A wonderful way of celebrating lemons, and the perfect thing to give to friends and loved ones. Theresa’s Mandarinetto & Limoncello This is a recipe of Luca’...

Chiacchiere Admittedly I am late in posting these, but with all this new-found time on our hands it seems a good time to catch up with recipe-testing and wri...

I tried hard to think of a good broth-pun for the title of this post (and as you can see I failed). There were some convoluted and limp 'wrath' rhymes which ...

Thank God for squash. Just when the weather turns grim and a damp depression descends, a little pumpkin-lantern light appears at the end of the tunnel. You'v...

I'm a big fan of chicken. People are always surprised when I say it's my favourite meat. I know so many people that go into paroxysms of pleasure about beef ...

No ramble, just a really good recipe. Given to me by Yossy Arefi, who I assisted at a recent workshop at the beautiful Melisses, Andros. This cake is moist, ...

Names of Italian dishes are nothing if not evocative. Schiaciatta all’uva, or simply ‘squashed with grapes’ is a Tuscan speciality which echoes the equally ‘...

When days are long and patience is short, and dragging yourself damply into the kitchen is a chore in itself, the best thing you can do is simply to create a...

I grew up on Hellman’s mayonnaise and I loved it. My grandmother used to mix it with a little crème fraiche to make it more ‘fancy,’ but we all loved however...

The other day, I was thinking fondly of England, and of temperate English summers. Of cool breezes and green grass and a dry forehead: things which are now t...

We went to Lucca for a short weekend. He wanted to go to see the Ennio Morricone concert. I wanted to go to walk around the walled city, and to eat lots of t...

A week or so ago I went to visit a small island off the south of Sardinia (Isola di San Pietro) and wandered around its main (and only) town, Carloforte. It'...

Nettle Gnudi, Sage Butter & Pecorino Nudity has never been so appealing.. A charming name for a delicious thing, gnudi are really just nude ravioli: nuggets ...

The abundance of bitter flavours in Italian cooking has been a revelation for me. I've already waxed lyrical about the bitterness of Campari, black coffee, a...

A perfect cake. Bottom layer 150g sugar splash water slices of blood orange Batter 100g polenta 150g flour 2tsp baking powder 200g sugar 250g ricotta good pi...

Campari is my poison of choice. And poison it is too – as red as the devil himself, bitter, pungent and shrouded in mystery. Developed by Gaspare Campari in...

For Italians, the most important thing in life is food. And the most important food in life is pasta. The love they feel for their food, like any other form ...

What do you call a cook without a kitchen? I've always wanted to write about food, but I've sort of held off, pushed it to the back of my mind, persuading my...

I never used to believe in poaching peaches; I thought a peach couldn’t be improved upon. It needed to be eaten and that was all. Then I discovered this reci...

The trouble with recipes is I often feel they are in fact anti-cooking, or at least they make us think about food in the wrong way. A recipe reads like a lis...