Add kitchen-table pages and posts

kitchen-table/pages/about.md

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+---
+title: About Amelia
+sort: 110
+section-id: site
+keywords: Amelia Fontaine, about, Lyon, Turin, cooking, Italian grandmother, French chef
+description: Amelia Fontaine's story — growing up between Lyon and Turin, learning to cook from her grandmother and father, and why she started writing about food.
+language: en
+---
+
+![Amelia's market in Lyon](assets/images/market.jpg)
+
+# About Amelia
+
+I grew up between two kitchens.
+
+My mother's family is Italian, from Turin — the kind of Turin that is proud of its *gianduiotto* and its *bagna càuda* and the way Sunday lunch extends, inevitably, into Sunday afternoon. My grandmother Lucia kept a kitchen that operated more or less continuously: something was always soaking, something was always reducing, something was cooling on a rack. She baked her own bread until she was 82. She made her own pasta until she was 85. I do not know a person who cooked with more authority and less fuss.
+
+My father is French. He trained as a chef in Lyon — the city that produced Paul Bocuse, Fernand Point, and the *mères lyonnaises*, the women who defined what French bourgeois cooking could be. He worked in professional kitchens for twelve years before deciding that he wanted a different life. He left the restaurant world, married my mother, and for as long as I can remember he cooked dinner every night as if he were still making something worth caring about.
+
+Between the two of them, I received an education in food that took me years to understand the value of.
+
+## Growing Up in Two Cuisines
+
+In Italy, we cooked by season and by tradition. Lucia had dishes she made in autumn and dishes she made in spring, and the idea of making a pumpkin gnocchi in June would have struck her as slightly eccentric. Food was not meant to transcend its season; it was meant to celebrate it. Tomatoes in August were a different ingredient from tomatoes in January, and she treated them accordingly.
+
+In France — or at least in my father's kitchen — technique was everything. Not in a cold, academic way; he was a home cook by the time I knew him, and the restaurant rigidity had softened. But there was always a *why*. Why do you sweat the onion before adding the liquid? Why do you deglaze the pan? Why do you not stir the risotto too fast? The questions were as much a part of cooking as the stirring and the chopping.
+
+I spent my teenage summers in Lucia's kitchen and my school years in Lyon. I studied literature at the Université Lumière Lyon 2, which is where I discovered that I was more interested in food than in anything I was actually studying. I would cook for friends, obsessively, and I would stay up too late reading cookbooks and then wake up early to go to the market on the Quai Saint-Antoine.
+
+## Cooking School and After
+
+After my degree, I enrolled in a professional cooking programme in Paris. I did not want to be a chef — I had seen what the restaurant kitchen life took out of my father, and I knew I did not want it. But I wanted to understand technique at a level that home cooking had not given me. The programme was eight months of fundamentals: stocks, sauces, pastry, butchery, the French brigade system. I emerged with knife skills I had not had before, a better understanding of heat control, and a confirmed sense that my real interest was in home cooking rather than restaurant cooking.
+
+After Paris, I spent time in Italy again — first with Lucia, then working in a trattoria in Bologna for a season, and then travelling through the south, which taught me that Italian food is a category containing enormous variety. The food of Puglia is not the food of Piedmont is not the food of Sicily. Each region has its own logic, its own pantry, its own idea of what a meal should be.
+
+## Why I Started Writing
+
+I began writing about food because I kept noticing that the recipes I was reading online were, very often, missing the interesting part. They gave you the ingredients and the steps, and if you were lucky they gave you some headnotes, but they rarely told you *why*. Why this method and not another? What should it look like at this stage? What does it mean when the sauce breaks, and how do you fix it?
+
+I wanted to write the recipes I wished I had been given as a young cook — recipes that explained the reasoning, that described what you were looking for rather than just listing steps, that treated the reader as someone capable of understanding and not just following.
+
+## What I Cook
+
+My food is not particularly exotic. I cook Italian and French food, the food I grew up with, and other cuisines I have learned from books and travel and cooking with friends. I have a strong interest in the food of North Africa and the Levant, which shows up in some of my braised dishes. I bake bread twice a week. I keep a sourdough starter that is older than this blog.
