Supper Club Recipes - Pizza Beans + Sicilian Grapefruit Salad + Cinnamon Ricotta Donuts + Virgin Peach Bellini

It may not always seem so, but I have had a long-standing romance with Italy. I have never been and I really hope I can someday. Ever since my early teens and probably influenced by all the books I read, I dreamed of arriving in Tuscany, adopting a ramshackle villa and making it my own. Maybe, even start a quaint little Osteria that the locals would visit every weekend.

There would be simple family meals, the menu would be as wild and untethered as my love for creating simple meals from seasonal ingredients. There would be something sweet to eat after; accompanied by a chilled drink or a hot coffee as the guests basked in the afternoon sun out on a cobbled patio enveloped by wildflowers and lemon trees.

I have always adored the notion of a Supper Club. You carefully curate a simple 2-4 course meal from seasonal ingredients, you bring out the nice crockery, the fancy plates and glasses, you dress your table in simple linens, you go the extra mile and you invite people into this little world of deliciousness and share a fabulous meal, some conversation and laughs. Cooking and feeding others is the highlight of my life. The one thing that makes me unabashedly happy. So, while I can’t hold a Supper Club for others (yet!), I am trying to make an effort to have one for my little family every month.

And it is the most amazing thing. One day a month for a few hours, we stop everything we are doing, we dress up, we cook good food and we sit together and enjoy it. Life feels good!

Welcome to my first Supper Club Session and I am excited to share some of our family recipes with you. This November, here in Sydney; the theme is “Sunday Brunch At Osteria”. We have deliciously rich Pizza Beans (that actually taste like a good Margherita Pizza!), a fresh palate-cleansing grapefruit and fennel salad with crisp flavours that cut through the richness of the beans, delightfully addictive and pillowy soft instant ricotta donuts and a virgin peach bellini made from the season’s first stone fruit and kid-friendly too!

Mangiamo!