We adopted a morning dog. After the first couple of months of shared anxieties and mutual adjustment, Teo is proving to be a cheerful dog, full of energy, especially in the morning, in the very early morning. While Noa yawns with sleepy eyes and we pretend not to hear him,…
Easter for me are the church bells ringing in the morning sun and a new Spring coat, the Tuscan Easter schiacciata from San Gimignano and the dark chocolate, the fresh pasta and the spring vegetables, the lamb and the blessed eggs. Easter is the beginning of the good season and…
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…
How many meat sauces exist in Italy? In between the rich and self-indulgent Bolognese ragù, where the ground beef and the ground pork are cooked with white wine, milk and tomato paste, and the Neapolitan one, where tradition has it that there is no ground meat, but whole pieces of…
Christmas at home is a postcard. Each one has a role, as in a theatrical operetta: everyone has his lines or his stage costumes. There have been the same smells for decades, the chicken liver crostini and the spices of panforte hovering from mid-December to the Epiphany on the 6th…
I am traditional. A few days ago I found myself kneading, as if I had received an order from another time. An internal clock, tuned in to the coming and going of seasons, reminded me that the day of the pan co' santi had come. It is a dense bread,…
My mum used to say that I had started a food blog as I had plenty of free time: I still didn’t have a boyfriend at the advanced age of twenty-eight. Once you’ll find someone, you won’t have time for the blog anymore, she would say, looking up to the…
It was the beginning of summer 2010, I had the blog for slightly more than one year and I was stuck in a daily job where gratifications were meagre. I was still at home with my parents and my family was renting the house where I live now for the…
I’ve written my first acceptance speech, sitting at my tiny desk in the living room with a stained apron, dreaming to wear a red dress and high heels and to stand in front of some of the best food writers, bloggers and editors of our time. I am sure I would have cried, I’m emotional.