Back to work!

First of all to all those who have been worrying about my arm being amputated, it's still attached, complete with bit of bamboo inside! I don't know what they were thinking. Maybe they thought they only had to pull out a wee splinter or something! The conversation with the surgeon went something like this:
"Well what have we got here then?"
"A bit of bamboo inside my arm."
"Are you sure?"
"Yep, pretty sure."
"But how did it get in there?"
"Entered from the other side, when I hit a bamboo stick supporting some tomatoes."
"But that's impossible! How deep did it go in?"
"Dunno, but evidently deep enough. I pulled 1 1/2 cm of if back out and your A&E department couldn't find anything else at the time."
"How long has it been in there?"
"Oh about 6 weeks."
"Madonna!"

At that stage the assistant puts in: "Shall I put 'urgent' on the form?"

So he had evidently not sharpened his skalpels yet, also he wanted to know how big the actual thing is. So after filling in various forms and signing my life away to the responsibility of those medicals, I now have to return, stick in me arm and all, on the 8th, to have it all scanned and than have it removed in the hopefully not too distant future.

This is my arm now. Note the wee blob just to the right of the scar (old war wound still giving me the gipes occasionally), it's not an insect bite!

Sorry about that, hope I didn't upset you all too much. Here's a nicer picture for you to look at




Anyway, I can't hang around waiting for those doctors to fix my arm, there's work to be done, and I'm already behind, because of this episode. Today it was time to lift the rest of the spuds. It wasn't a good year for potatoes, with the dry summer again. But it'll keep us going for a wee bit.

We also sowed out our some broad beans and peas for spring harvesting on the terrace where we had just dug up the potatoes. Having been delayed we have also bought some ready plants, leeks and broccoli, to plant out. We had to prepare the beds for them too, so it's been a pretty busy day, and the arm was quite sore by the end.

Yesterday I made some elderberry chutney. I know it's not exactly elderberry time any more, at least not around here, but as matter of routine, whenever I pick elderberries I stick them straight into the freezer, because they are so much easier to strip off their stalks when frozen. But it also means I can use them as and when I feel like it and have a spare half hour or two.

I've already made elderberry jam and liqueur, now I've made a chutney with the rest. Would you like to know the recipe? Well here it goes. Too late if you said 'no'.

ELDERBERRY CHUTNEY

Ingredients:

for pickling spice:

• 2 Cinnamon sticks
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp juniper berries
• 1 tsp mace
• 1 tsp dill seeds
• 4 dried bay leaves
• 1 tsp dried ginger
• 1 tsp whole coriander seeds

for the chutney:

• 2 kg elderberries
• 500g onions, chopped
• 200g raisins, chopped
• 1 l white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 3 tsp of above pickling spice tied into a muslin bag
• 1/2 tsp chilli
• 1 tsp mustard powder

Method

1. Simmer onions in half the vinegar until soft.
2. Strip elderberries off the stalks & add to the onions together with the raisins, salt, ginger, chilli, mustard & pickling spice.
3. Simmer until the mixture has softened. Add the sugar, stir well & boil until the chutney is thick.
4. Remove the pickling spice, leave to cool and pot into clean jars.
5. Serve with meats such as venison, turkey or rabbit or spicy mature cheeses.

Put the rest of the pickling spice into a jar and use for you next chutney or pickle. I shall use mine for some green tomato chutney as soon as I have gathered enough jars together again.

on the Giro d’Italia and the heatwave

I know I haven’t posted for a while, we’ve been pretty busy with various things, so this’ll be quite a long entry today I think.

First of all, there’ll be a break in the riveting and popular series “Our Terraces” today to make room for some current sport coverage. Yesterday we had a rest day as the Giro d’Italia came to town. Yes I do like watching a bit of sport. As a kid growing up in Bremen, I used to watch home matches of Werder Bremen at the Weserstadion. I still like football, but prices to go to stadiums aren’t what they used to be and I’m getting rather disgusted with the play-acting, feigning injuries, complaining, winging and whining and plain cheating in the modern game. I also used to watch speedway, but other motor sports, like Formula 1 in particular, these days seems to be decided behind desks and in courtrooms, not to mention horrendous entry prices for a couple of hours of watching noisy cars going around in circles.

