The decorator had been in all week and we were living in that state of chaos which is slightly too much. Meals on the coffee table (or rather what serves as the coffee table which is actually my old university trunk) eventually lose their appeal. Or rather than losing their appeal, we’d got to the point where you couldn’t even get to the trunk anyway.

I needed to put a chicken in the oven. I desperately needed to put a chicken in the oven.

Chicken dinners have been a cornerstone of my life. Other meals have come and gone, but the good old chicken dinner has remained. It’s not just the oven that warms a home and the souls within it, it’s the constant. I can remember so many chicken dinners from my childhood, taste them, see the gravy as I pour it over. The chicken dinner I made last night was a rather more Italian compromise. One son delights in a chicken dinner, the other pulls a face. Hence the sausage.

It’s my own version of Nigella’s traybake, the one in Nigellissima, her take on Italian food. I say my own version, but this is really dependent on mood. Yesterday I got a packet of about 300g of Italian sausage, four chicken legs and a whole chicken breast. Add three whole cloves of garlic, and they need to be whole because they almost caramelise during the cooking, and if, like me, you love slow roasted garlic, use more. Drizzle with olive oil and lay about five sprigs of lemon thyme or ordinary thyme, whatever you have to hand. Of course the challenge is to manage to cook the chicken breast without it getting dry, so cook the sausages on top, and baste regularly. Then in another pan I put parboiled potatoes and carrots to roast in olive oil with rosemary sprigs. Putting them to roast raw just doesn’t create the right result. They will be roasted, but they won’t be proper roast potatoes, at least not in my book.

The chicken was slightly overdone in the end as I got sidetracked sorting out the bookcases. When you have a houseful of books, it’s a permanent quest. The only solution I ever find that works is to just buy more bookcases. More bookcases mean more books, although I have this fear that one day I will die amidst piles of unread books that, in turn, nobody will ever read.

The leftover chicken will be brought out again today, probably in sandwiches in thick crusty bread, although I have a recipe a friend gave me for some lovely soft milk bread that’s lying around that I might give a try. Baking my own bread is up there with the chicken dinners.

In which case I really should make some stuffing.

It made me smile somewhat. My lasagne belonged to a time of stir-fried chicken in oyster sauce and chicken in a basket when we were on holiday at the seaside and went for a pub lunch. It represented the foreign, if not the exotic. In theory it’s the same dish, yet it will never be the same dish as the lasagne I’ve eaten and learned to make in Italy just as the lasagne I eat in Italy will be the lasagne of my childhood. Unless I cook it.  Maybe it’s a dish that for the moment still belongs to the UK. It belongs to dinners in my mother’s kitchen when we go to visit my dad, only now I’m the one that’s cooking it. It fits there. Although as I write this, I can’t help thinking that one day it will fit here too. When there is no longer any context for it, it will matter very much.

So after Spring made a very brief appearance, in particular yesterday which gave us a day in which we all breathed a sigh of relief from the awful weather we seem to be having recently, today it is cold, grey, raining and utterly miserable. Burian 2 is on its way, or the beast from the east is making a comeback, as they call it in the UK. It’s the kind of day where the only real option is to just stay at home and stay in our pyjamas, hence the Saturday morning cooking.

Not that there was actually that much cooking involved. Today I made pesto with a handful of parsley that I’ve recently planted on the balcony. Pesto literally means made with a pestello or pestle. It’s one of those things that might sound complicated but is actually ridiculously easy. Once you’ve made it you’ll never want to buy the supermarket stuff again.

Pesto literally means made with a pestello or pestle, although I used a hand-held blender.  I blitzed the handful of parsley that I’d cut up with scissors beforehand with half a large garlic clove, about 50g of ready-peeled almonds and added a good slug of olive oil, enough to coat the pasta smoothly rather than clog it up. I then mixed in a couple of tablespoonfuls of finely grated pecorino romano or, to be more accurate, I put the cheese in a mini blitzer that does this in seconds.

