let it snow

Just when I thought spring was on my doorstep, it snows. In April. The night after I bought lots of beautiful plants for my balcony (including a lovely bay tree).

But I remain undeterred. I am not heading back to root vegetable land. I will simply think of today as winter's grand finale.

The new issue of Gourmet arrived in my postbox yesterday. The Italian issue. I worried it might have heavy mom-and-pop fare, that of the New York Italian persuasion.

I needn't have worried. The recipes were fresh - and most importantly - properly Italian. Little known areas like Puglia and Umbria were scoured, and recipes like baby octopus salad and stuffed mussels dominated the pages.

There were two that particularly took my fancy, and I simply couldn't decide which to cook first: pasta with spicy anchovy sauce and dill bread crumbs OR umbrian fish soup.

So I'm doing both.

I think this will actually work quite nicely. The Italians often eat a very small portion of pasta as a first course - and we could learn from them. Although a standard serving size is about 90 g (or 3 oz) officially, we more often than not eat about three times that.

So my goal is to have my pasta and eat it too.

Check out the recipes here. and here.