Panettone and Prosecco
Good. Very, very good in fact, especially with everyone at the office at 4 in the afternoon, way before it is actually Christmas. And the very best thing is that we live a stone's throw away from the Tre Marie factory, where they sell slightly imperfect panettone for 1/3 of supermarket prices.

Lentils with Cotechino sausage
Bad. Well, the lentils are fine, but the cotechino is absolutely horrible. Maybe I got a dodgy one when we made it for New Year’s Eve last year, but as far as I'm concerned it's stinky offally horridness. Or, as my sister-in-law put it: smelly old boots.

Hot chocolate
Completely and utterly wonderful. If you think you know hot chocolate but you have never had Italian hot chocolate, you don’t know hot chocolate. Why? Because Italian hot chocolate is so thick and chocolaty that you have to eat it with a spoon.

Shooting fireworks off the balcony
Mental. Good to watch, but mental. I would never have the cojones to do it myself and Mr P&P is absolutely not allowed to try it either, but, seen from our 8th floor flat, it makes for a quite spectacular New Year’s Eve.

Skiiing day trips
Good, if you like that kind of thing (I don’t. I prefer my snow to come with hot chocolate not bruised shins and aching muscles). There are kiddie/beginner slopes just a train journey away, or alternatively all the travel agencies in the area organise buses to take you to the proper slopes near the Swiss border.

We’ve finally swapped our miniscule flat in stinky, smoggy Milan for the beautiful Lago Maggiore. We got here on the 23rd, monged out for Christmas, and will peel ourselves off the sofa and back to the city on the 30th (though I am trying not to think about that. Oops lost the game).

This week by the lake is our first break of any sort since the summer, and it’s deserved and much-needed.Three months of smog, snotty noses and relentless thesis-writing never did anyone any good. Finally, finally, we have fresh air, space, a view of trees rather than buildings. Oh and this stonking beauty of a pine cone:

What makes it extra-special is that Mr P&P’s family have flown in from the UK. So not only does the Bean get to spend his first Christmas holiday surrounded by people who are potty about him, I get time to have a long shower! Sleep in! Cook without him clinging to my legs! (and maybe by the end of the week the excitement will have subsided enough for him to want to sleep again.)

A tough month of extra work projects, deadlines and general January meh awaits when we go back, but for now we lay low. We keep our PJs on all day and stuff our faces with panettone. We go out for the odd walk and hot chocolate. We eat more panettone. We hold the Bean’s hand as he takes his first wobbly steps round and round the flat. We remember that soon, he won’t be a baby but a toddler. But for now, we lay low.

1. It is perfectly acceptable to wake up your parents at 5:30 in the morning, as long as you do it in style: whisper “da” like you don’t mean it then scream “DAAAAAAAAAAA” like you do, poke your mum through the cot bars, and throw in a song for good measure.

2. No piece of food must go past your lips until it’s been squeezed, mashed, squished or otherwise body-slammed into your tray. For extra points, fling it right off said tray. THEN maybe you can taste the next piece that will inevitably come your way.

3. When no one is looking, every socket, cable, switch or other wobbly-sticky-out thing is fair game. Scream blue murder when they spot your shenanigans and tell you off.

4. Reading the same story fifteen times over never did anyone any harm, so demand that those big people do it. They’ll thank you for it later.

5. Who the heck wants a woolly itchy hot thing on their head? Refuse to put on any sort of hat unless the putting-on process is accompanied by song, dance and dummy-shaped bribes. 

6. Socks are for wusses, unless they have grippy bits on the bottom, in which case they should be given a good chew.

7. Sharing is where it’s at. As in: mummy and daddy must learn to share nicely. Share their computer. Share their cutlery. Share their pot of yoghurt and never mind that you turn it upside down when you finally get it.

8. Resist the changing table at all costs. It is the devil’s invention and nothing should convince you otherwise.

9. Nothing qualifies as a decent toy unless it can be BANGED on the floor. Which basically means anything goes, especially the contents of the kitchen cupboard.

10. The most interesting things are always out of reach. This is very annoying and unfair, and you must not rest until this injustice has been addressed. Ear-splitting screaming or incessant whining until you get a lift up should do the trick.

11. Love life, tangerines, and pink plastic spoons with abandon.

One of the things we noticed when we moved to Italy is that it is much harder to find fair trade produce than it is back in the UK. Actually, the same is true for organic food, free range meat, eco-responsible toys, etc. I'm not quite sure why this is. Fortunately this does all seem to be changing, slowly but surely. Our local supermarket has recently expanded its organic range to about, oooh ten products and they have a small fair trade selection.

Luckily we have a big Altromercato store nearby. It is the fair trade ("commercio equosolidale") store in Italy, and they stock everything from clothes to food, cosmetics, and interior stuff. And best of all, it isn't stupidly expensive.

So where better to buy Christmas presents for our son's nursery teachers? Mr P&P (who got himself elected as parent representative and gets to do the running for this kind of thing...) and I just spent an hour whizzing round the shop to put six of these beauties together:

Each handmade hamper had either a tea or coffee cup, a pack of tea or coffee, a mini-honey, and two sweet things. I can't tell you how pleased I am with them. Everything is fair trade! Some of it is organic! The basket itself is partly made from recycled materials! *bursts with excitement*

Seriously though, this is the perfect antidote to mindless Christmas commercialism to me (well, bar not buying anything, I guess). Now I just hope the teachers like it too!

This Christmas will be our first as a family-with-small-child.

