Skye McAlpine On Her Passion for Cooking and Entertaining, Her beautiful New Book ‘A Table Full of Love’ and Her Go-To Entertaining Tips
Interview by Alison Engstrom; Photography courtesy of Skye McAlpine & Bloomsbury
Your new book, A Table Full of Love is so beautiful, congratulations! I read it like I used to relish in magazines. I love doing this with cookbooks in general.
I’m the same. My dream Sunday morning is staying in bed with a stack of good cookbooks, a cup of tea, and reading through them.
I’ve followed ans been a fan of your work since you ran your blog From My Dining Table. I’d love to learn what inspired you to get in the kitchen in the first place?
I have always loved cooking and I have always loved food. I think about it in a self-reflective way; I love how it brings people together. I don’t really enjoy cooking for cooking sake, what I love is cooking for people. It’s my love language. I love that feeling of bringing people into my home, and creating a space that feels warm and welcoming, even if it’s just for a few hours. Parallel to that, I think that was always a huge part of my life, it’s something that I grew up with and it was always important to me. I just cannot imagine life without it.
Since you split your time between london and venice these days, where Were you raised?
I was born in the UK but moved to Venice when I was six and I grew up here. I went to university in the UK when I was 18, it’s where I met my husband. He started working in London and I continued my studies for quite a while. So I had flexibility where I could spend a lot of time in Venice.
Italians have such a reverence for food, it’s a feeling, and you can’t really put your finger on it.
It’s this kind of magic, it’s what I have learned from living here. Everyone loves food and it’s a huge part of their lives. In the UK, food is more of an interest or a hobby you might choose, like a sport. Whereas in Italy, it’s a complete given, an absolute assumption, that of course, everyone loves food. Everyone eats well no matter their socioeconomic status. In the UK when you are chatting with someone you have just met and there is an awkward silence, you talk about the weather. In Italy, everyone talks about food (laughs).
I love how it brings people together in that way because we all eat. There are few other basic human qualities that we all share and that’s what I find so fascinating, food is one of life’s few universals, but I think what we eat and how we eat is an incredibly personal story. It’s this dichotomy between the greatest common denominator and our most personal stories, which gives us a sense of our background—where we are from and where we want to live our lives. Or maybe it’s a very personal story of people we have encountered over our lives, or our culture, and religion in many cases. In Italy, we have many traditional foods that we eat on various saints days –whether it’s a certain sweet or having fish on a Friday.
I love how in the book you talk about the art of preparing, it’s not just making something. It’s about the love that goes into preparing a meal or a dish, which I think is the key to happiness.
I’m so happy you say that because that’s the spirit that I wrote the book in. I wanted to explore this idea of, why cook? For most of us, we are so spoiled. There are so many ready-made, cost-effective options that are available to us. I was thinking, why do I cook? I love to cook because I love the people I cook for. I think if you can shift the emphasis away from cooking being a chore or something you have to do—part of your never-ending daily to-do list–and instead, place the emphasis on doing something for someone you love, like a friend, or cooking for your children.
GET THE RECIPE FOR SKYE MCALPINE’s Orange loaf, here
I feel like you are making subtle memories with children when you cook for them. I have many memories about food GROWING up.
You are, you are shaping them as individuals, the meals of their future, and their ability to enjoy life. I think if you can really enjoy food and have it be something that brings you a lot of joy, rather than stress, or something that feels alien, unfamiliar, and intimidating, it makes life a lot easier, more joyful, and it’s not an expensive habit. I feel like as a parent you have to hold the faith. When I was growing up, I wasn’t grateful at all for my parents when they cooked delicious meals for me. I was just jealous of the kids who had Nutella sandwiches for breakfast (laughs).
Were your parents good cooks?
Yes, they were very good cooks. The thing I am most grateful for is how relaxed they were around food. Food has always been an excuse to have people over, it’s always been very convivial and joyful. My mother has never been stressed about entertaining or sharing a meal with friends. It was never like, someone is coming over and we need to make it complicated and special. There’s always been this gentle confidence where the food itself is special, and maybe we will put some candles on the table.
How did the idea for the new book come to you?
I started thinking about it in 2020 during one of our big lockdowns. I found that I wasn’t enjoying cooking as much, it wasn’t bringing me as much joy and I really missed my friends. I put two and two together and I realized that why I love cooking so much is because I love the people I cook for. That gave me the framework for the book. I wanted to try to write a book that shines a light on the people more than it does the food. Of course, it needed to be a hardworking cookbook with recipes that were simple and doable; they are all recipes I cook regularly and are favorites. I shifted the emphasis to who you are sharing your food with rather than how to prepare the food.
I also got to thinking about the different types of love because we use the word love in such a generic way. In the English language, you might love your next-door neighbor, and your dog. I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I love my children. It’s the same word but the meaning behind the word in each of those contexts is quite different. I studied classics at university and one thing in the Greco-Roman world is there is a distinction between the different types of love. They each have their own name and identity and it’s a different vocabulary for each one. I became quite interested in identifying different types of love. With food we cook differently, if you are cooking for your children it’s an expression of love. It’s different than what you might cook for a friend to celebrate her birthday or a friend who is bereaved and going through a rough time. If you take the example of self-love on a weeknight, you’d want a different style of food than if you are cooking for your family of four or six. Equally, if you are trying to seduce something or have a date night, you’d cook something else.
