macco al finocchietto – fava bean soup with wild fennel

I won’t even pretend I’m normal, whatever that means. I’m the kind of person who wakes up in the morning and says to himself “I’d love a shepherd’s pie tonight”, and then spends the rest of the day imagining cooking and savouring it, evoking the aromas, picturing the spoon breaking through the crispy potato crust, then watching the rich gravy slowly ooze out to invade the plate like a dark, viscous sea (told you I Continue Reading →

zuppa di fave – fava bean soup

There’s something about autumn, with the nights drawing in, that makes me yearn for rustic food. Really rustic food, the sort of stuff I could imagine people eating in front of an open fire in some draughty cottage a couple of centuries ago. Yes, very Thomas Hardy, I know, very Woodlanders. Although if Thomas Hardy’s characters had eaten a bit more of today’s soup, maybe they wouldn’t have been so unbearably miserable the whole time. Continue Reading →