One of the best things about being up before everyone else is that you get to see some pretty spectacular things: pink sunrises, wildlife darting around (on the roads with a death wish), and last night/this morning, the most amazing partial lunar eclipse.

My shoddy, flour-covered iPhone would never have done anything so mystical justice, so I didn’t bother taking a picture. I just stole a glance between loads of the oven, and have etched them it into memory. Maybe you saw it too?

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After publishing my Sunday newsletter, I received a slew of messages from my nearest and dearest (and some strangers) asking if I was, quote unquote, “okay”.

It hadn’t occurred to me that my vulnerability and quite extreme introspection about navigating this in-between period of my life, could be confused for sadness, melancholy or depression.

There are, of course, challenging times, but on the whole, I don’t actually feel any of these things. If anything, I think it would be quite worrying if I wasn’t contemplating these things.

Anyway, to those concerned (including my number one fan, my Dad), everything is “okay”.

In fact, there’s been quite a lot to love this week in my world. So here are the things I’ve been learning and my gratitudes for another week around the sun.

Much love,

Cissy…xo

Having to Roll With It

Peggy’s in the garage again.

Another £250 quid down the drain for something I’m not even sure the mechanic has properly fixed. Perhaps I’m getting swindled? Perhaps I should have trained to be one? Who knows, but I’m not letting it get me down.

While I was waiting for Peggy to be “fixed”, I took a stroll around the nearest community woodland. It has to be said, it’s not the nicest of woodlands - sandwiched between the A30 and a huge industrial estate - but the good news is, it rained. And I got caught in it.

It was beautiful.

I felt like Drew Barrymore in her overly memed video. IYKYK.

I sat beneath some trees, letting the drops slowly filter through the canopy, which kept me and my denim jacket mostly dry. The rain came in waves. Exploding like a fountain, then softening into mist.

I just sat there watching the weight of the water splash onto the crunchy brown leaves decomposing on the woodland floor. Each splash sent them bouncing into the air before they fell back down again. The whole ground seemed to be moving like a symphony.

When do you ever get to do that? When you’ve got nowhere to be. Nothing to do, you can just be. No huddling beneath a bus shelter, accidentally poking strangers with the corner of your flimsy umbrella as it embarrassingly blows inside out in the wind, while waiting for a bus that never comes.

It was, I think, what any self-help book might call the power of now.

What’s in Season

Plums!

In case you missed it, I shared a recipe for a plum and fennel pollen jam. Little punches of aniseed between soft, sweet Victoria plums. Perfect on toast, or smeared onto a croissant.

The glut also helped me make a chutney and a ketchup.

If you can find them, greengages or damsons are personal favourites too.

From My Camera Roll

A sort of cooking/baking fever came over me last weekend. I don’t think I left the kitchen at all. Curry, naan bread, jam, you name it, I was making it. Among them, croissants. A seed of an idea that began when I decided I really wanted to go for a coffee and a croissant, but since anywhere decent is over an hour’s drive away, I thought - I know how to do this. Why don’t I just make them myself?

So I dusted off the croissant cobwebs and reminded myself that, actually, I know what I’m doing.

Experimenting with stoneground flours, panela sugar and eyeballing the hydration resulted in a surprisingly decent croissant, which surprised me. Croissants aren’t the easiest to work with in a professional setting, let alone at home - where you have to make-shift a prover with your oven, and deal with fluctuating fridge temps (not ideal for yeasted doughs). In general, the croissant-making process needs to be a controlled one. Nothing about this was. Particularly shocking for me and my sensibilities.

Sadly, my butter broke.

I think this was partly because I was using butter that seemed quite wet (which makes for brittle butter), and partly because eyeballing the hydration of the dough resulted in a slack dough (it needs to be firm so it can hold the butter without it sliding around), the two eventually causing the butter to shatter.

If you look closely you can see this in the lamination, the lines are squiggly like waves, a tell-tale sign of broken butter. It was also a little greasy after baking, another sign.

All in all though, I was very happy with this first test. And the pure joy of eating them in the garden in the morning sunshine, with a cup of coffee was bliss!

Kitchen Note

This is what happens when you don’t steam your loaves.

Whoopsie!

God I was having such a good bake, until that last load of the oven, when clearly tiredness set in, and I forgot to steam one side of the deck. (Sorry Ben).

If you’re a free subscriber and fancy finding out why steaming is essential, subscribe below.

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The air is warm, with thick, hazy drops and cotton-wool clouds, sodden like grey socks. Its balmy weight feels like the monstrous thunderstorms in New York City, where my sister once pulled me from the curb to hide beneath a tree while water gushed down the Brooklyn avenues. The air filled with a cacophony of roars as thunder rolled through, and the tarmac gave off that hot, wet, burning-rubber like smell that, oddly, I love.

I’m reminded of summers there with her. Of the city where she is, where my brother is, where anything feels possible.

The downpour by the coast is softer, saltier, and not quite as dramatic. It mists through the pines as I walk through Wilsey Down, falling in dribs and drabs between sudden bursts of blue sky and fierce sunlight. The damp pine needles smelling earthy, like moss.

Even though I’m in Cornwall, I could be walking past the Hellfire Club, up through the Dublin Mountains. There are pockets of bright yellow gorse and muted pink heather peeking through the trees.

The new Fontaines song running through my head.

I’m there. I’m in Dublin. I’m with my friends. He’s there too. I’m holding onto the past.

And yet, I’m here.

I’m here, but not quite. It feels like I should be going somewhere. Finding the next job. Finding a house. Deciding which city I’m meant to put down roots in. Making a plan. Instead, I keep circling back on myself. Often, this feels painful, the not knowing. Sometimes, it’s overwhelmingly beautiful - walking through woods I’ve never walked before, or spending a day driving to hidden coves and swimming in crystal clear, freezing water with nowhere else to be.

Today, it hurts a little. My mind is somewhere else. So I do what I do. I bake.

A thick wholemeal sponge with brown sugar, crushed toasted fennel seeds, plum compote and crumble.

A recipe I was supposed to be sharing with you. Instead, I made it and abandoned it. Again. Just like the cheesecake.

The annoying thing is, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it. It just needs a few tweaks and I know what they are. More moisture. A different ratio of sponge to fruit to crumble. More toasted fennel. A shorter bake.

I could fix it. I just don’t want to. And that somehow feels like failing.

In the moment, I felt proud of myself. I’d achieved something. I’d checked off the list: write the recipe, bake the recipe, take notes, style and photograph it, eat it and enjoy it. The thought of having to make it again fills me with dread and that’s the bit I can’t quite align with.

Well, yes Cissy. But isn’t that just work?

Surely, I can’t expect every part of my job to be fun. Hell, I already know a lot of it isn’t “fun”. Getting up at 1.30am being one of them. Sometimes you have to do the boring bits and get on with it.

So why does this feel different?

I’m wondering, in Carrie Bradshaw-esque fashion, if this is something I’m supposed to think more deeply about? Why don’t I want to make these recipes work?

And then I have a slightly more uncomfortable thought - maybe I just don’t want to write recipes anymore. Ironic, considering I’m about to share one with you.

It’s not that I don’t want to bake. I do. I love it. I love figuring things out, learning something new. It’s just, I’m less interested in the part where I have to turn all of that into a recipe someone else can reproduce, which is slightly inconvenient, given that I’ve spent years building a career around exactly that.

At work, I’m learning to make bread that feels unbelievably intuitive. There are no numbers to hide behind. I can pick up a piece of dough and feel if it needs another twenty minutes before cutting. I can look at a loaf and think, I should have pushed that fermentation a little bit longer, or that I need to turn the oven down on my next round to help them relax. Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes I’m spectacularly wrong. The bread doesn’t care.

There’s something about it that feels slightly unnatural to me, but I’m learning to love it - trusting my own judgement.

That fluidity might be filtering into other parts of my life, making me less interested in things that are so prescriptive.

Do this. Then this. At this temperature. For this long.

Recipe writing, after all, is the art of trying to capture intuition and make it something repeatable. I’m coming to realise the things I love about baking are exactly the things a recipe can’t contain; being in the moment, fluidity and using my gut.

It’s also made me wonder whether I’ve been confusing productivity with creativity all this time.

An easy equation to make, especially for a spreadsheet-loving girl like me.

Output equals productivity. Equals work. Equals worth.

If I test a recipe, I’ve made something. If I photograph it, I have content. If I publish it, I’ve worked. If I get subscribers, I’m building a career. And if I’m doing that, I’m doing something worthwhile. Right?

It gives me something tangible to hold on to when I don’t know where I’m going. Or when I’m hiding from something.

I think about that girl who spent years teaching herself things. She would berate herself for not knowing enough, feel defeated when she made a mistake, and was always striving for perfection. I don’t think she was wrong for doing these things. I just think her need to prove herself, through knowledge and productivity, came at the cost of actually enjoying what she was doing.

That part of me will always be there, but maybe I’m finally learning that making something can be enough. It doesn’t always have to be something. A published recipe, a post, a new subscriber.

That might explain why I’ve started to let things go. The cake. The cheesecake. Ideas for posts I don’t feel like writing. Recipes I don’t want to test a fourth time. Not because I don’t care, but because I’m starting to care more about whether I actually want to do something for the right reasons, rather than turning everything into another completely unnecessary test of my own sanity and worth.

This step in life feels less methodical. It’s more sure, why not? Than let me just check my calculations first.

What if I just want to stand in the rain and get wet? Or make a cake because I want to eat it?

For once, maybe I don’t need to know what’s coming next.

Maybe I just want to live for a bit.

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Of course, it wouldn’t be life if I didn’t contradict myself, so I’m sharing a recipe for plum and fennel pollen jam.

Because I actually want to share this one and as it turns out, jam is just a small amount of method and a lot of using your senses and trusting your intuition.

You have to taste the fruit and work out how much sweetness and acidity it needs. Add sugar. Balance it with lemon juice, or vinegar. Decide whether it needs anything else. Watch the bubbles change from big, foamy, poppable ones to a mass of smaller ones. Watch as the scum changes from white to a dark, rosy-pink as the plums break down. Listen to it as the splutters get louder. Taste it again to see whether the fennel is overwhelming or underwhelming. Then swipe your finger through a spoonful on a cold plate and watch how quickly the line closes back in on itself.

Fennel is tall, feathery and amazingly fragrant with aniseed, and it’s heads gemmed with clusters of tiny yellow pollen. It’s a plant that kinda does it all - hardy, virtually maintenance-free, edible and beautiful enough to add to a flower arrangement.

It’s also a particularly perfect partner for plums. Floral and gently liquorice-y, it brings out their sweetness while giving their tartness something to balance.

There’s a sweet spot for harvesting the pollen. Pick the flower heads while they’re in full bloom, when the tiny yellow flowers are open and dusted with bright yellow pollen. Once pollinated, the plant moves on to seed, developing the larger, hard seeds you’re used to buying in the supermarket.

Earlier in the season, you can pick the young flower buds, which are softer and fresher-tasting, and look like small, tightly packed green clusters.

Rose has harvested all of the fennel at home, now that it’s going to seed. It’s hanging upside down in the living room, perfuming the whole place with a sweet scent that sometimes makes me do a double take. In a few weeks, we’ll be able to rub the heads between our hands, releasing the seeds.

If you’re not a fennel fan (I know it can be divisive) or can’t get your hands on fennel pollen, you can leave it out of the recipe completely. Although once you start noticing it, you’ll see it everywhere as it loves to grow wild - even in London.

Plum & Fennel Pollen Jam

• makes 3 to 4 medium sized jars (I think) - I forgot to weigh the final yield, sorry!

Equipment

• Jam funnel - not essential, but makes life easier

Ingredients

• 1500g ripe plums, pitted and quartered

• 900g caster sugar

• 1 lemon, juice squeezed

• Pollen from 10-15 flowering fennel heads, plus extra to taste

Method

• The day before you plan to make your jam, strip the yellow pollen clusters from the stems and rub them directly into the caster sugar. Leave overnight to infuse.

