Pumpkin risotto with a fancy crumb

The thing about this risotto is the combination of sweetness and creaminess offset against salty crunch. Honestly, it is a perfectly balanced bowl of comfort and health. So easy to eat, methodical mouthful after mouthful, a meditation in texture and satisfaction. Don't be fooled if I'm watching TV with this on my lap (ahem) - I am awake to every tumble of silky coated grain of rice on my tongue. I so badly wanted another bowl but my hips are always in conversation with my conscience these days.

A month in food, chicken pies, endings and return

  
The weather has been nothing like spring for all of March. Only now, as we edge into April, it is getting sunnier and warmer by increments, but it is still undoubtedly cold. I am responding to even a one degree change from say, 4 Celsius to 5, with gusto, rocking the (as featured in Paris Vogue for those that dare mock) socks and Birkentstocks combo and making salads most nights to balance out our steady diet of pasta, pies and paella.

The organic grocery store is an Eden of bunched leafy beauties, pinks, reds, even violets.  There is something in the name of blood oranges that compels me, cutting in to their flesh is a moment of anticipation - how red will it be? The delicate ends of fennel are making their way into a Sicilian pasta of sundried tomato paste, raisins and tuna and the feminine beauty of cerise radishes make me try even harder to like them.