Review Of the Real Italian Wine & Food Experience at Excel - looking backwards and forwards

After the Real Italian Wine & Food  Experience at Excel, I have been looking back at their website and catalogue and what I discovered and enjoyed at this new style trade show. 

Why Sunday and Monday?

Firstly, the date of the show was a Sunday and a Monday. The day of the week chosen was not an accident, nor simply due to the availability or price of the exhibition hall. The organizers, wineexperience.com, chose a Sunday and Monday because that is when many restaurants and food and wine businesses are closed or have fewer customers, consumers, and can afford the time to go to an exhibition for business to business meetings.

They even had a children's area. So families could come along. But children were kept out of the way, whilst adults were tasting wine. 

Looking Back At What I Learned and Missed

I missed out on the blind tasting area. I like an attractive bottle and label. If I had more time, next time I would do the taste test without the distraction of the bottle and labelling. 

Super Seating - Lounge Based

What I did enjoy was the cosy seating.

Instead of having everybody walking around whilst sampling drinks, and spitting, which I hate, a new system. Not the old cross between a random cocktail party and a boozy pub crawl. Nor the other system of  having front desks where temp agency staff ignore passers-by, and a gatekeeper holds back everyone from a seated VIP area. 

Something much better.  Each stand at this show had comfortable chairs. This created a nooky look and feel so you were invited to sit down and savour the drink, and sometimes food.

Sitting Listening To Stories

Whilst it is possible that every stand has a story, it did seem to me that I could quickly establish if we had no connection before sitting down. The most smiling and welcoming people often knew they had a great story, or were willing to chat away until we found a profitable point or subject of mutual interest.

Here's a summary of what I learned.

1 Cans Of Semi-Sparkling Wine 

The stand had both bottles of sparkling rose wine and cans of semi-sparkling. I tried both and I was honest, tactless, enough to say that the cans did not have as much of a sparkle, a bubble, as the traditional bottle. Convenient to carry, for a picnic, backpack. 

Why no bubbles? Just for a cheaper product? No. The promoter, Cristina, explained that, as most people already know, the heavy glass of the Champagne bottle and similar sparkling wine bottles, is there to withstand the pressure of the bubbles. The much lighter aluminium cans can't take such strong bubbles without the risk of bursting. Once I knew that, I was no longer disappointed by the smaller sparkle of the canned drink. Just a different product, for different occasions, different requirements, different weight, size, and price.

If you look carefully, the can may say semi sparkling.

I have a can of  Peach Moscato says  kosher, not for Passover, but kosher for other occasions.

It is only 5% alcohol, nearer to the alcohol content of beer. Not as strong as wine.

Looking Forward To the Next Real Italian Wine & Food Experience

Similar trade shows are being organized in the Americas in Mexico City, in Mexico, in April

In summer of 2026, in June, in Asia. The event is in Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in Vietnam. An opportunity for a side trip to one of the two top sites in Asia, the green pinnacles in the blue sea, visited by boat on a romantic  overnight dinner cruise at Halong Bay.

The next opportunity is in November in Mexico City. 

Next year I shall want to attend this trade show again in London, England. 

2 Forno Minniti For Perfect Panettone

In addition to Panettone, they make biscuits with lemon flavoured marzipan filling. All kinds of aromatic, melt in the mouth pastries and biscuits, sweet and savoury. I must mention the onion biscuits. I've never had anything like it before.

Large Panettone from Forno Minniti. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I look forward to seeing and sampling what is new from Forno Minniti, the makers of the oh so aromatic and tasty Panettone, flavoured with bergamot (which is an orange) and almonds. What will they come up with next year?

The Spelling of Panettone

Notice the spelling. Minniti has double n, one letter tee. The opposite of panettone.

But panettone has double t and the ne twice. The word starts with pan, not just a cooking pan, but the word for bread, or cake, in many languages, such as the French phrase for chocolate pastry, pain au chocolat. The word panettone ends with the word one, o - n - e.  You can get a small panettone but in my photo is one big one. Panettone.

Useful Websites On Italian Food & Wine Shows & Food

winesexperience.com

fornominitti.it

italianwinecan.com

it stands for Italy.

