Good morning, beautiful people! 🎄 Here’s our Holidays’ Survival Tips and Recipes… Open Celery!

Welcome to Open Celery! our monthly newsletter. A four-handed gourmet adventure dedicated to Plant-Based Recipes, Cooking Insights, and Stories… Made in Italy! 🇮🇹 
Open Celery! is the fruit (veggie and dessert) of the collaboration between Simona (Personal Chef) and Orsola (Gourmet Traveler+)… Published in Italian (as Apriti Sedano!) and English, here’s happily edited and translated by Orsola (aka ockstyle) 😀

Per la versione italiana, cliccate qui 👉Apriti Sedano! Newsletter

We’ve made it to December, which is fantastic! Some of us have glided in like pros, while others have been dragging themselves across the finish line, but everyone has done amazingly well. Anyway, here we are, ready to share our Open Celery! short-ish survival guide to the festive season.

To be honest, people have mixed feelings about it. Some of us are like, “Wait, it’s already December?!” while others are more like, “Thank God, this year has finally come to an end.” Wherever you fall on the spectrum, let’s just roll with it, accept everyone as they are, sleeves up, and make the most of these holidays.

As an Italian song goes: 🎶 “Aggiungi un posto a tavola, che c’è un amico in più…” (Trovajoli – Fiastri – Garinei – Giovannini)

🎶 Add a place at the table, there’s one more friend… Because that’s what it’s really about. And yes, we talk about food all the time, we’re Italian you know – no surprise there! So let’s talk about the menu now.

About the Plant-Based / Gluten-Free Festive Menu

First things first, straight from the chef: “Plan it!” It’s not written in stone that we have to stuff ourselves until we’re waddling out of the holidays with heartburn, bloating, reflux, and a few extra kilos (plus the classic January guilt trip of “After Epiphany, I’ll start the diet and the gym”). Nobody deserves to wake up on December 26th feeling like they swallowed the entire sofa – omnivores, vegetarians, vegans, nobody.

Every single year we say it, every single year we believe it, and every single year… well, let’s try to do better this time, shall we?

Because at the end of the day, food is just the excuse to sit around a table with the people we love, look each other in the eye, and share something delicious. A little extra treat? Totally fine. Turning into a human panettone? Maybe not.

So here’s our promise: a festive menu that won’t exhaust you in the kitchen or knock out your guests after the first course. Easy enough to manage, elegant enough to impress, kind enough to everyone’s stomach (and waistline).

Ready? We’re beyond excited.

Get to the menu, with unsolicited advice, and the usual dose of sarcasm and love… 👉 Keep reading!

Interesting Links

Catch up on last year’s editions, if you missed them. Here are some interesting links:

• Our latest plant-based recipe collection…
• The 2023 Holidays Menu: Easy Peasy… not too easy! Italian Party food for a Vegan Holiday meal…
• Our (unrequested but fabulous) Survival Guide to the Holidays…
• Click here 👉 for more Plant-Based / Vegan Friendly / Gluten-Free recipes

Wishing you the coziest, tastiest, happiest festivities – full of love, laughter, and gorgeous plant-based foods.

Big hugs, from Orsola and Simona, The Open Celery! (Apriti Sedano!) gang ✨ See you in 2026 (don’t be lazy, hit that follow button!).

ockstyle

I’m an Italian gluten-free Gourmet Traveler+ and a passionate storyteller, writing in English and Italian. Fluently speaking (eating and dreaming) in Italian, English, French, and Russian. When I’m not writing, I cook and test recipes for special diets, and photograph (also on film). Not necessarily in that order. — / — Sono una viaggiatrice buongustaia (la Gourmet Traveler+) senza glutine, appassionata narratrice di storie. Scrivo in italiano e inglese, parlo (mangio e sogno) fluentemente in italiano, inglese, francese e russo. Quando non scrivo, cucino, testo ricette dolci e salate per diete speciali, fotografo (anche in pellicola). Non necessariamente in quest’ordine.