A slow day in contadina’s life November 20, 2010

Thanks to the invitation from Pat and Rick over at Living the Dream Portugal I’ve chosen Wednesday 10th, November from a couple of weeks ago as my meme day as we’re currently in the middle of the olive harvest, and our days were a little more varied back then and besides you’ll be getting an olive harvest blog next. Just to explain, in science a meme is a self-propagating unit of thought that is spread from one host to another, so a perfect way to understand what makes fellow bloggers tick.

In the summer we generally awake with sunrise, but in the winter we rely on Gaia to awake us and the other two dogs. She’s got a finely tuned body clock so I’m being woken at around 6.30-7 in the mornings. I don’t know how she does it, but she begins pestering me at exactly 5pm for her supper too.

I arose at around 6am so that I could get some freelance work out of the way before the day started proper. At around 7.30, when Gaia’s nibbling my elbow trick got too insistent to ignore I fixed the dogs their breakfast (pasta, chicken and blitzed carrot and cabbage) and some porridge for myself. I also made some dough using a starter, which was already in the fridge and returned it all to the fridge for a slow rise.

The dogs then came out to help me feed the chickens and to distract the chickens whilst I cleaned their house I dive-bombed their run with pomegranates, which is their current favourite available fruit. Cleaning the chicken house out was unexpectedly aromatic as it is flanked by our nespola and lemon trees, which are both flowering at the moment and smell divine.

With the chickens sorted I thought it was time to turn my attentions to cleaning the wood burning stove and chimney, so Jeremy went up onto the roof with a besom broom head tied in the middle of a piece of string. He fed one rope end down to me at stove level and we both pushed and pulled our end of rope until the broom dislodged any soot, which had accumulated.

Happy hounds a hunting

With the stove cleaned and ready for action, I turned my attentions to the garden and did a spot of weeding around the brassica patch. The dogs, meanwhile, occupied themselves with sniffing stuff,  whilst Jeremy completed some plastering around the new doorway he put between the living room and kitchen. We’ve had a big hole for so long now and I was really impressed to see how his plastering skills have improved so I stood admiring the doorway whilst enjoying a cup of tea.

Tea finished and some footering on the computer out of the way I took the dogs for a walk. Wednesday is a hunting day so I tend to take them out when the hunters have gone home for lunch.

For lunch I had some homemade baked beans and marmite on toast with a couple of eggs on top. I’m making big batches of beans and freezing them, as they are such a good comfort food in the winter.

Homemade beans are best

I then got the sewing machine out and made some curtains for the new kitchen door along with a plastic bag holder for a neighbour who liked mine. I was hoping to make a couple of curtains to cover the storage area under the pizza oven and some draws but got distracted by the dogs wanting to play.

I had a run around with the dogs until a neighbour came to bring me some more pomegranates from his trees and some quince jam his grand-daughter made. He also asked if Jeremy would mind making him some shelves to fit a small cupboard. Italians are not big fans of DIY and are generally impressed by Jeremy’s efforts. I swear if he gets called maestro one more time his head may explode.

I then lit the stove in the kitchen and took the dough from the fridge, which I duly knocked back and shaped into a couple of loaves. Whilst waiting for the dough to rise and oven to reach temperature I roughly chopped some vegetables to make some stock. I chopped a squash a neighbour had brought round the day before, along with an onion and some chillies and popped them in the oven to roast to make soup with. I also made a chard quiche to have for lunch the following day, as we’ve a lot of wild chard growing.

Puttanesca or tart's pasta

For dinner we had puttanesca made with our own the freshly cured olives, home grown capers, oregano and  passata. Our chillies seem to have more heat than last year’s, so I just needed to add one to provide the necessary spice. If you are not aware, puttanesca is a colloquial name for a lady of the night so the dish is either so called because it’s hot and spicy or because, said ladies of the night, would entice men in by displaying steaming bowls of the stuff.

Thanks to the new doorway the oven took the slight chill from the air. Although the woodburner is ready to go it’s not really cold enough for us to light it yet. When it gets really cold we’ll light the oven during the day and the woodburner at night. We get more than enough wood to run both along with the pizza oven and barbeque from the prunings of our olive and almond trees. It’s lucky we didn’t decide to light the woodburner as the electricity went off at around 7pm, which would have caused problems as our woodburner has a back-boiler with an electric pump.

The electricity was off all evening so we settled down to playing trivial pursuits by candlelight. Normally we’d watch DVDs and I might knit or read, but it’s always nice to get games or cards out.  By around 10 we were both ready for bed and I happily snored my way through until morning.

I pass the challenge to write their own slow day account to Norm and the hard working hippy and look forward to sharing our olive tickling experiences with you in my next blog.

It’s not just about oil – contadini olive curing methods November 1, 2010

Picking olives for the table is an altogether more leisurely affair than the olive harvest proper, which we will begin next week, weather permitting. Because olives contain a bitter component called oleuripen they must be processed before eating, so now I’m going to share the four curing methods favoured by local contadini.

 

A riot of colours to show different stages of olive maturity

1. The lye method
Recipe one is generally used with large green olives. I think the ones preferred locally are called Bella di Cerignola, although, confusingly they are referred to as Corno in dialect, which is a different variety of olive altogether.

