The courgettes are up and running wild again. But one of the few compensations is the flowers. Washed quickly in ice cold water, left to dry on a rack (in the shadow, sunlight will wilt them as it does us all).
Beat the pastella from one egg, its weight in fine white flour (fancy having to specify but there are wholewheaters out there ruining a great deal of cuisine), and enough good quality white beer to make a thick cream consistency.
Heat a mix of last year's olive oil and sunflower seed oil, which will permit a higher cooking temperature and preserve the house keeping account, then plunge the flowers into the mixture, drain and immediately into the hot (not burning, watch it) oil. Fish out, drain and place on plate with coarse paper for the fried flowers and pretty greenery at each end.
Salt lightly.
Eat. (Try to avoid gluttony).
The next course was tomato and mozzarella salad under basil, this year's oil, and a touch of s and p.
A cold white Fiume is good too.
(Drink rest of bottle of beer as afterthought).
Tuesday 26 May 2009
Wednesday 20 May 2009
Seeing is Believing
The predawn sky is very beautiful in early summer. Deepest blue, not quite black, and filled with stars that even the lights of the towns and villages set across the countryside cannot dim. Last night was cloudless and absolutely still: the house is on a hilltop so no wind at all is unusual enough to have woken me.
'I'll just go and look at it all from the big terrace' I thought, and set off from bed, opening and closing doors quietly. Passing through the salotto I glanced from the window (we don't usually close the shutters on the second floor in fine weather) and stopped dead.
An enormous white/blue light with two smaller but even more intense lights, side by side beneath it, was shining lowish on the horizon, to the east of the village. I stared and stared, then opened the window in case the glass was doing something odd with the light from a particularly bright morning star. It stayed the same.
So I went on through the kitchen and the dining room, unbarred the terrace door and went outside. From the far end of the terrace you can see further round behind the church to the north and east. There was another one! Just as bright, not doing much. So neither did I. Just stared at them for some minutes, comparing them with other things in the sky. They didn't look like anything else.
What is the etiquette of these occasions? Wake the house? At that moment the church struck 4.30. In the end I went back to bed. They'd gone when I woke at quarter to seven, or become invisible in the full daylight.
Update:
I did look the last two evenings. No sign of the bright whatever they weres. It's overcast this evening so I wouldn't have looked again. When I mention it to people they don't believe me. I don't mind, but I do wonder how many oddities are not mentioned for fear of the smiles and then glances at the wine rack I've had. If we don't say things, no matter how outlandish, they will not be part of our understanding.
'I'll just go and look at it all from the big terrace' I thought, and set off from bed, opening and closing doors quietly. Passing through the salotto I glanced from the window (we don't usually close the shutters on the second floor in fine weather) and stopped dead.
An enormous white/blue light with two smaller but even more intense lights, side by side beneath it, was shining lowish on the horizon, to the east of the village. I stared and stared, then opened the window in case the glass was doing something odd with the light from a particularly bright morning star. It stayed the same.
So I went on through the kitchen and the dining room, unbarred the terrace door and went outside. From the far end of the terrace you can see further round behind the church to the north and east. There was another one! Just as bright, not doing much. So neither did I. Just stared at them for some minutes, comparing them with other things in the sky. They didn't look like anything else.
What is the etiquette of these occasions? Wake the house? At that moment the church struck 4.30. In the end I went back to bed. They'd gone when I woke at quarter to seven, or become invisible in the full daylight.
Update:
I did look the last two evenings. No sign of the bright whatever they weres. It's overcast this evening so I wouldn't have looked again. When I mention it to people they don't believe me. I don't mind, but I do wonder how many oddities are not mentioned for fear of the smiles and then glances at the wine rack I've had. If we don't say things, no matter how outlandish, they will not be part of our understanding.
Tuesday 19 May 2009
Distance and Indifference
Every now and then there is a population clear out. A cluster of the very old just give up, all together. The death bells ring day after day at 7 o'clock in the morning - not a good start to the day - and they have been doing it since the beginning of the weekend this time.
I look at the notices pasted up across the Borgo but recognise no names. The village has become too big, almost a town now, and names are not even local. So instead of feeling sorry that so and so is now in the camposanto, I catch myself feeling irritated that there is so much noise so early.
