Pasta with broccolini pesto and roasted peppers

Certain foods have a very special meaning for me: it might be something my mom cooked when I was a kid that takes me back in time, something I cooked for someone I love or something I ate at a special place. I first ate pasta with pesto sauce in Rome, and it was also the first time I ever traveled abroad, many years ago, so it holds a very dear place in my heart.

I make pesto quite regularly

Tara’s great chocolate chip cookies

As much as I like making different things in the kitchen, there are certain recipes – the classics, if you will – that I keep coming back to: a good crème caramel, a chocolate mousse for when people come over for dinner, brownies to cheer friends up, and chocolate chip cookies, the ones I saw on American movies as a teenager.

I wasn’t so thrilled with the last batches of chocolate chip

Simple cornmeal cake, or "bolo de fubá"

The first cake I ever made was a cornmeal one, made with corn flour (not corn starch - the same corn flour used in these tartlets), which is a very common ingredient here in Brazil. “Bolo de fubá” is one of the most beloved cakes we have here, a favorite of many and it goes particularly well with coffee – I was always a tea kind of girl, coffee is something I have learned to enjoy in the past

Beef kofta in sweet-sour tomato sauce

I am a complete sucker for food magazines and because of that end up with tons of them and thousands of recipes to choose from. At this time of the year my favorite ones – Donna Hay and Gourmet Traveller - are all about grilling, since they are Australian magazines celebrating the same season as we are here in Brazil (summer). The grilled foods look amazing, but I live in a small apartment and