The Italian TV show “Cake Star” arrives in Lucca with Damiano Carrara

Posted on February 8, 2018 by admin

There are many Lucchesi throughout the world that have worked as actors, singers, writers, bankers, figurine makers. Then there is Damiano Carrara, a young and handsome pastry chef. Damiano was born in Lucca in 1985 and began working as a bartender. He migrated to Ireland and then to California, where, in a blink of an eye, he opened up “Carrara Pastries” with his brother, Massimiliano. A success. Perhaps it’s in part because he’s quite good-looking, with a luminous smile and sunny disposition, that the Food Network called him to compete in the Spring Baking Championship, but, more likely, it was a network screen test. The following year, in fact, he became a judge of the Halloween Baking Championship, Spring Baking Championship, and, in 2017, of Bake Off Italia. He also wrote a couple of cookbooks with his brother: Dolce...

Mei’s Sweet Pastry Tarts. “Experiential” Tourism 2017

Posted on March 27, 2017 by admin

Tuscany, Lucca, March, the sun, and the desire for spring. Another new season begins. And here I am, in the streets of my “old” city. Lucca is older than me, and yet, it is as if it were 54 years old like me. I feel that it is part of my being, having walked and explored every single inch of it. You could say that when a new tourist-guiding season rolls round, I feel as if I were a 54-year-old tree that discovers its new leaves, leaves that look the same but are not the same of years past. If the old trees planted on the ramparts of the walls around the city could speak, they might say I was right. New stimulation and knowledge to impart to my new friends visiting Lucca. And this actually happens to almost...