Hi Andrea,

Actually, I'm from Cincinnati. If you're asking whether I'm from the UK because of some of my turns of phrase, that's a combination of the fact that I've always preferred UK/Commonwealth spelling (a good habit, since a lot of my clients want UK English in their translations) and the fact that I'm a bit of a dialect sponge. For example, back when I was working marketing research as a teenager, we spent a day calling the Blue Ridge Mountains area of North Carolina to ask them about TV news or something. I wasn't getting many responses for the first few hours, but, during the second half of the day, people were starting to be really friendly with me and answer every question I had. It was around then that I realised that I had unconsciously slipped into the local dialect.

I'm glad you're enjoying my recipes. If you end up making one, please do let me know how it goes. I love sharing recipes, and I always look forward to feedback (especially also because I'm still working on my style in writing them).

I'm not sure if I'd call myself a 'purist' in the kitchen. I'm more of an eclecticist, both in the kitchen and in the rest of my life.

There are some things I'm a stickler about, though. For one thing, I am quite opposed to the use of dried basil flakes in anything for human consumption (apart from putting them in spaghetti water, where they can be decent). Basil flakes are basically the John Kerry of seasonings: the old, withered, dried up remains of what once could have been a lovely addition. Oh, and they also totally lose the subtlety of their flavour.

I also try to minimise the use of pure sugar. Red wine (chianti) is a much better sweetener in most of what I make, so it's not really necessary; plus, granulated sugar can't match the complexity of flavour you get from a good red wine. Of course, that applies pretty much only to my tomato dishes (which account for about 90% of my cooking; the tomato is my first love).

With that exception, I'm big on instinctive cooking. Hence all of the 'to taste' notations in my recipes. I'm a big sampler. Sometimes it gets me into difficulties; I'll "sample" so much while I'm cooking that I hardly have an appetite left when I get it onto the table. I just take a spoonful (or 3, or 5, or perhaps just a ladelful, come to that) every once in a while and adjust things. Things never come out quite the same way twice in my kitchen, which is part of the fun.

If you're interested in Italian cooking, there's a book I'd like to recommend (if you haven't read it already): Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Basically, it's where I have learned everything I know about the theory of saucemaking (including the rather surprising fact that there is theory that goes into it). All the stuff about battuti, soffritti, and insaporimento comes from there.

Thanks again for your nice comment, and do let me know how it turns out if you make one of my recipes.

Élise