Other People's Kitchens. Q&A with Lolly Martyn
Peek into Lolly's kitchen in Lake Como, Italy
Q: Hello Lolly. Please tell a little about yourself, where you live and your substack publication.
A: Thank you for having me, Lynn! I’m happy to be chatting with you from my miniscule kitchen in Lake Como, Italy. I gleefully moved from Manhattan to the edge of a tiny Italian village of 1,000 people in 2010 with my Italian husband. Since then, we’ve moved to the larger town of Como, which is the main town on the lake where we can walk absolutely everywhere. I love it.
I share about slow life in Italy and eating the Italian way with simple, seasonal foods in my two Substack newsletters: Weeknight Pasta from Italy and Raising Bambino. Weeknight Pasta contains 30-minute pasta recipes that Italians actually cook at home. I hope to inspire others with how easy it is to use real, seasonal ingredients to make scrumptious, authentic Italian meals that just happen to be healthy!
Our little kitchen is part of a rental apartment in a renovated hundreds-year old palazzo. The thick stone and stucco walls are over 70 cm (2 feet) thick so there is no cell reception in the apartment - only WiFi! One of my favorite features is the terrazzo flooring with its colorful specks of marble and granite. We’re also located just outside the medieval city walls, fulfilling a lifelong dream of living minutes from mountain trails. Our world is small but full of lots of daily chatter and smiles, walks along Lake Como, and espressos in our 3 neighborhood bars where everyone knows us by name. PS Bar is the Italian word for coffee shop!
Q: Can you please describe the layout of your kitchen, and how much of a role it plays with your family and when writing for your substack publication ‘Weeknight Pasta From Italy’.
A - My kitchen is what I’d call ‘European-miniscule’ but in the best possible way. We have everything we need, plus a couple of space tricks. Not one for subtlety, my ex-Italian mother-in-law gifted me a copy of Marie Kondo’s ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ shortly after I’d moved to Italy, asserting that she really thought it could help my marriage. However, I must admit, the book is brilliant. I still have it, and Marie’s tip on storing things vertically has helped me manage space here, particularly long pastas (see photo above) and sharp kitchen objects.
The shape of the kitchen is an open galley - meaning it’s a small, narrow corridor with appliances and small counters lining each side. One side is lined with the fridge, sink and dishwasher; the other side is lined with the stove, induction cooktop, and stainless steel counter. Our kitchen table and living room are on the other side of the little wall, so it’s really one big room. I feel like a kid in a candy store every time I pass plates or drinks right over the wall - or glance up to see the steep forest-covered pre-Alps mountains out our balcony window. I’ve lived in Italy well over a decade now, but I never stop having ‘I can’t believe I get to live here’ moments.
Q: What are your most used kitchen gadgets that you cannot live without?
A - Honestly, my top top TOP kitchen gadget is my dishwasher; my previous apartments didn’t have one, and it is such a game changer for kitchen mess management. But maybe that’s too big to be considered a ‘gadget’, so here are my ride or die smaller gadget-sized gadgets:
Coltellino aka little knife for Parmigiano Reggiano – It’s a gorgeous little nugget of a knife, made especially to chunk off pieces of hard aged cheese in a ‘safety first’ manner (see my kitchen accidents story later in the article!). In the photo above is our favorite from the Bertinelli caseficio parmigiano reggiano tour in Emilia-Romagna this summer.
Pasta pot with strainer insert: I did not imagine how much I would love and use this sturdy Langostina pot. It’s like a magic trick to strain the pasta without having to hoist the pot of scalding water over to the sink. Plus, it’s space saving since the scolapasta strainer stacks right inside the pot. Bonus: it can also be used for steaming vegetables. Ta da!
Mezzaluna – We use this traditional Italian rocking knife all the time for chopping herbs and making pesto, which is my family’s preferred method.
Bialetti Moka pot – This clever little gizmo brings me so much joy and my daily home Italian caffè experience. No judgment, but I wish that everyone would have a moka pot and toss their wasteful capsule machines in the bin!
Q: You say your cooking has changed since you moved to Italy, can you tell us more about this?
A: I moved to Italy in 2010 from New York City and I was a super anxious and uncertain cook beforehand. I hate to admit it but I was also a big city take-out food junkie! In contrast, my new husband’s traditional Italian family seemed connected to the earth. They innately knew the season for every fruit and vegetable. They ate what was grown locally. When they were in Piemonte, they cooked and ate food local to Piemonte. When in Tuscany, they cooked and ate the foods local to that region. They foraged for greens in their gardens in spring and only grew trees that bore fruit. After initially failing at a couple basic Italian recipes, including the insanely simple sugo, I asked my mother-in-law, who is a wizard in the cucina, to give me cooking lessons. She graciously did and I’ll always be grateful. I try to impart that experience and learned ease in the kitchen via my Substack. If I can cook stress-free seasonal fresh food on a weeknight, anyone can!
Q: You also have another Substack Publication called ‘Raising Bambino’ How did this come about, and what is the inspiration behind it?
A: When my son was a toddler, I began writing a book about the experience of raising and feeding a child in Italy: easy, healthy, seasonally, sustainably. Life here is so much simpler and more connected to nature than I felt in the United States. Ultimately, I decided to publish Raising Bambino in little chunks on this Substack to inspire and hopefully create a community with others who are interested in the Italian lifestyle and bringing up kids in Italy!
Q: How would you describe the regional cuisine where you live in Italy? Are there fresh food markets, or farmers markets available? What are they like?
