i will wien i can.

In Vienna now.
With this bakery http://www.gragger-cie.at/cms/index.php
Lots of bread but no internet access.

the real cost of pizza.

 

6 weeks in and I have not had pizza. 

 

The logic is simple - having pizza on my own would mean not having any room left for all the other interesting things I'd want to try later on. And I never needed to fuel up that much to have an entire one all to myself. So, there was never a good enough reason or occasion to have it. The opportunity cost was too high.

This was the first slice of pizza I had on this trip. Erika at the farm, made this for lunch. It was delicious and not because we spent the morning digging and moving dirt about.

Very glad I held out till then.

the proof is in the bread.

I came on this trip to learnt about artisan breadmaking, the processes and to have a better appreciation of it.  I've always known I'd be able to understand it in my head eventually but whether I could make bread by myself, with my own hands was always questionable.

Being in the bakery with real bakers who were always ahead of me and have a more watchful eye over the dough, timing and everything else made it more difficult for me to judge what kind of artful skills, if at all, I have managed to achieve. Until Claudio who bakes the bread at Sant Egle had to go to Florence for a few days and I took over.

All I had was a lump of biga and whatever flour I can find in the pantry. No recipes, no idea how strong the plain white flour would be, no idea how buckwheat flour would behave, no idea if the dough would rise and proof with the temperature being so cold, no idea how long I would have to wait, no idea if I could make the bread spring in the oven without any steam, no idea if the bread would be edible. What I did know was I wanted to make bread with the boxes chestnuts and walnuts they have picked from around the house and were just sitting there.

So I pretty much made bread from scratch, feeling for consistency and hydration all the way through. The first day I made 2 loaves - one  chestnut and one walnut. There were about 10 of us and everyone liked it so much, they were gone in a day. The next day, I made 4 tinned loaves which was how many the oven could take. Still, it ran out. I ended up having to use their roasting trays to make giant loaves as well. 

 

The biggest surprise came on Saturday night. The restaurant at the B&B was full and Claudio told me no one wanted to eat the normal Tuscan bread in the bread basket. They kept asking for the ones I made. I guess when people who have no reason to be nice pays a compliment it becomes more real. I actually know a thing or two about making bread.  

There were much nicer looking loaves but they got cut into too quickly and I kept forgetting to take pictures. These were the only ones I managed to take on the early morning I had to leave Sant Egle.

 

P.S. Nasreen, I now have the confidence to make you some should I impinge on your generousity and couch once again.

Very happy I made the bread rise by 50%.

Walnut loaves.
One on the right needed more colour but I was running out of time and space in the small domestic oven.

some pressing matters.

I didn't intend to wwoof in Italy this trip but I was desperate to pick and press some olives. I am here, it the right season, it would be a great shame to miss it.

So off I went to Sant Egle in Tuscany for 2 weeks to pick some olives and to help them build a permaculture garden.

Olive picking is hard work only because they are fragile things, it is time consuming work and lots of hands are needed to pick them. There's a lot of chatting in between because there's not much else to do as you're picking. 

 

Sant Egle doesn't have their own olive trees because of the location and the climate doesn't quite allow it. So we had to go to another farm to pick it and the arrangement is the farm with the trees get to keep half of what is picked.

The farm cooked us a crazy big lunch and then we went to the local hot spring (termi) after. Some days it just doesn't feel like work.

A small plastic comb is used to comb the branches and off comes the olives.

Nets are spread out beneath the trees to catch the olives

fish fest.

What :  il Pesca fa Festa

Where : Cesenatico

When : 29 October - 1 November 2010

Cesenatico is a town half an hour north of Rimini. On the train, it costs 2.50€ one way.

It is as small as it is safe. Here, there are hardly any signs warning you about wondering on the beach alone. It, too, has a stretch of beach but here are no signs of past and future drunken beach parties. Instead of groups of young men walking on the streets, there are middle aged couples, grandparents and dogs. Everyone here walks at a slower pace, trying to cut through the crowds to rush for the train was a frustrating and embarrassing affair. I felt like a bullish rogue brushing past everyone else.