• Sterilise your jam jars by washing them in hot water, then placing the jars and lids on a tray in an oven preheated to 100°C for 15-20 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the jars inside while you make the jam.

• Put the plums into a large, heavy-based saucepan and cook on a medium heat for about 5 minutes, until the fruit has softened and released some of their juices.

• Add the fennel-infused sugar and lemon juice and stir to combine.

• Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to a rolling boil.

• Cook, stirring regularly to prevent the jam catching on the bottom of the pan, until it reaches the setting point. This can take anywhere from 25-50 minutes depending on your fruit, pan and heat.

• To test the set, place a small plate in the freezer for 5 minutes. Spoon a teaspoon of jam onto the cold plate and return it to the freezer for 1-2 minutes. Run your finger through the jam. If it wrinkles and holds its shape, it is ready. If it runs back together, continue cooking and test again. You can also use a probe - 105°C is a useful indication that the jam is approaching the setting point, although I prefer to rely on the plate test, particularly as I prefer a softer-set jam.

• Now is the time to taste. Check the jam for acidity and fennel flavour. If you want a stronger fennel flavour, add more of the yellow pollen clusters or some young fennel buds and stir through the jam while it’s still hot. How much you add is down to personal taste. I quite like a pronounced fennel flavour, with little pops of anise hidden in each spoonful, so I added quite a bit extra.

• Carefully remove the warm jam jars from the oven. Using a jam funnel, ladle the hot jam into the jars and seal immediately.

• Leave the jars to cool completely.

• Store in a cool, dark place. Once open, refrigerate and use within 4 weeks.

My bread today wasn’t my finest work, which had me in a slight funk. Well, I’m being hard on myself (surprise, surprise) as there were some lovely, lovely-looking loaves, but they were unfortunately outnumbered by some perhaps less lovely-looking loaves. Our diagnosis is that the lev (levain) wasn’t as robust and happy as we’d have liked it to be when mixing. And I was perhaps a little heavy handed on the old hydration.

I also decided to cut the dough a smidge earlier than it was ready. When you do this, the dough feels heavy and droops off the boards during the ‘bench rest’, as it simply doesn’t have enough strength to hold its shape. Meaning there were quite a few casualties on the walk-in fridge floor. RIP.

Strength is built through fermentation, which is something of a bakery mantra, so I’d better remember it.

And as Ben says, one of the greatest things about baking is that you can have a bad bake day, go home, and come back the next day and it will be completely new.

So I’m ready to come back all guns blazing for a better mix day and an even better bake!

Much love,

Cissy…xo

Having to Roll With It

The very unglamorous side to baking is having to deal with all the ailments that come with standing on your feet all day and doing repetitive movements. Swollen ankles, hands, legs, eyelids - you name it, I’m a water-retaining balloon.

A particular affliction of mine is my varicose-vein, thread-vein covered legs, which look like a child’s scrawled over me with coloured sharpies.

For me, the best way to help my sore legs is by wearing compression socks. Ideally I should wear them all day, but I’m not sure I’m quite brave enough to rock long socks with Adidas shorts. I think it might be giving school-boy-at-football rather than professional working woman. But as soon as the weather changes, and those long Service Works are back on, I’ll be ready to hide them underneath!

If any of you are also in need of some leg TLC, I was recommended the brand SNOX by a fellow chef, and I like them a lot.

What’s in Season

I haven’t done much cooking this week, which is sacrilege, but I can’t complain too much as I’ve had the fortune of eating out at some delicious restaurants - Argoe and Coombeshead Farm, both of which were incredible. Lunch at Coombeshead had me thinking, wow, how bloody talented are my colleagues?

And then there was Argoe. A restaurant that perches on the edge of the harbour in Newlyn (near Penzance) overlooking a cluster of boats that bounce on the bay. It celebrates what you can see - the village’s rich fishing community.

Sardines are at their peak in Cornwall right now. After a summer of feeding on abundant plankton, they’re plump and healthy and move closer to the shore. The shoals can be caught relatively close to land using ring nets, meaning they can make a very short journey from sea to plate.

And eating them at Argoe straight off the grill, with a wedge of lemon and a side of olive-oil drenched agretti (a samphire-adjacent plant), overlooking the harbour, is exactly the kind of eating I’m into.

Argoe are holding another Sardine Festival this year, in case you’re in Cornwall - check it out! There’ll be music, and lots of grills.

From My Camera Roll

Can you believe this is Cornwall?

One of the most amazing beaches I’ve ever been to, close to Penzance and Land’s End, is Pedn Vounder, which translates from Cornish as “end of the lane”.

It requires a little dance with death, as you have to climb down the rock face past the ‘Do Not Enter’ sign to get to it. Boy, is it worth it! Crystal-clear waters, dramatic cliffs and white sand. Heaven.

Kitchen Note

So, my new mantra… strength through fermentation. What does this mean?

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My bread looked happy today, which made me happy. Dark, crusty loaves, relaxing out with charred ears. Bread is a different beast, and I’m still grappling with it. Getting used to using my gut instincts to tell me what the bread needs. Much easier said than done. That, paired with the common post-bake paranoia (a shared affliction amongst bakers), means I spend a lot of time wondering where I could have made something “better”.

Especially because, in true Capricorn fashion, I’ve realised I love to problem solve. I want to explain it, rationalise it, systemise it. And when it can’t be fully explained, because there are simply too many variables, my brain struggles to cope. But I suppose it’s all about picking things up as you go, adapting and learning to let go a little.

When I finished packing up the final loaves around 8 am, I walked out into the fields. The sun was just beginning to burn off the morning. I wandered towards the beehives, where thirty-something plum trees hide away, bearing copious amounts of ripening, amethyst-coloured fruit. They droop from the branches under their own weight, like someone has tied little purple eggs to them.

There were wasps sucking on the sugar, and the grunting sounds of the new calves in the fields across the way.

On my way home, I ducked into the allotment to gather whatever was ready to harvest: cooking apples, tomatoes, shallots, Red Russian Kale, chillies, and vibrant yellow courgettes. Some of the plants are fighting to survive. The drought has turned their leaves crispy and yellow.

At home, there was no time to stop. I boiled the apples with plums, dried figs, spices and sugar until thick and jammy, while simultaneously frying the rest of the allotment haul, which eventually became a sweet, light, sauce slicking ribbon edged pieces of reginette pasta. Some sort of wild caffeine fever must have taken over me, as I continued in the kitchen, rounding it all off with a plum, vanilla and hazelnut clafoutis.

To you, this might sound wild, twelve hours of non-stop baking and cooking. To me, this felt like joy. Even if it came at the small price of exhaustion.

I’d realised earlier in the week that I’d been neglecting this time in the kitchen. Too tired from gallivanting around Cornwall, or swivelling up and down the bakery all day. All just excuses, really, keeping me from taking the time to cook something delicious for myself.

Which brings me, somewhat inevitably, to cheesecake.

As I mentioned last week, I’d been working on a no-bake cheesecake recipe for this Sunday. Well, I wrote it. I made it. It was delicious. But, I wasn’t fully happy to share it with the world. In fact, I think I realised, maybe I’m not that fussed about cheesecake after all.

Burning the biscuits three times should have been my sign.

It sent me into one of those familiar internal debates about what failure actually means to me. Is it not meeting a deadline I’d set myself? Is it making something that doesn’t quite live up to the expectations I had in my head? Whatever it is, these things aren’t truly failures, but they can still leave me temporarily disheartened.

And all too often, this is tied up with the feeling of having to create content, which I find unbelievably cringe and hard to do. Producing for the sake of producing. To stay relevant. Ultimately, not something I’m really that fussed about.

So, anyway, the moral of the story is that I sidelined cheesecake for picking plums, making clafoutis and eating it outside in the grass in the sunshine, because it felt much more joyful to me.

Unfortunately, that means there’s no cheesecake recipe, or Sunday essay either. I try to do it all, and sometimes I just can’t.

Instead, I’m making this Field Note accessible to everyone this week, so you can get a little taste of what I’m writing here and, if you like it, come and join me next Friday.

Have a gorgeous weekend!

Cissy …xo

If you’d like to make my clafoutis recipe, you can find it on Nicola Lamb’s Kitchen Projects. I swapped the greengages for Victoria plums, replaced the ground almonds for ground toasted hazelnuts, and omitted the ginger in favour of lots of vanilla bean paste.

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Having to Roll With It

Peggy (my beaten-up old car) failed her MOT. She’s becoming somewhat of a money pit but we love her nonetheless.

What’s in Season

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to catch up with my friend Laure, who was staying not too far away in Devon. Conveniently only thirty minutes from Ashburton, which meant we had to tie it in with lunch at Emilia. A small, Italian eatery, serving seasonal dishes.

The menu here looks simple on the page, but the dishes were some of the most delicious I’ve eaten in a while. Exactly the kind of food I want to eat, making me wish I were talented enough to make them myself, or had a hot chef boyfriend to make them for me.

My favourite was the maltagliata (broken pasta) with lamb ragu bianco, chickpeas and salmoriglio (a Sicilian oregano, lemony, olive oil-y sauce). As well as this plate of juicy peaches and al-dente green beans, piled over creamy ricotta.

From My Camera Roll

All those years scoffing at my mum for watching Antiques Roadshow every Sunday, and now here I am, ogling every elm wood chair, vibrant gemstone, ornate copper jelly mould and all sorts of other trinkets in the overflowing antique shops of Ashburton.

My camera roll is now overflowing, too. Am I saving all of these things as inspiration for the future? I’m not sure. But one thing I’m sure of is how much I love this vintage butcher’s apron, which at first glance, looks like a piece of Celtic chainmail.

After some Googling, I discovered that this particular apron, made from interlocking metal plates, dates from somewhere between the 1960s and ‘80s. If you look closely, you can see little bowtie-shaped cut-outs and decorative stamping on each plate, which apparently identifies it as being made by the historic French company Lamex.

The interlocking plates were designed to protect butchers from boning knives, but ultimately contributed to the style’s demise. Those tiny gaps between the plates were almost impossible to sanitise properly, allowing animal fats, blood and bone dust to collect between them. Which is not quite as romantic as I’d hoped.

Kitchen Note

The flours we’re using in the bakery are feeling particularly strong at the moment. I could feel it in one of my mixes. It felt tight pulling it out of the mixer, as we shaped the dough, and I could still see that tension the next morning in the loaves on the canvas.

Gem suggested turning the oven down and giving them more steam - essentially slowing the rate at which the crust sets, giving the dough a little longer to relax.

Another small adjustment I’m learning to make.

This Week’s Obsession

The first stop on mine and Laure’s Ashburton tour was Briar Bakery, a small neighbourhood bakery selling yeasted and sourdough bakes, run by the lovely Sarah and Joe.

God, it was good.

My favourite was the sticky fruit bun - a dough made with mother and wholemeal stoneground flours, rolled out and spread with spiced sugar and a heavy helping of plump, soaked fruit, which is then rolled up, cut and baked like a traditional Chelsea bun. Deeply molasses-y, almost boozy, and just perfect to me.

This week in Cornwall, I (sort of) hitchhiked after getting lost on a walk near Padstow, made and baked a lot of bread, had the usual existential thoughts about my future, swam in a beautiful seaweed-full tidal pool, and watched a lot of sensational sunrises.

I hope you’ve had a great week too.

Cissy … xo

Below, for my paid subscribers, are a few thoughts torn from my notebook this week - the mistakes I’ve made, this week’s obsession, what I’ve been cooking, that sort of thing.

Next Sunday, free for everyone, is a recipe for a no-bake cheesecake. Well… you do have to bake the biscuits. Assuming you don’t bloody burn them!

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We’d come to visit Gothelney Farm, where almost all of the grain we use in the bakery is grown and milled.

In an attempt to escape the heat of the afternoon, we sheltered beneath an avenue of trees that dappled spots onto a nearby pig that lay panting on its side. Here we fell into a deep discussion about the landscape of British flour and the Rye and Mariagertoba that grew beside us. Fred spoke, as ever, with his infectious enthusiasm. A man committed to loving our biosphere. Every so often reality seemed to interrupt him. The list of jobs that needed to be ticked off before the imminent harvest, the school run, and getting the farm out of generational debt. It seems farming requires you to hold both hope and uncertainty at the same time.

