Chef demo by Enrica Rocca at Eataly this Wednesday

Here's some info from the inbox this week. If you're a fan of Italian food, you'll love this upcoming cooking demo!

CHEF ENRICA ROCCA, AUTHOR OF VENICE ON A PLATE…BUT WHAT A PLATE! COOKS TRADITIONAL CINCCHETTI AT CHICAGO’S EATALY NOVEMBER 12

Conceived by Chef and cooking school founder Enrica Rocca, Venice on a Plate...but what a Plate! is a unique cookbook concept in which food and art are of equal importance. Photographed by Jean-Pierre Gabriel (award-winning author and photographer) with a foreword by Pierre Rosenberg (President and Director and the Louvre Museum) and a biography by Rocky Casale (travel writer based in London for The New York Times) Rocca’s first book is a celebration of Venetian gastronomy and glass art from the nearby island of Murano.

Rocca will be creating delicious cicchetti, traditional canapés sold in Venetian wine bars called bacari, on November 12 at Eataly. For tickets to the cooking demonstration, click here.

Like Murano glass, Venetian cuisine has been refined and developed as a response to the city’s unusual geography and complex history. Land and sea co-exist in the “floating city,” creating a one-of-a-kind ecosystem where fish and shellfish from the lagoon and Adriatic Sea can be found alongside fruits and vegetables of the estuary island. Rocca’s favorite Venetian dishes, like the classic Zuppa di Pesce con Zafferano (fish soup with saffron) and Spaghetti con le Seppie al Nero (spaghetti with cuttlefish in ink) are presented in the book on masterworks of glass art by contemporary artists including Carlo Moretti and Massimo Micheluzzi.

Rocca began adventures in hospitality school in Lausanne, and has since traveled the world, running successful restaurants and cooking schools in Cape Town, London and Venice.  Now well-known as a European television personality and cooking instructor, Rocca has received much acclaim.The Financial Times describes her as the “Cooking Countess, founder of an out of the ordinary cooking school" and Gourmet listed her school as one of the 10 best cooking schools in the world.

During the Eataly demonstration, Rocca will take you on a tour of popular Venetian appetizers known as cicchetti, which can be made with a vast array of ingredients and are easy to adapt to anyone’s taste. A free public book signing will take place beforehand.