what I ate last: lots of hot green split pea soup
I bought a great new skillet today, fed up of using the thin-bottomed telfon-coated frying pans that 'came with the property', as they say. In the flea market here you can buy ancient very heavy cast-iron skillets for 10 bucks, already well-used and worn in with decades of frying chicken, bacon, pork chops and beans. This one will definitely push me over the airline weight limit but it's with me for life now.
I'm also happy because I've just made a big pan of tomato sauce to put in small containers and freeze, so when I come back starving from studio on a cold night I know I've got something to eat. Again, it's an inherited recipe that my mother learnt from Nuccia, the fantastic chain-smoking cook at Castello di Volpaia, a beautiful estate in Tuscany making wonderful Chianti and probably the best olive oil and wine vinegar. The owners became our friends when my father fell ill there while on a wine-buying trip about 20 years ago, and was nursed back to health by Nuccia. We have been to stay there almost every year since, and Nuccia has let me make my way into the kitchen at every turn. I learnt to make potato gnocchi with her, and risotto ai funghi, and eaten Easter lamb with artichokes, classic Italian pork scalopettes, potatoes with rosemary, and much much more. The bit that makes this tomato sauce so good is a decent amount of non-tomato stuff - onion, carrot (for sweetness) and some celery - long simmering, bay leaves, black pepper.
I'm also happy because I've just made a big pan of tomato sauce to put in small containers and freeze, so when I come back starving from studio on a cold night I know I've got something to eat. Again, it's an inherited recipe that my mother learnt from Nuccia, the fantastic chain-smoking cook at Castello di Volpaia, a beautiful estate in Tuscany making wonderful Chianti and probably the best olive oil and wine vinegar. The owners became our friends when my father fell ill there while on a wine-buying trip about 20 years ago, and was nursed back to health by Nuccia. We have been to stay there almost every year since, and Nuccia has let me make my way into the kitchen at every turn. I learnt to make potato gnocchi with her, and risotto ai funghi, and eaten Easter lamb with artichokes, classic Italian pork scalopettes, potatoes with rosemary, and much much more. The bit that makes this tomato sauce so good is a decent amount of non-tomato stuff - onion, carrot (for sweetness) and some celery - long simmering, bay leaves, black pepper.
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