We continued our conversation while weaving through the fields to the trial plots, where stalks vary in height and some heads are hairier than others. Little scratches on my bare arms and legs appear scorched into my skin.

These scratches are familiar ones.

They’re the same scratches I’d come home with after wandering through the wheat fields that bordered our family home when I was growing up. At this time of year, I’d be doing the same thing as I am now, brushing up against the wheat, ambling along the path carved out by the thick tyre marks of the tractors that upturned the dried earth. Listening to the swishing in the wind and feeling the sap of sticky weed staining my legs.

My sister and I would often stay out here for hours, making up dance routines, exploring the woods, and walking down to the river until the light dipped and turned a majestic honey colour.

When the harvest came, we were forced out of the fields, left to watch the tractors and combine harvesters thunder up the roads, leaving giant plumes of dust behind them. For a few summers, Mum managed to convince the farmers to let us ride with them in their cabs. Up there, the wheat looked like grass. Short, small and easily flattened. I could comfortably stand inside the hub of a tractor wheel. So inside the cab, I gripped onto the bar that ran along the side of the glass door. A little fearful of the slow, loud and methodical work being done.

The rides felt like they might last forever, but we were always called back inside for tea.

Afterwards, I’d watch from my bedroom window, where for twelve years I’d seen the fields change with the seasons. Muddy, damp, and full of potatoes, to swathes of bold, lemon-yellow rapeseed.

On some summer evenings, when the fields were now stubbled from their shave, I’d sometimes spot a hot-air balloon float over the Romney Marsh. They looked like giant coloured light bulbs, each injection of flame illuminating the fabric before it carried on.

Occasionally the bulbs would grow larger and larger on the horizon as they drifted closer to the house. Sometimes landing in the nearest field. When this happened, I’d drop my CDs or ‘my scene’ dolls and rush out to inspect it, bringing everyone in tow, as if it were some sort of extraterrestrial sighting.

To this day, Mum always complains I hated the outdoors. But those fields felt like my safe place. When I was in trouble, or felt misunderstood I would pack a bag with some treasured possessions - a book, some biscuits and my Horsey Horsey, and wrap myself impractically in my crisp white dressing gown, sneak out the back door, and rush into the wheat, where I’d crouch down and stare up at the clouds, hoping no one could see me. I’d roll a sheaf between my fingers, threshing the kernel from the chaff to inspect it, just like Fred does. I’d wait for the loud echoing calls of my Mum and Sister, who shouted my name with anger and a slight tinge of fear.

I always wanted to be found.

“Running away” never lasted more than half an hour, before Mum sentenced me to bed without dinner. In those short moments though, between escape and being found, I felt lost in a hidden world.

All these years later, I spend days surrounded by flour, rarely thinking about the past at all. But with one brush of grain and the heat of summer, somehow I found my way back.

A note…

Gothelney Farm is a family-run farm in Somerset, where much of the grain we use at Coombeshead Farm is grown and milled. Last year, I wrote about the farm and Fred’s work for Ómós Digest. If you’re curious to learn more about why it’s such a special place, you can read the piece here.

If you’d like a glimpse into what happens to that grain once it reaches the bakery, my friend Jacob McCarthy wrote a lovely piece about the bread-making process at Coombeshead Farm, which you can read here. Jacob is now the resident chef at 101 Bridport in Dorset, if you’re nearby, I recommend booking yourself a table.

As an adult, I don’t spend as much time in that imaginative world. Life’s chores getting in the way. That, and mindless doom scrolling. So, in an attempt to capture more of the beautiful things in life, I’ve started carrying a notebook around with me (something those of you who may have read my Italy travel diaries will know well).

These Field Notes are a place to share a few of the things I scribble down each week. Things like the mistakes I’ve made, what I’ve rustled up for dinner, a photograph I love, this week’s obsession, and whatever else makes me feel creative. It’ll be a little less polished than my essays. More like a torn page from my notebook.

I hope you enjoy it.

Cissy x

Having to Roll With It

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I watched two slow clouds roll across the sky until they kissed and became one as I lay in the Cornish grass.

I’d forgotten how something so small, so ordinary, so quiet, could feel like such an extraordinary act of joy.

Only twenty-four hours earlier, I’d left West London just after sunrise in my newly acquired, beaten up, twenty-five-year-old Toyota Yaris, that I’ve affectionately named Peggie. She’s small but mighty and only has a cassette player.

My head was thumping and sweat dripped down my skin as I loaded her up with a handful of my possessions. The gross, sticky swell of a London heatwave hadn’t subsided, even at that hour of the morning. And the one or two pints I’d had the night before were, now in hindsight, perhaps not the wisest decision for a five-hour drive down the motorway.

Alone in my car, that in some stroke of luck has excellent air conditioning, my tiredness slipped away the further I escaped the city. A smile sucker-punched my face in an almost sickening way, as I felt as if my life was starting again.

This move wasn’t exactly planned. In fact, it was a four-week turnaround. Somewhere between living out of a suitcase and travelling around Italy, an opportunity had presented itself to me - to spend the summer baking on a farm in Cornwall with one of my closest friends.

Now here I am, recreating the same bedroom I’ve been building since I was thirteen. It started at boarding school, then university, then rented flats. Mugs full of pens. Neatly stacked notebooks. Folded crates overflowing with kitchen utensils. Little rituals that help convince me, no matter where I am, this place will become home.

Once I’ve unpacked, I head straight for the sea.

I slip into the still water of the harbour. The sun is warm but the water still has bite. Around me are houses for witches, men fishing from the harbour wall, kids pushing each other in, some even somersaulting.

A little girl in a wetsuit floats past me on a spongy pool noodle, and shouts to her dad, “I don’t ever want to get out!”

She steals the words from my head, bringing them into existence.

Welcome to Cornwall.

Welcome to my new life for the summer.

Finding My Feet

A friend and I walk the rocky coastline, afraid of the ticks that might burrow themselves on our skin as we brush through the wild overgrowth. The sun beats down fiercely beneath the wind, the deceptive kind that makes you think you don’t need to wear suncream, until it’s too late and your skin is throbbing.

We scramble down through uneven, steep surfaces to the crystal clear water of the cove. I can see the Moon jellyfish dancing beneath the surface, effortlessly dodging the occasional kick of a swimmer’s foot.

We get so caught up trying to capture the moment on our phones that we almost forget to actually experience it. As though framing the photograph somehow matters more than the swim. Perhaps that’s a London habit we’ll slowly unlearn.

Eventually we do, and I feel spoiled that this is ours, paddling in the borrowed blue tide that’s slowly coming in.

After clambering back up the cliff, we find a place to stop for a pizza and a pint. We order a pizza so unbelievably large that we burst into laughter, and the waitress does too.

I carry back the slices we can’t bear to finish in a pizza box along the coastal path. I try to keep it flat but I can feel the slices slipping and the cheese congealing to the sides of the box.

How can this be my life?

One minute I’m in the midst of a London heatwave, which had this funny way of making me feel unbelievably sexy. I’d leave the house with a flirtatious strut, hoping the sweat will be mistaken for a mysteriously healthy glow, waiting for the brief validation of a stranger’s glance. Somehow it even gave me the gumption to seduce someone for the night (or two).

Now, I’m here. The urgency and the need to be validated has completely evaporated.

The only people paying me any attention are the locals in Tesco, who can sniff me out from an aisle away.

It’s quiet here too. I haven’t heard a single siren, or even the distant hum of a low-flying jumbo jet. The first night, the silence was a little unnerving. Now, there’s space to hear everything else.

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Handling Wet Dough

The dough is wet. On the edge of soupy, even, but we like to call it juicy. It’s delicate and sticks to my fingertips as I try to stitch it together. It stretches lazily on the wooden boards, some even downward to the floor.

I can’t seem to get to grips with it.

Inside the bakery, I’m having to learn a new rhythm. A dance everyone else can do on autopilot. I watch their hands, the way they shuffle their feet, even the way they wipe down the table, in the hope that I can absorb something through osmosis.

I manage to get the dough everywhere. My t-shirt, my socks, my hair. The dough dries into little pockets of crust against my skin, my legs constantly dusted with a creamy sand.

I love it. I love feeling a bit grubby. It feels like honest work.

At two o’clock in the morning, I learn how to load the loaves into the oven. We knock the dough from its banneton onto the canvas, score each loaf, then slide twelve at a time onto the hot stone floor of the oven. My scoring isn’t long or deep enough, leaving the baked loaves more like rugby balls.

I’m handed the loading reins, and start to load the loaves into the top deck. As I pull the loader away from the oven, it jolts. The resistance is unnerving. From then everything slows.

I pull hard, dragging all twelve loaves with me (which is very much not meant to happen). Hot dough slowly drips down the face of the oven like snot. The loader oozes too. It’s a horror film. Fuck!

Eight years working in bakeries and I’m still humbled by the smallest of mistakes.

A reminder that you’re never greater than this thing alive in front of you.

Or, sleep deprivation.

By the time the sun comes up, we’ve cleaned up, but the top deck is deemed out of action. We have to wait for the squashed loaves to char so we can scrape away the ashes.

RIP to the loaves, and my ego.

A few years ago, something like this would have sent my anxiety spiralling. Instead it disappears almost as quickly as it arrives. I chalk it up as a reminder that fucking up is always the best way to learn.

I jump into the sea. My extra skin of flour dissolves away.

The joy I’d been chasing in the city was like a firework. Loud, bright and momentary. Always leaving me wondering whether I was where I’m supposed to be. This feels different.

I bob on the waves letting the water carry me without question.

I really don’t want to get out.

Not a comprehensive guide, just some of the places I ate, drank and wandered into while moving through the city alone.

In all honesty, Lecce and I didn’t vibe. Yes, it’s beautiful, has a slower pace of life and you’re only a stone’s throw away from some incredible beaches. But at night and on the weekends, the narrow streets are like elbowing your way down Oxford Street at rush hour. Not for the faint hearted.

I also found some of the food to be underwhelming, often catering more to tourists rather than offering traditional dishes. This to me was less exciting than the abundance of choice I found in Turin or Bologna. But don’t let this stop you, it may be exactly your thing. These are simply my notes.

I’d recommend one or two days exploring the city itself, or staying there for longer but using it as a base for day trips around the region.

Map

I’ve created a Google Map of the places I visited in the city and along the coast, plus a few I didn’t quite make it to but wish I had.

I’ve added notes on what to order where it felt helpful and I’ve intentionally held some places back, because a map full of hundreds of pins can feel overwhelming and create the illusion that you need to see, eat, and do everything.

You don’t.

You’ll find your own places, and that’s really the joy of exploring somewhere new.

Think of this as a little starting point, not a checklist.

However within the city I do recommend gawping at the Baroque architecture and visiting the cemetery. And on the last Sunday of every month, there’s a flea market on Viale XX Settembre that’s well worth a visit. Especially if you want some cheap ceramics.

Learn a few phrases to haggle in Italian, it’ll be worth it!

Hire a car

I’ve marked a few useful parking spots on my shared Google Map, but beyond that, I have no notes, except to hire a car and have your wits about you.

To start your day

Sip a Leccese (an iced espresso sweetened with almond milk or syrup) in a piazza while reading your book. The sugar and caffeine will give you the hit you need to explore.

Take a slow brunch (or evening glass of wine) at Filiera Café. They serve specialty coffee, sourdough leavened pastries, natural wines, and that sort of thing, with a focus on local small-scale producers and building a sustainable community.

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Lunch and Dinner

For traditional Salento cooking, try La Zie Trattoria Casareccia. Book ahead to avoid disappointment. On arrival, ring the doorbell, an added homely touch that I loved.

For a quick, inexpensive lunch, grab a meatball sandwich at Mezzo Quinto.