+
+I cook seasonally, not because I am precious about it but because seasonal produce tastes better and costs less. I use whole animals and whole fish when I can. I make stock on Sundays.
+
+## About the Blog
+
+I started writing here in 2024, posting once or twice a week. The posts fall into three rough categories: full recipes with technique explanations, shorter technique-focused pieces, and occasional essays about food and cooking. I test every recipe at least twice before I publish it.
+
+I do not do sponsored content or paid partnerships. If I mention a product or a producer, it is because I use it and think it is worth telling you about.
+
+The name comes from Lucia's kitchen in Turin. She had a kitchen table with a marble top, and everything happened at that table — pasta making, pastry, homework, wine in the evening. It was the centre of the house. I wanted to name the blog after that.
+
+Come cook with me.

kitchen-table/pages/home.md

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+---
+title: Welcome
+sort: 100
+section-id: site
+keywords: cooking blog, home cooking, recipes, techniques, Amelia Fontaine, kitchen, food
+description: The Kitchen Table — a home cooking blog by Amelia Fontaine. Recipes, techniques, and stories from a lifelong cook.
+language: en
+---
+
+![The Kitchen Table](assets/images/hero.jpg)
+
+# Welcome to The Kitchen Table
+
+Pull up a chair. There is always something on the stove.
+
+This is a blog about cooking — real cooking, in a real kitchen, with the kind of attention and care that makes meals memorable. I am Amelia Fontaine, and I have been cooking since I was tall enough to stand on a step stool beside my grandmother's range in Turin. Everything I know about food comes from people who cooked before me: my grandmother Lucia, who rolled pasta every Sunday morning without looking at a recipe; my father, who trained as a chef in Lyon and taught me that French technique is mostly about paying attention; and the long tradition of cooks who figured out, through taste and repetition and curiosity, how things work.
+
+I started writing this blog because I wanted a place to share what I have learned — not just the recipes, but the reasoning behind them. Understanding *why* you roast bones before making stock, why you rest meat before slicing it, why you add pasta water to the sauce — that understanding changes how you cook. It makes you more confident, more adaptable, and more able to fix things when they go wrong.
+
+## What You Will Find Here
+
+**Recipes** — complete, tested recipes with actual measurements, actual steps, and actual explanations of what to look for at each stage. I do not round up to the nearest "a handful" and I do not omit the part where things can go wrong.
+
+**Technique** — posts focused on a specific technique rather than a specific dish. How to roast, how to braise, how to make stock, how to achieve an emulsion. These are the foundation skills that make every recipe easier.
+
+**Stories** — food without context is just fuel. I write about my grandmother's kitchen, about markets in Lyon in early spring, about the first time I got a hollandaise right. The stories are as much a part of cooking as the recipes.
+
+**Kitchen Science** — I am fascinated by why things work. The Maillard reaction, the role of fat in emulsification, what happens to proteins when you cook them. Where the science helps explain the technique, I include it.
+
+## Recent Posts
+
+```mdcms
+posts-datetime-reversechronological
+limit: 10
+paginate: yes
+```
+
+## A Note on Ingredients
+
+I use European-style butter, good olive oil, and fresh ingredients as much as possible. I give metric measurements first with approximate imperial equivalents. Most things in cooking are forgiving; I will tell you when they are not.
+
+Welcome to the table. I hope you find something here that you want to cook tonight.
+
+— Amelia

kitchen-table/pages/kitchen-notes.md

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+---
+title: Kitchen Notes
+sort: 150
+section-id: site
+keywords: kitchen tips, equipment, seasonal produce, substitutions, cooking notes
+description: Tips, equipment recommendations, notes on seasonal produce, and a substitutions guide for The Kitchen Table recipes.
+language: en
+---
+
+# Kitchen Notes
+
+Accumulated notes on equipment, seasonal produce, and practical matters that come up across the recipes on this blog. Updated regularly.
+
+## Equipment I Actually Use
+
+**Knives:** Three knives cover everything. A 20cm chef's knife is the most important; I use mine for probably 90% of all cutting tasks. A small paring knife (8cm) for fine work and peeling. A serrated bread knife. These three cover everything. I sharpen my chef's knife on a whetstone every two weeks and hone it before every use. See my knife skills post for the full guide.
