Basil, bloggers and Italian sunshine

Caroline

Food writer, broadcaster and author Caroline Hennessy has been focused on food and writing since editing Ireland’s first food website for RTÉ in 2000. Chair of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild, she established the award-winning Bibliocook: All About Food in 2005, is the author of two books about beer and food and has a column in the Irish Examiner in which she writes about small food producers and the ways in which they develop and maintain a sustainable local food system.

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14 Responses

  1. Kristin says:

    I love your story about your first experience with pesto – my first taste of it, as a teenager in suburban Illinois, was from a Knorr packet. Not surprisingly, I thought it tasted vile and didn’t try it again for years, and when I finally did have it again, it was a revelation compared to that dried mix. Looking back, why would anyone dehydrate pesto?!

    • Caroline says:

      In a packet?! That just had to taste horrible. Look how far we’ve come from such inauspicious pesto beginnings!

  2. Gillian says:

    From following the Sacla trip online I knew it would be good … but this post confirms my suspicions that it was heaven! Delighted you had a good time 🙂

    • Caroline says:

      Thanks Gillian! How is life with chocolate treating you? Hope your own Little Button is keeping well.

  3. Daily Spud says:

    Can’t believe that it was only a week ago that we were lunching in Casa Sacla’, with the basil fields (and Villa Tiboldi and Portofino) yet to come. I need to bottle those memories and refer to them often, especially on rainy days like today…

    • Caroline says:

      After getting drowned today in Dublin – although platforms did a good job of keeping me above the worst of the puddles – I’ve been longing to be back where the sun shines…

  4. Clare says:

    Awwww, such fabulousness!! I was living vicariously through everyone’s tweet pics, looks like you all had the most amazing time. I can imagine the sweet smell of those basil fields; you can typically find me in the corner of my kitchen, whispering sweet nothings to my handful of basil leaves as I inhale their fragrant aroma. Is that weird?

    • Caroline says:

      You’ll have to come down and whisper to my sad looking basil plant, Clare. The last thing it heard was the Husband threatening to throw it out – I’m not sure if it’s going to recover from that!

  5. Veru says:

    I’m always pleased when strangers come to Italy and visit part of the country only few people know. The one you visited is one of the most loved and productive of the entire Italy and the experience you had is amazing! Anyway, you can easily make your own pesto… it’s definitely not so difficult 😉

    • Caroline says:

      One of the reasons that I went on the trip, Veru, is that I knew that I would never get a chance to go there under my own steam – or to see the basil fields!

      I’ve had to throw out my own sorry excuse for a basil plant so homemade pesto is still a while off but I’m determined to make it this summer.

  6. Sheila Kiely says:

    Ha! Smirking cause I finished my post with the words La Dolce Vita too! I refrained from reading any other posts until I got mine up a few minutes ago and it’s amazing to see how differently we all approached the same experience. But oh yeah I definitely sum it up in the same vein as ‘the sweet life’ x Sheila

  7. Anna says:

    Memo to self: Must not read your blog on an empty stomach……….an hour to go before lunch and I’m salivating reading this!!!

    • Caroline says:

      You were probably around for some of those early pesto experiments! Although lasagne was the dish that we’d normally make when you visited us in college days.

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