First, handpick the olives and wash and weigh the unblemished ones. For every kilo of olives use one litre of water and for every litre of water add 20g of caustic soda. You can also make your own lye from wood ash.

Add the caustic soda slowly and carefully to the water and stir until dissolved. Wear gloves and avoid contact with skin, eyes, and clothing. You should also leave the water to cool as it will get really hot after you add the caustic soda.

Carefully place your olives in the solution and make sure they are all completely submerged, by placing a wooden, ceramic, glass or plastic cover over them (a suitably sized plate should do the trick). Keep the olives submerged until they are tender (which could take anything from four to ten hours). Keep sampling until the olive flesh falls apart in your fingers. As caustic soda is a poison be sure to place the bowl away from children or animals that may want to “play” with the water.

The solution will have turned dark brown – a good sign the lye has removed the olive’s bitterness. Transfer the olives into a bowl of fresh water and change the water daily until it stops discolouring and turns clear.

Prepare enough brine solution to cover the olives (around 25g salt for every kilo of olives, or keep adding salt until you can float a fresh unbroken raw egg in the solution). Boil the brine with a couple of handfuls of myrtle and wild fennel and around 30 bay leaves.

Place the olives in sterilised jars and pour in the brine solution, top up with water to cover the olives completely and seal. Leave for a few weeks before eating so the olives can take on some of the brine solution flavour, which thanks to the herbs tastes rather Christmasy. Only keeps for a few months.

2. The brine method
This can be used for green or black olives, although they’ll cure at different rates owing to the difference in the maturity of the olives.

This is my favourite method as it allows you to decide how salty the olives are and seems relatively foolproof. They were so nice last year we ran out before the year was out – a crime when you have over 150 olive trees. I’ve just prepared some fasole (or pasole as they seem to be called in dialect) olives and I’ll probably use the same method on some leccino olives in a month’s time when they are a little more mature.

As before, pick unblemished olives and wash them. Whilst draining the olives, make up a saline solution (I think it’s 10% salt) don’t quote me on the percentage, but it’s ready when a fresh egg floats in the water. I keep adding a little salt to water, giving it a stir and then pop my egg in to see if it floats.

Pop your cleaned olives into the biggest sterilised jar/container you have and cover with the saline solution. You’ll then need to find a way of keeping the olives submerged in the liquid (if air gets to them they can spoil). For the last batch I filled some freezer bags with water and placed these on the top before screwing the lid on. Yesterday I followed a Blue Peter route and cut some flexible plastic to cover the olives, ensuring they were all fully submerged. I’ve also heard that you can pour a cm of oil on top the jar before sealing, as this will keep air from the olives.

The olives will remain under saline for a month or so, when you should taste them. They’ll probably still be fairly disgusting so strain the olives and put them under some fresh saline solution. Keep repeating this until the olives are to your liking.

When they are ready, strain and cover with water and store in the fridge. If they still taste salty change the water again and leave in the fridge for 24 hours before eating (the plain water leaches some of the salt out of the olives). Do this with every jar when you are ready to eat them. Will keep for 12 months.

3. The brine and bruise method
Bruise, prick or make slits in the skin of each olive. A three-pronged sweetcorn fork worked well for me. This bruising, pricking or cutting allows the water and salt to penetrate the fruit and draw out the bitterness whilst also preserving it.

This is my first attempt using this method, but it should accelerate the curing process so they are ready to eat within a couple of weeks, although they’ll store for a lot longer.

Dissolve half a cup of coarse salt for every ten cups of water, or for people like me who have a phobia of measurements use the egg float method. Add the olives and ensure they are submerged ( a clean plate should do it). Pour the liquid away each day and replace with fresh salt water. Repeat this washing process for about 12 days for green olives and about 10 days for black olives (black olives are just mature green olives so take less time to cure).

Bite an olive to see if they are cured, when the bitterness has nearly gone, the olives are ready for the final salting.

Dissolve one cup of salt to 10 cups of water. Place the olives in bottles and then pour the brine over them until the fruit is completely submerged. Top up the bottles with up to one centimetre of olive oil to stop air getting to the fruit and seal the lids on. Should keep for 12 months.

When you are ready to eat your olives, pour out the strong preserving solution and fill the jar with clean, cool water. Leave in the refrigerator for 24 hours and taste them. If they are still too salty for your liking, then refill the bottle with a fresh lot of water and return to the refrigerator for a further 24 hours.  At this stage you can also add flavourings, such as garlic, basil, oregano, onion, chilli, lemon juice and lemon pieces.

A selection of olives curing, including green ones we prepared earlier, which our now ready to eat

4. The frying method
Last, but not least, is a more immediate method favoured in Puglia with certain sweet varieties of olive, which only need 10 minutes in a frying pan before they are ready.

The mature black olives (possibly Ogliara Bari and Pizuttella) are fried in a little oil and salt, either with or without the following (tomato, onion and chillies) and are ready when the skin starts to pucker. If they are mature enough they should have a wonderful sweet olive flavour, if not, they’ll still taste a little bitter and you’ll need to add more tomato.