Until now, our decorations have consisted of two sets of twinkly lights and 10 tiny Santa Claus pendants. In the six years that we’ve been together, Mr P&P and I have never had a Christmas tree. We were never very bothered. And we were never at home! The festive season always involved at least two (sometimes three) different countries and many cities and far too many (usually delayed) flights to be reunited with our friends and family across Europe.

This year, however, we’re staying put. I didn’t feel like forking out a fortune to haul a squirming 11-month-old onto a plane. For the first time, I’m actually quite into the idea of Christmas decorations. It sounds like a cliche, but having a baby who thinks twinkly lights are the best thing since dummies does help to bolster your enthusiasm.

In keeping with our “if you can make it yourself, do it! (even if it looks a bit crap)” philosophy, I’ve created a patchwork of some homemade decorations, some re-purposed bits from IKEA, a few sprigs of reddery and greenery, and one garland that we bought at the Italian fair trade store Altromercato.

The result is still pretty minimalist and decidedly amateur, but I think it's kinda pretty nonetheless. Most importantly, the Bean is insanely thrilled with the lights and dangly bits.

Want to have a go at making any of these yourself? Here is where I found the inspiration and/or instructions:

Origami Stars
Bauble
Paper Christmas Tree

Although no one ever complains about being served pasta, this is one of my family’s favourite dishes. The lemon makes it zingy and fresh-tasting, while the cheese and pasta are comforting. It tastes just as good cold on a hot day. Best of all, it uses cheap-ish cupboard staples (and a little tuna goes a long way).

It’s also really easy to change and still get the loveliness of the courgette and lemon combo:

Want a veggie version that still contains protein? Substitute the tuna for haricot beans.
Don’t have tarragon? Use fresh flat-leaf parsley, oregano or basil instead (but add them at the end rather than halfway).
Need to make it for a kiddie-wink? Skip the capers and go for a low-salt mozzarella.

One final note about the mozzarella. I’ve used buffalo mozzarella because it’s bloody amazing, but I realise it isn’t cheap unless you live in Italy (where I get for 3 euros a bag at the local market. I know, don’t hate me). Ordinary mozzarella will work absolutely fine, and it’s lower in salt, too. But if you want to go for the good stuff, go for the buffalo…

Serves: 4
Pots/pans to be washed up afterwards: 2
Prep time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 12 mins (or however long your packet of pasta says)

Ingredients
250 g whole-wheat pasta (such as fusili or farfalle)
zest of one organic lemon (use juice of ½ lemon if not organic instead)
1 80g tin of tuna
1 ball of buffalo mozzarella, chopped into chunks
2 small courgettes, grated
pinch of dried tarragon
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
optional: 2 heaped teaspoons of capers, finely chopped
olive oil
black pepper
sea salt

1. Put the pasta on to boil. When it’s about five minutes from being done, make your sauce:

2. In a large frying pan, fry the garlic and lemon zest in olive oil for a minute on a medium heat (don’t let it go brown).

3. Turn up the heat and add the grated courgettes and tarragon. Go easy on the tarragon - it can overpower everything else if you add too much. Season with black pepper and a pinch of salt, and fry for a couple of minutes.

4. Take the pan off the heat and add the capers (if using), fresh herbs (if using) and tuna.

5. Drain the pasta and add to the sauce in the frying pan. Stir well so that everything is evenly heated and coated in oil.

6. Add the mozzarella chunks, just mixing them in as quickly and lightly as possible so they stay soft and gooey (as opposed to stringy and chewy. Especially important if you’ve forked out for nice mozzarella).

Herby, lemony goodness. A tavola!

Come say hello:

Well hello there. How are things?

All is well here at Pasta & Patchwork, although it’s a bit hectic. But then we did exactly what everyone told us not to: go freelance (me) and have a baby (us) while writing up a PhD thesis (Mr P&P). It’s madness, they said.

And it kind of is. Especially because we did all this only two years after moving away to Italy, and without the help of family. Especially because neither my freelance salary nor my husband’s research salary are particularly generous. And because life with a little tyke who is (almost) running around simply is madness.

Nevertheless, I think we manage. Some days we go a little crazy. Actually, on the days that the boy is ill and I have a deadline and the husband just has to write write write, it all goes spectacularly wrong. Mostly, however, we manage.

In the grand scheme of things, we don’t have that little. We have enough to live on, to rent a small but cosy flat, and to prioritise travel over buying more stuff. We have enough to be, I think, fairly typical of our generation.

We’re well-educated but good employment opportunities are hard to come by, so we have to be self-sufficient.

Our parents waited until they had the house and the jobs and the savings account, and we, well, didn’t. We do, however, have flexibility. I can choose to work a little less, and build more towers for my son to knock down

We are a melting pot family: Brazilian, Belgian, British and Italian all at the same time. What my son lacks in expensive toys and schooling, he will gain in multicultural experience (I hope).

We live on pasta.

We smash, glue and hash new things together out of old things.

We worry about landfill and wash our baby’s nappies instead.

We try to be environmentally responsible and not buy too many new, disposable things (but I completely admit to thinking that cheap IKEA furniture is the shiznit when the damn shoes keep falling off the damn ladder and you just NEED a better solution quickly).

We sometimes give in to the pretty stuff. Or the cool stuff. Or the lip-smackingly tasty stuff.

We live in a 60m2 flat = every corner is full and privacy is non-existent. But there is actually nothing better than having my son grin and poke me in the head through the bars of his cot when he is ready to PLAY and COME ON parents can we get up already.

Welcome to us. Welcome to Pasta & Patchwork.