I watch other sports, mainly on TV, but there is no other sport I can think of, which you can watch for free and get THIS CLOSE to the top athletes:

This is Lance Armstrong, the undisputed superstar of world cycling. This photo was not taken with a fancy zoom lens, I just shoved the camera right into his face and was evidently even closer to the man then the TV cameras on the other side of the road.

Yesterday’s stage was a 60 km individual time trial through the Cinque Terre and was dubbed “the killer stage”. Rider’s were racing through this hilly coastal stretch against the clock rather than against each other. I have been to cycle races before. I saw the Tour de France a few years back as they skirted Germany, but we had positioned ourselves on a steep downhill stretch and the peloton was past within a fraction of a second. The only lasting memories were the smell of burning rubber as the 180 odd cyclists hit the bend at over 70 km an hour and the accompanying motorbike, which nearly ploughed into a nearby chip van. We saw the Giro the last time they passed as well, twice in fact, but both time on flat bits with the group being compact and passed in seconds.

But in a time trial you can watch each rider coming passed you one by one for 3 ½ hours. The stage was from Sestri Levante to Riomaggiore involving 2 steep uphill sections (one of them I have cycled myself before). We decided to position ourselves above our old haunt of Levanto, just over half way into the race. It was a great way of spending the day. We had a picnic with us, a couple of beers and shared into the banter with other fans. I even dusted up my old “proper” camera, I found I still had some film for it and it does have a decent telelens on it. However the photos from that camera won’t obviously be ready for a few days, hope they still develop real films.

Here’s another shot in the meantime of a Russian rider called Andriy Grivko:

We had originally planned to cycle towards the race, which would have involved similar tough climbs to the professionals, but decided against it, as we are in the middle of a heat wave, which leads me smoothly onto the next subject. Last Friday, the 15th, it made a half hearted attempt at some rain, the only time this month. Saturday summer arrived with a vengeance. Daytime temperatures are the highest ever recorded for Italy for May with the mercury climbing well into the 30’s. Our daily cycle rides to the land and work on the land itself has all slowed down a bit and both of us have caught quite a bit of colour already.

This also means that crops are ahead of their season. Broad beans, alas are now finished. I managed to conserve a few in brine, but to build up a proper store of them I really do need to plant 2 terraces of them. Peas are ready and we are eating masses of lettuce. Strawberries are abundant and sweet cherries have already been and gone. They had a very small crop this year and birds ate most of the rest. Sour cherries are coming on as well though and they are as plentiful as ever. The first tomatoes are in flower as are the first courgettes and we water practically daily.

Earlier in the spring, when all the wild herbs were starting to perfume the air, I thought how great it would be to capture all these aromas and maybe making some liqueurs from them. I didn’t know how though and decided to find some recipes, quickly forgetting about my resolution again. Last week we were in La Spezia and I found a recipe book on a book stall along the seafront: “500 recipes for jams, preserves and liqueurs”. It’s fantastic! It not only has some great recipes for all the traditional liqueurs, but it has suggestions for making drinks out of base materials you would normally throw away: an Amaretto from apple pips, liqueurs from cherry, peach and apricot stones or the skin of melons, cherry leaves as well as a variety of wild and cultivated herbs and spices.

Most of the are really easy to make too, although they take a while before they are ready. I already have 2 brews on the go: Granny’s Digestive (I can’t help thinking that grannies in Italy have more fun, mine used to such a sweet after dinner) based on lemon balm and a Wild Cherry Ratafia with sour cherries and cherry leaves spiced with cloves and cinnamon. Looking forward to the results.

On Saturday also we had the inaugural session of the “Luni Wino” Wine Appreciation Club at our house. About a dozen of us tasted our way though some Italian wines and I believe a good time was had by all. It sort of was the launch of my new little venture, although it mostly was a social event.

I was going to have a wee rant about pests after I went on a bit on weeds recently, but Susan is already in bed and I better finish here for today. So there’s something to look forward to as well as the next installment of the cut-out-and-collect series “Our Terraces”.

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!

Our Terraces part II

Well here comes the second part already. While I was writing part I this morning, Susan went out for a walk. Rain was forecast and it was overcast, but Susan went out bravely nevertheless. So, as the other spring delight has also come into season, elderflowers, to make refreshing, spritzy elderflower wine (for recipe see entry from 5 or 6 May 2008), I sent her off to pick some more. We already had 2 batches on the go.

