Most cookbooks are a mere collection of recipes, purely functional and not particularly interesting. Every once in a while however a cook book comes out which is far more than this… It tells a story, recounts the history of a nation, evokes emotions, sights, smells and tastes and inspires you to recreate the dishes not…
Tag: italy
Shut up Europe
This is a short post and it isn’t my usual kind of post. But I really feel the need to say this… Imagine that you are a voter in a country which has lots of problems – corruption, organised crime, soaring unemployment, immense fiscal pressure, a great deal of hidden poverty, extremely high cost of…
Lemon and basil chicken
Pollo al limone e basilico What are some of the flavours you think about when you think of the Mediterranean? For me, the top five have always been: 1. Tomatoes 2. Basil 3. Oranges and lemons 4. Olive oil 5. Garlic This tangy chicken dish incorporates all but the first of these ingredients into the…
It’s not just pasta…
Penne. Tagliatelle. Spaghetti. Fusilli. Farfalle. Rigatoni. Linguine. Lasagne. We all know what these are, more or less. But what about… Capelli d’angelo, lagane, mafalde, pizzoccheri, scialatelli, fideuà, trenette, ruote, stelline, cavatelli, gigli, lumache, ricciolini, strozzaprete and trofie? Yes, they are all still pasta. Ok, so why are there so many different kinds? Well…
Black rice with winter squash
Riso Venere con la Zucca I know, I promised you some healthy Italian recipes. I’ve been super busy this week, so I’ll update you now! I have been eating healthily as promised and doing a fair bit of running with the pooch (she’s all better). I have lost about a kilo so it all seems…
I’m baaaaaaaack…
The dog is out of the danger zone according to the vet so I swear I will be back on blogging form from this week. Sorry about the hiatus, but I was just too worried angry and tired from staying up all night with her to even think about blogging… I have a couple of…
Please don’t tell me off…
I’m not going to post properly tonight either. I’ve had one helluva weekend which I’m not going to go into, and this morning my dog was poisoned with rat poison. I came rushing home from work just an hour or so after arriving, rushed her to the vets and kept her on a drip for…
Chianti Classico – Wine tasting at Castello di Meleto
You may remember that I went to Chianti in Tuscany in October for a relaxing holiday with Roby. If you do, you will also remember that I was going to blog about it. Small problem… I forgot to charge my camera before leaving and it ran out of juice part way through. I do have…
Fluffy fresh strawberry spongecake
Torta soffice con le fragole Sometimes (read: often) you just need cake. And a home baked cake is somehow just so much better than a shopbought one. Baking is relaxing, as long as it goes right, and fills the house with the most gorgeous smells that make it seem so much more like a home….
Pizza party!
When you want to party in Italy what better way to go than a pizza party? My friend Carlo is lucky enough to have a proper wood fired pizza oven in his back garden, meaning that he can make the most incredible pizzas of all different flavours… There were tons of other pizza’s too, although…
Friggitelli
Friggitelli are all over the place at the moment. It is exactly the right time of year for them – the end of summer / beginning of autumn as the days begin to shorten but there is still enough heat and sunlight to not feel like putting your woolies on yet… although in all honesty…
Orecchiette pasta with turnip tops
Orecchiette con le cime di rapa from Puglia I was on the telephone to my Gran the other day talking about the availability of certain ingredients in the UK and in Italy, and she was reminiscing about certain foods that were available in wartime Britain but which have now all but disappeared from the market…
lovefromitaly 