+
+I prefer German-style knives (heavier, more robust) for most tasks. Japanese knives are sharper and more precise but require more careful maintenance and are not forgiving with harder vegetables.
+
+**Pans:**
+- A 28cm stainless steel frying pan: for searing, making omelettes, pan sauces. Do not use non-stick for tasks that require high heat or where fond (browned bits) is needed.
+- A 24cm non-stick frying pan: for eggs. That is mostly what a non-stick pan is for.
+- A 30cm cast iron frying pan: for searing large pieces of meat, for cooking that goes from stovetop to oven.
+- A 5-litre saucepan: for stocks, pasta water, soups.
+- A 2-litre saucepan: for sauces.
+- A 28cm or 30cm Dutch oven / cocotte: the most useful single piece of equipment in my kitchen. For braises, sourdough bread, soups, anything that goes in the oven.
+
+**Other equipment I reach for constantly:**
+- Kitchen scales: weight measurements are more accurate than volume for baking and are how professional recipes are written.
+- An instant-read thermometer: for checking the internal temperature of roasts and bread. Removes the guesswork.
+- A spider/skimmer: for pulling pasta, blanched vegetables, and fried food from boiling water or oil without draining away everything.
+- A bench scraper: for transferring chopped food, handling pastry, and cleaning work surfaces.
+- A mortar and pestle: for spices, garlic paste, and pestos. Better than a food processor for small quantities and for maintaining texture.
+
+**What I do not have:** A stand mixer, a food processor, a sous vide machine, a pressure cooker. These are all useful tools; I choose not to have them because I prefer to cook with fewer, simpler tools. The absence of a stand mixer means I knead bread by hand; this takes longer and I find the process satisfying.
+
+## Seasonal Produce Notes (Northern Europe)
+
+The seasons I cook by are for Northern Europe (UK, France, Germany, Benelux). Adjust for your location.
+
+**Spring (March-May):** Asparagus (the main event of spring; eat as much as you can afford for the 6-week season), purple sprouting broccoli, watercress, wild garlic, spring onions, radishes, new season morels. Lamb (the seasonal spring meat).
+
+**Summer (June-August):** Tomatoes (peak in July-August; buy from farms, not supermarkets), courgettes (in abundance — the recipes are for using them before they become marrows), cucumber, broad beans, French beans, sweetcorn, basil. Stone fruits (cherries, peaches, apricots, plums).
+
+**Autumn (September-November):** Squash and pumpkins, mushrooms (wild mushroom season; also when cultivated mushrooms are at their best), apples and pears, quince, root vegetables beginning, walnuts and hazelnuts fresh from the shell, game season begins.
+
+**Winter (December-February):** Root vegetables (parsnips, swede, celeriac, carrots — all improve after a frost), brassicas (cavolo nero, Brussels sprouts, red cabbage), forced chicory, blood oranges from January. Citrus fruit generally.
+
+**Year-round:**  Good onions, garlic, potatoes, leeks, spinach (but prefer to use in season), celery.
+
+## Substitutions Guide
+
+A selection of substitutions that work well when you cannot find the original ingredient:
+
+**Guanciale → Pancetta (not streaky bacon):** Guanciale (cured pork cheek) is used in authentic carbonara and amatriciana. Pancetta is an acceptable substitute; it has a similar fat ratio and cures cleanly. Streaky bacon, smoked or unsmoked, is not a good substitute — the smoking and different fat structure produce different results.
+
+**San Marzano tomatoes → Good quality tinned plum tomatoes:** Any tinned plum tomato from a reputable producer will work. Avoid cheap tinned tomatoes in recipes where tomato quality is paramount.
+
+**00 flour → Plain flour for fresh pasta:** In a pinch, plain flour works for fresh pasta. The texture will be less silky but perfectly acceptable. Not recommended for pizza dough, where 00 flour's specific protein content matters more.
+
+**Parmesan → Grana Padano:** Very similar in flavour profile. Grana Padano has slightly less intensity and is generally cheaper. For finishing pasta or using as a condiment, Parmesan; for cooking into sauces where it will melt, Grana Padano works equally well.
