My Aunt Leonora (or Leo) was one of the most remarkably elegant women I have ever met in my life. She was my father’s older sister, and arrived in Rome to take up permanent residence when I was just a little girl. Her husband, The Times photographer Bill Warhurst, had died and her two sons were grown up. She was alone, and obviously ready for a new challenge. I remain entranced by Aunt Leonora to this day: amazed by her ability to charm and entertain everybody around her; riveted by the way she smoked sixty Rothmans a day and chucked back neat Scotch with handfuls of prescription pills; and stunned by the outfits she wore with her own inimitable panache.
After my father sold St George’s English School of Rome in 1963, which he had set up with the purpose of educating my brothers Steve, Nick and Howard before they were dispatched to a boarding school in England, there was a slight hiatus in my own education. I was too young to be sent away to England and had already completed kindergarten at St George’s. The hiatus lasted only a few months before my father, with typical entrepreneurial spirit, decided that the best way for Leonora to get over her husband’s death would be to move to Italy. There she would open another school, which I could then conveniently attend. The fact that Leonora had no experience of teaching or of running a school did not worry my father: he was sure she would make a success of it, for there was a real need for an English school for the ex-pat community in Rome. My father was absolutely correct in his faith in Leonora’s abilities (and the gap in the market), and she went on to build a highly successful, well-run establishment.
When Signora Leonora’s Junior English School of Rome first opened in the early 1960s, Rome was just easing into “la dolce vita”. The school was housed in a lovely, secluded old villa on Via Appia Antica, which was reached via a succession of long dirt tracks and an impressive ancient brick archway.
Each day I travelled from my home at the other end of the city, passing the Coliseum, Caracalla’s baths, and Nero’s tomb, and going through the ancient Porta Ardeatina. The final leg took me past the catacombs of San Sebastiano, the tomb of Cecilia Metella and a succession of luxurious, hidden villas. Endless archaeological remains lay scattered under vast pine trees. Only now does the privilege of those journeys almost overwhelm me.
My first few months at Signora Leonora’s Junior English School of Rome consisted of me, and one or two other early recruits, rattling around the building, in the charge of several teachers that my aunt had employed through The Times Educational Supplement. In neat school uniforms of burgundy and grey, we learned to read and write with Peter and Jane. The domestic staff, including the school cook, were relatives of the staff of St George’s, and they prepared delicious, very un-English school dinners. We ate colourful, vegetable-rich minestrone, pasta with tomato sauce, fried squid, succulent meatballs and my own favourite: chocolate salame, made with cocoa powder blended into a thick paste and studded with crumbled biscuits, chilled until hard and sliced into rounds.
At the beginning, Leo was there every single day, and then spending her evenings busily networking her way around Rome in a valiant mission to increase the roll call. As far as I know, she had never had a “proper” job before, other than driving an ambulance in the Second World War and a stint working for Molyneux naming lipstick colours in an office in South Molton Street, London – an image that I have always found incredibly glamorous: I imagine Leo sitting there examining the colours and thinking up names like Flamingo Sunset or Red Berry Sky.
Leonora lived in a wonderful rooftop apartment overlooking the Coliseum. Somehow, through one of her many contacts, she had arranged for a fleet of black limousines to be our school buses, which ferried the children for the first year or so, before the school’s numbers swelled thanks to Leo’s networking skills at Embassy parties. Often she would drive me home at the end of the school day in her sporty little Lancia Fulvia. She drove ridiculously fast, cigarette clamped between her lips, always talking non-stop.
When we reached her apartment, she would cook for me: real English food, like oxtail soup out of a tin, Kedgeree (see page 205), or a chicken-and-mushroom pie topped with her deliciously buttery pastry. I remember her voice rambling on and on, cigarette smoke curling blue. I loved to listen to her, chattering about her life and adventures, but my father would be driven mad by Leo’s incessant talking when she came to visit. I guess he must have heard her stories – about the elegant tennis parties she used to attend at her local club, the dangerous moments at the wheel of a wartime ambulance and her beloved Scottie dog Max – too many times before. But as far as I was concerned, she could not tell them often enough.
Miss Cunningham with me (pictured third from the left in the back row) and my classmates.
Years later, when we had both moved to London, I would visit Leonora in Ealing. She would cook for me again and the tastes triggered all the memories of evenings spent watching the sunset over the Coliseum. In Rome, her pies and other English meals, such as grilled lamb chops with mint sauce and apple crumble and custard, had managed to taste both exotic and comforting at the same time.