For lunch or dinner further afield, make the trip to Agriturismo Da Marta. Part restaurant, part homestay, it overlooks a small plot of land where everything grown ends up on your plate, including a small wheat field, whose grain is harvested and milled into pasta. The tasting menu is cooked by a ninety-something-year-old nonna. It’s simple, reasonably priced, utterly picturesque and deeply rooted in the land.

Elsewhere, make sure to order these traditional dishes:

• Orecchiette: meaning “little ears” is Puglia’s iconic pasta shape. Formed by pressing your thumb into the dough to create concave cups that catch thick sauces and oils.

• Ciceri e Tria: on paper, fried pasta with chickpeas sounds perhaps a little underwhelming, but once you’ve tried this, you’ll never go back. Historically, frying part of the pasta gave peasants the rich mouthfeel of meat when they couldn’t afford it, earning it the nickname “the meat of the poor”.

• Fave e Cicoria: a classic rustic dish of silky pureed fava beans topped with garlicky, bitter chicory leaves.

• Riso, patate e cozze (also known as tiella barese): a traditional layered seafood casserole baked in a clay pot. Sort of paella meets gratin vibes. As it bakes, the top layer of rice and potatoes absorbs the juices of the mussels below and forms a perfect crispy top.

• Panzerotti: Think of this like a deep-fried calzone. The name comes from panza, meaning “belly”, which refers to the way the pizza dough puffs up like a swollen stomach when fried. A good street food snack after one too many aperitivos.

• Taralli: crunchy ring-shaped crackers, somewhere between a breadstick and a biscuit. You’ll find plenty of shops selling these so you can sneak a bag into your luggage.

Sweet Treats

Puglia is famous for pasticciotti, which are small oval pies made from buttery, golden shortcrust pastry and filled with a classic vanilla pastry cream, or sometimes a dark chocolate cream. You can pick one up at Il Fornaio and eat it overlooking the ancient Roman amphitheatre.

For the best gelato, head to Baldo Gelato.

Thank you for following my Italian travel diaries.

A reminder that I recently wrote a recipe for Torta di Riso (Rice Pudding Cake) for Kitchen Projects. A traditional Bolognese celebration cake that’s rich and fragrant with citrus and almonds. I’d love for you to check it out and give it a go.

Included in next week’s newsletter is the last of the pocket guides too. This time for Lecce, with a link to a Google Map included. If you’re travelling to Turin or Bologna this summer, you can find pocket guides for these cities on my homepage.

A little note too, if you’ve enjoyed my writing, please comment, like or share these posts, it makes all the difference.

Thank you … xo

Thursday 24th April

I drove a fucking car. In Italy! Can you fucking believe it?

Everyone drives like a maniac. I don’t know what the speed limit is and I’m not convinced they do either. But it doesn’t matter because I feel free.

Out of Lecce, into the countryside, then to the sea. Gallipoli.

At lunch, I sit overlooking the water. A waiter serves enormous grilled prawns tableside, tossing them with two serving spoons in a bath of melted butter, before lowering them onto plates.

Then a woman arrives. The kind who is elegant, chic and everything you want to be when you grow up. Somewhere between Kate Winslet and Samantha Jones. She doesn’t even open the menu, simply orders spaghetti al limone. A few minutes later, a man joins her. He speaks flawless Italian to the waiters. Then, without warning, a thick Essex accent appears.

I eavesdrop on their conversation whilst I eat paccheri coated in a light tomato sauce and swimming with whole bodies of squid. I fill in the blanks of what I hear, inventing their lives.

Her cream striped blazer, gold hoops, and blonde blowout are immaculate. She’s building a house, and he’s managing the project. It’s delayed. She delicately slurps on spaghetti, pulls out Singapore dollars and hands them to the man.

I’m engrossed and I want to know more, but the sea is calling and I can’t afford dessert.

Outside, the wind whips through my crisp white shirt. Spring. Summer. It doesn’t matter. The elements always have the same ability to breathe life into everything.

Later, I drive to Porto Selvaggio. The roads there are narrow tracks. The hire car feels enormous and each time I pass another car it takes a small act of faith for me to not end up in the ditch.

On the beach, I smile. There’s no one around. Only the creaks of the trees as they talk in the wind, and the smell of warm pine needles, wildflowers and oregano perfuming the air. Below Torre dell’alto the waves delicately lap the rocks.

Everything slips from my mind. I start to sing. I start to talk to myself.

The sea is glassy, cold and clear. I dive straight in, exposing my ghostly skin. I swim beyond the sheltered cove, floating for a while. I spin circles in the water like I used to as a kid. Round and round until the sea becomes its own tiny whirlpool.

Eventually I drag myself back to the shore. My skin a little numb.

Back in Lecce, I ring the doorbell of the trattoria.

Inside, photos of famous diners with the staff are framed and hang across the walls. A waiter carries freshly laundered red checked tablecloths through the dining room and he shoves them into a lacquered wooden dresser.

A small ochre pottery Parmigiano Reggiano cheese wheel is placed on my table, filled with grated pecorino. Then comes thick ribbons of curled pasta that look like an unravelled paper straw. The simplicity of tomato sauce, cheese and pasta never fails to amaze me.

Outside, an older man walks past, with a dirty bark coloured roll-up cigarette hanging from his lips. He smiles. I smile back. He keeps walking. Then turns, looks back and smiles again. I can’t help but burst into laughter. It feels second nature to be alone now.

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Friday 25th April

The restaurant sits hidden amongst fields overlooking the sea, an hour drive south of Lecce.

Everything served here is grown on the land. A full tasting menu cooked by a 90 year old nonna. It’s only €37.

I have the whole dining room to myself. My table looks out onto fields full of wheat and a blue sea beyond. In the distance I can hear the spits of oil bubbling, the ring of mobile phones and the crunch of my own chewing.

It’s a perfect dining experience, like sitting at a chef’s table.

Or perhaps it’s a lonely one.

Grilled peppers with breadcrumbs and mint. A slice of sweet potato with fresh chilli. A single spring onion charred but raw in the centre.

Then tempura chicory with black olives. Potato pizza topped with swiss chard and pecorino. Thin slices of raw pumpkin dressed lightly in lemon and olive oil. Tolica beans with salty greens in a meaty broth that congeals around the edge of the plate.

Then comes orecchiette. Proper handmade orecchiette. I can see fingerprints pressed into each ear of wholegrain flecked pasta.

More courses follow. Slow-cooked veal in a fennel broth.

Outside, boys play football on the grass as their family fills the room. Their laughter and noise echo through the restaurant.

Suddenly, without warning, I feel like crying. Not just a little bit, a lot!

Where has that come from?

The family gets louder.

I watch a white sailboat drift across the horizon. I stare at it and think how peaceful it would be to be out there.

A warm marmalade tart dusted with icing sugar arrives. The marmalade is dark and sweet, almost burnt.

Eventually I leave.

I get into the car, fold into myself, and rest my head against the boiling hot steering wheel. I let out what I was holding in. I convulse uncontrollably.

I call my big sister. She’s on a flight about to take off with her four-month old baby. She can’t help me. I can’t help her.

Her voice soothes me a little but everything feels enormous.

The big girl things. Packing up all your belongings and putting them into storage, leaving your job, cutting contact with someone you loved, hiring a big ass car and driving on the wrong side of the road, travelling alone, making decisions all the time.

None of these things feel especially hard in the grand scheme of things. But together, right now, they feel tough.

At some point though, you’ve got to stop holding it together, release it, accept it for what is and carry on.

So I turn on the car engine and drive to the closest beach.

Saturday 26th April

It’s my last morning.

I wander through the flea market. Rusty milk churns. Old Coca-Cola signs as big as me. Stacks of linen. Terracotta pots. Boxes full of crap hoping to be bought.

The sun is scorching.

I buy a Leccese - espresso poured over ice with almond syrup, and sip it slowly.

Back at the Airbnb, I make breakfast and begin packing.

As I’m carrying my suitcase downstairs, another guest appears.

“Ciao.”

“Ciao.”

The first person I’ve seen in the building all weekend.

Hannes from Heidelberg.

He’s wearing Service Works trousers and a workwear jacket with a book poking out of the pocket.

We start chatting and serendipitously discover we’re leaving at the same time, heading to the train station to catch the same train. Although he’s on his way to Matera. I’m heading home.

We walk together.

I find out he’s also on a two week solo trip and is also reading a book written by Joan Didion. What are the chances?

It surprises me how easy it is to talk to him and how much we have in common. There’s no awkward pauses. Making it feel particularly cruel that our paths are only crossing now.

He’s interesting, quirky and makes me laugh. The sort of qualities that make me feel at ease.

When I get off the train and we go our separate ways, I realise how much I needed that. Not romance or excitement, just connection and communication. Proof to me that loneliness and solitude aren’t quite the same thing.

Later, in Brindisi, I find a long black hair in my crab linguine. Fitting for my final meal.

I laugh and feel ready to go home.

In the airport, my flight is delayed. You can walk the entire departures lounge in about three minutes. So I sit on the floor and watch back-to-back episodes of Beef. Occasionally my mind wanders and I question what the trip has taught me, and whether returning to reality will feel as impending as it feels now.

I wish I had something profound to say.

I don’t.

Instead, I pause the show and write a list of goals for the next few months.

Here they are. The routines. The responsibilities. Beginning again.

For a few brief weeks, the world felt suspended. I was free to move through it wide-eyed, with nowhere to be except here, with myself.

Now it’s time to travel the length of Italy, all the way down to the heel of the boot.

Before I continue, thank you for reading these diary entries. At times I’ve felt like I’ve perhaps drifted too close to self-indulgent therapy, at others like I’ve finally found my voice. I’m not entirely sure what that says about me!? But to those who’ve reached out and those quietly following on, it genuinely means the world to me that you’ve even read this far. Thank you.

Next stop, Puglia.

Wednesday 22nd April

At the time, booking an eight-hour train to Lecce didn’t seem like a big deal. Now that I’m sitting here, eight hours seems like a lifetime.

I’ve come prepared again with a tray-table lunch: pesto coated beans, fried dough balls dusted with sugar, greasy chickpea polpettes, and other snacks to keep me entertained for approximately fifteen minutes.

Shortly after devouring everything, I’ve run out of water. There’s still five hours left to go and the buffet carriage is closed.

Closed!

I’m pretty sure I’m moments away from collapsing from dehydration (or at least my drama queen, hypochondriac behaviour is as though I am). I approach the conductors and explain I’m feeling sick, and in desperate need of water. They hand me some sanitising wipes, a roll of bright blue bin bags and a pocket-sized bottle of water, which quenches only a few gulps of thirst.

An hour later, the train stops briefly at a station. The conductors tell me I can sprint to the platform vending machine and they’ll wait for me. Thankfully they do.

Now I relax into my seat and watch as we follow the Adriatic coast, sometimes the train is so close to the water it feels as if we are skimming along it like a stone. The landscape changes too, as cities thin out, replaced with large open expanses. Olive groves stretching towards the horizon, whitewashed houses sitting alone among fields and palm tree leaves dancing in the wind.

The openness unsettles me slightly. I’m familiar with my default setting - when life becomes quieter, the space for my anxious thoughts gets louder.

As Lecce approaches in the dark, I wonder if maybe I’ve made a mistake. Or, maybe it’s finally time to face up to what I’m avoiding.

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Thursday 23rd April

I start the morning in my first modern café of the trip. The kind that has fallen straight out of East London and been slotted into a cream-stone street in southern Italy. Except it’s alfresco and drenched in warm dappled morning light.

Natural wine sits on the shelves, Sade sings from the speaker, almost everyone appears to be a tourist and the bill reflects it. Usually I’d feel as if I’d let myself down by giving into the temptations of expensive coffee when you can get rocket fuel for half the price and with a little bit more soul, but today the familiarity of home feels comforting.

I start chatting to the guy behind the counter, who I’ve come to discover recently left London for here. In London he regularly visited the bakery I used to work in. I think he even called it his mecca. (It’s a small world). He’s kind, but when I say I’m staying in Lecce, he looks disappointed. “There’s nothing much to do here.” Not exactly the reassurance I was looking for, but he scribbles some notes on a piece of paper and hands it to me. A list of places to eat and visit. Most of which I have to drive to.