Olives prepared in this way will not keep, but they are a real treat around harvest time.

Next blog will be about a day in our slow life as I’ve been invited to take part in a blog meme on the topic by Pat at http://www.livingthedreamportugal.blogspot.com Having never been flashmobbed or twittered before, I must say I’m rather excited to be involved in a mass blog movement, albeit from the comfort of my own chair.

Piaggio and passata August 1, 2010

The Piaggio Ape, the Italian three-wheeled light vehicle with a scooter engine, is the perfect means of transport for making deliveries and impromptu roadside market stalls for contadini to sell any surplus fruit and vegetables. It’s a good idea to keep an eye on prices on these mini mobile markets, as they are often cheaper than the market stalls and their stock is usually fresher as it’s often picked that morning.

Contadino sells surplus children off back of Ape shocker

Tomatoes are currently 50cents a kilo off the back of most of the Ape stalls in town, which is my magic number for passata-making, so I’ve been picking a 20 kilo crate up every time we’re in town to add to our own tomatoes to fill the pantry with jars of sauce to keep us going through winter and springtime.

To preserve tomatoes this way it’s best to leave your tomatoes in a single layer for a couple of days to both sweeten and make them less watery. In the past, I’ve laid them out on nets in the trullo, but this takes up too much space, so this year I decided to stack them in single layers in olive crates.  This has worked really well as air can circulate around the tomatoes so there’s been minimal spoilage and they’ve only taken up the space of a single crate.

Tomatoes are then washed and cut in half (cut out any blemished or overly ripe parts) and then heated so they soften a little before running them through a passata machine. Some of my neighbours gave me their old passata machine as they now have an electric one.  It really is a beast and happily mills 30 or 40 kilos of tomatoes at any one time to make the most wonderful passata. As you can see, as if by magic all the skins and pips are separated, leaving you with a thick, pulpy sauce.

Passapomodoro - the mighty passata machine

Once milled, the sauce is then retuned to the hob, to reheat and salt is added for both taste and preservation before jarring in sterilised bottles.  When I asked my neighbours about adding citric acid or lemon juice to each jar to avoid botulism (as advised on all US-based canning information websites) they all gave me the raised eyebrow, why on earth would you do that look and questioned what Americans know about making passata.

So long as you ensure the bottles and lids are sterilised, you leave a ¼ inch headspace in each one and you process them for the right amount of time there’s no reason why botulism should be allowed to contaminate your sauce.

Once all your jars are filled and the lids put on not too tightly they should be wrapped in something to stop them from hitting each other when you boil them in a water bath. I wrap mine in tea towels and put one in the bottom of the pan. Hot water is then added to cover the bottles and once the water is boiled a rolling boil is maintained for 30 minutes.

After this time, leave the bottles and water to cool over night before taking the jars of sauce out. You’ll probably hear quite a few of the jars pop during the evening as the lids become concave, forming a seal. If any jars have not sealed then you can either reprocess them,  store them in the fridge to use within the week, or pour them into a plastic container and freeze them.

I’ve made around 60 jars of sauce so far and I’ll hopefully make the same again as you can’t beat the taste of homemade passata. I was going to write about making tomato concentrate too, but a certain someone decided to use power tools to cut some stone for a new doorway and my almost ready concentrate which was drying in the sun got covered in stone dust, so you’ll just have to wait until next time.

Before I go, I’d also like to thank Matthias and Tanja, our HelpXchangers who managed to work during a mini heatwave. To keep in the shade they did a wonderful job in some of our oldest olive trees pruning all the vertical suckers, as well as several other much appreciated jobs in the garden. We’ve a Taiwanese chap coming next week to assist Jeremy with the building of our long awaited pergola, so I’m hoping it stays as cool and breezy as it has for the past couple of weeks.

The Blue Peter Garden July 24, 2010

Today I’m going to show you how to make a lampshade from a ball of string, a balloon and glue and show you something interesting to do with a big old bucket and some worms. To make your very own groovy rustic lampshade, blow up a balloon to the required size/shape and tie a knot. Then cover the balloon in some petroleum jelly (that’s Vaseline in case you hadn’t guessed), although I’m not sure this is necessary, I just figured it would stop the glue from sticking to it.

Rustic lampshades made from string

Next, in true Blue Peter style, rub some clear, water-resistant glue to a ball of twine, wool or whatever you decide to use and randomly wrap it around the balloon to create the shape you want. We left gaps at the top (for the light fitting and one at the bottom for light to shine though) but you could cover the bottom for a more spherical looking shade. We hung our balloon on the washing line to dry but brought it in overnight. By morning the lampshade had hardened so we burst the balloon and created a hanger with some old wire, to which we hung the light fitting and a low energy light bulb.

We’ve hung a couple in an olive tree and they provide a rather romantic evening dining ambience. Jeremy’s currently building a pergola, and I think we’ll make several of these shades to hang inside it as they are both cheap, around €3 each for string and light fittings, and rather beautiful.

