Sometimes I really miss fish and chips. Honestly I do. Especially really GOOD fish and chips like the ones you get at Anstruther – fresh fish, cooked to order, single portions of chunky chips cooked to order in fresh oil and plenty of salt and vinegar… especially sitting at the harbour overlooking the sea. So…
Tag: Food
Pasta with cream of avocado and lime
They say that necessity is the mother of all invention, and nowhere is that more true than in the kitchen. When the fridge was almost empty and I suddenly realised at 10pm that I was hungry… well rather than calling for a pizza (again) I decided to rack my brains for something to make. I…
Pasta, Parmesan and Parma Ham
La Vecchia Taverna in Oliveto Citra As some of you will no doubt have realised by now, many of my favourite restaurants in Italy are truly rustic. This is because, in my experience and humble opinion, the most rustic restaurants are the ones which tend to serve the best food, created with the freshest, top…
Summer spaghetti – zucchini e fiori di zucca
Summer is here and it is hot hot hot, so the last thing that you want to do in 40°+ heat is spend ages in front of the stove cooking some elaborate dish. Firstly because it would be torture. Secondly because in this heat you probably wouldn’t even enjoy eating it anyway. The solution is…
Blogging and tomatoes
So, why have I stopped blogging? Very simply put, tomatoes. Yes, tomatoes. Damned red fruit… As some of you may know, I work for a company which cans tomatoes. This means that the summer, aka The Tomato Season, far from being idyllic and relaxing, is an absolute madhouse and by far the busiest time of…
Paccheri with swordfish and aubergine
It’s been over a month since I published anything, and I’m quite ashamed of that fact. Therefore I am making a promise to myself and to anyone who sees this to publish ten articles this month. There. I have to do it now… Paccheri con pesce spada e melanzane from Sicily I am a huge…
Rustic Restaurants, punctures and snow in Southern Italy
Il Brigante, Sieti (SA) The name of this restaurant is “the robber”, but it won’t run away with your money, honest! This was one of the very first restaurants I came to with the Italian boy and friends, and where I first experienced a group meal “the Italian way”, that is to say with a…
Pastries with ricotta
La sfogliatella from Campania If you ever go to Naples then there are a few must-tries. Obviously that includes pizza, espresso, spaghetti with clams and rum baba. There is one delicacy for which there is no translation into English however, and it is one of my absolute favourite sweets, and one of the best breakfasts…
Olive Oil
Olio di Oliva Olive oil is not just olive oil here. Nope. You don’t just get standard and Extra Virgin. You get different classifications according to flavour, colour, aroma, regional provenence, use, food pairing…. Sounds a bit complex, like wine, right? That’s because here it is exactly like wine. It is just as important and there are…
O’ pummarola
Il pomodoro… tomatoes! Tomatoes go hand in hand with the typical image of Italian food. You find them everywhere: on pizza, bruschetta and pasta, in lasagne, salads and sandwiches. Italy is the EU’s biggest producer of tomatoes too, both fresh and processed, and they are so important to the Italian economy that they are known…
Pasta allo Scarpariello
Pasta allo Scarpariello from Campania This is probably the simplest yet most quintessentially Italian dish one can think of. The word Scaprariello may for many of you call up images of delicious bites of chicken, flash fried with garlic and white wine, rosemary and various other ingredients, but this dish, while yummy, is actually not Italian. It’s…
When in Rome…
…do as the Romans do. Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. I love to visit it, and never get tired of walking around looking at the architecture, discovering pretty corners and eating ice-cream. I swear there are more ice cream shops per square kilometer in Rome than anywhere else on the…
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