Rome-based foodie explores Sicily in her new cookbook
Rachel Roddy has recently been showered in trophies, winning double at the 2017 Guild of Food Writers Awards. But flicking through the 44-year-old food blogger and Guardian recipe columnist’s new cookbook, Two Kitchens, she already seems to have attained a kind of foodie nirvana.
A follow on from her 2015 cookbook Five Quarters, its title refers to Rachel’s tiny kitchen in her flat in Rome, as well as the big, basic cooking space at her partner Vincento’s family home in the industrial Gela, Sicily, where they spend their summers, and it features the “really simple food” that has come from both. “My kitchen is the kitchen of Rome and England; my Northern grandma, every cookbook I’ve ever read, every TV programme I’ve ever watched; every bit of advice I’ve ever been given - and also, these are recipes that you’re going to make your own. It is ‘Two Kitchens’ but it could be called ‘Many Kitchens’,” explains Rachel, who was born and raised just outside London. She has lived in Rome for the past 12 years arriving one day with just a rucksack and deciding to stay - but England still spools into her Italian life, and her Italian kitchens. “I’ve very aware of cooking with my mum and my grandmas when I’m here. I miss them a lot, so they’re really in the kitchen with me when I cook,” says Rachel, noting that having her son “brought that into sharper perspective” - and means that, come December, Christmas cake always makes an appearance, while fish fingers and cauliflower cheese are certified weekly staples.
Day to day though, her diet is very Italian - “Loads of fresh vegetables, mostly vegetarian, lots of pulses, little bits of meat, loads of fish, plenty of wine; wine with every meal” - while her food shopping is swayed by the seasons and what’s piled high in Rome’s markets.
Two Kitchens is split into 24 sections, each portion devoted to a specific ingredient (aubergines, ricotta, peas, oranges, etc), typical