Salento Blog

Masseria Frantoio, Ostuni

2010-05-13T19:30:00.001+02:00

We just spent a delicious three nights at Masseria Frantoio off the scenic Via Appia between Ostuni and Fasano (BR).

It is a massive estate with a grand old house, exquisite gardens, extensive organic farmland and ancient olive groves (the owner insists that some trees are up to 1,500 years old).

It is owned and managed by an eccentric ex businessman, Armando, and his wife, Rosalba. The staff are friendly, helpful and intelligent
(as well as extremely tolerant of our pair of terrible toddlers!)

The main business of the operation is clearly the restaurant which for a hefty 57 euros a head, offers the very best of home-grown modern Puglian cuisine. Fantastic stuff, actually pretty good value considering both the quantity and quality, just a little too much for me (and I have always considered myself having a large appetite!)

I couldn't recommend it enough and look forward to our next visit.

Missing Salento

2010-04-12T12:17:00.001+02:00

What do we miss about Salento while we are in London right now? The reliably beautiful weather, fresh spring vegetables, meadows bursting with wild flowers, country walks, cappuccinos in the piazza... we are looking forward to coming back!

Location:Brookmill Rd,Lewisham,United Kingdom

Our favourite places to eat in Salento

2010-03-28T09:11:00.006+02:00

La Maruzella
Lungomare, Lido Conchieglie (LE)
An atmospheric seafood shack perched on the Ionian, serving simple seafood and honest wine at local prices. Heaving on summer nights and open 365 days a year.
Our favourites: linguine cozze vongole (mussels and clams), polipo alla brace (grilled octopus), frittura mista (fried squid and prawns), ostriche (oysters).

Le Zie - Trattoria Cucina Casereccia
Viale Costadura, 19 Lecce
info@trattorialezie.it
Slightly out of the centro storico, this is an authentic place to try Pugliese classics in an intimate and attractive dining room by a friendly and efficient family team. Popular with Lecce professionals and foriegn visitors.
Our favourites: fave e ciccoria (broad bean purée) tiella (mussels, potatoes and courgettes baked in the oven) polpette al vino bianco (meatballs in white wine).

l'Antica Dispensa
Via Palermo, 9
73020 Cutrofiano (LE)
With a kitchen twice the size as the dining room, this family enterprise works mainly as a takeaway restaurant serving the busy mammas of Cutrofiano with delicious homecooked food they can pass off as there own. Booking advised for sit down meals.
Our favourites: la parmigiana, contorni carcoffi (artichokes), mezze lune di marmellata (jam pies).

Pepe Nero
Via ionio, 24
73013 - Galatina (LE)
A vast vaulted wharehouse that has been funkily restored as a restaurant and separate night club. Modern Italian food, mainly meat, is enjoyed by a young, smartly dressed clientele but, as always in Italy, bambini are more than welcome.
Our favourites: carne irlandese sulla brace (grilled steak), antipasti

Top 10 Beaches

2009-10-13T15:43:00.001+02:00

On Sunday autumn finally arrived. We all knew it was coming, we’d seen the weather reports and we made the most of the last hot days by going to the beach on three consecutive days – an annual record. We’ll still be visiting the beach over the autumn and winter but it will be more for brisk walks and possibly a paddle and a sandcastle - I fear the bikini days are over until next year (at least I may have lost some weight by then).

We have made the effort to go to the beach as much as possible this summer. It’s such a great place for a high energy toddler to be and I believe the sea relaxes and benefits us all. The advantage of living as we do in the centre of the Salento peninsular is that we can choose a different beach every time we go. We try to go to as many new places as we can but also find our selves returning to the same special spots.

I thought I would write a list of our favourite places to help people visiting or relocating to the area. Most of them are marked on my community map at the bottom of the blog.

Baia dei Turchi, Adriatic
Punta della Suina, Ionian
Specchiulla, Adriatic
Porto Selvaggio, Ionian
Baia Verde, Ionian
Torre Pali, Ionian
Sant Isidoro, Ionian
Porto Badisco, Adriatic
Otranto town, Adriatic
Grotta Zinzulusa, Adriatic

Language development

2009-09-03T16:43:00.003+02:00

It is fascinating observing (experiencing?) my 2.5 year old’s language development. I’m sure it is the most amazing milestone to witness for any parent and I find it particularly fascinating as an English language teacher (does that make me sound like a toothpaste advert from the 1980s?)

I’m not doing any teaching right now but I’m sure I will do it again when the kids are a bit older, and I will have a completely new approach informed by this experience of mothering. For example I would normally have taught students personal determiners and adjectives in the following order – I, me, my and then mine. However, Mickey started with me, then came me’s which eventually became mine, and is currently just beginning to use my and I. There must be logic in this natural development worth copying for foreign language learners, especially children.

Prepositions (in, up, on etc) are essential elements of the English grammar and something that fox even advanced students. They make up phrasal verbs of which we native speakers use without even thinking but are actually incredibly confusing when you think about them. Consider for a moment many meaning of the following examples – make out, make up, get off, get over. Prepositions are some of the first words off English speaking toddlers and it makes me think that in future courses I will devote more time to them earlier on.

My son has been a bit late in learning to speak so it is great to hear him beginning to express himself. At the moment it is over 99% English but I can tell he understands some Italian and is beginning to want to use it himself. He is suddenly very interested in knowing everyone’s name and asks Italian children ‘what’s chiami?’ a mixture of the English and Italian question. He also says ciao, grazie, prego and andiamo but that’s about it so far. It will be strange to hear him speak Italian properly in the future, probably by the time he is five years old he will speak it better than we do!

Monello

2009-08-25T16:48:00.000+02:00

The Italian word monello translates in my English/Italian dictionary as ‘brat’ and this illustrates very well how some words can’t really be transported from one language directly to another.

A monello is indeed a ‘badly behaved child’ (as ‘brat’ is defined in my English Learner dictionary) and yet it has such a tone of indulgence that it is closer to ‘rascal’. Although one could never refer to a screaming newborn as a rascal, which is covered by monello as much as a terrible two year old.

Key cultural observations can be made in these linguistic nuisances - certainly children are more adored and applauded this side of the Alps. The words ‘brat’ and ‘monello’ beautifully illustrate the Anglo vs Italian perspective of little people.

I don’t really approve of labeling children as I don’t think it is respectful or indeed helpful but there are times these days when I look into the eyes of my red headed, male, two and a half year old firstborn and he just is my little monello.

High summer

2009-08-19T11:09:00.000+02:00

Summer peaked last Saturday on the 15th – it was the Italian August holiday called Ferragosto. It actually celebrates the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary but nobody even knows that and the day is celebrated by going to the beach and eating huge quantities of homemade pasta in large groups (the latter being obligatory for any Italian festa, of course).

The beaches and roads are packed on that day so we opted to stay at home. We went a little crazy after the entire youtube playlist of Winnie the Witch so the next day we decided that had to get out. We braved the Adriatic coast and were shocked to see our normally empty paradise beach absolutely full, there was literally not enough space to walk between people’s towels. Still, it was good to get out and get the fresh sea air and we all slept well for it.

It’s still high season for the next week or so but things are definitely winding down. The blue collar crew will be back at work already and northern Italians will be working their way back up the boot and leaving our little zona in peace again.

By the first week of September the beaches will be much quieter, as will our little country lane which at the moment is alive with local families escaping the heat the town. We will have a bit of time to reclaim our paradise beach and then it will be autumn, time to take out the crochet blankets and light the fire. By this time last year I was yearning for the cooler weather but it has been such a pleasant summer this year that I wish it would last a bit longer.

The perfect climate

2009-07-22T11:36:00.003+02:00

Rudy is 4mo today and it is amazing to see how much he has changed. Isn’t that just the way with children, what makes them all so fascinating? The same with the camapagna - my how our garden has grown since March 21st, the first day of spring!

There has been a lot of rain this year. The winter was warm and wet and it carried on right through spring and summer. It rained here every day when we were in England recently, we were lucky to miss that and enjoy a London heat-wave.

The last couple of days have been sunny but breezy, keeping the general temperature lower than the intense heat of last week. It’s draining when it’s very hot but I’m not a big fan of wind either. There is no such thing as a perfect climate, I’m sure of that.

We have been thinking a lot about that with regards to our wedding, which we are planning for next year. We were originally thinking of doing it in the month of May as it is so beautiful at that time of year with the wild flowers and pleasant temperatures.

Yet if we are really going to drag all our friends and families over here for once in their lives then it really has to be during the summer when people can enjoy what is best about the area – the beaches.

Also a wedding celebration is essentially an evening occasion and the nights need to be adequately warm to hang around in an olive grove in a party dress. Basically it needs to be unbearably hot during the day to want to spend the day in water and the nights outside.

The best climate I have found was in Bolivia, in the foothills of the Andes, heading towards the Amazon basin. Sub tropical vegetation, cool nights, no nasty insects or dangerous animals, beautiful views of snow capped mountains. The downsides for me though are feeling claustrophobic in mountainous areas, car and altitude sickness plus no direct flights to the country from Europe.

There is no perfect place to climate, terrain or location – life is all about appreciating what you have, I reckon!

Lidl

2009-07-17T09:07:00.000+02:00

Like several people I know, I am in love with Lidl (or is it LIDL?) The low prices and top quality products are hard to beat, especially round here where the supermarkets are awful. An extra bonus for us expats in Italy is that they also stock more exotic and ethnic products than anywhere else. I love the themed weeks – Chinese week is my favourite and I always stock up on sweet chili sauce and sesame oil.

But what I love best about Lidl is the central aisle of non-food items. It is so clever the way they change the items on offer so I’m always excited to see what’s there and if it’s good I’ll definitely buy it!

My latest purchase is a laminator, I actually prefer its Italian name plastificatore. I have always wanted my own one and there it was, I spotted it right at the end and stuck it in the trolley with a couple of packs of laminating foil (I’m learning the jargon!)

I debuted my plastificator last night with what I consider to be my 2.5 yo’s first proper drawing. Now it is preserved forever, sealed snugly between two melted pieces of plastic, how satisfying.

I plan to plastify a whole range of things now: No Hunting notices to put around the land, family photos for the boys to look at, games for Mickey and his little friend Evie. Oh I have many more ideas, too, a lifetime of plastifying to enjoy.

A last note about Lidl, I discovered from a German client that it is correctly pronounced to rhyme with needle rather than fiddle. So now you know.

Beaching it

2009-06-12T15:11:00.001+02:00

We have been going to the beach on every available day since summer arrived, about a month ago. The wonderful thing about Salento is the amount and variety of coastline that there is. Living where we do, in the centre of the peninsular, we can choose a different beach every day.

For the last few years we have been really lazy as we were given permission to use a friend’s hotel pool. It was bliss and we made the most of it but unfortunately this year they have changed the rules to make the pool only for hotel guests. Fair enough, and although we were gutted when we first found out, actually it has been a blessing in disguise. We have been given the motivation to get out there and explore this beautiful place where we live.

Pre babies we had a totally different criteria for the perfect bathing spot. Isolation was the aim and as the summer got hotter and busier, the rockier it became as we went further and further off the beaten track. That’s great when there are just adults, you can get into the water in difficult places, walk a long way from the car, take very little with you and sit in the full sun.

Now it is a completely different ball game. We are usually looking for a shallow, sandy beach, good shade and usually within easy access of the car unless we get prepared and kitted up for a hike. It’s imperative to have a picnic prepared if a restaurant is not the first stop, to have good things to lie on, a change of clothes for everyone, water for drinking and washing, beach toys… the list continues.

We’ve found so many lovely places that I am planning a Salento Beach Guide for next year. This morning we went to our nearest beach, San Mauro, on the Ionian coast. We haven’t been for a few years and despite not really liking it in the past in our new family form it was fantastic.

Football on Baia dei Turchi beach

2009-06-06T17:25:00.002+02:00

Baia Verde

2009-05-21T18:20:00.001+02:00

Elimination Communication

2009-05-15T12:03:00.004+02:00

I first found out about Elimination Communication (EC) when Mickey was 8 months old. For the uninitiated it is potty training for babies. For some people this means completely diaper free from birth, others start later, still others do EC part time, meaning they use nappies but offer regular ‘potty opportunities’.

It sounded ridiculous to me at first but when I read more it started to make sense. What do people do in countries where they can’t afford nappies or even the water to wash them? Why would human babies be the only ones who are incontinent in the entire animal kingdom?

I bought the book, Infant Potty Training and found out loads of really interesting information. At about 14 months we started with Mickey, a halfway approach between EC and traditional potty training. Just over a year later he has completely ‘graduated’ out of nappies, in fact the last day he wore one was the day before Rudy was born.

I was really keen to start EC with Rudy but the first few weeks were so hectic that I couldn’t quite get my head round it. Having only seen pictures in books rather than having first hand experience, I didn’t know how to ‘hold him out’, it always ended in tears.

Rudy had quite a weak neck compared to Mickey when he was born and I was scared of holding him upright. I did give him nappy free time on his changing mat, especially when I thought he was giving signals that he wanted to go, but it was an unsatisfactory arrangement as it was very messy, more so than just doing it in the nappy.

About a week ago he was starting to grunt and go red in the face and I though, aha, I know he needs to do a poo. So after another unsuccessful attempt to hold him out over the loo I decided to put Mickey’s potty up on the changing mat and I put Rudy on it, supporting him under his armpits and stayed close to him.

He immediately looked me in the eye and smiled, no joke. And then hey presto, we had elimination action (it’s hard to write about this without sounding vulgar!) That was the beginning of our EC adventure and it has been going amazingly well since. We’re not nappy free yet by any means but I am completely confident that this is the way to go for a whole range of reasons. It certainly will be easier to do in the summer when we are outside more often with fewer clothes.