Another Panettone supplier is in the Lombardy region, at Breschia, going north from Milan. They make a triple chocolate panettone, and have a shop.

Useful Website on Chocolate Panettone

www.marzoilpasticcere.it

Wonderful Wines & Spirits

https://marinium.it/en/products/

The Real Italian Wine & Food Experience

winesexperience.com

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Panettone All Year, and Seasonal cakes and desserts

Last Christmas in UK supermarkets we could buy Christmas pudding and Christmas cake, French yule logs, the seasonal favourites, plus year round scones and crumpets. From Europe, German stollen and Italian Panettone. The UK now has an outlet devoted to Panettone. Supermarkets, from upmarket department stores to Waitrose, middle market Tesco and Morrisons, and budget friendly German Lidl and Aldi, stock a variety of European and worldwide specialities. Amazon and ebay also have links to lovely food specialities. These include

Italian Panettone

Panettone - Italian, popular in the run up to Christmas, but also increasingly Easter. The spelling is only one double letter, double t, I remember tut tut.

Panettone. Picture from Wikipedia.

Wiki explains

In Italy, historical accounts of panettone invariably state that it originated in Milan. The word panettone derives from panetto, a small loaf of bread. The augmentative suffix -one changes the meaning to 'large bread'

A one word oxymoron, small large bread. The popular size is the large one which can last in its tin all year, going gradually drier and losing flavour and aroma. It can be used up as bread pudding, bread and butter pudding.

We used to be given Panettone when we visited an Italian restaurant in Hatch End. The tinned panettone came packed inside a circular zip up bag.

Now many Italian cafe outlets before Christmas sell a few choices of Panettone on the counter beside the cashier to tempt you to make a last minute purchase of a gift for others or yourself.

The Panettone Store sells panettone from small stocking fillers to extra large. Also preserved fruit, and Italian soft nougat.

What about the rest of the world. Wiki helpfully says

Turron

Soft nougat. 

Torrone

Italian soft nougat

Nougat

Usually white chewy bars which might contain nuts, and sometimes fruit. Could be wrapped in foil for freshness and then a soft card cover.

Useful Websites On Panettone And Seasonal Food

https://thepanettonestore.co.uk/

https://thepanettonestore.co.uk/stocking-fillers/

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/spaniards-fear-italian-invasion-of-panettone-replace-roscon-bread-6mcwbv5f9

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Winter Celebrations Worldwide

 

UK

Turkey with stuffing.

Christmas cake

Christmas Carols

Christmas Crackers containing a paper hat and a riddle and usually a tiny toy or puzzle.

Christmas Pudding

Mince Pies

On Fridays a Toastasters International Club, Online Dynamic, meets to practice speeches. I gave a speech about winter festivals around the world. I also gave this in person at HOD the evening before.

Ice Skating on artificial Outdoor Rinks

Pantomime

Santa's Grotto in Department Stores

TV family films such as The Sound of Music and American movie Home Alone, a slapstick comedy about a child who beats a couple of bungling would-be burglars.

USA

Candy Cane. Red and swhite spirals of sugar, resembling a shepherd's crook. They recall the story of the shepherds who, as the Christmas carol goes, watched their flocks by night.

Plum pudding (like Christmas pudding) is available all year, although more prolifically at Christmas.

Turkey is eaten for Thanksgivingso most Americans don't want to eat it again at Christmas.

BELIZE

Used to be called British Honduras and still has British traditions with an added Central American flavour.

Christmas carols played by steel bands.

Fairy lights on palm trees. (The lights are not installed by cranes but by local agile young men who climb the tree, sometimes hanging upside down as a stunt to amuse and astonish passers-by. 

FRANCE

Yule logs cakes with chocolate topping, recalling the tree trunks chopped up for fires giving light and heat in winter before we had electric lights and heating..

GERMANY

Stollen - a cake or soft sweet bread with sultanans, shaped like a log, with a rod of yellow marzipan horizontally down the centre. 

Marzipan is ground almonds mixed with fine sugar, bound together by liquid such as egg white?

ITALY and Roman Catholic churches

Nativity scenes in churches.

Panettone, a large dome shaped soft sweet dough bread. Nowadays you can buy it not only with traditioal luurious cut dandied peel and sultanas, but, instead chocolate chips, and fillings ingredients and numerous flavours. 

