Cooking Blog

More about my cooking tricks than a collection of recipes...

I love cooking and I love exotic food, probably because I have traveled so much, and was brought up all over the globe: Sweden, Egypt, Belgium, Russia, France,Colombia, the United States, Russia again, Italy, in that order.

I've been in Italy now for some...35 years, and being married to an Italian, I tend to cook Italian-style (but I still love other cuisines!). Italy has taught me to appreciate the genuine, unaltered aspects of food and to place high value on what Nature can offer. As a result, I love bio food and have recently set up my own vegetable garden - no chemicals and only natural fertilizers allowed! - in our house in the country, in Umbria, south of Lake Trasimeno, a wonderful place to live.

Sunset on Lake Trasimeno, the setting of my novel Crimson Clouds (also used on book cover)

For some Italian recipes, like the famous eggplants alla Parmigiana, it's taken me over twenty years to figure out exactly how to do it, and get the eggplants to be both light and airy inside and crisp on the outside. No soggy, oily stuff for me! In fact, I positively hate oily food and use only olive oil as little as possible.

I've set up a separate blog for my recipes - more a den for family and friends than a real blog. It contains nothing but true and tried recipes, the kind I give to my children and hope they will continue to make for their own children...

Click here to go to that blog and enjoy!

Just to give you an idea, here's a trick in cooking:

Look carefully at this picture:

  
What's that, you may ask? 

Well, that's a simple purée - mashed potatoes - that is almost done. The trick? Bring it to a boil after you've added the milk and whip with a wire whip to make it really light. Keep doing that for at least 5 minutes and add a good pat of butter only at the end, before serving. Never add the butter at the beginning: just milk, and nothing else, and add it progressively (you don't want your purée to be runny!). And of course, salt and pepper to taste at the end, when it's finished. 

Many more tricks await you on my cooking site!