This is another post for any of you serious bread bakers out there. Lately I’ve been obsessing over focaccia. It is a deceptive bread and it’s not until you taste an excellent one you realize there is so much more to focaccia than meets the eye. So much so that in Italy these breads are…
Hello everyone. Here’s a pretty festive loaf for any experienced bakers out there and maybe even those of you who aren’t! This is a walnut, purple cabbage and sweet potato (or yam?) sourdough boule. I used purple cabbage juice and I made that in a blender with water and a few cabbage leaves. I…
Hello Everyone, Just wanted to share this link with you to my recent post over at the Fresh Loaf where I blog occasionally… I hope you are all well and enjoying these last summer days! Susan
This post is for any serious bread bakers out there and especially for my friends over at The Fresh Loaf where I post occasionally. It is about the typical rye bread of the Swiss Valais. This wonderful bread has its own AOP status (appellation d’origine protégée), a certification which guarantees that everything used to produce it comes from…
Citrus Season. Every year I can’t wait for it to arrive and every year I dread the day it ends. The arrival of spring usually signals the last days for these glorious winter fruits. Its time to celebrate them. In Liguria, for the first time, we picked fresh oranges and lemons straight from the tree. We…
As usual, one thing leads to another in the kitchen. As I mentioned in my last post I was not entirely comfortable publishing that recipe because I live a sugar-free life and those delicious pastries contain a fair bit of the white stuff. I even tried laminating the dough with honey to see if it might make…
On a trip to Canada this November I was surprised to learn Kouign Amann was having a moment. It’s one of my two favourite French pastries (brioche feuilletée is the other) but this was the first time I had ever seen it in North America. Even in France, this delicious and deadly treat (just look at one…
Anyone who has ever worked with me in the kitchen knows I can’t bear to waste food. One of my pet peeves has always been citrus fruit that get tossed after having been squeezed for juice when the rest of that fruit is perfectly good and can be used in so many ways! Here’s a short…
One of the exciting things about my new home in the Swiss Chablais is the mind-boggling array of world-famous cheese produced all around me. This is where raclette, Switzerland’s most iconic melting cheese comes from and I have recently discovered a beautiful mountain farm I can hike to that produces an excellent version of it. The regions of Emmental, Gruyere, Abondance,…
For the first time in 15 years I don’t have a vegetable garden to tend. Instead I have two small planters filled with some fresh herbs I can’t live without (lovage, parsley, chives, basil and coriander). While I miss Petraia’s amazing orto, to be honest I don’t miss all the work that went with it. The organic produce I can…