Italians claim it comes from Northern Italy, specifically Milan, and a specific bakery.

SPAIN

Panettone, same as Italy.

Songs such as Feliz Navidad.

VENEZUELA

Panettone.

What goodies does January bring for the traveller - or stay at home traveller?

 More Sunlight and Daylight In America and Europe

In The Northern Hemisphere

Every day is brighter and longer. Soon the little white crocuses will be peeping out. 

Lovely Leftover Food

But supermarkets are still stocked with Christmas goodies. 

Christmas Pudding

We still have English Christmas pudding.

German Stollen

Another recent favourite in the UK is German stollen with its sweet marzipan filling, 

Italian Panetonne

Italian panettone - yummy. I love the high, domed bread. The classic panettone is plain, or with currants. Nowadays many more flavours are sold in caffes.

Panettone. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Leftover Drinks

Bubbles - Kings' Ginger. Champagne. Cava. Prosecco. 

Spirits

Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry - at least it keeps. Let's take a closer look.

Nibbles

Scottish shortbread biscuits. Chocolates - Belgian chocolates. Chocolate from Hotel Chocolat.

Just around the calendar corner of the year, in Asia, China, Singapore and Chinese areas of big cities such as New York and London there will be Chinese New Year with orange lanterns and decorations on buildings, oranges, and boxes of biscuits for neighbours and friends and club members and colleagues.

Christmas Customs, Food and Drink Around The World - turkey, carp, midnight mass, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, stollen and panettone

Turkey lunch.

Christmas dinner in London consists of turkey with red cranberry sauce, green Brussels sprouts and roast potatoes. Other options include a bread or bread and chestnut stuffing; and small sausages wrapped in bacon, called pigs in blankets.

Why turkey? To make a change. Because a turkey is larger therefore more convenient when you have extra visitors to entertain to a Christmas meal. After that, what's next?

Christmas Pudding

This hearty, filling dish is followed by dark, dried fruit Christmas pudding. Accompanied by cream.

I find this too rich. I prefer the contrasting colour of yellow custard. 

Christmas Pudding in Dona Theresa Restaurant, Hatch End. The restaurant used to find customers were ringing another Dona Theresa Restaurant elsewhere in London, so the restaurant name was change to Zia Theresa, meaning Aunt Theresa.

You can see on the right of the picture the words Dona Theresa, which is hte name of a restaurant in Hatch End.

An individual Xmas pudding with a single portion of cream at a Christmas dinner in an Italian restaurant in Hatch End, London, England. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

We used to make a Christmas pudding weeks in advance. As it dries out, the flavour improves. An alcoholic drink can be added to the mixture as a preservative.

Another year, we bought three small size Christmas puddings from different supermarkets and compared them. When we made our choice, we bought a large one for Christmas Day.

This went on for years. Until the revolution. Heston Blumenthal introduced a citrus fruit in the middle of a Xmas pudding. The novelty sold out.

Now it has become a Xmas staple. Not cheap. Sixteen pounds sterling when I looked on Dec 17 2020.

In England Xmas pudding is sold for Xmas. The price comes down in January. 

When we went America we found that Xmas pudding was available all year. But it was known by its old name, plum pudding. A pudding made, no longer with plums, but with dried fruit such as currants.

As a child growing up in in London, England, I assumed that turkey, Christmas pudding, and Christmas cake were all the standard all over the world. To a limited extent this is true, Many countries, those still in the Commonwealth, continue to enjoy the old traditions. Europe does things differently.

However, the English speaking Americans also don't eat turkey at Christmas. Why? Because they have already had turkey for Thanksgiving dinner in November. 

When we spent Christmas in Prague, Czech Republic, we had Christmas dinner there at our hotel. The main dish was fish. 

Afterwards we went to midnight mass at the nearby church. The service was in the Czech language. No translation into German, Russian nor English. Luckily, we could copy the others standing up and sitting down when instructed to do so by the priest. I could see the page numbers of the hymn book of the lady standing next to me. I recognized some of the famous music. If I remember rightly, we recognized Silent Night, Ave Maria and a classical piece of music.

