Of novel plants, wine tastings & Paganini

Ladies & Gentlemen, boys and girls, dear pets,

may I proudly present to you a world first: The Melumber! As you can see a cucumber and on the top of the plant and a little lower a baby melon. Must get that plant patented!

Joking aside, things on our land are doing extremely well. The weather during June and July has been almost perfect for farming: warm at times hot, with the odd sprinkling of rain inbetween, just enough, so that we did not have to water quite on a daily basis, but not enough to cause problems with rot. In addition here near the coast, we almost always have a pleasant cooling breeze.

As a result we are having bumper crops of tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, yesterday the first ripe melon, green beans, yellow peppers, aubergines etc. We have harvested the first crop of our 'two-season' fig tree and made something a little different with it this time, a fig salsa. I've got the recipe of the Italy Magazine Forum or rather community as they like to call themselves now, although modified it slightly. Goes well with meat. Here's the link to the recipe: http://www.italymag.co.uk/community/post/fig-salsa. Unfortunately the quantities are in American measurements, which I never quite understand.

I have also become quite innovative in the use of courgettes, being constantly on the look for recipes to work our way through tons of the stuff. Here's one for a courgettes soup:

Ingredients:

olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

a tbsp each of finely chopped fresh rosemary & sage

1kg courgettes

the corn of 2 sweetcorn cobs or 1 tin of sweetcorn

200ml cream

salt & pepper

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and lightly saute the onion, garlic & herbs until soft.
2. Add the courgettes and sweetcorn and heat through, then add 1 litre of water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes until well soft.
3. Leave to cool for a bit and puree the mixture, or pass through a tomato mill or colander to remove the larger seeds and any possible stringy bits.
4. Add the cream and reheat gently. Season to taste with salt & pepper.

On the wine tasting front there have been some developments too. I will now be working together with the Strada del Vino dei Colli di Candia e di Lunigiana. I know a bit of a mouthful. They are a group of wineries from the province of Massa-Carrara at the northern tip of Tuscany who have joined up into a wine route for tourists. They will help me find work and I will help them promote their wines. Their link is: http://www.stradadelvinoms.it/.

On Tuesday we had a kind of test event with the local wine club that I run. We visited the winery of Pier Paolo Lorieri (http://www.scurtarola.com/), the president of the Strada del Vino, for a wine tasting of some white wines of the region. His winery is beautifully situated above the town of Massa with sweeping views over the Versilia coast line.

The tasting really showed the variety of wines produced in this small region. Each wine was very different and individual. Apart from wines made entirely or predominantly from Vermentino, we tasted a rare example of a single varietal Albarola, which normally is a minor blending partner of Vermentino in this region as well as more famously in the Cinque Terre. We also tasted a wine made from a blend of the rare and unusual local varieties Durella and Luadga.

Anyone wanting to know more about the wine tastings I do please check out my web-site and pass it on to anyone who may be interested:
http://users3.jabry.com/tuscanytipple/

Other than that we had a couple more events in the village. On Monday night some 150 odd people from in and around the village went for a night walk to the nearby ruins of Castello della Brina. Little is known about this castle and excavations are ongoing. A professor from Pisa Universty gave a talk on it's history as far as it is known, which was fascinating. It now lies oddly isolated on the Via Francigena footpath towards Sarzana, but appears to have been a major settlement during it's heyday between the 8th to the 11th century. It was destroyed around 1300, and the attackers really seemed to bear a grudge, because they raised the place to the ground. In the absence of dynamite the knocked holes into the bases of the solid stone buildings and the lookout tower, stacked wood into them and set fire to it. The heat then produced cracks in the stonework, which then collapsed. This practise apparently was quite common in Britain, but is almost unique in continental Europe.

Anyway the reason for the walk was actually to mark the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing and some anorak gave a very boring presentation on that subject. Is just me who is thoroughly bored by the subject? What's the point of going to the moon, if we've got so much to do on our own planet, saving it for a start!

Tuesday night there was a chamber music concert in the inner court of our house as part of a Paganini festival. A young violinist, Francesca Dego and a pianist, Francesca Leonardi, played works by Beethoven, Schubert and Paganini. The atmosphere as usual was magical, the performances were impressive and the acoustics in our court yard is great for this style of music.

Rain at last… & Part VII of “Our Terraces”

However, it would have been nice if it had arrived quarter of an hour later, so I would have got soaked to the skin!

Yesterday we were making an early start to attack the weeds and trying to escape the worst of the heat. We also picked a couple of kilos of cherries. Around half-3ish, were in just watering, Susan pointed at some dark clouds over the mountains. I just dismissed them, thinking they’ll just stay there. As we made our way home on our bikes they did come threateningly close though. I tried out-sprinting the storm – we had left our windows open – whilst Susan managed to find shelter. The trouble about out-sprinting a storm is you should try and ride in the opposite direction rather than towards it. So half way up the hill I got absolutely drenched, battered by hail and nearly blown off my bike.

