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pasta

As family meals go, we are slowly but surely developing a repertoire of meals that all four of us — including the picky eater — can eat together and nothing makes my heart more full than a meal that we can make and enjoy together. To add to the growing list of favourites, Tuscan spiedini di carne (skewers of meat, sausage, bay leaf and bread), spaghetti con le vongole, my mother’s tamago no gohan (a simple stir fry of egg and rice, which I serve with dried seaweed and furikake and always results in empty bowls and requests for more) and my pantry staple, polpette di tonno (tuna croquettes), is this delicious pasta sauce, which goes by several names but the one I like best, for nostalgic reasons, is alla fiesolana, Fiesole style.
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It was serendipitous that I read Patience Gray‘s recipe (which is more of a description of this beautiful summer ritual than actual measurements) for “salsa doppia” (bottled tomato sauce and fresh tomatoes in layers over orecchiette and a shower of pecorino cheese) while visiting Grottaglie in the province of Taranto in Puglia, a small, somewhat unglamorous town that has been known for centuries for its artisan ceramic production.
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Cooking post-lockdown is still keeping us grounded, but also relaxed and even entertained. I have been turning more than ever to Tuscany’s comforting, frugal cuisine for inspiration – it just feels right. Not because we can’t get ingredients or are rationing but just using what we have on hand or what is abundant (hello tomatoes) at the little bottega in the piazza, skipping that trip to the supermarket in favour of staying home or close as possible to it.
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What a summer! Post-lockdown Florence is bittersweet, we are wary and careful – masks still on, distances kept, obsessive hand washing and hand sanitizer a prerequisite for entry into any indoor space – the streets and piazze are free of travellers and previously tourist-dependant parts of the city now are left for residents to discover their own city again. It’s great to be able to see friends and family again and even take the odd weekend away (to nearby Maremma or Venice), but to be honest I’m still reluctant to be out in public too much – home is definitely a haven for me, where I feel most comfortable and where food is still providing comfort and nurturing.
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One of the highlights of 2019 was hosting the White Truffle and Wine Culinary Retreat here in Tuscany with my husband Marco Lami. We had 13 international guests (from as far as Argentina and Canada and as close as Abruzzo!) together in a big, traditional Tuscan farmhouse, surrounded by woods. It may have rained quite intensely (it was November after all), but we donned rain boots to visit the olive groves and go truffle hunting and during downtime we curled up in front of the fireplace to play cards, to chat and sip wine.
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I am instantly drawn to recipes that require only a few ingredients. I don’t know what is more appealing, the simplicity of the recipe or the curiosity that draws me in: will it really be that good? I often find these recipes in old cookbooks. Somehow I think we over complicate things now, adding more than what is necessary or perhaps covering up for less than delicious ingredients.
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I knew before I even got there that I would fall in love Andros, a mountainous, rugged Greek island, the northernmost of the Cyclades archipelago. When Allegra asked me to host part of a creative workshop at her stunning, cliffside B&B, Melisses, that sits between Chora, the capital, and the port, I jumped at the chance! Mornings began with beautiful breakfasts of summer fruit, copious amounts of thick Greek yoghurt, tahini, and Allegra’s homemade oven-roasted granola, flecked with flower petals and plenty of nuts, plus “freddo espresso”, the Greek version of caffe shakerato, in other words, espresso and ice shaken together.
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I’m so in love with this pasta — just two ingredients (three if you count a splash of water), spinach and durum wheat flour, rolled and coaxed into the shape of olive leaves. No eggs. It’s basically a green dough for orecchiette, the classic Pugliese ‘little ear’ pasta shapes. Because they are hand-rolled, orecchiette are generally a little thick and when cooked have a good bite to them, they hold their shape well and so they are good with chunky sauces, especially a vegetable sauce — the classic sauce is with cime di rapa, flavoured with a touch of garlic and anchovies, but tomato sauce is the go-to when cime di rapa are out of season.
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Some of my favourite ingredients from the Maremma, in southern Tuscany, are also those flavours that I love at Christmas — I’m talking about chestnuts, dried figs, nuts and chocolate, and game like guinea fowl. They are ingredients that make this season’s table feel special yet not over the top. I’d rather be comforted by a Christmas meal than overwhelmed by one and these dishes, for me, do just that.
