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My first weekend after five whole days of work feels totally different from any other weekend I can get myself to remember. It is probably the first time that I can spend a whole Saturday morning sitting here, on my bed, writing on my laptop because I have no other significant plans...and not complain at all, not even one single time.

All in all, it's a much more relaxed feeling - which sounds strange, I agree, if we consider that waking up every morning at 7 is seriously putting my brain to the test, and leaving me dead tired and craving for sleep at just ten in the evening. But compare this to the disquiet, the despair of having little or nothing to do and feeling that you will have little or nothing to do for the rest of your life: whoever says that routine is hell, has probably never been unemployed, because once you finally build one it's impossible not to recognise that to a certain extent there's comfort in it.

My workplace is one hour away from where I live (unless the 7.33 train is late, unless I miss it, unless the tube gets stuck like it did yesterday evening), but even this is no big deal to me: I get to listen to some music, to read the papers, to read much more of the books I used to hopelessly carry around just to find that I didn't have time for them in the end. I plunge into human nature, search for the inspiration I feel I have lost as for my writing. And I relish the moment when I will be back home, looking forward to a satisfying dinner to make up for another tasteless Marks and Spencer sandwich.
Well, it would probably not be so tasteless, if I gathered the courage to go for full-fat tuna mayo or chicken and bacon and follow my colleagues to the checkout without feeling guilty. Forget having reduced fat food at lunch is definitely one of the lessons I learnt from my first week as a team secretary, but I'm afraid that it will take a lot of time before I actually put it into practice.
(The second lesson, if you ask, sounds like no matter how early you get up and dressed, you won't be really awake until you have your morning coffee. And as 7 a.m. is definitely too early to have breakfast at home, I don't manage to have my morning coffee until nine. )

You are free to warn me that I will start to loathe routine approximately at some point towards the middle of my second week, but I will say no more about the matter - not for now.
I guess all the above sounded plain boring, huh? I know, I know, you are waiting for the food; so be it.

There's a long story behind this cake.
I first heard about it from my mother, who had been going on for at least a couple of years about how good at baking this janitor at her school was, and about how amazingly delicious the cake she brought the teachers from time to time had proven to be, and about how much she regretted not being able to offer me a taster.
Give me the recipe, then, I used to reply. At least four times, if I remember well.
The first time she forgot to ask for it.
The second time she couldn't, because the janitor was seriously ill and off work for at least a couple of months.
The third time - well, the third time my mother did something really cute: she cut out a tiny slice of The Cake, sneaked it into a tissue and then into her bag, and brought it home. I remember I found it good. Yeah, well, the slice was too thin to actually call it by its name, which is no less than Divine Wonder. And no, I didn't get the recipe, not even then.
I got if the fourth time, together with another one (an apricot pie that I still haven't tried). So, to celebrate my depart to London, I baked it the week before leaving home, and felt as if I had just found the secret to recreate the most delicious dessert anyone had ever baked.

Since then, I guess I started associating it with celebration - as I didn't bake it again until last week, when I finally could fulfil my promise of making an amazing cake as soon as I got a job. I even took it to the office on Monday and Tuesday, for breakfast; you probably can imagine the pain I felt when I returned to my usual Weight-Watchers-yogurt-and-bran-flakes on Wednesday, but I surely don't wish you any of it.
What I wish you, instead, is to try this cake and go through the same epiphany that I experience any time I eat it. I'll certainly bake it again, one day or another: maybe when (and if) I get a pay rise?

Ricotta and amaretti cake

Base: 

- Mix 100g butter with 100g sugar; add 1 egg, 250g flour, baking powder and 1 tablespoon almond flavouring.
- Knead until firm and even, and spread inside a greased cake tin. 
Careful, though: you should not use all the batter, as you will need a little bit of it later, for the decoration. It's not easy to decide how much exactly to set aside: I tend to use about 3/4 of it for the tin, and my rule is that it has to be spread evenly on the bottom, but the borders should remain clear.

