Alghero’s Angelina Demartis

Angelina Demartis è una brava donna anche una insegnante di cucina meravigliosa!  Con lei ho imparato a prepare Malloreddus alla Campidanese, Culurgiones, Cozze Gratinate e Bianchini. Durante questa classe abbiamo parlato solo in italiano!  Gulp….

Angelina Demartis is an incredible cooking teacher. Even though she only spoke Italian and some of the people in our class only spoke English, her non verbal communication skills, animation and love of cooking conveyed the techniques we needed to make some scrumptous Sardegnian fare. 

Whoa, I’m getting ahead of myself. You are wondering where I was when I found her, how I found her and what we made.  Sorry for letting my enthusiasm for her class and the incredible food I tasted in her kitchen get in the way of linear storytelling.

This October a group of thirteen of us headed to the best Italian language school ever – Centro Mediterraneo Pintadera.  As part of our language lessons, we had the opportunity to practice our linguistic gymnastics in the kitchen of Angelina Demartis.  She is a graduate of the Instituto Professionale per Operature Dei Servizi Di Ristorazione – Settore Cucina.  Then went on to university and now by day teaches Italian and History. By night, she cooks and cooks and helps other folks learn to do what she loves to do – cook.

We climbed the three flights of stairs – yes I paused on landings – wondering where we were going, who our teacher would be and what we would be eating.  The what we would be eating was on everyone’s hungry mind.  This gorgeous, smiling bundle of energy and love – Angelina Demartis – opened the door and we at once knew we had entered foodie heaven.  The working space is a large kitchen that leads into a larger room, that leads out to a great roof top patio with a sea view.  Ahhhhh.  After lots of hugging and kissing and putting a glass of sparkling water in each of our hands she began to tell us what we would be making.  Lucky for us, she had prepared handouts in both English and Italian. 

We learned how to make two typical Sardegnian pastas. The first was Culurgiones – it is a filled pasta formed to look like a shaft of wheat.  Of course mine looked like a blob of dough but I kept on trying.  What makes this pasta interesting is that it is made with three types of flour.  Regular farina 00 – flour, semola rimacinata – finally ground semolina, and integral – whole wheat.  The Culurgiones were stuffed with mint, potatoes and two kinds of Sardinian cheeses.  Malloredus alla Campidanese  is a pasta made with semolina flour, saffron and water.  Simple and delisious with a simple tomatoe and sausage sauce. 

Angelina is not only a foodie but an incredible actress – we really didn’t need a translator to understand what she wanted us to do.  Besides the pasta, some of us cleaned mussels, made the stuffing for the mussels and the lucky ones got to make the super sweet and yummy Bianchini – meringues.

Guess what we did after we made all this glorious food?  We sat down, drank wine and had an incredible dinner that included not only what we made but other tasty morsels made by our hostess.  Buon appetito

What you thought I was  going to share the secrets of how to make the pasta and sauce?  Watch the video and you’ll pick up a few tricks.  Better yet, next October join us on our second Nonna’s Mulberry Tree trek to Centro Meditterraneo Pintadera.

Cooking With Angelina Video

Ci vediamo!