Soon after setting off it started drizzling a bit. Undeterred she tracked down some elder bushes and picked sufficient fragrant flower heads for a gallon batch. Shortly after she found herself in the middle of a mountain bike race, so she decided to try a different path to avoid those maniacs. The drizzle became a heavier drizzle and as Susan is wont to do, she got lost. The heavier drizzle developed into a proper downpour, which incidentally is still ongoing. She came home 4 hours later looking like a wet poodle.

Well further to the terraces series, here comes terrace 3:

It sports an olive tree at the near end and a newly planted cherry tree in the middle. At the far end there are 3 ancient rose bushes. This year we’ve sown out sweet corn an a few sunflowers on it.

Terrace 4 features a kaki tree on the near end and a couple of olives the far end. In between we’ve sown peas, onions, carrots and leeks (the latter show no sign of growing yet, maybe the seeds are to old). Don’t miss episode 3 of this series, where I will reveal terraces 5 and 6 to you!

Harbingers of spring

Just a quick update as I haven’t posted in a while. The weather until the end of February stayed fine, with some warm sunshine. Above you can see the cats basking in the sunshine. On the 1st March the rain returned and it did not stop until yesterday. Today the sun returned and the first harbingers of spring have arrived. Below you see the almond trees which we planted last winter are starting to flower for the first time.

The early plum tree is also just bursting into bloom. We planted a bed of peas today and did a bit more digging. The lettuces in the poly tunnel have started growing, the broad beans are in flower and everywhere are signs of life. With all that water, we’re going to have to start fighting the weeds soon. The forecast is for sunshine and warm temperatures for the next few days. Hope this is going to be more or less the end of the winter; it seemed long, damp and grey.

Indian Summer and Cider Making

Well the much cooler weather and damper weather that had started on the 14th September has given way to a second Indian summer period, which started on Wednesday (8th). Daytime temperatures are back up in the mid-twenties and even at nigh it doesn’t drop much below 20 degrees. The clear blue skies and continuous sunshine really show off the leaves on the trees which are starting to take on golden hues. It’s just as well we are getting some nice weather again, otherwise we would have had an unusually short summer period this year, lasting for only 3 months. Now we seem to get a bonus week or two.

We did plough over a terrace last Saturday and planted it with broad beans for spring harvesting. I never seem to have enough each spring to conserve some for later use, so I dedicated practically a whole terrace to them this time. I suppose they are ready when nothing else much is growing (April/May) so they get eaten straight away. On Thursday we dug over a bed and sowed peas. I need to find another couple of locations for a greater supply for roundabout the same time as the broad beans. I also started my autumn cleaning work by strimming half the terraces. I shall finish the job today or Monday.

Yesterday we started our first cider experiment. Our friend Irene from Switzerland came out to help us. First we picked the apples, some 50 kg of various varieties. Not all the trees were as prolific as last year, but we had some really tasty, sharp apples. The majority were a variety, that according to Irene is called Boskop in German, a large, sharp, hard- and rough-skinned variety, yellowish-green in colour. Very juicy and tasty.

Then we put the lot through the crusher, which evidently is designed for grapes, but eventually crushed the apples too. Then of course we pressed out the juice. A beautifully dark golden, cloudy, sweet juice emerged. On testing the potential alcohol the must showed a whapping 11%! So it should be drunk with care and not by the pint like British cider. We made about 15 litres only, but hey it’s better than letting the apples rot on the tree or be eaten by the local wild boar population. Although I’m told the pigs taste better if they are killed just at the moment they try to eat an apple. This is the way they are often served here, still with the apple in their mouth.

Anyway, weather is far too good to sit here on my computer. Out I go!

Wandering around the hills

Monday and Tuesday winter really had arrived even here. There was an icy wind, gale force at times, which left us huddled around our fireplace singing campfire songs. Yesterday temperatures climbed again, just in time to sow our broad beans and peas in accordance with the lunar calendar. Our first lot planted a month ago is going strong and seems to outgrow it’s competition, i.e. surrounding weeds. We also sowed some leeks indoors. I have previously tried sowing them directly outdoors, but the problem is, the first shoots look deceptively like grass and, with the speed weeds around here grow, before you know it you either have a bed of weeds or you weed the leek out with the weeds. So this time I’ve sown them indoors in some compost and plant them out maybe March.

