I am not a great cook, but I like to bustle about in the kitchen, especially since my kitchen window has a view of a beautiful forest. Since I am not “formally trained”, my recipes don’t always turn out the best. It was only when my “meat sauce” proved to be passable that I believe I heard my mom say, “The meat wasn’t browned enough when you put in the wine, that’s why your sauce is bland.” Or that time when the gnocchi were too soft and came apart in the pot that my aunt Marina in her pristine apron told me, “If you boil your potatoes without the skins, sweetie, your gnocchi will never turn out.” Bits of experience, bits of affection, bits of a past life that is still very much alive, which reignite in my heart from time to time and which have nevertheless left so much in my soul.

Now that our winery is established (you need a good wine to go with a good dish) and a table is always ready to be set and shared with friends at our place, I am happy to jot down, without any pretense, the recipes that have always been part of my family. It is a way to keep the bridge between the past and the present open, a past when “my ladies” carried out their daily household tasks in their own simple way, lively and almost regal way: preparing meals for the family. Finding again, or rather, not losing the memories of life lived, even of the simplest things and daily life, is essential to never feeling alone. Life does go on with its problems and challenges but always leaves something beautiful and enjoyable deep down (even for the palate). Our dear ones pass on, sometimes it seems that we can’t remember them at all, but then… just a taste, an aroma, a word… and we feel them right beside us smiling and alive as always. Fragments… recipes of life.

Lucia Cesarini