Duck breast with caramelized onions & Sicilian orange sauce

Does Photography really steal souls? Probably not steal but capture it. Capturing, stealing, what's the difference? Probably the fact that we can't capture the whole soul of a place but just bits and pieces of it. So when we go on a holiday, visit a new restaurant, bar or anything alike and take snapshots of it, do we really capture its soul or just what resonates with us, what we already know and are able to recognize. To me capturing through photography tends to be the harder and more isolating day after day I try doing it. Isolating in the sense that often I'd like to be invisible sitting on a bench or at a cafe so to be able to observe for as long as I need without causing concern (or being asked to pay the bill).
Probably this is what it's all about, snap and snippets of a place, of a history, of a soul.

Mediterranean onion-squash and sausage soup

Et voilà! A before and after shot....

What do I really want to talk about in this post, I still ask myself. I have been working on these pictures for the last days, a whole week actually, without really being satisfied with their appeal. I know I could have re-staged them but nah, that would be too easy nevertheless I ended up posting them here (not that I have any hope any of them will ever make its way on any of the food-porn sites we all know) but sometimes showing a failure can be more teaching than contemplating a perfect shot come out of Vogue's food section (if they ever had any that is).

Tagliatelle with Walnuts and Pork sauce Sicilian style

Free food... What is the power of food offered as a gift? Does it depends on the subtlety of the offer or is just linked with the food itself? Is our ability of evaluating a meal influenced when it is offered to us? Naturally it is different if a sibling, friend, colleague offers us a morsel of his/her sandwich as answer to our starving-puppy eyes or if the meal is offered by complete stranger. In this case, do we always approach food guided by our instinct of self-preservation? Food has deep power toward any living being. As rooted into our DNA, food inherently means life and we will always be grateful to anybody who offers us some (that doesn't make us sick). I have just finished to listen to an episode of the "Crimes Against Food" podcast on "Free Food" and it just resonated with me. As blogger, we are often offered goodies to sample or to review. Rare are the occasions nowadays when this offer comes honestly without any analytic or critical duty attached.

Healthy Sicilian spring-rolls

Two months have passed since I last shared something with you and last time it was actually Nelly who gave us a glimpse of her baker's (actually frier's in that case) creativity. In this period not much has happened except the visit of my family and a lovely trip to London. First things first, in August my family payed me a visit for almost the entire month while my sister was following a language course here in Bonn. We had a lovely time all together, sharing the daily rhythms. Between one shopping spree and a restaurant to visit, the days flew by fairly fast without much of the feared stress. All went smooth also because the weather was quite mild, though as every good Italian would do, we didn't stop complaining it was either too hot and wet or too wet tout-court and duvet worth.