The streets were filled with all sorts of food stalls, the small town transformed into a huge restaurant. Outside kitchens were set up. Special menus of the freshest catch were created, all at very affordable prices, especially the wine. It was impossible to eat everything.

the best 25€ taxi ride.

What : Sagra Delle Frugiate

Where : Vellano, Pesca
When : 17 October 2010

Vellano sits on a mountain top.

As it is autumn and the season for chestnuts, I wanted to go to a festival where the chestnut wasn't just another autumnal food on sale but one where it only celebrated the chestnut, village style. This was how I ended up in Vellano, a small village 600m above sea level with only about 300-400 people living there.

The only way up there was with a taxi and the driver was a bit shocked when I told him where I was going. I guess he didn't expect anyone outside of the area to go to it, much less to have travelled from Florence for it. It was expensive getting there and back but seeing the village, the sagra, the roasting chestnuts, the live band, all the dessert I could eat made it completely worthwhile.

The walkways are steep. I thought I'd at least walk around the village before settling down for lunch and a glass of wine. It turned out to be hard work for an empty stomach.

Tiny walkways between houses.

Where the sagra took place. This is part of the local school.

No charge for the chestnuts, but donate generously.

The roasting crew.

The biggest pan of roasting chestnuts I have seen.

Exploding chestnuts.

My bag which I ate too quickly.

Everything else made specially for the sagra.

Neccio with ricotta and nutella.

All these being prepared in the local school ground.

Castagnaccio. Traditional chestnut cake made with chestnut flour, olive oil, pine nuts and rosemary.

With my 1€ glass of wine.

Villagers and visitors drifting in.

doubly sweet notes of prosecco.

For the second time, I am not a drunk, despite what you are about to read. 

The last month of my stay in Shanghai was, as expected, a surreal one; made more by how my friends and I dealt with it.

Just as in the families we have been brought up, my Shanghai one gathered around food. The never-ending feast used as the Chinese proxy for eternally binding ties. The bigger the feast, the less there would need to be said. It is amazing how, if we ever needed to fill out a survey, we would all be considered modern, progressive and expressive women who speak our minds. But in a situation like this one, we unanimously chose to take the silent route.

The closest we came to talking about it was : We don't have to say lah, huh?. Yes, Kerlie Teo, you don't have to say.

Somewhere along the way, we decided the sobering fact sat better with prosecco. It quickly became the drink of choice before, during and after food. We went to restaurants that had it in stock, we hunted them down and carted them home. That was how it began and it was the last drink I had before heading off to the airport.

 Some of the places we had pictures of...Prosecco at Casa Changshu.

Prosecco at Ginger.

Prosecco at URBN.

A week's worth, only the ones we had at home.

...towards the end. Lots more were drunkenly left behind.

This one was for you.

la casa vecchia.

This is the B&B I stayed in.

They were very nice to me and I have been, once again, too lucky.

Vendemmia (grape harvest) is over, I had just missed it.
After chatting to the lady who owns from the B&B for a bit, she appeared with this for me to try.
Lucky.

The view from the lawn.

I arrived on a Tuesday. Santo Stefano is so small there is only a pizzeria for meals and they close on Tuesdays.
I thought I was smart to have filled up at the tavern earlier in the day and would last through the night with no dinner. At about 7, there was a knock on my door. The B&B lady brought me this from her own home.
It was the kind of prosciutto pannino I make for myself - instead of a paper thin layer of it, mine is usually about a chapter thick. Lucky.

Settling in after trekking my way back from the tavern.
A cold bottle of prosecco would have been nicely chilled and waiting for me to start the evening.
Lucky again.

The view right after sunset.

Dinner. Not exactly a poor.

Food served during the prosecco tasting session.

Pickled onions and Venetian raddichio.

This is what fresh Venetian Radichio looks like.