Easyjet Nightmare continues..

There was a glimmer of hope...not through any efforts on the part of easyjet, of course (four hours hanging on the phone on Sunday, in the vain hope that they might actually answer their laughingly termed 'Customer Service' helpline - they didn't - and still no option online either to transfer or to get a refund from our cancelled booking last Saturday). No seats from London to get home to Pisa on any airline this side of Christmas, and so we decided to try through Amsterdam, and shelled out for tickets for the 8.15 flight today (on easyjet.....through gritted teeth, since nothing else was available) in order to connect with the early afternoon Transavia flight.

Up at 5.15 this morning, to head out to Victoria...and by 5.17 a check online confirmed that indeed easyjet had cancelled the 8.15 to Amsterdam 'due to bad weather' - which is strange, since you'd think the same bad weather would also have caused them to cancel the earlier 6.15 flight to the same destination. Which they hadn't. A trawl through other options revealed there were two seats left on the BA to Amsterdam at 9.00 this morning, and so we went for them. Except that by the time the online booking got through to processing the payment, it flashed up a message that they'd been sold even as I was workiing the keyboard.

And now? We can transfer our Transavia ticket (at no charge - easyjet, please note) to their dawn flight on Thursday...and have flights booked on various airlines both on Wednesday evening and on Thursday morning.

The four-footeds are in Pisa; we're stuck here...and Christmas increasingly recedes into the distance...

The Easyjet Nightmare!

Ok, so there was snow - which didn't help. But then, there was downright incompetence. Ignorance, as well...but mostly just plain old-fashioned incompetence. Bucketloads of it....and most of it on the part of easyjet staff.

We were loaded onto a plane on Friday morning, bound for Pisa. Slightly frustrating to be told almost immediately that we wouldn't be able to take off for nearly two hours, as Pisa airport was closed due to a snowfall. Annoying, but there you go - these things happen. So, we sat, and patiently waited. Time passed. Nothing happened. More time passed; the two hour delay was long finished. The Brancolis were with us, and they thought to check on their ipad what the Pisa airport website had to say...which was that the airport was still closed. Then, the Technical Department thought to call Davide who works as an electrician in the control tower at Pisa airport, and he confirmed that the place was closed and wasn't likely to open again that day.

Some passengers demanded to be let off the plane, and the cabin crew grudgingly said that they could, although they wouldn't be let back on, and would lose any chance of a refund on their fares. About a dozen still insisted on doing it. And then, they couldn't get off anyway, as it turned out there was nobody available to man the exit door from the outside... and so we all sat there, effectively imprisoned.
The cabin crew handed out cups of water and packets of crisps - grumbling that they'd be losing their commission on all of it - and still we sat there.

Eventually, they found somebody to open the door, and those people left who were buying their liberty at the cost of their plane ticket. Around 3.30, the crew were out of time, and were replaced by another crew. The replacement pilot blithely announced that we were eleventh in the queue for de-icing, but that we should be airborne shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, Pisa airport announced that it would be closed until at least eleven in the evening. We pointed this fact out to the blonde (in every sense) stewardess who came past; she said she'd pass it on the captain, but almost immediately we heard her saying to somebody else that we could expect to be arriving in Pisa at around 6.30. They obviously don't hire them on the basis of their IQ.

An american in front of us spoke to his italian wife inLucca, who had also spoken directly to Pisa airport. Yup, it was definitely closed. Confirmed by somebody else who had a friend waiting for her at Pisa, and who had sent an SMS, to say that it was be closed until late in the evening. The TD went to have a word with the pilot, who seemed surprised to hear that Pisa airport was closed. Nobody had said anything to him about it; he'd check.
As more announcements regularly followed to give us updates on our imminent departure, unrest was growing in our part of the plane, where it was generally known that there was no way the plane was going to be taking off at all. Given that it had nowhere to go to. After another hour, and having checked once more with Davide, TD went to see what was going on. "Oh", the pilot said "I put in a call to head office about an hour ago to check whether or not Pisa was open, and they haven't got back to me yet." So, it isn't just the cabin crew who aren't hired on the basis of their brain power.

Eventually....finally....almost seven and a half hours after we'd boarded, there was an announcement that - shock! horror! What a surprise!- Pisa airport was, in fact closed, and so the flight wouldn't be leaving after all. We gathered ourselves together, and got off the plane. But the nightmare, even for that day, wasn't yet over. Instead of taking us to the baggage hall, some idiot took everybody back into the main departures lounge, and then abandoned the passengers there for over half an hour, while they presumably tried to sort themselves out. We were eventually then taken where we should have gone in the first place - which involved walking most of the way back to the gate we'd just left - and then waited for the best part of an hour, while they tried to find out what had happened to the luggage. In all, it took almost two hours after we'd got off the plane before we were finally free of the place.

