When I ask Tommaso what he wants for dinner, his usual answer is a quiche, with some eggs, milk, maybe sautéed zucchini or prosciutto cotto. This is because his mum used to make it often for dinner, a quick, weeknight meal made with store bought puff pastry. It’s the same…
A few weeks ago, I read a book whose sensitivity touched me deeply. It was Fresh water for flowers, written by Valérie Perrin. It is the story of Violette, the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne, of terrible losses and rebirths, absences and determination in believing…
Reading the words that guided me through the last two years, I see a pattern. In 2018, I chose craft and seasonality. My plan was to hone my skills, working like an artisan, and have a seasonal approach to life, not just to cooking. I didn’t want to waste time,…
I started to look at recipes with a different perspective. While I am preparing dinner for us, on the marble table upstairs in our house, or while I am cooking during one of the classes, where many hands and experiences meet around the same wooden table now marked by time,…
Where has April gone? And what about March and February, that slipped away from my hands, silent, liquid, imperceptible. Not to speak of May: I'd swear it had begun just a few hours ago, yet I'm already planning activities for June. Only yesterday I was hoping to spend a few…
Sitting at the wooden table in the living room, I still need a sweater when the night falls. Next to me there is a glass pretending to be a vase with a withered branch of mimosa that comes from my father-in-law's garden. I can't throw it away: despite having lost…
Dad, I want to cook you something special for your birthday. What do you want? And his answer, always the same: something made au gratin. Yesterday was my dad's birthday. He is a handyman, who built our wood burning oven for pizza and bread just by watching videos on YouTube.…
I was sitting outside, wearing an old swimming suit and large sunglasses, lazily bathing in the sun with a notebook and a pen in my hands. My intention was to write, I had a free Sunday afternoon and a few stories and recipes queueing, waiting to be told. My skin…