So if most of the world practice EC and even in our own culture it was practiced until two generations ago, how come nobody knows about it? My guess is that the nappy industry is pretty lucrative and nobody wants to rock the boat. Yet with the landfills piling up and we run out of space to dump all our rubbish I believe EC will have its day again.

Beautiful day

2009-05-05T16:39:00.000+02:00

It surely has to be the most beautiful day of the year so far. After a very wet April we are finally seeing uninterrupted blue skies and hot sun - the fields are alive with colourful wild flowers and lush green grasses and you’d have to be a very unhappy person for it not to lift your soul.

Over six weeks have passed since Rudy was born and while we have had a few moments of chaos we are somehow managing quite well to survive. He is a very calm, dare I say it, easy baby so far, sleeping and eating very happily.

Mickey seems to be enjoying the role of big brother and doesn’t behave as if he were jealous of the new arrival. It is lovely taking care of the two of them and although it does feel like spinning plates at times I think it is more fun than having one child.

It certainly helps that even though Darren has a lot of work on right now he is still at home quite a lot. I don’t know what it would be like to have your husband leave the house each day at 7am to return 12 hours later. It must be pretty lonely and tiring but unfortunately that is the situation for most of the mums I know in London.

The good weather definitely makes things easier for me. On rainy days Mickey starts bouncing of the walls by a certain time and wants to watch endless films and youtube videos. But on gorgeous days like today there is so much of interest outside to occupy my energetic and curious little 2 year old and it’s pretty pleasant for the rest of the family, too.

Birth story timeline

2009-04-18T16:26:00.008+02:00

20/03/09 21.00 Darren and I go out for dinner at Pepe Nero in Galatina. This is our first meal out alone for over a year with grandma looking after our 2yo son Mickey at home. We eat a kilo of steak between us, washed down with a nice bottle of rosso and pineapple for dessert (a fruit believed by some to bring on labour).

20/03/09 23.00 We finish dinner and decide to pop into the birth clinic to go on the contractions monitor – I am having very strong and regular (painless) Braxton hicks contractions. We decide to go home as labour has not yet begun.

20/03/09 23.45 We manage to get our excited toddler to sleep and I sneak off into the living room sofabed where I have been banished in the last few weeks of pregnancy due to my loud snoring!

21/03/09 01.30 Lying in bed awake it feels as though the baby suddenly reaches out and punches me in the stomach and I can almost hear a pop. As I get out of bed I realize that was the sensation of my waters breaking – something I didn’t experience with my first labour. I wake Darren and tell him that I think it really is it this time and about 10 minutes later I experience the first real (and extremely painful) contraction.

21/03/09 03.30 We arrive at the clinic and the midwives on duty laugh to see us again. An internal examination shows that I have just begun to dilate. We are taken to our own room and Darren helps me through the pain of the contractions that are coming on stronger and faster all the time. On a couple of occasions the midwives come into the room to tell me to be quiet!

21/03/09 05.00 I am given another examination and the nurse is surprised that I am already over 5cm dilated. There is a rush to call in my doctor and prepare the delivery room.

21/03/09 05.30 I am vaguely aware of my doctor arriving and all of a sudden being told to push. I don’t feel ready at all and scream for Darren who is being made to wait outside the door. I am taken into the delivery room and with absolute horror I see them attaching my legs to stirrups with leather straps. Again I am being told to push despite not feeling the natural urge to do this. Darren is finally allowed to be with me again. There were so many people in the room at this point, I guess we were on the changeover of night and day shift. I was aware of the light of the dawn outside the shuttered windows. Suddenly my body seemed ready to get the baby out.

21/03/09 06.10 Rudy Antonio Howat is born weighing 4kg and measuring 56cm in length. He was put into an incubator despite being completely healthy. We were told that it was clinic policy to put babies in the incubator for 2 hours after birth. Why hadn’t I checked out their policy before?! I asked Darren to go and take a photo of him so I could at least have a look at my new baby!

21/03/09 08.30 I hobble out of my bed to find out where my baby is. I wait by the incubator and look in wonder at my new, perfect boy. I ask a nurse when I can take him out and hold him and she says I will have to wait as they have other things to do. Then another woman comes along and asks for my codici fiscale (like a national insurance number) and I tell her she can have it as soon as I could have my baby. I am behaving a bit like a mad female animal who has just given birth (in fact this is what I am!)

21/03/09 09.00 Baby Rudy is in my arms and suckling at my breast. It is one of the most precious moments of my life.

Baby Rudy

2009-03-30T12:07:00.001+02:00

Born on Saturday 21st March.

Ricci at Porto Badisco

2009-03-04T15:56:00.004+01:00

Early spring is the best time of year to try ricci (sea urchins) and this simple bar in Porto Badisco, on the Adriatic coast just south of Otranto, is the best place to have them.

Signs

2009-02-28T16:11:00.002+01:00

The last few days have been so sunny and warm that I can't believe it could get wintry again before spring proper. However, after 6 winters here in Puglia, I have to remind myself that it could.

It has been extremely pleasant spending time in the sun, especially in my immobile state of late pregnancy. I'm 38 weeks tomorrow so it really could be any day now. When I feel the baby moving around inside of me he feels so large although I know that when he will appear tiny when he's born.

What a lovely time of year to come into the world, just as spring breaks. I'm imagining lots of country walks with baby in the sling and Mickey running through the fields beside us. I'm also looking forward to being able to walk 100m without destroying myself!

I can't wait to see and hold baby, although part of me is cherishing these last moments of just the three of us. Right now Darren is pruning the vines and Mickey is having his regular afternoon nap and I have some last precious me-time. I can imagine that is going to be a thing of the past for a while.

There are so many unknowns in the near future, so exciting...

Marriage

2009-02-17T18:24:00.001+01:00

Darren and I have been happily unmarried for over 8 years now and have never felt the need to ‘tie the knot’. We’re positively anti-religious and I personally don’t like a lot of the symbolism connected with the ceremony.

When we moved to Puglia together as a young couple in 2001 we wondered if the local people, so famously catholic, would object to our living in sin. We have been pleasantly surprised as over the years nobody, not even the little old religious ladies that we know, seems to care in the slightest.

So it may seem odd to our friends and family, who have listened to (or politely pretended to) us rant on about our stance for years, hear that we have decided eventually to give in and get hitched next year. Practical, rather than romantic, motives have persuaded us in the end, and perhaps also the imminent arrival of child number 2.

At first we thought we would do it in London as it would be a lot easier for friends and family to attend but just a quick search on the internet told me that we would never be able to afford even the down-to-earth do that we have in mind back home.

So we have started thinking about doing it here in Salento. Obviously some people won’t be able to come but hopefully some friends will use it as an excuse to have a little holiday. We can have a civil ceremony in a castle and then have the party back here in the olive grove. Food and drink are so much cheaper and nicer here and the weather more reliable.

I really hope I don’t turn into one of those wedding bloggers who can only think about the plans for the big day, the greatest day of my life, yeah right. I don’t think I will, though, you never know. Watch this space.

Weaning

2009-02-02T09:22:00.001+01:00

It’s been a while since I last wrote. We celebrated a lovely, low key Christmas and New Year, as well as Mickey’s 2nd birthday at the beginning of January. The bump has grown reassuring large and we are now only a month or so from having a new member of the family. But the biggest change in mine and Mickey’s life over these last few months is that he has now weaned.

At the beginning of the pregnancy Mickey was 18 months and feeding round the clock; he needed the breast to go to sleep at night and in the day, several times at night, upon waking, plus at several other times during the day. Until I started to feel pregnant that was fine with me, I’m a firm believer in the benefits of ‘extended’ nursing. Yet as the hormones started to kick in I knew I had to make some changes.

The first thing I did was to read about it. I ordered a couple of La Leche League books from Amazon: How Weaning Happens by Diane Bengson and Adventures in Tandem Nursing by Hilary Flower. Both of these books really helped me look at my situation objectively and make some decisions.

I have to admit that the tandem nursing book actually put me off the whole idea of breastfeeding both children. I read with fear about ‘toddler revulsion’, a common condition where feeding the older child brings up all sorts of negative feelings.

It was also a surprise to me that tandem nursing is almost exclusively a Western, attachment parenting, practice. In more traditional cultures the subsequent pregnancy is usually the trigger for weaning the older child. While it seems that, contrary to popular belief, there are no nutritional or developmental problems related to breastfeeding through pregnancy and beyond, it didn’t strike me as either natural or desirable.

How Weaning Happens gave me loads of practical help on how to start the process. I decided to start with cutting down feeds rather than focus on stopping completely. Nursing was obviously still incredibly important to Mickey, both nutritionally and emotionally and I wanted to respect his needs.

At the beginning it felt that it was an impossible task. The big change was when he was able to fall asleep without feeding. That happened on a trip to London in October without me forcing the issue. I think that he had understood my discussions about it with my mother and friends and made the change himself. Until that point I couldn’t imagine that he would ever be able get to sleep without nursing! It gave me the confidence to continue gradual weaning.

Mickey is a night owl and we all go to sleep together at around 11pm. Now we read a few of his books and then it’s lights out, a couple of songs and then we all try to get to sleep. It takes Mickey between 5 and 30 minutes of rolling around and cuddling up to either me or Darren before he gets off. Quite quickly after stopping to feed to sleep he also stopped needing to be fed back to sleep if he woke during the night.

Getting to sleep for his after lunch day nap proved more difficult to cut out as it isn’t possible for us to make the house completely dark and all go to bed at that time. We have resorted to driving him to sleep every day, not ideal but necessary as he still needs a good 3 hour sleep to make it through to bed time.

The last key feed was waking up in the morning. I finally decided to stop it about a week after his birthday. Some mornings it was easier to avoid, just by getting up earlier than him and letting Darren tend to him when he woke. We did have a couple of heart wrenching cries when I refused him that first week. One day I let him have it and the expression on his face of pure bliss made me feel really guilty. But I had to remind myself of the negative feelings I was already experiencing while feeding him and my conviction that this was not healthy for either of us.

Some days he forgot to ask and then I realized a week had gone by without a feed. The day before yesterday he was really upset when Darren had to go out without him and he cried nonstop for over half an hour. In the end I resorted to offering him the breast for comfort and he immediately stopped crying and started to suckle. However, it seemed he had already forgotten how to do it. It seems extraordinary that he could lose the reflex in the space of only a few weeks.

I’m reserving judgment on whether he has completely weaned until the baby is born and the new milk comes in. If I feel he really needs to feed at that point then I am open to that. I never like to say never and I believe people who say that tandem nursing can help with sibling rivalry.

Right now I am enjoying having a few months off feeding duty although a part of me is sad that I wasn’t able to carry on giving Mickey the comfort he loved so much.

Olive press in action

2008-12-13T16:13:00.002+01:00

Olive press

2008-12-09T16:15:00.002+01:00

I helped out even less with this weekend’s olive harvest, our second and final collection of this year, due to the bump – I’m 27 weeks pregnant already. Luckily we had another English family help Darren do the collection on Sunday and they also kindly came back yesterday to fold up all the nets – a time-consuming task that is no fun at all to do on your own.

My job was to look after the little ones who at 14 and 23 months were really too little to actually get involved. That’s not to say the harvest isn’t fun and interesting for such a small child, Mickey is definitely old enough now to understand the process. He probably already knows more about olive oil production than the majority of English people!

‘So they don’t have frantoi in England then?’ Paolo, the owner of our local frantoio (olive press), asked me this morning as the English people took photos of mundane pieces of machinery. I explained that we didn’t have olive trees, other than ornamental ones, so far north. He looked bemused and suggested that we pressed seeds instead.

We probably could do another collection after Christmas but we have decided that it’s not really worth it. We will already have enough oil for the year and with me out of action it is too much for Darren to do, there is already so much to be done as it is.

The rest of the olives will continue to fall to the ground until about mid January and feed their goodness back into the trees and next year’s fruit.

Handpainted boat sign

2008-11-26T15:22:00.006+01:00

Yesterday we went for lunch and a stroll at Gallipoli port which was a nice way of enjoying the sunshine, it always lifts my soul to see the sea. Plus M is very into boats right now. There was some beautiful handpainted fishing boat names and I took pictures, this is my favourite.

Feeling chilly

2008-11-23T17:01:00.002+01:00

London woke up to a blanket of snow this morning and things are feeling pretty arctic down here in Salento this evening, too. It’s common for English people to come here thinking that it warm all year round here when in fact we do get some pretty nasty weather at times. The more countries I have visited in my life, the more I have observed that there is no such thing as the perfect climate.

We opened our shutters to a typically English grey sky this morning – flat and white, just depressing. As the day has gone on a nasty chill has developed in the air. Darren just went to stock up the log pile and put two new bombole (gas canisters) on the boiler before it gets dark.

Here in the Puglian countryside no houses are connected to mainline gas. One option would be to have a large cylinder – a bombelone – dug underground containing about 1000 litres of gas to feed our boiler and central system. The advantage of this is that you would only need to refill it every year or so - it is a constant job keeping the 40 litre bottles replenished in the winter. Just for hot water and the cooker in the warmer months (April – November) we consume very few but as soon as the central heating goes on we are going through 2-3 per week.

In one way we like seeing how much gas we consume. I’m sure if we had 1000 litres of gas on tap we would consume it at a faster rate. Not good for the planet and also for our budget - gas is expensive, approx. 20 euros per bombola. We always try to light the fire first in the evening, it heats up the overall temperature of the living room and warms up the soul.

When it is cold here in Puglia you definitely feel it more than in the UK. The houses are just not designed for wintery conditions with their high ceilings and tile floors. It's a bit like when it occasionally gets really hot in the summer in London - we're just not equipped to deal with it.

In town shopkeepers and bars sometimes keep their doorways wide open all year round. Pre-baby we occasionally went to Collepasso cinema and during the winter we took blankets - it was unbearably cold to sit through a feature length film otherwise. I always say that the reason Italians always have very elegant jackets is that they never take them off.