The Brancolis decided to make other plans, and not bother to try and travel on a replacement easyjet flight. They'd just had enough of the whole thing, and if they couldn't sort out a flight on BA, then they probably wouldn't bother to go at all. With the four-footeds to collect, however, we didn't have that luxury - but at least while all the other passengers were put up for the night at some Gatwick hotel, we could go back to a decent fireside and dinner in London, which is what we did.

As soon as we got in, I looked online, and found that we'd automatically been re-booked on a Saturday flight at 11.00....and with some misgivings, we decided to go for it. Gluttons for punishment, we headed for Gatwick, and for another day of misery. The snow came down, and Gatwick was closed, which involved another six hour wait in the departure lounge...but as soon as the runway looked set to open, easyjet called us all forward....and then THEY DID IT AGAIN!
Unbelievably, THEY DID IT AGAIN!

We'd called Davide directly, around two in the afternoon, and he said that Pisa airport was closed still, until at least six in the evening. I checked on the airport website, which said that it wouldn't be open until at least seven...but still, easyjet were boarding the plane. The same plane as the day before, at the same gate. Talk about groundhog day! At the gate, I asked why they were boarding the plane, since Pisa wasn't open...."Oh?" They said. "Nobody's said anything to us" I got slightly irritated, and for my pains, was held until last, so that somebody could come and see if I was the same person from our group of passengers who had apparently thumped one of their staff the evening before. I hadn't been, in fact...but I do wish I'd seen it!
As I stood there, reading the paper, and waiting to be 'identified' I listened to a well-padded girl (not built for speed) called Hannah, who was checking people in, give them a whole string of not-quite-lies just to get them to move along and get on the plane, and out of her hair: "Yes, you'll be taking off almost immediately", "Oh, definitely... in less than an hour"; "You'll be there, oh, by 7.30, for sure". And eventually, having pointed out to them that since I had three witnesses to the fact that they couldn't pin an assault-and-battery charge on me, I was allowed to board...I was given the option of not boarding, of course, but as with the previous day, it would have meant forfeiting my not insubstantial fare. Easyjet do love their bottom line!

Oh, Lord! I feel weary just at the memory. Same plane, slightly fewer people (since some had fallen by the wayside). Announcements about imminent departure. Then, the fact that actually Pisa airport, it appeared was closed, but that it would be open again in time for our arrival. Then, that the departure time was being put back.....a little. In fact, relatively speaking, the pain was not great, since this time we sat on the plane for less than two hours before they acknowledged that Pisa wasn't going to be opening again any time soon, and that the flight had been cancelled.

The passengers were brilliant. Well-behaved, restrained, due medals all-round. So, it was a surprise and deeply inappropriate that the ground handling staff met the offloaded passengers behind a security cordon of uniformed police. The staff then said that nobody would be able to leave the gate area until all duty-free that any passengers might have bought had been handed in. Despite the fact that there isn't any duty free between the UK and Italy; hasn't been for years. "Oh, yes there is", they assured us confidently when this fact was pointed out. Where, in God's name, do they find these people?

Back to the baggage hall (en route, I had the pleasure of passing well-padded Hannah, who looked green as I commented to her that it was a 'shame she'd screwed it up again...'). It was only at the point when the luggage appeared to have been lost, that some of the italians started to lose it. Not in a major way, but perhaps more emotionally than the anglo-saxons would have done. And that was when the uniformed police decided to wade in, perhaps rather unwisely. As they tried to lead two italian women away, the cries of 'No', and 'Shame!' and booing from the rest of the passengers turned into shouts and became more insistent; and the whole thing looked to become really quite nasty, when it was announced that the luggage was arriving on a carousel at the other end of the baggage hall, and everybody immediately rushed over there, and the italian women were allowed to go with them.

We retrieved our luggage, and it was only as we were on the train back to Victoria that it occurred to me that no announcement had been made about hotel accommodation and about further flight arrangements. For the simple reason that there were none. Unlike the previous evening, no re-booking had been made, and the passengers had simply been abandoned to their fate. Many of them with babies and young children; nowhere to stay; no alternative flight arrangements made; and no available seats on any airline to Pisa this side of Christmas. (And, btw, easyjet are required by EU law to provide accommodation for people who are stranded like this, who are their responsibility; they seem to have decided to ignore this detail)

First thing this morning, I found that I'd received an e-mail at 2.00, saying that I could either re-book my flight or have a refund by choosing the appropriate option on their website. Of course, when I went to try to do one or the other, neither option actually exists. The TD has just been on hold for over two hours (at 10p a minute) to try to speak to somebody at easyjet, before he gave up; that wasn't a long answering-queue, it was just somebody at easyjet having decided not to bother.

