(Food pictures from Italy are very inspiring so here’s some Italian pizza…)

The daughter is home for the week and we’re doing a little project I should have done many years ago – passing on the recipes. It’s where your mother shares the recipes all the things you loved to eat as a child. But we never did it. Partly because I’m a reluctant cook – don’t like it. And partly because of something I’m only now becoming aware of – I’m a bit of a control freak in the kitchen. As in, I think I know it all, I think I’m the only one who can cook properly. Oops.

(and Italian dessert…)

Now that might be why I’m a reluctant cook – I got tired of doing it on my own. Of course all that changed last year when I was attending the art course and I started to share the kitchen with the other food-eaters. But the daughter wasn’t here for that momentous happening, so I’m sharing the kitchen all over again with her.

(and Italian breakfast)

But she likes a bit of drama and she likes to film things so… she’s filming my sharing. You know how easy it looks on the television, some famous chef shows you how she made such and such a dish? Anyone could do it, right? Ha! No. Turns out it’s not that easy. But it is funny. Not at the time but when we look at the rushes (that’s technical for the unedited shooting) it’s hilarious… and not necessarily in a good way.

(Seen through a shop window in Venice, Italian paint pigments)

Well, maybe it is in a good way. Like today when I opened the parmesan as it was going into the dish and noticed it was turning an unhealthy shade of green. I looked at the daughter and she raised an eyebrow as I thought about blue cheese and nonchalantly picked out the worst of the green before deciding, not ok. But all the laughter seems to be helping the flavour and we are incredible nice to each other on camera. (Hmmm, interesting, that.) Maybe we’ll have a family recipe movie to pass on to future generations.

If either of us are brave enough to share it. Mairead.