Travesty! Some even add peas "to add a bit of veg"

No recipe is sacred in our house- why should you be ever stuck with a recipe?

Italians know it more than most- in rural areas- you use what you have got, what is growing in the garden or cheap on the market at the time. With a bit of flair and love- done

Don’t understand your estimate. Even with the simplest/usual arrangement, only assets accrued together since marriage are split. Only fair IMHO – perhaps the wife’s regular contribution of ironing the husband’s underwear was instrumental in his suddenly making a killing during the short lived marital bliss?

Will refrain from knee jerk bashing of lawyers – it’s up to you to gauge cost of a (sometimes useless) legal dispute against a person you at least previously (I hope) cared for. Rare situation when you can point out somebody and say, “It’s all your fault!”

Would generally agree - but the constant (mainly Brit example) insistence of "enhancing" this that and the other thing by adding frozen copper green peas for the veg factor (!) to something actually simple like carbonara really gets my goat. Sorry, f-ing peas? Well, what can you expect from exponents of the mushy variation…
Just to clarify – I never order carbonara in Switzerland either

Fine, just don't call it carbonara, as it's not if you add stuff to it.

Tom

That, I learned from some chefs, is called cucina povera.

Truth to be told I never understood why they call it like that because in my experience "poor" folks cook delicious dishes.

Improvise, adjust, innovate.

Oh yes, agreed. I find it ridiculous when Chefs take simple poor man's recipes and posh them up. As when you see Bouillabaisse- which was made from all the 'poor' but tasty bits of left over fish, tails, etc- to be really cheap- and make them with fillets and lobsters, etc.

I am a 'chuck it all in cook' and find it almost impossible to follow a fancy recipe- because there is always one or two ingredients I don't have to hand, or whatever. Most of the time, it works - somehow.

hmmm perhaps we are digressing

I dont know your definition of Western countries... but a lot of young Spanish, Italian, Greek let alone most of Eastern European folks in their 20s would definitely come for 3.5k to CH and see if they can level up later. Most of the staff in the ski huts are Eastern German and seem to be more than happy with the Swiss poverty line.


Anyways: You indeed better dont marry a non-Eu spouse.

I disagree. Nothing more fun than to go to cooking portals, look for some vegan recipes and add in the comments "i added some minced meat, now its perfect"...

So, Swiss are out then?

Tom

No question at all – but I prefer ranting about peas. Using posh ingredients for bouillabaisse versus totally incompatible stuff for a simple pasta dish after you’ve chucked unnecessary cream into the combination cannot be compared. Posh bouillabaisse: waste of superior material. Fake (innovative) carbonara: yuck!

Please confirm that you don’t subscribe to the school of thought which considers adding the devil’s little green balls to “carbonara” is anything but a capital offence….please? I'd shut up, promise.

You are either [insert famous steak chef name] or a vicious anti-veg troll. Anyway, I claim my £ 5.00