On the kitchen table today… lemons from my neighbour’s tree. No, I didn’t steal them. 😄 My Italian neighbour often kindly shares some lemons from his backyard tree. His mother, now in her nineties, who also lives next door, is from Sicily and gave me a tip years ago that when frying polpette she’d place a lemon leaf under each one and they’d impart a lemon flavour into the meatballs.
These lemons have a such a zingy, fresh scent and an earthier flavour than shop ones. Like many backyard grown produce, sometimes the outsides mightn’t be ‘perfect’ but that doesn’t’ worry me, especially when the flavour is usually better. This bowl isn’t ‘perfect’ either (notice the cracks where it got broken). I glued it back together because I bought it more than twenty years ago at a market with my mum and while she’s no longer with me, this bowl brings back a lovely memory of wandering about the stalls together.
I used a couple of these lemons to make lemon pasta for the first time. It’s pretty much plenty of lemon zest and juice as well as parsley from my vegie patch and you can add cream or pasta water to amalgamate the sauce and add depth of flavour. I used capelli d’angelo pasta and indeed the dish was as light as an angel’s hair must be. Buona settimana!🍋💛 Zoë xx
Left to themselves, the basil and parsley I planted when summer began have been relishing the rain and heat and are on a rampage to take over the vegie patch in the backyard. No fertiliser or pesticides, just tucked under the protection of netting propped up by an old mop handle (a nod to Nonno Anni!) 
A little while ago I mentioned some wood-smoked chillies that I’d bought from a roadside stall. I’m going to use some as a bit of a twist on pasta arrabbiata.
Zoë Boccabella 