Today’s challenge, then, is finding somewhere to hire a car. Something I hadn’t budgeted for and am slightly terrified of doing.

I watch the staff and regulars greet and tease each other. Everyone seems to know everyone. It reminds me of home and the familiar intimacy of working in a neighbourhood bakery. Where you feel like you belong somewhere, even if you feel completely lost elsewhere.

The barista pours water through the cone of a V60 in steady, slow circles. Drip. Drip. Drip. The coffee filters into the glass carafe beneath.

While eating a panino con polpette, hoping it’s not horse meat (the preferred choice by locals) I voice-note my best friend. Hearing her voice soothes me and breaks up some of my boredom. She’s going to the hardware shop, while I’m aimlessly sauntering through an intricately carved Baroque city, feeling a little claustrophobic. In some ways, the mundanity of her day seems more appealing to mine right now

She talks me down from the edge about my capabilities of hiring a car, makes me laugh and brings a sense of reality to my hyperbolised situation. I wish she was here. I wish we lived closer.

Our worlds stopped spinning at the same pace when I left Dublin a few years ago and ever since I’ve felt it’s been harder to connect in the same way. I miss out on the ordinary details, like what she’s having for dinner, who annoyed her at work, and the trivial gossip of our friendship group. The phone calls and the quarterly in-person meet ups don’t ever feel like enough.

Somehow we make it work.

She generously sends me some money to treat myself, so I sit on a hotel rooftop with a glass of sweet white wine and a bowl of thick cut crisps that leave salty stains on my notebook. I stare at the gargoyles on the Basilica di Santa Croce opposite. They stare back at me.

Everyone around me seems to be moving forward - getting married, buying homes, adopting dogs, thinking about children and mortgages. While I feel as though I’m just starting again.

For years, I’ve felt as if these things make you complete. Destinations of sorts. If I get X then I’ll get Y. A city. A job. A relationship. But as I get older and start to rebuild a life that’s taking me somewhere I hadn’t planned for, I don’t think I want those things to be my foundation anymore.

Because those things don’t make me complete.

I am complete enough.

This isn’t a comprehensive guide, just the places I ate, drank, and wandered into while wandering through the city.

I’ve included a link to my Google Map, so if you’re anything like me and prefer getting to know a city by eating your way through it, you’ll have a few places to get you going.

And, keep an eye out for my recipe for Torta di Riso, coming soon on Kitchen Projects. This classic Bolognese baked rice pudding is one of the city’s traditional celebration cakes. Citrusy, almondy and perfect with an espresso.

Aperitivo

Inside an unassuming off-licence, Zanasi, that looks as though it’s remained largely unchanged since the day it opened, you’ll find shelves lined with an assortment of bottles, spirits, wines and sweets. The best part, though, is the bar.

Order a glass of Settemezzo, a local amaro made with Bologna’s prized purple artichokes. Only a handful of farmers still grow and hand-harvest them, giving them an air of local pride. Blended with seawater and bitter orange peel, it’s a little gentler than the punchier Cynar.

Sip it at the bar whilst chatting to the friendly staff.

Lunch and Dinner

Most places in Italy open for lunch around 12pm and close by 2pm, reopening for dinner around 7.30pm. Hitting these windows is essential unless you want to go hungry (although that’s unlikely in Italy). I’d also recommend booking in advance where possible.

For traditional Bolognese cuisine try Trattoria Amedeo and Drogheria della Rosa. Order:

• Tortellini en brodo: soft ring-shaped pasta filled with mortadella and prosciutto, bathing in a light, meaty broth.

• Tagliatelle ragù: nothing like what we Brits call bolognese. This sauce is a labour of love made by slowly simmering beef and pork low and slow, until rich, deep and velvety.

• Lasagne alla bolognese: layers of vibrant green spinach pasta, béchamel, and ragù, baked until everything melts together. If you’re lucky, you’ll be served the corner slice - my favourite.

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For a quick, inexpensive lunch, grab a porchetta sandwich at I Panini di Mirò, just south of the hustle and bustle of the University district. Piazza Aldrovandi has a vibrant hum with lots of other street food stalls and students filling the square.

Other regional specialities worth seeking out are:

• Prosciutto

• Mortadella

• Parmigiano Reggiano

• Balsamic Vinegar: in Modena visit La Consorteria 1966. Here you can learn about the historic tradition of making balsamic vinegar and taste different ages.

• Erbazzone: a savoury pie of wilted greens, herbs and a generous amount of Parmigiano enclosed in a delicate pie crust. If you can, try a slice from L’orta di Lucia at the Slow Food Market.

Sweet Treats

Did you know we don’t just have Bologna to thank for its world renowned cured meats and cheeses but also for the evolution of modern gelato production. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant kitchen or anywhere that dabbles in making freshly churned gelato, you might recognise the name Carpigiani. This is the name of the two brothers who revolutionised gelato-making machines.

Just outside the city centre you’ll find their headquarters, along with the Gelato University and a small museum dedicated to its history. Here you can wander around soaking in the sugar, or even participate in a short workshop. It’s easiest to reach by car and best to book ahead online. What better way to spend an afternoon?

If you can’t make it though, sampling your way through Bologna’s gelaterias will just have to do (it’s a tough life).

The best gelato in Bologna, in my opinion, is at La Sorbetteria Castiglione. Here, order ‘Dolce Emma’, fresh ricotta and caramelised figs. Or ‘Viceversa’, zabione, sour cherries and chopped hazelnuts. For a more modern experience visit Cremeria Cavour, but expect to queue.

I didn’t make it to Ristorante Diana but I’ve seen the very Instagrammable performance of scooping gelato tableside, so perhaps it’s worth trying?

Gelato vs. Ice Cream

Both are beloved frozen treats, but gelato has a higher milk-to-cream ratio and only sometimes contains egg yolks, giving it a lower fat content than ice cream. Fat coats the tongue, so with less of it, the flavours of the ingredients come through more clearly.

Gelato is also churned much more slowly and served slightly warmer than ice cream. The slower churning incorporates less air, creating an incredibly silky texture, while the warmer serving temp intensifies the flavours on the palate.

Another thing you’ll notice is how gelato is served - scooped into a stubby waffle cone with a flat spade and shaped loosely into soft, overflowing folds. This shorter cone isn’t just for aesthetics, it keeps the right balance between creaminess and crunch, and it slows the melt just enough to keep it from dripping down your hand.

Think of eating gelato like going to the pub for a pint. It’s social, casual and completely unhurried.

Other traditional sweet treats to look out for whilst in the city are:

• Zuppa inglese: an Italian trifle layered with custard and sponge soaked in the scarlet coloured liquor Alchermes.

• Torta Tenerina: the name means ‘little tender cake’, but is commonly known to you and me as a flourless chocolate cake. A meringue meets brownie, soft and fudgy on the inside, with a light crunchy, crackled crust.

• Torta di Riso: imagine rice pudding. Now bake it with lots of citrusy aromats and fragrant ground almonds. Try this at Paolo Atti e Figli. Or, I’ll be sharing a recipe for this soon on Nicola Lamb’s Kitchen Projects for you to try at home.

• Candied Amarena Cherries: you can buy Amarena Fabbri worldwide, but why not try them in their home city. A small sour black cherry preserved in syrup.

Getting Around

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Thankfully, the city and I came to an understanding. Or perhaps more, accurately, I began to understand what I needed.

These are my final diary entries from my last few days there before I continued south.

Monday 20th April

The walk to Villa Ghigi begins through the city’s porticoes, past my favourite pasticceria where I grab a soft brioche bun overflowing with custard and a frothy cappuccino before ascending the roads that climb away into an open green expanse.

The first slopes of the park are full of signs of spring. A woman steals petals from a tree, pressing them into her notebook. A small stream slides across mossy rocks, hushing its surroundings into silence. The hand-shaped leaves of fig trees push through fences. Wild strawberries flower at the edges of the path, tiny white blossoms waiting for fruit.

Nature has always made more sense to me than cities. Where the panic of yesterday seemed so loud and debilitating, today it’s quiet.

Above me, chemtrails strike through the sky like lines drawn with a chubby chalk pastel. A nightingale whispers somewhere hidden in the branches. A father and young son tend to their beehives. Shape-shifting wall lizards scurry beneath the crunch of crisp leaves. I stumble across a couple lounging in the grass beside neat olive groves. Like the lizards, they scurry too, pulling their clothes back on. Sunbathing. Or something else.

Somewhere in the valley below, the drone of a lawnmower echoes. Then the church bells toll, one after another, rippling across the hillside to the city like falling dominoes.

Midday.

I sit on a bench overlooking Bologna and ask myself, something I always avoid - what do I actually want?

I want this. I want to write. I want to cook. I want to spend my days uncovering things and turning them into stories. I want to love, and I want a home.

A not-so-surprising revelation. So why does it feel so hard to make it happen?

I eat at Trattoria della Santa that evening. I can’t decide what to get, so I choose two dishes that feel compulsory when in Bologna - tortellini en brodo and tagliatelle al ragù. I read my book, drink a jug of wine, and finish with a gelatinous, sickly sweet zuppa inglese.

The walk home through the old town is dark, mysterious, and eerily quiet. I weave through the barely lit porticoes, feeling the weight of the city’s ancient history.

It’s monastic. It’s grounding.

Tuesday 21st April

I set my alarm for 6am to go for a run. I don’t.

Instead, I wake to the sound of heavy rain knocking against the shutters. The weather makes the decision for me. It’s another slow morning.

I brew a thick treacle-like coffee and drink it in the bath, feeling my tongue become drier and my heart a little faster. The bathroom window keeps swinging open, releasing clouds of steam into the humid air outside. Somewhere, a deep thunder rolls in.

It’s ok to be still. I repeat to myself like a mantra.

Out of the bath and into Bologna. The city is so beautiful in the rain, and you barely get wet. The porticoes shelter you almost everywhere you go. There’s just a dance of umbrellas as you jump over murky cobbled puddles from one to the other.

Open, close.

Open, close.

I hop on a train to Modena. It smells intensely of mortadella. Almost unpleasantly so.

Modena is sleepy.

I spend the morning tasting balsamic vinegars and wandering through the market, where towers of fresh peas and Parmigiano Reggiano sit beneath hanging cured animals.

I buy nuggets of the rich aged cheeses - 16, 30 and 36 months - and chew on them like sweets.

Lunch is upstairs at a dimly lit trattoria where almost every table is occupied. On a Tuesday no less.

“No tables for one,” the waitress tells me. Then she gestures to an empty chair opposite an older gentleman who’s already halfway through his lunch.

He looks up at me, a little disgruntled and hesitant. He’s broad-shouldered, bald and somewhere near his sixties. His napkin is tucked into his shirt like a bib. It catches the milk-like juices that fall from his fork of shredded red onions. He dips the hard crusts of bread into the bowl in front of him, swirling it round like a mop.

As I sit down, I decide to be brave and break the awkward silence.

“Tu parla inglese?”

He looks up at me with bemused, almost vacant eyes, he shakes his head.

The conversation ends and I retreat into my book. Not exactly a great start to this mismatched blind date.

For a while we sit there in silence. The waitress creates an invisible line in the table by moving my cutlery closer to me, and the carafe of white wine towards him. I order pork roasted in balsamic vinegar with a side of braised cabbage, studded with plump raisins.

Then the man lifts the carafe and nudges it towards me. An olive branch of sorts.

I take this as an opportunity to reopen communications. I open Google Translate and thrust the screen towards him. I ask him where he’s from. He responds by pointing to the earth. Ah. He’s from Modena.

From there the conversation begins, as we exchange muddled translations and universal hand gestures.

The couple sitting next to us overhear. Sure, how could they not? We’re all practically holding hands, the tables are so close. Their English is almost perfect. Soon we’re discussing their pizzeria, their homes, their recent hike through Puglia, and all the places I must see and eat. Every few minutes they slip back into Italian and I continue to nod along in solidarity.

Only an hour earlier, I’d been trepidatious about sitting opposite this man. Now the four of us are talking over each other. Whether we fully understand one another doesn’t really matter.