In England, after Christmas Day dinner (lunch), when we Brits are in England, we watch the Queen's Speech. (Actually it is called the Queen's Christmas message. The  Queen's speech is what she give to Parliament when she opens it after their recession.)

It's a treat to hear the Queen speaking the Queen's English. Here I am at Heathrow airport, London, England, beside a cut out model of the queen.

Tea time is the time when we produce the Christmas Cake. A heavy fruit cake. With white icing on top. Reminding you of snow. Most supermarkets can supply miniature cake topping such as red hat Santas, green plastic Christmas trees, reindeer.

Or you can buy a complete cake. Marks and Spencer usually stock one in a round, square or oblong shape. It must have marzipan under the icing. Make sure the expiry date is after Xmas day!

One year we left for Singapore before Xmas. I bought a Xmas cake. When I got it home, I discovered that the expiry date was before Xmas day.

Again, I had always assumed Xmas cake was universal. Until the foods of Europe reached the UK supermarkets.

Another British favourite is mince pies. Found everywhere in supermarkets. Cheap.

Mince pie.

Yule Log

If you visit Prague for Xmas, as we did, you can see the statue of composer Smetana, and a star commemorating him in the walk of fame.

France offers the world what the Americans call the Yule log. The English call it a log cake. The French call it buche noel. (Not to be confused with the French word bouche which means mouth.) This alternative cake can be a a Swiss roll, or spiral of sponge, with a chocolate covering, You scrape the chocolate icing with the tines of a fork to make it look like a log. Reminders of a log fire to warm you at Christmas time, in the snowy winter.

Stollen - Germany

Stollens are a solid roll shape cake with a scattering of dried fruit inside, white icing sugar covering the outside and, ideally, a marzipan centre. Stollens vary wildly in size and marzipan content. You can buy a traditional large roll, or cheaper individual miniature portions, which is more calorie controlling. 

Stollens could have a large marzipan centre, a thin one like a pencil, or, disappointingly, no marzipan at all. If you are a marzipan addict, check the ingredients and/or photo on the packaging before buying. 

Small individual stollen.

Large stollen.

Stollen with individual filling.

One year I bought a stollen ingredients kit. I wanted to know how it is made. Simple, really. Soak dried fruit overnight. Next day, mix up a batter. Add the fruit, well distributed. Roll out your soft marzipan into the length of the intended cake. Roll the marzipan in the cake mixture. Bake. Dust with icing sugar. However, the results were not as good as the top quality ones. Timing is critical to get it done but soft, with enough marzipan but not too much. 

Marzipan is basically ground almonds mixed with fine sugar. When my late father was diagnosed with late-onet diabetes, which is diet related, I started checking sugar content of everything I bought. I found that marzipan content varied from 75% almonds for the dearer brands, to fifty percent sugar for the cheaper supermarkets own brand. 

Panettone - Italy, Spain and Venezuela

More photos and text and websites will be added later.

See Statues of Smetana in Prague.

To sum up, you can enjoy the best of every country now in supermarkets around the world. My top three countries for Christmas are the UK, Singapore and America. The UK has Christmas decoration and crackers in window displays and restaurants. Singapore has street lights and decorated malls. American has giant displays on home lawns and rooftops and office blocks and skyscrapers.

Useful Websites

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/heston-from-waitrose-hidden-orange-christmas-pudding/700239-99398-99399

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, fashionista. Please share links to your favourite posts or one or more of the blogs

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

Easter Cakes, Hot Cross Buns, Simnel Cakes and Panettone, From England, Europe and Worldwide, Could Survive The Spring Season Sales

Problem
What are hot cross, buns, simnel cakes, panettone? What can we have that's different next Easter, or buy discounted after Easter?

Fruited mini Hot Cross Buns in Waitrose. Photo by Angela Lasnbury. Copyright.

Answers
Hot Cross Buns
Hot cross buns - what are they? Basically, just sweet buns either plain or enhanced with currants plus a seasonal browned top so you can cut a cross in it. Why a cross? Nowadays, in Christian countries and Christian communities, representing Easter.

Cross?
The two factors are the cross on top and serving them hot with butter, because Easter can be a cold time of year, so it's nice to have a hot bun for tea, with your tea.

