Rome in the 1960s was a wonderful place to be growing up. There was such an air of glamour everywhere. I lived in our lovely apartment by the Borghese gardens with my parents, and went to school on the Via Appia Antica at my aunt’s eccentric school. My schoolmates included the Getty family, including Paul, who was in my class. We both starred in the school production of The Gingerbread Man when we were six years old. He played the gingerbread man, I played the farmer’s wife and I remember that I had to chase him round and round the school, shouting out, “Stop! Stop!” Unfortunately, his brown felt costume was not sewn together quite securely enough and pieces of it came adrift as he ran – until he ended up almost incapable of running at all, as he had to hold the whole costume in place with both hands to stop it falling off altogether!
My Aunt Leonora was the queen of networking and always managed to get all the most glamorous parents on the school PTA committee. The school was full of those international celebrities who were passing in and out of Rome in the sixties, which was the place to be in that stylish decade. When Anthony Quinn, whose children were at Leonora’s school, stood up to give out prizes at one of our speech days, my classmates and I were blithely unaware that he was a well-known movie star.
With my brothers away at boarding school in England, I spent a lot of time on my own, reading or cooking in the apartment. My father, aware of my loneliness, bought me a dog – were a beautiful Irish setter, Chuff. I would spend hours brushing his coat or trying to clean his teeth. He was my dearest companion and keeper of all my greatest secrets, even though he had a rather silly name. I think his Irish breeders originally spelled it is as Cheough, which I suppose is slightly more sophisticated!
On Sunday mornings, my father and I walked Chuff across the Borghese Gardens all the way to Porta Pinciana and then down the Via Veneto to the Café de Paris. (The Via Veneto was the iconic symbol of 1960s Rome: a place that was to become the centre of “la dolce vita”, thanks to its numerous bars, restaurants and hotels.) We would sit down at our usual table, close to the only newsagent in the city that sold American comics and international newspapers. Our beautifully groomed, very elegant dog lay down next to us on the pavement. After my father’s favourite waiter brought coffee for him and a lemon granita for me, we sat buried in an orgy of reading, enjoying the sun. I would have my nose stuck in Casper the Friendly Ghost or Richie Rich, and my dad would read his day-old The Times or The Telegraph, and sometimes the Herald Tribune.
When we had finished, I always paused in amazement in front of the patisserie counter, marvelling over the gorgeous torta Mimosa, torta Saint Honoré, il millefoglie and the other delicately beautiful cakes and pastries. One of my mother’s cousins first told me about mimosa cake. She said that the cake is made in the weeks between the mimosa blossoming in late February and vanishing again after International Women’s Day. The flower has since become symbolic of International Women’s Day because it was in full bloom on the first ever Festa delle Donne on 8 March 1946. It is customary for all women in Italy to receive bunches or sprigs of mimosa on this day as a symbol of respect and affection. Mimosa itself is poisonous, so is not used as one of the cake’s ingredients. Instead, the cake takes its name from the sponge that is crumbled over its surface, which looks remarkably like the mimosa’s tiny, soft, yellow pom-pom flowers.
My absolute favourite cake on the patisserie counter was – and still is – the gloriously complicated La Torta Saint Honoré (see page 237). There is something about the little choux pastry buns that I used to find completely transporting: thinly coated in crisp, transparent caramel and filled to bursting with zabaglione, sitting on top of layers of perfect sponge, and all sandwiched together with sweetened, whipped cream. We only ever had cakes like this for birthdays or special occasions, but I was content to just look. If I turned my attention to the glass-fronted freezer, with its display of semifreddo and ice-cream cakes, the object of my desire would always be the Semifreddo al Torrone (Nougat Semifreddo, see page 235), a perfect combination of creaminess and nougat crunch.
Top, my mother with my brothers Steve, Howard (Din) and Nick. Left, me painting on the terrace.
One unforgettable day, the lady behind the counter called me over. She had put a huge slice of Saint Honoré on a plate, laid a silver cake fork next to it, and beckoned me inside. It was a gift, for me! I carried it so carefully, dodging the waiters as they sped in and out of the doors, trays held high on the tips of their outstretched fingers. I sat down and gazed at my plate, trying to work out whether to eat the choux buns first, or just dive into the sponge and cream. My father lowered his newspaper and when he saw the cake he broke into a huge smile, clapped his hands and began to laugh and laugh. “Go on Vally!” he said. “I won’t tell your mother you ate it just before lunch – enjoy!”