And now for something quite different: by adding a tap to an old bucket we made a not terribly stylish but completely functional wormery. Jeremy’s patented design includes a few inches of gravel at the bottom and a disc of rubber matting

The DIY wormery

with holes drilled though to ensure good drainage. This is then covered in some rotted compost and some kitchen scraps, a generous handful of brandling/tiger worms from our neighbour Herman’s wormery, a layer of straw and a lid.

Depsite hanging it under the shade of a nespola tree, owing to the heat we need to splash a little water on the straw every other day to keep everything moist, and we’ll add kitchen waste under the straw, whenever the worms have finished eating previous scraps.

Soon the worms will provide us with a concentrated liquid feed and after a few months they will have turned the bin’s compost into vermicompost, or black gold, which is very high in nutrients. The worms will also reproduce, so we can hopefully build a bigger wormery in the future and Jeremy’s looking forward to taking some of them fishing.

Tune in next week to see what we can make with sticky-backed plastic and liquid bottles ☺

Can I have my Blue Peter badge now?

Gone Glamping July 4, 2010

It’s been almost three months since my last blog, so what have we been doing with ourselves you might well ask. We’ve both taken separate trips back to the UK. Jeremy drove over with a friend to make oil deliveries and pick up enough teabags, marmite, oats and treacle to last the year. He also brought me back some veggie treats, such as tofu, haloumi and tahini. I flew back and divided my time visiting family and friends, shopping and fitting in as many curries as possible. The best curry was most definitely the Sree Krishna in Tooting (an old favourite of mine back when I lived in Wimbledon a good 20-odd years ago). I also managed to stuff my suitcase with spice and all sorts of other things nice.

Trips back home always cause a backlog of work and I’ve only just caught up with myself, which hopefully means more blog and craft time. I’ve just made some new bedding and cushions to go in the tent we’ve erected in the garden.  Jeremy picked up a canvas bell tent when he was in London, so we can provide some luxury camping accommodation for the many volunteer workers we’ve got arriving over the summer. We picked up a selection of spectacularly hideous curtains at the second hand section in the market yesterday to use as rugs to cover the ground sheet. Maybe it’s not quite glamping but it feels pretty comfy in there.

Camping under the olive trees

We’ve a long list of jobs for our visiting HelpXchangers; including helping build a pergola, polytunnel and some raised beds, taking suckers off olive trees, general garden tidying, moving the compost bin to the vegetable plot as we’ve managed to source some worms to start a wormery where the compost currently resides.

Speaking of the garden, things are growing well this year, thanks to an improvement in the soil following the addition of lots of manure, ash and charcoal. Getting creative with courgettes has once again become an obsession so expect some courgette-based recipes soon.

Not surprisingly we’ve been eating a lot of barbeques, as both June and July have been gorgeous. It’s been very hot, but there’s always been a breeze. High temperatures have brought the reassuring sound of summertime, as cicadas produce an overpowering hum during the day and crickets take up the chirping at night. Italians call summertime i giorni delle cicadidi e notti delle grillidi (days of cicadas and nights of crickets) as they provide an unmistakable and unrelenting chorus throughout the summer. During the night the odd praying mantis provide a few clicks and rattles to the nightly serenade.

Cool canvas camping

Next week temperatures are predicted to reach the 40s, so I’m guessing we may make our first beach visit of the year. I’m a little jealous of the German helpers  Jeremy is picking up from the station today as I suspect it will be cooler in the tent than the house next week.

With a heatwave on the way I’m just going to make Jeremy some Thai fisherman’s pants which he can wear to the beach and a sundress for myself. If I haven’t melted by next week I’ll write about sewing our new beach wardrobe in my next blog.

I’m also hoping to turn some olive suckers into baskets, so watch this space for some seriously rustic basketry. I’ll be happy if I can produce just one small one which I can use to collect eggs and mushrooms in. But I’d really love to get proficient at it and make large baskets to keep logs in.

The greening of the grove April 13, 2010

We’re coming up to our fourth anniversary of living the good life in Puglia, so I’m in a vaguely reflective mood today. You never know if a move to the countryside will suit you until you try it, let alone a move to another country, with a different culture and language. But four year’s on, I’m certain we made the right decision.

Our “cosmopolitan” life in London seems a million miles away. In fact, I really feel like a tourist on my annual visit back to the Big Smoke, and feel ever so slightly overwhelmed by it all.

With the help of our neighbouring contadini we’ve learnt how to look after and harvest our olive trees, tend grapes and make wine, and grapple with the demands and delights of gardening in a Mediterranean climate.

There’s always something new to learn, not least because no two Italians rarely agree on anything, but it’s fun muddling through until we find a way, which suits us. We’ve even felt emboldened enough to ignore some local wisdom and go our own way, especially when it comes to a more organic approach.

Which leads me rather neatly on to what we’ve been doing with our olive trees. Around 40-years ago, your average contadini would have kept some livestock to help feed the family for the year. The beauty of keeping livestock is that, aside from the food they provide they can also help keep grasses short, converting it into lovely rich manure to return to the soil to help grow other crops.

