On the kitchen table today… stripey carnations that take me back to Great-grandma Charlotte’s garden of her small house at Wynnum, where the breezes smelt like the sea (and the muddy flats if the tide was out). 😊
She was a wonderful scone baker and always had a pot of tea covered in a hand-knitted tea cosy on the kitchen table. Love how one flower can bring back memories from many decades ago.
Hope you have a lovely day! 💛
Filed under inspiration + history
On the kitchen table today… roses and lemons from a friend’s garden. (With glorious fresh, crisp and sweet musky scents!) The vase came from Nanna Francesca’s ‘good cabinet’ and was a bonbonniere from a 1970s or 80s Italian wedding. (Some will remember those!) It’s fairly solid – perfect for carrying home after at least nine hours of wedding celebrating! Have a lovely day. 😊 Zoe xx
Filed under kitchen stories
On the kitchen table today… a friend’s home-grown lemons and mandarins on one of Nanna Francesca’s 1950s dinner plates. So lovely when someone brings you fruit and flowers they’ve grown in their garden. To me they’re the perfect gifts. (And the fresh, crisp lemon scent currently in the kitchen is divine!) 🍋
I have to say, we ate off these dinner plates at Nanna Francesca and Nonno Anni’s for decades and it’s incredible how small they are compared to plates these days. That said, I think there were often second, (and even third!), helpings at times. 👀😄 But as is the case when an Italian Nonna has been doing the cooking – no one ever goes hungry!
Hope you have a lovely day. 
Zoe xx
Filed under garden + vintage linens, kitchen stories
On the kitchen table… a couple of pumpkins we bought from a farmer’s roadside ute near Esk. I love being able to buy straight from a farm ingredients that are in season at their peak and pumpkins even have autumn colours! These will help make many meals but my first thought was pumpkin and ricotta crespelle with crispy sage leaves and a little Parmigiano on top. (Luckily Roger is a fine maker of crespelle, crepes, or scrippelle as they’re called in Abruzzo.)
For centuries in Abruzzo, pumpkins have remained a significant part of folklore and the farming calendar with late autumn being a time of reconciliation and thankfulness when harvesting is over. With the end of the growing seasons and the ‘dead’ of winter ahead, it’s also a time of acknowledging those before us, now gone. Cocce de morte (death heads) are carved from pumpkins and a candle lit inside to illuminate them, welcoming past loved ones to join those present back at their houses and tables for a feast from the harvests. With its roots in pagan times there is dancing, singing, bonfires, gratitude, new wine and plenty to eat and, of course, pumpkins! A lovely tradition melding the past, the present and acknowledging what the earth and hard work can provide. Zoë x
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Filed under dishes + recipes, inspiration + history, italy
On the kitchen table today while in lockdown… cypress cuttings from the backyard in a vase I brought back from beautiful Orvieto many years ago. (And its potter’s mark.)
I don’t know if it’s just me or if anyone else names trees in their backyard but we call this cypress, ‘Annibale’, after Nonno Anni and it’s special to me because Mum gave it to us in a tiny pot to remember him when he died and not so long after, we lost her too, so this tree feels doubly special.
(Evergreen is a symbol of immortality and in ancient times the custom was to place fresh boughs to salute the departed and console the bereaved, such a lovely tradition, especially in winter when there were no flowers and the green lay stark against the snow.)
Fifteen years on, the cypress tree, ‘Annibale’ continues to thrive, is quite tall and burly (a bit like Nonno Anni was) and home to our lovely resident possum, Tabitha and a nest of honeyeater birds. (And its fronds have a lovely fresh scent on the kitchen table!) Hope you are keeping safe and well wherever you may be, in or out of lockdown. Zoe xx
Zoë Boccabella 