The cross is not usually a T- shape or cruciform but like a plus sign or X, depending which way the bun is placed on the plates. It can be seen as a religious symbol if you like, especially at Easter. However, why waste a good bun the day or days after Easter.

However, if you wish, you can make a lop-sided cross which looks more like a cruciform. I think it just looks untidy. Traditionally, just a neat, even cross with fur even sides is acceptable to those whether religious or not.

During Easter or afterwards it can be served to people of other religions or no religion, or other times of year. The cross serves as a convenient marker for dividing a bun up into four. Why divide it? For four children, or two or three or four adults watching their figures - meaning diets or budgets.

Round Buns Or Square?
You could buy or make square buns or round buns. If you like to think of it that way, the round shape is also a pagan or pre-Christian symbol of the renewal of life in spring, so a circle is seasonally appropriate for springtime. However, there's no law banning eating eggs, or having rabbits and others items which are symbols of spring at other times of year.

Bargain Buns
It's just that the shops have overstocked on these items at Easter, you might be able to pick up a bargain after everybody has spent time and money on the holidays and the shops want to go onto the next week's novelty.

Waitrose Easter Simnel cake. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Buns, bargain are not, are a cut-price item, even at full price. If your budget stretches to cake, at checkout I found Simnel cake.

Simnel Cakes Ingredients
Simnel cakes in Waitrose were 'spiced fruit cake with citrus peel and topped with marzipan. They had me when I read 'made with marzipan' topping, my favourite. Icing is just sugar with water, bad for the teeth and diet and too much makes you feel ill. However, marzipan is ground almonds mixed with sugar, which gives you some variety of flavour, some protein, and is less sickly. Yummy.

Other research tells me that a traditional simnel cake can have a central layer of marzipan. That sounds better.

Easter Decorations
Easter cakes can have twelve (or unlucky thirteen!) knobs of icing or marzipan or iced marzipan on top representing the twelve disciples, or twelve disciples and Jesus, like the markings on a clock face. Unlucky thirteen comes from thirteen around a table being believed by the superstitious to be unlucky as it is a reminder of the Last Supper, which was a Passover meal.

Another view is that you should have eleven knobs, minus the one for Judas. Oh, dear. The good news is, if you buy a cake and it has only eleven pieces of marzipan on the top, you have not been short-changed, and the person making the cake didn't try to sneakily eat a bit of the decoration hoping you wouldn't notice. Since Easter 2018 is already over, you can bake your own cake with however many decorations you fancy.

On the other hand, over in Europe, the Orthodox Easter comes later, and you still have a chance to buy traditional foods from their bakers, or be served some in a coffee shop, restaurant, hotel or a home.

Superstition, Symbols and Christian and Jewish Numbers
Jewish? Yes, Jesus and the disciples were Jewish, worshipping one God, unlike the Romans and Greeks and pagans who had many Gods. The number twelve was also a symbol of the twelve tribes, and twelve in the Jewish temple known in the Greek language as a synagogue or meeting place, from the Greek words sun, meaning meeting, and again, bring together.

Twelve, like the old British shillings and pennies, was easily divided into four. It is easy to cut a cake into twelve slices. Every guest gets a piece with the decoration.

No greedy person cake take an over-size slice or double portion without being noticed. That includes you, when guiltily finishing up the leftovers.

Conversation and Cake
If you wish your cake to be a seasonal symbol, to please or entertain your guests, who enjoy entertainment or history and other cultures, you have plenty of conversation to go with your cake.

Instead of Simnel cake, or in addition, another novelty cake is Panettone.

Easter Panettone in Waitrose. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyrigtht.

Panettone For All Seasons
Panettone was once exclusively found in Italy, Spain and Latin American countries, such as Venezuela, especially as the Christmas cake. However, it has appeared in supermarkets in the UK in the last decade. Now the British buyers and the English speaking buyers are accustomed to Panettone. I have seen it sold in supermarkets and Italian restaurants and cafes worldwide.

Panettone has been stocked in Tesco and other supermarkets in the last two or three years in London, England, and in Singapore. At first there was one full size plain Panettone. Then small medium and large. Then plain or chocolate. Then budget, medium price and expensive, in thin card wrapping, with a small ribbon bow or a fancy gift tin with wide ribbon and a huge bow.