Since the introduction of “cheap” chemicals, however, very few contadini keep livestock: relying instead on pesticides to kill weeds and fertilisers to feed their plants. When it comes to olives the majority of our neighbours continually spray nasty weed-killing pesticides under their olive trees. To harvest their olives they wait for them to fall off the trees and spend most of the winter sweeping them up to sell to the various mills in town.

clean but lifeless

To do this, the area under their trees is kept hard and bare. The constant spraying of chemicals has ensured that hardly anything grows under them and made them really compacted. The contadini see this as ideal as it allows them to sweep olives as they fall. To begin with we thought it necessary to try and attain a similar hard, bare surface. As we garden organically this meant strimming under the trees loads and rolling them with some repurposed gas bottles. Filled with sand or water and attached to the rotivator, they’d bring a tear of joy to the eye of any good cricket groundsman.

We’ve always collected olives for oil by hand straight onto nets and off to the mill within 48-hours to ensure optimum oil, but it made sense to simply sweep the rest up and sell them in sacks. I shudder to think what the oil would be like; I certainly wouldn’t use it, but I suspect in ends up bottled in supermarkets around the globe.

Jeremy tickles olives onto nets

Without chemicals, the earth under our trees never got as compacted as our neighbours however, and sweeping was always a nightmare. So, last year we only collected olives with nets. Between us we made two cold-pressings, which resulted in around 80 litres of wonderfully green oil. We didn’t bother sweeping and selling excess olives as prices peaked at €20 per quintale (100 kilos). It was taking one of our younger, fitter neighbours all day to sweep up 2 quintales and €40 is not a lot to show for a hard day’s graft. We would have managed to sweep a fraction of that amount and many of our older neighbours are deciding they will only collect olives to make oil for themselves in the future.

Without the need to sweep under trees it’s actually easier to collect olives on nets, which sit on grass (it gives them something to sit on and ladders are less likely to tear the nets as the grass protects them from soft soil underneath).

Jeremy has just strimmed under all the olive trees and scattered organic fertiliser underneath them just in time for some much needed rain. Now the trees have been fed, wild grasses will grow back with a vengeance, and whilst we will ensure the olive grove is not a fire hazard over the summer we are not going to follow the contadini obsession with ensuring all life is removed from beneath the trees.

Making hay while the sun shines March 18, 2010

We’ve enjoyed some proper spring weather for the past couple of weeks, so we’ve made the most of it and got stuck into some much needed work in the garden.

I’ve mostly busied myself with weeding the vegetable patch, in between writing some news articles. Weeding is definitely a good cure for writers block, it helps alleviate a desk-bound bottom and makes for a very welcome distraction.

Thanks to the manure we dug in prior to planting we’ve a really good crop of winter vegetables, it also means, however we’ve a healthy crop of weeds too. Up until now, the ground has been too wet to work, so it’s been quite hard going clearing the weeds, but I’ve declared war and I’m winning.

Jeremy’s been rotivating a patch of earth ready for planting our chitted potatoes. He says the areas where we’ve been adding ash (including burnt bones from the dog’s dinners) have been much easier to work. Areas we haven’t added ash to remain really boggy, with clogs of earth sticking to the rotivator’s tines.

He’s also been getting on with some pruning, while I’ve been busy sewing seeds in old toilet rolls. I’m leaving these in our old Panda, which has found new life as a mobile (if we push it) nursery. We’ve also marked out where our new pergola will sit and Jeremy’s began removing soil by the barrowful in preparation for its foundations.

Although we’ve had a really mild winter it feels so good to be working outside again. The lizards are waking up and the garden is alive with bees and butterflies. Our bees have been hard at work pollinating the almond trees and I’ve spotted them on borage, calendula and rosemary too.

It’s not just the flora and fauna coming to life though, all of our neighbours are out working the land during the day. Everyone, ourselves included, is filled with optimism that spring has finally arrived. I can’t imagine what its arrival will feel like for the parts of Europe who have suffered one of the severest winters on record.

Since beginning writing this, the winds have picked up and we have a cold snap heading this way. Luckily, we’ve still got some plastering and a cupboard to finish in the kitchen. Jeremy just finished making this one though,

cupboard love

complete with magnetic, removable kick-board. My husband, the master cabinetmaker!

Facendo  il fieno, mentre il sole splende

Ci é piaciuto il tempo di primavera vero delle ultime due settimane, quindi ne abbiamo trattoil meglio e abbiamo cominciato alcune facendo che hanno molto bisogno in giardino. Mi sono occupato maggiormente con il diserbo delli l’orto, tra la scrittura di alcuni articoli di notizie. Il diserbo è sicuramente una buona cura per il blocco dello scrittore, aiuta ad alleviare un culo intorpidito e una distrazione molto gradita.

Grazie al letame, che abbiamo scavato prima di essere piantare, abbiamo un raccolto veramente buono di verdure invernali, significa che, però, abbiamo anche un sano raccolto di erbacce. Fino ad oggi, il terreno è stato troppo bagnato per lavorare, quindi è stato abbastanza duro strappare le erbacce, ma io ho dichiarato la guerra e io sono vincente.