A: Ooooh - I could talk about this all day! Lake Como has many smaller and larger food markets selling loads of fresh produce, meats, cheeses, honeys, bread, and herbs. The ritual of the Italian food market is one of my greatest joys in life. The changing market fruits, vegetables, and plants are a reassuring cycle in an otherwise hectic, highly technological world. The constant flow of in-season, peak season, then out of season, brings excitement and surprise to every market trip.
As for regional cuisine, Lake Como is in the northern region of Lombardia, which borders Switzerland and contains the Italian Alps. We have cold winters and happy grazing mountain cows. With cows comes butter, so there is more butter in northern Italian dishes than in most other regions. Lombardia is famous for its mouthwatering polenta, pizzocheri, risotto, cotoletta, panettone, ossobuco, and chestnuts to name a few. My ex-husband’s Italian family is from Puglia and Piemonte - plus they had summer homes in Liguria and Tuscany - so I’m lucky to also have knowledgable influences from those regions in my cooking.
Q: Is there anything about your kitchen that you would like to change or improve on?
A: A pantry with a door would be very welcome! I stow a lot of food along the tops of the cabinets, fridge, and kitchen hood. There’s just a few cabinets where I can keep glasses, pots, and baking things. The rest of my ‘pantry’ is on open shelves outside the kitchen on a shared wall with the living room. That’s where you’ll find pasta bowls, plates, dried pasta, canned beans, and jars of tomato passata.
Q: What tips can you give us that will help keep our kitchens neat and tidy and easy to manage.
A: Ok, here are my top two game changers for limited kitchen space:
Vertical magnetic knife block: This is life-changing for counter space because it has no slots, so it holds far more than just knives! My metal grater, mezzaluna, and parmigiano knife stick to it and I love having them on the counter, just a arm’s length away.
Hidden over-sink drying rack: Nearly every Italian house I’ve lived in has one of these ingenious dish drying racks, strategically positioned right above the sink to drip-dry hand washed dishes,instead of using up valuable counter space. When the door is closed, it looks just like any another cabinet! Perk: can double as dish storage.
Q: How many cookbooks do you have and do you have any favourites? Have you written any cookbooks?
A: I sold most of my belongings when I moved to Italy, including my books, but I’ve since acquired only have about 30 cookbooks, which are really precious to me. No surprise, my top 3 favorites are aligned with my passion for Italian food and culture:
Italy by Ingredient by Viola Buitoni: Viola’s book is a poetic love story to classic Italian ingredients and mirrors my experiences with them in Italy. My favorite chapter is (no surprise if you know me) anchovies.
Cucina Povera by Giulia Scarpeleggia: Everyone should have this book! Cucina povera is Italy’s “peasant cooking” method of cooking “soul satisfying, super healthy, budget friendly, and easy to make” meals deliciously with real ingredients. Tuscan food writer extraordinaire, Juls, is the perfect guide.
Liguria, the Cookbook by Laurel Evans: I adore Ligurian regional food and you’ll find Laurel’s recipes for farinata and castagnaccio on my Weeknight Pasta substack.
Q: Do you have a favourite recipe that you would like to share with us?
A: Seasonality is everything in Italy, so I’ll share two: one winter and one summer pasta recipe! PS both are also divine with a buckwheat pasta if you happen to be gluten-free.
Lolly’s favorite winter pasta:
Lolly’s favorite summer pasta:
Q: Have you had any kitchen disasters that you can share with us?
A: My worst kitchen disaster involved a trip to 4 different Italian emergency rooms. (Don’t read this if you are squeamish!)
One evening after work, I was doing that pre-dinner-multitasking-thing that all mammas do. That particular evening, I was emptying the dishwasher while simultaneously making dinner. Meanwhile, my 6 year old son asked me for a piece of parmigiano reggiano to tide him over til mealtime. (Note: A chunk of parmigiano is a very common Italian kids snack which I wrote about here.)
My son brought me the big parmigiano wedge from the fridge. I grabbed a regular dinner knife from the open dishwasher. The knife was still wet from the dishwasher cycle. When I gripped the wet knife handle and hit down to chunk off the piece of cheese, my hand slid all the way down the handle…and the blade, making a deep cut in my littlest pinkie finger. It was a dramatic scene with a horror movie quantity of blood for such a small cut.
In the car, on the way to the first pronto soccorso (emergency room), I realized that my pinky finger didn’t move anymore. I had cleverly sliced through all the tendons.
After 24 hours of driving from pronto soccorso to pronto soccorso all over Como and Milan, we finally found a hospital with a gifted hand surgeon who was willing and capable of the 3 hour surgery to give me back movement in my finger. Now I have a Harry Potter lightning-shaped scar on my pinky and can move it again! I’m grateful every day.
Side note: All the emergency room visits, surgery, cast changes, and follow-up visits were covered by the Italian public healthcare system! The Servizio Sanitario Nazionale may have its flaws, but for this accident, it was absolutely brilliant, and I’m forever thankful.
That’s all for now! Thank you for having me over on FoodStack and hope to see you soon at Weeknight Pasta from Italy and Raising Bambino!
Grazie dal cuore to my Italian friends and family who have shared their beautiful Italian food culture with me - bettering my life in countless ways - and allowing me to share it and inspire others! ❤️
Thank you for sharing your kitchen with us,
. Visit and subscribe to ‘Weeknight Pasta from Italy’ and ‘Raising Bambino’.
Read more from the series: Q&A: Other People’s Kitchens
Thank you. Lynn H. (FSL)
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I LOVED reading this Lolly! What a delightful peak into your delightful life. Also, I agree with you about being able to have everything you need in a tiny kitchen with a couple of space tricks. :-)
Such a blast chatting with you, Lynn, and FoodStack Library! Thank you ❤️