Panettone lasts forever in a tin, especially if still sealed in the inner wrapper. I was eating one a year later.

After two years, another panettone, stored in the heat overhead, was dry or tasteless even when dunked in coffee. When I was coughing and stuck in with snow outside I discovered my old, dried-up panettone in a tin. In desperation, I made it into a mock layered trifle with yogurt and jam. It depends how fussy and desperate you are. My family flew in from overseas, like knights to the rescue, frowned at the last dried half inch, looked at me as if I was a lunatic, and threw it in the bin.

Reduced Price Panettone
Anyway, you can see that last week's panettone, at a reduced price, could come in handy - especially if you are a survivalist. Americans are familiar with a history of disasters, ranging from earthquakes in California to the notorious Donner Party (stranded in the snow, trying to go overland to California, mostly died and suspected of murder and cannibalism).

Leftovers For Survivalists On Strict Budgets
Survivalists are realists or pessimists, depending on your point of view. Survivalists believe in be prepared, like boy scouts. Survivalists are determined to survive disasters. Survivalists are people who stock up with food and drink for nuclear war, flu, flood and fire. Not to mention seige by terrorists, government, the plague - which is still prevalent in Africa, plagues of locusts, collision with a falling star, aliens who can be bribed by cake, such as panettone, whatever.

Waitrose, this year, 2018, stocked a different Easter version of Panettone. Be prepared. Buy panettone. Not one. Two.

How Do You Spell Panettone?
At first I had trouble remembering how to spell panettone. I had to check back on a packet each time I typed the word. Now I have made myself a memory aid. I think of panet and tone. Panet-tone. Panettone.

Only one n in pane and only one n in one. Pane-tt-one. Panettone.

One and Ane. Ane and One. Pane-tt-one. Panettone.

So there you have it, three 'Easter' delights to buy or make any time of year, buns with crosses or patterns on top, marzipan topped simnel cakes, and panettone, the high cake.

All suitable for Easter, discounted after Easter, but enjoyable all year.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several more posts on foods for Easter and Christmas, English and ethnic food, as well as destinations in English speaking countries and Italy and Spain and Portugal and learning to speak Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and other languages. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.


Update

Books by Angela Lansbury
How to be the best man. (Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Wedding Speeches and Toasts.(Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Unforgettable British Weekends.
Poetry Workshop Workbook.
The Tailor and the Spy. (Lulu.)
Larry The Talking Labrador. (Lulu.)
Writing Poetry for fun.

Quick Quotations

Who Said What When

What to eat and buy, USA and Europe: Christmas Cake, Pudding, Panettone and Pandoro

On Christmas Day in England traditionally you eat Christmas pudding and at tea time Christmas cake. These are hot and cold versions of flour mixture made dark with brown sugar with the addition of dried fruits and often candied peel and nuts.

Plum Pudding
The Americans have plum pudding which seems the same at Christmas pudding except that you cannot sell it as a novelty and must have at . Looking at ingredients when I lived in the USA I saw no plums. Like British mince pies, short for mincemeat pies, which contain no meat nowadays.

Christmas puddings look like they date back to earlier ages, before the rise of tinned fruit and frozen fruit. Then sugar and dried fruits and nuts were luxuries special occasions and dried fruits more available than fresh fruit.

Christmas Pudding
Christmas pudding is served hot, usually with yellow custard, possibly with the addition of alcoholic sauce such as brandy. A sprig of holly on top is optional decoration, usually for magazine photographs. (We have holly in our garden in the UK but I've never met anybody who wanted non-edible decorations which need washing and prick your fingers.)

Panettone
When Panettone first appeared in England we had the Panettone Classico, plain sweet cake with sultanas. But now we can buy chocolate chip panettone in Waitrose and Tesco. In Home Sense and La Dolce Vita I saw many more varieties. (See my previous posts on Panettone.)


Pandoro With the Star

Italian pandoro from Sainsbury's. Somebody took this to a Christmas party for Toastmasters International speakers'  club Harrovians. Nobody knew how to open the box. We eventually decided to cut the top rather than the bottom of the box, so that leftovers could be taken home on the box. As the cake is wider underneath, removing the cake through the narrower top opening was a challenge. However, we squeezed it and pulled and squashed it a bit. Finally we succeeded in extracting it through the top of the box.