Yes, there was snow. But that was only a small part of the problem. The misery we and all of our fellow passengers endured in the past two days was almost entirely due to mismanagement by easyjet. Had they had proper communication of information about conditions at Pisa, then we wouldn't have been trapped for eight hours on the plane on Friday, and nor would we have wasted the whole day at Gatwick yesterday, since they would have known to cancel the flight much earlier in the day. How unimpressive is it that on both occasions the passengers in the back of the plane were much better informed than the people in uniform at the front?

That isn't the way to run a whelk stall, let alone an airline!

Recipe: Broccoli, Roman style

Perfect with any simple grilled or roast meat, this dish has the sort of complex structure of flavours which makes it a first cousin to ratatouille...but with a list of ingredients which takes it straight back to the pages of Apicius, if not before.
Eminently suitable for entertaining, as all of the work can be done hours in advance, and the wonderful smell of cooking that greets your guests on arrival will have them salivating even before they hand over their coats! And, just as with ratatouille, any leftovers are excellent re-heated the next day, and served with a lightly-poached egg as an informal starter.

For four.

Ingredients: the stalks from two large heads of Broccoli - you need about 350g of stalk (reserve the florets for another day, to steam, or to use for purée, for example); 2 medium Onions; 60g stoned Black Olives; 4 large Anchovy fillets; 50g Parmesan; Salt; Olive Oil; 10 fl oz dry Red Wine.

Method:

1. Peel and thinly slice the Onions; peel the broccoli stalks, and slice wafer-thin.

2. Lightly oil the base of a heavy iron casserole, or a sauté pan with a lid. Distribute half of the sliced Onion over the base of the casserole, and cover with a layer of sliced Broccoli stalks, again using half of the total amount.

3. Thinly slice the Olives and Parmesan, and chop the Anchovies into small pieces. Over the layer of Broccoli stalks scatter half of the Olives, Parmesan and Anchovies; salt lightly (not too much, as the cheese and fish are already salty) and a light dressing of Oil (about half a tbsp).

4. Repeat with another layer of Onion, then Broccoli, and finally the remaining amount of Olives, cheese and Anchovies. Lightly salt, and moisten with a little more Oil.

Set aside until about an hour before you want people to come to table.

5. Pour the Wine over the assembled dish, and heat over a low heat for an hour, with the lid firmly in place. Check and adjust seasoning just before you serve.

I find it works well if I remove the pan from the heat just as the first course is served, and it can then rest, with the lid on, for the duration of the first course, ready to be served along with the main course.

To Sarteano, and beyond...

With only pause to take breath and change baggage in Pisa, on Saturday, we were off the plane from London and on the road to Belforte practically seamlessly. Sunday was a zero birthday for She-who-must-be-obeyed in Belforte, and a commemorative trip had been especially organised for a private viewing of a painted etruscan tomb at Sarteano, which was rediscovered only about five years ago. The weather, of course, was filthy, and on Saturday evening the cross-country route to Belforte took much longer than usual, as rain lashed down and the windscreen wipers struggled at times to keep pace. Although, I suppose the fury of the weather outside only increased the home-and-hearth sense of wellbeing, as we dined beside the blazing kitchen fire, on beautifully tender roast lamb, washed down with some hearty burgundy that wasn't quite also celebrating a zero birthday, but was still doing pretty well!

More rain on Sunday, as we made the journey across from Siena to join the Autostrada del sole (hollow laughter) and then down to Chiusi, from where it's just a short climb up to Sarteano. The hill towns in that area were shrouded in low cloud, and the rain had diminished to a steady constant drizzle by the time we'd finally arrived: dreech, I think the Scots call it.

To re-charge batteries before the cultural event of the afternoon, we lunched at the Trattoria di Merlo in Cetona, a pretty little town, but one which I can imagine in summer is absolutely heaving with tourists, and only to be recommended out of season. In the screen version, lunch would of course have been memorably wonderful - but in fact, it was rather disappointing. There was more enthusiasm than skill in the kitchen, and the menu largely comprised dishes that aimed at edgy creativity, but where in fact two plus two ended up being merely a rather unexciting four. Oh, well...

