Here at Frost Magazine we are endlessly impressed by the quality and superb customer service of the artisan producers we have had the pleasure of knowing.
I caught up with Williams Handbaked again when under pressure from Dick and my own great need to spoil myself, we totted up a list of our favourite hand baked cookies, and worked our way though the individual ordering system, rather than ordering a box hamper. At the same time, our son phoned to say he MUST order more shortbread cookies, but this time dig deep to find some control or he’ll scoff the lot in one sitting, again. One daughter dare not have them in the house until the diet is at an end. She calls them the diet destroyers.
Williams tell me they are sorting out a ‘Choose your own Box’ ordering system, which will make it an altogether quicker activity. But either way, if you have tried the box hampers, then rest assured that you can order your favourites with careless abandon. I have decided that there are no calories in any of Williams Handbaked goodies. But I am a fiction writer, which after all is one big lie, so what is another?
Do any of you watch Montalbano, set in Sicily, with sub titles in English? Well, Il commissario Montalbano (Salvo if one was being familiar, which one would so like to be) leads a police procedural, but in my mind he is my new best friend, because he is also a glutton for fine food. So, as well as enjoying the Sicilian scenery, and the actual business of solving ‘who dun it’, please enjoy Salvo’s sheer unmitigated pleasure in the food he devours. He will not speak when eating, he must enjoy in peace – well quite. One of his favourites is cannoli, baked by his housekeeper Adelina. I have longed to try some.
So, when I was informed that online delicatessen Affetto Italiano would provide these, (what diet??) we had to try them.
Cannoli are Italian pastries that originated on the island of Sicily and consist of tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy filling. Dick and I could not decide between chocolate, pistachio or lemon, so ordered a box of each. (We have no shame). They’re not large, three mouthfuls, or as Dick so wisely said, ‘If you don’t want crumbs it can go in in one’. It is not, though, a good look. I repeat, no calories – I repeat, I am a fiction writer, do not believe me.
We also ordered one of the most popular Italian filled pastries – Aragostine which are also far too delicious.
Affetto is an online Italian delicatessen based in Birmingham. It was formed in 2017 and works in partnership with a family-run producer and importer of fine Italian foods. Agostino is the director, a young entrepreneur that has kept his customer firmly in mind, much like another of Frost Magazine’s favourites:
Delicario , whose artisan products were delivered trouble free to the kids in wicker hampers at Christmas, but are available all year round, and of course, one can order individual items. The hampers went down a treat. I must order more of their products.
I also bought cheeses from Affetto: Asiago, Percorino with black pepper, and Scamorza affumicato. Salvo would drool.
To round off our tour of well – gluttony if we’re being honest, onto another Frost Magazine favourite … Rounton Coffee Roasters where a small group of entrepreneurs have introduced Midnight Harvest. The Midnight beans from Porta do Ceu, Brazil, have been stored in barrel aged (whisky) and let me tell you, it is pretty darned splendid. But I think aged in brandy flasks would flavour the beans just as well. I might then buy a bag of both, and their sparkling water de-caff to look less BAD.
All in all, quite frankly, and seriously, I feel Salvo and I could sit on his balcony, after treating ourselves no end, and watch the sun go down, sipping whisky or brandy barrelled Brazilian coffee with no need of speech.
How about it, Salvo? And reply came there none.
Williams Handbacked is available here
Affetto Italiano is available here
Delicario is available here
Rounton Coffee is available here