It’s strange how I often avoid moments like this, caught up in my own thoughts, fears, and my phone. Yet they’re the ones I cherish most.

Later, back in Bologna, I queue thirty minutes for a scoop of gelato.

I take it outside and sit in the park. Above me, a suited man puffs on a cigarette from a balcony so grand I wonder if he’s going to start waving like the Queen. Across from me, young lovers kiss between mouthfuls of sorbet. To the side, a woman moves from bench to bench, chasing the last patches of sunshine. The city glows, casting long dappled shadows.

I feel sentimental. Privileged, even, to be a spectator to these small fragments of other people’s lives. To steal moments that, back home, I might not catch. Too consumed by my own plans and my own thoughts.

Too busy, or so I tell myself.

On the balcony of my Airbnb, I listen to the fast click click click click of the neighbour’s gas hob as it fires into life. Dinner. I write furiously until I can see her again.

The moon. Patiently waiting above the rooftops.

Next week, I’ll be sharing my Bologna guide. It’s full of practical notes, food recommendations, and a link to a curated Google Map to help you explore the city for yourself.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I spent four days in Turin before boarding a train bound for Bologna.

This is the next chapter.

Cissy…xo

Saturday 18th April

The train to Bologna goes by faster than I expected. Probably because I’ve spent most of it assembling and savouring a makeshift charcuterie board on the fold-down tray table. I slice off hunks of cheese from Latteria Bera and flick them into my mouth with my electric green Opinel folding knife. For a moment, I feel self-conscious about this whole performance, but then I notice that almost everyone else in the carriage is chewing on lunch too - piadine and thick slabs of focaccia layered with cured meats. My lunch suddenly seems far less out of the ordinary than if I’d pulled out a flaky Greggs sausage roll.

Bologna greets me with a muggy swell of heat and larger crowds than Turin. Mostly everyone seems to be my age and looking like they’ve fallen out of the Urban Outfitters catalogue. I bounce my suitcase along the road, the wheels catching in grooves and clipping my ankles, but eventually I make it to my new home for the next few nights.

A quick change and then I’m bounding up the 498 steps to the Santuario Madonna di San Luca. A brutal, sweaty climb. The kind of thing unhinged people run up for fun. At one point, I think the steps will never end, and I try not to catch the eyes of people descending. Their faces are smug and read, ‘yep, keep going, you’re nowhere near’. Eventually, I reach the top. The views over the hills to the stadium and the city, where architecture of the past blends with the new, makes the white shirt sticking to the curve of my spine worth it.

I check my phone. Over 30,000 steps today. Whoosh. I normally only do a fifth of that.

Later, I trade my trainers for something that makes me feel unusually pretty, a flowing white skirt and a black crop top. I’m more used to Service Works pants and a grubby faded tee.

At Drogheria della Rosa, I ask if they have a table for one. The waiter asks his boss. His boss flicks through the scribbled reservation book and tells me to wait. So I stand there, for ten minutes, in the way of other diners who are seated ahead of me, and big bowls of Parmesan cheese. Should I ask again? The boss, a grey-haired, older Italian man in a waistcoat, clips the waiter sharply on the shoulder and barks at him, in a way that makes me recoil - a Gordon Ramsey nightmare, minus the television cameras. I try to catch the young waiter’s eye to check he’s alright, but he keeps his head down. I think again about asking for a table.

Eventually, the boss seats me outside on a white tablecloth table for two. While I study the menu, a glass of wine is poured, followed by the customary Italian bread basket and a neat cube of frittata. When the boss returns, he hugs me, because, apparently, “I am alone.” The pity in his voice makes me feel insulted and infantilised, except I momentarily fold under the touch of another human. Then I remember the way he treated his staff and I recoil again. Men with power. Slimy.

A perfect corner edge piece (my favourite piece) of layered green lasagne arrives on a white scalloped plate. Seven layers. Light but rich. Crisp and soft all at once. I melt away into my own world.

The boss is right, I am the only person dining alone among a cacophony of couples. One pair is waiting impatiently for their late food, another is trying to coax tortellini into their baby’s mouth, and another is sitting in silence.

That familiar pang of loneliness creeps in as I suddenly feel very visible. I wish I could share this with someone.

Sometimes the fast clickety clack of an expensive bike chain soars past me and erupts my memory. He would’ve loved squeezing into that fucking awful Lycra and soaring around the scenic roads. He would’ve complained about the heat and adored the food. It makes me wonder what he’s doing now.

Not that I should give a fuck. Love is a spell on the mind, and heartbreak a curse.

I look at these couples again, who are mute, who are bickering, who are existing without really seeing each other, and it makes me feel so free.

Next to me, from the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a man’s white Adidas Stan Smiths sliding up a woman’s leg beneath the tablecloth. The fabric bends into animation, like Jude Law’s napkin head in The Holiday. I’ve been overhearing the young Australian couple’s conversation all evening. It’s dry, and now this. I have the ick. Or maybe I’m just jealous?

The osso buco falls apart in front of me, impossibly tender. I suck out the buttery bone marrow and drink more wine.

Then, almost by accident, I look up.

There it is - the moon.

A new moon, glittering faintly between the narrow corridor of houses opposite. I can still make out its full shadow.

It surprises me how much the sight of it steadies me. My long fascination with something so wildly alluring and rhythmic. I smile and I soften because in that moment, I know I’m not alone.

Sunday 19th April

My feet still throb from yesterday’s climb.

I don’t want to do anything today, but I don’t want to waste a day. It’s ok to relax though, right? A concept I still struggle to get into my head. To sit still and simply be with myself.

Hungry, I stroll through the quiet Sunday porticoes to the Slow Food Market. Despite the early hour, every stall is busy. There are wheels of cheese, crates of vegetables, and jars of honey catching the light. Everything looks good. I let go of overthinking and place a bet on which one to queue for.

Luckily, it pays off.

I point to a corner piece of slab pie and order it, without knowing what it is. The pastry is flecked with bran. I ask if it’s wholegrain flour and am told it’s made with an ancient grain, but that’s as far as our conversation can go. To be honest, it doesn’t matter. That’s enough to speak my language.

The shortcrust pastry is filled with soft swiss chard, sweated-down onions and lots of Parmesan. I Google it. A traditional pastry from the town of Reggio Emilia, called Erbazzone. I scoff it on a bench, feeling temporarily high from my discoveries.

Back at the apartment, the high has worn off.

Bologna feels different to Turin. Busier. Younger. Bigger. It feels confident. Something I can’t match today. I’m tired, which heightens my anxiety and makes me feel self-conscious, and it begins to trap me. So I trap myself indoors. There are stacks of espresso cups piling up in the sink, stained with brown rings. I can’t bring myself to clean them.

I am avoidant.

The only thing I can persuade myself to do is stroll a few feet around the block to the gelato shop. I order a scoop of Viceversa — zabione, chopped hazelnuts and dark sweet cherries — and another called Dolce Emma, made with fresh ricotta and figs.

I sit on a doorstep outside, licking the fast-melting gelato from the side of the short, stubby waffle cone before it runs down my fingers. Around me, people queue, chat, and drift along.

I feel better.

I wander through the nearby park as the sky begins to darken. I steal a few minutes on a bench with my book before thunder barks, low and heavy in the distance. Thick raindrops begin to fall through the air.

I head home. I run a bath. I read my book. That’s it.

It’s funny how deeply I’ve been conditioned to equate productivity with value. To measure my days by what I’ve achieved, seen and ticked off.

I’m learning to listen to my body more. Today it said: rest. It said that a Sunday abroad can look like a Sunday at home, something my sister patiently tried to remind me over the phone. That not every hour needs to be maximised. Not every moment is filled with wonder. It just took my brain all day to catch up. To release the guilt.

Maybe travelling with someone else would have made a day like today easier. There’d be another mind to make decisions. Someone to corral me into action. Instead, every decision belongs to me. Some days, that freedom feels exhilarating. Today it feels like work.

I hear my friend Louis Thompson has written another incredible piece for Nicola Lamb’s Kitchen Projects (out today), this time all about elderflower. Perfect synchronicity. Give it a read.

Much love,
Cissy … xo

Elderflower and Polenta Cake

Italy’s cooking is profoundly shaped by regionality in a way few other countries’ cuisines are. Each region retains a fierce culinary identity, shaped by politics, climate and geography. On my travels, I saw this on restaurant menus, in pasticcerie display cabinets, and in market stalls as I moved from North to South.

In the North, sweet treats are rich, comforting and influenced by the Alpine climate: heavy on butter, made with the world’s best hazelnuts, and laden with liqueurs and wines. (See my Chocolate Baci di Dama recipe.)

It’s no surprise, then, that I fell in love with it.

Back in England, and desperate to cling onto my trip for just a little longer, I bought a heap of secondhand cookbooks, among them Classic Food of Northern Italy by Anna del Conte. Flicking through its pages, neatly divided by region, I came across a recipe for pan di miglio, or millet bread.

The recipe originates from Lombardy, a region made up of nine provinces, including Milan - somewhere I didn’t properly venture into, despite passing straight through it by train as I snaked from Turin to Bologna via Milan. In hindsight, this now feels like a regrettable decision, but we are where we are.

The flavours and ingredients of the recipe felt unexpectedly British and, with elderflower season in full swing, it felt only right to give this recipe a go.

Traditionally, pan di miglio is baked for St George’s Day on the 23rd April (the patron saint of dairy farmers). Historically made with millet flour (though nowadays more commonly with polenta) and fresh elderflowers, the dough is shaped into small round buns that take on a rich yellow hue during baking. The finished buns are then dipped into cream before eating.

I’m still not entirely sure whether these sit more comfortably in the camp of sweet bread, biscuit or cake, perhaps somewhere between all three.

I’ve adapted the original recipe, as I found the traditional version quite gritty and dense. I wanted to nudge it towards something a little softer while still preserving its rustic character, mainly by incorporating a small amount of oil and soaking the polenta. I was also keen to keep this recipe true to its simple roots, requiring no special equipment or elaborate technique. That means there’s very little aeration, no creaming butter and sugar, no whisking to ribbon stage, but it still feels like a light, fluffy sponge. Expect something perfect to eat alongside a cup of coffee in the morning.

Elderflower and Polenta Cake Recipe

Serves 8

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A collection of practical notes from a few days in Turin in April.

Not a comprehensive guide, just the places I ate, drank, wandered into, and quietly kept returning to while moving through the city alone.

Cafés, bars, pastry shops, and small observations that might be useful if you’re passing through, or if, like me, you prefer learning a city by eating your way through it.

Where to Eat and Drink

Coffee

• Drinking coffee at the bar is the best place to get a quick, inexpensive hit of caffeine, and also how the locals do it.

  I went to Caffè Torino a few times to try different offerings. A cappuccino is only €2.00 when taken at the bar.

• If you want to try the famous bicerin – a layered drink of espresso, chocolate ganache and frothy cream – you need to go to its birthplace, Caffè al Bicerin. Ravin (the stranger from the bench) told me you only need to try it once.

• Caffè Mulassano and Caffè Elena are both excellent spots for people watching. Elena also serves its own house amaro.

Aperitivo

• Tucked inside Parco del Valentino, Imbarchino is a lively riverside bar filled with students, gossip, and cheap drinks, all overlooking the rowers on the water. A lovely aperitivo stop before dinner.

• Banco Vini e Aperitivo and ISOLA are modern spots that are trendier and noticeably more expensive than the classic cafés.

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Thank you for joining me on my Italian journey. To accompany my diary entries, I’ve written a few Italian-inspired recipes that originate from the regions I visited. Up first are these, legendary “lady’s kisses” (or baci di dama), which are two domed hazelnut butter biscuits married together with melted chocolate. First invented in Piedmont, where the hazelnuts are among the best in the world, they’re a staple of Italian bakeries.

I’ve made a chocolate version by adding cocoa powder to the dough, but you can easily omit it if you prefer. Either way, they are incredibly light, melt-in-the-mouth biscuits that can be made in a food processor, making them incredibly easy to prepare.