There is no such thing as a perfect climate but I have to admit that it is far more pleasant overall here in Salento than in England. It may stay grey and cold for the next few days. It could rain all night long – the other night the rain lashed against the wall of our little house with such intensity and duration that I felt like I was on a boat.

But we all know that some time over the next week or so we will have some beautiful sunshine, hot enough to sit outside and feel the vitamin D penetrate your skin. The countryside which looks drab and muddy today will sparkle against a bright blue sky and all will be forgiven and forgotten. Until about 4pm, that is, when the sun starts to go down and it’s time to stoke up the fire and wrap up warm for the night.

Hope & glory

2008-11-07T07:35:00.001+01:00

What an exciting few days it has been, I really feel like the world has turned a new page with Obama as the new president of the USA. We have been away in London for 10 days and there was a lot of interesting comment and analysis in the paper to read on our journey home yesterday. One theme that came up a lot was ‘would it be possible to have a black prime minister in the UK?’

It obviously depends greatly on the actual candidate in question; I hope we will see in the coming years that Obama has a lot more going for him than just the colour of his skin. And we also have to consider the different cultures. Not only is 13% of the American population black, compared with 3% in the UK, it is important to remember that ‘African Americans’ are only one of many ethnic groups – of all colours - in the US. America is the melting pot – or salad bowl – where people from all over the world have gone to start a new life. In the UK the situation is completely different and while there are many different ethnic groups we are still over 90% white English.

Here in Italy I have no idea of precise figures but ‘monoculture’ is the word that springs to mind. I have often wondered if we would have received the same warm welcome had we not been a couple of blond(ish) Londoners and instead come from a poorer, less desirable nation. When we first moved to Lecce in 2002 we did a government funded Italian course for immigrants. Our classmates mainly came from Sri Lanka, Kenya and Albania and it was fascinating to hear their experiences, quite different from our own.

I will be interested to read the papers here today and see the Italian reaction to the new American president. I suspect they will be as optimistic as the English press, I hope so. That is the truly great thing about what has happened, it really could be a breath of fresh air for the whole world.

Nets under the olives

2008-10-23T14:47:00.004+02:00

Our friend Claudio came round this morning to help Darren lay the nets out under our olive trees.

Olive nets

2008-10-21T15:48:00.002+02:00

Darren has gone out to start laying out the nets under the olive trees to catch the first olives of the season. We intend to do the harvest in a couple of weeks’ time so now is right to start collecting the windfalls. Any longer and they would be too far gone by the time we go to press.

Una quindicina di giorni (15 days) should be just the right amount of time before we go on to full on collection mode in the week of 10th November (weather permitting) That week we also have another family here to help us. They have a little girl a bit older than Mickey so it should be fun to get them involved, too.

Ever since our first harvest 4 years ago I always fantasised about collecting the olives as a family. Maybe because the act of climbing and shaking trees take you back to being a child anyway. It is always a fun, if exhausting, week.

In my current pregnant state I find any physical activity lasting any more than 5 minutes utterly exhausting so I’m not sure how much help I will end up being this year. We didn’t collect the olives last year as we had had our trees pruned so in fact the last time we harvested I was also pregnant.

That year we had a good friend from the UK over to help out and he worked so hard on the first day - climbing to the very tops of the trees and shaking around like a mad monkey – that for the rest of the week he was ill in bed. A lesson in pacing ourselves. I will keep you posted on how we get on this year.

Kaki tree

2008-10-12T15:20:00.002+02:00

Autumn fruits

2008-10-10T10:38:00.002+02:00

One of things I love about this part of the world is the abundance of fruit all year round. Trees that are tricky to cultivate in northern Europe grow like weeds in this rich, clay soil blessed with year round sunshine. On one side of our property a huge fig tree has grown from nothing in the four years we have lived in this house. In the summer figs hang voluptuously from the countless trees that line the country lanes and nobody minds if they are eaten by passersby – they can never be consumed quickly enough, even by the large Italian families they are owned by.

In October one fruit that decorates the autumn trees like huge orange Christmas baubles is the Kaki, known as persimmon in English. Eaten straight off the tree the fruit has a weird affect on the inside of your mouth, almost as though all the moisture has been stripped out of it. That is due to the large amounts of pectin found naturally in the fruit if left to mature on the tree. To avoid this they are picked when they are still slightly unripe and left to ripen in the house. Sharon fruits, as found in UK supermarkets, are a popular variety of the same fruit, ripened instead by the use of chemicals.

The kaki tree, like the fig, grows easily. In fact a non fruit bearing wild variety literally grows like a weed. They need to be cut back quickly or can be a real pain to get rid of and have a nasty habit of getting inside Antonio’s tractor and breaking it. Or instead they can be allowed to grow into a tree and then have the fruit bearing variety grafted on.

Another fruit tree that grows like a weed is the mele cotogne, or quince. We also have one of these on our property that has sprung up from nowhere in the time we have lived here and it is currently heavy with fruit that looks a bit like a gnarly yellow pear. They can’t be eaten raw but cooked have a flavour and perfume similar to apple.

It is an ancient fruit with many references in ancient Greek literature. I read on wiki that ‘Plutarch reports that a Greek bride would nibble a quince to perfume her kiss before entering the bridal chamber, "in order that the first greeting may not be disagreeable nor unpleasant" (Roman Questions 3.65).

Like the Kaki it is also high in natural pectin meaning that it is great for jam making. In fact, the word marmalade originates from the Portuguese name for this fruit marmelo. The fruit turns red after extensive cooking and here in Puglia they make a very dense, red jelly out of it that is cut in small diamond shaped slices and eaten on its own as a type of sweet. I have to admit is not to my taste although it could be interesting to make a similar, slightly softer version as an accompaniment to a roast pork, or as a basis for a chutney. Now’s the time to experiment as I have a free load on my doorstep and it seems a shame to let it all go to waste.

Lucky numbers

2008-10-07T16:36:00.004+02:00

We came across this curious poster this morning in town. Italians are mad about the Lotto and this supposedly shows which numbers relate to the things you dream about. I thought it was really funny, particularly the rude ones (check out numbers 16 and 28! - click on the photo to view full resolution)

Capo d'Otranto

2008-10-03T16:22:00.002+02:00

Mickey and I sitting in the coastal wilderness just south of Otranto, the most easterly point of Italy. On a clear day you can see the mountains of Albania and even Corfu, over 100km across the Adriatic sea.

Happy news

2008-09-30T16:40:00.000+02:00

It’s custom in both Italy and England to wait to announce a pregnancy until after the first trimester. This isn’t some weird cultural quirk, it’s in case you have a miscarriage which is reasonably common in the early weeks. However, people in Italy seem to take this social rule far more seriously than we do in the UK and if you announce your happy news too early it can be met with uncomfortable and embarrassed silences.

I’m the type of person who blurts these things out the minute I know, to whoever will listen – friends, family, neighbours, shopkeepers and complete strangers. My reasoning is that if I did lose the baby I would want people to know why I was so unhappy. I guess it makes a big difference if you or your family have a history of miscarriages.

In England my reasoning seems the norm these days, most friends confide as soon as they know but normally under the veil of secrecy so that these days no pregnancy is ever officially announced; the news circulates the grapevine until everyone knows but nobody is sure they should.

Yet despite my attitude in real life, I somehow didn’t want to announce my pregnancy on this blog until I was over the first hurdle. So there it is, baby number 2 is officially due mid March.

Fermenting must

2008-09-22T14:37:00.003+02:00

You can see the grape must finally fermenting in this short movie, bubbling away like a witch's brew.

Fermentation problems

2008-09-15T22:18:00.003+02:00

The wine is not doing what it is supposed to do. As planned, Antonio came round last Friday afternoon with all the equipment. We started picking the grapes that evening and were finished by mid-morning on Saturday.

Before lunch we were ready to put the grapes through a scrunching machine (you can tell how technical I am!) We crushed them into the massive plastic vat that we have put on a couple of pallets behind our house, under the olive trees. Darren was under instruction to give it a good stir every couple of hours with an old gnarly stick that is obviously employed every year for this purpose.

Just a few hours after we had cleaned up and covered the vat with a plastic sheet, the heavens opened. Rain had been predicted so everyone in the area was doing their harvest at the same time. When it rains here it really pours and we witnessed a fantastic storm.

Antonio came back later in the after and was surprised to see that the mixture, or must, as it is correctly called, wasn’t beginning to ferment. He got me to find an old blanket to cover the vat to keep it warm to help the process along.

Still no fermentation all of yesterday and no sign today. We are waiting on this process to take place before we can press. He checked the sugar content this afternoon but assured us that wasn’t the problem as it was nice and high.

He called us again earlier to see how things were going (no change) and say his mum remembered this happening another year when it rained straight after the harvest. That year it apparently took four days to start fermenting, a lot longer than the 16 -24 hours it recommends in my Californian home wine making manual. We're losing faith that it will ever happen. I’ll keep you posted.

Fresh pasta

2008-09-09T15:53:00.003+02:00

We were treated to this delicious homemade pasta for Sunday lunch at Antonio's house. It was served with a rabbit and tomato sugo. Absolutely everything in the dish was produced by Antonio and his family, the durum wheat and oil to make the pasta, the tomatoes and even the rabbit!

Grape harvest

2008-09-07T23:22:00.001+02:00

We’ve set a date for the grape harvest – next weekend. It’s good timing really as we’ll have Darren’s dad here to help out, plus we are going to put our grapes together with another family’s – English friends (our first clients) just a few fields away who are also staying at their house at the moment.

Antonio tractor man is not only going to instruct us on the millennia old technique or picking and pressing grapes – he is also lend us all the necessary equipment. Where on earth would we be without him?

I was quite down about the grapes a few months ago, as I mentioned in a previous post. They didn’t seem to be growing well back then but now our vineyard is full of heavy bunches of inky purple, pearly grapes. It’s true that some bunches have shriveled up in parts but I don’t think that matters a great deal to make the quality of wine that we are going for.

I have no idea the quantity wine we will make. Part of me hopes we won’t get that much, what would we do with it? It’s not the type of wine that lasts a long time. We do have a subterranean wine cellar in our apartment in the historic centre of Matino, so if we do get a lot we could as well store it there.

I would really like to get some back to London where I’m sure we could easily find willing homes. The problem is getting it there. Antonio explained that wine is difficult to transport, unlike olive oil. He said that in order for it to travel well we would need to add a lot of preservatives which is off putting.

Our neighbours, Crisitna’s family, harvested their grapes today. I heard them chatting in their vines behind our house while I was putting out the washing this morning. When I asked her sister, Tina, how it went she complained that it wasn’t the vendemmia, or cutting of the grapes, that was difficult and time consuming, it was all the work that precedes it.

Antonio is pretty negative about the whole process, too. He said there is a local expression was that you needed to tend the vnes all year was a ‘uomo morto’, a dead man. I guess that means someone with nothing else to do, but I’m not 100% sure.

Ostuni

2008-09-05T15:53:00.003+02:00

The wonderful view of the 'centro storico' from the Devlin's apartments in Ostuni (BR).

Autumn in the air

2008-09-02T18:29:00.001+02:00

Autumn is in the air. It’s still unbearably hot in the sun during the day, the ceiling fans are still whirring over head, but the seasons are undeniably changing.

There’s the constant smell of smoke that pervades the countryside at this time of year, as the contadini prepare the olive groves for the upcoming harvest. The grapes are dark and heavy on the vines and getting sweeter and more concentrated each day to ensure the primitivo wine will be dark red and alcoholic. All around leaves are beginning to turn brown and fall - fig trees that were so recently lush and green and laden with fruit will soon become barren.

Growing up in England, I never really liked autumn. It was the sad season, which although could be quite pleasant in itself was always overshadowed by the endless winter months ahead.

Yet here in southern Italy, autumn brings a relief from another hot, dry summer. Not a drop of rain has fallen on our house since the middle of May. This afternoon a large, rumbling rain cloud loomed in the background and seemed to be coming our way but while they enjoyed the first heavy rain for months only 2km away, we were left parched as ever.

At this time of year, while I look forward to snuggling up under warm covers at night, and tucking into warming broths and stews, it’s easy to forget how lovely summer is. Sunshine and swimming are so good for the body and soul and the long, lazy days allow for late, lively nights.

I guess it all goes to show that I am happiest living somewhere with seasons, too much of any type of weather gets boring after a while. And right now we are all praying for rain to officially mark the coming of autumn.

Castel del Monte

2008-08-25T15:02:00.001+02:00

Near Bari

2008-08-22T20:04:00.002+02:00

We just spent a lovely week with my mum and my 7 year old nephew visiting. As it’s August and flights are expensive they had to fly to Bari, instead of our nearest airport Brindisi, to get the best deal. So for both journeys we tried to make the most of the extra trip.

On the way to pick them up we stopped off at Ikea to order some furniture for a client. I always find Ikea a harrowing experience and I can never concentrate on the stuff in the shop, I just have an overwhelming instinct to get the hell out of there the minute I arrive. The only part I really enjoy is the food hall at the end, maybe because every part of my being knows I can relax by that point, but also because the food is actually very good.

This time I bought a large pack of smoked salmon, a good buy here in Puglia where, with the exception of Christmas time, the only stuff available is the oily, smelly Norwegian rubbish. I also bought some cheese, riveta type crackers and some delicious gooseberry jam. And I have never been to Ikea and managed to resist a hot dog.

The week was spent relaxing here in Salento, braving the busy August beaches or else escaping to the tranquility of our local swimming pool. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We headed north to Bari a day early and spent a night near Puglia’s most important historical site, Castel del Monte.

The unusual 13th century Unesco-protected castle is depicted on the Italian euro 1 cent coin. It is an imposing octagonal structure perched on a hill where it can be seen for miles around. Although at first glance it appears to be some kind of fortress it apparently lacks many of the essential features for this to be the case.