Cream:

- Mix 400g ricotta cheese with 2 tablespoons sugar; add 2 eggs and 150g amaretti biscuits, which you will have previously broken into crumbs.
- Pour the cream in the cake tin, over the base. 
- Decorate with another 50g amaretti crumbs, mixed with the batter you had previously set aside, broken into small pieces as well.
- Pre-heat the oven to 175°, and bake for about 30 minutes.
- MEET GOD. After it has cooled down, of course.

Hello early mornings, goodbye unemployment.

So, apparently the Great News of the Week is that I have a job.

Overall, it took me almost four months, hundreds of refusals, millions of no-replies, liters of tears and tons of mindless self-indulgence, but I finally got here; I still don't know how, and considering my self-esteem issues I probably never will, but hey: does it really matter?
I have a job. I have a job.

I survived a telephone interview during which I had actually sounded like an awkward mess (try answering to questions like what kind of person do you think we are looking for? while walking around Victoria Street in search of a quiet spot that you won't find. Try that, and then we'll talk), I survived a 3-hour trial that brought back to light my ancient troubles with mathematics and Microsoft Excel and answered to a series of tricky questions that the Spanish Inquisition could not have asked better.
(curious about why the hell an aspirant writer should look for a secretarial job? Because not all writers are good and potentially successful writers, for a start. And then because you don't get into publishing with just two degrees and an English as a Foreign Language certificate - but that doesn't mean that you cannot still be the kind of obsessive organisational nazi that makes a good secretary, does it?)
And then, after all of this and just when I was losing my hopes of ever getting back home to the huge pizza that was waiting for me in the fridge, I was offered the job. And I accepted, because I am precisely the kind of obsessive organisational nazi that makes a good secretary, and because I can always be a writer or a freelance translator during the evening, or the weekend, or even the lunch break.

I will now resist the temptation of singing The dog days are ove-errr, the do-oo-og days a-aaare done while manically jumping on my bed - mind you, just because the mattress will probably breathe its last if I do.
Oh, and because from next Monday I will have to wake up at 7 every morning, and have breakfast on the tube - of course, if I am lucky enough to get a seat.
I also imagine I will have poorer and quicker lunches, but that's not a big deal, considering that I absolutely need to lose some weight before I have to upgrade my whole wardrobe to a bigger size. In the meantime, celebration is mandatory - so, while waiting for a chance to bake the amaretti cake I had sworn I would make as soon as I got a job, I will treat you with another sweet delight, hoping that you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed it last weekend.

Supposedly Healthy Marble Cheesecake

(freely inspired from here - of course, you can use full-fat ingredients if you prefer)

Ingredients:

- 90g reduced fat Digestive biscuits;
about 30g butter, melted (the recipe said 1 tablespoon, which means around 15g, but while making the crust I found that this wasn't enough - so I simply added some more);
- 680g low-fat cream cheese;
- 200g sugar
- 25g flour
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 4 large egg whites;
- 30g milk chocolate.

Recipe:

- Break the biscuits into small crumbs, and mix them with the melted butter in a bowl. Pour the batter in a greased cake tin, spreading it evenly until the bottom is entirely covered. Pre-heat the oven to 160° and bake for 8-10 minutes, then set aside until cool.
- Place the cream cheese in a large bowl, and beat it with a mixer until smooth (that is, if you are lucky enough to have a mixer. I still haven't got one, so I made do with beating by hand, and gave up on the challenge when my arm started aching. And although the cheese wasn't particularly smooth in the end, the cake was still delicious); add the sugar and flour, and keep on beating.
- Mix the vanilla extract and egg whites in a separate bowl, then add them to the cheese mixture.
- Pour the cream into the pan, above the biscuit base.
- Melt the chocolate; now this was the really difficult part. The recipe says you should just set the microwave to high speed and cook for no more than 1 1/2 minutes, but with my microwave this certainly didn't work: after two minutes, the chocolate was still unmelted, and not a bit softer than before. So I cooked it for one more minute, and after 60 tiny seconds it was...burnt!
Still can't explain that - and I surely won't explain you what kind of an awful smell had filled the kitchen by then. Luckily, there were a few squares of chocolate left in the cupboard, so I melted them in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. And, at last, I poured the heavenly melt over the cream, swirling with a fork to create some sort of decorative pattern.
- Last step, now: bake the cake at 160° for 35 minutes, or until almost set (the cheesecake should leave the side a little). Cool on a wire rack, then cover and chill at least 4 hours in the fridge.