It doesn't toll for thee. Don't send out to know. You won't care and it makes me worry that I should.
I look at the notices pasted up across the Borgo but recognise no names. The village has become too big, almost a town now, and names are not even local. So instead of feeling sorry that so and so is now in the camposanto, I catch myself feeling irritated that there is so much noise so early.
It doesn't toll for thee. Don't send out to know. You won't care and it makes me worry that I should.
Sunday 17 May 2009
Dinner
That's it! Chianina is beyond me. What does one do when the ultimate prized and offered meal is giant slabs of lovely white ox? They are beautiful, dainty feet carrying heavy but graceful bodies, manes and tails braided with scarlet ribbon, and flowers on high days and holidays.
When we were to be married Mr HG gave me a pair of buoi di razza chianina. To be honest my father-in-law to be was much more impressed than I was, but I did think them very lovely.
They used to be seen ploughing, in the farthest reaches of Toscana, though now they are just bred for eating. But not by me. Never again. This is not just touchy-feeliness.
Have you any idea how much chianti you have to drink to swallow such a steak?
Saturday 2 May 2009
Passing Examination
The first case of swine fever has been notified in Tuscany. A man recently returned from Mexico was taken into hospital in Massa and treated for the dreaded lurgy.
In an interview this evening on the Eight O'clock News the professore di malattie infettive awarded him the mark 'piu che sufficiente' for his recovery.
Bravo!
In an interview this evening on the Eight O'clock News the professore di malattie infettive awarded him the mark 'piu che sufficiente' for his recovery.
Bravo!
Friday 1 May 2009
Memorials and Propaganda
There was a Mass for the Dead on 25 April, and then people walked to the memorial on the road to the next village and remembered the 14 people who were killed there in 1944. Every village along the Lines that criss-crossed the Peninsula as the Allies advanced from the south has its memorial. Some are to entire villages massacred. Most are for fewer victims, reprisals carried out as fronts moved back and forth leaving desperate pockets of troops fighting, cut off from their orderly retreat or advance.
In our village an English soldier entered the grocers and found himself face to face with enemy troops and promptly shot one of them. Then a truckload of soldiers sent to investigate was ambushed by the partisans on a hillside nearby. The rastrellamento began at dawn. Some of the victims were on their way to work at first light, others were taken from their houses, pointed out by locals accompanying the soldiers.
Twelve were taken. Much later in the day a small boy was heard telling his grandmother he had seen who was pointing out the victims. She shushed him too late and they were both taken to join the others.
Later, when the Front had passed on towards Florence, the villagers took some of those who had given up victims into the Piazza for their retribution. My father-in-law was in the house, recovering from the Russian Front, and went out to end the dreadful scene. He said that there has to be an end, before we are all drawn into barbarity. Even now there is gratitude that he did stop the killing that day in the Piazza, and at least for this village, reconciliation started there and then.
Religion has the rituals to remember those lost without reigniting rancour and revenge. But apart from a religious rite in remembrance each anniversary, perhaps it is time to stop using sad memorials for political purposes.
In our village an English soldier entered the grocers and found himself face to face with enemy troops and promptly shot one of them. Then a truckload of soldiers sent to investigate was ambushed by the partisans on a hillside nearby. The rastrellamento began at dawn. Some of the victims were on their way to work at first light, others were taken from their houses, pointed out by locals accompanying the soldiers.
Twelve were taken. Much later in the day a small boy was heard telling his grandmother he had seen who was pointing out the victims. She shushed him too late and they were both taken to join the others.
Later, when the Front had passed on towards Florence, the villagers took some of those who had given up victims into the Piazza for their retribution. My father-in-law was in the house, recovering from the Russian Front, and went out to end the dreadful scene. He said that there has to be an end, before we are all drawn into barbarity. Even now there is gratitude that he did stop the killing that day in the Piazza, and at least for this village, reconciliation started there and then.
Religion has the rituals to remember those lost without reigniting rancour and revenge. But apart from a religious rite in remembrance each anniversary, perhaps it is time to stop using sad memorials for political purposes.
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