It was more likely a hunting lodge for the eccentric owner and commissioner, one time Holy Roman Emperor, Fredrick II. It is supposedly based on several Arabic buildings and is on a direct line to other spiritual buildings. It is definitely worth a visit and we all had our own theories about it.

Leaving loved ones at the airport is always sad, and the house now feels strangely empty without the buzz – and curious conversations and obsessions – of a seven year old around the place.

Adriatic sea

2008-08-16T13:05:00.002+02:00

Beach

2008-08-10T14:57:00.001+02:00

We spent a lovely day at the beach yesterday with our friends Sophie and Sebastian. They live in Paris but spend every summer in Manduria, a town famous for wine about 100km north of here.

The beach was pretty packed, as can only be expected for a Saturday in August. We were clever though and went for the quietest time of the day, from about 12-5pm, when all the locals are cooking, eating and then recovering from their enormous lunches.

We went to our favourite spot, which requires a bit of a walk but it is so worth it as there are always less people there than at other beautiful beaches. There are two sandy coves hidden in the cliffs, only for people in the know.

The water is crystal clear and there is nothing man-made as far as the eye can see, just blue sky, aromatic Mediterranean scrub and pine woods, crumbling cliffs, fine sand and of course the turquoise, sparkling water.

Mickey had a great day, he loves the beach and he also really loved hanging out with our friends and the other people at the seaside. While Darren and I would prefer a completely deserted, quiet beach I think Mickey would be more up for one of those classic Italian lidos, packed with oily bodies and line dancing. He is a very sociable child.

Luckily for him there are no shortage of those types of places round here but I’m afraid he will have to wait until he is old enough to drive there himself!

Pomegranate on the tree

2008-08-06T09:27:00.003+02:00

Ripening grapes

2008-07-31T20:19:00.002+02:00

To be honest with you, I’m a little bit disappointed with our grapes. They are now beginning to ripen on the vine and a large number have sort of frazzled up. Most bunches seem to have at least some dried fruit on them and I can’t imagine that’s great for the wine.

As I think I already wrote in a previous post, we aren’t actually that bothered about making our own wine anyway. We maintained the vineyard this year as a sort of experiment and we wouldn’t want to commit to buying all the equipment needed to make it incase we pulled up the whole lot next year.

I don’t think we will pull up the whole vineyard, it’s so pretty next to the house. But I do think we will cut down on numbers again (we already got rid of half). One idea Antonio had was to get rid of every other row to allow the tractor to pass through. That sounds sensible.

Most of the grapes are the small, dark purple negroamaro variety for making the local red wine but there are a couple of plants that produce another type meant for eating. These large, sweet, blush-coloured and almost seedless grapes are just perfectly ripe right now and we have nearly eaten all of them. It’s a real shame we don’t have more, maybe we should replace some of the wine type.

It’s all a learning experience but I think my initial gut feeling was correct – winemaking is not for me, I’m more of an olive oil girl.

Antonio and his tomatoes

2008-07-27T12:52:00.005+02:00

We just got given a whole LOAD more tomatoes and other yummy stuff from Antonio. I like this photo of him, pictured in his vegetable 'garden' and if you look closely Darren looks like he's got a red nose on!

Tomato passata

2008-07-25T10:59:00.002+02:00

At this time of year we are always overwhelmed with tomatoes. Despite our own vegetable patch looking a bit sorry for itself we are given crates of them every day by neighbours who seem to grow them on an industrial scale.

It’s never a bad thing to have too many tomatoes as they can easily be made into a sauce, delicious eaten fresh and also easy to conserve. Local families make loads (some as much as 700 litres) of passata and it lasts them all year.

The first stage is to make the passata. Put all the washed tomatoes in a big, heavy based, saucepan and add a whole onion and a sprig of basil.

Let the tomatoes come to the boil, making sure not to burn the base of the pan (I squash a few tomatoes with a spoon to release the liquid at the beginning of the cooking).

Keep it bubbling away and reducing for about an hour and then put the whole thing through a mouli to remove skins and seeds.

Heat up a generous amount of olive oil in a pan and add a small amount of very finely chopped onions. When these have cooked add the passata, some more basil and some salt.

Let the sauce come to the boil and then lower the heat and simmer until the sauce has reduced down to how you like it.

This tomato sauce is the basis of Italian cuisine and made in this way is liquid health. It can be preserved by bagna maria - boiling up sealed jars or alternatively by adding a preservative that can be bought in all local pharmacies.

Pepe Nero garden

2008-07-23T15:32:00.002+02:00

Potty training

2008-07-22T12:05:00.002+02:00

I’ve recently been thinking and reading a lot about potty training. I read an awful story in the Daily Mail (of all places), about kids up till the age of 7 years old who still in nappies. The report put the blame on nurseries, who prefer to take diapered kids as it’s easier for them than taking them to the toilet and clearing up accidents.

They reported growing health problems between school children due to extended nappy wearing. I thought it might be a piece of reactive DM journalism but when I was in a shop the other day I did actually see this new size nappy for 4-7 year olds. Terrifying.

In Jamaica most of the even tiny babies we saw were already wearing pants. There they practice what is fashionably called EC. This stands for ‘elimination communication’ and is basically what all our grandmothers did and what the majority of the people in the world (but not the West) still do.

Starting from birth the baby is held out over the toilet or potty and encouraged to eliminate. Nappies are never worn so very quickly the mother learns to pick up on signs of when the baby needs to go. A hissing noise is made when the baby is eliminating and eventually that noise stimulates the baby to go. For more about it have a look at this thread on our new forum, Alternative Family Travel.

I wish I had read about EC when Mickey was born, I will definitely be trying it with baby number 2 (whenever he or she comes along!) As it is, our first born is at the classic age to begin potty training. It is also the perfect time of year to go nappy free.

He stopped wearing a nappy at night about 3 weeks ago with only 2 accidents so far. When we are at home he usually runs around naked. Luckily we have tiled floors so it’s never hard to clean up a mess.

We had a fantastic surprise on Sunday. He came out of the bathroom making a great fuss and pointing and hissing noise. When we went to see what it was about we discovered that he had gone in there and privately used the potty for the first time – perfect aim too! Let’s hope he really gets the hang of it before the cold weather starts in October and we’re all back to wearing clothes again.

Waning moon

2008-07-21T12:49:00.000+02:00

Salento map

2008-07-20T17:04:00.003+02:00

I just added a cool widget to the blog this morning. If you scroll right down to the bottom of the page you will find my new Salento map with our favourite places market on it. Click on the map to zoom in. Wherever possible I have marked places accurately on the satellite rather than the map as they do not always correspond. I will try to add more places and photos and links gradually. Enjoy!

Horses

2008-07-20T07:35:00.003+02:00

Pepe Nero

2008-07-17T01:16:00.003+02:00

16/07/08

I’ve got a real fancy on for carpaccio – the Italian antipasto made of raw (good quality) beef, thinly sliced and dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, rocket and parmesan. There’s a great restaurant in Galatina, Pepe Nero, where they serve it. Pepe Nero is really jolly in both summer and winter and is housed in industrial yet vaulted space on the edge of town which has been furnished in a ‘funky’ modern style.

The first time we went to Pepe Nero when Mickey was about 10 months old and we were scared to take a baby to a ‘fashion restaurant’. We asked the very swanky guy at the door if it was OK to bring baby in and he looked at me in an astonished way.

He assured me that i piccoli were the most important customers as he led us to our table. As the evening progressed we saw how almost every table had a baby or a young child. We’ve been several times since and our little one has always had a great time.

We actually went to Galatina this evening for dinner but to a friend’s house for dinner. He has a fantastic architect-restored apartment in a palazzo in the old town and it was great fun to hang out on his roof terrace. The moon was nearly full and we all relished the still, cool evening air. And we all are going to meet again on Sunday for a carpaccio at Pepe Nero.

2008-07-15T10:57:00.002+02:00

Thinking ahead to the olive harvest

2008-07-14T15:38:00.002+02:00

It’s been nearly 8 weeks of boiling hot sun and very little rain. I know this because summer arrived the same day Darren broke his foot, May 20th. It’s almost impossible right now to imagine life here in the winter and yet I know that inevitably by the middle of October I will be unpacking our crochet blankets and slippers.

Under one of our large olive trees is the coolest place to be right now. Even on the hottest, stillest day a little breeze manages to work its way through the shimmering grey/green leaves. The cicadas play a racket, a constant reminder of our Mediterranean location. We have had guests who were driven mad by the cicadas but I find them charming.

The olives are ripening nicely on the trees. They are already nearly full size but are still bright green. They need to grow a little more and darken through purple to black. All this is to happen between now the middle-end of October when the first harvest takes place.

We are thinking about the harvest at this time because as part of our new venture Alternative Family Travel we are offering family olive harvesting holidays this year. As an incentive to sign up and post to the forum we are offering a free holiday for at least one family. The prize excludes flights and car hire but includes a stay for the winning family at Rory’s newly restored (and centrally heated) villa Casablanca .

If you and your family would like to join in with our harvest this year (and take home some of the oil we produce at the end of the week) then have a look at the Alternative Travel Ideas forum. We’ll have to prepare the growund under the trees soon but for now the only thing to be done in the grove is serious chilling out.

Tomatoes

2008-07-13T05:30:00.004+02:00

Breathing

2008-07-10T12:04:00.006+02:00

I realised last night that I am needing to do lots of 'deep breaths' now that Michelangelo is 18 mo. It was midnight and I was thinking that he should be cleaning his teeth with me instead of opening the third packet of pasta for the day and distributing it around the house.

As I breathed deeply I remembered that pasta costs less than a euro a pack and is relatively easy to clean up and not dirty or dangerous to himself or anyone else. Also that if I just let him get on and explore the pasta now, he will 'get it out of his system' at some point meaning that I don't need to rearrange my house to keep the pasta away from him. That I need to respect and admire his curiosity and interests and basically chill out!

Of course the pasta is only one of many examples of this breathing and reflection from just yesterday alone. More traumatic (!) was when he had previously managed to shatter a wineglass with the broom handle on the table which was sitting next to a delicious potato salad that I had spent nearly an hour preparing, and that we had to dump in case any glass had made it's way in (although we were 99.9% certain it hadn't, but you can't take the risk with kids around, can you?)

An important aspect of respectful parenting for me is letting children explore without hampering or judging them. Instead of saying no all the time, I try to save the NOs for serious moments, in order that he respect my judgment of a situation. If you are constantly saying NO then the issue becomes convoluted and it is no longer about the (e.g.) pasta but a struggle for autonomy.

So, back to the breathing. I find it really helps me to make me take the time to think before I judge and act. And then I started thinking about how important breathing exercises are in relation to motherhood, starting with the birth preparation that I practised during my pregnancy, to helping the tiny baby relax and fall asleep on my chest to this 'toddler stress management' (LOL).

Right now I can breath normally as the little boy is having a penichela (Salento dialect for siesta).

Sun loungers at the pool

2008-07-09T12:16:00.005+02:00

Cats

2008-07-08T08:39:00.004+02:00

I’m sad to report that we never had another sighting of those sweet little kittens I reported in a previous post. Maybe they really were an omen or maybe they were killed by another animal or got lost. It’s happened once before, a few years ago, although some litters do survive.

We have about three wild cats living near the house, as well as our pet Monkey, AKA Manky. The wild cats that stay here long term are all female - Green Eyes, Peas and a new tabby we haven’t named yet. Green Eyes had a litter 2 years ago – Scampi, Chips and Peas. We still see Scampi and Chips from time to time but being male they have had to move on to their own territories.

The new tabby is an odd cat. She’s got a really annoying meow and she lives in one of the olive trees behind the house. The first few times I saw her in the tree I thought she was just climbing it but I now realize that she sleeps in it every night and when she hears us get up she jumps down and starts her irritating racket.

It’s fun to have this family of semi wild animals carrying on under our noses. It’s especially interesting for our curious toddler who loves feeding them (and himself, he has a worrying fondness for cat biscuits!)

Procession

2008-07-04T08:13:00.006+02:00

Doctors

2008-07-01T16:03:00.007+02:00

I got in a bit of a strop this morning at the Guardia Medica, the health centre in our local town, Cutrofiano. I went to take Mickey for his jabs and I left screaming at the three dottoresse. Three witches more like.

I admit that I haven’t properly researched vaccinations, I know there are hugely varying views on the subject. My reasoning was to just to do as I was told in order to not be more of an alien than I already am here. But now I’m considering getting them done at our GP in London next time so I am questioning that logic.

All the information and opinions on the subject confuse me. Both sides tell me that I could potentially harm my child’s health if I don’t follow their argument. What an awful dilemma for any parent!

I suppose it all depends which side you trust the most. Conventional medicine doesn’t account for the whole picture of human well being, in my opinion. Take hospitals for example, it seems basic common sense that a place set up to house ill people should have a healing atmosphere but I have never found that to be the case. During his recent stay in Galatina they woke him on both days to clean the room at 5.30am but didn't give him any breakfast until 8am.

I am always suspicious of the official line, especially since one of our friends died from vCJD a few years ago. Yet I’m not completely convinced by the alternative health crew either. I used to work at the Yoga Therapy Centre in London where they specialize in yoga for medical conditions. I’m sure the Yoga for Cancer group helped the participants immensely emotionally and helped them relax but did it really slow down the cancer?

Over here there isn’t much in the way of alternative health care, the Italians are a nation of pill poppers. When it came to giving birth over here there was no question of a homebirth, I’m not sure what we would have done if we had really wanted to do it that way.

Mickey’s doctor (children and adults have separate doctors here) is a real cold fish. Her favourite part of the appointment is always when we talk about his diet. I never dared explain Baby Led Weaning to her so I would sit there nodding while she wrote a complicated diet plan on a scrap of paper. It was a really bizarre regime of introducing foods in order, starting with pear, then apple, then banana (but only once a week she always emphasizes) then baby cereal with those disgusting jars of essence of meat or fish. Do they have those in other places? They have horse flavour here, I’m not joking.

