HITTIN’ THE NOTES

The Opera performance of an Italian music teacher brought Angie to Italy. “Weren’t you going to Paris?” her mother asked in shock. “No, mom. I’m going to Rome,” she said. Little did she know that before long, Milan would also appear in the score. Not only as the place where she’d continue to play the double bass at the Teatro alla Scala but also where she would awaken other senses. This time, at the table.

The pandemic brought her a lot of spare time along with its uncertainty and concerns. The volatility of the music industry and the absence of a fixed contract were balanced by the peace and calm recipes that cooking gave her. All of it topped off with the sound of jazz (her favourite, Chet Baker).

She escaped the madness of the empty hours to find herself in the kitchen. She doesn’t call herself a blogger and hesitates to show off her talent (which she obviously has), but she confirms the ease with which she plays with ingredients, flavours, and dishes to explain this new chapter of her life. “It’s a matter of instinct”, she says.

She used to call herself anti-tech, but eventually found Instagram in confinement. The scroll increasingly fuelled her desire to create and her passion for photography. Thus Gnammy Stories was born, her blog, where the dishes of the world meet.

No one would’ve guessed that today she’d be teaching how to cook Taiwanese food and telling its story and culture through ingredients: “In my own way, I try to promote our culture. I introduce Taiwan to people, not only from a culinary point of view but also from a socio-political one.”
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A cuisine that, although strongly influenced by China (“our great-grandparents are Chinese and there is a strong culinary culture in China that is over 3,000 years old”, she explains), has its rooted history, its ingredients, its distinct flavours. These are pretty difficult to find in Milan, by the way: “I often have to make with Italian ingredients. I make sauces that I can’t find anywhere else. My fridge is like a lab, there are lots of strange sauces in there. (...) I also prefer making homemade sauces, so I don’t add any preservatives.”

Angie hesitates. “Oh my god, it’s really hard to find a dish that defines me”. But there you have it. A classic Taiwanese omelette because “it’s unpredictable, like me”.

She explains, “I don’t know why it has this name, the British called it that, but it has nothing to do with a classic omelette. It’s made with sweet potato flour, and it has a peculiar texture. Sometimes we add oysters or vegetables with sauce. It’s not aesthetically pleasing, but it’s delicious. And every chef has their particular sauce.”