What are your hopes and dreams for people as they cook through the book?
I hope the book reminds them to enjoy cooking and it inspires them to find a way to make it a happy part of their day, not a part of that feels like an obligation. There is nothing complicated in there because I am not a complicated cook. There are some recipes that are more labor-intensive, like the massive birthday cake (note, it’s the beautiful cake on the cover). It’s for someone who loves baking and their relaxing, happy place is to spend time baking—they will love that. For anyone who feels overwhelmed or too busy, I hope they will make things like the Toblerone Fondue, it’s one of the easiest things in the world. But many of the recipes are quite intuitive and you can feel proud of. That’s the kind of cooking I love doing, something that’s very simple and easy to make but still looks great. I do a lot of talking and advocating about when you entertain, you shouldn’t be pressured to make it special, or to make a show or performance of a meal. But equally, I want to be realistic. If you are inviting people into your home, whether it’s friends or extended family, you still want something that you can be proud to share with them.
I have to ask, your lunch and dinner parties you share on Instagram are exquisite. What’s your secret to pulling off a meal like that with success?
I think a big part is taking the pressure off. One thing I wanted to dig into in A Table for Friends, is getting people to know their kitchen. Get to know and recognize your limitations and don’t feel the pressure to pretend they aren’t there or try to magic them away.
If you have a tiny oven, or there are problems with its temperature, don’t do a roast chicken with roast potatoes, roasted pumpkin, and a crumble—just don’t use the oven. Go for things you can cook on the hob or focus on recipes you can throw together where there is no actual cooking. If it’s just assembling ingredients, you could make it in your living room.
Same for time, how much time do you have to dedicate to this realistically? If you are busy, have a small baby, and have a lot going on, go for the Toblerone Fondue (note, a delectable recipe in the book) equivalent, it takes five minutes. It’s delicious and no one is not going to be completely thrilled when they are presented with it. There is no secret to effortless hosting or cooking, the reality is that it involves a bit of an effort, it’s like going to the gym. You cannot become strong and fit and not go to the gym. But you can make it easier by joining a gym that’s closer to your house and doing classes that you enjoy.
One thing I love doing is preparing things in advance because it can be quite overwhelming to do everything in one day. If you have made the pudding two days before, and then most of the main course the day before then on the day, you just lay the table, and put the main course in the oven, it becomes much more achievable. Also don’t feel like you need to tidy your whole home, no one cares, which is why I love making a big fuss over the table and putting flowers on it. If you slightly dim the lights, you have a few candles around, and you have a really beautiful table, literally, no one is going to recognize the chaos—even you—going on outside of that.
The other tip that someone gave me is don’t feel the pressure to do something different. Sometimes we have friends over for dinner and make a recipe that we know how to do with our eyes shut and it’s super easy. Then you want to have them over again and you feel like you can’t cook that. Nope, again, everyone is just thrilled to be cooked for.
I agree with that! I’d love to hear more about your dreamy home brand, Skye McAlpine Tavola. I know you had a pop-up shop in London over the holidays. What inspired you to start it?
We did, it was really fun. I have always felt like presentation is an important part of cooking for me. I am very much a home cook and not a chef, which is probably why I say I am a fan of the path of least resistance when it comes to cooking and entertaining. If there is a shortcut I will take it. A big part of that is we eat with our eyes and if you can create a beautiful space with your table and your food, you will enjoy it more and feel more comfortable sharing it with your guests.
That’s a long roundabout way of saying, if you have a nice beautiful plate, all you need to do is put some mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil and you have got this beautiful salad. Of course, you can do that with not as nice of a plate, it just won’t look as fabulous. What I have done over the years is build a collection of a lot of vintage pieces that feel complimentary to the way I cook. I can present something simple and I feel happy with how it looks on the table so that was my inspiration for the tableware collection. Living here in Venice there are so many artisans and everything we sell is made in Italy. I have a lot of hand-painted ceramics and glass from Murano. It’s been nice supporting local artisans. I love vintage and old things and that's what we did with the designs for the tableware. They are all quite old-fashioned styles and my hope is that they are all timeless.
Since you split your time between London and Venice, I’d love for you to share three of your favorite places to eat in Venice.
I have so many favorites, I love Al Covo for dinner. They grow a lot of their own vegetables and fruits. It is a thoughtful and considered approach to food but it’s completely delicious. They make mostly traditional Venetian dishes with a personal twist so it always feels fresh and new. Rosa Salva, a pastry shop, does wonderful breakfast pastries and other sweet things–I have a sweet tooth so I love it. Oke Zattere, a pizza place, is probably not the best restaurant in Venice by any stretch of the imagination but it’s a lovely spot to eat. At this stretch of the waterfront in the winter if there is any sunshine at all it’s like a sun trap, it captures it there. This time of year, when we are nudging towards the end of winter, on a sunny day, go and sit outside and catch that sun and have a delicious pizza, it is actual heaven.