It’s not possible to question most Italian doctors, hence the argument this morning. They wear their white coats as if they were priestly robes. The whole social hierarchy thing here means that they are very rarely contradicted and get very upset when they are. Luckily our GP in Cutrofiano is really nice and open and even speaks English. But whatever I decide to do about Mickey's injections I won't be going back to the Guardia Medica, I've got definite brutta figura there!

Swimming pool

2008-06-30T12:08:00.006+02:00

Masseria Appide

2008-06-28T12:18:00.007+02:00

In the countryside between Cutrofiano and Maglie this fantastic hotel is hidden among the trees. There is a wonderful pool set in the old grounds of the masseria, a proper restaurant and comfortable rooms and suites. Ivana is the beautiful manager and is great at English (she's my old student so she must be!) Have a look at their site for more info http://www.appide.it/

Hot days

2008-06-26T15:55:00.005+02:00

Midsummer’s day was the start of the proper summer weather. We are now sweltering under the olives and the ceiling fans constantly whir overhead of our ‘garagio 'home. It’s best to keep the house as dark as possible to stop the heat getting inside. Garagio is a lovely word local word, made up from the English, to describe these box-like barns that we live in and sell.

At this time of year we always start thinking how we really must have a swimming pool one day, after the more important things we need get done. Swimming pool companies must be so busy right now that they’d probably give you a really bad price, best to wait for November by which time we've forgotton about needing one.

It’s been a month of hard graft for me with Darren’s broken foot keeping him out of action. Thankfully the plaster is now off so we should be nearer resuming to ordinary life. It’s also been a month for technology. We’ve managed to launch the new forum http://www.alternativefamilytravel.com while also finally giving in to Facebook.

We’ve had the base of an outdoor table made from ferro zincato (I don’t know what these things are called in English) and are waiting for a massive piece of stone to be delivered for the top. I can’t wait to be able to eat every meal on it until October.

Right now it's too hot to be inside - we are going for a swim in our friends’ hotel pool.

Pasta salad

2008-06-22T17:10:00.002+02:00

Pasta salad is one of those things (like pizza and chips) that the English like to think isn’t properly Italian. I once read Nigel Slater completely slating it. Though I agree with much of what Nigel writes about food I strongly disagree with his feelings on this humble dish (and also about barbeques).

In fact Pasta Fredda is very popular in this baking hot heel of the boot. Cristina makes several versions for her numerous summer party spreads. She does one with orecchitte pasta and cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and speck (salty cured ham).

I made a nice one today. In my pugliese china bowl I poured some olive oil, rose wine vinegar and mixed it up with salt and pepper. Into this vinaigrette I added finely sliced courgettes, carrots, yellow pepper and in the meantime cooked some leftover pasta shells and hard boiled 3 eggs (one per person).

By the time I added the pasta (still warm but rinsed in cold water) the vegetables has marinated a little. I finished it off with a can of tuna, black olives, capers, finely chopped rocket and a few cherry tomatoes.

A perfect Sunday lunch for a roasting day like today.

La Maruzella birthday lunch

2008-06-21T14:28:00.011+02:00

La Maruzella is in Lido Conchiglie, Ionian coast, on the sea front on the edge of town, going towards Santa Maria al Bagno. There's another place next door but I could never eat there, I would feel like a traitor! Open 365 days a year. 00 39 0833 208 900

Magnolia

2008-06-13T15:02:00.007+02:00

Here's a picture of a magnolia flower, a bud this morning and gone by tomorrow.

Casalinga

2008-06-04T08:23:00.005+02:00

This morning I feel like a proper casalinga Salentina (housewife). I was up at 6am and mopped the floor while baby slept and hubby is in hospital. Husbands always seem to be in hospital round here. Maybe that’s just because most of the people we know are OAPs.

Our neighbour, Gino, was in hospital last week but he’s here right now working in the field opposite our front door. His wife, Lucia, is also here working with him, despite the fact that it’s raining.

I guess they’ve got lots of catching up to do since his time out at Galatina hospital, it’s a busy and important time of year in the Mediterranean vegetable garden. Lucia is a card with an extremely load voice and cheerful disposition.

Mickey and I went to visit Darren in the hospital last night. He was in a lot of pain but we were both reasonably impressed with his care and surroundings. Hardly state-of-the-art but there is a friendly and peaceful atmosphere and lots of space.

We’ll go back this morning, as soon as the little boy is up and awake. It’s a shame I haven’t prepared a medicinal vegetable and bone broth to take to Darren and really fulfill my southern Italian wifey role.

Baby Animals

2008-06-01T14:35:00.004+02:00

01/06/08

The cats were going mad yesterday. Our house cat, Monkey, was meowing his head off all day and the wild, female cats were joining in, scrounging for scraps, running into the house and generally making a fuss. The reason became clear later in the evening when Darren’s dad, David, spotted 3 new kittens playing outside.

They look about 4-6 weeks old, the sort of age that you take them when you get a kitten in England, so the mamma cat must have kept them hidden from us all this time. There are two completely black ones and one tabby.

When I got up this morning at 6 am one of the cheeky black ones was actually in the house, playing with Mickey’s toys! Now we are sleeping with the door open for the heat, I imagine our house is quite a nocturnal cat playground. A bit like one of those children’s stories were all the toys come alive at night.

Wild animals are always a good omen for me, especially baby ones. Whose spirit isn’t lifted at the sight of fluffy, tiny creatures? And this morning we found out that another baby is making its way into the world today as one of our friends has gone into labour.

The house is quiet right now as Darren, Mickey and David are all have an after lunch nap. There is also no sign of any of the cats, I imagine the kittens snuggled up to their mamma in some secret, shady spot, sleeping and feeding just like Mickey did when he was first born. Let’s hope our friend’s baby is already born and doing the same thing!

End of May

2008-05-30T20:31:00.008+02:00

May is my favourite month and I’m always a little sad to say goodbye to it. Salento and also London, Iona, New York, LA (all the places I’ve ever been to in May) are all at their best in this colourful month. If I ever had a daughter in May I would be tempted to name her that.

Right now all the spectacular fields of poppies are just past their best and the lush green grass (as high as an elephant’s eye) is beginning to dry out. Yet Salento isn’t as arid as one might imagine in the middle of summer, the olive trees, prickly pear and bamboo-like canes stay green all year round.

It’s properly hot enough to swim in the sea now, not that we will be going much for a while at least with Darren’s plaster. He’s seen another doctor who is going to put a pin in it next Tuesday, reducing the risk of breaking it again and also minimizing the time in the cast, hopefully.

Tuesday is also the day that our parents go home and I’m not sure how we are going to cope without them! It’s been really helpful having them here to look after Mickey and also a pleasure to be treated with my mum’s home cooking again.

By coincidence Tuesday is June 3rd, the day that Darren and I met 8 years ago. But instead of a romantic dinner (as we’re not married the day counts as our anniversary) it looks like Darren will be eating alone in his Galatina hospital bed. Al meno Italian hospital food is tastier than with the dear old NHS.

Aldo's potatoes

2008-05-25T12:29:00.004+02:00

Broken foot

2008-05-23T15:46:00.004+02:00

Poverino Darren has broken his foot. It happened the day before yesterday while he was messing about with Mickey, playing football. After allowing a couple of days for the swelling to go down, his dad drove him to the nearby Scorrano hospital this morning to put the plaster on.

It’s important to look for the positive in every situation. It couldn’t have happened at a better time of year – the damp, cold winter wouldn’t do it too much good while to have a plaster on in the blazing heat of August is unthinkable. Let’s hope he only has to have it on for a month.

It’s an absolutely stunning day today. Showing rural properties to clients this morning my heart gladdened at the site of all the colourful wild flowers that line the pretty country lanes, despite everything that’s going on.

Thank goodness our parents were here on holiday while the accident happened and that they have offered to stay on for an extra fortnight to help out. It’s great for Mickey to have the quality time with his grandparents and a lifesaver for me.

These last 16 months of motherhood have left me a bit out of practice of working and driving and generally functioning on a non-Mummy level. Going around getting stuff done on my own, I feel like I’m missing a limb. Yet it is also refreshing, having some me-time and entering into the world again.

I’d better get on, there are a million things to be done, emails to be written, floors to be mopped, plants to be watered, all before the piccolo lord wakes up from his nap.

Mickey and our vines

2008-05-14T16:29:00.003+02:00

Antonio Tractor Man

2008-05-13T17:53:00.004+02:00

05/05/08

The vines are looking beautiful. Last week’s job was to go through each plant again and remove all the leaves below the first tiny bunch of grapes. That was the important job to do before Antonio tractor man comes and sprays them. I was also told to pick the little buds growing out of each layer of leaves. I think the aim is to keep the grapes protected by some leaves but not to let the plant get too bushy to block the sun or the spray.

I’m not entirely sure what he is going to spray them with or why, we’re learning as we go along. Of course we would prefer to go organic but I feel very grateful to him and his family who are helping us out so much with the vineyard and the rest of our land. We think it’s best going along with what they say for this year to learn the traditional, local way of doing it before making any changes.

We did draw the line at using weed killer on the rest of our land. He couldn’t understand while we’d prefer him to come with the tractor to cut the grass rather than just kill it. He said that even if we didn’t use weed killer, our neighbours would and our land and water would end up being polluted anyway. Isn’t that a bit like saying that everyone else steals so why don’t you?

Antonio and I have endless arguments about it and he never passes up an opportunity to make a dig about it in conversation. Yet I feel that when we make a bit more of an effort and do things to the land, like with the vines for example, he respects us a bit more and is prepared to see our vision.

We make a good team with Antonio, his partner, Mariassunta, his mum, Maria and Uncle Achilles. We are incredibly lucky to have found them because before we met Antonio we had a nightmare finding anyone to work on our land, let alone for all our clients, most of whom have bought rural properties. Now he is working for everyone, even our doing bits and bobs for our Italian neighbours.

He is a bit of a character, I wouldn’t mind him knowing that I said that. He was in the navy as a young man and travelled the world. He lived in London for a while and ran a restaurant in Bologna. He was even an international truffle smuggler at one point.

We’ve met a lot of Antonio’s since moving to Puglia. Sant’ Antonio di Padova is the patron saint of our local town, Cutrofiano. He’s the one who is often depicted holding a child or a baby, as when he died on 13th June 1231 children are said to have cried in the streets, according to his Wiki page. June 13th is our local festa day when all the shops are shut and there’s a market and live music and fireworks.

On our cell phones all the Antonios have a code name to differentiate them. Over the years we’ve had Antonio PCQ (text lingo for ‘small’ in the local dialect), Antonino (another lil’ Tony), Antonio Future (the name of his computer shop in Cutrofiano), Antonio Earring (lots of piercings), Antonio Fathead (don’t ask) to name a few, along with our good friend Antonio Tractor. I would have it saved as Antonio Tractor Man if I was allowed that many characters.

Pruning Vines

2008-05-13T17:51:00.004+02:00

21/04/08

I’ve been meaning to write about our new vineyard for some time. We bought it last November to allow us to enlarge our house one day (the size of the house needs to be in proportion to the land, according to local planning laws).

The first job was to cut back last year’s growth. The long vines are removed with gardening scissors and only the stumpy trunk remains. We did that gradually over the winter, before the new buds came through. Then we had to rotivate the soil to get rid of the grass and wild flowers without using weed killer. I say ‘we’ but we actually paid an old bloke to do it for us.

When we got back from holiday three weeks ago there were just tiny little buds appearing on the stumps. Every day the plants seem to have grown a couple of inches. This week’s job was to ‘edit’ this new growth. Each plant has three main branches and each of these needs to hold only two new shoots, the rest have to be pulled off. It’s an easy and satisfying task.

I would like to be ale to tell you all the things we need to do between now and November, when we have the first taste of our new wine. However, I have absolutely no idea as we humbly await instructions from our friends and neighbours who seem to tell us what we have to do just a couple of days before it’s too late. Watch this space.

Jamaica

2008-05-13T17:48:00.003+02:00

31/03/08

It’s been quite a month for us, our first proper holiday for 7 years and the first time together outside Europe.

We decided on Jamaica for several reasons. I had been before with my parents when I was 17 and loved it, while for Darren it was a place he had always wanted to visit. March is the best time of year there weather-wise and flights were cheap. We couldn’t really afford it but decided it was a false economy to wait as when Mickey turns two we’ll have to start paying extra for him.

It was a mind blowing trip to an extraordinary country, situated halfway between heaven and hell in my opinion. People asked me if it had changed in 15 years but all I could reply was that certainly I had changed a lot. I found the poverty quite disturbing, exaggerated by the enormous gap between rich and poor.

There is plenty of tourism today in Jamaica but it mainly consists of American-owned all-inclusive resorts. Guests are told that it’s not safe to leave the hotel so they don’t, and all their money is spent there, without a dime entering the local economy (unless you count the ridiculously low wages of hotel staff).

We travelled around the island with the help of Brian, a young rasta friend of a friend who enriched our experience with local knowledge and insights. We loved the people, nature, beaches, food and music and hope one day to go back.

However, not even a small part of me wanted to stay on and live there. Salento isn’t as dramatically beautiful and lush as Jamaica but it has many points in its favour.

For starters it’s so much safer here – I’d hate to live even with bars on my windows yet most foreigners over there feel the need to employ a private guard. I think I would always feel an outsider in a developing country and uncomfortable about my position in society.

In Italy we are welcomed by the local people and treated as equals (usually!) Sure, there are differences in our cultures but these are not so great. It’s not hot all year round here but at least the winter kills off all the nasty insects. In one hotel I encountered at 10cm long scorpion in the bathroom in the middle of the night!