+
+**Fresh herbs → Dried (factor):** Not all herbs substitute equally. For robust herbs like oregano, rosemary, and thyme: use one-third the amount of dried compared to fresh. For delicate herbs like basil and parsley: no substitute. Dried basil bears no relation to fresh basil and should not be used in the same way.
+
+**White wine (in cooking) → Dry white vermouth:** Vermouth's higher concentration of flavour compounds means you use slightly less, and it keeps in the cupboard indefinitely. I use it for any recipe that calls for white wine in a sauce.
+
+**Buttermilk → Milk with lemon juice:** Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white wine vinegar to 240ml of regular milk, stir, and let stand 5 minutes. The milk will curdle slightly. This works well for baking recipes.
+
+## Notes on Heat
+
+The most common mistake home cooks make is not getting pans hot enough before adding food. When you add food to an insufficiently hot pan, the food steams in its own moisture rather than searing. Chicken skin does not crisp; meat does not brown; vegetables go soft rather than caramelise.
+
+Test heat with a drop of water: it should dance and evaporate within a second. Or use an infrared thermometer if you have one.
+
+The corollary: do not leave food unattended over high heat. High heat gives excellent results quickly; it also burns food quickly.
+
+## Notes on Salt
+
+Professional kitchens season throughout cooking, not just at the end. Each layer of cooking is an opportunity to build flavour.
+
+I use flaky sea salt (Maldon, or fleur de sel for finishing) and fine sea salt for cooking. I do not use table salt; the iodine imparts an off-flavour.
+
+Salt pasta water generously — it should taste pleasantly salty, not like sea water. This is the only opportunity to season the pasta itself.

kitchen-table/pages/pantry.md

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+---
+title: The Pantry
+sort: 140
+section-id: site
+keywords: pantry guide, olive oil, vinegar, tinned fish, pasta, spices, flour, pantry essentials
+description: Amelia Fontaine's essential pantry guide — what to keep, why it matters, and how to choose well.
+language: en
+---
+
+# The Pantry
+
+A well-stocked pantry is the difference between cooking feeling like a chore and cooking feeling like an opportunity. When you open the cupboard and find good olive oil, the right vinegars, and the pasta shapes you want, the question "what's for dinner?" becomes easier to answer well.
+
+This is not a list of everything you could have. It is a list of the things I consider non-negotiable — the things I always have and that I think are worth spending money on when budget allows.
+
+## Olive Oils
+
+I keep two olive oils. One for cooking; one for finishing.
+
+**Cooking olive oil:** A good, mid-range extra virgin olive oil from any reputable source. It will lose its delicate flavour compounds when heated, but it will still taste like olive oil and will not introduce off-flavours. I buy this in 3-litre tins for economy. The Sicilian and Calabrian oils are good value; look for a harvest date on the tin, not just a best-before date, and buy oil pressed within the past 18 months.
+
+**Finishing olive oil:** This is worth spending money on. A single-estate extra virgin from Liguria, Tuscany, or Crete, pungent and fresh, used as a condiment rather than a cooking fat. Drizzled on beans, soup, burrata, grilled fish, roasted vegetables at the moment of serving. You use less of it, so the cost per use is not as high as it appears. Taste before you buy if possible.
+
+**A note on "extra virgin":** Extra virgin means the oil is cold-pressed and has low acidity. It says nothing about flavour quality or freshness. There is a significant industry of inferior oils labelled EVOO; tasting is the only way to tell. Good finishing olive oil should taste grassy, peppery, and fresh; it should catch in your throat slightly. If it tastes flat or rancid, it is old or was never good.
+
+## Vinegars
+
+**Red wine vinegar:** The workhorse. For dressings, deglazing, marinades, quick pickles. I want a proper aged vinegar, not a cheap acidic substitute. The difference is enormous.
+
+**White wine vinegar:** Similar uses to red, but milder and less assertive. Better for delicate dressings and where you do not want red tones.
+
+**Aged balsamic from Modena:** Not the cheap stuff, which is caramel-coloured grape must. Traditional balsamic is aged for a minimum of 12 years, sweet-sour, thick, and extraordinary on strawberries, Parmigiano, or vanilla ice cream. You use it by the drop. A small bottle lasts for years.