Jeremy ha arato un pezzo di terra, pronto per piantare le nostre patate. Lui dice che le aree in cui abbiamo aggiunto le ceneri (comprese le ossa bruciate dalle cene del cane) sono state molto più facili da lavorare. Le zone dove non abbiamo aggiunto le ceneri sono rimaste veramente fangose, con zolle di terra si invischiano nel motozàppa.

Lui ha anche iniziato  qualche potatura, mentre io sto mettendo i semi in vecchi rotoli di carta igienica. Li sto  lasciando nella nostra vecchia Panda, che ha trovato nuova vita come un vivaio  (se vogliamo spingere) mobile. Abbiamo anche segnato dove sará il nostro nuovo pergolato e Jeremy ha iniziato la rimozione del suolo con una carriola in preparazione delle sue  fondamenta.

Anche se abbiamo avuto un inverno molto mite ci si sente così bene a lavorare
fuori di nuovo. Le lucertole si svegliano e il giardino è vivo con le api e le farfalle. Le nostre api sono state al duro lavoro di impollinazione dei mandorli e le ho viste sulla borragine, la calendula, il rosmarino e su i fiori di cime di rapa.

È non è solo la flora e la fauna che si risvegliano alla vita, tutti i nostri vicini sono fuori lavorare la terra durante il giorno. Tutti, noi compresi, siamo pieni di ottimismo la primavera è finalmente arrivata. Non riesco a immaginare ciò che
l’arrivo della primavera significa per le parti d’Europa che hanno subito uno degli inverni più severi mai registrati.

Dal momento che inizio a scrivere questo, i venti forti ha tornano indietro, e abbiamo una ondata di freddo che si dirige verso noi. Per fortuna abbiamo ancora alcuni intonaci e un armadio, della cucina da finire. Jeremy ha appena finito di fare questo armadio, peró, completo di magnetico e battiscópa rimovibile . Mio marito, il maestro ebanista.

Where’s Jack gone? January 19, 2010

I’m nervous to say it, but winter seems to have passed us by down here in the heel. We’ve had the odd downpour and some gusty winds but Jack Frost has not visited us once yet and, sat at my desk, I can feel the sun’s rays warm my cheeks.

I read this week that whilst much of Europe, the US and Asia is currently enduring temperatures 10 degrees lower than normal; the Mediterranean, Africa, Canada and Alaska are seeing temperatures 10 degrees higher than normal.

On the plus side the olive harvest is all but finished this year and we were still harvesting in late March last year owing to continual rains. The bees are back out foraging the yellow sea of calendula we have covering much of the garden and the chickens are all still laying every day. Even the woodpile still looks very healthy.

The reason I’m nervous is that I’ve spotted our first cherry blossom and a late freeze will put paid to the bumper cherry harvest I’m looking forward to this year. I’m really intrigued to see how much of a difference keeping bees will have on both our cherry and almond harvests, so will be most unimpressed if we get a late freeze.

It’s been so warm here I spotted cherries and prunes for sale in the market today, granted they probably came from Sicily, but it’s still January for goodness sakes. Last night it was so hot in front of the stove we had to take it in turn to stir our risotto. I’m heading back in their now though as we’re introducing some Italian friends to curry night.

Stay safe and warm everyone.

Dove e andato Jack?

Sono nervosa a dirlo, ma l’inverno sembra essere passato qui da noi nel tallone. Noi abbiamo la pioggia e qualche vento forte, ma Jack Frost (personaggio che rappresenta il ghiaccio) non ci ha visitato una volta fino ad ora e seduta alla mia scrivania, sento i raggi del sole caldo sulle mie guance.

Ho letto questa settimana che, mentre gran parte dell’Europa, gli Stati Uniti e in Asia durano temperature di 10 gradi inferiori al normale, invece il Mediterraneo, l’Africa, il Canada e l’Alaska vedono temperature di 10 gradi superiori alla norma.

Sull lato positivo la raccolta delle olive è quasi finita. L’anno scorso abbiamo raccolto le olive fino alla fine di marzo a causa delle piogge continue. Le api foraggiano ancora un mare giallo di calendule che coprono gran parte del giardino e le galline depongono le uova ogni giorno. Anche la pila di legna appare ancora molto sana.

La ragione per cui sono nervosa è che ho adocchiato il nostro primo fiore di ciliegio e un congelamento in ritardo danneggierà il raccolto abbondante di ciliegie che speravamo per quest’anno. Sono davvero curiosa di vedere quanta differenza le api avranno su entrambi i nostri raccolti di ciliegie e mandorle, così saró più arrabbiata se avremo un congelamento tardi.

È stato così caldo qui ho che visto le ciliegie e le prugne secche in vendita nel mercato di oggi, benchè loro probabilmente provenivano dalla Sicilia, è solo gennaio ancora, per amor di Dio. La notte scorsa è stato così caldo che abbiamo dovuto fare a turno per mescolare il nostro risotto di fronte alla stufa . Noi ritorniamo al forno adesso perchè stiamo introducendo alcuni amici italiani a un notte di curry.

Soggiorno tranquillo e caldo per tutti.

Soap-making and more January 9, 2010

Not exactly resolutions but I mean to get motivated. After a very relaxing Christmas and New Year I’m itching to awaken from my festive slumber and become more active again.

