could write a little feature about your experience there, get permission to use one of the recipes. Maybe wangle some kind of giveaway from Giovanni while you’re at it. Come on , Anna! You don’t need me to spoonfeed you like this.’
‘Fine,’ Anna said, heading for the door. There was obviously no point arguing any longer. ‘Leave it to me.’
She walked back to her desk, reeling. Had that actually just happened?
‘Everything all right?’ Marla asked nosily as Anna sat down again.
‘Yeah, actually,’ Anna replied. ‘She wants me to take over Jean’s cookery column.’
Marla’s perfectly plucked eyebrows shot up. ‘Whoa! Your own column? How come?’ She forced her thin, red lips into some semblance of a smile. ‘I mean . . . Great.’
Anna ignored the insincerity in her voice. She was feeling chirpier by the second as the news sank in. Her own column. Yes! She’d have a proper byline for the first time ever. Okay, so it was only a crummy cookery column, a tiny bit of space midway through the newspaper, but even so . . . Her own column! About food! Wait till she told Giovanni. Wait till she told her father!
‘Does that mean you’ll be bringing in more bread and stuff for us to try?’ asked Charlotte, one of the secretaries. ‘Only, you know, if you ever need any testers . . .’
Anna grinned. ‘You’ll be first on my list,’ she promised. Then, feeling slightly giddy, she looked up Giovanni’s number and gave him a call.
The first column ran the following week. She and Geoff, one of the staff photographers, had gone along to the deli and mocked up a scene in Giovanni’s kitchen: Anna in a chef’s hat and apron, beaming, as she stood with an array of food in front of her. Giovanni told her he was happy for her to use his focaccia recipe provided she credited him for it, and offered to give the newspaper an exclusive £5-off deal if they spent £25 in the deli. So with the recipe, the voucher, the photo and a short piece about the day’s course, Anna’s column took up a good third of a page, much more than Jean’s had ever done.
I’ll be honest with you, she began, I’m nowhere near as competent a chef as Jean. But I intend to learn something new every week, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride with me and try out my recipes as I go. If I can do it, anyone can!
Imogen pronounced herself ‘thrilled’ with the results. ‘Splendid,’ she said. ‘Very nice. Just what I was looking for, Anna.’
Encouraged by this response, Anna went on to explore further recipes for her next column. Writing about food, she soon decided, was way more interesting than writing about the council’s recycling targets.
I recently became aware of some Italian ancestry in my family, she wrote, safe in the knowledge that her mum would never read it, so what better reason to try my hand at that Italian classic, tiramisu. In my quest to discover the perfect recipe, I’ve whipped up a couple of variations, but this one is definitely the tastiest, in my opinion. I hope you like it – let me know what you think!
‘This is good,’ Imogen said when she read it, nodding so vigorously with approval that her hair actually moved.
‘Nice and friendly. I like that you’re telling us a story with the column as you go. Keep it up!’
As the newspaper threw itself into all things Christmassy, Anna dutifully provided a recipe for mince pies, suggesting ways to give them a new twist. I tried adding cranberries to the mincemeat in my mince pies , she told her readers. It gave them that extra little zing. Plus, the added fruit content made me feel better about using real butter and lots of sugar in the recipe. I’m sure one of my mince pies counts towards your five a day . . . In fact, they’re so delicious, you’ll have trouble restraining yourself from eating five at once!
It wasn’t long before she began to get letters and emails from readers – a slow trickle at first, but more every day. Usually it
‘Fine,’ Anna said, heading for the door. There was obviously no point arguing any longer. ‘Leave it to me.’
She walked back to her desk, reeling. Had that actually just happened?
‘Everything all right?’ Marla asked nosily as Anna sat down again.
‘Yeah, actually,’ Anna replied. ‘She wants me to take over Jean’s cookery column.’
Marla’s perfectly plucked eyebrows shot up. ‘Whoa! Your own column? How come?’ She forced her thin, red lips into some semblance of a smile. ‘I mean . . . Great.’
Anna ignored the insincerity in her voice. She was feeling chirpier by the second as the news sank in. Her own column. Yes! She’d have a proper byline for the first time ever. Okay, so it was only a crummy cookery column, a tiny bit of space midway through the newspaper, but even so . . . Her own column! About food! Wait till she told Giovanni. Wait till she told her father!
‘Does that mean you’ll be bringing in more bread and stuff for us to try?’ asked Charlotte, one of the secretaries. ‘Only, you know, if you ever need any testers . . .’
Anna grinned. ‘You’ll be first on my list,’ she promised. Then, feeling slightly giddy, she looked up Giovanni’s number and gave him a call.
The first column ran the following week. She and Geoff, one of the staff photographers, had gone along to the deli and mocked up a scene in Giovanni’s kitchen: Anna in a chef’s hat and apron, beaming, as she stood with an array of food in front of her. Giovanni told her he was happy for her to use his focaccia recipe provided she credited him for it, and offered to give the newspaper an exclusive £5-off deal if they spent £25 in the deli. So with the recipe, the voucher, the photo and a short piece about the day’s course, Anna’s column took up a good third of a page, much more than Jean’s had ever done.
I’ll be honest with you, she began, I’m nowhere near as competent a chef as Jean. But I intend to learn something new every week, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride with me and try out my recipes as I go. If I can do it, anyone can!
Imogen pronounced herself ‘thrilled’ with the results. ‘Splendid,’ she said. ‘Very nice. Just what I was looking for, Anna.’
Encouraged by this response, Anna went on to explore further recipes for her next column. Writing about food, she soon decided, was way more interesting than writing about the council’s recycling targets.
I recently became aware of some Italian ancestry in my family, she wrote, safe in the knowledge that her mum would never read it, so what better reason to try my hand at that Italian classic, tiramisu. In my quest to discover the perfect recipe, I’ve whipped up a couple of variations, but this one is definitely the tastiest, in my opinion. I hope you like it – let me know what you think!
‘This is good,’ Imogen said when she read it, nodding so vigorously with approval that her hair actually moved.
‘Nice and friendly. I like that you’re telling us a story with the column as you go. Keep it up!’
As the newspaper threw itself into all things Christmassy, Anna dutifully provided a recipe for mince pies, suggesting ways to give them a new twist. I tried adding cranberries to the mincemeat in my mince pies , she told her readers. It gave them that extra little zing. Plus, the added fruit content made me feel better about using real butter and lots of sugar in the recipe. I’m sure one of my mince pies counts towards your five a day . . . In fact, they’re so delicious, you’ll have trouble restraining yourself from eating five at once!
It wasn’t long before she began to get letters and emails from readers – a slow trickle at first, but more every day. Usually it
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