In mid-life she turned to cookery writing. Her first book, Portrait of Pasta, was published in 1976. An adaptation of Marcella Hazan’s Classic Italian Cookbook for a British readership followed and in 1984 The Gastronomy of Italy, an encyclopædic work covering the topic from the Roman period to the present for which she was awarded the Duchessa Maria Luigia di Parma prize. Subsequent books included Entertaining all’Italiana (1991), shortlisted for the André Simon Award, and The Classic Food of Northern Italy (1995) which received the Orio Vergani prize from the Accademia Italiana della Cucina, as well as an award from the Guild of Food Writers. In 2009 she published Risotto with Nettles: A Memoir with Food in which she places her recipes in the context of her memories of a life in Italy and England. She has also written many articles for Sainsbury’s Magazine, winning a Glenfiddich Award in 1999.