If you do blitz it, resist the temptation to do it too finely. I personally prefer it when it’s got more texture to it. And do taste as you go along. If you fancy a bit more cheese, add it. If you want to mix in a few more ground almonds at the end, do. And if you don’t happen to have any pecorino romano sitting in your fridge, use parmesan or any other hard cheese. My neighbour is an amazing cook who lives to the rule that she would never go to the shop just for one ingredient, so don’t feel you have to either. She just substitutes with anything suitable she has in her fridge, and experiments. Besides, this isn’t the real pesto. You have to go to Liguria for that. And this is also NOT Ligurian pesto, as Ligurian pesto is made with basil that’s grown on the sunny shores there, and if you were to suggest to anyone who lives there that this were called pesto they would object, and rightly so. Ligurian pesto is food of the gods. I know this every time I’ve eaten it there. I once tried it once at a friend’s vineyard. Her grandmother had made it, gnocchi swimming in the most heavenly pesto I have ever tasted. No, this is not pesto. This is name pesto(ish). So please do not consider calling it pesto.

A final word about salt. I personally don’t add salt as I think the pecorino has enough flavour, but this is up to you. Then mix the pesto in with some rigatoni you’ve cooked in the meantime. Keep about a third of a cup of the cooking water as you’ll need this to help it bind. Although to be perfectly honest, today I forgot as they all came into the kitchen right at that moment, although it still turned out fine. Add the water very gradually and mix as you go along, as the last thing you want is watery pasta. You could also use any long pasta such as spaghetti or linguine but I’d run out so it was rigatoni instead. Sprinkle with ground almonds and more grated pecorino romano, a generous twist of ground black pepper, and lunch is served.

Dream of sunshine and Ligurian villages.

When I told my family I was toying with the idea of being vegan or at least vegetarian, my younger son looked at me in that way he has when it’s obvious he thinks his mother cannot possibly be serious. “You’ll never manage it,” he pronounced.

Of course he was right. I can’t see myself becoming vegetarian either although I have noticed some differences. Rather than making any major decisions, it’s been more to do with making certain choices. If I’m going to eat cheese, I’d rather it be goat’s cheese and fresh. I no longer look for the grated parmesan for my pasta, unless that’s what we’re specifically having. I didn’t want mince ragù with my pasta the other day. I have this  dialogue going on in my head when I’m approaching meals. Is this vegan or vegetarian? I guess you could probably call it mindful eating, although believe me that sounds far worthier than it is. I do think more about what I want to eat though. We are what we eat as we all know in theory but may not necessarily always practice.

Then the other day I made wild boar ragù as the snow had started to fall again and the whole kitchen was lit up by the snow outside in that way that I’ve always loved. I was happy to cook it, unlike the fajitas the other day which became deconstructed fajitas as I decided I didn’t want the meat in them. Raw chicken just didn’t do it for me, although if I’m honest it hasn’t for a long while.

Wild boar on the other hand has memories. It reminds me of when I first came to Italy and spent several winters skiing every weekend in the mountains.  It was sitting round tables with – I want to say other young Italians – because time brings with it an altered state of identity and you gradually you start to wear the country in which you live. It involves going back to your home country and feeling like you don’t quite belong any more. And it involves feeling part of the country in which you’re living to the point that you’ve forgotten you didn’t always live here. Children helped in my case. Or rather, motherhood didn’t help at all before it did. And then what was originally a huge pull back to the UK gradually transformed into a this is home here and now.

Naturally – or possibly, naturally for me – food played its part. It was mountain food based upon stews, and polenta, always a dish of steaming polenta. Wild boar stew, venison stew, any stew, pizzoccheri and plates of sciatt on chicory. This was the place and this was its food, and through this a whole culture spoke.

I made the stew with a small jar of tomato passata because I have a friend whose Tuscan mum swears by it and says this always gives a richer flavour. It does. Brown a couple of carrots and onions in a casserole dish or pan that will go in the oven with a whole clove of garlic. Add the meat – about 1 kg. Then add five juniper berries, a bay leaf, a slug of red wine and a small bottle of good quality passata and it does have to be good quality because it really does make a difference. Then cook in a low oven until the meat starts to fall apart. Most Italian recipes will tell you to cook it on the hob for about an hour and a half but I always cook mine in the oven as it always turns out better for me that way. Another thing to note is that if you marinade the meat beforehand it takes away what Italians call that “wild taste”. It all depends on personal preference. If you do prefer a slightly sweeter taste then marinade the meat for 24 hours in enough red wine to cover it, a couple of bay leaves, about 5 juniper berries, a carrot and an onion. What’s important is that you throw this away before cooking, otherwise you’ve defeated the object.

