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…
In these days, we are continuously searching for a semblance of normality. We have slightly loosened our rhythms, but we try to keep a work routine, creating new projects, removing dust and cobwebs from dreams lost in a drawer. Mainly, though, I bake: bread loaves, focaccia, cakes. The words of…
An ordinary evening, late autumn. Afternoons are rainy, Christmas lights still far away. The yellow leaves pile up on the ground under the trees, mingling with the relentless rain, a mushy carpet for busy steps. Evenings like these require a comforting savoury butternut squash pie: I want it ready, so…
It was the beginning of June, summer was nothing more than a promise in the air. Tommaso and I drove to Val d’Orcia to meet Sabrina and Barbara, the two sisters who own Villa Pienza. It was our first time there, though we felt at home as soon as the…
Summer began on Friday, around five in the afternoon, when I arrived at home. As soon as we got out of the car, I immediately felt the heat rising from the sun-baked stones. Grandma was outside, in the garden, hanging out the clothes on the drying rack, hidden in the…
These are sunny days that taste like early Spring, days of morning walks in the countryside before work. I feel the vibrations of the upcoming season, so I try to shake off the fatigue of a tiring winter, which I had completely underestimated. I channel this energy in the kitchen,…
Although we had been friends for several months, in the first weeks of us being officially together we did not miss an opportunity to talk about who we were, what we liked, which were our first and deepest passions. We spent ten days at the seaside in Maremma with friends:…
When we talk about chocolate salame, my mind goes immediately to what we call rotolino in my family, a soft sponge roll brushed with the ubiquitous pinkish alchermes and spread with chocolate and custard. But there is another chocolate salame, which is made with very few ingredients that you will…