Today the weather was even more glorious: not a cloud in the sky, no breath of wind and daytime temperatures in double figures. So we decided to try and find a cycleable / rideable route across the mountains to / from Aulla for Paul and Babette’s guide to the Via Francigena. Now I’m sorry, Paul, but I’m still puzzled how you crossed those mountains on bicycles. We have walked across on numerous occasions via Vecchietto (incidentally, much to the amusement of people around here, the name of the village translates as ‘little old man’), but it’s a tricky one to cross on anything other than on foot. This route is definitively the shortest, but it goes up and down through a couple of valleys on narrow, steep paths, which are covered knee deep in dry leaves at this time of year.

Starting from our village, Ponzano Superiore, we walked along the road above the village for one km to as far as ‘La Volpara’ Restaurant, easily undulating along there and all paved. There we branched right and shortly afterwards it becomes a track, going steadily uphill. After another 3 odd km we arrived at the crossroads known as 4 Strade (4 streets), which is actually a misnomer. I would not call any of those paths a street in the usual sense and there are actually 5 paths converging from here. The one we arrived on is signposted ‘Sarzana’. The official Via Francigena goes straight on from there and is signposted Vecchietto / Aulla. To the left of that is a path signposted Monte Grosso. The 2 most promising looking paths to the left and right are not signposted at all, but I suspect to the right it would eventually lead to Canepari and Fosdinovo, whilst to the left, I really don’t know.

The trouble is, we have a whole collection of detailed maps of the area, but no two are the same and none seems to be particularly accurate as far as the various mule paths is concerned, or even the smaller forest roads. We decided on this occasion to follow the signs for Monte Grosso as we knew we needed to get to the other side of mountain to arrive at Bibola. This soon became far to steep and rough to take a bike or horse on, but we shortly arrived at an unpaved road that appeared to climb up from Bibola and was signposted Monte Grosso and Chiamici. We decided to follow the road uphill to see if it was crossable. After about half an hour we reached the peak of Monte Grosso (600m a.s.l.). Whilst it was a steepish climb, the road was in pretty good knick. The snag was on the way down again. A narrow path followed a ridge with fantastic views in both directions. But descending down it became narrower and narrower, steeper and steeper and covered in a two feet deep layer of dried leaves.

Eventually we arrived at a crossroad again, looking quite promising. Straight on it said Chiamici, but left and right ??? The route down to Chiamici looked initially very promising too. It even warned of sharp left and right turns as if they expected vehicular traffic down there. However it soon became difficult to pass on foot let alone anything else. Chiamici itself turned out a delightful little hamlet and we came across a red and white marker directing us to the right towards Aulla (3 ½ hours) and to the left to Caprigliola and Ponzano Superiore on what they termed as the VF(a). The path towards Aulla looked promising again, but days are getting short here so we turned towards home. This route also turned out to be pedestrian only, leading steeply into a valley and back up again.

The whole round walk as described, took us 4 ½ hours, but unfortunately I’m no wiser how you cross those mountains. We should maybe work on a map that actually shows the real, existing paths and their degree of difficulty. So Babette and Paul, I haven’t given up yet, but I can’t help wondering which route you two took. If you went via ‘4 Strade’ somehow, from there it’s easy to get down to Ponzano Superiore, but how you got there is a mystery to me. We’ll try out a couple more of the routes, that we saw. Traditionally we tend to do a New Year’s Day walk to clear the head. Maybe we’ll have more luck that time. On the plus side, we did find some chestnuts still further up. That’s our stuffing for the Christmas bird sorted out.

Chilli threading and apple sauce

Today we started clearing the last of our 16 terraces at Arcola, although my strimmer seems to work only intermittently. Susan dug over the terrace that had tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, chillies and courgettes in readiness for the second lot of broad beans and peas. According to my Demeter calendar we are to sow these about 5 days before full moon, which is going to be around the 19th December. The first lot planted in November is already poking it’s head out of the ground.

In the evening I turned the last apples from Villa into apple sauce. Simply quarter and core the apples and gently stew until soft. I leave the skins on, they have a lot of flavour. When soft, whizz them through a food processor, return to the pan, add sugar and cinnamon to taste, heat through and pot in hot jars. Seal and turn upside down until cool. Like this it will keep for up to 3 months. Serve as dessert with some cream or ice cream or with game or liver or potato pancakes. Delicious and a great way of preserving apples, even if they don’t look that great any more.

While I was busy doing this Susan threaded up the last of the chillies to dry.