Her tiny features appear in my cameras viewfinder as I focus, her self-consciousness something new between us. 'So, Anna, tell me what you're doing while you're doing it', I say, the tiny mirror in my camera clinking up and down. 'Hello, I am Anna, Silvestro's house keeper and I'm making a
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It used to be that when students booked, I'd ask them what they expected to find with regards to the food of the Salento. The initial answers back were always vague but every once in a while someone would put the foreign take on Italian food into a cozy sound
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Come autumn time here in the Salento, a number of fruits and vegetables start to turn up in the markets, just like old cherished friends that have moved away but then came back again.Faces light up. There is lots of smiling, happy greetings.'We'll have to have you around for dinner,
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
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
Read MoreCome autumn time here in the Salento, a number of fruits and vegetables start to turn up in the markets, just like old cherished friends that have moved away but then came back again. Faces light up. There is lots of smiling, happy greetings. ‘We’ll have to have you around
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