We've been denounced...

...to the Commune! Although, since this isn't soviet Russia, the manifestation of authority wasn't snow-covered jack boots and a thunderous knocking on the door at four in the morning, but instead the arrival as we sat, drinking coffee on the terrace, of portly and avuncular Signor Martini, from the planning office, accompanied by his younger and only slightly less portly assistant. Whoever our denouncer was, they got off to a poor start, since we go back quite some way with Signor M...in fact, he was even present on that memorable winter's afternoon in Architect Scarpellini's office, some years ago, when somebody closed the door rather too firmly, and the ceiling fell in. There's nothing like shared adversity to create bonds...

As soon as he recognised us, officialdom relaxed into jocularity, and even before he'd visited the scene of the supposed crime, there didn't seem much to worry about. It turns out that we'd been reported for 'building with cement' without a permit, and there was also some reference to our using 'rete', which is the italian name for the metal grids that form the inside of reinforced concrete. Except, in our case, the rete are being used as trellis for climbing roses, and the walls of the lily-pond (apparently the subject of the 'building with cement' complaint) are held together entirely by their own weight, without a slather of cement to be seen. A vague glance from several feet away was enough to satisfy Signor M, while the four-footeds clamoured for attention round his feet...and after fulsome exchanges of civilities, he went on his way, and that particular bit of bureaucratic nonsense headed for deep filing in the basement of Palazzo Gambacorti.

I couldn't help but wonder who'd been behind it, though, and who might even now have been watching from behind their curtains. There are only six possible culprits, which it was pretty easy to whittle down to two, and then (I think) to one. And whatever their motive, since the Commune won't be reporting back to them, they'll just be left wondering why nothing appears to have happened. This being Italy, of course, it won't occur to them that they'd just got it wrong, and instead will decide that we must have 'influence' at the Commune (which seems to be the italian explanation for everything; 99% of the time, I think it's complete nonsense). Useful, though, even if untrue, to be thought to have friends in high places...

Tonight's Dinner:

Tagliatelle Alfredo.

Pork, pot-roast in Milk; braised Celery.

Egg-white Chocolate Soufflé.

A 'Zero' Birthday.

Mine.

I don't generally take much notice of birthdays, but the change in decade seems to get people's pulses racing, and expectations all round are raised. Inevitably, the event was marked.

Fortunately, the barn was (practically) finished - albeit with an interesting pile of lumber offcuts, arranged tidily across one end; but at least lunch amidst scaffolding and cement mixers was avoided.
In fact, we started the celebration the evening before, as the Belforte group were staying for the night out at Locanda Sant'Agata - Anna and Luca's new restaurant-with-rooms out in the countryside on the way to the lower slopes of Monte Pisano - and we joined them there for dinner. Sunset over Gello, and splendid food (an absolutely excellent gnocchi with coniglio!), and, later, watching the evening mists rise as the heat of the day receded. The season is already changing, and soon that wonderful period will begin of soft autumn mists in the mornings, as the sun gathers strength and decides that perhaps summer isn't quite over, after all.

And the day itself. In the morning, the four-footeds gave me a beautiful air-twist stemmed georgian wine glass for my collection, which took pride of place in one of the display cabinets in the Pranzo - and then, it was sleeves rolled up, and on with lunch. Experience dictates that, on such occasions, unless 99% of cooking has been sorted out before the first guests arrive, and the first corks are popped, then the whole process risks descending into chaos. Fortunately, I just about made it, and by the time everybody was standing around in the kitchen emptying jugs of kir, and crunching fried sage leaves, all I had to do was stir things gently, whilst clutching a glass in the other hand.

The weather was beautiful; the day was perfect. The theme for lunch was 'champagne': champagne risotto, followed by guinea-fowl in champagne sauce, before champagne sorbet with fresh raspberries. And to drink, there was either Roederer or Piper Heidseick.

The Brancolis and Belfortes had plotted, and between them all I received a set of gardening tools worthy of Mr Macgregor himself, half of which were handmade in Tuscany, and the rest came from a venerable manufacturer in Holland. Mouth-wateringly splendid! And an additional gift from the Brancolis was a chinese fir tree, to go at the far end of the lily pond, with which I can christen my new tree-planting shovel.

Lunch over, we drifted through the rather short afternoon, until it was time for the Technical Department to produce tea, along with the cake he'd made (one candle only!) which was filled with limoncino-flavoured cream, and decorated with frosted limoncino leaves. A perfect end to the celebration, as the Brancolis then had to wend their way back up the hill in order to spend the evening strimming their vineyard...