Right now we’re still adjusting to being home and our bodies are trying to catch up with all the travelling around and stimulation. We’ve been lucky with sunny days and the first signs of spring lift our mood. We are happy to be home.

Toddler breastfeeding

2008-05-13T17:47:00.006+02:00

13/01/08

We’ve just come back from England after celebrating Michelangelo’s first birthday there. We had a lovely party and saw friends and family and the birthday boy received so many toys and books that we couldn’t bring them all home with the scanty Ryan Air luggage allowance.

His toy collection has had to move out of our garagio living room/kitchen/diner/office – as you can see the room as enough uses as it is. All the toys are now on the lower shelves in the room that will one day be his.

I’m proud to still be breastfeeding past his first birthday. Although this is in line with the World Health Organisation recommendations and breastfeeding is nowadays universally accepted as the very best thing for babies, it is amazing how many people start disapproving after the baby gets to a certain age.

I plan to keep breastfeeding for at least another year. I don’t need to leave him for a full time job and we don’t have any plans for another one quite yet so it seems silly to stop.

The milk itself is probably the most nutritious liquid on earth, tailor made by my body especially for my little boy. I recently read that as well as being generally healthier, breastfed babies grow up less likely to be obese and with higher IQs.

I’m sure that the nutrition of the milk is not the only benefit. The closeness of nursing creates a secure bond between mother and child which makes for a happy, confident child. And it need not exclude other family members, Mickey is often grinning at Darren while he feeds and was always kicking my mum with his feet when she sat next to us on the sofa over Christmas.

While it is more time consuming than giving him a cup to feed himself there are also benefits for me, other than having a healthy and happy child. Breastfeeding helps prevent some cancers and bone problems as well as burning between 500-1000 calories per day.

I’ve never had a problem with my weight except for gaining more than the average for my pregnancy. But now it is a question of eating as much as I can to stop losing too much. Now that is my kinda diet.

Poker Encyclopedia

2008-05-13T17:46:00.006+02:00

09/12/07

Yesterday was my dad’s birthday, the second since he died last June - he would have been 85 years old. Appropriately, I spent the morning working on getting some press for his book, The Poker Encyclopedia, which was published posthumously.

Birthdays of dead people are strange because it makes you think of them but not in the same sad way as the anniversary of their death. Although the wound is still raw I am, 18 months on, able to think about him in a happy way. Actually he hated his birthday and never liked to celebrate it, as if doing so would remind his body how old it should be.

December 8th is also a national holiday in Italy as it celebrates the Immaculate Conception. It should be called the Immaculate Misconception as everybody seems to think as the conception of Jesus but in fact it is the conception of Mary and not be confused with the Virgin Birth. If you don’t believe me, look it up!

The holiday also marks the official first day of the Christmas period which ends with Mickey’s birthday on January 6th. We had a bit of spring clean this morning and now we’re starting to think about baby-friendly decorations. A Christmas tree with beautiful presents and chocolates would be asking for trouble.

Talking of presents, we’ve been doing a lot of shopping online this year with only a few more tricky ones to buy. I’m belatedly getting into eBay, perfect for me right now as I can’t ever manage to get out of the house in time for the second hand markets anymore.

If you are stuck for a really great gift then may I recommend The Poker Encyclopedia as an informative and entertaining read for anyone interested in the game.

Winter Weather

2008-05-13T17:45:00.002+02:00

27/11/07

My, how the days, weeks and months fly. It’s already the end of November and the last of the fig leaves blew off our trees in yesterday’s wind.

It’s not been cold lately, however, with daytime temperatures in the high teens. Unfortunately that looks set to change if the online forecasts are to be believed. We use three sites - weather.com, tempoitalia.it and bbc.co.uk/weather. They always say different things but you can usually detect a general trend.

I like Salento in the winter. We do get cold weather and really disgusting, rainy days but you always know that you will get some sun at some point. I don’t get that desperate feeling like in the UK that there is no chance of feeling hot sun on your face until April.

Having an open fire lifts my soul on wintry days and nights. It’s the next best thing to the sunshine, I think. Most households have one in the kitchen to cook on. Yesterday we were walking around Matino with clients at lunchtime and the delicious smell of smoky, barbequed meat filled the alleyways of the ‘centro storico’, making it difficult to concentrate on viewing properties.

Mickey loves to ‘help’ me build a fire by tearing up newspapers and watching them burn. He likes handling the logs, probably because they are natural and uneven and feel slightly dangerous. Luckily the traditional high cooking hearths are perfectly baby-friendly and well out of reach, especially important since he took his first wobbly steps last week.

Day of the Dead

2008-05-13T17:44:00.004+02:00

05/11/07

I just phoned my mum in north London and as a backdrop to the conversation was the noise of numerous firework displays going on in her neighbourhood. Unsurprisingly, Guy Fawkes Night isn’t celebrated in Italy but we had our share of holidays last week.

Only in recent years has Halloween been imported from the US. It has become a chance for ghosty masks and costumes to come out and teenaged hoodies to gather on street corners. At least the young boys are much less scary than their London equivalents – one group politely smiled and waited for me and the baby to walk past them on the square in Corigliano before they continued letting off bangers.

November 1st is a proper national holiday and celebrates ‘tutti santi’, or All Saints Day. It was also Darren’s dad, David’s, birthday. The shops and offices were closed but it is obviously a popular evening to go out to dinner, as we discovered when we tried to book our favourite restaurant in Lecce, ‘Le Zie’, and it was full.

November 2nd is ‘tutti morti’, or the Day of the Dead. Over here it is a day for visiting the cemetery and thinking of dearly departed. My Venezuelan sister in law introduced a rather nice Mexican tradition to our family this year.

The family gather round for a special meal on this day in honour of the dead with their favourite foods. Photographs and special objects are also placed on the table to remind you of them.

For my dad they bought Brick Lane bagels and smoked salmon, accompanied by potato salad and coleslaw. Figs were his favourite fruit so they were there too, along with Marks and Spencer’s bucks fizz which he was also partial to. It sounded lovely and I wish I had been there.

It’s interesting that there are all these festivals all over the world that celebrate death at this time of year. As we know, Christian festivities are usually based on more ancient celebrations. There must be something about the dawn of winter that creates a need to remember. It’s such a big deal here that nobody even gets married during the month of November.

As it was we didn’t dwell on the dead on the 2nd because it was David’s last night here. This year it was more important to focus on the living but next year I plan to cook up a feast for Elkan.

Pumpkin

2008-05-13T17:43:00.004+02:00

09/09/07

My wish has come true in the shape of a pumpkin - a perfectly round, orange, autumnal pumpkin that is sitting on my kitchen table. Summer is officially over, the grapes have been collected and squashed and currently swim in their juice in huge vats in the surrounding garagios while the inhabitants of those houses have moved back to town.

It was quite a sudden change of seasons. One day we were sweltering in the heat, whacking up the air conditioning in the car and hiding from the sunshine and the next a windy, cloudy sky came along and with it a sprinkling of rain – our first since the beginning of June.

While not so good for holidaying Brits, it’s great news for our garden. The months of brutally hot weather have left the countryside parched with some of our little trees looking like they might not make it. We couldn’t even afford to help them out with a daily watering as the well was so low we had to conserve every drop for household use.

Now what to do with the pumpkin? It was a gift from Antonio, the tractor man who helps maintain our land as well as that of our clients. He has a huge amount of his own land which he uses to cultivate everything possible and with great success.

Perhaps roasted in the oven or grilled on the fire? Maybe mashed with potato, butter and black pepper as an accompaniment to a hunk of meat or even in a starring role in a soup. Cristina makes a delicious pumpkin jam and I must find out what she puts in it.

Right now I won’t do anything with it. So beautiful on the table, it’s far more attractive than any florist’s bouquet as well as a cheerful reminder of the new season.

Nostalgia

2008-05-13T17:42:00.002+02:00

31/08/07

It’s the last day of August and of most people’s summer holidays. September is back to school and work as well as la vendemmia, the grape harvest.

The people round here will be harvesting much earlier this year after the hot, dry weather we’ve had, otherwise the grape will dry on the vine and be no use for wine. On his way to a client’s house this morning, Darren saw many people had started today.

We’ll have to learn all about it as we’re in the process of buying the vineyard next to our house. This way we’ll be able to extend our house to make it big enough for our growing family as well as visiting family and friends from London. God knows how we are going to manage the vines, though, they’re so much work all year round.

Baby and I went for a walk this morning and visited the neighbours. First we went to see Gino, who was watering his winter veg seedlings; fennel, cicoria and cima di rape. He says he’s got enough water to grow the little plants but if it doesn’t rain soon he won’t be able to plant them out.

After watering he went to turn off the petrol pump on his well and we joined him at his house while he rolled and smoked a cigarette from his home grown tobacco. He shook his head while he told me how bella it used to be round here in the countryside, back in the day.

There were lots of children back then; his two girls, Uccio’s kids, and the three Specchia boys at our house. The fields were full of tobacco and the workers would sing the old songs as they picked and dried the large, aromatic leaves.

There was no electricity but the Specchia’s had a battery operated TV which they would bring round to Gino’s and they would all watch it as if they were at the cinema. There wasn’t enough food in those days but people were kinder and happier he believed.

Now that every house in the village has a plasma TV and fridge full of food there’s no need to get together and share what they have. It must be strange to be Gino and see the young taking for granted all the things they dreamed of back then and losing the traditions, the integrity and the joys of the old way of life.

Through the wood we walked to Mama Rosaria’s house. She’d been up in her vineyard this morning, cutting the dry bunches off the vine. While Michelangelo crawled around on the floor she picked off the good grapes and put them in a saucepan ready to make jam.

After such a lovely walk baby was tired and fell asleep in the sling on the way home. I managed to keep him sleeping while transferring him to the bed, giving Mamma a bit of time to write this blog.

Sick of Summer

2008-05-13T17:41:00.003+02:00

23/08/07

I hate to say it, especially as many are reading this from the cold and wet British Isles, but I’m bored with summer. I’m sick of the impossibly hot days and tanned locals. I’m fed up with all the festas and fireworks going on in every village, every night. And most of all I am tired of the summer Mediterranean veg.

There is admittedly a lot you can do with aubergines, courgettes, peppers and tomatoes. But by this time of years it feels like we have had them roasted, barbequed, steamed, sautéed, stewed and in salads and bakes so many times and I’m pining for something different.

I’ve got my mind a misty autumnal morning. A soup of wild mushrooms bought off the back of some Calabrian bloke’s lorry, down from the mountains with boxes of goodies.

I’d like to be able to light the fire and slow-cook soups and stews all day in the pignata, a curvy ceramic cooking pot. It’d be nice to eat lunch right under the midday sun and snuggle under the duvet at night.

But as I sit here at midnight still dressed in a vest and shorts with the ceiling fans whirring overhead and every door and window in the house wide open, I am trying to seize the moment and remember how much I will miss summer in a few months time.

It’s easy to wish one’s life away. Tired after a long day with baby I can forget how amazing and adorable he is and how it will seem like no time before he’s a big grown up, hairy man.

So I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a better attitude. I’ll savour those salad tomatoes which you can’t get quite as good anywhere else in the world or at other times of the year. I’ll fit into my day a swim and a sunbathe. And I’ll appreciate every moment with my little baby boy.

Just remind me of this at 11 o’clock tomorrow night after the 3rd listening of Lily Allen, OK?

Figs

2008-05-13T17:40:00.004+02:00

08/08/07

Everyone is complaining about what a rotten year for fruit and veg it is. Most people’s trees are bearing little fruit and their tomatoes are sick and it’s been put down to the hot, dry summer we are having. Yet I’m sure they said that last year and the one before that; growing up in rural Suffolk I remember my dad telling me that farmers love a good moan.

As I’ve said before on this blog, the fruit trees that we planted are all doing pretty badly. We don’t give them enough water, fertilizer or general TLC. But the trees that were already well established when we bought the house manage to cope with next to no maintenance. I guess after the land was abandoned for 15 years only the fittest survived.

Right now it’s fig season. These trees grow like weeds round here, we’ve even got one that rather worryingly pops up out of the corner of the house each year despite always cutting it right back. Last year there was actually a fig on it!

We have been told that there were a lot of fig trees planted during the second world when there were food shortages. To stop them from going hungry, dried figs were eaten like bread. They are so good for you that it probably how many people survived those times.

We have four proper trees and at this time of year I find myself eating about 20 figs a day. Baby also loves them. We’ve been experimenting with ‘Baby-Led Weaning’ which involves babies feeding themselves finger foods instead of been given purees from a spoon.

Figs are perfect for this as he can scrunch them in his little hands, suck out the fruit and smear himself (and everything in the vicinity) with the sticky flesh. It’s best of all to pick them straight of the tree and eat them on the hammock in the shade, keeping all the mess outside. What a nice and natural way to first experience food.

There are so many figs that it’s impossible to eat them all and as they are perishable they need to be preserved if they are not to be wasted. Darren loves them dried and prepares a batch most mornings. The fresh figs are cut in half and put on a drying rack made from canes made by our neighbour Aldo. They are left for a few days in the sun to completely dry out and then rinsed, dried again and stored for the winter.

As Mamma Rosaria loves to say, “The thorns of the summer are the roses of the winter."

Black Out

2008-05-13T17:39:00.003+02:00

25/07/07

'La Campagna' (the countryside) is full of 'gente' (people) now as summer is in full swing. Nighttime is when you get the biggest sense of the laughter, music, grilling meat and twinkly lights across the surrounding fields. It is a great contrast to the rest of the year when it is just the daytime farmers and us.

After a few weeks of acceptable summer temperatures we're back to living in the Salento Sahara. It's hard to get anything at all done during the day, especially with baby in tow. But if we manage to get a sleep in after lunch I feel my energy levels rise in the evening. As does baby - it would be impossible to have a British routine for him with bedtime at 8pm. It is at that time when he is able to crawl about and discover the world without getting too hot and bothered.

