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Thursday 4 October 2012

Cookbooks.

I spend a lot of time pondering life in Hobart. Tonight, exhausted and wishing myself at home we dropped into the supermarket in the city only to witness a woman bail up the chap stacking shelves with the whinge that she had cut her finger on a shelf and was going to report it to, of all places....The Mercury (the local paper). I grit my teeth.

But last night, Jane from Life on Planet Baby went to town to Fullers Bookshop to hear Tessa Kiros talk about her new cookbook Limoncello and Linen Water:


A sweetly pretty book where the recipes are nostalgic and woven together from myriad directions. Being Hobart, it only took a matter of minutes to materialise at the front of the queue for an inscription:

(Jane took this photo)

Of course, I couldn't help myself and had to tell her about how I regularly cook from her book Venezia in my kitchen in Hobart in an attempt to try and transport us back to Venice, if only for one fleeting dinner. It's a tenuous link but miraculously it works. Food is clever the way that it can do that.

How vivid is the memory of the giddy thrill that came with swapping the plane for a water taxi and speeding through the haze where the sky and water were indistinguishable....before the incredibleness that is Venice was revealed:


And the first, much anticipated, taste of gelato (pistachio)......of course there was a gelateria right next to where our feet touched land.

Then, just because I could, I told her how powerfully the quote on the back cover resonated with me:



Suddenly the talk veered towards the aqua alta, sirens and thunderstorms and the watery beauty and unpredictability of Venice. Tessa Kiros lives in the countryside somewhere between Siena and Florence. She lives in a beautiful part of the world.....and then she told me that I do too. And she's right. But it's very easy to forget.

Rx

PS Who has stumbled on Heidi's gorgeous new blog? Back in May, when I was totally demoralised by the fact that I had been blogging for quite some time and had NEVER received a comment, Heidi was one of the first to make one and has regularly and perceptively continued to do so. She has a distinctive voice and a wide range as a comment maker in blogland yet now you can read about and see pictures of her life in Adelaide....I thoroughly recommend having a look.

19 comments:

  1. I LOVE Heide. She always has the loveliest and most insightful comments. I didn't realise she had a blog, so thank you for the tip. I feel quite ashamed now that I didn't know about it. Her posts will certainly be interesting.

    Yours, of course, are always interesting! Loved the sofa post. And this Venetian tribute. If you ever get bored, just post photos of your travels.

    Tessa is an author at Murdoch, my old publisher. I heard she was lovely.
    xx

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    1. I LOVE Heidi too and am so glad that she now has her own blog.
      I also LOVE Tessa as just from the interview and our brief conversation it was obvious that she loves what she does and sees it as the result of following her passion. I really admire her for that. Food and travel are universal languages and I LOVE both of these subjects too.....if only I had the time to get bored! Rx

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  2. Romy, thank you so much for your very generous mention. Love the sound of the cookbooks. Venice I found absolutely stunning when I (finally) got there in March. It was so familiar from art and movies, I had such a sense of deja vu.

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    1. Venice is magical and even better when you get to see it with your own eyes, don't you think? No need to thank me, I've really enjoyed every comment that you've ever made on my blog, so it really was the least I could do! Rx

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  3. I agree about food and nostalgia for places!

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  4. Thanks for the recommendation, I've just swung by and have already fallen in love with her home...

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  5. Hello ! Thank you for your lovely birthday wishes and may I make a shocking confession : this Italian woman has never been to Venice ! You, on the other hand, look lovely in that photo with your daughter !xx

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    1. You must rectify that immediately.....book your ticket! Venice has to be seen to be believed. I love that photo, which was taken four years ago.....see how incredibly the promise of Venice made our 36hr jet lag disappear? Rx

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  6. looks like a beautiful cookbook!

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    1. So beautiful if you like Italian food, flowers, amazingly neat linen cupboards and household tips.....like me! Except that I despair about my linen cupboard which will never see a camera as it's just too shameful! Rx

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  7. No one comments til you get on some high traffic blog rolls! Love the Venice boat snap.

    Just added Old Heidi to my blog list.

    She is a Stalwart.

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    1. Yes, I know FF...it is thanks to your blog roll that anybody EVER read/reads my blog.....I'd still probably only have a very pathetic 3 followers and no comments if you hadn't so generously included mine on yours.....and I may never have 'met' Heidi. So a big, big thank you! Rx

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  8. I absolutely love that quote. So beautiful and evocative. Gorgeous books. Thanks for tip re Heidi, just had a squizz. House is amazing. My husband saw me looking at it and was very nervous I was browsing Realestate.

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  9. Dear Romy
    Just today attended Tessa Kiros' new book launch here in Canberra at Pulp Kitchen. It was a lunch with three courses all made from recipes in Limoncello and Linen Water, and paired with Italian wines. A lovely day. She has many keen fans here. As well as being such a nice person she was also very interesting: told us that she tried 45 different publishers with her first manuscript and was rejected 45 times. Eventually she self-published and took copies to a book fair where after going the rounds unsucessfully she finally came across the Murdoch people who gave her a three book contract and of course have extended from there. A wonderful success story of courage and perseverence against the odds. Best wishes, Pamela

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  10. I love cookbooks but never never make anything in them...OOh I had a bad night on Lemoncella, note to self, just because its homemade and organic doesn't make it less alcoholic!Lovely piccy of you

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  11. Whilst grieving and cocooning myself away from my real life. Venice is amazing, in fact all of Italy is amazing (the bits that I've seen anyway). Thanks for the blog, it's lovely K (The Blog a House Built)

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  12. OMG, I LOVE Tessa. I have all her books and lose myself in her world. Apples For Jam is my fave (even though we love Venezia to bits). Thanks for this lovely post. x

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I LOVE hearing your thoughts! Rx