During a post-prandial lull people sat, quietly chatting or reading, and I wandered round, watering roses, as the evening shadows lengthened, and the background sounds of clearing up were faintly discernible from the direction of the kitchen. The sun went down, many candles were lit in the barn and around the lily pond, as a beautiful full moon rose behind the romitorio; we finished the day with a late supper of smoked salmon and chilled pinot grigio, with the sound of the fountain gently splashing, and the moonlight shone through the pigeon-house tiling to make a cheese-grater pattern on the end wall of the barn. The four-footeds were stretched contentedly on the gravel, and all was well with the world.


Tonight's Dinner:

Tiger Prawns in Garlic.

Double-roast lamb shanks; buttered cabbage (we're in London for three days)

Peach and Redcurrant Tarts.

Recipe: Blackberry Sorbet

Creamy, rich on the tongue, and completely delicious! Recently, I came across a copy of Gaston Le Notre's book on ice creams and sorbets - the companion volume to his magnificent and practically exhaustive work on pastry, which I can't recommend too highly for its technical precision. I see from the small print that there was a five year gap between the two books, however, and I suspect the delay was because Le Notre felt slightly embarrassed about presenting a whole collection of recipes the vast bulk of which merely follow the same simple formula: liquidize and sieve the fruit, and then freeze it in an ice cream machine along with sugar syrup to the ratio of 2:1 (twice as much fruit puree as sugar syrup). The syrup itself is made by combining a kilo of sugar with a litre of water, bringing it to the boil, whilst stirring, and then leaving to cool before use (or, half a kilo sugar to half a litre of water...the proportions work, whatever amount of syrup you want to make).
It's as simple as that. And if, as I now do, you keep a quantity of syrup in the fridge ready for use, then the whole process of making a new batch of sorbet whenever you want is remarkably quick and straightforward.

Enough for two generous servings:

Ingredients: Blackberries (about two cups - enough to give you 300 ml of purée, once the fruit has been liquidised and sieved); 150 ml of sugar syrup; a slug of Crème de Cassis (optional, but I think it makes a difference).

1. Liquidise the fruit, then push it through a fine sieve. Add to the purée exactly half as much again sugar syrup (i.e, if you have 300 ml of purée, then add to it 150 ml of syrup; if you have more or less fruit purée than this, then adjust the syrup quantity accordingly).

2. Add to the mixture a generous tablespoon of Cassis. Freeze in an ice cream machine until firm, then leave in the freezer for an hour or so. When you take it out of the freezer, if it is too hard to serve immediately, let it sit in the fridge for twenty minutes or so until it has softened sufficiently to scoop easily.

You'd have thought, by now...

...that we'd be entirely au fait with the plethora of public holidays which are scattered throughout the Italian year. On so many occasions, entirely without warning, have I been surprised by midweek empty streets and shuttered shops (either in honour of the obscure miracles of Saint Euphemia, or else the commemoration of a military or political event from several generations, or even several centuries ago) that I thought I had them all committed to memory. But, no...

Yesterday was Ferragosto. Since it was Sunday, it turns out that today is the holiday instead - although I thought they didn't do substitution in these things (or maybe they do, if it isn't an overtly religious holiday? Although, again, I've never been clear whether or not Ferragosto is religious - in Greece, it's celebrated as the birthday of The Virgin; and if this isn't supposed to be connected with that, then I don't really understand where it comes from.) In any event, I wasn't alone in being surprised, as I spied a smattering of white-haired Nonnas hovering uncertainly round the door to the Post Office, this morning, when I took the four-footeds down to the piazza for their constitutional. The door stayed resolutely closed, as we did a leisurely circuit of the otherwise deserted lawns. If the Nonnas can get it wrong, too, then I suppose I needn't feel too much of an innocent abroad.

August is an odd month here. Particularly this year, because of 'the crisis'. Businesses that would normally shut for weeks on-end seem to be taking it one day at a time, depending on the weather and on the possibility of any customers. Gian Carlo is working (sort of) but most of his suppliers are either closed or only open at odd hours; the Brazilians are working (sort of...but then, that could be said of them at any time of year); Signor Faschi, who said he would be in to polish the ex-loggia floors in Via Fucini 'after the holiday' could be turning up any day now, or perhaps not until the end of the month; our lawnmower dealer is now closed for two weeks, but it wouldn't make any difference if he were open anyway, as the machine importer he needs to speak to won't be open again now until September (our machine has died, well within its warranty period...but, fortunately, the Brancolis have been able to loan us one of their surplus ones).