On our way home from the café, via the same route through the gardens, my dad would tell me snippets about his wartime experiences in Rome. He painted such a lively picture of what life had been like, through a hundred anecdotes, that it almost made me forget how that time had been the toughest test of his life.
“Over there,” he’d say, waving a hand in the direction of the Hotel Excelsior, “we’d have such wild parties. You wouldn’t believe half of what we got up to, even in those dark days!” And another time: “When I got ill with diphtheria, your mother used to bribe everyone she knew to come and visit me in the military hospital. Their visiting times were so strict, but your mother always managed to ignore that – you know what a rebel she is!”
I was proud to walk alongside my father, his huge hand engulfing mine. It felt so secure, as though nothing bad could ever happen. With him at my side, I did not think about how much I was missing my brothers, or the fact that I had so few friends. I know it was a good time for my dad too, as I rarely saw him so calm and serene.
Once home, my mother would have cooked lunch. We often had friends or family over, but some of my very favourite times were when there was nobody else coming to lunch. On those occasions, I could revel in my parents’ undivided attention, and would enjoy just being together, the three of us. I sat back and basked in their love for each other, which shone out so bright and clear in their every glance.
If there was nobody else coming to lunch, my mother always made our favourite things – although, it being a Sunday, English rules were observed. The centrepiece was always a roast, which my father carved with flair. He was especially fond of beef (My Mother’s Sunday Roast Beef, see page 232), which my mother inevitably under-roasted so that my father complained about it being too rare. He spent ages sharpening his knife, then sliced the meat perfectly thinly. With the roast beef, scented with rosemary from a pot on the terrace, there would be buttered carrots and cabbage, and gravy, often made with a little Bisto that my mother had smuggled home from England or thickened with a brown roux, but always a big slug of red wine. Her roast potatoes were not quite as “crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside” as my father would have liked: “These are not like the roast potatoes we have in England, are they?” he would grumble.
Pudding was a rather battered-looking apple pie, sometimes with a jug of hot Bird’s custard, made from the tinned powder variety that, like the Bisto, would be tucked into my mother’s suitcase on one of our frequent visits to London. “Delicious, darling,” my father would always say at the end of the meal, his hand covering my mother’s on the table, “but next time, please can the beef be a little less bloody.” Then he would chuckle and add, “But the gravy and custard were perfect, as usual!”
Every time my mother served up apple pie she would pause before sitting down and ask me, “Are you sure you don’t want ice cream with that? Like I used to have it in the States?” Something in her tone gave me the feeling I should say yes, and so I always did. It seemed so important for my mother, in the midst of all this Englishness at our table, that she should be allowed to introduce something that was her very own.
After lunch, my father rose from the table, kissed my mother tenderly, and said, “I’m off for my siesta darling, thank you so much.” He never missed his afternoon nap and while he slept my mother and I played board games (we were especially fond of Cluedo and Scrabble), or read together. In warm weather, I would go up to the top terrace with its amazing view across the park, with St. Peter’s in the hazy distance. There I would play with Chuff in the sunshine.
Those Sundays with my parents were magical days, precious and few, before the advent of boyfriends and my teenage social whirl swept them away in an unstoppable tide.
This is the roast beef that caused so much consternation on Sundays because my mother always cooked it very rare, the way Italians tend to like it. I have allowed 70 minutes roasting time, but you can increase or decrease this as you prefer, depending on how you like your meat cooked. Remove the joint from the fridge 1 hour before cooking to bring it to room temperature. Roasting the meat on a rack creates convection in the oven so that you do not need to turn the joint, and the meat is placed fat-side up so that as it cooks the fat melts and bathes the entire joint.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 15 minutes, plus 15 minutes resting
Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes
1.6kg/3lb 8oz roasting beef joint, such as sirloin, topside or rump
2 garlic cloves, cut into 8 slivers
8 small rosemary sprigs
2–3 tbsp olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
roast potatoes, buttered carrots and steamed cabbage, to serve
Gravy:
400ml/14fl oz/generous 1½ cups red wine, water or beef stock
1 tbsp cornflour
1 rosemary or thyme sprig (optional)
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Using a sharp knife, make 8 small incisions in the beef, then push a sliver of garlic and rosemary sprig into each incision. Spread the oil all over the joint and season with salt and pepper.