+
+**Sherry vinegar:** The most underused vinegar in my opinion. It has a nuttiness and complexity that suits braised dishes, bean soups, and Spanish-influenced food. I use it to finish lentil soup and it transforms the dish.
+
+**Apple cider vinegar:** Good for pickling, dressings, and as an acid balance in certain meat dishes.
+
+## Tinned Fish
+
+My pantry considers tinned fish a staple rather than an emergency protein. Good tinned fish is not a compromise.
+
+**Anchovies in olive oil:** One of the most useful ingredients in the kitchen. They dissolve into almost any dish they are added to, leaving flavour rather than fishiness. I add them to tomato sauces, to braised meat dishes, to dressings. A tin of Ortiz anchovies is worth the premium.
+
+**Tinned sardines:** Portuguese sardines are exceptional — meaty, flavourful, and sustainable. I eat them on toast with good butter and lemon, or in pasta with breadcrumbs and raisins (pasta con le sarde, the Sicilian classic).
+
+**Tinned tuna in olive oil:** Not in water. The oil-packed version has a completely different texture and flavour. Good for tonnato sauce, for pasta, for salads. The Ortiz brand is excellent; Spanish albacore is my standard.
+
+**Tinned clams:** For quick pasta alle vongole when fresh clams are unavailable.
+
+## Dried Pasta
+
+Pasta shapes matter because the sauce adhesion, cooking time, and mouthfeel vary by shape. I keep:
+
+**Rigatoni or penne rigate:** For hearty sauces, baked pasta, and dishes where the sauce needs to go inside as well as outside.
+
+**Spaghetti:** For carbonara, aglio e olio, and the classics.
+
+**Linguine:** Slightly flatter than spaghetti; better with seafood sauces.
+
+**Pappardelle:** Wide, flat; made for mushroom and game ragù.
+
+**Casarecce or trofie:** Short, twisted shapes that hold pesto and chunky sauces.
+
+I buy pasta made with bronze-die extrusion, which gives a rougher texture that holds sauce better. De Cecco and Rummo are widely available and reliable. Setaro is exceptional if you can find it.
+
+## Tinned and Jarred Tomatoes
+
+**Whole San Marzano tomatoes:** For tomato sauces that need to cook down. The San Marzano variety has thick flesh, few seeds, and low acidity. The DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta) certification is meaningful here; it designates tomatoes actually grown in the Agro Sarnese-Nocerino area of Campania.
+
+**Passata:** Sieved tomato purée, for quick sauces and soups. I make my own in late summer; otherwise I buy the Mutti brand.
+
+**Tomato paste:** Concentrated tomato flavour, to be used in small quantities as a base layer in ragù, braises, and other long-cooked dishes.
+
+## Spices
+
+I keep fewer spices than most kitchens and replace them more often. Spices go stale. The most important ones to keep fresh:
+
+- Whole black pepper (always grind fresh)
+- Whole nutmeg (for béchamel and pasta)
+- Cumin seeds (toast and grind as needed)
+- Coriander seeds
+- Smoked paprika (Spanish pimentón, ideally)
+- Dried chilli flakes
+- Bay leaves (dried; fresh are better but dried are reliable)
+- Cinnamon stick (for braises, not powder)
+- Saffron threads
+
+## Flours
+
+**00 flour:** The finely milled, low-gluten flour for fresh pasta and pizza doughs. The protein content and fine milling give the silky, supple dough that pasta requires.
+
+**Plain (all-purpose) flour:** For general baking, thickening sauces, and most everyday uses.
+
+**Strong bread flour:** High-gluten flour for bread. The higher protein content creates the gluten network that gives bread its structure.
+
+**Fine semolina:** For dusting work surfaces when rolling pasta, for certain breads, and as a dusting agent to prevent sticking.
+
+## Pantry Organisation
+
+I keep oils, vinegars, and dried goods in a cool, dark cupboard away from the stove. Heat and light degrade oils and spices quickly. Tinned goods on a dedicated shelf, oldest at the front. Spices in tightly sealed jars, checked annually — if a spice smells of nothing when you open the jar, replace it.
+
+The pantry does not need to be large. It needs to be thoughtful.