The great thing about shadow travel is that one journey doesn't have to finish before the next can start...

Shadow journeys can be concurrent.

So you can still be enjoying afternoons of Edith Piaf songs (and the combination of often dark lyrics and bold, upbeat rhythms seems peculiarly appropriate at the moment), and finishing off La Garconne (in the second film version of which Piaf performs Quand Meme, a song about doing things anyway, even if they're bad for you) -- and while you are doing all this, you can have already embarked on your Italian shadow journey.

Which has been mostly food and wine up to now...


One truly excellent piece of news is that it is possible to make a very acceptable low-carb pizza.

There it is, in pride of place at the top of the post.

You can also cook this dough on the top of the stove. The texture's not quite as good, and of course, you don't get the grilled top, but with a veg sauce and grated cheese, it's pretty tasty.

This is the same dough that produced those epic low-carb petits pains au chocolat the other week.

And rather than filling your buns with chocolate, you can also stuff them with a little bit of pecorino and a walnut.


Somewhat more authentically (because I'm sure any Italians reading this will be shuddering by now), I also made melanzane alla parmigiana (eggplant with Parmesan).


We've also been able to try some great new wines.

The Negroamaro in the earlier picture is a classic grape variety from Puglia, where we briefly stayed last year.

Fiano is another of those "rediscovered" grape varieties (like the Carmenere we tried the other week):


This one was good, too:


Pellegrino Artusi was the author of Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, the first cookbook since Italian unification in 1861 to offer (in contrast to the previous dominance of the French influence) "a template for a national gastronomic identity".

There's nothing like the power of food conversations:

"His book also became popular because it was written in an Italian that his middle class readers were beginning to understand, read and write in. In 1861, a mere 2.5% of the population spoke what we now know as being standard Italian. In fact, several historians argue that Artusi did more to contribute to the unification of Italy, at least in linguistic terms, than anyone else. He rejected the previously in vogue French cookery terms in favour of Tuscan ones such as cotoletta (cutlet), tritacarne (meatmincer) and mestolo (ladle), terms Italians continue to use to this day."

So Artusi was apparently "the Manzoni of Italian gastronomic language"...

Fascinating. It's amazing what you can find out on a shadow journey...