Latest news with #Citterio
Business Insider
02-07-2025
- General
- Business Insider
I'm a professional baker and my partner is a chef. Here are 10 of our favorite things to buy at Costco.
I'm a professional baker and my partner is a chef — we both shop at Costco for staples. We often buy Kirkland Signature extra-virgin olive oil and maple syrup in bulk. We've found Costco is also a good place to find cheese and large bags of garlic. I'm a baker and my partner is a chef, so there's always something going on in our kitchen. Since we both go through ingredients fairly quickly, Costco is our go-to place for stocking up on groceries. Here are some of our favorite Costco staples. Most of our home cooking starts with garlic. Garlic is essential in most of the cooking we do. And since my partner makes Italian food for a living, running out of it isn't an option. A two-pound bag of fresh garlic can last us a few months. Prosciutto is a go-to in our house for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Prosciutto is our bacon — we substitute it on eggs Benedict and breakfast sandwiches, include it in pasta dishes, and wrap it around chicken or fish for dinner. The salty, cured pork packs a ton of flavor, but high-quality options are expensive and often sold in smaller, 2- or 3-ounce packages at traditional grocery stores. When we can find it, we grab Citterio's 18-month-aged prosciutto di Parma, which is imported from Italy. We often graze on BelGioioso's mozzarella snack packs while cooking. These convenient bunches of cheese contain three little balls of mozzarella, but we've never eaten just one snack pack at a time. You can also skewer them on a toothpick with cherry tomatoes and basil to make an excellent Caprese or toss them on a homemade pizza. I use a lot of sugar as a baker, but will often substitute it with Kirkland Signature maple syrup. I often use maple syrup in a one-to-one ratio as a substitute for white or brown sugar in my baking. Its flavor is more complex, and it's particularly good in cookies and glazes. I always reach for 100% pure maple syrup, which can be expensive, but Kirkland Signature's option is typically affordable and high quality. Our favorite breakfast is bagels and lox, and we save money by making it at home with Costco's smoked salmon. In Seattle, a bagel with cream cheese and lox can easily cost over $12, which is not a daily expense that kitchen salaries can afford. So we buy our favorite bagels from bakers around town and build our own. Subtly smoky and presliced, Kirkland Signature smoked salmon is both fairly priced and versatile — we add it to salads and risottos, as well. Kirkland Signature's oat nondairy beverage is our favorite. My partner is lactose intolerant, and Kirkland Signature's oat beverage is our nondairy alternative of choice. Creamy, with a subtle oat flavor, this option is great in coffee but also a good substitute for whole milk in many baked goods. We don't mind buying this in bulk because the boxes can be stored in the pantry until opened. Every chef needs a good supply of olive oil on hand. Kirkland Signature's organic extra-virgin olive oil is a cooking staple. We use it as the base of salad dressings, roast vegetables in it, and drizzle it on pasta. For something so ubiquitous in our cooking, we want an oil that is high quality but not out of our price range, so Kirkland Signature's option does the trick. The "king of cheeses" is often sold at Costco for a reasonable price. In restaurant kitchens, we got used to working with some of the best ingredients, like Parmigiano Reggiano, but they aren't cheap. Known as the "king of cheeses," the ingredient is imported from Emilia-Romagna, Italy. At conventional grocery stores, Parmigiano Reggiano is hard to find and can be quite expensive for a small sliver. At Costco, the 36-month-aged cheese is usually sold for half the price of that at local shops and grocery stores near us — making it a must-buy on every trip. Cento San Marzano tomatoes are always on our grocery list. Three 28-ounce cans of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes only last a few days in our house. Aside from adding canned tomatoes in marinara and ragù, we use them in braises, as part of soup bases, and in my partner's favorite egg dish, shakshuka. The book section at Costco is one of our favorite places to find cooking inspiration. Costco is not the most obvious place to shop for something to read, but the selection offers many of the latest cookbook releases at a fraction of the price of traditional bookstores. We love getting new cookbooks to inspire both our home and professional meals. I always buy the latest Yotam Ottolenghi release. Books vary in price but are typically 20% to 40% off the traditional retail rates. . This story was originally published on February 2, 2022, and most recently updated on July 2, 2025.
Korea Herald
20-06-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
We don't need more obejcts, just better ones: Antonio Citterio
Italian designer and architect shares his philosophy working for high-end furniture company Flexform, which launched its Seoul flagship store in May Behind companies that manage to build a legacy and maintain the quality of their products, there are often people carving out the company's identity and helping to write its history. For Italian luxury furniture company Flexform, designer and architect Antonio Citterio is one such person. Flexform was founded in 1959 by the Galimberti brothers in northern Italy, and is renowned for its high-end sofas, armchairs, tables and beds. Last month, the company launched its brand in Seoul with the Infini Cheongdam flagship store, one of a series of flagship stores opening around the world. 'Flexform's uniqueness lies in its quiet consistency. In more than four decades of collaboration, we have developed a shared language based on measured elegance, comfort and timelessness. It is a company that does not follow trends,' Citterio said in a recent interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul. The brand's signature sofas, such as Groundpiece, Soft Dream, Perry, Gregory, Asolo and Camelot, have been around for decades, and were created out of the designer's observations of people — the way they live, sit, rest and gather. 'Groundpiece, for instance, was born from observing the everyday: how a sofa isn't just for sitting, but for reading, relaxing, even working. I rethought proportions, making it lower and deeper, and introduced more informal elements,' the designer said. Since its launch in 2001, Groundpiece has become one of the most sought-after sofas by the company. Gregory, a sofa that features leather straps, is an example of visual expression of craftsmanship and quality, 'balancing between technical precision with material sensitivity,' Citterio said. 'It is never about decoration; it is about making each component meaningful. In all these projects, the goal is the same: clarity, comfort and design that stays relevant over time,' he said. The designer noted South Korea's growing appreciation for fine art and high-quality design aligns naturally with Flexform's values. 'South Korea is an extraordinary cultural landscape: design-aware and deeply connected to both tradition and innovation,' he said. 'Flexform speaks a language of restraint, continuity and subtle luxury, and I believe that resonates with the Korean sensitivity to beauty, calm and authenticity in the domestic space.' His design practice traverses different fields. An architecture graduate of Polytechnic University of Milan, he is a co-founder of ACPV Architects and was a professor of architectural design at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland. In fact, the design fields he bridges share a common aim — to improve the way people live through intelligent and coherent design, according to the architect. 'In Italy, there has never been a strict separation between architecture, interior and product design. They are different scales of the same conceptual process. 'When I design a chair or a sofa, I don't isolate it from its surroundings. I think about the space it lives in, the gestures of the people who use it, and how light, proportions and relationships shape the experience,' he said. In a world flooded with designs sporting loud aesthetics and where people can easily obtain objects or furniture with a single click, Citterio's designs stay grounded by his philosophy: clarity, durability and timelessness. 'I have always thought that creativity must exist inside the industrial process, not outside of it — that is where true innovation happens. When each component of an object has meaning, structural, functional and aesthetic, the result is not just elegant, it is durable,' he said. 'I believe the world does not need more objects. It needs better ones. Better means designed with care, with awareness of how people live, and with the intention to last. I would like to be remembered for creating work that endures not through recognition or style, but through coherence,' said Citterio.