Luckily there is a lot to do in the garden, where the weeds are threatening to dwarf the vegetable patch. The ground has been drying out since the last downpour so we should be able to tackle the weeds between us. Freezing (-7) temperatures are forecast tonight so I must remember to cover all our newly planted trees and the lemon tree which is heavy with both fruit and blossom at the moment. Failing that I’d best make some more limoncello. There was no freeze just strong winds…phew!

Sunshine is pretty much guaranteed here from May through to October but we don’t really know what a typical winter is. Last year we had continuous torrential rain; the year before was drier but really cold; while this year has been, in the words of Goldilocks…just right.

Speaking of cuddly bears, I’ve very nearly finished knitting Jeremy a sock. Although it’s taken me months to knit just the one sock I’ve learnt quite a lot doing it and I’m sure knitting the next one will be a breeze. I just hope I can complete the pair before summer arrives so Jeremy can wear his belated Christmas present before the sandals come out. Ivan’s brother very kindly fixed my sewing machine so I can finish a dress I began several months ago. I’m a faster sewer than knitter so I may make some pyjama bottoms out of an old Donald Duck sheet I bought second hand.

I think I’ll also make a new batch of soap, so I’ll write instructions with photos and links for anyone who is interested in making their own.

Soap-making instructions

I like to make soap as it’s free from detergents and is really gentle to the skin. I use it to wash my hair too as it doesn’t make it frizzy like shampoo does.

To make soap it’s important everything is accurately weighed. There are lots of online calculators, to calculate the correct measurements for every type of oil. http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/lyecalculators/tp/toplyecalcs.htm

I use olive oil and caustic soda, which in the correct quantities cancel each other out to make soap. As caustic soda is dangerous I wear gloves and a mask.

Best be safe

First weigh the water and caustic soda and mix them together in a glass bowl. While these react together and heat up I heat some weighed olive oil with a little bit of beeswax (just 2oz with 32oz of olive oil). By using a thermometer I wait for the olive oil to reach 100 degrees F. By this time the caustic soda should have cooled a little, so pour it carefully into the hot olive oil.

Mix it together with a wooden spoon and then use a stick blender in short intervals until it looks like thick custard.

Hmm...custardy!

After 5-10 minutes saponification will have occurred. It is then time to pour the liquid into moulds. Pringle and tetra packs are good as you can cut right through them to make bars of soap.

Leave the soap for 24 hours with a blanket on top. By this time the soap should be hard and ready to cut. Once cut leave it somewhere cool for at least one month.

Fare il sapone in casa e di piu
Non esattamente una promessa, ma ho intenzione di avere nuovi stimuli. Dopo Natale e Capodanno un molto rilassanti ho voglia di risvegliarmi dal torpore della festa e diventare più attiva di nuovo.

Per fortuna c’è molto da fare in giardino, dove le erbacce stanno minacciando di sorpassare l’orto. Il terreno si asciugato dopo l’acquazzone scorso, quindi dovremmo essere in grado di affrontare l’erbaccie tra noi. Stasera prevendono temperature di congelamento (sette sotto zero) ) devo ricordarmi di coprire tutti i nostri alberi appena piantati e l’albero di limone che è pesante sia con frutta e fiori in questo momento. In altrimenti sarà meglio fare qualche limoncello di più. No congelare grande solo venti forti … Boh!

Il ole è praticamente garantito qui da maggio a ottobre, ma in realtà non sanno cosa sia un tipico inverno. L’anno scorso abbiamo avuto continue piogge torrenziali, l’anno prima era asciutto, ma molto freddo, mentre quest’anno è stato, nelle parole di Riccioli d’Oro (Goldilocks)… giusto.

Parlando di orsi da coccolare, ho quasi finito di fare a maglia un calzino per Jeremy. Sebbene ho impiegato mesi a lavorare a maglia solo un calzino ho imparato molto a farlo e sono sicura che la calza prossima sarà piu facile. Spero solo idi essere in grado di completare la coppia prima che arriva l’estate e Jeremy potrà indossare il suo regalo di Natale in ritardo prima di uscire con i sandali. Il fratello di Ivan, molto gentilmente, ha riparatola mia macchina da cucire cosi posso completare un abito che ho cominciato diversi mesi fa. Io cucio più veloce che fare a maglia così potrei fare qualche pantalone del pigiama diaun vecchio lenzuolo di Paperino che ho comprato di seconda mano.

Penso di  fare anche un nuovo cumulo di sapone, così mi scrivo le istruzioni con foto e link per chi è interessato a fare il proprio.

Saponara – fare il sapone in casa

Mi piace fare il sapone perchè è esente dai detersivi e è realmente delicato sulla pelle. Lo uso per lavare i miei capelli anche perchè non arriccia i miei capelli come fanno gli sciampo.

Per fare il sapone è importante tutto sia pesato esattamente. Ci sono molti calcolatori su Internet, che possono calcolare le misure corrette per ogni tipo di olio. http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/lyecalculators/tp/toplyecalcs.htm

Uso l’olio di oliva e la soda caustica, che nelle esatte quantità si annullano per fare il sapone. Perchè la soda caustica è pericolosa io porto i guanti e una mascherina.