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I have known, and admired, Julia Busuttil Nishimura, for many years now and always felt connected through our love of Italian food, Tuscany (Julia lived in Florence and in Orbetello, just 10 minutes away from where we lived in Porto Ercole while I was writing Acquacotta) and Japan. So I have been eagerly awaiting her debut cookbook, Ostro: The Pleasure that Comes From Slowing Down and Cooking with Simple Ingredients, and it is a beauty — it is full of food I want to make and eat.
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When I was writing the manuscript for Florentine, I enlisted the help of an army of recipe testers — about 80 people from all over the world — to test every recipe thoroughly. Only one came back to me consistently with problems. From Minnesota to Melbourne, three testers wrote to me that their very first attempt at making Tuscan gnudi (ricotta and spinach balls that, rather than be encased in pasta like for ravioli, are simply dusted in flour) resulted in a pot of simmering water with “dissolved” gnudi. 
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I had seen it before, those fuzzy, furry leaves and stalks, with the pretty, star-pointed purple flowers, but up until that moment that I saw them sitting in a basket at the market stalls, I admit I had never taken notice of it as a food. It grow along cracks in stone walls and along the roadside near my home in Settignano, which is blooming with spring goodness right now: robinia (black locust) trees, wild garlic (three-cornered leek) and even elderflowers are already bursting.
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The sudden burst of spring produce in the market after a long, monotonous winter of cavolo nero and bright oranges is one of the things that constantly reminds me why I love living and eating in Italy. A wander through the market like any other becomes, in spring time, a new experience. I feel like a fresh arrival, like it’s my first time walking through my local market.
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Quite possibly the best way to enjoy really good, ripe summer tomatoes – as well as making the most of spending as little time in front of a hot stove as possible – is raw tomato sauce for coating pasta. It’s something Marco makes for lunch on a warm day when he’s craving pasta al pomodoro (his ideal comfort food), but either doesn’t have the patience to cook the sauce or the desire to turn on the stove (except to boil the pasta).
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“Cookbooks aren’t read in a linear fashion,” my editor explained when we decided to cut up my lengthy introduction to Florentine and place bits and pieces strategically throughout the book instead. I knew it was true. I, too, with very few exceptions (Alice B. Toklas’ cookbook and Rachel Roddy’s Five Quarters for example), love flipping randomly through cookbooks rather than reading them cover to cover.
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Living in a port town (and an island-like port town at that) means I am spoilt for choice when it comes to seafood. And when the supermarket isn’t that handy for me to get to but the local pescivendolo (the fishmonger – though I should point out, here too I am spoilt because it’s not just a fishmonger but the outlet direct from the fishermen themselves) is, it means fish is often on the menu for dinner.
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Time has been slipping away from me lately. The manuscript is in but somehow I feel busier than ever and suddenly, somehow, it’s almost December. I happened to see this wonderful advice today by Lisa Clifford (while scrolling through social media with one hand and feeding/wiping up after/making play dough figurines for a nearly two year old with the other) and it could not have been more timely.
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As long as I can remember I have wanted to write a book. But in more recent years, the book of my dreams has been a cookbook. Like many with a similar dream, it’s really the whole reason I began this blog. And then one day, just like in a dream, I received an email, out of the blue. Are you doing a book?
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I began researching this recipe a while ago when I decided to put it into my Regional Italian Food column schedule. I was sort of obsessed with the intense magenta of the beetroot filling and the incredibly simple pairing of butter and poppyseeds as a sauce. I thought, if anything, people would love looking at it but that hopefully the beauty of the dish would be enough to inspire them to try out the recipe too – that’s how I got hooked.
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Ever since discovering my husband has a severe intolerance to wheat, our kitchen has been bustling with experiment after experiment as we try out new recipes or attempt to recreate old favourites with new ingredients. There has been a fair share of failures — but also some truly happy discoveries. Like this gnocchi recipe made with potato starch, a light and powdery starch that is naturally wheat and gluten free.
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While I love summer for its fruit, autumn for its earthy flavours and winter for hearty dishes, spring is my favourite time of year for vegetables – asparagus, broad beans, artichokes. And then there are the wild things – weeds, herbs and vegetables that grow spontaneously, filling up cracks in the pavement or taking over fields or overgrown garden corners.
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I’m on a broad bean kick lately. The beans we planted five months ago have grown outgrageously. They’re taller than me and are producing lovely, long velvety fingers of pods, which all of us (the 11 month old bean-eater included) have been picking, opening and eating right there on the spot. They’re just so good like this when they’re young and tender that I’ve hardly had them any other way.
