Around the Table with Lolly Martyn

On the importance of home-cooked Italian meals, including her recipe for farfalle in salmon cream sauce

Welcome to this week’s Around the Table interview—grab a seat and join us. Our hope with this interview is to open up a tiny little window into someone else’s kitchen. We want to see the way food shapes who they are and how they move around the world. We want to learn about their favorite recipe, and why it means so much. We want to read about their favorite memory in the kitchen. If they’re parents, we want to hear how they feed their family and what sorts of memories they’re making present day with their little ones.

Most of all, we want to be reminded that no matter where we are in the world, what our beliefs are, or where we’re going, there’s something magical about the way food can bring us together. The way it can heal us. The way it says, “I love you.” The way a warm bowl of soup can sometimes say more than a hug.

If that sounds good to you, keep reading. We think you’ll like what you find. And remember to check back every other Wednesday for a new one.

Top left to right: Lolly on her way to Isola Comacina, Lake Como, winter beach in Liguria, her favorite easy homemade pasta, the best breakfast—focaccia by the sea!, early spring market, in her kitchen, first day with the two new pups at Villa Olmo, making pizzocheri, sciue sciue fast summer Napoletano tomato pasta.

A little introduction

What’s your story?
Ciao, Meredith! Thanks so much for having me! Here goes:

• I’m Lolly Martyn, an American immigrant living on Lake Como, Italy since 2010.

• I was four months pregnant when I moved from Manhattan to the edge of a minuscule Italian village of 1,000 people on the lake to live with my new Italian husband (now ex).

Italy is truly home—I’ve never lived anywhere longer in my life.

Why is cooking important to you? And when did you realize that?
When I moved to Italy, I realized cooking didn’t have to be a chore, but could instead be a simple joy as I learned it here from my Italian mother-in-law. Now I’m passionate about sharing the Italian way of cooking with pasta recipes that Italians actually make on weeknights and in my two Substack newsletters: Weeknight Pasta from Italy. I also share about slow Italian life and raising kids in Italy on Becoming Italian.

My top 10 favorite Italian food things that might surprise you:

1. My kitchen is minuscule! It’s as small as my kitchen in Manhattan but is much more modern and better organized. I shared details and photos about it for Food Stack’s Other People’s Kitchens.

2. My favorite kitchen tool depends on the day, but today it’s my moka pot.

3. I organize my personal recipes online: I created a recipe index organized by time to make, season, protein, and vibe. It was a bit time consuming to create initially, but it’s such a great resource for my readers—and for me!

4. If you ask me my favorite recipe, it will depend on the season and what’s available at the market! In winter, it’s always, always, always orecchiette with cime di rapa.

5. My son loves bitter food like radicchio and bitter Italian sodas like chinotto, which is an Italian soda, citrusy and bitter like Aperol, but non-alcoholic

6. When people ask me for a favorite restaurant in Como, the main town on Lake Como, I struggle. Like most Italians, we rarely eat out. Most of the restaurants in Como are for tourists or foreigners. We do go out for aperitivo quite a bit though and sometimes pizza, AND my fave slow food restaurant just up the hill outside Como is Crotto del Sergente.

Okay, but speaking of tourists…do tell, have you spotted any celebrities in the area?!
Celebrity sightings... Of course, we always know when people are here because it's in the local papers—Taylor Swift was at the Hotel Tremezzo last summer with Travis, Bruce Springstein celebrates his wedding anniversary every year on the lake, and Miley Cyrus stayed at the 5-star, Il Sereno, where I used to teach yoga. But the closest I got was watching John Legend and Chrissy Teigen's wedding at Villa Pizzo when I lived across the lake. The whole villa was lit up in pink spotlights, and we could hear the music across the water. Amazing. My boyfriend is a huge biking fanatic and has passed George Clooney multiple times on his motorcycle in the Laglio area.

7. My 14-year-old son is 100% Italian, born and bred here. He likes to cook but doesn’t love it, however, he’s an excellent pizzaiolo or pizza maker!

8. Italian public schools don’t serve lunches. The kids stay quite late to squeeze in all the classes so they can go home and have a home-cooked hot lunch often with grandparents.

9. My favorite American thing that I never ate in the US that I love now in Italy? Peanut butter.

10. Favorite food memory from my American childhood? Blueberry muffins—the one food I could make from scratch as a kid. Mmm—especially with crunchy, sweet streusel topping. (Katie: I grew up with these on special weekend mornings, too, and wow, just naming them brings back those memories!)

Lolly talks about something other than food, but just for a minute!

Do you listen to different music now that you live in Italy?
Yes! I became obsessed with country music after moving here—and Italian music. My favorite is Cesare Cremonini—check out Colibri live piano version. Chills!

My top Italian non-food things:

• Rifo Lab—sustainable clothing made from natural and recycled materials

• Quality of life

• Community of friends I’ve made here in Italy

• My Italian truffle hunting dogs Coco and Eddy. They’re both Lagotto Romagnolo, an ancient Italian breed, known for their super truffle hunting noses. They don’t shed, so in the winter they grow wooly coats like a sheep. In the summer, they lose half their weight and girth as we sheer them. Coco is white, and she looks like a baby lamb.

Oh, wow! Never heard of this kind of dog. Have they found truffles?!
Haha! My first dog, Coco, is trained to hunt tartufi (truffles), but I need to take an exam to get the pricey license to really do it. So my son and I have decided to take the course for both dogs at the same time and finally get the cert. Honestly, it sounds romantic to hunt for truffles, but it's a lot of off-trail, wet forest work. I question whether I'm up for it! If you haven't seen The Truffle Hunters yet, you must!

Back to the food

We love recipes here. Will you share one that means something to you?
One of my favorite recipes is for farfalle in salmon cream sauce. I recently was rooting around in a box that never got emptied from our latest move and found an old hard drive with photos from my first trip to Italy when I was 22 years old. It’s divine, made in 30 minutes, and suitable for guests at home or a restaurant in Florence.

Just for fun

What are you loving reading/ listening to / watching right now?
I have a new 9-month-old puppy, our second Lagotto Romagnolo, so I’m listening to Zak George’s Dog Training Revolution and finding it to be a game-changer. The last show I binge watched that made me cry-laugh was Running Point with Kate Hudson.

Where else can we find you on the internet?
On Instagram: lolly di pasta buona

If you could only eat one cuisine or food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Fresh bread with anchovies and butter

What’s something sparking joy for you at the moment?
Ilia multi-sticks—I have them in three colors—magic for quick wake-up-face on cheeks and lips when I have to run out the door for that first pee duty for puppy. (Meredith: I love these, too!)

Where would you like to take a trip to next?
Paris! We just returned from a long weekend there with friends, but I already can’t wait to go back!!

Making Italy home

What’s the best food-related memory your family has made since moving to Italy?
Our fave thing to do in Italy is go hiking with a destination of food. The ubiquitous rifugi or mountain huts on the pre-Alps surrounding Lake Como make our dreams come true. (Katie: Oh, I’ve visited a few mountain huts while hiking in the Alps, and they’re 100% my favorite part of the hike, always!)

Have you built a village where you are?
More than that! My friends and partner here are the most loyal and important group of people I’ve ever had in my life.

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Lolly, thank you for bringing us into your beautiful Italian kitchen! Anyone else low key starting to research a trip to Lake Como?!