After a few minutes we recalled that pandora means golden (colour) cake, because of the yellow colour. (Reminiscent of the three kings (or wide men) who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, according to the story of the Maji in Mathew (I remember M M for Maji and Mathew) in The New Testament.

I saved the box, which came from Sainsbury's. Only after I got home did I see the way you are supposed to cut the cake. I also discovered a sachet of icing sugar at the bottom of the box. I must admit we had all hacked away at the top of the cake. It had seemed a bit dry, compared to the home made tiramisu. But the first time I tried panettone I thought it was dry and tasteless. Three years later, it is a favourite, eaten every day in December with coffee for elevenses, or at tea time.

I think back to my childhood and teenage years before the year 2000. Then Christmas pudding and Christmas cake were the only novelty foods which I saw for dessert and tea time at Christmas in England. Now panettone is in every shop - I have seen them in: Home Sense, Morrisons, Tesco, Waitrose. 

I wonder whether pandoro will be the next big thing next year, December and Christmas 2016. At least, next time, I shall know that you are supposed to slice the cake horizontally, use the template on top to cut out the five point star, and scatter icing through the star shape hole to make a five point star pattern in icing on the top.

Do you know how to get the cake out of the tapered box? Do you know how to turn the cake into a star shape and get the white star on top? Follow the teeny scissors symbols on the box. Now I look at the box again, I see a five point star, which is the traditional depiction of the star over Behtlehem, where Jesus was born and where the Maji went to visit. But the six point star on the box also suits the festival of Hanukah (whose real symbol is the nine branch hanukkah). So next year the star shape cake can be adapted to suit anybody and everybody.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Author, researcher, speaker. 

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La Dolce Vita and Panettone

This is their symbol.  La dolce vita is Italian for the sweet life. It is the name of the shop, and of a film. On the left, circling the edge of what is or reminds you of a plate, is the word gelato, for cold ice cream, and on the right the word caffe, the Italian word for coffee, different from the French, the Italians doubling the letter f.

In the nostalgic and evocative picture you can see the ruins of the ancient, multi-storey Colosseum in Rome, two cups, coffee beans during out of a bag, a wooden box with a drawer and a hand-operated grinder with a copper coloured bowl.

To make it simple, think: ten, twenty or thirty pounds for Panettone small, medium or large.

Remembering the spelling of Panettone

When I was typing the word Panettone to find information or suppliers, I had trouble remembering which letter was doubled. First I thought of the French for bread which is pain. I made the mistake of doubling the n. Pan or pain or has a single n. Eventually I made up a mnemonic (memory aid). 

I think of a panet, or basket, for Tony.  Panet-tone - Panettone. Then I thought of the arched panettone, rising to the double letter in the middle. Finally I thought of the letters either side of the double TT.  a-n-e and o-n-e.

There are cafes all over London and England called La Dolce Vita. For example, Ruislip, Knightsbridge.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Panettone - all kinds: from Italy, England, Tesco, Morrisons, Caffes, Wine Society

Panettone is a traditional cake from Italy, made at Christmas. I first tried panettone when I was given it at Christmas at Fellini caffe restaurant in Hatch End. My panettone came in a big box. When I received one in a tin, I was much more excited by the tin than the contents.

The panettone looked great, huge. I wasn't over-impressed by the taste. Until this year, when we had the remains of a previous year's panettone every day for elevenses for over a month. Now I'm hooked.

It's like brioche, like croissant, but slightly less over the top with the calories. if you can resist eating a whole one!

I am now absolutely an addict. I look for the piece of panettone with my coffee, the way other people anxiously ask, 'where's the milk', or 'got any sugar'?

Panettone can be presented in a decorated cardboard box, but also in a keep it until next Christmas circular high tin. Handy to keep as a home for any panettone which you buy which does not come in a tin.

The following year I saw several tempting large, luxurious high-priced presentation boxes in another Hatch End cafe. I must admit I was daunted by the price.

Now panettone is in several supermarkets in England.

Wine Society
I also saw pentane in the Wine Society's shop in Stevenage.  They have a catalogue. You have to be a member to buy. I have found it well worth while to have at least one member of the family a member.

This is the one in the Wine Society.

