Earlier this week when I posted a photo of Jools’ Pregnant Pasta to my instagram, I discussed my hatred of the pasta shape penne. I’m not sure if I’ve been served a lot of undercooked penne in my life, or I find it just too thick. I can’t twirl it around a fork or slurp it like spaghetti but I will admit, it does photography extremely well. 

I had a few people agree with me, my favourite comment regarding the pasta shape was “It’s stupid!”. I also loved hearing what other people said their pasta shape was, and some thoughts on different kinds of gnocchi. 

I ran a poll to see how many people liked penne, and I’m sad to admit only 30% agreed with my dislike of the tubular pasta. There’s a pasta shape out there for all of us, if you only had to choose one, which one would it be? 

There are two reasons my husband goes out for a coffee. Firstly, because he has ridiculously high standards. He really enjoys the aroma, crema and silky texture of a properly made flat-white. The second is because if not for those coffee dates with friends he’d never leave the apartment at all. It’s been over three months of pandemic lockdown now and it turns out he wasn’t joking about never leaving the apartment.

My husband is a bit serious about his coffee and will go weeks without having anything rather than settle for something that’s not up to standard. When you live in the Melbourne CBD you can afford to be choosy. A month ago I tempted him with a coffee at home, while shooting some new pods for St Remio. I may have created a monster, and now we’re having to order in extra supplies of his favourite new pods.

The winning recipe was the “Supreme” blend in the new range of compostable capsules. He goes for smooth instead of loud, and his taste in coffee is the same. He likes to say, “I don’t need a cup of coffee yelling at me in the morning, it just needs to nudge me awake and make it worth my while getting out of bed. Flavour is everything.”

This pod gave him the right amount of flavour plus that delicious crema that only a real coffee delivers. He will enjoy the more intense flavoured pods sometimes, for a very tall ice-coffee or an affogato perhaps. What he enjoys most about coffee is the silkiness of the roasted beans coming through the full-fat milk. Now he can have one or two a day as a reward for getting work done at home (or just to break up the routine between couch-time with laptop and editing on the desktop). 

It seems he has one less reason to leave the apartment now, which is kind of a good thing in the middle of a global pandemic.

I want to tell you something about my grandma, and how much she loves chocolate. She’s 92 years old and moved into a nursing home a couple of years ago and has mostly adjusted well. There are two reasons she needs a regular supply of chocolate. Firstly she really enjoys eating chocolate. She says she only has one piece a day but it’s amazing how quickly a box can disappear.

The second reason is that she likes to say thank you to the nursing home staff, and having grown up in Switzerland her way of saying thanks is to give them a piece of chocolate. It’s really important to her. Thank you is not a proper thank you unless there’s chocolate involved.

For this reason we have to keep her stocked up on chocolate. Under the Covid-19 restrictions it’s been hard to simply drop in with a box of chocolates. We can’t enter the building ourselves, so we’re limited to talking on the phone once a day. With the help of Sisko Chocolates we send her care packages every now and then. It means she has chocolate to keep her sweet tooth satisfied, plus a little something to give to the staff. It’s such a small thing for us to do, but it makes a huge difference to her.

If you ever get the chance to simply give someone a little chocolate, to say thanks or to say I care, then I recommend you do it. You may not realise just how much of a difference it makes to that person.