The table
2019 – PresentA supper club in my flat · Trieste
Ten seats, one menu, the last Saturday of the month. Sixty-three suppers so far and never the same menu twice.
Kitchen CV
Where a home cook in Trieste learned it, what he has written, and what he can be asked to do.
Elio Ferrante
Home cook, recipe writer and photographer · Trieste
- [email protected]
- Trieste, Italy
I cook one thing properly at a time in a small flat, write down exactly what happened, and photograph it in the one good hour of light this kitchen gets. Two hundred and fourteen cards so far. I also survey ships two days a week, which pays for the butter.
In the kitchen
Recipe development
2020 – PresentFreelance, for magazines and small food brands
Three rounds of testing minimum, weights in grams, and a written note on what goes wrong at every step. Published in three monthlies and two brand books.
Food photography
2021 – PresentFreelance
Window light, no team, no styling kit beyond the drawer. Menus, packaging and two cookbooks.
Cooking afternoons
2022 – PresentFour people at a time, in my kitchen
Bread, a slow pot or pasta by hand. Everyone leaves with the card and a bag of the fried breadcrumbs.
The other job
Marine surveyor
2009 – PresentA shipping insurer · Trieste
Two days a week, in the port, writing reports about damage. It is where I learned to write down what actually happened rather than what was supposed to.
Where I learned it
Three weeks in a bakery
Genoa, on the night shift
Unpaid, arranged over the phone, and the reason the Tuesday loaf exists.
Two winters at a mountain refuge
2013 - 2014Friuli, cooking for twenty a night
One oven, no deliveries after Friday, and the first time I had to plan a menu around what was already in the room.
My grandmother's kitchen
1990 - 2015Every Sunday until 2015
Watched, never asked, and regretted it. Eleven attempts to get one pot back.
Written for
A monthly food magazine
2021 - 2026Seven recipes and two essays
A small stock and broth brand
Six-week domestic test, three recipes, packaging notes
A neighbourhood wine bar
Menu photography and two seasonal dishes
An anthology of home cooking
Two chapters on preserving
What I can be asked for
- Slow braising and pot cooking
- Bread, from one loaf to twelve
- Preserving and pickling
- Pasta by hand, no machine
- Recipe writing and testing
- Food photography in daylight
Languages
- Italian Mother tongue
- Slovene Fluent, badly accented
- English Fluent