Coming out of lockdown and a recipe for pasta with peas
In the past couple of weeks, Italy has been taking baby steps towards some semblance of normality. Provided we wear masks, we can now venture outside our homes to go for a jog, take our…
Italian pantry staples and a recipe for spaghetti alla puttanesca
I used to be quite an impulsive food shopper at my local market in Corso Brunelleschi, attracted by all that was rare and unusual. Perhaps the most extreme example comes from one Saturday morning almost…
Home for the holidays and two simple Christmas menu ideas
Home. Where exactly is home for me now? It certainly was a question I struggled to answer as I was ordering savoury pies, vanilla slices and coffees for myself and my family in the Tasmanian…
Cucina conversations: pansotti liguri
When the Cucina Conversations ladies and I decided to dedicate this month’s edition of our roundtable to dishes named after body parts, I immediately made a beeline for two books. One was Mary Taylor-Simeti’s Sicilian…
Lessons and recipes from a retreat in the Tuscan countryside
‘No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers’….
Amatriciana for Amatrice: a recipe and how to support the earthquake relief efforts
The almost eerie perfection of the Baroque reconstruction in Sicily’s Val di Noto. The twelfth century church three metres below street level in the same island’s port city of Messina. The ghost town of Romagnano…
Thursday gnocchi…
There’s an old Roman saying that goes giovedì gnocchi, venerdì pesce, sabato trippa (‘Thursday gnocchi, Friday fish, Saturday tripe’). Most Roman eateries – from tavole calde to Michelin-starred fine dining establishments – continue to abide…
Borlotti bean soup and the cult of cucina povera
I am an incurable mangiafagioli or ‘beaneater’. Really though, what is wrong with admitting your passion for one of healthiest, most nutritionally dense foods on the planet? Fibre, protein, folate and iron are just a…