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It’s perhaps a tad stereotypical but the idea of the family recipe and Italian cuisine really go hand in hand – that idea of the Italian nonna, apron on, standing over bubbling, steaming pots, weaving magic without the use of recipe book, putting her secret touches here and there, getting ready to feed an army, even if there are only four of you eating.
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It’s a gorgeous winter’s morning – too gorgeous really to be called winter – for a drive through New South Wales countryside towards Reidsdale, near Braidwood. We pass plenty of paddocks, dotted with resting sheep and cows, a blur of pale yellow ochre under a crisp, bright blue sky. It’s a day for truffle hunting. We’re greeted in Braidwood by Kate Marshall, a Sydney girl turned country.
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It’s been busy over here lately, with lots of researching and recipe testing going on in between nap times and the demands of a nearly eight month old (none of which I am able to do without the help of Marco, my husband and number one pasta maker), but finally I’m very excited to announce the launch of my new weekly column over at Food52, dedicated to regional Italian food traditions and recipes.
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It was my first time being recognised out on the street by a reader of my blog, a moment that made me feel a little bit the celebrity for the rest of the day. There I was on a drizzly winter’s day at my local farmers’ market, having a morning snack of an excellent spring onion pancake, when someone came up behind me.
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There’s a lot to be said about leftovers – thrifty, comforting, time-saving and, in many cases, even more delicious than in their original state, as is the case with stews, ragus, and anything where flavours left mingling for days only improves the dish. Whether you’re cooking for one, for many or are a sleep-deprived new mother at the beck and call of a six-month old, re-inventing leftovers can sometimes be the best answer to dinner.
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It goes without saying that Florence is a city that lives in its past. In every nook and cranny, history – a fantastic, unique history that influenced the way the entire world saw things – seeps out onto the well-trodden stone streets and into the every day. On some occasions all it takes is walking right through the centre of town, passing over literal layers of history in a square like Piazza della Reppublica, the spot where the medieval mercato vecchio, the ‘Old Markets’, of Florence were once the beating heart of the city.
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One month ago I became a mother for the first time. It’s hard to believe that time has flown by so quickly. The days seem to have blended together into one big blur of deliriously sleepless nights and endless hours spent staring at my baby daughter. So many things have changed in a way that I couldn’t have predicted earlier, things that were easily taken for granted – feeding myself, for example, has taken a back seat to making sure the baby eats and sleeps and I can fit in a nap or three.
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Making fresh pasta from scratch is something I’ve only recently acquired. Or to be really honest, it’s something that my husband Marco has acquired. Whenever there is bread making or pasta making involved, he’s my man. There’s just something about him and dough. Maybe it’s those big, slightly rough hands – they may not be delicate enough for, say, cake decorating, but he’s much more a fresh pasta and bread lover than he is a sweet tooth anyway.
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Bologna is only 100 kilometres from Florence yet it is a food-world away. The home of mortadella, tortellini, lasagne, cappelletti and tagliatelle pasta – served of course with the most famous pasta sauce in the world, ragu alla bolognese – Bologna is in many ways the centre of Italian cuisine. It helps that this food-centric city is in Emilia-Romagna, a region also blessed with other staples of good Italian food including the balsamic vinegar of Modena, Parma’s prosciutto and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and that wonderful flatbread, piadina.
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This age-old Tuscan dish has a name that illustrates that wonderful connection between food and language that Italy is so good at. Sugo finto, literally “fake sauce” or, more appropriately, “fake ragu” (as ‘sugo’ is used as often if not more than the borrowed word ‘ragu’ in Tuscany), is so-called because it is a meatless ragu. Born of the poor peasant kitchens when meat, particularly beef or veal, was a rare and special ingredient, this dish is sometimes also known as sugo scappato, implying that something had ‘escaped’ before it made it to your plate.
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I’ve been a bit obsessed with pork lately, especially since organising a dinner party for my fellow pig-loving friends using a different cut of pork in each course and writing about the results in a series of articles for Food52. My husband Marco and I created a menu featuring a fair bit of offal in hearty, traditional southern Italian and Tuscan recipes (an unusual mix, but oh do they know what to do with pork!).
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At first I didn’t hear the staccato sound of the double ‘g’ when my Calabrian friend Anna suggested she would make me bucatini alla reggina. To non-Italian speakers, it may not seem like much but it can make all the difference. I heard bucatini alla ‘regina’, which would mean the ‘Queen’s bucatini’. It made sense to me at the time, there are plenty dishes named after the Savoy Queen of Italy, including two old classics, pizza Margherita and torta Margherita (a sponge-like cake).