Lots of love,

Cissy…xo

Chocolate Baci di Dama Recipe

Equipment

• Food processor

Ingredients

Makes around 16 sandwich biscuits (32 individual biscuits)

• 100g toasted hazelnuts

• 100g plain flour or 00 flour

• 20g cocoa powder

• 65g golden caster sugar

• Pinch of salt

• 87g cold unsalted butter, coarsely grated

• 40g dark chocolate

• 40g milk chocolate

Notes

• Swap the melted chocolate for a teaspoon of chocolate hazelnut spread. It’s not traditional, but Piedmont is the birthplace of Nutella, after all. I like the crunchy version from Bonne Maman.

• Freeze the hazelnuts before blitzing to prevent them from getting too warm and releasing too much oil.

• Freeze the coarsely grated butter before mixing.

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The attention to detail in the pasticceria is theatrical.

A golden platter with a cardboard handle. Scalloped wax paper cushioning each pastry. Everything wrapped and taped in printed paper so the bite-sized treasures won’t be crushed.

I stumble in after a meditative cycle along the Po River, gliding through the tree-lined path, among dog walkers and other cyclists. The city disappearing behind me.

The woman in the shop doesn’t speak English. Why should she? I don’t speak Italian. Thankfully, a local woman with a blonde blow-out, sun-leathered skin, and a bag full of baked goods interjects my fumbling interaction. Saving me.

I ask her to order me her favourites and whatever is most local. I’m handed a basket of pasticceria mignon (miniature pastries).

A candied chestnut placed on top of a custard-filled chocolate cup, a pastry shell filled with ganache and topped with gianduja chocolate ruched like a fan, a drop of choux stuffed with curd and kissed with pink icing, another choux, this time shaped like a king-oyster mushroom. It’s filled with a chestnut custard and dusted with cocoa powder, convincingly looking freshly foraged (known as funghetti).

Also in tow, a collection of shortbread cookies, baci di dami, a jammy thumbprint cookie and something resembling a Viennese whirl. Everything costs six euros. Six.

I unwrap these presents delicately, like it’s my birthday, as I sit beneath the tolling bells of the Basilica Di Superga. Only a steep tram ride away from the pastry shop. (Which I almost missed, as they only go once an hour, and I was consumed in the bakery).

Around me, rolling green mountains that merge into snow caps, and the City way down in the valley. I feel peaceful. I think, “I am meant for this. For wandering. For awe.”

A group of rowdy children surround me and pull me back to the present.

Back in the city, I stop for a bowl of agnolotti del plin - little pinched pastas filled with meat and coated in a thick, meaty gravy.

A botanical blend of aromatics and herbs arrives swirling over ice, caramel coloured in the tumbler. The amaro frosts with sweat from the sunlight.

Stale grissini and slices of bread in a paper bag ripped open.

Afterwards, I wander for hours like a flâneur. Soaking in what I can. A man selling vintage Campari posters. Elderly men in three-piece suits with felt hats, cravats and minute round glasses. Real gentlemen. Women with silver roller-set hair and oversized sunglasses sipping on crisp wine.

The old-timey feeling reflects in the chandelier of Florio, where I gorge on an ice-cream sundae.

At Porta Palatina (the largest fruit and vegetable market in Europe), I take a photograph of a group of workers smoking after their shift in the dropping light. Quickly, one man stands and rushes over to me. Screams at me. Loudly. Aggressively. In Italian. My heart quickens.

A woman appears and intervenes, translating and trying to calm him down. “She’s a tourist,” she says. But he keeps shouting. Then more men appear. How do I explain that I can’t delete the photo, it’s stuck to the plastic sheet rolled up inside my camera?

I leave quickly. Trying not to cry.

What a baby, I think. But, this is hard. Being alone with no one to soften these moments. No one to reassure you. No one to eat the other half of your sundae when you start to feel sick.

That evening I buy vegetables from the supermarket. Cannellini beans, a tomato, a sweet red pepper and some basil. I drown everything in olive oil and salt. Desperate for something not made of sugar.

I wash my already dirty whites in the sink to distract myself from myself. Thoughts. Thoughts. Thoughts. That bloody photograph better be worth it.1

Friday 17th April

I listen to my favourite podcast whilst walking to the train station. The man in my ears speaks about his attitude to life, which is not trying to deduce it all through equations. Just taking everything as it comes. I wish I knew how to do that more.

In Bra, I move through the market like a fish out of water. I want to order everything. Rotisserie chicken with salty chips. Piedmont cheeses. Hanging cured meats. Crisp fritto misto. Bundles of cimi di rapa curling in the heat. Teardrop heads of radicchio. Bouncy globes of tomatoes. Language fails me. I don’t know how and I’m scared to pull out Google Translate amongst the long queues of locals. Instead, I observe.

I drink a cappuccino and eat a soft brioche bun at the bar, while policemen sip on their espresso, which has been filled with two sachets of white sugar. The pasticceria is lined with dark wood panelling, slotted together with floor-length mirrors. In the corner sits a giant espresso cup large enough to fit a child.

I walk the streets, catching my reflection in the shop window. My body looks a little unfamiliar. It’s quietly shifted without my noticing. Or maybe now I’m only just paying attention. I feel like I’m becoming stronger, a woman.

People gather on the cobbled streets to gossip. Breakfast, lunch, and most hours in between. It feels communal. Less rushing from one place to the next, like in London. It makes me wonder what the fuck I’m doing with my life.

At Osteria del Boccondivino, the pea-shaped blossoms of the wisteria are wilting. Little violet leaves scatter the bricks and sun umbrellas. It grows impressively up the railings to protect the two floors, weaving through the grates. The manmade and natural entwining. Below a restaurant, famed for being part of the pioneering Slow Food Movement.

I eat slowly, savouring soft, yeasty, wholemeal bread, the famous Pane di Bra, and grissini that snap perfectly with each semolina-crusted bite.

Vitello tonnato. Ribbons of pink veal and tuna emulsified in a rich mayonnaise, plated like a flower. The meat marbled with barely a chew. Then a plate of “40 egg yolk” Tajarin with Bra sausage ragù. Each ribbon of pasta is slightly distinct from the next, signs of being hand-cut. The ragu is soft. Softer than the pasta, which still has bite.

Men in suits, women in shirts and blouses. I stand out. Black suede grubby Birkenstocks, cream capri trousers and a black and white adidas tracksuit top.

A small jam jar of Parmesan arrives at the table. And a little bell rings in the distant kitchen like at school. I’m debating in my head the appropriateness of taking the paper bag of bread home because it tastes so good. I will. Fuck it. I tuck it into my overflowing tote and hope no one sees.

Men in suits pour wine for each other, showing off the labels, and I can only assume, through their gestures, that it is a symbolic jerking each other off. A status performance disguised as connoisseurship. The only woman at the table stares onwards.

Defeated. I want dessert, but I can’t.

Later, in Turin, I regret booking dinner.

At Scannabue, I order tartare. A mistake. Three mounds of raw meat. The animal’s heartbeat smacking out. I force a few bites, trying to disguise flesh with slippery, salty anchovies. I apologise internally to the cow. The agnolotti that follows redeems my bad choice. It swims in butter. There’s no gravy sauce like yesterday. Each time I stab a parcel onto my fork, I slide it across my plate, coating it in butter like a paintbrush dragging paint across a wall.

The room fills up. I recognise the English voices. As it gets louder, I feel lonelier.

I’m considering going to a bar. Meeting someone. Drinking more. But I don’t want to spend more money to just end up feeling more lost. Instead, I go home.

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18th April

It’s my final morning in Turin, so I force myself to get up and go. I run. The city is quiet, the heat begins to burn through the clouds, I feel lighter.

I stow my luggage in a locker, enjoy a creamy Marocchino at the bar, then head to a cheese shop.

Inside, through the blue fly chains, time has slowed. Cream whips in a clunky barrel mixer and is served in cups like gelato. Gorgonzola oozes and is scooped from the wheel. Zabaglione churns in the window like golden silk. And candied fruits shine as they swim in a fishbowl of syrup.

A patient woman helps me choose local cheeses and cured meats for my train journey lunch. She kindly writes every name on the wax paper so I can research it later. Montebore. Toma. Salame di Monferrato.

I carry them onto the train with a tomato salad stuffed into an old yoghurt container.

The city starts to fade behind me, whilst I eat the bread I stole from lunch.

Time feels endless when you’re alone, but Turin’s showed me I’m more than capable.

Next week, I’ll be sharing my Turin guide. It’s full of practical notes, food recommendations, and a link to a curated Google Map to help you explore the city for yourself. Oh, and a recipe too!

It was a trip that had been quietly brewing for some time, but only came together a few weeks before I flew.

What followed was a journey of small encounters, solo meals, moments of discomfort, beauty, and unexpected clarity.

Over the summer, I’ll be sharing excerpts from my journal alongside city guides, curated maps, and essays shaped by what the trip revealed.

This is the first chapter: four days in Turin.

Tuesday 14th April

I have a sick feeling in my stomach as I sit on the edge of a blue leather seat, bound for Turin. It feels like I’m about to do something completely stupid: spend money I don’t really have and fling myself into the unknown.

For what?

To experience life? To outrun my anxieties? To face the heaviness of everything that has happened?

I’m not sure I’ve thought this through.

My eyes mist. I’m on the edge of hysteria.
What am I doing?

Little shards of crisps are scattered across the floor at my feet from whoever sat here before me. The remnants of someone else’s journey. Now here I am, on my own.

Let your arms out to the universe and ask it for the answers, the podcast narrator tells me. Where are you going and what is your purpose?

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know! Why do you think I’m on this bloody plane in the first place?”.

Never more have I felt the world’s pressures to have it all mapped out by now. 31. Single. Unemployed. Living with my parents. I’m floating somewhere in between.

All I know is that I want to feel at home. To have my own home. To learn. To be free.

Where that is, I don’t know yet.

My soul is feeling a little lost, a little bruised. Not helped by the fact that when I turn the pages of my book, Nesting, I’m reminded of him. The places the characters go are so hauntingly familiar: Phoenix Park where we kissed sheltering from the rain beneath the canopy of the trees; Dollymount Strand where the dog raced into the waves; the turn at Glasnevin crossroads towards his parents’ house.

I clench my jaw to stop myself from crying. It works, only just.

It’s been a year and four months.
How can the pain still feel so real? I guess it’s stitched into me.

It feels cruelly unfair. And also, something else. Something so beautiful. So beautiful to have proof that I can love so deeply. That it was all real. And now that I’m here.The stubborn, strong rubber bands of pain, are slowly snapping free.

Maybe that’s why I’m here. This impulsive, gut-led decision to leave. Not for a holiday. To heal. To let go.

Wednesday 15th April

I’m drinking an espresso from a small yellow machine in my aggressively primary-coloured painted accommodation. It tastes faintly of vanilla. The sky is grey, but I know it will clear.

The obvious question: Where do I begin?

The espresso is gone in two gulps. That feels like a start.

The supermarket, obviously. Weirdly, my favourite place to explore. In my opinion it tells you a lot about the place you’re in.

Inside, it’s a joy, much more than our Tesco. Ricers, moulins, endless packets of grissini, a whole aisle dedicated to different shapes of pasta, vegetables freed from plastic, citrus fruits still clinging to their leaves actually smelling like something. Alive. A sign of a culture that is happy to eat and cook well.

Outside, the street is perfumed with a heady mix of men’s aftershave and cigarette smoke. I look up: on one side, the snow-peaked tips of the Alps; on the other, soft green hills rising towards the Basilica di Superga.

I’m dropped into the middle of it, slightly dazed.

I’ve already learned the hard way the rhythm of Italian transactions: order first, pay, order again at the bar with your receipt, then receive. There’s choreography to it. In Caffè Torino it’s no different. The dolci sitting in glass cases like they’re on display in a museum. I order, then stand at the bar and sip a velvety cappuccino. (It’s cheaper this way). And oh, so much more delicious than at home.

“Aperol Spritz! Campari Soda! Caffè! Macchiato!”

