The first time I saw chestnuts was in American pre-Christmas movies in which the main characters walk down the Christmas lighted, snowy streets of a small city and eat hot roast chestnuts from a paper bag. Sometimes they take a break from skating to eat this snack (obviously wearing colourful sweaters and without helmets or guards ). During one of our autumn trips, we tried roast chestnuts and we fell in love with them.

Chestnuts are rich in starch and contain a lot of fibre and vitamin B. They are recommended for people who have coeliac syndrome and anaemia.

Apparently, you can eat fresh and new chestnuts raw. I have never eaten them raw, but for sure you may boil, roast (for 40 minutes in the oven heated up to 180C) or fry them in a pan. You have to cut crosses into them, so that they don't explode while roasting or shelling. Sometimes the Italian and French put roast chestnuts into red wine to aromatize them. I haven't done so, but I know that they are excellent with a glass of good dry red wine.

We like spaghetti the most with tomato sauce. Recently, when I had to prepare spaghetti bolognese again, my love of this dish got a bit smaller. Eventually, even our most favourite meal may get boring. This time I enriched the classical Neapolitan sauce with some anchovies, capers and black olives. This way I prepared my version of spaghetti alla puttanesca. "Alla puttanesca" literally translates as "the way the prostitutes do it". The legend tells us that this Neapolitan dish was prepared by prostitutes for their customers to reenergise.

Regardless of this story, I recommend this dish to everybody who likes strong and nonobvious flavours. If you don't have spaghetti, serve this sauce with penne, bucatini or linguine.

Ingredients:
250g of spaghetti
1 tin of tomatoes
3-4 anchovies
3 cloves of garlic
1 onion
a fistful of black olives
a fistful of capers
1 tablespoon of oregano
chili pepper
1 tablespoon of butter
salt and pepper

In every city there are the famous, cult places, where many people can buy something yummy and unique. Recently, I remembered that the most flavoursome toasties with mushrooms I have ever eaten were from the Old Town in Warsaw. They were long (because they were made from baguettes), perfectly crunchy, with mushrooms, cheese and spicy ketchup. They didn't have any sophisticated ingredients, but no others toasties taste so excellent.

These memories gave me an appetite, so I decided to prepare my own toasties with mushrooms. I didn't try to recreate that flavour, but my toasties with mushrooms and avocado were yummy. I recommend them for a crunchy snack or fast dinner, absolutely with a huge amount of the parsley.

Ingredients
1 baguette
2 tablespoons of butter
500g of mushroom
chili pepper
1 avocado
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon of clarified butter
150g of grated mozzarella
4 tablespoons of chopped parsley
salt and pepper