Silks, it's Time.

The moment we've, but mostly I've, been waiting for.

So it’s been a while, hello, hi. Hope you’ve all been lovely. I’m going to get straight to the point, and then we’ll get fluffy later.

So, despite my aching desire to be mysterious and elusive, much like the letter g in lasagne, I want to give you, the lovely people that decided to subscribe to this sloppy and inconsistent newsletter (sorry), the inside scoop. A song of mine called Silks will be releasing on the 4th of March. I’m a little rusty with the promo side of things, so I’m just going to be blunt, here’s the presave link: Here.

In this wonderful world of the music industry, for independent artists, pre-saving is massively important. Before a song comes out, it helps the council (Spotify) decide your fate (good attention). So it would be a big big deal to me if you could please pre-save Silks!

Ok I’ve done the grovelling, here we go with the blog:

If you’re new here, I’ll be using Substack to share news and stuff like that about my own music, as well as the music I’m listening to, food I’m making/eating, and media I’m consuming. Going forward, I’ll try my best to do these fortnightly, I’m trying my best to be consistent for you people! You subs will be the first people to know about, and access, music, pre-saves, merch and tickets to gigs (hint hint).

So seeing as it’s been a while since my last update on here, I’ll give you all what you may or may not want to know. Naturally, it’s been a busy time, making sure the masses are pleased with what I give them. I must have said this every time I’ve made a Substack post, but I honestly cannot wait to share new music with people, it’s been a long process getting here, but we’re here. I have so much to share with you.

So of course, I come bearing gifts in terms of a playlist. Here’s what I’ve been listening to lately.

This is a more special playlist than most. The first song, Shimmering by Ella Tobin, is a song I had a hand in creating. I first met Ella when we were both quite new to the London gig circuit, back in 2022. We were playing at the same show in the now closed Kentish Town Stores. She played this song, and I was completely floored by her writing, her voice, her guitar playing. We ended up becoming friends and playing shows together many times over the years. One day she told me she was planning on recording Shimmering, and a couple of other songs she had been playing, and was looking for a producer. I immediately threw my hat in the ring. Well fast-forward to Spring 2024, and we’re both in Italy recording a collection of songs that are so special to me. The recording process was super DIY, with silly percussion, broken guitar amps, paintbrushes, big backing vocal tracks. It’s one of the most fun songs I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in. Friends of mine, if you listen to anything on this playlist, listen to Shimmering.

Ok, and here’s a recipe too!

Pasta alla Puttanesca

In my top 3 pasta dishes, one of the goats! It loosely means “whore’s pasta” - perfect for you subs. A southern Italian pasta that’s salty, tangy, zesty. Here’s my take on it using all these little pieces I’ve picked up from different cooks over the years.

Ok, make sure you’ve got all your ingredients ready, because this can happen fast!

Ingredients:

Good-quality tomatoes

Olive Oil

Capers

Black Olives

Anchovies, chopped

Lemon

Parsley, leaves & stems, separated and finely chopped

Chilli or Chilli flakes - to taste

Pasta (any will do)

Garlic, sliced

Tomato paste

Origano

White wine (or substitute)

Shallot, chopped

Goats cheese (optional, bear with me)

Method

1. Peel your tomatoes, create a shallow (enough to just break the skin) X shape along the bottom of your tomatoes, long enough so they reach about half way up the tomato. Soak in boiling water for up to a minute, then in cold water for another minute. The skin should come right off. Remove cores and most of the seeds from the inside, and loosely chop - doesn’t have to be too small a dice.

2. Take a knife and carefully cut the rind off a lemon, as if you were cutting a twist for a cocktail. Making sure to not catch too much of the white pithy stuff, gather your peels and cut them into fine strips.

3. In a pan with some olive oil over medium heat, start cooking off your shallot. Once sweated, add in your slices of garlic, lemon rind, chilli and parsley stems. There should be lots of fragrance now! Let this all have a naughty party together, while being conscious of not letting the garlic brown. If you notice things starting to get a little too hot, you can always add a little splash of white wine or water.

4. Once you’ve got your base here, turn the heat up to medium-high, add in half of your anchovies, your capers, the origano, and your olives. You’ll notice the anchovies will melt into the sauce a bit. A real pro move is to also add some of the oil from the anchovies. What I like to achieve at this stage is a little bit of blistering on the olives, but no burning!

5. Now add your tomato paste, you don’t need too much, it’s just to deepen the sauce a bit. Once things are starting to get nice and hot, add in your white wine and stir everything up together. Now we’re getting yummy! Wait for the alcohol to cook off and the wine to mostly reduce, so it gets to a thicker liquid.

6. Once the sauce has reduced, add in the chopped tomatoes. Stir everything up together, add a little salt on your tomatoes - but not too much, we’re already very very salty with the other elements of this dish, this will just help break them down. You can use the help of a wooden spoon to crush things up again, that’s fine, but now really we can leave this to simmer for a bit while the tomatoes break down - which they should do almost completely.

7. The key to getting this sauce how we want it is decently thick, not too watery, but not too dense. It’s a light sauce that still manages to give your pasta a lovely hug. Which, by the way, you could be cooking right now - get that water on!

8. You want to dump the pasta into the nicely salted water when the sauce is achieving the consistency you want. You may want the sauce to be a little thicker than you may imagine, and I’ll tell you why.

9. Just before incorporating the pasta with the sauce, add a little splash of pasta water to the sauce, as well as the juice of your lemon. You can also season with pepper, and please check for flavour before adding any salt, we’ve got a lot of salty stuff happening here! This will loosen the sauce up a bit, now mix the pasta & sauce in your serving bowl with your chopped parsley, and the other half of your anchovies.

10. The final, controversial, step was showed to me by a Sicilian chef I met at my first restaurant job, he had made me puttanesca for staff food, topped with clumps of soft, light and sharp goats cheese, which melt right into the sauce and cut through to make a perfect bite.

And voila ! Buon appetito.

If you don’t feel like cooking, here’s some nice food I’ve had recently in London:

Mr Dumpling - Goldhawk Road

Amazing oil splash dumplings & noodle soups here, HUGE portions. I crave this regularly.

Sam’s Sandwiches - Shepherd’s Bush Market

Cult classic here, proper if-you-know-you-know place. It’s an Algerian sandwich shack in a mysterious corner of Shepherd’s Bush market. It’s all freshly made to order by friendly Sam & co.

Ochi (Carribean) - Uxbridge Road

Final of the W6 selection today. This place is quite legendary, and you’ll see why. The food is truly warming, and the service is lovely with a smile.

Gracey’s Pizza - Tottenham Court Road

I’ve still not been to the Gracey’s location round Watford way, and there being one in Central London makes it harder to feel compelled to. This pizza is magical, dare I say a pretty damn near perfect pizza, go with a friend so you can share lots!

Dozo - Soho

One of the best ramen spots in London, hands down, Chilli Beef Ramen is the go-to here, and the sushi is very good value. The prices are great at lunchtime.

Oranj Wine - Shoreditch

One fancy place, this one is probably ticking every box of Shoreditch hipster stereotypes. It’s a stripped back wine bar in a warehouse serving small plates. Catch is, they have a different resident chef with their own menu nearly every week. It’s pricey but it’s a genuinely great experience.

Ok, are you entertained? If so, please consider pre-saving Silks if you have not yet done so!

Thanks for reading, these will get more regular, I promise.

Luca

🦅