It only turned out a shower though and Susan was soon able to follow. Today’s temperatures as a result a markedly fresher and cooler, rather pleasant really. At home I turned the cherries into jam and used the stones to start off a cherrystone liqueur. It’s great the way nothing gets wasted. It won’t be ready to drink until roundabout Christmas though.

Here comes Part VII of the 9-parter “Our Terraces”:

Terrace 13 features a young walnut tree in front and an olive in the back. Between those we have planted our tomatoes this year, hence all those bamboo sticks. In the meantime they are much more visible of course and should produce the first fruit in a couple of weeks or so. Behind the olive tree is a bed of dwarf beans.

Terrace 14 is the only one with no trees on it at all. It used to have a fig, which I had to cut down. It’s since been dug over to accommodate mostly peppers and a few spare tomatoes. Hidden amongst the weeds is still some garlic, fennel and some Swiss hard. I bet you all can’t wait for the concluding episodes of the story!

Our Terraces part III

Sunday, as you may have gathered from my 2 last posts was pretty much a write-off, raining all day. Monday morning the rain held off long enough to plant out the last of the tomatoes (we’ve got 41 plants in total, not counting the ones that seem to have sown themselves out on our compost, which is now spread amongst the courgettes), weed amongst the peas and nipping some bamboo shoots in the bud (or should that be butt?).

Today rain was threatening all day, but never materialised at all. So we got a good days work in, in ideal condition: not too warm, not too cold, nice damp soil for sowing and transplanting; didn’t even need to water things in. Susan started off with sowing cayenne chillies into the poly-tunnel, which previously held the volleyball-size radishes (we thought we’d eat them before they reach basketball-size…). She went on to sow more radishes and a mixture of lettuces next to one of the pea beds. I, in the meantime, sowed out dwarf runner beans (can’t be bothered with building great support systems), together with some savoury. Those two don’t only go together on the plate, they also make excellent companion plants, so much so that the Germans call it Bohnenkraut, bean… well you all know what a ‘kraut’ is.

After that I got on with transplanting some peppers out and some gherkins. I am absolutely addicted to pickled gherkins and I don’t know why I have never tried growing any (they don’t come pickled on the plant obviously, you have to do that bit yourself). Susan meanwhile got on with some vigorous digging on the terrace below (terrace 16, for those who follow the series; bet you can’t wait for that episode). Oh and of course I sowed out some basil on the rows between the tomatoes. Another good companion plant combination as well as working well together in culinary terms. Funny the way that happens, if it tastes good together it will be mutually beneficial if grown close together.

Oh and I almost forgot, I also secured the end of the potato terrace, which had experienced a bit of a landslide after some of the torrential winter rains we’ve been having. I now have an exceptionally deeply dug level bed between the last olive tree and a fledgling fig tree. I intended to sow some artichokes out on there. I only just read though, that the seeds should be soaked in water for a couple of days before planting, so it’ll be done day after tomorrow now.

And now for part III of the series ‘OUR TERRACES’!

Terrace 5 is what you could call our living room. At the very near end is a mature apple tree. On the slope on the right we planted a little herb garden with rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, marjoram and chives. The table is made from a solid marble slab, which we found pretty much where it is now. The barbecue has seen action this year already, when (for complex reasons I don’t want to go into at the moment) our freezer was temporarily out of service, and we had to use up all the meat stored therein quickly.

The structure, well disguised under a giant, man-eating ivy, is what currently goes as our shed. It does not cease to amaze me that it’s still standing and holding off some rain. However, it is doomed for destruction. We are busy scouring all rubbish tips for scrap material for a new and larger one. We’ve designated the area behind the current shed, so we can start building before tearing the old one down and then not knowing where to store all the tools in the meantime. It’s new location will be between a plum and a pear tree.

Terrace 6 is where our water barrel lives (which, if it isn’t raining, gets filled up from the tap on the terrace above, I failed to mention). It is also home to a very large and rather useless olive tree. It is so tall, that you would need a 30 foot ladder to pick its olives. I haven’t dared chop it down yet either and turn it to firewood, because olive wood is bl***y heavy, and a ton of olive tree falling you’re not sure in which direction is no joking matter. In the back there is a sickly peach tree and a sickly pear tree and a bed with currently, hmm can’t quite remember, weeds? No some lettuces I think and some Swiss chard, plus some cabbages, which aren’t showing anything yet.

PART IV OF ‘OUR TERRACES’ SOON TO BE SEEN ON A COMPUTER SCREEN NEAR YOU!