Maybe that is one of the reasons why Italian children are more integrated into the culture and used to being around adults than kids back home. The word 'babysitter' has been borrowed from us into Italian because they traditionally haven't had a need for it. The idea of going out without your children and paying to leave them with a teenaged girl is quite alien.

As a parent there are pros and cons to this. It means that you are not restricted in going out, especially as there are no places you can't take a child - kids and babies are welcome in bars and restaurants alike and no one judges you for keep your child out at any time. But there is often a grizzly hour before baby can be convinced to crash out in the pushchair and sometimes it just doesn't happen and we finish our meal and leave. It's a gamble but we have had some good evenings out since becoming parents.

Last night there was a power cut across the entire grid in Salento. It lasted for about an hour. We discovered that we didn't even have one candle in the house and after finishing our dinner in the dark we walked round to Cristina’s to scrounge one. As usual, they were having a great party with loads of guest. We were a bit miffed not to have been asked actually and also quite unprepared - as the lights suddenly came back on I was revealed to be in my nightie!

Cristina didn't see that as a good enough reason not to stay and have dinner, nor that we had actually already had dinner and baby was grumbley and ready for bed (it was around 11pm after all). And we did go home mainly because we weren't in the mood for at least an hour of being novelty English at the festa and if they really wanted us to be there they should have invited us beforehand.

After baby was nicely tucked up we finished our chilled wine outside, just the two of us, and although the power was back on, we turned the lights out again to fully appreciate the stars and beauty of the balmy summer's night.

Eating out

2008-05-13T17:38:00.002+02:00

21/06/07

In Italy what we call Midsummer’s Day is considered the first day of summer. It’s officially the season where you’re allowed to wear the colour white which the locals of both sexes love to do in an extreme fashion.

It’s the longest day of the year and I can never get my head round the nights starting to draw in already. We’ve been enjoying a fantastic heatwave this week with temperatures reaching 38 degrees in Lecce. It’s a little cooler here in the countryside and much fresher by the coast.

Yesterday afternoon was spent at our favourite seafood restaurant enjoying a very long celebration lunch. We had prebooked a kilo of lobster and spent over an hour picking at it and taking turns holding the baby. With lobster as his first ever taste of fish nobody can ever say that boy wasn’t born with a cuchiaino d’argento in his mouth.

La Maruzella, as the restaurant is called, is pure Jamie Oliver. It’s a shack on a rock on the sea with a fridge-load of amazing fish, cheap white wine and not much else. There are always about 20 people working there; mainly guys and a few mamas.

Our friend is Donato, a real seafaring ladies’ man who likes nothing better than provide you with the feast of your life, sit and drink wine and smoke fags with you and play the flirtatious latino. He’s lived all over Europe and has 11 children and three ex wives. He’s democratic with has affections, yesterday he was working his magic on an elderly Swiss lady.

We stayed for several hours and enjoyed the fruits, and spectacular view, of the sparkling Ionian sea. Afterwards we had a refreshing dip. It’s best to spend the morning on the east-facing Adriatic coast and evenings on the other side to be able to enjoy the sun sinking into the still, clear water.

Cooking at home in this heat is a little more problematic. The oven is out at any time of day if it is inside the house as ours is right now. We used to have a crappy old cooker out the back which was great in the summer, although a bit miserable in winter months. Now we’ve got our brand new Smeg we’ll have to wait for this heatwave to end before we can bake or roast again.

We’ve got people for dinner tonight but I admit we cheated and have ordered in a Cristina’s. I have now idea what she has been preparing all day in her overheated kitchen but whatever it is it will be delicious, it always is.

La Maruzella, Lido Conchieglie 0833 208900L’Antica Dispensa, (Cristina’s restaurant) via Palermo, 9, Cutrofiano (LE) 0836 541577

Mood Food

2008-05-13T17:37:00.008+02:00

18/06/07

Food feeds the soul, the body and the mind. Our relationship with food affects and reflects our relationship with the people around us and with the Self.

I’ve been reading The Mood Cure by Julia Ross which discusses curing mental illness, especially depression, by a strict diet high in protein and vegetables with supplements of essential amino acids to stimulate and build up the neurotransmitters.

I say reading but it’s more flicking, I can’t bear the American self-help style of writing. I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna say, I’m gonna say it, and, just in case you didn’t geddit, I’m gonna say it again to sum up.

Still, this particular book has an interesting point. Banish refined starches, caffeine, chocolate, nicotine, alcohol, marihuana and all the substances that we consume to give us a quick high but ultimately take us lower. Work on building a firm base of brain chemistry by healthy eating.

Nice theory but in real life it is usually exactly those substances that keep us going. Is it the best idea to deny an unhappy person a yummy comfort bowl of spaghetti pomodoro or my own personal self-help favourite, a coffee and a fag?

Most of us manage to control our ‘real’ and ‘false’ moods (read the book, or see the film, made by family friend, Stefan Sargant) and still eat what we do but for those having problems coping it could be a good idea.

But how the hell can you give up everything that is bad for you? I am not the right person to answer that question. I’ve never been on a diet in my life and only managed to give up smoking when I was pregnant. And that was only by eating an excessive amount of sweet things to replace the smokes.

In the end most of us manage to survive on a highly personal cocktail of mood foods and substances – whatever it takes to survive this extraordinary experience called Life.

Lentils and Rice

2008-05-13T17:37:00.006+02:00

06/06/07

When we got off the plane at Brindisi late last night we were hit with that hot country feeling and I felt relieved to be home. By the time we reached Corigliano we hit the wet weather and we could see from around the garden and the cats' bowls full of water that it had rained a fair bit.

Today is still a bit grey and thundery but it feel almost tropical. Baby is sleeping and I'm listening to reggae in my shorts and it takes me back to being in Jamaica.

All this time spent in London this year and last has made me so grateful of time spent at home. I instantly feel healthier on the first morning here than I ever do in London. It may be because back in the UK I tend to binge on all my stodgy British favourites.

We enjoyed a mega plate of cod and chips one lunchtime but as soon as the plates were cleared the stomach rot started to set in. As with recreational drugs, you need to calculate come down time after a fat fest like that.

Today's lunch was a great deal healthier and I feel a million euro. A storeroom classic - dried large green lentils and a handful of short grain rice put in a pan with some cloves of garlic and a teaspoon of salt, covered with cold water.

Keeping an eye on water and adding more when necessary is the only thing you need to do until they are soft and ready to eat, drizzled with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

I've got a million things to do around the house and for the business but can't summon the energy. Instead I'll relax, Jamaica-style, on my front porch and relish all the senses of home until my little boy decides to wake up.

Nespole

2008-05-13T17:36:00.004+02:00

24/05/07

It looks like baby has inherited both his parents' enormous appetites. After four and a half months of what feels like continuous breastfeeding our little boy has suddenly started eating Real Food.

His very first dinner was Sheila's delicious fennel soup and we were all impressed with how happily he got it down him (both in the tummy and on his clothes). It's quite difficult eating or drinking anything in front of him now as he lurches out and grabs anything we put to our mouths. I'm all for self-discovery childcare techniques but this is a little problematic when it's a glass of chilled vino rosato.

It's a great time of year to embark on one's eating career. Babies love sweet food like breast milk so the fresh early summer fruit, such as cherries and strawberries, make excellent munches. Good for mum too as it'll be a while I fear before we manage to wean the little creature off the boob and I need all the nutrients I can get.

Another fruit just finishing right now is the nespole, small, orange-coloured and not commonly found in the UK. We are lucky to have a big tree outside our house so breakfast is right there when we open our garagio doors in the morning. They have a consistency a bit like a plum but taste more of apple and have three brassy coloured stones. I can't believe they would be very marketable at home as they are incredibly perishable and messy to eat.

Fruit picked straight from the tree seems to fizz with vitamin C and goodness. Some say that the particular fruits in season give you the right nutrients for that time of year. For example citrus offers vit c in mid-winter and water melon a thirst quenching drink in the heat of the summer. I'm sure that's true plus the huge sensual pleasure to be had from picking and eating, and the aesthetic delight of trees laden with colourful bontà.

Home at last

2008-05-13T17:35:00.003+02:00

18/04/07

I've been away from Salento for exactly a month - I left on St Patrick's day and got back yesterday evening.

What were the first glimpses of spring a month ago have now fully bloomed. There was quite a lot of rain at one point and now an abundance of greenery and flowers glimmer in the sunshine.

I have been enjoying outstanding weather in England but the Mediterranean rays that are beating on my back as I write are of a different league.

So lovely to be back in my little blue house with both my boys, plus Monkey the cat as well of course. Now I've got to remember how to speak Italian...

Spring

2008-05-13T17:34:00.007+02:00

15/03/07

I'm sitting outside in the warm sunshine writing this on my new PC laptop. This year it feels like we haven't had a winter as we are now bouncing forward into spring for real.

Long gone now is the Mimosa and almond blossom. Yet while the Mimosi (flowers are feminine and trees masculine in Italian) are a dried out dirty yellow, the almond trees are sporting the brightest green leaves you ever saw.

There is life on the figs. Some of trees have little leaves poking through while the ones that produce the fiorone first harvest fruit have already tiny, mini figs that grow before the leaves.

The pomegranate are also waking up for spring and are covered with little dark red leaves. All but one on which so far there is nothing. Maybe he didn't survive the winter - what there was of it.

It feels marvelous to be writing this outside and be wirelessly connected to a broadband internet connection. Our adventure in Italy has grown alongside technology - at the farm in 2001 we used to trudge to the top of the hill to download emails via the infrarosso on our mobile lined up with Darren's powerbook.

And now here I am in 2007, sitting outside my own house, on my own computer, enjoying the sun and a break while my little Italian baby boy sleeps in my bed.

English treats

2008-05-13T17:34:00.006+02:00

27/03/07

I've been in London for 10 days and while it was freezing for the first few days I'm now enjoying warm, sunny days, while poor Darren is weathering the rain storms in Salento. It's very unusual for it to be warmer here so Mickey and I are lucky.

I braved Tesco for the first time yesterday and it seemed so alien from the Cutrofiano market: every packet of food seeming to aspire to a certain lifestyle and our baskets proclaiming our identities as we budge past each other in the crowded, windowless retail wharehouse.

It's a treat for the things we miss - I bought a massive pack of Finest Scottish smoked salmon that tastes so much nicer than the Norwegian rubbish they sell in Italy. I'm looking forward to eating it on lovely brown bread with avocado - two other things that are difficult to get back home.

But I'm in the middle of making a broccoli quiche and it just seems wrong unpeeling the vacuum packaging off my floret. It almost doesn't resemble a plant, more of an anonymous food item. Where are all the beautiful green leaves to feed my compost? Just as well maybe as it would be just more rubbish to lug down from this 2nd floor flat and dump in the wheelie bin.

Mimosa

2008-05-13T17:32:00.007+02:00

08/03/07

March 8th is Women’s Day. It is an international day that has only been celebrated in Britain in the last couple of years in an awful government-sponsored kind of way but in other countries in the world it is a big deal.

In Italy it is the custom for men to give women the lovely scented, yellow mimosa flower. It is not just wives, girlfriends and mistresses who receive this sweet token of appreciation but also grandmothers, daughters, aunties, friends, teachers, and colleagues.

There are a lot of mimosa trees that grow in this area and a way to gauge whether it is an early or late spring is if the mimosa has already gone by March 8th. If so it needs to be imported from Holland.

Mimosa also happens to be my mother’s favourite flower, as it was also for her mother. And funnily enough my mum’s birthday is on March 6th so I when I see it I think of her.

For her birthday Darren cooked us all some lovely king prawns on the fire. While I am the one who generally does the ‘pignata’ style cooking as described in a previous blog, I never ever go near the grill. That is strictly Darren’s domain and I shall ask him to post a list of tips.

It could be because it is a more macho kind of cooking but he is actually very low key about it, unlike many other men we have witnessed. The funniest was at the agriturismo in Gargano that we worked several years ago, where we witnessed enough male posturing over sausages to last a lifetime.

Spring must be early this year as the mimosa on Mama Rosaria’s tree already gone for Women’s day and mummy’s birthday. Instead we enjoyed the prawns which were buonissimi, cooked by my man to perfection.

Grilling

2008-05-13T17:32:00.006+02:00

11/03/07

Darren's top five grilling tips

1. Get a really good fire going well in advance - you cook from the coals not the flames.

2. Try to work out realistic timing of what you are cooking, chicken needs to cook right through or it is a health risk but don't burn the skin. Toast is a hot, brief affair.

3. Don't forget the quantity and space on the grill. If you've got loads to do preheat the oven to keep first batch warm while the next lot cooks.

4. Keep your eye on the ball, it's all very well having a glass of wine and chatting to your guests but the moment you turn your back the secondo is annihilated.

5. If using logs, keep a fire going on the edge to feed your grill.

The Good Life

2008-05-13T17:31:00.004+02:00

22/02/07

I think I might have been misleading people with this blog. People seem to think that here we are, living the good life in Puglia, with everything that ends up on our table coming straight out beautifully maintained vegetable garden.

I have to confess - with one thing and another going on in our lives we simply haven’t had the time lately. Now is the time to rotavate and start thinking about what summer veg to plant but unfortunately I think we are going to have to give it a miss this year.

Even when we were planting seriously we weren’t any way near self-sufficient. While it is an appealing fantasy, I’m far too lazy (and greedy) to realize it. For me, my garden should be fun, not a ball and chain. And there’s hardly a shortage of top quality fruit and vegetables for sale round here.

I’m the first to advocate the advantages of eating seasonally and locally, for health reasons and to cut down on food miles but I’m not a fascista about it. In my basket this week was a Costa Rican pineapple, Ecuadorian bananas and some surprisingly tasty grapes from Chile. I’m trying to offer my post-natal figure a more appropriate treat than a mini mars bar. Vanity before ecology, I’m afraid.

