Latest news with #Fiorenze
Daily Maverick
25-06-2025
- General
- Daily Maverick
Florentine chicken, an Italian-French culinary hybrid
Chicken breast fillets are cooked with spinach (beloved of old Fiorenze) in a cream sauce, and finished with Parmesan, in this classic dish which belongs in the repertoire of every home kitchen. Florence, or Fiorenze in older times, is the capital city of Tuscany, but Florentine Chicken is a classic French recipe dating to 1553, when Catherine de Medici married Henry II, King of France. In classical cuisines, this is the sort of claim that gets debunked. Wikipedia tells us that 'she [De Medici] supposedly brought a staff of chefs, lots of kitchen equipment and a love of spinach to Paris, and popularised Florentine-style dishes. Food historians have debunked this story, and Italian influence on French cuisine long predates this marriage. Pierre Franey considered this theory apocryphal, but embraced the term Florentine in 1983.' Pierre Franey was a French-born American chef and television personality. I'm not sure this makes him the obvious authority to quote on the subject, but Wikipedia tends to veer towards an American view of food. The term Florentine refers not to chicken or even the cream sauce in this preparation but to a dish made with spinach. Sole Florentine as made by Auguste Escoffier, grandpère of the French kitchen ranking system, is a famed example. The sauce element of a Florentine dish is Mornay, essentially a béchamel (white sauce) to which cheese is added. In my recipe here, it isn't quite a cheese/Mornay sauce but a creamy sauce sprinkled with finely grated Parmesan. Spinach is an important part of the recipe, and this is baby spinach, not Swiss chard which we South Africans usually call spinach. It's milder and, because it's young, softer too. It melds with the creamy sauce. The chicken is cooked twice. First, it is fried gently until it turns golden in places, giving the resulting dish some of its beauty. Second, a cream sauce is made to which the garlic and spinach are added, and finally the cooked chicken pieces are returned to the pan to be warmed through in the sauce. Florentine chicken can be cooked from start to finish in about half an hour, making this a dish to eat on a weeknight or turn out for a dinner party main course. Tony's Florentine chicken (Serves 3-4) Ingredients For frying the chicken breasts: 6 to 8 chicken breast fillets 1 or 2 tsp garlic powder ½ cup flour Salt and black pepper to taste To finish the Chicken Florentine: 2 Tbsp olive oil 3 Tbsp butter 1 cup dry white wine 3 cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed and then finely chopped ½ cup chicken stock 1 tsp dried Italian herbs 1 cup cream Additional salt and black pepper to taste, if needed 2 cups baby spinach, rinsed and dried ½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese Method Rinse and pat the chicken breasts dry. Using a sharp knife, place each fillet on its edge on a board and slice through the middle to create two flat pieces of fillet. In a tub, mix the flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper together, using a whisk, to ensure that the seasonings spread throughout the flour. Dredge the chicken pieces in the seasoned flour on both sides. In a large, heavy pan, melt the butter and add the olive oil on a moderately high heat. Fry the chicken breasts in this until nicely browned on both sides, about 4 minutes per side. Remove them to a plate. Add the wine and the chopped garlic to the pan and, as it bubbles, scrape the bottom of the pan to take up any flavour that has caught. Add the chicken stock and herbs, bring it to a simmer, and pour in the cream while stirring. Add the spinach and push it under the cream with a spatula. The spinach will wilt into the sauce, creating a balance between the sauce and leaves. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning if needed. Add the chicken back to the pan, bring it back to a simmer, and cook gently for 3 or 4 minutes. Sprinkle grated Parmesan on top and serve. I cooked some linguine to go with it, and it was a pleasing match. I liked the way it brought something else Italian to the finished dish. DM
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Brain scan technology helps address mental health issues SoCal firefighters, first responders face
The traumatic events that firefighters, first responders and law enforcement workers witness can lead to severe mental health struggles in their daily lives. A 2023 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that first responders and law enforcement workers were more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty. Dr. Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist and author, uses a SPECT scan on his patients at his mental healthcare clinics. A SPECT scan involves 3-D scans of the patient's brain that look at blood flow and activity, followed by a custom treatment plan. Matt Fiorenza is a retired firefighter-paramedic who spent 22 years with the Anaheim Fire Department. In his career, he's witnessed people's worst tragedies while constantly working on the frontlines of death and destruction. 'I remember doing a stress debriefing after a woman's boyfriend had run over their 2-year-old child,' Fiorenza said. 'I remember looking down at this child and seeing the diapers.' That painful memory is just one of many incidents that Fiorenza said had sent him on a downward spiral during his career. As he continued witnessing one traumatic event after the next, he tried to cope but began struggling with alcohol and drug abuse. 'I got diagnosed in 2015 with what we know now is PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder),' Fiorenza said. 'And back then, in the first responder community, they really didn't know what to do with me.' After struggling and hitting rock bottom, Fiorenza said he attempted suicide three different times. 'I racked [a gun] and put it in my mouth and my wife heard it and came in and wrestled the gun away,' Fiorenze recalled. He eventually went back to seek professional treatment, but said the process was never enough for him. After isolating in his apartment for four months, he knew he needed more help. That's when he met Dr. Daniel Amen and received a SPECT scan on his brain. Amen is a psychiatrist and author who operates mental health clinics throughout Southern California and the U.S. Amen uses a SPECT scan to take 3-D images of the brain to examine blood flow and activity. 'When we look at his active brain, his emotional brain, that's the red and white [colors], it's working way too hard, which is why it just feels awful inside,' Amen explained of the SPECT images of Fiorenze's brain. Amen said the images can be a powerful tool to diagnose underlying problems in the brain. In Fiorenze's case, Amen said the scans showed signs of PTSD and traumatic brain injury. 'Looking at a picture of my brain, it just took the stigma out of it,' Fiorenze said. 'It's like, okay, I'm not crazy.' After a patient receives a SPECT scan, a custom treatment plan is devised. For Fiorenze, that plan included EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy, supplements, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy — tools he said dramatically changed his life. After two years of the custom treatment plan, Amen took a new SPECT image of Fiorenze's brain to see the progress. 'His cerebellum is healthier and his emotional brain calmed down,' Amen explained of the new images. 'I think that for firefighters, seeing is believing,' said Dr. Gina Gallivan, a police and public safety psychologist. Gallivan said that while she doesn't include SPECT scans as part of her treatment protocols, she believes the results can motivate firefighters to seek help. 'The first responders I have spoken to who have had brain scans and they see the visible damage to their brain and it was very impactful for them,' she said. 'What you see among untreated firefighters is a higher incidence of divorce, a higher incidence of bankruptcy, a higher incidence of depression and a significantly higher incidence of suicidal behavior,' Amen said. Amen has been using SPECT scans for 34 years, however, he acknowledges there are some critics of the practice. 'It's incredibly frustrating that psychiatrists remain the only medical doctors who virtually never look at the organ they treat,' he said. Currently, insurance does not cover a SPECT scan, but Amen Clinics has a 'Change Your Brain Foundation' to raise money for education, research and services. The foundation covered the full cost of Fiorenze's scan and treatment. Recent donations also mean the company currently has enough funding to provide 100 SPECT scans for firefighters and first responders who were impacted by the recent fires in Southern California. Fiorenze said he hopes that by sharing his story, he can remove the stigma of receiving mental healthcare while also helping his peers who may be struggling. Information about Amen Clinics and the SPECT scan can be found here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
