For Carla
Photo credit of my favorite picture of Carla goes to Sophie Davidson.
Pancakes & Biscotti has been quiet these past few months. As mentioned in my last post, I have been evaluating the blog’s next steps (still up in the air). Today, however, I feel compelled to write regardless, to pay tribute to someone who has impacted my life immensely: Carla Tomasi.
The name likely rings a bell. Carla has received many mentions on the blog throughout the years, and P&B is full of her recipes.
I am heartbroken to report that Carla – my mentor, teacher, friend – passed away on August 22nd. She was 70 years old.
I first met Carla in March 2018, at a cooking class she was teaching (the subject: Breads). I had signed up in a New Year’s effort to “Try New Things!” but I was nervous leading up to the lesson. I didn’t know anyone; I liked to bake, but I didn’t have much experience making bread; I was afraid I’d make a fool of myself. I need not have worried, however. I felt immediately at ease as I entered Latteria Studio, undoubtedly helped along by the fact that Carla – reserved, but decidedly welcoming – started the day with freshly brewed coffee and just-baked maritozzi. The class exceeded my expectations, something I would come to learn was standard Tomasi practice. We made 6 different types of bread that day, the hours punctuated with glasses of wine and good company. I left the lessons – several paper bags of bread slung over my shoulder – knowing I had stumbled across something special.
It was the first of many “Carla Classes” that I would be lucky enough to take part in over the years. As an anxious person with a brain that tends to work overtime, lessons with Carla turned out to be a haven of sorts, a place where I always felt present, content, at peace. I’d meet like-minded people, learn tons, and spend a day doing what I loved best: cooking, baking, and eating, all in a truly special environment created and fostered by Carla herself.
Carla and I became fast friends, bonding early on over the fact that we had both left our home countries relatively young (she was 18, I was 22) to live abroad. She spent 20+ years in the UK, evidenced by her impeccable British English. Her mother was a terrible cook, which in a roundabout way led her to enroll in culinary school in London. She went on to open a successful restaurant, Frith’s (she didn’t love the name she told me, but it was on Frith’s Street, after all) in the 80s, a time when Italian food wasn’t very well known in England. She returned to Rome in her early 40s. London wasn’t the sort of city one could easily grow old in, she told me.
And here is where I abandon form, I think. If I were writing about anything or anyone else, I’d be implementing my usual blog post techniques: connecting passages, keeping my sentences as succinct as possible, editing down text. Here however I’ve given myself permission to abandon these usual parameters – I’ll risk rambling if it means sharing (and preserving) memories of Carla on this blog, in no particular order, with no particular structure (ahh, grief).
Stellar cook though she was, Carla once confided that she adored a sneaky frozen cheese pizza for dinner – Lidl supermarket brand was her favorite. She was allergic to fresh cheeses and the skin of freshly picked tomatoes. She didn’t drink alcohol or eat much meat, preferring vegetables, legumes, pulses, and pasta. On my frequent trips back to the U.S, she would often request bags of sweetened coconut flakes (impossible to find in Rome), flaky Maldon salt, and XL jars of peanut butter.
She was known as the verified #vegetablewhispererinrome – her very own hashtag! – and not just because she knew how to expertly cook any vegetables she came across. She also grew vegetables, and her extensive home-garden coaxed out everything from artichokes to tomatoes to eggplant to zucchini – all of which was used in the kitchen or preserved sott’olio. She took in and cared for countless stray cats, who roamed the afore-mentioned garden happily. Cats, cooking, and gardening – these were Carla’s great loves.
A fellow “fashion coward” (we both identified with this SNL skit starring Emma Stone) she loved stripes and opted for dark colors. She would often send me photos of her laundry to prove this point, a sea of striped cotton shirts, lined up neatly on the drying rack. Standing in stark contrast: her fluorescent pink shopping trolley, which would accompany her on trips to the Testaccio Market. She sported a colorful square tattoo on her left forearm, identical to the now familiar Microsoft Windows symbol (there’s a story there). I only ever saw her with her silver hair tied back in a tight bun.