Serve, and enjoy - and never forget the moral of the whole story: always keep some spare chocolate in your cupboard, sooner or later it will come in useful!

(on air: Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over) 

Trust me, this will not aggravate your diabetes.

There's a cat under my window today. A gigantic yet cute white and brown tabby cat (is it just me, or all English cats are actually enormous? No kidding, three different cats used to wander in my previous place's garden, and they were all twice the size of any Italian cat I can recall seeing), with yellow eyes - a shade of yellow I had never seen before, I must say.

Unfortunately, he could only come in from my flatmate's window, and he's already made clear that he won't let a stray cat inside. Besides that it's probably not a stray cat, it's just that it doesn't wear a collar because cats fucking hate wearing collars. Try slipping a collar on a cat's neck, have you ever? There's not an easiest way to have your wrists cut without a blade. (I was ten when I discovered it. There are things that no child should ever learn, amen).

All of this, just to say that I want a cat. I miss my cat, I miss hugging a cat when I feel I need some sweetness, I simply miss being around a cat. And chances are that I'll never be around a cat again, until I have my own house. Or the money to have my own house. Or a job that pays enough money to have my own house one day - that is to say, very late.

Anyway, let's go back to our kitchen business.

I know I have a not-so-subtle preference for sweet recipes, so I'll give you something salty for once. If you want to find out how to invite three friends to a birthday dinner and surprise them with a tasty main dish despite having spent the whole afternoon baking the cake, you're in the right place, guys.

Mediterranean loaf and mini puff snacks

By now, you might have realised that most part of the things I cook look ugly. I try my best, I swear - but cooking something tasty and pretty still seems to be my unresolved challenge.
The good news is that 99% of the ugly things I cook actually tastes great. So, don't be scared by the picture below: you won't be disappointed, once it's ready.

The - uhm - thing in the middle is a sort of savoury loaf, with a Mediterranean twist I'd say. It's terribly easy to prepare, and the puff snacks all around are even easier; besides, if you're more skilled than me at giving an actual shape to the food you make (and I bet anyone potentially is),  it shouldn't be difficult to create a neat and pretty platter.

To prepare the loaf, you will need to:

- beat 2 eggs with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and oregano;
- add 100g flour and 1 sachet unsweetened baking powder;
- remove the seeds from 100g cherry tomatoes, cut them in halves (or smaller, if you prefer), and add them to the batter, together with 100g olives (again, cut as finely as you like; also, it doesn't really matter if you use green or black olives - I personally like the taste of both).
- put the batter in a loaf tin, that you will previously have greased with oil; finally, pre-heat the oven to 170°, and cook for about 30 minutes.

And to prepare the puff snacks, you will:

- Cut 1 puff sheet (yes, yes, store-bought puff: I'm not so skilled to make it on my own yet...) in squares, or circles, or rectangles - or, as I said before, any shape you fancy, as long as the filling fits in;
- Put a little bit of filling in the middle of each square - or whatever it is (you can use anything you like; as for me, on that particular occasion I tried several different combinations of ham, mozzarella cheese, anchovies and peppers - for no reason in particular, but the fact that I already had everything at home);
- Fold the pastry around the filling, and make sure it doesn't leak out; pre-heat the oven to 180°, and bake for around 30 minutes.

See, it's damn simple. And the friends I had invited for dinner really liked it all, despite its ugliness. Besides,  we had this cake as dessert, and that was actually something tasty and pretty I still am proud of. Yes, I like cooking for my friends. I should, um, organise more dinners. Or have more birthdays.
Well, alright, one per year is already enough, considering that I have precociously started dreading the thought of one more candle to blow when I turned twenty.

Of muffins and ingratitude.

