A Table in Venice: Recipes from my home

Skye McAlpine, author of the successful blog From My Dining Table, offers an insider's perspective on Venetian home cooking, illustrated with her stunning photographs.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists pass through the city of Venice each year, eat at trattorie, and leave having dined in Venice, but not having eaten well. It is the food cooked in homes and made with local ingredients, the recipes passed down through generations that is real Venetian food.

It is romantic and it is exotic. It dabbles in spices, and delightfully foreign flavours. It's pine nuts and raisins, bay leaves and sweet vinegar, heady saffron and creamy mascarpone.

Some of the recipes in A Table in Venice are translated and barely adapted from old Venetian cookbooks, while other dishes are more loosely inspired by the ingredients, the flavours and the everyday life of Venice.

All of the recipes are typical of Skye's cooking style: simple, fresh, colourful and always plentiful, whether it's quick-to-assemble cicheti - the small plates accompanying an afternoon spritz - or a hearty serving of risotto topped with an extra grating of Parmesan. From Apricot and raisin sticky pastries with a morning espresso, to dinner of Roast duck with apples, pears and chestnuts, A Table in Venice offers a rare glimpse into the tastes and secrets of a true Venetian kitchen.