Put the meat, fat side up, on a roasting rack over a roasting tin. Roast for 30 minutes until browned, then reduce the heat to 110°C/225°F/Gas ½ and cook for a further 40 minutes, or until the beef is cooked to your liking. Leave to rest for 15 minutes, loosely covered in foil to keep it warm.
To make the gravy, put the roasting tin containing the meat juices on the hob over a medium heat. Add the red wine and stir, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the tin. Mix together the cornflour and 2 tablespoons cold water in a small bowl until smooth, then stir it into the gravy. Add a rosemary or thyme sprig, if you like, and cook until the gravy thickens, stirring continuously to avoid lumps forming. Season with salt and pepper. Strain through a fine sieve into a gravy boat or jug. Carve the beef into thin slices and serve with the gravy, roast potatoes, buttered carrots and cabbage.
Sometimes on my Sunday morning visits to the Café de Paris with my father, I would eschew the lemon granita that I loved so much and really go for it with a semifreddo from the freezer. This one, made with ground nougat and drizzled with a stream of bitter, dark chocolate (which was usually poured from a tiny silver jug by a handsome waiter in white gloves), remains one of my favourite desserts in the world.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus 8 hours freezing and 30 minutes standing
Cooking time: 5 minutes
200g/7oz hard nougat
2 eggs, separated
40g/1½oz/scant ¼ cup caster sugar
2 tbsp brandy
250ml/9fl oz/1 cup chilled whipping cream
120g/4¼oz plain dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
1 tsp drinking chocolate powder, to serve
Line 6 × 85ml/2¾fl oz/
-cup moulds or a 500ml/17fl oz/2-cup loaf tin with cling film. Finely chop the nougat, or put it in a food processor and whizz to a coarse powder.
Beat the egg yolks in a mixing bowl until pale, then whisk in the sugar and brandy. Gently fold in the chopped nougat. Whisk the egg whites in a bowl until soft peaks form, then whip the cream in a separate bowl until soft peaks form. Fold these alternately into the nougat mixture.
Pour the mixture into the prepared moulds or tin, cover with cling film and put in the freezer for at least 8 hours until solid.
Remove the semifreddo from the freezer and leave to stand for 30 minutes before serving.
Meanwhile, put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and rest it over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Heat for 4–5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate has melted. Leave to cool and pour into a jug until ready to serve.
Turn the semifreddos out onto serving plates (or cut into slices) and drizzle with the melted chocolate. Sift a little drinking chocolate powder over the top and serve immediately.
This is my “simplified” version of the masterpiece I used to so admire in the patisserie shops of the Via Veneto, the gloriously decadent, rich and fabulous la torta Saint Honoré. I have to say that we never made this at home, as any attempt would never be a match for the fabulous cake available to buy from the pasticceria, but I decided just to have a go, and with some time and patience, you should be able to make a passable interpretation. If you like, you can use your own tried and tested favourite sponge cake recipe to make the base for this very rich and indulgent cake.
Serves 10
Preparation time: about 3 hours, plus cooling and chilling
Cooking time: about 1 hour 5 minutes
Sponge cake (makes 2):
butter, for greasing
250g/9oz/2 cups plain white flour, plus extra for dusting
6 eggs
2 tbsp cornflour
235g/8½oz/heaped 1 cup caster sugar
grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
2 tsp baking powder
Choux buns:
65g/2¼oz unsalted butter
75g/2½oz/scant 
cup plain white flour, sifted
2 eggs, beaten
Chantilly cream and caramel:
300ml/10½fl oz/scant 1¼ cups double cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract or the seeds from ¼ vanilla pod
1 tbsp rum or Cognac (optional)
150g/5½oz/scant ¾ cup granulated sugar
Custard cream:
3 egg yolks
100g/3½oz/scant ½ cup caster sugar
80g/2¾oz/scant cup plain white flour, sifted
500ml/17fl oz/2 cups milk
pared rind of 1 unwaxed lemon, white pith removed
250ml/9fl oz/1 cup whipping cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 heaped tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
Liqueur syrup:
150g/5½oz/heaped cup caster sugar
150ml/5fl oz/scant cup liqueur, such as rum, Grand Marnier or Cointreau
140g/5oz/1¼ cups toasted, blanched hazelnuts, coarsely chopped, to decorate
First, make the sponges. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4. Grease 2 × 23cm/9in cake tins with butter, then line the base with greaseproof paper and lightly flour. Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl until pale and tripled in volume.