At Leonora’s school, lunchtimes were eagerly anticipated and there was always something wonderful to eat. I have never quite been able to recreate the perfection of the tiny squares of potatoes, roasted in olive oil and flavoured with rosemary, that we were served at least once a week; or the sweet crispness of the grated carrot salad. And I have never experienced anywhere else the almost brutal crunchiness of the bread, with its forgiving, deep, soft white middle that was perfect for soaking up the juices left on our plates. Only once, I recall, was there a meal that nobody could eat: trippa alla Romana, a perfect example of one of the many offal dishes beloved by Romans for centuries. It was universally disliked by the ex-pat pupils and teachers, who sat mutely, staring at their plates, much to the disappointment of the school cook who had obviously put her heart and soul into its preparation.
Our sporting activities – netball, athletics and cross-country running – kept us all very fit, and it was a great way to build unity between all the different nationalities that made up our school. In the summer months, swimming was added to the curriculum. I will never forget the first school swimming gala. The nearby farm had great brick tanks standing in the fields to catch rainwater. The largest tank would be scrubbed and cleaned, then filled with fresh water. With tremendous enthusiasm, we ploughed up and down the water tank. There was only one obstacle: the newts, which the farmer had never managed to get rid of. Each time one of us came face to face with one of the innocent little amphibians, we would squeal.
At school, Auntie Leo was known as Mrs Warhurst, owner, and very much the boss. I was often summoned to her office to be ticked off severely for some misdemeanour or other. I was always being caught on next door’s farm, feeding the pigs or the chickens instead of being in lessons, or wandering off in the sunshine across the surrounding fields of gently waving wild barley to pick wild flowers and then losing all track of time. Later, driving home together, I could tell Leo all about my adventure with no fear of arousing the wrath she had rained down on me only hours before.
Leo’s clothes – always one of the most striking things about her – were, I think, one of the many reasons she loved Rome so much. Her favourite shop was called Albertina, an ultra chic knitwear boutique at the top end of the Via Veneto near the Café de Paris. She and my mother would go and get themselves kitted out in matching, thickly knitted tunic dresses and jackets, in emerald green or peacock blue, made to measure and very smart. Leonora revelled in gold or silver lamé, which she wore to many of the parties she attended, and slinky long dresses, often topped off by a multi-coloured Pucci silk turban. Even at 75, she was still incredibly glamorous. Added to this, she was a tremendous flirt and good fun: she liked a drink and did not care who knew it. She became an institution all of her own – La Signora Leonora.
The school soon filled up and expanded, providing an education that extended far beyond the classroom for the sons and daughters of diplomatic families, corporate parents, film stars, Anglo/American Italians and many others. It was amazing to be surrounded by so many different cultures and nationalities, to go to after-school tea with friends and be served Norwegian brown cheese, Indonesian nasi goreng or spicy Indian curry dishes. The only sadness was that many of my friends moved on after one or two years, when their parents were relocated. Even so, the memories of this happiest of times are still so vivid.
Recently, I have been lucky enough to reconnect with many old friends from my schooldays and many remember escalopes being their favourite school lunch.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 40 minutes, plus 2 hours standing
Cooking time: 30–40 minutes
8 thin veal, chicken or turkey escalopes, trimmed of fat
3 eggs
185g/6½oz/scant 3 cups fine dried breadcrumbs
125ml/4fl oz/½ cup sunflower oil, plus extra as needed
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Roast potatoes:
500g/1lb 2oz baby new potatoes, peeled or unpeeled and cut into 2.5cm/1in cubes
8 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
1 unwaxed lemon, cut into 8 pieces
juice of ½ lemon
2 rosemary sprigs, broken into pieces
125ml/4fl oz/½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Tomato salsa:
4 large, ripe tomatoes, chopped
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 handful of basil leaves, torn
Put the escalopes between two sheets of cling film and flatten with a meat mallet or rolling pin until 5mm/¼in thick. Beat the eggs in a large, shallow dish. Lay the escalopes in the egg, cover and chill for 2 hours. Put the potatoes in a bowl of cold water and leave for 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Rinse and drain the potatoes, then pat dry in a clean tea towel. Put them in a roasting tin and add the garlic, lemon, lemon juice and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper, then mix together with your hands. Add the oil and mix again until the potatoes are well coated. Roast for 30–40 minutes, until crisp and golden brown.
Meanwhile, make the salsa. Put the tomatoes in a sieve over a bowl and leave to drain for 15 minutes, then put in a clean bowl and combine with the olive oil and basil, then season with salt. Leave to one side.
Put the breadcrumbs on a large plate. Drain the escalopes, allowing the excess egg to drip off, then coat in the breadcrumbs. Heat the sunflower oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat, then, working in batches, fry the escalopes for 4 minutes on each side, or until golden and cooked through. Add more oil if necessary. Drain on kitchen paper, then season the escalopes with salt and pepper and spoon the tomato salsa over. Serve with the roast potatoes.