Despite not receiving one single piece of advice on the last post (which might mean, now that I think about it, that no one reads my blog), I eventually decided to turn this into a cook-blog.
It might actually do me some good - first, because I need to get used to be a regular at something again, and second, because I am starting to fear that my obsession with diets will rise again if I don't get a job and/or push my life back again on the right track soon. When the angel on the right shoulder says you know, losing some weight sounds so much like a good idea, and the devil on the left replies screw it, if eating makes you happy then it's exactly what you have to do - who does the self-esteem-less food addict listen to?
It's hard, it's always been hard. I guess it always will be. But that's another long and complicated story, and I hope you won't mind if I choose not to tell it.

Anyway, I want to cook, and cook, and cook again. Because it's fun, because it keeps me from thinking about practically anything else (apart from gosh, do I really have to wait for it to cool down before serving?), and because, trust me, nothing makes me more happy than a recipe gone right.
I also want to write, write, and write, and write again - so, what's better than blogging about food? I'll have one more good reason to cook without feeling guilty, and one more good chance to improve my writing.
Done deal, then. Stay tuned, because here comes something I have created myself.

Chocolate Coconut Muffins

(the chocolate sponge was store-bought, alas! But I hope I'll give a try at that as well, soon)

I was inspired by this recipe, which I actually intended to try on that fateful day. It was a Tuesday, if I can remember well - a typical English Summer Tuesday, whose promise of heavy showers of rain had made me give up on my resolution to dress up, get out, go to the library and work on my master thesis.
I was alone at home, and, as it alwas happens when I'm home alone on a rainy day with nothing to do (obviously the thesis doesn't count), I was sad. Sad, and with a couple spare eggs in the fridge. Which was actually the perfect combo, because cooking muffins would surely have made me happy and given a purpose to my boring afternoon.
Unfortunately, there were no pineapples or white chocolate in my cupboard, and at that point I was feeling too lazy to dress up, get out, walk ten minutes to the supermarket and then walk ten minutes back; this is when creativity became the keyword.

As you can see, the ingredients are slightly different comparing to the original:

- 180g plain flour
- 100g sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (which I actually think I forgot, on that occasion - nevermind, that's one good reason to try again!)
-180ml skimmed milk (just because I'm a health freak; if you want to use semi-skimmed or wholemilk, that's perfectly fine)
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon Amaretto liquor (again, the only one I had at home)
- 90g milk chocolate chips
- 50g grated coconut.

The recipe per se is quite simple, but I'm proud of the result. You should obtain twelve muffins - and this is why I highly recommend you to set twelve chocolate chips aside before melting all the others. You'll see why...that was actually my own personal touch!

- To prepare the batter, mix the milk, egg and liquor, and then add the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
- Melt the chocolate chips (remember, all of them minus twelve!) in a bowl over simmering water, and add them as well, together with the grated coconut.
- Split the batter evenly into a greased muffin tin. First of all, put only one tablespoon in each muffin case; add one of the spare chocolate chips on top of this "base", and then cover it with another tablespoon of batter.
- Pre-heat the oven to 190°, and cook for about 15 minutes.
The outcome? Extremely moist muffins, with a chocolatey surprise in the middle. I usually fail miserably at first attempts, but this was a pleasant exception to the norm.

Then came the moral dilemma: as usual, the angel on my right shoulder, subtly whispering come on, you're most definitely not going to eat twelve muffins on your own.
I usually exploit my boyfriend for tastings, and he is usually more than happy to accept such a task, but we weren't planning to see much of each other that week, and the muffins had to go before they lost their softness. So, I decided to insert my flatmates into the equation.

It had been a long time since I last had cooked for them, and I also wanted to apologise for the way I had treated them during the past couple of weeks: true, they had been unclean as usual, they had let two bills expire and, on top of it all, they had thrown the loudest party ever, up until four in the morning and making as much noise as possible while I was trying to get some sleep (don't worry, if you want to be on your own and study this evening we won't disturb you!) - but I surely had overreacted to it all, and it wasn't fair to blame them for my being stressed, unsatisfied of my job and unwilling to make any effort to get my thesis done.
Let's prove them I'm still a good person, I told myself, leaving eight muffins in plain sight on the kitchen table. I added a funny note, and hoped that, if they didn't want to appreciate the thought, they still would appreciate the food. Well, guess how many muffins they ate? One. Out of eight.

