Tuesday 16 March 2010

S.A.I.D.


Without doubt one of the best things about living in San Lorenzo is the incomparable S.A.I.D. Founded as a chocolate factory in 1923, it's now a magic land of chocolatey goodness. We're having to limit ourselves to just one of their amazing hot chocolates a month in order to be able to fit back out of the door. Fortunately, they have a lot of other joys to offer - espresso with melted chocolate, chocolate platters, a massive range of teas... strawberries with melted chocolate, not to mention full meals... oh well, who cares about fitting through doors!!


Not only that, but the whole place is seriously stylish: above, the wall of chocolate moulds behind the bar; below, some more views of its labyrinthine corridors.



Well worth a visit, especially with pasqua coming up!

Thursday 4 March 2010

Fare surf... a Roma?

As if the beach at Ostia, on the coast closest to Rome, wasn't strange enough already (mainly in a sort of post-apocalyptic way):


Surfing? Rather them than me... though I suppose the water must be a lot warmer than in Cornwall right now.


Janet Ross and her meatballs


Rachel has just recently finished reading Sarah Benjamin's fantastic biography of Janet Ross, an amazingly well-connected nineteenth-century lady/traveller/farmer/food-writer. Janet lived the early part of her life in Egypt but after the collapse of her husband's banking business they both moved to Florence and then into the Tuscan countryside. Here, Janet set herself up single-handedly as the manageress of a large estate. She wrote several influential cookery books which aimed to introduce Italian food and ways of eating to a British audience. And all of this in 1903! (Jamie who...?) Her best-known was brilliantly titled: 'Leaves from Our Tuscan Kitchen or How to Cook Vegetables' and it's still being published:


Anyway the biography includes a choice selection of recipes. We're working our way through these now but we can recommend the delicious meatballs with white beans; this picture just doesn't do it justice: