'So tell me, what is the biggest surprise about your job to those that don't work in the field', is the question I always ask when stumped for a good question at a dinner party, whenever there is painful lull. I like the question because it comes across as geniune,
Read More'E mo' si balla belle mie', I say to the last three remaining bottles of tomato sauce in the back recesses of the storage shelves, 'It's time to dance, my beauties'. I crack the seal on one of them and the castle kitchen fills with the tangy, saline blood-smell of
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Try it sometime. Next time folks ask what you do for a living, tell them that you run a cooking school in Italy. They'll be instantly at ease and more than pleasantly surprised, eager to talk about recipes, their favourite restaurants and wines that they've had recently. Complete strangers will
Read MoreJust outside the castle walls- but still inside the epicentre of the city- you'll find a bread baker named Piero, a soft spoken man who just adores the local bread. While he makes several kinds, all in the Salento style, his 'pucce' are famous enough for folks to come from
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This is the first part in a series of posts dedicated to fish and fish cookery, and especially how it's done here in the Salento, the thin slice of gorgeous land dangling out into the middle of the seas that make up the Mediterranean. Like you, I had always tended to fall back on a handful of recipes, virtually neglecting the rest of the monger's case. This summer, all of that is going to change.
Read MoreLike many of the more wily concepts in life - lu stufatu is one of those things that is almost impossible to pin down, empirically: You can just bet your boots that you'll know it when you see it.
Read MoreCome late summer in these parts, you still see older folks gathering in small groups out in the countryside. Someone will have an old radio on, set to some station where all the music was recorded back when full, lush symphonies were all the rage. An old stew pot will be bubbling
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