Per primo pesi l’acqua e la soda caustica e mischi la due nella scodella di vetro. Mentre queste reagiscono insieme lo riscaldi l’olio di oliva pesato con un po ‘di cera d’api (solo 57g per 907g di olio). Usando un termometro aspetto che l’olio di oliva raggiungungo 100 gradi di F. Nel frattempo la soda caustica dovrebbe raffreddare un poco, in modo da versarla con attenzione nell’olio di oliva caldo. Mescolarla insieme con un cucchiaio di legno e allora utilizzare un frullatore a brevi intervalli fino a renderla piú cremosa e consistente (come crema di pasticceria).

Dopo cinque o dieci minuti la saponificazione sarà accaduta. Dopo cinque o dieci minuti la saponificazione sarà accaduta. Allora esso  è  il tempo di colare il liquido negli stampi. I pacchetti di Pringle e Tetra sono buoni come potete tagliare  loro per a fare le barre di sapone. Lasciare il sapone per 24 ore coperto. Nel frattempo il sapone dovrebbe essere duro e pronto da tagliare. Poi lasciare qualche luogo freddo per almeno un mese.

Help has arrived – L’aiuto è arrivato December 8, 2009

It’s been ages since I wrote a blog so I thought I’d take the opportunity to create a new one to help me record our life in Puglia. I also thought I’d copy Jeremy’s example and use the blog to help improve my Italian.

We are currently having our first WWOOFing experience and it’s definitely something we would do again. World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) is a global exchange network, where volunteers help in exchange for food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles.

Although we are not officially registered as WWOOF hosts some friends had a couple of WWOOFers stay and when their visit ended one of them (Richard) asked if we needed any help for a week before he continues his WWOOFing tour of Europe.

So far Richard has been helping Jeremy build a goat house and, weather permitting, he can help us harvest some more olives next week. He’s met some of our neighbours who have kindly suggested that he find himself a beautiful Italian wife and either build himself a house or buy theirs and never leave. Half the town now think that any English will turn up and work for a bowl of pasta.

There are similar schemes for volunteer work placements at smallholdings and organic farms where people work for board and lodgings. The hosts get some help when they need it and the volunteers get to choose their hosts so can visit places and experiences of interest.

We were registered with one such scheme, called Help Exchange before but chickened out every time we had a request. Richard’s visit has worked out so well and he’s been such a great help that Jeremy has decided he wants to build a yurt so we can host more volunteers in the future. Any takers? There’s a bowl of pasta in it for you.

You can still read about our first few years establishing ourselves as organic olive farmers and the fun we’ve had settling into the Italian countryside here  http://contadina.growveg.info

Sono secoli da quando ho scritto un blog così ho pensato di cogliere l’occasione per crearne un nuovo per aiutarmi a registrare la nostra vita in Puglia. Ho anche pensato che avrei dovuto copiare l’esempio di Jeremy e usa il blog per aiutare a migliorare il mio italiano.

Attualmente stiamo avendo la nostra prima esperienza di WWOOFing ed è sicuramente qualcosa che faremo ancora. World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farms (WWOOF) o opportunità in azienda biologica mondiale è una rete globale di scambio, dove i volontari aiutano in cambio di cibo, alloggio e la possibilità di conoscere stili di vita biologica.

Sebbene non siamo ufficialmente registrati come ospiti di WWOOF alcuni amici avevano un paio di WWOOFers da loro e quando il loro soggiorno finito uno di loro (Riccardo) ha chiesto se avevamo bisogno di aiuto per una settimana prima di  continuare il suo tour WWOOFing per l’europa.

Finora Riccardo ha aiutato Jeremy a costruire una casa per le capre e, tempo permettendo, può aiutarci con la raccolta delle olive la prossima settimana. Lui ha incontrato alcuni dei nostri vicini, che hanno gentilmente suggerito che si trovi una bella moglie italiana e che costruisca una casa per sé, o acquistila loro, e non se ne vada mai. Metà della città ora pensa che gli inglese si capitano e lavorare per un piatto di pasta.

Ci sono programmi simili per collocamento di volontariato presso piccole aziende agricole e fattorie biologiche in cui le persone lavorano per cibo e alloggio. I padroni di casa ricevono un aiuto quando ne hanno bisogno e I volontari possono scegliere i loro ospiti in modo da visitare luoghi e vivere esperienze di interesse.

Siamo stati registrati prima con uno schema simile, chiamato Aiuto Exchange,
ma noi abbiamo avuto fifa ogni volta che abbiamo ricevuto una richiesta. La visita di Riccardo è andata così bene e lui è stato di grande aiuto che Jeremy ha deciso  che  la prossima primavera voule construire una tenda che  si chiama “gurt” dove possiamo ospitare piu voluntari in futuro. Chiunque interesato? C’è un piatto di pasta per voi.

Si può ancora leggere sui nostri primi anni come ci siamo affermati come gli agricoltori biologici di olive e il divertimento che abbiamo avuto stabilendoci nella  c a mp a g n a italiana qui . http://contadina.growveg.info