Sift the flour and cornflour into a separate bowl, then sift again. Gradually whisk the sugar, sifted flour, lemon zest and baking powder into the eggs. Divide the mixture into the prepared tins and bake for 20–25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the choux buns, put the butter and 125ml/4fl oz/½ cup cold water in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Immediately add the flour and stir continuously with a wooden spoon. Cook for a couple of minutes until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan, forming a ball.
Put the ball of choux dough in a bowl or an electric mixer and beat for a few minutes, using a wooden spoon or the paddle attachment, until cooled slightly. Gradually add the beaten eggs in three or four additions, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl and mixing until the dough is smooth, firm and pipeable. Transfer to a disposable piping bag or cake syringe and chill until required.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6 and line a large baking sheet with baking parchment. Pipe about 10 walnut-sized mounds of dough, spaced well apart, onto the baking sheet. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 8–10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 130°C/250°F/Gas 1 and bake for a further 7–10 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp, with no uncooked dough in the centres. Transfer the choux buns to a wire rack and leave to cool.
Meanwhile, make the Chantilly cream. Whip together the cream, icing sugar, vanilla extract and rum, if using, until soft peaks form. Transfer to a disposable piping bag or cake syringe and chill for at least 30 minutes.
When the choux buns are cool, snip an opening in the bottom of each one using sharp scissors, then squeeze in the cream. Leave to one side on a wire rack.
To make the caramel, put the granulated sugar and 3 tablespoons cold water in a small, heavy-based saucepan over a low heat until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally.
Turn the heat up to medium-high and boil the sugar syrup for about 10–15 minutes, without stirring, occasionally swirling the mixture around, until it is a lovely golden caramel colour. Half-coat each choux bun lightly in the caramel, then leave to one side on the wire rack.
To make the custard cream, beat the egg yolks in a mixing bowl until pale and foaming. Gradually beat in the sugar, then slowly add the flour and milk, stirring continuously. Add the lemon rind, pour into a saucepan and cook over a low heat for about 15 minutes, stirring, until thickened to the consistency of double cream. Pour into a heatproof bowl, discard the lemon rind and leave to cool completely.
In a separate bowl, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Remove the skin from the top of the cooled custard and fold in the cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract. Cover and chill until required.
To make the liqueur syrup, put the sugar and 150ml/5fl oz/scant cup cold water in a small, heavy-based saucepan over a low heat until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Turn the heat up slightly and stir continuously until it forms a thin syrup. Leave to cool, then stir in the liqueur and leave to one side.
To assemble the cake, carefully cut the outside crusts off the sponges. Scrape a little of the cake crumb out of each cake to create slight hollows. Discard the cake crumb. Pour the liqueur syrup over the cakes and leave to soak.
Meanwhile, take 5 tablespoons of the custard cream and put it into a bowl, then put another 5 tablespoons in a second bowl. Stir the cocoa powder into the cream in one of the bowls until evenly blended, then cover and chill both bowls.
Spread some of the remaining custard cream over the top of one of the cakes and sandwich together with the second cake. Cover the top and side with the remaining cream, then sprinkle the side with the chopped hazelnuts. Arrange the choux buns on top of the cake in neat rows.
Spoon the reserved custard cream and chocolate custard cream into two separate piping bags. Alternately pipe little mounds between the buns without covering them. Chill the cake until ready to serve.
Top, preparing lunch for my dollies in my first restaurant, Il Pino. Right, my brother Steve and cousin Tim.
