Interlude: A Brief Trip to Lake Como

A dip into the lap of luxury for Women in Food 2025.

I’m one of those writers who wants to have a line in her bio that goes something like, “Her work has been translated into 11 languages.” (I stand now only at two—Spanish and Portuguese—so this is a lifetime goal.) Accolades don’t impress me much, but wide translation and going international do.

Thus, how could I pass up an invitation from Cook, the monthly food supplement of Milan daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, to speak at their annual Women in Food event? I’d been feeling very detached from colleagues, quite literally adrift in the Caribbean Sea typing away in my solo work, and I thought it would be nice to meet some people and rejuvenate my inspiration. Doing this in Lake Como at the five-star Grand Hotel Tremezzo? Just a bonus, of course.

The event featured mostly Italian women in food, and so the anglophones all found each other quickly. I ended up sitting between legendary cookbook author Grace Young (Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge) and renowned sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier (One Thousand Vines: A New Way to Understand Wine) at lunch, and, the next night, having cocktails with the brilliant Anna Jones (Easy Wins) and chef Sally Abé (A Woman's Place Is in the Kitchen). I kept thinking, Is this real?