestnut leaf. I used Nigella's recipe for 'chocolate cloud cake', super easy to make and always a success.
There was a big table filled with raw and cooked ham, sausages, bread, cheese, fruit, cake and the hot, black chestnuts straight from the fire outside, ready to be peeled. We all had many plates of this goodness accompanied by the same amount of glasses of vin brulee, an Italian version of the German 'Gluhwein'. A spiced red wine with the peel of an orange and lemon, drunk warm (best drunk outside in the snow!)
I remember the smell of this wine from when I was a little girl. My mom still makes it every christmas and it makes the house smell like...christmas. I'm already looking forward to it as I will be spending my holiday in The Netherlands. She makes it from scratch with some good red wine (there are all kinds of prefab wines available these days). She puts in an orange decorated with cloves, although it's not purely for decoration but for the typical taste they give to the wine, it just looks so great. And of course some cinnamon and sugar and I think some lemon peel too. It sits on the stove for a couple of hours, then it's usually christmas-eve and we drink it to keep ourselves warm and cosy. Mmmm, I can't wait!
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