KALO MINA! My hot tips for the month of June

Buenos Dias one and all,

I write this fresh from a trip to Seville, Spain, where I was invited to cook from my books and share a little of my publishing journey by movie magazine A Rabbit’s Foot and Montblanc at the ultra exclusive La Trasierra villa. My paying subscribers have access to the full, Mediterranean summer brunch menu that I cooked below, along with some of my favourite things this month but first, a small re-cap on the weekend.

La Trasierra is the kind of place you have to be invited to or know about to gain access. An enormous farmhouse (with multiple extensions to host upwards of twenty guests) worthy of World of Interiors, the villa is owned by a British family whose home has become well known amongst the upper eschelons of UK society.

Neither a hotel nor a guesthouse, this is the Scotts’ (I met Charlotte and her daughter, Gioconda this weekend) home and they share it sparingly. It has never been advertised and neither does it exist on airbnb and booking.com. I’m a travel journalist very accustomed to impersonal spaces aimed to accomodate all tastes and flavours of human aestheticism. There’s very little of this kind of hospitality - the kind where you actually feel at home - about anymore so I thoroughly appreciated my time here.

Enormous amphora (to put our Greek ones to shame) line the gardens and expansive inner courtyards, jasmine fronds decorate the walls, hiding entrances to secret parts of the gardens and grounds that demand hours to be full uncovered. Everything at Trasierra seems to be adorned with a skirt or delicate textile trim. Even the umbrellas by the pool wear frills that dance in the breeze - though there wasn’t much of a breeze this past weekend.

There is of course a pool but I enjoyed the lower garden terraces and my time spent in the kitchen with professional cook Gioconda and Argentine chef Fiona, who taught me how to make the perfect Spanish tortilla (a little jammy in the middle!) RECIPE COMING SOON. I tried and tested it yesterday and perfected my flip.

I spent the weekend cooking with Gioconda and Fiona and served up a mighty Mediterranean brunch for the team at A Rabbit’s Foot and Montblanc. It was my first full weekend away from the baby and I had been in two minds about leaving but having met some very inspiring and intelligent people on the first ever writing retreat by A Rabbit’s Foot, I don’t regret the time spent there at all.

I always feel as though time away always helps me broaden my horizons. Since becoming a mother, my life in Greece is quite small, comparative to what I used to live in London, and the connections and conversations I engage in are centred increasingly around family life. What a delight to stay up until 2am discussing movies and books and my dreams with other people who can and do dream big. (Granny TV show incoming, guys.)

On our drive to the airport yesterday, Gioconda and I discussed how difficult it is to be a mother that also has and wants a career. I’m in love with what I do and have made a career of sharing the knowledge and wisdoms of grandmothers of the world but I can’t deny time and attention to my little girls. Something has to suffer and inevitably, it has been my work. Perhaps one positive is that I’m increasingly selective about what I take on and choose to do professionally. Becoming a mother has allowed me to filter out the crap newspaper listicles that don’t pay and ‘opportunities’ masked as exploitation.

Together, Gioconda came up for the ultimate analogy for living life as a working mum and I’d love to share it:

Like a grandmother’s recipe, one must be selective about the ingredients in life, choosing the best quality produce and minimising to the essential, most delicious ingredients in order to create a dish that is truly satisfying for oneself.

Cocktail music began with Italian cinema. Whack on this playlist to live La Dolce Vita, if only for cocktail hour.