The waiters call out orders to each other in a rhythm that fills the room, bouncing off the walls like music. (There is no music). A flickering red Martini sign hums under the portico. Outside, the afternoon begins to warm, just as I hoped it would.

They spot my foreignness immediately. I fumble through the handful of Italian phrases I know, words catching in my throat. I feel useless for a moment, just standing there.

But I try to soften it with a look that’s begging, half apology, half plea, and luckily, they meet me there.

Lunch is two piadine: one with melanzane (aubergine), cheese and tomato; the other porchetta, scamorza and potato. Less than nine euros for the two. My eyes, as always, are bigger than my stomach. Too used to someone else finishing what I can’t.

I sit in Piazza Castello, watching the world pass by, pulling the porchetta from one flatbread and stuffing it into the other, to make the sandwich I really want.

A man gestures towards the stone bench, asking something in Italian. I assume he wants to sit. The language barrier feels thinner than I expected, as the hands do most of the work.

He notices my camera and switches to perfect English.
“Are you a photographer?”

It’s a gateway question. Suddenly, I’m having lunch with a stranger.

Ravin, from North-West London. In Turin for language school.

Each time he goes to show me something on his phone, he pulls out a tiny pair of frameless glasses from the back of the case. Sort of comical but very practical.

He gives me a list of places to see, small anchors in a city that still feels wide open. And tells me about the troubles his young-adult children are having trying to find jobs, despite reputable degrees. “It’s who you know, not what you know”, he says.

Later, wandering aimlessly and suddenly desperate for a wee, I slip into a fancy hotel and walk with purpose, as if I belong. No one questions it. I peel off my socks, wash my hands, and try to cool down in the bathroom. Wearing all black was a big mistake.

Ravin recommended an ice cream spot, Papalele, which isn’t far away.

I order one scoop of gianduiotto (inspired by the region’s signature chocolate and hazelnut ingot shaped sweets) and one called Romance: stracciatella-like, with shards of chocolate and strands of candied peel. I eat it standing in the square, the sun now fully out.

I try to draw. It’s bad. I’m out of practice. Still, the gelato is heaven. I feel like I could cry.

I drift to Imbarchino, a bar by the river, full of students. I order a candy-red Campari Spritz and sit by the water, watching rowers glide past. The language around me is fast, melodic, and out of reach.

I’m a little drunk almost immediately. I blame the sun.

Dinner is at Pescheria Gallina. Wine, bread, and a main for €17. Not the romantic Italian dinner I might have imagined for a first night, but it’s full of locals, loud and alive. Their beady eyes flick toward me, silently willing me to finish so they can take my seat.

The fish pie is like something you’d have at home. Soggy pastry stuffed with courgettes, chunks of cod, with an underseasoned, underdressed shaved fennel and radish, leafy green salad. Comforting.

By the time I leave, the panic from yesterday feels further away and I feel more confident.

I moved. I spoke. I ate. I sat with strangers.

For now, that’s enough.

Behind the overwhelming enormity of everything in New York, from the buildings to the takeaway coffee cups, there’s a feeling that anything is possible. That’s why people move here, right? It’s a city built on ambition. The energy radiates from the pavement upwards, from the people rushing past you, from the constant sense that something is always happening just around the corner.

And yet, whilst the city keeps moving outside, inside there’s a much slower rhythm. One dictated entirely by the eating and sleeping rhythms of my new niece and nephew.

This trip wasn’t about ticking off restaurants or racing between neighbourhoods. It was more like Christmas: constant feedings (for everyone), long stretches sitting still with a baby in your arms, and time measured in naps rather than reservations. Luckily for me, my brother and sister have lived in New York for over twenty years, meaning the hard hitters of my growing checklist have mostly been ticked off. This time, the city felt secondary. Which, in many ways, made everything simpler, as any time spent away from my family had to be intentional. There was no point overwhelming myself with a sea of little blue dots saved on Google Maps. I was never going to get to all of them anyway. Located mostly around Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, we dipped in and out of places that felt easy, familiar or simply because they were close by.

The Supermarket Pilgrimage

Supermarkets always hit differently abroad, and America takes it to another level.

Our first stop (perhaps shamefully) was Whole Foods and CVS. Not because we really needed anything, but because it’s a ritualistic spectacle. In fact, a must.

The fruit and vegetables glow like they’re on stage, polished and perfect. Occasionally misted by a rigged-up watering system that gives a “just-picked” illusion. Even the packaged food is theatrical. Bold, brightly illustrated labels wrapped around tins, playful cartoon fonts trying to signal authenticity, charm and small-batch credibility, though likely not.

It’s hard to resist. And you can’t.

The till racks up $50 on only a few items, things like a pot of hummus, the “best tortilla chips ever” (according to my sister on the Mi Nīna brand), a soap from Mrs Meyers Clean Day, a cherry-flavoured Siggi’s skyr-style yoghurt and a packet of thin, crispy butter cookies.

Breakfast Baby

A thick, white, sesame-crusted bagel stuffed with a sturdy schmear of scallion cream cheese, washed down with a cigarette-ash-flavoured bodega drip coffee, is the best breakfast in town. Something about the lingering taste of these dark-roasted beans on your tongue throughout the day is something I know I shouldn’t enjoy, but do. And it feels right in New York, and New York only.

A bacon, egg and cheese on a challah roll or bagel from Frankel’s Deli is another preferred way to start the day. When the sun is out, the light in the deli glows on your face, and makes everything feel better. More importantly, it’s located just a few steps away from Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, which makes for the perfect breakfast dessert: a fluffy, sugar-coated pillow.

Lunch Break

A historic NYC establishment, open since 1929, is Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop (now called S&P). Dimly lit and narrow, the shop is anchored by a thin counter and an even smaller galley kitchen, which miraculously turns out order after order.

The food is classic deli style - thick slices of spicy pastrami licked with bright ochre mustard, or Russian dressing, inside a white bouncy baguette; tuna melt on rich, earthy rye; crisp latkes served with apple sauce and sour cream for dipping; and matzo ball soup, a light chicken broth with dumplings, soft herbs and carrots that still hold their bite.

Or, swing into the Middle Eastern institution Sahadi’s to build a picnic - soft housemade flatbreads, marinated grilled meats, freshly made hummus, salads and golden, glazed Baklava. There’s also troughs of nuts, jelly snakes, and my favourite —chocolate-covered pretzels — that can be scooped, weighed and packed to eat on the go.

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Something Sweet

Browsing the produce at the Union Square Farmers’ Market is endlessly enticing. Boxes of varieties of apples piled high, vegetables slightly wonky, large wheels of cheese sliced with wire in front of you - everything feels bountiful and happy.

Amongst the stalls is the Lost Bread Co., a bakery from Pennsylvania. They mill locally grown grain on their new American Stone Mill. I took home a sourdough boule called Homadama (a modern homage to traditional New England Anadama bread), which is a dough folded with a cracked corn porridge (hominy). A packet of pretzel shortbreads, a cookie that has unintentionally built a cult following. And a classic chocolate chip cookie.

The savoury shortbread biscuits use up leftover pretzel breadcrumbs by folding them into a shortbread dough. They’re dipped in lye (the traditional solution that gives pretzels their distinctive crust) and finished with coarse salt before baking, making them extra “pretzel-y”. I ate these on their own, but they would work beautifully as a cheese biscuit.

On paper, these are just chocolate chip cookies, but in reality they’re the best I’ve eaten in a long time. Made with spelt flour and smoked barley malt, the chewy cookie has a rich, almost treacle-like depth, with a hit of smokiness that makes it complex and definitely not an afterthought. Often the case on bakery menus, as a choc chip will always be a customer pleaser.

Nearby, a small black stand perched behind some stalls sells the classic New Orleans-style beignets. Dave, the owner, wears a forest-green beret and fries the pastry to order, flipping them in and out of the oil with a spider (mesh-strainer). They jump like fish out of water. On the pass (the tiny counter of the truck) Dave dusts them with a thick snowfall of icing sugar from a vintage metal sifter. Golden, warm, and best eaten in the sun.

If you’re drawn to the idea of a giant, golden, mirrored croissant hanging from the ceiling, go to Librae Bakery. It’s fun! For me, though, the oversized, glossy cardamom bun filled with pastry cream was hard to eat and far too sweet. Also not for me, are these chocolate bars, which I bought mainly for their names. All pretty disappointing and nothing on Snickers. Save yourself the heartbreak.

Night Feed

Chrissy’s Pizza began as a pandemic-era apartment pop-up, and is now a highly sought after pizza joint in Greenpoint. There are no slices here, only whole pies made from 50+ hour cold-fermented dough. So come hungry, or bring help.

A classic cheese pie, bubbling just after last orders, and eaten in a hotel bed, is the way to do it. Just don’t impatiently take a bite on the walk home, you will burn the roof of your mouth.

And I’m happy to claim that it’s perhaps the best pie I’ve eaten…

You can’t go to New York without having pizza, but also tacos. Taqueria Ramirez is the spot. The menu is small, each taco around $5, so you may as well try them all. Definitely order the al pastor: slowly roasted pork from the trompo (rotisserie spit), that’s crisp at the edges and succulent within, topped with pineapple and tucked into a soft corn tortilla.

Being handed a pencil and a tick-list menu is a small joy. My big sister has been taking me to Dim Sum Go Go in Chinatown for years. It used to have this amazing trolley, and lazy Susan. Now, it’s a little bit more refined and expensive, but still delicious. Garlicky, glistening greens, sweet yeasted buns brushed with butter and filled with sweet pork, delicate shell shaped dumplings filled with hot broth that can only be slurped from a white, flat-bottomed spoon, and pots of jasmine tea poured endlessly.

Baking Supplies and Books

Interested in visiting the American version of Nisbets? Go to Win Restaurant Supplies. A slightly chaotic but enticing store. You walk in thinking you don’t need anything, within minutes you’re holding all types of aluminium sheet trays, debating which cookie scoop to buy (red, blue or black handled, or maybe them all), cradling a boar-hair pastry brush, and imagining what you might need for “work”. Like a kid in a candy shop, everything feels necessary, but only so much will fit in your carry-on suitcase.

Round the corner is Bonnie Slotnick’s Cookbook shop, another New York institution, of nearly thirty years. Inside, there’s nothing new, only an array of antique and out-of-print cookbooks, stacked in a precarious system. Bonnie herself sits amongst them, watching you carefully. There’s no photos allowed in here and you have to pick the books up with care. It takes a moment or two to warm to her (or vice versa), but once you do, she reveals herself as an encyclopaedia of culinary history. Mention a title and she knows it instantly. Mention a genre, she’ll tell you where to look. She’s a true “New Yorker”. A rare character that is sadly fading away.

We got talking about her time as a food stylist, back when magazines compiled recipes into seasonal cookbooks, when colours were saturated, and plating was theatrical and elaborate. The kind that now feels nostalgic, that reminds you of Delia Smith and Martha Stewart.

I bought Sweet and Savoury Pies by Pamella Z. Asquith’s It felt fitting - what do Americans do better than pie?

Inside, little illustrations, and tucked into the front cover, a few themed magazine cuttings, placed there by Bonnie herself. A small, thoughtful gesture that made the book feel like something already loved.

I left a book behind, which I’m kicking myself about. A first-edition of Italian Food by Elizabeth David that had been owned by Mimi Sheraton, the innovative first female food critic of the New York Times. If someone sees it, please buy it and love it.

One to Bookmark

If you’re visiting New York and want a more insightful guide, I recommend my friend Caroline’s The Locavore Guide, a digital directory of thoughtfully curated places to eat, shop and explore. You can pick up a physical guidebook too, and visit her store, The Locavore Variety Store, where the shelves are filled with useful and unexpected things you didn’t know you needed.

It’s not often you can let the energy of a city like New York pass you by, but it’s an almighty feat to try and conquer it. So take your time. Move through it like a local, stepping into it only when and how you like. A slower pace will offer up the weird and the wonderful. I promise.

I hope this provides you with a few ideas for delicious outings if you ever find yourself there.

Thank you for reading.

Much love,
Cissy … xo