This is a stew to be eaten with polenta or fresh pappardelle, the day after cooking though as the flavours will always improve.

Mountain passes optional, though highly recommended.

Cacciucco, a fish soup associated with Tuscan coastal towns such as Livorno, Viareggio, and in my case memories of a camping holiday in Castiglione della Pescaia where I had these rather romantic visions of the good life in a tent until the people in the tent next to us started singing Carpenters songs. I have nothing against Carpenters songs, just not when they’re emanating from the tent next to me. (Long story, possibly for another day.) And it turned out I don’t really like camping quite as much as I thought I did. I like the idea, but the reality leaves me somewhat – err, uncomfortable. Airbeds don’t do much for a bad back.

Castiglione della Pescaia on the other hand is beautiful, as is the whole of the Maremma region, some of which is a natural park, and if you’re planning a trip to Tuscany it’s definitely an area to consider. Outside August though, which pretty much applies to any Italian holiday, if you can.

But back to the cacciucco. There’s also a chickpea version which would be a cacciucco di ceci rather than a cacciucco di pesci, and this is what I decide to make today. It felt ideal for the day as it’s snowed again, although the Big Snow forecast was nowhere as big as expected. “Mum, we have three centimetres of snow!!!” Precisely. I wasn’t planning to make cacciucco today but I’d spent the whole morning dreaming of Tuscan towns (and naturally Tuscan food) as we’re planning to go there at Easter. And so cacciucco it was.

As with most traditional recipes, there are many variations. One recipe I found said to use shallots, but as I didn’t have any, I just used a red onion. You could use half but I used a whole one because I love onion, chopped finely and lightly fried with a whole head of garlic. I didn’t chop the garlic as it was rather large and I think the trick with garlic is to use it to flavour without letting it overpower the whole recipe. (If in doubt, use it whole.) I then added two packets of chickpeas, having drained them first of their juices. Of course you can also add the juices, I just prefer not to. Then add a washed and chopped bunch of Swiss chard, a generous tablespoon of good quality tomato passata and cover with just enough water to cover the chickpeas. The Swiss chard will steam anyway. Add salt to taste, and simmer until the chard is cooked. Some recipes suggest you use stock instead of water but I didn’t as I didn’t have any fresh to hand, and it was still very tasty.

Drizzle the soup with olive oil and sprinkle with black pepper. You can choose to keep this vegan, or sprinkle with grated cheese, in which you case you would need a firm Tuscan pecorino if you can get it.

Ideally this should be served with toasted Tuscan bread that you can either serve with the soup ladled over (in which case the bread will go all squishy and effectively become part of the soup) or on the side. I ate mine with a wholemeal nut roll of the type that I’m pretty much addicted to at the moment.

Serve, and dream of Tuscan hills.

After last week’s impromptu “let’s just all have a week off as everyone got ill”, everyone’s back and out of the house and so I spent the whole of my Monday morning – err, cleaning the kitchen. Yes, really, life is that glamorous, although it’s actually quite a nice feeling in a way, kind of puts the world to rights and all that. And sometimes the world really does need putting to rights, especially as it’s the week leading up to the elections on Sunday with its climate of hate.

It’s a feeling that’s getting to a lot of us. Even my son was feeling something this weekend. On Saturday evening, he announced: “Mum, tomorrow I’m going to tidy the house. I need to create ordine,” ordine being order. Maybe it was really just to do with a messy house, maybe not, but thankfully that didn’t happen and we were all able to just slouch on the sofa instead.

The picture is of soup, or what I tend to call dry soup, my own version of the thicker soups that some call minestrone or minestra, and if you’re in Tuscany you may also call it ribollita. The idea is that the Tuscan ribollita is “re-boiled” and bread added which results in a thick, chunky soup. The version I made this lunchtime is literally a re-boiled, re-heated soup from Saturday. I started with the basic soffritto – the fried base that’s often the basis of many soups and pastas, in this case, half an onion, one carrot and a clove of garlic for good measure as I’m trying to limit our consumption of salt, although you do need some salt to give flavour. Add a common or garden cabbage, a couple of chopped potatoes and half a cup of pearl barley.