It’s a miserable day, not too cold but very wet – it’s turned into a bit of a quagmire outside. I heard on radio 4 online that it’s the same in London. I’m keeping myself and the baby indoors in front of the fire, waiting for it to pass (but trying to stay away from the chocolate box.)

Celebrations

2008-05-13T17:30:00.003+02:00

10/02/07

Over a month has passed since the last entry and what a month it has been! The new year brought our baby, Michelangelo Elkan Howat, who was born 9 days early on 6th January at 12.51pm, weighing 3.5 kg.

While in England January 6th is the dreary day we take the decorations down, in the Christian calendar it is the Epiphany, the last of the 12 days of Christmas. Here in Italy it is also the day of Befana, a witch-like old woman who distributes sweets to the homes of good children as she travels around on her broomstick looking for baby Jesus.

So lucky Mickey will never have to work on his birthday, as long as he lives in Italy or any other catholic country. In fact this time of year is non-stop festa time around here. We are currently hotting up to carnevale, the holiday period during the two weeks before the fasting of Lent.

The Venetian carnival celebrations date back to the 13th century and are famous for the elaborate costumes and masks that are worn around the city and at grand balls for that period. To a lesser extent that tradition is followed across Italy.

Foodwise carnivale is a bit of a non-event for us, the only special dish being a very sweet, sticky dessert consisting of deep fried strips of dough covered in syrup, sugar and if you’re lucky, hundreds and thousands. Not so good if you’re trying to loose those excess post pregnancy kilos. And a good excuse not to eat them if you ask me.

A festa peculiar to Cutrofiano is on February 17th where bonfires are lit around the streets of the town to commemorate an earthquake that happened about 100 years ago. I’m not sure how come there was an earthquake here as I have read that we live in only 25% of Italy that is not an earthquake zone.

Two years ago the festa was amazing. Our friend Antonio set up his decks in the beautiful old Piazza Cavolotti next to the huge bonfire that was tended by Aldo, the old ‘contadino’ (literally translating as peasant, but in a non-pejorative way) who works the land in the field next to our house.

But last year was a bit of a disappointment as fires were banned in the centre of town due to safety regulations and celebrations were pushed out to the ugly modern suburbs. Let’s hope this year is more fun.

So lots to celebrate but then again all year round there seems to be some special occasion or other, either based on religion or the republic. Ultimately all the festas are just a good excuse for an extra big lunch. I was rushed into the delivery room a little early, I suspect. The obstetrician said he’d be out before one o’clock, and she was right, just in time for lunch.

Christmas

2008-05-13T17:25:00.002+02:00

30/12/06

This Christmas day it was just the two of us - three if you count the by now very large bump, eight if you throw in the cats. We (all) enjoyed a traditional English turkey lunch with the trimmings that we were able to get hold of locally. Sprouts were replaced with radicchio cooked with onions and vinegar (a far nicer option in my opinion).

It was a real feast and we got so stuck in that we completely forgot the stuffing that we had carefully put inside the bird and sown away. Still, made for delicious boxing day sandwiches.

I'm all for Christmas leftovers - there's never enough turkey for me to make all my favourites: Bubble and Squeak, Turkey brood (broth), Turkey and mushroom pie (my speciality!), Shredded turkey enchiladas and tons and tons of turkey sarnies. I'd like a turkey burger recipe if anyone has a good one.

But there gets to be a point, very suddenly, where you want a meal where there is no trace of the Christmas lunch to be found. The leftovers will be fine for another day and a big pan of water is put on for pasta.

Usually a spaghetti pomodoro suffices, the year we broke the turkey binge with a penne arrabiata (spicy tomato). Today we also had a nice pasta which I thought would be worth blogging about.

Orrechiette (meaning little ears) is the typical Pugliese pasta and traditionally it is eaten with "cima di rape", the green, leafy tops of a variety of turnip that makes for a very bitter vegetable.
It is particular popular in the north of Puglia, where we first lived five years ago, in the province of Foggia. It was one of the dishes that we were required to make in the agriturismo we managed.

We still haven’t acquired a taste for the cima di rape as we have for other things, like chicory and horse, that we also didn’t like to begin with. It’s just too strong a flavour. Luckily down in here Salento it isn’t so popular and the typical orrichette dish utilises other similar, but nicer, brassicas like broccoli or cauliflower.

It’s simple to make. Cook the vegetables in a large pan of salted, boiling water. Remove with a slotted spoon and put aside. Cook the pasta in the same water to give it flavour. In a large frying pan fry up some olive oil, garlic, chilli and anchovies. I also add a couple of chopped up spring onions if I have some and a tomato to give it a fresher (but less traditional) flavour. Then add both the pasta and the vegetables and mix.

The purists in Foggia wouldn’t eat it with cheese (it violated not one but two Italian food laws – no cheese with either fish-based or spicy pastas) but round here they pile on the grana (parmesan-type cheese) both in the pan and then again on their plate and so do we. Buon appetito and buon anno!

The Silver Spoon

2008-05-13T17:24:00.005+02:00

16/12/06

An English couple came to lunch this week and the first thing they commented on in the house was our battered copy of the ‘Silver Spoon’. This classic Italian recipe book was a Christmas gift last year from my parents and we have never used a cookbook as much. We all raved about what a good book it is, how often we have used it and the quality and simplicity of the recipes.

First translated into English only last year, it was originally published in Italy in 1950 and is seen over here as second most important book after the bible. Traditionally it is given as a wedding present to young brides to help them with the high standards undoubtedly expected from them from new hubby.

It is interesting to see immediately how different it is from most Italian cookbooks written for the non-Italian market.

Jamie’s Italy, for example, has some nice recipes but these are seriously outnumbered by stylish photos of the loveable mockney parading round Italy in a photogenic VW. Marcello Hazen’s ‘Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking’ is fantastically detailed but puts the emphasis on the regional and traditional.

The Silver Spoon is instead the definitive list of possible dishes in the world, according to Italians. It not only includes traditionally Italian recipes but also international favourites such as hamburgers and English roast beef. If it isn’t in there it’s off the radar and not worth knowing about.

As good old Jamie loves to tell us in his series on Italy, they are a fussy and unadventurous bunch. In the Puglia episode he tries to get the locals to eat some concoction or other that he has made up and is insulted when nobody likes it.

It’s comparable to a French chef going to Yorkshire 50 years ago with a new twist on Yorkshire pudding or Sunday lunch or Fish and Chips and telling the locals that they’ve got it wrong. I can’t remember what Jamie’s recipe was now but I do remember thinking that it looked disgusting, with far too many ingredients, and completely inferior to the local original.

Italians are very closed minded generally about what they eat. But I suspect that it is this attitude which has preserved their food culture so spectacularly in comparison to the UK, where a walk down any high street lined with KFC rip offs and littered with fast food wrappers will show you that British people are more than happy to eat shit.

Yes, we now have a middle class revival in fine food, cooking as a hobby and seasonal eating in Britain. Yet this is still a luxury and just doesn’t compare to the general level of high standards you find over here in every domain, from homes to restaurants and even petrol stations, right across the country.

Maybe this narrow mindedness is the reason for this. An insistence that there is only one way to cook a tomato sauce, even when it is known that every mama in the street does it in a slightly different way, preserves the quality of that dish.

That there is a mama in the kitchen also helps; most households (in the south at least) do have a full time ‘casalinga’ (housewife) running a strict regime around the stove. This is often granny but could be mum or even a daughter but it is certainly true that an unfortunate affect of women’s liberation is a suffering in the nation’s cuisine.

These high standards at home obviously impact the quality of food dished out in restaurants. Italians won’t sit politely through a bad meal like we will, if they don’t like something that is served, they won’t eat it, simple as that.

The fact that Italians have a very small repertoire also probably helps – most families basically eat the same thing every day, even on special occasions when they just eat more of it.

The last and most crucial point of difference about food over here and over there is the quality of raw ingredients. It is easier to make a ridiculously simple pasta, such as the Roman speciality ‘Caccio Pepe’ when you have top quality pecorino romano, freshly ground black pepper, extra virgin Italian olive oil and decent Italian-made spaghetti. Try that with Sainsbury’s own label spag and you’ll end up with a glupey mess I’m afraid.

Home improvements

2008-05-13T17:23:00.003+02:00

07/12/06

We have finally moved back home after ten days at our friends and first clients, the Donohue’s, house. They kindly let us stay there while we were having a whole list of work done on our house.

One day Darren noticed a little damp patch on the ceiling and he embarked on what he thought would be a few days work. Inevitably it took much longer. As he chipped away at the old grouting between the paving stones (that make the traditional flat roofs in this area) he discovered other problems that needed fixing. And once that was done he decided that it was time to repaint the outside walls.

We tried to stick to exactly the same colour as before, a very slightly lilacy sky blue. This was the colour we had the house painted when we first renovated it about two and a half years ago. Then we used the cheapest local paint, basically a whitewash with a tint, which creates beautiful vivid colours but is pretty useless at staying on walls.

This time we were recommended to use a more high tech paint called ‘quarzo’. It stays on for much longer and acts as a sealant and protects the house from damp. After much experimentation we nearly got the right colour but there is always a slightly dour edge to quarzo paint. We are going to have to jolly it up a little bit with brightly painted doors and windows, and lots of flowering plants.

We did read once that while labour is very good and cheap in Italy, materials such as paint are far superior in the UK. Worth bearing in mind for people who have the possibility to bring a van load of stuff when they buy a house here.

While Darren and a couple of friends worked on the exterior, we decided that we might as well get all the work we needed done at the same time. In both bedrooms we insulated the exterior walls with a special insulating brick. That west-facing wall was thinner than the other exterior walls in the house and we were losing heat and allowing humidity in.

Then it was time to finally pave the floor of the garagio. After two years of deliberating we settled on a cheap (8.50 euors per square metre) grey ceramic tile. We wanted something neutral and practical and we are very happy with the result.

We have had a bath tub installed and replaced the impractical white floor tiles with a bright blue, some leftovers from the Donohue’s. I am enjoying two baths a day right now, such a luxury after 2 years of only showers.

And that’s basically it. The house is ready for the little baby boy who should arrive some time soon - due mid-Jan so watch this space. Thankfully we now have a cosy and snug house to bring him back to. The next challenge will be working out exactly what to do with him when he gets here!

Olive harvest

2008-05-13T17:20:00.005+02:00

11/11/06

Today is San Martino, a special saint for Darren and myself as we both (at different times) attended Saint Martin’s art college. It is also the festa of new wine, where local folk taste the wine they made from this year’s grape harvest (and the one opportunity of the year to see your Italian friends pissed.)

Wine made in the traditional method wouldn’t be properly ready until around Christmas time but would now be at a point where it could be tasted and given a preliminary appraisal.

In recent years Vino Novello has come on to the market as an Italian answer to Beaujolais Nouveau. This is made in a similar way and is designed to be ready now.

To be honest I’m not an expert on wine, either tasting or production. I enjoy drinking it but I’m happy with the local euro a litre stuff and have no desire to own or maintain a vineyard. Olives are enough for me.

It’s been a hectic week in the grove. Our friend Ben (incidentally a wine merchant) has come to give us a hand and did a great job on Wednesday climbing up trees and shaking them.

I did the light work of hand picking and Darren tapped high up branches with a 3 metre cane. On Thursday we collected all the bounty from the nets and yesterday morning took 200kg of olives to the press in Cutrofiano.

This should make around 30 litres of olive oil. Darren is picking up this morning so we will find out the exact amount, as well as the level of acidity. Exciting stuff.

We need now to lay out the nets again in preparation for a second harvest in a week or so. We didn’t have time to do it yesterday, a shame because it was really windy in the night and it blew the nets around the grove, as well as probably a load of olives off the trees.

Pignata cooking pot

2008-05-13T17:16:00.001+02:00

20/10/06

Suddenly the weather has switched. After weeks of mainly beautiful, sunny days this morning we woke up to grey, wet and windy.

Yet there is something appropriately melancholy about it today which I don’t mind. I’ve barely been outside, instead I lit the fire before lunch. Not for cooking on though, we heated up some left-over pasta, more to cheer myself up.

But now it has been going for hours and is a toasty little corner, perfect for cooking. I’ve texted Darren to pick up some fish on the way home from teaching.

I’d like to have a book on cooking on fires – after a few winters here maybe I will be able to write one. They are very popular locally, with virtually every house having an indoor cooking fire, even in towns. Fires are used locally for cooking in two ways – barbequing and slow cooking in terracotta pots. They are not pizza ovens as we might imagine.

I have to say that the local way of cooking meat on the fire is pretty unimpressive, especially compared with other cuisines. At otherwise wonderful meals you are often given cold, overcooked meat for secondi.

The local fish, simply grilled on the fire is amazing though, mainly because the quality and freshness of the fish is exceptional in Salento.

‘Pignata’ is the local word for the terracotta cooking pot. ‘Polipo alla Pignata’ (Octopus stew) is the most famous local dish cooked in this way and can be found in most restaurants.

My personal favourite pignata dish is Mama Rosaria’s chickpeas. I don’t know exactly how she does it but she manages to make just plain dried chickpeas, with the tiniest amount of tomato and parsley, into the most spectacular feast imaginable. It must be to do with cooking it for about 8 hours in the embers of the fire.

The pignata itself is an attractive curvy shape, not like that for looks but because it stands next to the fire, not on top like a hob. The pot is turned throughout cooking.

My friend and beautician, Samantha, told me yesterday that pulses are called poor man’s meat here. You rarely are given them when you are invited to someone’s house which is a shame because they are infinitely more desirable than a leathery chop.

Part of the love of plain meat here is a recent history of poverty, for a generation who went without. Gradually though, a revival is happening of traditional, often vegetable-based, dishes, served with a new sense of pride instead of shame.