Volunteers Wanted!

The weather slowly has improved again. Thursday and Friday were quite mixed days with showers always threatening. So we used those two days to do some research. I have decided to write a book. Babette and Paul said they would help me with the printing and I have got it pretty much planned. It is to be a guide to walks around the Lunigiana, whereby I use the geographic term in it’s loosest definition as the provinces of La Spezia (Liguria) and Massa / Carrara (northern tip of Tuscany). The desire to write this guide was born from a frustration of the inaccuracies of even the most detailed maps of the area as well as of the general sign posting. I intend to include at least one walk for each ‘comune’ of those two provinces, give info on any sights along each walk, notes on history and nature, recommendations for places to eat and drink, public transport links, annual events, alongside detailed descriptions of the actual walks themselves with correct maps. I envisage including some 50 walks in the book and to put one day a week aside to research another for the next 12 months.

Now this is where I would like some help by anyone reading this who either lives nearby or is planning a holiday in the region. I need some people to try out the walks to see if my garbled directions make sense to them, before I launch the guide onto the unsuspecting public. Please send me an e-mail or leave a comment below. The above photo was taken on the walk we tried out this week. It’s a 5 ½ hour walk starting from the medieval centre of Santo Stefano di Magra, through quiet woodlands up to Ponzano Superiore with it’s narrow alleyways and sweeping views, down to the valley again past a Victorian style ceramics factory and back to Santo Stefano via the Regional Nature Park along the river Magra with it’s varied birdlife. Herons, storks and even flamingos are amongst the visitors during migration times.

Today the weather turned bright again, but with a strong wind blowing. I had planned on picking my olives today, but with the high winds I decided not climb the top of a 10 foot ladder. Instead we took down the tomato and bean plants, which have finally finished for the year. Mind you I still picked a good kilo of beans today! We also planted onions today, about 100 each of brown and red ones. In previous years I unsuccessfully tried to grow them from seed, now I just planted small bulbs to grow them to bigger ones. Whilst this is marginally more expensive then buying seeds, I’m hoping the results will be better. I also bought a dozen Brussel sprout plants. Last year’s grown from seed didn’t do to well either and were mostly eaten by some nasty bright red bug with a ferocious appetite. We also picked the first kaki of the year, so I shall make some of my famous ‘I can’t believe it’s not mago chutney’ chutney tomorrow. For the recipe look up this blog 6 December last year.

Oh when the Saints…

Well tomorrow is All Saints (whatever that actually means; is it the day for all the saints that don’t get a mention during the rest of the year?), and winter is definitively approaching. The clocks have gone back (don’t you hate it when that happens; I never know which way they go or what day, my tummy tells me to be hungry well before lunchtime, and it’s just disorientating) and the evenings are dark early now.

At the weekend the weather was still fine and we went to the chestnut sagra in Barbarasco again, this time with James who was over. Tuesday afternoon the clouds and wind started closing in though. By Wednesday the temperatures dropped significantly and we were enveloped in clouds and gale force winds swept through our village. I spent those 2 days servicing an old mountain bike of ours. The one I had been using is slowly starting to fall apart. It only cost me £50 10 years ago, so it did me quite well until now.

Yesterday a brief break in the rain was forecast, so I went to see Franco the bicycle man to sort a couple of things I could not do on my own, a bent chain and gear mechanism. He just got a big pair of pliers and bent everything into shape, straightened a buckle in the rear wheel, oiled the lot, pumped up the tyres and adjusted the gears. All in all just under half an hours work and he insisted on being paid with a cup of coffee. When I in turn insisted in putting a €5 note in his hand he rummaged through his pockets to give me €3 change. Well, can’t complain can I?

Susan in the meantime had started to walk to Arcola to our land and I met up with her half way there. On the land I was amazed to still pick a large bagful of green beans. This particular variety has done me extremely well! I think the seeds were a cheap bag from one of the discount stores. They are a dwarf variety that I planted so close together that weeds had practically no chance of getting through. They have been producing sweet, string-less beans since about July and there are still more to pick now. I have already dried a few of the beans, so that I can sow them out again next year. Don’t know what the variety is called, but they’ve been exceptionally successful.

We also still picked a few strawberries and a good bagful of windfall olives. It’s turning out to be a very good olive year this year, by general consent all over Italy. They are more plentiful and earlier than in previous years and are not too badly affected by maggots. We’ll wait for a drier day to pick them in the next week or 2. While we were still on the land the rain returned and we still had to make the long way home exposed to the elements.

During the night we had some serious storms and today it’s been bucketing down most of the day. So today, for the first time we have lit a fire in the kitchen, more as an antidote against the doom and gloom outside and to roast some chestnuts, rather than against the actual cold.