A Sneak Peek at Rosanna Holiday 2014 Collection!

Make Everyone on Your List Happy This Holiday!  Give Gifts That Bring Great Cheer to Every Corner of the Home. 

While summer is heating up, here at Rosanna we’re already thinking about the holidays! We’re pleased to share with you this sneak peek of our new Holiday 2014 collection. Perhaps thinking about the holidays will help you melt away this summer heat and have you dreaming about gifts under the Christmas tree!

Highlights of our Holiday 2014 Collection are our ultra-sophisticated La Cité in 24k gold and our elegant Botanica featuring antique English botanical prints. Both are sure to make memorable gatherings throughout the holidays. Taking center stage this season are decorative accent pieces that can be used throughout the home. Belle Boudoir, a collection featuring nostalgic fashion ephemera from New York and Paris, for example can go from table to living room to boudoir.  These pretty trays are ideal for holding jewelry, soap, makeup, appetizer s and more.

Our Holiday 2014 Collection takes the guesswork out of gift-giving with an array of personalized, playful and affordable pieces that are beautifully packaged. The individually boxed city Pennants make wonderful party favors, stocking stuffers, or hostess gifts. Foodies will also love Rosanna’s two new delicious Farm Belle jam and syrup flavors: Marionberry Pinot Noir or Raspberry Rhubarb. This scrumptious marriage of Oregon’s finest fresh picked berries and Pinot Noir from Oregon’s Willamette Valley is the perfect combination of sweet and slightly tart.

Want to see more of our Holiday 2014 collection? Click here to watch our new preview video on YouTube.

Hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks! Stay tuned for more details on our Holiday 2014 Collection. We'll let you know when and where these products will be available.

Warmly,

R O S A N NA I N C . C O M

Use Your Senses of Taste and Smell

Italy is one of the places in the world where good, fresh food has always played a central part in living a high-quality life. The taste and smell of Italian produce is intoxicating, ensuring dining experiences that frequently border on transcendent.

It's rare to find a fruit or vegetable in a market when the variety is out of season. Tomatoes, for example, are at their best in Italy in the late spring and early summer. Most of the tomatoes in Italian markets come from Sicily, where the hot and sunny climate produces fruits bursting with flavor. When tomatoes are at their peak, Italians make great batches of passato al pomodoro (fresh bottled tomato sauce) to stockpile in their larders during the winter months when tomatoes and other vegetables are no longer in season.

You might think about getting the best tomatoes you can so you too can preserve the bounty of the seasonal produce and create a well-stocked pantry. See below for my tips on canning and preserving.

• Canning in huge quantities can seem like a daunting task. Start with smaller batches - even six or eight pints of sauce will go a long way toward making at least a few of your meals feel fresh and summery in the wintertime.
• Be sure not to use any jars with chips or cracks, as this can lead to bacteria.
• Make sure to sterilize the jars completely. Start by washing the jars, lids, and bands with hot, soapy water. Next, completely submerge the jars in boiling water for 10 minutes. Remove with tongs.
• Do not use any butter or fats when canning, unless specified in a tested recipe. These ingredients don't store well and tend to have a higher rate of spoilage.
• Do not thicken with starches, flour, or add rice, barley, or pasta to canned products. These items will absorb liquid quickly and slow the way the food heats, resulting in under-processed and possibly unsafe food.
• Don't use jars larger than specified in a recipe, as excess air could make the food unsafe.
• For more tips, see Ball's website.

Enjoy!

R O S A N N I N C . C O M

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Only nine days until Thanksgiving, and counting.

Thanksgiving is an especially significant American holiday because every one celebrates it—regardless of religion. As most holidays do, Thanksgiving marks a moment when families come together. I have quite a lot to say about Thanksgiving and its significance, but what I’d really like is to hear from you. I want to use this blog as a place to start conversations, which are crucial components that help create community.

Ready? Here’s the question:

What do you think is the most important thing to put on a Thanksgiving table?  

Make your answers as personal or as widely applicable as you like. I'll post my answer at the end of the week. 

I'm excited to read your answers!

www.rosannainc.com

You Are What You Eat

"Out Of The Kitchen, Onto The Couch," the feature story Michael Pollan wrote for The New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago got me thinking. The piece focuses on America’s increasing consumption of pre-made meals and a reliance on supermarket convenience food. The article emphasizes the fact that all over the country, American stoves are gathering dust and ovens are accumulating cobwebs.

On top of the most obvious disadvantages of consuming processed foods rife with preservatives, chemicals, and hormones, the decline of American cooking means something else. Because we are what we eat, in more ways than we know.

Think about what it takes to prepare a meal by hand: time, effort, patience, and care. All of these elements find their way into the food we make, especially if the meal is intended for people who mean something to us. It’s called cooking with love. Countless individuals have caught on to this phenomenon and transformed it into lovely works of art. I’m thinking of literature and films including Like Water for Chocolate, Ruth Reichl’s memoirs, Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me With Apples, the films  Babette’s Feast, Chocolat, and most recently, Julie and Julia. Even The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci includes a nod to food as love!

All of these pieces tell the same story. Food is an incredibly potent means to transmit beautiful sparks of humanity--passion, tenderness, care, pleasure, gratitude, and goodwill. It doesn’t get more direct than it does with food. You feel an emotion, infuse the food with that feeling, and then someone puts that food in their body! This knowledge alone is compelling enough to inspire me to close the computer, get off the couch, and start cooking. Right now.

www.rosannainc.com

Come Together

Life is full of surprises, and every now and again, new people stroll in without notice providing an unexpected but welcome breath of fresh air.

One evening a few weeks ago, one such person literally appeared on our doorstep. Filippo, a young Italian doctor completing his residency at The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center had just recently moved into our area. Earlier that night a neighbor had told Filippo another Italian lived close by, inspiring Filippo to walk over and knock on our door.

What began as a friendly chat quickly turned into a plan for a casual Italian dinner party. To welcome Filippo to Seattle, we invited a few more Italians for a total of ten guests. The meal was a mélange of Italian and English, with conversations alternating between the two languages in an easy flow. Everyone stayed until one in the morning. Italians do love to talk. When it was finally time to say goodnight, cheeks were kissed and it was unanimously agreed that we would all meet again soon.

Delight is not so hard to come by. One of the easiest ways to cultivate it is to invite new people into your life. Especially in mid-life, when we’ve settled into our families’ routines and rhythms, our circle of friends closes in and shrinks down. However, when we make that extra effort to reach out and include someone new (because it does take a concerted effort to do this), especially if that person is from another culture, the benefits are well worth our while.

Interacting with someone new is such a wonderful opportunity. We're able to see the world from a fresh perspective and mull over issues and ideas that wouldn't occur to us otherwise. Spending time with someone new also inspires us be better and different versions of ourselves. The foreign energy feels invigorating.

So, as the saying goes, make new friends, but keep the old.

…and introduce them to each other!






www.rosannainc.com

*Photo courtesy of NextUp