Posts under Food

La Ricetta del Panettone - The Panettone Recipe

As promised here is the recipe used by Toni to enchant his beloved Lucia.
This recipe is for a panettone casereccio (home-made panettone). Normally people don’t make Panettone at home but buy it from the fornaio (bakers) or an alimentari (food shop). This recipe is not suitable for microwaves and you’ll need a fairly big traditional [...]

La Leggenda del Panettone – The Legend of Panettone

Anyone who has spent Natale (Christmas) or Il Capodanno (The New Year) in Italy will have been offered the traditional Panettone. Yes it’s one of those indispensable elements of the ‘Festive Seasons’ that contradicts the old adage ‘you can never have too much of a good thing’. I assure you that you can have too [...]

Torta di Mele

The other morning one of my neighbors turned up at my doorstep with a wooden box full of mele (apples) or rather meline (small apples). They were small, but full of flavor, so I decided to bake a torta di mele (apple cake). I learned this recipe many years ago from a book that my [...]

La Castagna (The Chestnut)

November. It’s time to sit around a log fire and savor a handful of hot caldarroste (roasted chestnuts) with a glass of vino novello (new wine). What more could you ask for?
Large parts of central and northern Italy are covered with castagneti (chestnut woods) and for centuries chestnuts were the main source of food for [...]

The Olive Harvest

November to December is the period in which the Raccolta delle Olive (Olive Harvest) generally takes place here in Toscana (Tuscany) and last weekend we were busy helping our friends who have several hectares of Olives near Pistoia to collect their harvest.
At this time of year the ground under the olive trees has to be [...]