My Aunt Leonora (Leo) loved her classic English dishes and would often make kedgeree for me as a supper dish after school. Smoked haddock was impossible to find in Rome, so she would use smoked salmon instead, mixed in with some whiting or sea bass.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
175g/6oz/heaped ¾ cup long-grain rice
4 large eggs
450g/1lb smoked haddock, or a mixture of white fish fillets and smoked fish
200ml/7fl oz/scant 1 cup milk
55g/2oz unsalted butter
2 large onions, finely sliced
6 cardamom pods, split
2 bay leaves
4 tsp curry powder
juice of ½ lemon
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley leaves and 8 lemon wedges, to serve
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Add the rice, bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 12–15 minutes, or until tender. Drain, then return the rice to the pan, cover and leave to one side.
Meanwhile, bring a small pan of water to the boil. Add the eggs and boil for 10 minutes, then drain and leave to stand until cool enough to handle.
While the rice and eggs are cooking, put the fish in a large, deep frying pan and pour the milk over (add a little boiling water to cover, if necessary). Bring the milk to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 6 minutes, or until the fish turns opaque. Remove the fish with a slotted spoon, discard any skin and bones and flake into large chunks. Leave to one side, covered with foil. Discard the cooking liquid.
Melt the butter in the cleaned frying pan over a medium-low heat. Add the onions, cardamom pods and bay leaves, cover and sauté gently for 10 minutes until the onions are soft. Add the curry powder and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add the cooked rice to the onion mixture, stir well and heat through. Gently fold in the fish using a fork. Peel and quarter the eggs, reserving 4 quarters, then gently stir the remaining eggs into the rice. Add the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Discard the cardamom pods and bay leaves, then serve the kedgeree sprinkled with parsley and topped with the reserved egg quarters and lemon wedges.
This is similar to one of the dishes that we were served as a starter at school and it is perfect for large numbers, because the tomatoes can be baked together in large trays. The secret is to let the tomatoes bake gently until they are soft, sweet and sticky. They are always best if made the day before, and then reheated if you prefer to serve them hot.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus 30 minutes standing
Cooking time: 50 minutes
80ml/2½fl oz/
cup olive oil, plus extra for greasing and 2 tbsp for drizzling
6 large ripe but firm tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 handful of basil leaves, torn into shreds
1 tbsp dried oregano
120g/4¼oz/scant 
cup long-grain rice
1 large potato, cut into 6 thick slices
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas 3 and lightly grease an ovenproof dish with oil. Slice the tops off the tomatoes and leave to one side. Scoop out the insides of the tomatoes and discard the seeds. Turn the tomato shells upside down and leave to drain on a baking tray for 30 minutes. Chop the tomato flesh, transfer it to a bowl and leave to one side.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a low heat. Add the garlic and fry for 5 minutes until soft, then stir in the basil and oregano. Mix in the rice and the reserved tomato flesh and drained juices. Season with salt and pepper.
Fill the tomato shells two-thirds full with the rice mixture, then top with the lids. Put the tomatoes in the greased dish and tuck the potato slices in and around the tomatoes to help them stand upright. Drizzle with the 2 tablespoons oil and sprinkle with about 4 tablespoons water.
Bake the tomatoes for 45 minutes, basting occasionally with the juices and adding more water if necessary to soften the rice, until the rice is tender and the tomatoes are soft and starting to split. Serve hot or cold.
We used to be served these fritters at school for dessert on cold autumn days – piles and piles of them, dished out with a huge smile and plenty of sugar sprinkled on top! The Italian apple of choice for fritters is the Renetta, or Russet apple, as it is firm and crisp, and has the right balance of tart and sweetness. Any remaining batter can be dropped into the oil to fry in squiggly shapes until just golden, then drained and dusted with icing sugar to be enjoyed as an extra treat.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
3 large Russet apples, peeled, cored and cut into rounds
juice of ½ lemon
1l/35fl oz/4 cups sunflower oil
icing sugar, for dusting
Batter:
2 eggs, separated
a pinch of salt
grated zest of ½ unwaxed lemon
100g/3¼oz/heaped ¾ cup plain white flour, sifted
5 tbsp milk
1 tsp baking powder
Lay the apples in a large, non-metallic dish and sprinkle with the lemon juice to prevent them browning.
To make the batter, beat together the egg yolks, salt and lemon zest in a mixing bowl until pale and fluffy. Using a metal spoon, gradually fold in the flour, alternating with the milk, then stir in the baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter mixture.
Preheat the oven to 100°C/200°F/Gas ½. Heat the oil in a large deep saucepan until a small cube of bread dropped into the oil sizzles instantly. Dip the apple slices into the batter, then working in batches, drop them into the hot oil and fry for 3–4 minutes until puffy and golden brown, turning them over once.
Remove the fritters from the pan using a slotted spoon and drain well on kitchen paper. Keep the fritters warm in the oven and continue until all the apples have been cooked. Serve the apple fritters dusted with icing sugar.
Largo Spinelli 15, our apartment in Rome.
