Dear Pasta Lover! Buon giorno from beautiful Verona in North East Italy! I hope you are all staying safe and well. |
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Although there's been an increase in Covid cases in the last couple of weeks, the numbers are still way lower than other European countries such as France, Spain and the UK. However, the Italian government has recently made health passes (vaccine certificate/ recovery or negative test certificate) compulsory for entry to a number of businesses and cultural and leisure venues such as museums, galleries, cinemas, gyms and sports stadiums as well as indoor seating in restaurants and bars. Apparently even tourists from other EU countries, US, UK, Japan, Israel and Canada can use their equivalent health passes or vaccine certificates wherever this rule applies. In September, the Italian green pass (health pass) will also be compulsory for domestic flights, long distance trains, school staff and university students! |
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Those of you who read my last newsletter will know that I just spent a week on the island of Malta. To get there, we had to fly. It was my first time on a plane in almost 3 years. Travelling by plane sure has become stressful! So, every country has different rules, of course! Malta recently made it obligatory for most incoming travellers to be vaccinated. This means that you currently can't visit the island without having to quarantine for 14 days unless you are fully vaccinated with either the Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Astra Zeneca or Moderna vaccines and have a recognized vaccine certificate from the EU, UK, USA, UAE, Turkey, Albania, Serbia or Doha/Qatar. |
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Gnejna Bay, Malta last week. |
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Travellers without a vaccine certificate need a negative PCR test result and must quarantine for 14 days in a government approved 'hotel' at their own cost! Although Maltese residents can apply to stay in their own homes! Luckily, my hubby and I are both vaccinated. But when I went online to do our online check in, what used to take 10 minutes, took an hour! We had to upload our vaccine certificates to the airline site and then once we had our seat numbers, we had to log on to the EU passenger locator app, register and fill in 2 separate forms about our flight details and where we would be staying in Malta. Then we had to do the same for our return to Italy (Italy requires one form per travel group). We also printed all the forms to take with us to the airport. As you can imagine, checking in our luggage at the airport took much longer than in the past as they checked all the forms. The same upon arrival in Malta. Again, they checked everything! Funnily enough on our return to Italy, nobody asked us for anything! |
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Malta holds a special place in my heart as I used to live there. My first husband is Maltese, and two of my four sons live there still, as well as my granddaughter. I also have many friends on the island. It was a week of reunions as I hadn't been for nearly 3 years and hadn't seen one of my sons, Oliver, for nearly 2 years! |
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Unfortunately, we were restricted in how many people can get together (6 on a table at a restaurant and 4 households in a private home). However, we still managed to have a really good time and see many people I wanted to, although not everyone. |
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We went to the beach a couple of times. It was very very hot in Malta. Like the rest of Southern Europe, the island has been experiencing a heatwave! But, the sea was still cool enough to be refreshing. We had to stay in the shade though. Too hot to even consider sunbathing! |
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Sunset from our friend's pool in Bahrija Malta |
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Both times we went to Gnejna Bay which is located on Malta's western coast. This is the beach I took my boys to most often when they were young! So, it holds a lot of memories for me. It's a sandy beach located in a very picturesque bay in a protected area. So, there are no buildings except for boathouses, and you really need to have a car to get there! It's not as crowded as some of the other beaches, especially during the week. |
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Malta is located just 80 kilometres from Sicily and the island has many ties to Italy. The Maltese cuisine is very Mediterranean, and they eat a lot of pasta and seafood. We had some very good food whilst there, including a lovely seafood lunch on the terrace at the Royal Malta Yacht club. We were also treated to an amazing 5 course lunch at a friend's fabulous country house in Bahrija cooked by a private chef. |
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The restaurant at the Royal Malta Yacht club |
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We had another noteworthy lunch at a small winery in the Maltese countryside called Ta Betta. Here we tasted a number of their excellent wines along with a lunch comprising typical Maltese foods such as the local cheese called ġbejniet, Maltese bread, local figs, different salumi and a local bean dip called bigilla. |
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Our lunch at Ta Betta winery. Loved their cheese and salumi boards, Maltese bread and the bigilla |
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One evening we invited a few friends for dinner at my son's house. I made my favourite summer pasta recipe vermicelli di Positano. Everybody loved it. It's such an easy summer pasta recipe because the 'sauce' is just marinated veggies and herbs. So, you only have to cook the pasta! Definitely one to try! (See link below) |
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This Maltese food blogger has some wonderful recipes if you're interested in trying some Maltese dishes |
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Learn more about Ta Betta winery from their site! |
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I'm pretty thrilled with this traditional hand operated pasta making tool I bought recently. Making pasta with it is a lot faster and easier than doing it 100% by hand. If you want to get one yourself or learn more, check out my recent casarecce 2 ways post (link below) or click on this button to buy your own. |
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Affliate Link - Click On The Image to Visit the Shop |
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Second cookbook just published! |
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I'm excited to finally be able to tell you that the second volume of my Traditional Seasonal Pasta Recipes is now on sale as a pdf or hard copy! It took longer than we planned because of Covid related delays but luckily cookbooks are evergreen and never go out of fashion! |
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Have you read the post I wrote about organic pasta maker's Girolomoni who I visited last year? They're located in Le Marche and make fabulous pasta with 100% organic Italian grains. US readers might be interested to learn that you can buy this pasta from Stonewall Kitchen. They use the brand name Montebello but it's the same company. Check out my post to learn more. And if you're interested in ordering some of this pasta below is a link to Stonewall kitchen. |
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Check out my new shop page for online pasta courses and other pasta related products! |
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Without the thousands of blog visitors, Facebook followers and newsletter subscribers who love pasta as much as I do, The Pasta Project wouldn't be the success it is today! So, I'd like to take this opportunity to send you a heartfelt thank you for being a Pasta Project subscriber! All the best from Verona, Italy |
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Do make sure to add The Pasta Project to your contact list so that new e-books and newsletters won't get sent to your spam folder |
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