And the tomb. We were met in the middle of a damp and misty olive grove by one of the local archaeologists, who led us down a muddy path, and past the openings to numerous other tombs, en route to what is the only frescoed tomb in that particular necropolis. Through a locked door, and down a dripping sandstone tunnel, we were met by an astonishing sight: walls bright with the mineral colours of paint, exactly as they would have looked when they were painted nearly twenty-five hundred years ago. A large hipocamp, and an enormous three-headed serpent; diners at a banquet (presumably, the occupants of the alabaster sarcophagus in the main tomb chamber); and a dramatic image of Charon charging off to the underworld, in a chariot pulled by gryphons and lions, surrounded darkly by an enveloping black nimbus. Stunning! Completely wonderful!
Although visitors are normally whisked in and out for only a couple of minutes at a time, in order for their breath not to damage the fragile paintwork, we ended up staying for the best part of an hour - probably because of SWMBO's archaeological credentials - and drank in every last detail. And we emerged eventually to the same damp olive trees that must have been familiar to the builders of the tomb, all that time ago, leaves dripping heavily onto the grass beneath, and the leaden mist obscuring the lower slopes of the grove, further down the hill.

After an hour spent in the otherwise deserted museum, back up in Sarteano itself, we set off for Sorano, some distance to the south-west, where dinner and a hotel had been organised - although, in fact, we almost didn't make it. The heavens opened once more, and at Castel Giorgio we were turned back by flood waters, and sent off by the local carabinieri into the great unknown...more precisely, in the direction of San Lorenzo Nuovo, where the floods didn't have any carabinieri attached to them, and we suddenly found ourselves, in the middle of dark countryside, ploughing through water about a foot deep, and several hundred yards long. Much more of it, and we'd be there still!

As it was, we eventually - somehow - made it to Sorano, and trudged through narrow, steeply-sloping cobbled streets to the hotel (designed for high summer, we were the only guests, and the off-season chill was less than optimal) and thence to the Trattoria Aldobrandeschi for a very good dinner. Blazing fire, an excellent prosecco, a profusion of white truffles (with tagliatelle), meltingly-delicious guanciale, and a grappa from Friuli that was one of the best I've ever tasted.
We were the only diners, and in fact the town itself was pretty much shut up for the winter - the houses, these days, are largely second homes for Romans (Rome is only ninety minutes to the south), as well as lots of Dutch, and Swiss, and Danish (according to mine host). On the one hand, it saves the place from falling to pieces, but at the same time, renders it rather lifeless - I suppose there isn't a perfect answer.

Rain throughout the night, and then we woke to cloudless skies, and brilliant sunshine. Perfect to wander through the town, emerging occasionally from the labyrinthine streets to glorious views across the ravine beneath the town, looking across to the wooded slopes beyond, all rich in autumn colours. Warm enough for a last cappuccino, consumed as we sat outside the cafe in the main square...and then it was time to hit the road...

Tonight's dinner:

Fettucine, with Mussels & Funghi Porcini.

Spezzatino di Manzo.

Coffee Meringue Nests with Ice Cream and fresh Raspberries (the garden is still producing, quite generously)

Recipe: Risotto with Red Mullet

When deconstructed, this is simply a risotto made with fish broth - but the broth that goes into the dish is so good that the end result is quite spectacular! Light, unctuous, and absolutely delicious. This particular recipe is normally associated with Livorno where the red mullet ( or 'triglia' as they're called round here) is dirt cheap, and mullet recipes are generally given the handle 'alla livornese'. I have seen it said that the mullet in this recipe could be substituted by any firm-fleshed white fish - I'm not so sure about that; triglie have a flavour which is particularly full, and give to the stock a richness which I suspect might be missing if cod, say, or bream were to be used instead.

Quick and straightforward, the entire dish takes about forty minutes in total (much of which is elapsed time, when other work can also be done): twenty minutes of which is to make the stock, and another twenty or so to produce the risotto.

For four.

Ingredients: 4 tbs Olive Oil; 1 Carrot, diced; 1 stick of Celery, diced; two or three Red Mullet Fillets, cut into 2 cm pieces; 1 Bay Leaf; 200g chopped tinned Tomato; 5 cups Water; 2 cloves Garlic, finely minced; 1 1/3 cups Carnaroli Rice; 1 wineglass of White Wine; Seasoning; Chopped Parsley (for garnish).

Method:

1. Heat 2 tbs of Oil in a saucepan, and gently sauté the Carrot and Celery, along with the fish pieces, for ten minutes. Stir occasionally, and keep the heat at medium.

2. Add the Bay leaf, Tomato, and Water. Bring to the boil, and then reduce to simmer, for a further ten minutes. Allow to cool slightly, then sieve into a clean pan, pressing the pieces against the sieve to extract as much of the flavour as possible. Put the sieved broth onto medium heat, to simmer.

