We are never without butter at home, as essential to us as dried oregano, garlic, tomato sauce, capers and olive oil. My wife has been known to melt a pat of Jersey butter for flapjacks, and my children eat it like cheese on the endless rounds of toast they clamour for each morning. Everyday luxury. Butter is a staple of northern Italian cooking, used much more than in the south. Historically the fat of choice for the wealthy, its rich, […]
Trivellis
Dad used to criticise us children when we said we “loved” certain foods, as it sounded discordant to his Italian ears. Love was reserved for people. But it is with actual love that my father tends to some 100 Tuscan olive trees and makes the olive oil our whole family eats all year. He also delivers three special bottles of olive oil to our house for the kids with printed labels that say something like: “This bottle of olive oil […]
Strawberries and asparagus are, for me, forever charged with the optimism of a full spring and a long summer that’s bound to arrive at any moment. They grow locally where I grew up in Kent. I understand the asparagus puritan who likes their stems no other way but in a slick of salty melted butter right now, but I like to try new things. This recipe is basically a soft garlic sauce; good enough to want to sponge up any […]