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Here and there I’ve mentioned something about the man who cooks many of the dishes on these pages, but maybe I don’t credit him enough: my husband, Marco. Anyone who knows him is always surprised to hear that when we met he had never cooked a thing before in his life. Now, we argue over who gets to have more bench space in the kitchen.
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At some point between Christmas and New Year’s, in a haze of inevitable over-indulgence, I find I begin craving a night in, perhaps mostly spent on a cozy couch, with a steaming mug of herbal tea and my ideal comfort food. Tortelli or their littler versions, tortellini, have to be one of the ultimate comfort foods. They hold a place in the hearts of many Italians, especially at this time of year where this pasta often makes an appearance at the table around Christmas or the New Year.
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It’s been a long summer in Tuscany this year but finally the temperature is dropping with this perfectly crisp, cool autumn air. Where in the summer heat I wilt, I feel at the same time invigorated and comforted by autumn. I like to lie in bed for a few extra minutes just to enjoy being warm under the fluffy covers. My morning ritual now begins with putting the kettle on for a big, steaming mug of herbal tea to warm up.
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There are two things that I love about the vendemmia, the grape harvest: the conversation between the vines and the lunch that follows. The vendemmia in Tuscany usually begins in that magical moment between the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, when the grapes are ripe but not too much and perhaps a bit of rain has swollen them nicely.
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I look forward to September after the relentless, humid Tuscan heat of July and August. I love the heat, I do, but Florentine heat is something else. The stones of the piazze and palazzi heat up like a pizza oven and keep the city sweltering well into the night. The Florentines, rightfully, leave the city and escape to the seaside but I prefer not to sit packed like sardines on the sand in the hot sun either.
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By the end of the summer I’m ready for a change. Don’t get me wrong, I love nothing more than being barefoot. I love eating fresh peaches and melons, jammy figs, tomatoes and eggplants, but after a particularly hot summer I’m ready for a change. I’m ready for autumn, for a chill in the air, for a warming cup of tea in the afternoon.
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The great thing about being part of a big Italian family is that if you need to find something, someone will always have it or will endeavour to find it for you. In my case, a few weeks ago it was untreated roses to make rose petal jam. Marco’s cousin came to the rescue. She had a wonderful fuchsia-coloured rose bush growing against an old tin shed.
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We all need time to unwind and relax, to get away from the usual routine and leave the “to do” list at home. A weekend by the sea is my preferred technique at the moment, while the Spring weather is still not too hot yet not too cool, sometimes stormy, but mostly gloriously sunny. We are blessed to have a place where we can always stay in a little beach side village on the Etruscan coast, one of my absolute most favourite parts of Tuscany.
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As Easter normally falls in April, Artusi‘s reliable suggestions for this month’s Italian menu consist of plenty of dishes that you could traditionally find on an Easter table, including the ones that Italians call “magro” or lean, in other words, fish or vegetables (but no meat), the diet to be followed on Good Friday. Among a list of some of my favourite Spring dishes such as artichoke tart, fava beans served raw, Easter lamb, chocolate gelato and the Stiacciata, a traditional Easter cake from Livorno, is the irresistible recipe for Gnocchi alla Romana.
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I once heard that the goodness in carrots helps get over jet lag. I’ve just gone through a 30 hour journey from Italy to Australia, passing through five airports and being thrown 10 hours ahead to get from one home to the other. I’m going to need some carrots. This wonderful gnocchi recipe came to mind. It’s a unique and a beautiful dish that was made for me by an equally unique and beautiful person, Sara, a talented and offbeat Italian photographer from Bassano del Grappa, not too far from Venice.
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I noticed that this month’s list of Artusi’s suggestions for the perfect lunch included Agnolotti (Artusi spells it “Agnellotti”), a traditional meat-filled pasta from Le Langhe in Piemonte, a gorgeous region in the north western corner of Italy for which I have a soft spot. Home to famous red wines such as Barolo and Barbaresco, the hearty, country dishes speak of the land, the hills and the traditions of the area.
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Like in many traditional peasant cuisines, Tuscan cooking was quite imaginative when faced with hard times. Tuscans are very good with using up their leftovers, or turning the less noble parts of animals into unforgettable meals. But they were also very good at imagining that they were eating something that they weren’t. My mother-in-law, born right after the war in central Tuscany, once recounted to me that when she was a little a girl they didn’t have the luxury of choice.
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