Welcome to my blog. My name is Annalisa Barbieri. I’m a writer.

Pane, Amore e Cha Cha Cha  means “bread, love and blah blah blah”. We use this phrase a lot in Italy, or at least, my family does. My father often uses it when my mother is on the phone, he makes a ‘chat chat’ signal with his hand and says “pane, amore e cha cha cha”. I used it as the name for my blog because I thought it rather neatly covered anything I might want to write about, in other words, everything.

This blog started off as a consumer blog in 2009, in part because I was/am a consumer journalist, then it morphed into being mostly about cakes. About a year after I started it I also started making sourdough bread (a very long held ambition) and I started a sourdough geek blog. In 2013 I consolidated the two blogs and the result is here. A bit of consumer, lots about food, some hints and tips, and sourdough. The best way to use it is to read through, but as it’s now quite large, if you’re looking for something either use the search facility or the categories drop down menu if you need inspiration. This way you can find all the entries for, say, sourdough, in one place.

I only write about things that I’ve personally tried. And in almost all cases, they are things I’ve paid full price for, just like everyone else.

Nobody tells me what to write and I don’t accept freebies as such. By that I mean, in my job as a journalist, I do get sent things that I don’t ask for (books, small consumer products, stuff like that). It would be insane for me to send these back. If I ever write about something I’ve been sent for free – because I like it – then I’ll make this clear in the post. Or if I’ve got a discount on something I’ve asked for which I subsequently write up. But what I don’t do is enter into any sort of ‘you send me this and I’ll write about it’ scenario. I do get offered big things in return for a write up. I say no. Yes it does hurt.

If you’d like to check out my professional website it can be found at http://www.annalisabarbieri.com

Thank you