Carla Tomasi, who died in Rome in late August aged 70, was a teacher to many, and also to me. We met by chance in 2012. I’d seen a tweet from a friend mentioning that she was collecting pickles from a certain Carla Tomasi near Ostia, on the outskirts of Rome. I thought I would like to know this Carla and her pickles, so I wrote her an email saying as much. I received a reply immediately, which included several questions and an invitation to lunch at her house.
The green automatic gate didn’t work; you had to call her, wait, then, after a while, she would come down and lead you up the drive beside the largely edible, exploding garden to the white wicker chairs on the veranda. We ate focaccia and pickles, borlotti bean soup, baked fish and rosemary potatoes, and three flavours of ice-cream.