The new rose pergola is finished, as is the entrance walkway. Half of the coping stones have been positioned around the edge of the lily pond, visible across its bed of newly-planted escallonia. It all looks a bit raw at the moment, but should look weathered and overgrown quite quickly. The interior of the barn is still a building site...despite the fact that we need it for a large lunch party next week. Which will be fun, in amongst the cement mixer, heaps of old plaster and discarded hard hats!

Nature carrries on whatever, and the apples are now ready to be picked. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.

Tonight's Dinner:

Tortelloni of Ragu, with a Tomato-Cream Sauce and Chives.

Sole in Parmesan and Marsala, with braised Celery.

Individual Tartes aux Pommes.

Recipe: Pear Soufflé

A recipe from Anne Willan, I first tried this in the early eighties, when I was dipping into her 'French Regional Cooking' as my project over Christmas in St. Michel one year (which reminds me ... her version of Pintarde aux Choux from the same book was also particularly good, and long overdue to be dusted off; definitely one for the colder months toward the end of the year). The pear recipe re-surfaced in Willan's 'French Recipes' from the Books for Real Cooks series - a gem, if ever there was one - and the current household glut of pears prompted me to make it for dessert a couple of evenings ago.
It isn't the easiest of dishes to get right - it must have been a fluke that it came out well the very first time I made it, as I didn't have a lot of experience with soufflés at that time - but it repays the effort of trying. Light, creamy and delicious. The secret, I think, is to stick absolutely unwaveringly to the recipe, with regard both to quantities and cooking time. Willan's version was for one large soufflé, which I never particularly like, as the process of serving has a tendency to ruin the whole effect, and so I've re-worked it for individual soufflés instead (made in 10cm diameter ramekins).
Twelve minutes and a few seconds of cooking, exactly!

For four individual soufflés

Ingredients: 4 large ripe pears (approx 1 1/2 lb); 2 tbs lemon juice; 3 tbs brandy; 3 eggs + 3 egg whites; 3 tbs sugar + 2 oz sugar; 6 fl oz milk; 2 tbs flour; 1 tbs cornflour. Icing sugar, to sprinkle.

Method:

1. Peel and core the pears, and liquidize them along with the lemon juice. Heat in a small pan over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the purée has lost most of its liquid, and will keep its shape on a spoon. Set aside to cool.

2. In a double-boiler or simmertopf, heat the milk; in a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and 2 oz of sugar until they are pale yellow, then mix in the flour and cornflour. Pour onto this the heated milk, and mix together, then return the contents of the bowl to the double boiler, and cook, stirring for five minutes or so, until the mixture (which is in fact a pastry cream) has become quite thick.

3. Fold into the pastry cream the cooled pear mixture, along with the brandy; cover with clingfilm, to prevent a skin from forming, and put in the fridge for up to three hours.

4. Heat the oven to 220 degrees C. Butter, or Trennwax, four individual 10 cm ramekins, and place them in a deep roasting pan.

5. Beat the egg whites until stiff, adding the 3 tbs of sugar for the last ten seconds or so of whisking. Mix a quarter of the beaten egg white into the pear/cream mixture, then fold in the remaining egg white.

6. Fill the ramekins to the brim with this mixture, smooth the surface of each one with a palette knife, and then run the tip of your thumb around the rim of each ramekin, leaving a shallow indentation around the inside of each one.

7. Fill the roasting pan with hot water about halfway up the ramekins, and bake in the pre-heated oven for twelve minutes.

8. Remove the soufflés from the oven and sprinkle with icing sugar before placing each ramekin on a dessert plate. Serve immediately.

And then, it rained....

A centimetre of rain, we were promised by Tempo Italia. And, after five weeks without a drop, it seemed a welcome change - even the possibility of an evening off from garden-watering duties, which is a two hour task every rainless day throughout summer.
Dutifully, the clouds gathered, and by mid morning, the rain began. Stuck indoors, we decided to go across town to pick up the new lights for the library in Via Fucini, and allow the rain to wash the accumulated summer dust off the car in the process - and found ourselves crawling through Pisa in monsoon conditions, barely able to see through the windscreen, despite frenetic activity from the windscreen wipers.By early afternoon, it had diminished to a fine drizzle, and then to nothing at all, and was even replaced by watery sunlight. We'd had our centimetre, and then some...and Gian Carlo reappeared to continue with building, and I got on with (yet more) weeding.
Around five o'clock, heralded by increasingly threatening growls of thunder, it began again.