When I made mine on Saturday I added the pearl barley later as an afterthought. This  really depends how cooked you want your vegetables. If you want them less cooked, then add the barley at the same time as the vegetables. The soup should remain relatively thick, so hold back on the water. The cabbage can just steam on the top, and will eventually become absorbed. Serve when all is cooked through, and do check the barley as it may take longer than the recommended cooking time. By the time I reboiled it today, it had all become gloriously thick, perfect for serving on two slices of pane di segale or rye bread, with crumbled (ish) goat’s cheese as I couldn’t find the cheese grater, and the obligatory drizzling of olive oil without which it just wouldn’t feel complete.

So I was officially supposed to be back at work today but it didn’t quite happen that way and now the sun’s come out and has lit up all the snow. Roma è sotto la neve or Rome is under snow, along with most of Italy, and the lunchtime news is filled of travel inconveniences and other stories.  Burian, the icy Siberian wind has arrived and in the north we’ve had our own sprinkling. And very pretty it is too.

Call it a modern day version of one of those much loved and much stained notebooks that I have sitting on my bookshelves in my kitchen, the ones that belong to my grandmothers and mother. They’re the ones hidden between the other books, Italian classics such as Artusi’s The Art of Eating Well, various other books and magazines relating to Italian regional cooking and traditional recipes.

Call it a desire to run off from the rat race and pursue the dream of a vegetable patch under olive trees. “Don’t buy this stuff, it’s full of chemicals,” my son said to me the other day at the supermarket. “Let’s move somewhere, mum, and go get our own patch of land.” The reality is that there’s more chance of my son doing that. I love being near Milan too much, although if the current pollution levels don’t change, I might one day have to change my mind.

Or call it an oh-so-cliched journey of how I woke up one day (several days, to be honest) and decided that maybe I should start trying to eat more healthily as actually my current diet was getting me down. Not that I was eating badly, I just knew I could eat better. Or at least more simply. I have friends who are eating vegan and feeling better. It started me thinking. But I knew that however I was going to do it, it had to be Italian. Italian and food will forever be united.

If you ask me as I start this if I’m planning to become vegan, or even vegetarian, if I’m being perfectly honest the first fills me with anxiety, accompanied by a wail of but what about the buffalo mozzarella?? – not to mention the all-sacred cappuccino and brioche, still the most civilised way to start any day. The second elicits a rather uncomfortable not sure. Cue mental image of a dish of steaming polenta and venison stew, and no, I don’t think I’m prepared to give that up. I love eating and writing about food too much – all food.

Rather, what I am planning to do is overhaul my Italian home cooking, replace the much-loved sausage risotto with new favourites, cut out the salami (well, almost), and look for more plant-based dishes I can serve at my table which still remain true to their Italian heritage. Of course some of this is easy. It’s simply collecting together recipes I’ve been cooking for years. As for the rest of it – well, that’s the exciting part. Lombardy cooking – which is incidentally where I live – is traditionally steeped in agricultural traditions. For this, read cows and pigs. So pork, salumi, cheese and butter. Of course, not only, but if I’m looking at regional culinary heritages – which I am – I may also have to go further afield. Literally.

Because really, that’s where it always lies for me personally, in food traditions and food heritage. It’s the idea of recipes being cooked by daughters, mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers, female genealogies expressed through food, because that was where women were kept for so many years – in the kitchen. (And it’s still the women that are doing most of the cooking, especially if you look at the figures concerning Italy at least in terms of domestic work.) It’s my own personal memories of cooking with my  mother, cooking with my grandmother one summer before I moved in with my Italian boyfriend because I’d started to realise that time was precious and I wanted to write it all down. Later, it was being handed things by my neighbour who lives in the flat below me when I had two small children. “Try this,” she’d say, and along came the realisation that Italian food could be so simple and yet so good. And it was cooking with my children when they were very little, because if there was a choice between building brick towers or cooking, the latter was always going to win hands down.

The food we cook is the creation of something beautiful. My kitchen is literally where I live, when I’m not writing in cafés or getting on trains. It’s where I write, and it’s where I cook. It’s my room of my own when nobody’s around.

Food is one of the things Italians do best. It’s certainly what I loved most when I first came to Italy, and sat around so many tables listening to so many people, eating together and talking about food.  Twenty years later and I’m still learning and loving it all, listening to people talk about food, writing about food, eating food and cooking food.