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 »

Just two months before Christmas, before a very special Christmas, this year. I’ve always known that if there was a Christmas to be remembered, after the many jolly festive days of childhood, it should have been the Christmas of my 30 years. So here we are, just two months to go and I’ll know if [...]

Posted in Autumn, Christmas, Preserves, Winter 28 Comments »

Summer, time of preserves. Once again the protagonists are the tomatoes, in a simple version, pure: the preserve, a universal name that does not need specification, because in my house the preserve is exclusively the preserve of tomatoes. In the collective imagination the tomato is one of the elements that more represent Italy, along with mozzarella, [...]

Posted in Family recipes, Preserves, Summer, Tuscan Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes 30 Comments »

A dish of pasta, a good deal of intense red and glossy tomato sauce, a generous sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top and some basil leaves, a charm to give that extra balsamic touch to turn a simple dish of pasta into a memorable dish of spaghetti, a dream come true for many [...]

Posted in Family recipes, Preserves, Summer, Vegetarian Recipes 51 Comments »

1 – Buy a strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo). 2 - Revel myself in its good and fun fruit. 3 – Call it by its English name, strawberry tree, because it makes me happy and because I want to make friends with it. These are my New Year’s resolutions. Everything happened in an instant. A dear family [...]

Posted in Preserves, Winter 34 Comments »