Panettone. Now in England, is ubiquitous. Meaning it is found everywhere.

Morrison's panettone. Best price I've found. Fruit was fine. The 'cake' rather too bland for my taste. I'll try the chocolate next.

Paxton and Whitfield Panettone. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Morrison's Panettone
This week I have tried two. The cheapest was only £2 from Morrison. Cooked in their bakery in the Hatch End branch of Morrison, that quintessential English supermarket. What was good about Morrison's panettone? The irresistible bargain price.

What about the taste? The sultanas. Large sugary sultanas.

The label says it also contains currants and candied peel. I haven't yet found that. But today I had a small piece.

(If you've read my posts before, or met me, you will know that I attend Toastmasters International. We are taught to commend, recommend, commend. Praise, add a suggestion, for improvement, praise. In other words, I do not rant and rave. I damn with faint praise.)

However, if you want more of a melt in the mouth egg flavour, you might try a panettone from Italy.This one says Antica Ricetta which I presume means ancient recipe.

This was ours in England.

This tin says Merry Christmas.

This tin says 'panettone classico'.

Plenty of information, which you can translate with guesswork, or on translate Google.

Panettone in Singapore

Similar from Cold Storage in Singapore, catalogue on their website, scroll down beyond sweet treats,

Singapore $31.350 for a 1000 gram size.

https://coldstorage.com.sg/media/uploads/pdf/cs_catalog_2015.pdf

Americans can use the Panettone circular high tins as popcorn containers, or vice versa, use a popcorn container to store panettone. 

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, author and speaker.

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Christmas festive food in Morrisons, and lots of red and Santas

What can you get for Christmas in Morrisons?
Panettone. Fruit or chocolate chip. 

Lindt chocolate santas.

Panettone, the Italian Xmas favourite, cooked in house in Morrisons, Hatch End. Fruit or chocolate chip. Only £2 for the small size panettone.

Angela Lansbury. 

Travel writer and photographer. Author and speaker.

Happy 2015 !

Champagne and panettone. 

The Champagne we drank could be bought from Lidl for around £10 a bottle or less.

After the party was over, as the song says ...

London is cold New Year's Eve - time for mulled wine - and TV from Australia

London is cold coming up to New Year's Eve. I took this sign outside Bar None in Upper Regent street earlier this month. £3.95 for mulled wine, with 50p of your money donated to Save the Children.

A public fireworks display is in the centre of London at midnight. Even if you are nowhere near the main display, or others, you are likely to see fireworks overhead as you walk or drive home, or especially from an upstairs bar or restaurant or hotel room. Take warm clothes and keep them handy even if you are indoors in case somebody suddenly decides let's go outside, let's go on the patio, in the garden, on the roof terrace, whatever. 

The entrances to the underground railway stations will be very crowded just after midnight as everybody decides to go home - or go on to another party. When I was there last year it took about ten to fifteen minutes just to get into the station. The street had a huge queue marshalled by tape barriers with police with walkie talkies direction the crowds. So add that to your travelling time. 

Seeing the huge stationery or slow-moving lines of people, we went back to the bar -restaurant where we had had dinner and drinks earlier, and waited another 15 minutes. We considered walking to another station but went back to the first one. 

On the internet you can already see the celebrations worldwide, starting in Australia and New Zealand, then Asia, then Europe, then UK and Scotland, finally west coat USA then West coast USA.

What do you need to celebrate at home whilst watching the world as an armchair traveller? Champagne - great deals from supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi. Party poppers. 

Fun candles from Poundland shop.

www.poundland.co.uk

"Poundland is the largest single price value retailer in the UK, with over 500 stores offering a great range at Amazing Value!"

What can you eat with your champagne? Panettone - mine's from Fellini in Hatch End. Fellini and the other Italian restaurants will be having parties tonight. How do you remember the spelling of Fellini and Penettone? Fellini - double ll like legs eleven (as they call in UK Bingo halls). Panettone - think Pa-net-tone. Or Pa-nett-one. Pa-netto-ne. Pane-TT-one.

Or keep looking at the word and spell it aloud three times. There are two letters N, two letter E, two letters N, but the N is at both ends separated by the double TT. Pa-NE-TT-0-NE.

Happy New Year!