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…
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…
I've been making often ragù in these days. In one of the first cooking classes, just after the long-awaited snowfall, when the temperatures outside reached minus ten, we made my grandma's classic ragù, chopping, stirring, simmering with wine and cooking slowly with tomato sauce. We dressed a bowl of home…
Growing up I would not have thought possible to find fascinating that bowl of greenish soup that represented part of our dinner at least four times a week throughout the year. The minestrone would come straight from a bag from the freezer, always the same brand as mum loved that…
I've been meaning to write this post for quite a while now, as I've been thinking about this recipe since I goy the inspiration reading the menu of a restaurant in Siena, while standing outside waiting for friends to arrive. Do you read menus while walking by restaurants? This is…
May I ask you something? Usually this question arises during a cooking class, after the market visit and after my enthusiast praise for seasonal vegetables. Where are the vegetables on the menu at the restaurant? I thought they would have a predominant role in Italy, but they barely serve vegetables during the…
There are tears of joy, sorrow, disappointment, anger, crocodile tears and even chopped vegetable tears. These are traditional tears, a subtle alchemy given by chopped onions, wooden cutting board and a sharp knife. Before blenders there was this ancient ritual of hand-made battuto - vegetables minced by hand on a cutting…
If I was not stuck by the snow in Pisa airport last Friday, which for me that I'm writing is actually tomorrow, I should be now in Belgium for the last day of a mini Christmas holiday, a long weekend with friends to discover a part of Europe that I…