Add to List - #76
All the Calabrese do the mambo like a crazy
Hello, thank you, and welcome. I love you for being here!
Add to List is my Sunday round-up. It’s the small things that brought me joy, evoked an emotional reaction, or became some short-lived stability in the past seven days.
Obsession
Calabria Food Fest.
I’ve just returned from seven days at the Calabria Food Festival. Calabria is a region of Italy I’ve not visited is something of the final frontier for Italo-tourism. The festival was a jam-packed schedule with influencers, journalists, actors, and taste-makers from around the globe partaking in hand-on cooking classes, visits to farms and food producers, crystal-clear beach dips, quaint medieval towns, and of course SO MUCH PASTA.
It’s near impossible to summarise the highlights; everything we saw, ate and drank was so good. And so different. Yet I think for me, the unexpected moments with smaller groups; sharing aperitivi in a small hilltop bar, interrogating one another’s cultures with open hearts, and inquisitive minds was the highlight.
I also got to witness just how talented my Pasta Grannies colleague Livia is at her job. Within 20 minutes of arriving in the small town of Badolato, she’d befriended half the village (via their adopted cats) and got us an introduction to the wonderful Anunziata, one of the village’s oldest residents. More about this on the Pasta Grannies Substack very soon.
And the final night, we had a banquet Gala dinner in newly-opened castle of Squillace. A long winding drive at sunset took us there; olive trees marking the curvature of landscape with their elegant limbs; walking through the old cobbled village (in my heels without falling over, brava me) as lanterns lit our way to a red carpet and a string quartet. It felt like a wedding, without a bride and groom. Perhaps that night we were joined in matrimony as one big new family — I certainly made a vow to return to Calabria at some point. Plus, much like any good Italian wedding I gave it stacks to a club remix of Sarà perché ti amo on the dance floor*
*Dance floor was a patch of grass within castle ruins. So it really is a miracle and I came home without a broken ankle.
Confession
This post is a day late.
I’m sorry, I was in a carb coma after travelling back late last night. I hope you’ll forgive me. I can repay you in future pasta recipes.
Shook
The headlines.
There’s nuclear war. There’s three more years to stop even more catastrophic climate change. And also Jeff Bezos is renting Venice for a wedding?
Amidst all of this, we all continue (myself included) to post wholesome content of Euro trips, nights out, beautiful dinners, and interior aesthetics like the world isn’t coming to an end?
Cook
Calabrese delights.
Good god where to begin? Calabria is famous for ‘cucina povera’ — literally translating to ‘poor kitchen’, and is famed for its resourcefulness; making the most of humble ingredients in a big, flavoursome way. With Spanish, Latin American and other Italian regional influences, it’s home to many sausage and spiced meat varieties, including the sobrasada style ‘nduja’ — now a high-end item in the middle class pizza scene. Interestingly, ‘j’ doesn’t exist in the Italian alphabet, apart from in this region, where its historical immigration and mosaic-like culture comes through not only in gastronomy but the etymology too.
A couple of stand out foodie moments:
Mezzi paccheri, swordfish, pistachio, fennel at Blanca Cruz, Caminia. There’s something so special about the first plate of pasta in Italy. And also something about the first meal you have by the sea on holiday with salt crystallising on your skin as you also taste it on your tongue. In this situation it was both combined. Heaven.
Fileja, fried aubergine, porcini mushrooms at Azienda Agricola RotiRoti, Cardinale. Following a morning of making mozzarella and ricotta at the farm, we sat down to lunch. The dining area’s large timber cavity was built round a giant oak tree in the centre; the light breeze of hills rolling through the open frame. After chatting to the farm owner Nicola (again, learning the Pasta Grannies way of getting the inside scoop in every location) we scooped up some sauce of our own (the scarpetta, always) while watching over at the shepherd tending the flock in the neighbouring field. The owner Nicolo, told us with a strong 97-year-old smile that him and his family had looked after livestock for as long as he could remember. After watching the care and attention they put into welcoming us for cheese making, and chatting to them at length, it was clear we were not just experiencing the roots of this place in the dining set up.
Cherries from Mercato di Soverato - Fruit from a market always tastes better. And this batch made me query how they grew out of the earth. The Soverato cherries remain etched on my tongue like the sweet feeling of a day’s sun on your skin on holiday. I took them to the beach; small marbles of edible joy. I sat, taking my time, enjoying each sweet, juicy moment before removing the stone from my mouth and dropping them into a sad little plastic cup by my umbrella. Each one, a new chance to find the next layer of the subtler of their burgundy sweetness, before the moment was gone and their beige shell left by my side, as the taste faded away like the waves close to my feet.
droplets of burgundy heaven Maccaruna, nduja, pomodoro, made by us in Dasà. This day was incredibly special. We were driven through a striking woodland to a small town in the Vibo Valentino province (car sickness alert).
Once I felt a little more stable on my feet again, I started to take in the surroundings. Warm red and beige bricks, Spanish-style lanterns, rust-coloured walls, and the occasional scattering of bougainvillea. It’s the kind of town that appears deserted and derelict at first glance, until you discover everybody is together in one location. And that was where we were. We were welcomed in by live taranta-style music, and five nonnas (locally known as the ‘spice girls’) showed us how to make the pasta. The dough is a simple base of flour and semola flour and worked into small shapes and wound round sticks (often wheat sheaves or other plants taken from the neighbouring fields).
After our pasta making, we were taken on a tour of the village to the old ruined water mill, where Gianni — a man who had worked there since he was eight years old — showed us the ropes, before returning to sit down with the whole village for lunch where music and much merriment continued. The organisers, Eva and Harper a cross-continent couple (she’s Italian and he’s American) say that nobody is a tourist here, and everybody is a guest. And boy did we feel like it. I sat next to Gianni at lunch and although my Italian is patchy, he had quite the youthful spirit with an animated method of communication, and so with my (improving) Italian we managed to cover everything from the impending war, to the future of our planet: “i bambini sono il cuore del mondo” — “children are the heart of the world,” he said tugging emphatically on his polo shirt, before pouring me another glass of wine and raising a toast to the entire taverna. Screw your romanticised Italian lover affair in the movies. Like a gay tarantella, indeed. In this afternoon, I came to understand the new meaning of ‘that’s amore’.
ready for pasta making
Book
Not a word of a book was read this week.
The only book-related activity I have done, is scan for flights to book my next trip to Italy.
Look
Non stop Birkenstocks and anti-influencer fashion choices.
I was incredibly unprepared for the fashion show that occurs on an influencer-heavy trip. I’m not joking when I say I was the woman in tattered Birkenstocks everyday. Yet, without my knowledge, I did accidentally decide to wear the neckerchief for the day we ended up in a field of hay bales. And luckily, there were many content creators much better with a camera than I to capture the moment.
(Not pictured: Recruiting at least 3 strong men to help me up.)
Can’t Stop Scanning
Did I mention I went to Calabria?
I’m still scanning my notes and pictures for some write-ups. And much like the food of the region, I’m excited to get stuck in.
Forward Planning
Staying put.
This is the first week in a while I’ll be 100% in London with no trips and no travel. Planning on avoiding a tube this week if I can.
I’m busy getting back on top of my writing, planning the next writer meet up activity with the lovely
, as well as hosting again with the folks over at Bored of Dating Apps for a summer social. Hoping to witness some summer loving while on the job — Uh wella wella wella wella ooh.
For a non-influencer, you absolutely own the neckerchief !!
Hoping to be able to taste some of these recipes you have picked up soon