exploring eating capturing
On one of my visits to Florence I had a pink peppercorn risotto for lunch. It was beautiful! Subtle and delicate flavours perfectly suited to the warm and dappled February sunshine and chardonnay we were drinking. I have tried to recreate something similar, although it …
The Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome was a delightful discovery. Rome is a bit manic at any time of the year so finding a quiet place to wander around was lovely. For some reason it seems to be a bit of an undiscovered gem, not …
The first time I went to Florence, come to think about it every time I’ve been to Florence, it has been with a lovely friend of mine who is a little bit mad about shoes. I on the other hand am a bit clueless, although I have learnt some things just by spending time with her! She had done some research and suggested we visit Museo Salvatore Ferragamo. It is a free museum in the basement of the Ferragamo shoe shop in the centre of Florence. It is a must visit if you are in the area. The first section is about the history of Salvatore Ferragamo and his love of design, equalibrium and craftmenship. There are beautiful examples of his shoes, design drawings, and lots of wooden lasts of famous feet. Through this section there is then an changing exhibition which will have some broad link to design, balance, shoes or something else related.
Florence is one of my favourite city’s in Italy. It has everything, food, art, architecture, a river, amazing views and friendly people. It is also relatively small so most places are walkable. La Specola is the oldest public museum in Europe and was founded in …
For many many years I have been making flapjack. Some time in the 1970’s my mum found a recipe on the back of a packet of oats that worked really well. We then lived on flapjack for years and it became famous with our friends. …
My friends house in Italy is very beautifully put together. There are lots of lovely objects and arrangements to look at everywhere you turn. One ingenious idea is the use of an old ladder high on a wall in the kitchen to hang all the pots and pans from. Another was a set of interesting tins that have cacti growing out of them. Both subjects that needed to be drawn.
I am a bit of a scavenger. I can’t walk past a skip without having a look, you just never know what might turn out to be just the thing you always needed but never knew! All Italian houses have a cantina which is kind …
I am a keen user of the cyanotype process. It is essentially like an early photographic process that doesn’t need a camera, just the light from the sun. It is a lovely and relatively simple way to document objects and have a memory of a …
Fresh eggs from your own hens every day is wonderful! What happens when you have too many what can you do with them? I knew my friends hadn’t had a proper curry for sometime so went prepared with garam masala, turmeric and a chunk of root ginger. It turns out you can get root ginger in Italy but not the other two very easily. So the perfect solution seemed to be an egg curry. When I served this my friends went very quiet. Fortunately it was just because they were so pleased to have the proper taste of curry for the first time in ages!
Egg Curry
I love courgettes, especially fresh newly grown ones from the garden. My friends in Italy are not so keen but happened to mention to their 80 something year old neighbour (who still grows all her fruit and veg!) that their visitor was a keen courgette …