About this site

I research, cook and take the photos, also designed the site.

About me

I live in England.  I’m a mother of three gorgeous girls and a wife to a supportive husband.  My second daughter was born with multiple food allergies and also suffers from epilepsy and asthma.  My third daughter was born with cerebral palsy.  My time is divided between family life, hospital appointments, creating recipes and writing my sourdough book.

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Things I love

  • good crust from a warm loaf
  • the learning process
  • working with different flours
  • trying new ingredients
  • the science of why recipes work or fail
  • feeding a crowd
  • being a pillion on husband’s motorbike
  • top floor of Paperchase in Tottenham Court Road, partial to beautiful paper
  • floristry
  • Japanese food
  • flamenco
  • designing
  • my perfect birthday cake: Le Fraisier but with extra strawberries
  • BBC radio 4
  • murder mystery
  • Monet
  • the colour white, red, turquoise

 

A little background

Born in northern Portugal.  My first food memory is aged eight holding on to the tail of the family pig while my maternal grandmother slaughtered it.  I’m named after her and aspire to be as fearless.  She’s the type who will lovingly cook your favourite meal and ask why you’re not eating more.  Brought up in basic surroundings, tiny home, no running water and outside communal toilets, we didn’t have much but no matter how humble a meal might have been it still had to be tasty.  My paternal grandmother was a farmer and baked the family bread, broa, every week in her wood-fired oven.  Maybe that explains my bread obsession.  I wished I had asked her for the recipe.

I live that stereotypic life of first generation immigrants, of not belonging, being too Portuguese to be English and now too English to be Portuguese.  My husband teases me and calls me a fake Portuguese and think he has a point.

The well.

well-old-house

Above photo was taken in 2003, when I revisited the place I grew up as a small child.  The place was abandoned and awaiting demolition ready for development of new apartments.  To the left is the old well where five homes around a courtyard collected their daily water, through the stone threshold leads to the patch of land where every household had their plot, kept chickens, maybe a pig and planted a few vegetables.