3. In a large sauté pan, heat the remaining Oil, and gently colour the minced Garlic. Add Rice and stir to coat in the Oil and Garlic for a minute. Add the wine, maintain the heat such that the liquid barely simmers, and keep stirring until all the Wine has been absorbed by the Rice. Start adding broth, one ladle at a time - only add a new ladleful of broth once the previous one has been absorbed.

4. Keep adding broth either until it has all been used up or until the Rice is properly cooked. Depending on the quality of the Rice, this should take twenty minutes or so. If the broth is finished before the risotto is ready, add water instead, until the Rice is cooked.

5. Add seasoning, to taste (none has gone into the broth, so it will definitely be needed at this stage) ans serve, garnished with chopped fresh Parsley.

The rain, it rains...

On and on. Fairly typically for November in Tuscany, it has to be said, and the garden looks very happy for it. Lush and green and soaking. Fortunately not so sodden that I couldn't plant several hundred bulbs in the few rain-free interludes we've had in the past couple of weeks (a couple of hundred narcissus to line the grass walk under the pine trees, to the north of which I've planted two hundred mixed alliums, around the hydrangeas; and hundreds of dwarf irises under the silver birch and on either side of the causeway that leads to the romitorio.) I even managed to cut the grass (all of it - having realised from the forecast that it would be my last opportunity for weeks) on Wednesday, and it looks agreeably soft and well-behaved as a result.

And so, we're largely housebound, either watching the rain through the windows, or else listening to it thundering overhead in the watches of the night. The four-footeds have got over their frustration at the doors to the garden no longer being left open all the time, and in fact are developing a fondness for soft furnishing, which requires constant vigilance to prevent the senior four-footed from curling up on one or other of the new sofas (which he's prone to do at the first opportunity).

It's our first winter actually living in this house - last year, it was a building site right through until April - and it turns out to be agreeably warm and cosy. The Technical Dept is pondering a construction of glass screens to enclose part of the sitting-room terrace; you'd think it would be for our convenience, as a winter sun room...but, in fact, it's because he thinks the four-footeds would appreciate an indoor vantage point from which to monitor the entrance pergola (this is the man, after all, who considered raising the china cabinets on blocks, years ago, when the previous senior four-footed was a puppy, and was dismayed when he grew too much to be able to tunnel excitedly beneath the cabinets, which had been his favourite game when he was very small!).

I'm in the middle of Miles Unger's hagiographic biography of Lorenzo the Magnificent, in between bouts of painting skirting boards (where the brazilians managed to smear them with floor grout), and the Technical Dept is doing...I don't know, really....technical things.

It's all go!

Tonight's Dinner:

Crespelle, filled with ricotta and bietole, in a parmesan bechamel sauce

Pork loin, pot-roast in milk; roast celeriac. (The four-footeds are having sausages, as a special treat in honour of the senior four-footed's eleventh birthday)

Apple sorbet.

Recipe: Apricot & Cinnamon Cake

Adapted from a recipe of Linda Collister (I found her version a little dry, frankly, so I played around with the proportions of the ingredients until I had something I liked), this is an excellent - and quick - light fruit cake. So light, that it risks being consumed all at one sitting!

This cake definitely benefits from being left for several days or so after baking, to allow the richness of the fruit and the cake itself to blend together thoroughly.

To make an 8" diameter cake:

Ingredients: 130g Butter; 130g sugar (muscovado, if you can get it, which I can't in Italy, and so I just use demarara instead); 170g self-raising Flour (again, if you can get it; if you can't then use plain flour, and for each cup of flour, add one and a half teaspoons of baking powder, and half a teaspoon of salt); 1 tsp ground Cinnamon; 30g ground Almonds; 3 medium eggs; 220g ready-to-eat dried Apricots, chopped finely; a handful of slivered Almonds.

Method:

1. Use a hand-held beater to cream the Butter, then add to it the Sugar and keep beating, until light and fluffy.

2. In a separate bowl, combine the Flour with the Cinnamon and the ground Almonds.

3. Add the Eggs one at a time to the creamed Butter & Sugar, beating to incorporate after each Egg has been added, and including a spoonful of the Flour mixture along with the last Egg.

4. Fold in the rest of the Flour mixture, along with the diced Apricots.

5. Put the mixture into a prepared cake mould (greased, if using a cake tin, or the base lined with greaseproof paper, if using a silicone mould) and sprinkle the surface with the slivered Almonds.

6. Bake for an hour at 170 degrees C. Check for doneness by inserting a knife into the centre of the cake and seeing that it emerges completely clean - if not, then bake for a fewer minutes lnger and test again.

7. Allow to rest for five minutes, before you turn it out to cool completely. Keep in an airtight container box for three days before serving.