I left them untouched for two more days, just in case they changed their minds, but nothing happened. So, what does this teach me? Indeed, not everyone deserves to be offered your food.
Or, more broadly: stop trying to be kind to people, they just don't care.
But that's a lesson I'll never learn, I'm afraid.

(On air: Phoenix - Armistice)

Here we go again.

My proverbial constancy is shaking.
I apologise to all those who used to read my posts (not that I think you are that many): it has been really a long time since I last felt something that resembled inspiration.

In the meantime, I have done plenty of things. I have completed (it was supposed to grant me some relevant working experience, but here I am, on the edge of a downright Unemployed Graduate's Crisis whose end I cannot actually foresee); I have spent three weeks of holiday between my overseas home and the seaside resort I used to consider as Heaven on Earth, looking for a bit of summer and finding nothing but my old friend, perpetual rain.
I have cried myself to insomnia, dreading the day I would have to step back on a plane and come back to London, because I knew what was expecting me here...and there it was, exactly as I had figured it: one month of excruciating labour, juggling between a master thesis I didn't want to write and a few weeks of house-hunting; a week of preparations for the move (which actually was one of the best things that could happen to me at that time - but hell knows how the positive changes are the ones whose effect lasts the least), and then forced passiveness. I have spent three weeks looking for jobs, without anything else to do from morning to dinner time, and it already feels like ages. Which is not reassuring at all, if I think that three weeks might actually turn into three months, three years, and then a whole life.

But I'll say no more about that: I already vented tons and tons of unrequested sadness on my friends, who certainly have better thoughts to think than me and my beginning-of-depression, and my parents, who deserve better than a whining, despondent, good-for-nothing daughter.
Things will get better; I am sure they will. I have always thought that what makes us suffer more is not our reason for suffering itself, but the fact that we don't know, and we cannot get to know, when bad times will end. And that's it, once again: not knowing when I will actually receive the invitation to the interview that will change my life for good is what really wears me out. If someone came up to me and told me "you'll get a job on that particular day" (yep, I've seen Donnie Darko, why do you ask?), I'd surely strive to enjoy the time in between as it deserves, because at least I would have the certainty that change is on its way.

Speaking about change, let's get straight to the point of this post.
I've been thinking that I maybe should give a little twist to this blog - make it a little more focused, turn it into something well-defined, rather than a simple collection of random, uneven rants by an unpleasant human being who has nothing better to do but complain (at least, not for the moment). The most interesting idea that has come up until now is to turn it into a food blog, each post having its own recipe; as I love cooking, and it is actually getting me through these days.Who knows, perhaps it could be an incentive for my proverbial constancy to come back.

But I'll be a good democrat, for once, and ask for your opinion as well.
Would you enjoy my recipes, or do you prefer the rants? I can do both, of course, multitasking is one of the main skills on my CV. So yeah, let me know. I am aware that I haven't got that many readers, but those who actually stop here and grant me a few minutes of their time are more than welcome to speak out their minds. In the meantime, here's a recipe for you; I highly recommend you try it, because it's far more than amazing, believe me.

Chocolate Truffle Torte
(as found in a huge chocolate cookbook I bought in Dublin for 3, three, euros. Call it a miracle.)

(and yeah, on the cookbook it looked much better. But if you're reading this blog, then looks shouldn't matter to you. Ha!)

Crust: 

Put 50g caster sugar and 2 eggs in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk together until pale and resembling the texture of mousse. Sift in 40g flour and 25g cocoa powder, and mix gently. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake in the oven (220°) for 7-10 minutes, until risen and firm.
Transfer the crust to a wire rack to cool, and then put it back into the tin, which you will have washed and dried in the meantime. Finally, mix together 4 tablespoons strong black coffee and 2 tablespoons brandy, and brush the resulting liquid over the cake crust in the tin.

Cream:

Put 425g plain chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, and let it melt. Gently add the melted chocolate to 600ml whipped cream; pour the mixture over the crust, and let the cake chill in the fridge until the cream is firm.

Serve with cocoa and icing sugar sifted over the top, if you like. Et voilà!
You'll love it. I promise.

(on air: Bright Eyes - No lies, just love.)