DELICOOKS:

What came first, designing tableware or the interest for cooking?

The truth is neither one nor the other. It all started with my passion for food and whatever surrounds it. The pleasure of sharing special family moments, cooking for others, laying the table, all of it is the root of my true passion and dedication to my work. My grandfather was a ceramist, a craftsman, an artist called “il Francese” – his name was Giovanni Marini and whenever I could, I would be with him in his atelier where I would watch him work. I myself started working with ceramics by making mosaics and from there I moved on to tableware, textures, colours etc.

What are UTYs? And what is the difference with a recipe?

UTYs are anti-recipes. In French it means a tool, in English it’s the abbreviation for Up To You. UTYs are tips to make simple dishes absolutely anyone can do. Making mistakes is, as we all know, being human, but we are too hard on ourselves and I can say this from personal experience. I want to remove all drama and bring to the table all kitchen taboo themes. We are all capable. There is no excuse not to celebrate each and every day with our loved ones. I am an absolute enthusiast of everyday life.

You have just opened a store in the eixample in Barcelona. What is it all about?

My store is a special part of this adventure. We will have our official opening on the 9th of December and you are all invited to the “Soft Launching” we are organising and where you will be able to enjoy some UTYs ! The very same ones we were talking about earlier.

It’s a space where you will find my tableware collections, tablecloths, glasses, plates, anything related to the table. Coming to my store is coming to play, to un-learn and try out new ways, new texture and colour mixes. Sometimes we don’t decorate our tables out of laziness or thinking that we don’t have enough identical plates. ¿So what?

It doesn’t matter, just try and do something different. And if you can’t, come by the store and my team and myself will convince you otherwise. I also organise feng shui and energy cooking workshops as well as kitchen parties that are get-togethers to learn to cook in a relaxed way with lots of tips that will help you jump the fence and loose any fear towards cooking.

You organise workshops?  Could you give us a preview of what is coming up?

Yes, right now I have 2 workshops coming up, one is “Your home: mirror of your energy” on the 13th of December and the other one is “How to use the energy of colours” on the 15th of December. Maite Teresa Corroto will do them. They are both very special to me not only because they will be the first ones but also because Maite is a professional of such level and humanity and I am so delighted to collaborate with her.

Could you advise us on an easy recipe?

I am so happy to collaborate with Delicooks, it’s a website I love and congratulations for it, it’s one of our favourites. I am of course delighted to share with you one of my UTYs !

We will need potatoes; we grate them and put them in a frying pan with a little olive oil, not much, just enough so that they don’t stick to each other. We will need an egg that we will fry.

On the plate, we put the potatoes first, the fried egg second, a bit of smoked salmon on top and a spoon of whipped cream – Philadelphia works also –

And there we are : a tasty, easy and quick dish.

If we opened Josephine Altavilla’s fridge, what would we find?

It depends on the season. Right now, there would be some ham, smoked salmon, eggs, seasonal fresh products, endives, zucchinis, mushrooms, puff pastry … and also a few truffles freshly arrived from Italy …

Tags: atrezzo, design, food photography, Josephine Altavilla, new opening in Barcelona