There are many things I haven’t done in Venice. Here are just a few: I haven’t written a novel My Italian is horrible My Venetian friends are nonexistent I haven’t ever managed to wake up early enough to go for a run at dawn These were all on my to-do list, but luckily I don’tContinue reading “The things I haven’t done”
Category Archives: Stories From The Table
Venetian food: a beginning
It’s probably safe to say that Venice beat Walt Disney to the title of “most magical place on earth” by over a thousand years. But like so many things, The Most Serene Republic is a city built on compromise. The first people to settle on these damp heaps of mud didn’t do so out ofContinue reading “Venetian food: a beginning”
There’s something in the air
If you put your head out the window of a Venetian apartment today, and inhale deeply enough – holding the breath in your throat and your eyes firmly shut – it feels like early morning in summer. There’s something in the air. I can’t put my finger on it. Something like salt and grass, andContinue reading “There’s something in the air”
Coffee: A Manual
The third and final instalment of Dom’s Treatise on Coffee: The Manual – your guide to becoming a moka pot pro. Last time I shared some of the reasons why I often reach for the moka pot when making coffee at home. Done right, it can get you damn close to a shot pulled forContinue reading “Coffee: A Manual”
Coffee: The Little Machine
Welcome to the second part of Dom’s treatise on coffee. Here he talks all things moka – the history, the design, and the reasons you should own one. Grab a coffee and get comfortable. “Prodotto in Italia!” The Italians have good reason to be proud of the contributions they’ve made to the world, which isContinue reading “Coffee: The Little Machine”
A New Year
It is New Year’s Day 2018, and I have many important things to tell you. The first is that New Year’s Eve in Venice is wonderful, and made even more wonderful by spontaneous cocktails at the Danieli and making friends with everyone who works at your favourite local osteria. Next year, you should come. ComeContinue reading “A New Year”
Coffee: A Journey
Dom’s three-part treatise on coffee is the latest post in our Stories From The Table section – a place where we explore memories, cultural vignettes, and anthropological musings on eating and drinking. I’ve not been a coffee drinker for very long, but I have had a respect for (and possibly a little fear of) itContinue reading “Coffee: A Journey”
5 November
Michelle Lovric explains that to write about Venice is to seek new ways to describe the effect of water on marble. Sitting at a desk in Castello, a small canal just below the window – stone, wood and marble resting on the water’s lip – I’d be inclined to agree. Except there’s a little moreContinue reading “5 November”
Crêpes
We used to have pancakes once a year at home, on Shrove Tuesday, when the squeezy Jif would appear at the table and my mum would stand at the stove, grumbling about what a fuss they were to cook. English pancakes were never a breakfast thing. I only remember them with the backdrop of aContinue reading “Crêpes”
Tater ‘Ash
It’s hard to write about the meaning of a dish you’ve never grown up with. Write in any sort of meaningful way, I mean, without feeling a fraud. Especially when it’s the sort of recipe that’s so undeniably lived in – the kind that isn’t written down by its owner or even memorised, but internalisedContinue reading “Tater ‘Ash”
To The Table 