In the last week I have spent more hours than usual thinking, thanks to many travels by train and by car: first a busy day though rich in discoveries in Turin for the Salone del Gusto, then a weekend in Umbria with my good foodblogger friends, cooking and eating in a villa in the countryside. The [...]

Posted in Cakes, Chocolate, Desserts 10 Comments »

Sometimes I do not understand myself. The more I am gasping to deliver the book on time, the more I want to carve out at least ten minutes to write here on my blog. It seems to be back to the earliest days of the blog, when I would write a post in one go, [...]

Posted in Chocolate 21 Comments »

For me, living on the border between the provinces of Siena and Florence, driving south in Tuscany means going through one of the most breathtaking scenery on the planet, the Val d’Orcia and the Crete Senesi, declared by UNESCO, in 2004, World Heritage Site. The outlines of the hills are well known throughout the world, just [...]

Posted in Autumn, Baked Good, Cakes, Chocolate, Desserts, Tuscan Recipes, Winter 33 Comments »

“The blog is a part of who I am. It’s becoming like a limb. I have to feed it all the time. I think of it as an engine that propelled me forward. I look at the world through my blogger struggles. When I go anywhere I wonder if it’s blogger material. I experience things [...]

Posted in Autumn, Chocolate, Desserts, Family recipes, Spring, Summer, Winter 31 Comments »

They came home gift-wrapped as only Santa’s elves would be able to do: two kilos of intense Caffarel dark chocolate. They came home along with a shower of chocolate stars, wrapped in a shiny yellow and red paper. As you can see from my pictures, I was put in charge of the 20th of December in the Advent Calendar, a game [...]

Posted in Chocolate, Christmas, Preserves, Winter 14 Comments »