Description Along the coast of Salento, in Puglia southern Italy, the region that face Greece, there are small restaurants run by fishermen. Rather than being restaurants are eateries where you can sit facing the sea and eat freshly, just caught fish and shellfish. When they are in season and authorized by the Coast Guard to be taken, the sea urchins are the purpose of going to the seaside in a sunny day, you can not eat them all year round. Usually at the eateries are ordered by the customers according to the number of sea urchins you want to eat. Once ordered, you can sit down at your table, then served with freshly baked bread and white wine. In the meantime, you enjoy the spectacle of the fishermen (standing in between you and the sea in front of you) whom armed with curved scissors, cut and open in two the sea urchins shells. The fisherman will have all the sea urchins you ordered aligned on a large plate, and served to you. All that remains to do is enjoying the view, the sea the sun and..eat the starry meat in the halves scooping them with pieces of bread torn by hand. Sea urchins seem like stars on your table, and are an unbelievable surprise to the palate, delicate delight of the sea, pungent and flowery..
Alessandra Andrisani, Palo Alto Member Since March 2013 Artist Statement Alessandra Andrisani was born in Matera, Basilicata, South Italy. The fifth of six sisters, daughter of non-immigrant parents, she herself emigrated to the United States in 2003. She worked as a chef in California for a number of years, then returned to Matera to help a friend open a restaurant. Not fully satisfied, she turned her attention to painting and writing. Needing to settle on a path for her future, but unable to decide which of these three passions she wanted to pursue, she decided to put them together. Thus began this adventure in composing painted recipes in connection with anecdotes of her life. Her paintings are slowly gaining favor with the public and can be sampled with the first chapter (published on amazon) of her first upcoming and unique painted cookbook, which is part of a memoir that relates her childhood in Italy with the celebration of food and the art of living!