She shared her (vast) knowledge of cooking and baking freely. She passed on her recipes – always written informally and simply, scattered with her own musings – with anyone who asked for them. Her focaccia and rice-stuffed tomatoes with potatoes are Instagram famous. Her social media presence was epic. Her Market-to-Table lessons with Alice Adams and Rachel Roddy were legendary.
She was an ardent advocate of the pasta machine, a tool that in her opinion liberated the traditional Italian (female) home cook from the usual rolling pen method, saving her time and energy. Carla even made her pasta dough in the food processor, with excellent results.
She taught me how to coax a dubious mix of flour and eggs into silky sheets of fresh pasta; how to wrangle and properly clean the spiky, intimidating artichoke; how to make an authentic piadina, like the one I had eaten as a student in Bologna and pined for ever since. She taught me that rosemary should be added to focaccia just after the loaf came out of the oven, never before, as the leaves could easily burn; that borlotti beans had far more flavor than chickpeas; that carnaroli rice was best for seafood risotto, but that vialone nero was otherwise the way to go. She advised me on how to best harness the potential of my freezer, teaching me that everything from pasta to bread to cookie dough had a place there. She was always just a Whatsapp message away from answering any and every cooking query I had. I reciprocated by translating recipes in cups and tablespoons into grams upon her request.
On an emotional, personal note: Carla encouraged me and believed in me when I lacked confidence in myself and my abilities – she made it clear that she thought that I had potential. She trusted me to help with her private lessons, where I was able to give her a hand with recipe prep and market visits. She brought me in on her annual Christmas markets, where I helped package cookies and cakes and assisted customers, giddy to be purchasing Tomasi-made goods. She re-posted P&B recipes (a few of her favorites: these polpette in bianco, this artichoke lasagne, and these castagnole) and referred to Pancakes & Biscotti as a “treasure trove” of recipes. I can think of no higher compliment from her.
And most importantly: Carla was a magnificent friend. She was the best Marigold mid-week lunch companion a girl could ask for (we’d share loaves of sourdough bread and homemade butter before moving on to the pasta-of-the day and dessert). She had a wicked sense of humor. She loved using the word “Boom!” to describe a particularly good recipe result. She affectionately referred to me as “Scarlett,” a reference to my active social life (translation: lots of dining out) and hit-or-miss forays into dating. She was an excellent listener and sage advisor, and saw me through break-ups, workplace dramas, and the loss of my Nonno, among many other life-events.
I’ll miss her immensely.
Though Carla is gone, she’s left quite a legacy – the tributes and 500+ comments on social media following her passing, the outpouring of love for her, testifies to this.
“Carla was among the first people I found and followed on Instagram. She was always ready with advice and recipes…one summer when she’d made sun-dried tomato concentrate, I commented that I could smell it from here in London, and she sent me some… how very Carla of her to send it to me, just because.”
“I once asked Carla a question about preserving tomatoes and she sent me a half hour voice message with step-by-step instructions. All the way from Rome to Australia.”
“I am utterly heartbroken. She left a lasting imprint on how I cook.”
She’s gone, but not really. Her dishes are snugly woven into my repertoire and the repertoire of many. She will undoubtedly live on through her recipes, in every round of focaccia, every juicy, rice-stuffed tomato, every batch of homemade ravioli. There’s been talk of consolidating her recipes into one place so that everyone can access them, a preservation of her legacy. I’ll keep you posted.
In Carla’s honor, I recently baked a loaf of her favorite banana bread – an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink type deal, packed with walnuts, oats, raisins, chocolate. (Very Carla, to come up with a banana bread with substance, a banana bread to be reckoned with). As I sliced and took a bite of the still warm banana bread, I couldn’t help but think: “Boom.”
Here's to the late, great, legendary, never-to-be forgotten Carla Tomasi.
A note: You can find a few of many Carla recipes here. I wanted to share this article about Carla that I particularly love, found here.
