Greetings from Bella Italia

The temperatures keep up with Bella Italia, the bright colours of this Italian Minestrone soup make you happy. When snipping all the fine vegetables you can almost see him in your mind’s eye: Luigi, who rattles with his red Vespa on the Tuscan country roads. Close your eyes and dream a little bit about Italy… A light meal for those hot days, a feast for all the senses.

Don’t be afraid of game!

Time and again I hear: “I have never prepared game, I don’t know whether I can do that.” This concern is nowadays absolutely unfounded. The days of strong smell and taste are long gone. So-called “Haut goût” (French for „high taste“) referred to the very intense, slightly unpleasant smell that arose when the meat was stored too long without proper cooling. Today, in the age of cold stores and freezers, it does not exist any longer. So, get to the wild feast.

Vanilla Quince

Quinces are childhood memory for me. Grew up on the North Sea every summer we visited our grandparents in the Odenwald, a German low mountain range. In their (kitchen) garden they grew a quince tree in addition to many other fruit trees. Plums, apples, pears, we also had in our garden at home, but I had never seen quinces in North Germany. I thought they were unique in my grandparents‘ garden. Grandma Anna’s quince jelly was my favourite!