Alison Ranwell

The passion that surrounds food In Italy is infectious. After twenty years of living in Veneto, I’d very much formed an opinion about the foundations that make this country’s cuisine so special. I believe it boils down to two simple concepts, celebrating seasonal and celebrating regional.

In 2017, our family moved to the Midlands, choosing the gorgeous cathedral city of Lichfield that had stolen our hearts. Due to the outbreak of Covid and a wave of fresh perspectives on life, work and priorities, I opened Mangia Mangia, a small business cooking my mother-in-law’s lasagna recipe from home and delivering locally. We named it after a phrase repeatedly heard in Nonna Lili’s kitchen: ‘Eat up, Eat up’. From the Mangia Mangia website, our customers excitedly ordered lasagne, risotto, tiramisù and focaccia from an ever-changing seasonal menu. Over the years, my small business grew to include market stalls, Italian Extravaganza evenings and a pop-up summer spritz bar, ‘Aperitivo Time’. I’ve worked hard to promote the Mangia Mangia ethos which now includes my debut cookbook ‘Appetito - The Life, Soul and Tastes of Italian Home Cooking (Meze Publishing). This year has already taken a different path, I’ve accepted invitations to host cooking demos and talks in Italian and UK book shops and masterclasses at the Yorkshire Dales Food Festival as well as being interviewed for ‘A Writer in Italy’ podcast. I have adapted my business so that I can spend more time in Italy but plan to be back on Market Square this spring!

In 2021, I founded a blog on Italian food, travel and culture called ‘The Italian Way’. This began and remains, purely for the joy of writing, photography and exploring. My aim is to share the true nature of Italian lifestyle and provide my readers with tips on getting off the beaten track, getting stuck into the spirit of Italian cooking, discovering new foods, new territories and exploring the connections between the two. Throughout my posts runs a thread of honouring ‘regional’ with deep dives into the produce of specific areas, cities and even small villages. Understanding Italian cooking means understanding the unwavering pride of individual homelands where local ingredients are prized and protected.

Through the light-hearted, conversational tone of my book, I encourage readers to use what they have available - foraging wild garlic for risotto, shopping at farmers’ markets for what’s fresh and choosing ‘Locally Grown’ at the supermarket. The recipes in ‘Appetito’ are respected as ‘local’ dishes you’ll find all over Italy, some classic and some quirky. Within these pages, I write to share a well-established, well-loved cuisine that comes to your kitchens in an informative, comprehensible and hopefully relatable publication which many say is ‘much more than a cookbook’.

I feel strongly that if we celebrate what grows around us and cherish our surroundings, we can live and eat to the tune of the seasons and nourish ourselves with what's ripe and fresh. We'd excitedly anticipate every month's bounty and delight in our food, appreciating the passion farmers and producers put into their lands, adding value to our communities and to our sustenance. Through a deeper treasuring of good food and a well-informed awareness of its provenance, we’d join a sustainable journey, adding value right from the source to nurture ourselves and our precious Mother Earth.

Professions

Recipe writer

Special subjects

Italian Regional and Seasonal Cuisine

Regular work

Small Business Owner of Italian Food Business Mangia Mangia
Food, Travel, and Lifestyle Blogger for 'The Italian Way'
Author/Photographer of 'Appetito'

Languages spoken

English, Italian

Alison Ranwell

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