And it got heavier...
And the courtyard behind the house - into which the gutters drain from the roof of the church, and from the roof of this house and (because they don't clean their gutters properly) from the roof of the Teatro Lux next door - began to fill up. We've seen it before...whenever there's an intense downpour, the sudden volume of water is too much for the drains, and at a certain point the water gushes up out of the drain, rather than disappearing efficiently down it.And, because some ecclesiastical architect at some point, in an excess of enthusiasm for poured concrete, had decided to line the floor of the courtyard in the stuff, in these circumstances the courtyard acts as a waterproof tank, with no opportunity for water to drain away.
Fortunately, we'd already witnessed this happening before we installed the french windows from the Pranzo to the courtyard, and so had left about a foot of clearance beneath the windows, to avoid water simply pouring into the house the next time the courtyard unexpectedly turned itself into a swimming pool - and since the house is probably six or eight inches lower than the level of the courtyard, then pour in it most definitely would!

The thunder boomed overhead, the rain lashed down, and our confidence ebbed, as we watched the level of water in the yard inexorably rise. Three times, the storm moved away, and the water level diminished - although, the third time, before the rain lightened, the water had already been lapping at the sills to the doors, and we armed ourselves with mountains of rolled towels to try and stem the imminent influx. Long before that, I'd stopped taking pictures of it as an 'interesting event', and had started contemplating moving bits of furniture, and unplugging possibly vulnerable bits of electrical kit.

During dinner, the storm began again, and we could hardly hear ourselves speak for the din of the thunder. Once again, the water level rose, and - this time by the light of the candles from the dining table - we watched as it gushed ever closer to danger point. Again, it diminished, and drained away once more.

It was as I finished a glass of grappa that it started again in earnest. And, this time, it just went on and on....and on.....and on. We lined the outer sills with rolled towels, as the water got to that level, and we closed the french windows and put more towels on the inside sills. And more towels again. And still the water rose, until it was a couple of inches above the sills, and the towels got wetter and wetter as the water seeped under the doors from outside. Large damp patches appeared on the walls beneath the windows, and small pools began to gather on the Pranzo floor.

At which point, the rain eased off. And by twenty minutes later the water level was back down to safety level, and we decided to call it a day. There was nothing further we could do, anyway, even if it had continued to rain, since we'd used up all available towels by that point...it was a sauve qui peut moment, and so we did, and went to bed. Fortunately, to the accompaniment of rain-free silence.

And we awoke this morning to sunshine, and clear skies, and a wonderful freshness to the air.

According to the online news, though, there had been more than 4,000 thunderbolts over the course of six hours (whoever was counting them?) and at Marina da Pisa there was even a mini tornado. Which is possibly the most exciting thing that's ever happened at Marina da Pisa.

Over morning coffee, we discussed the advisability of sandbags (much to be said for them).

I think, perhaps, I might even allow myself a second day without bothering to water the garden. It seems wet enough as it is.

A hard day's work...

Time for the lavender to be dead-headed...a task I normally put off as long as I can. Watching the stalks lengthen and the flowers come into bloom marks the onset of summer, and when they're over it's difficult not to think of the season passing and the approach of September. Except that in fact autumn here can be the best part of the year - so, what's not to like? - and the newly-shorn lavender bushes suddenly make the garden look surprisingly tidy....the causeway lined with them, looking like two rows of those hedgehog-shaped shoe cleaners that decorate the back doors of English country houses. And now, from a bowl on the hall table, the scent of lavender wafts gently through the house, as the flower heads dry.

Harvesting continues apace. Having finished the apricots several weeks ago, we picked a boxful of newly-ripened plums to take with us to Belforte, where we weekended recently - and then returned to find the plum tree suspiciously empty of all other fruit. Either extremely thorough birds had been at work, or else the gardener from the seminary next door had nipped in and helped himself (as I'd previously found him doing with the smaller plum tree, which fruits a month earlier). NB. one of the tasks for August: install a new and lockable gate between us and the seminary grounds!
We aren't short of fruit, though, as the large pear tree has just surrendered serious quantities of small and succulent pears, and the apple trees in the old orchard are now just about ripe for picking. After that, we have the figs, quince and grapes to look forward to...not to mention the late-fruiting peach trees, which fruit through until the end of September, I think.

Gian Carlo is hard at work, building the walkway for the new entrance we're installing at the south-west corner of the garden, and the pergola which will link it to the end of the barn. Much to the relief of the climbing roses which were planted just before Christmas, and have been increasingly gasping to have something decent to climb up, and looking deeply frustrated by their pro-tem bamboo frames.

And the four-footeds are hard at work, too, generally getting in the way of either building or gardening work...or else concentrating deeply on ball control!

Tonight's dinner:

Sformatini of Fennel, with Gorgonzola sauce.

Pork, pot-roast in milk; Fava Beans.

Lemon Tart.