Crinum Vanillodorum

Not looking too bruised, having travelled to London
from the garden in Pisa

Tonight's dinner 

 Frogs' Legs in cream, in pastry cases 

 Hamburgers, with caramelised mushrooms 

 Raspberries and Cream

We make progress...

 After months of frustrating inactivity on the building front -  when I've had to satisfy myself with excavating the ruins alongside the building-proper, as a means of getting at least something done - we've suddenly had a flurry of activity. Mostly by dint of having discovered a wonderful website, which matches people looking for work with others who have work to be done, et voila!

Part of the ruined stable - to form the base for rose pergolas

The Hidden Room, cleaned-up and awaiting judicious introduction of walls
and floors, to become pantry and cantina

The second room excavated in the ruin - I've no idea what it was, but it's going to be
part of a courtyard garden

Anyway, as a result, we've now had all of the cross-beams (travicelli) replaced that were weak or broken or missing - there were sixty of them, in the end, where we'd calculated there might have been fifteen or so - and six new walls built within the house; all of the roof has been 'systemar-ied' (tidied up), which means replacing any and all of the broken tiles, and re-positioning any which have been moved out of place over time by the wind, and the underside of the roof has been insulated throughout.

The end of the house, as seen from the stable ruin

New wall to the left, which now divides the library to-be from a guestroom
(before the roof insulation was done)

looking from the stairwell, out through the inner hallway (newly-created)
into the ruined wing

insulated ceiling (bedroom, to-be)

The new windows have been ordered, for delivery some time in September. The wood for all of the new floorboards has been ordered, and we'll sort out delivery next week (for either before or after August shutdown) and the beams which will hold up the rear terrace were delivered a few days ago, and are now all neatly stacked currently in the salone. 

Luca, our godsend muratore from Gallicano is working today replacing the lintels above the top-floor guestroom window and above the library doorway, and he has just messaged to say that he can get started on Monday on repairing the more dangerous of the doorways in the ruined wing; it will be good to get started in that section. Once he's done that first doorway, he can move to repair the other doorway, which will eventually become the main entrance to the house, and he can re-point the existing stonework in readiness to be built upon further, once we have the relevant permesso. 

The only delays we've encountered have been where there's been any bureaucratic element, and we haven't just been pressing ahead on the basis of sound common-sense. It took the geometra months more than seemed necessary to file our application to rebuild the ruined wing of the building, although we were much cheered when it almost immediately got the thumbs up from the Comune (although only after they had insisted on our design for the new roof to be changed, in a way which we can live with but for which the logic is frankly non-existent); then it turned out that this was only the approval from the planning dept, and we haven't yet had the response of the listed buildings brigade, who have now demanded a geological survey that the building won't slide sideways into the nearby stream, in consequence of the weight of a new roof being installed (despite the fact that it was roofed for hundreds of years previously, until the roof was taken off for tax reasons by a previous owner, and the roof we propose to put there weighs little more than an egg-box). 

In the same kind of vein, we still have no electricity supply, even after the request for connection was made way back in April. The first request was inexplicably cancelled when we said we wanted the meter to be placed somewhere other than the electricity company had in mind. A second request was then made, but that too was cancelled (by the supplier) for no reason anybody can understand, and we're now on our third request, and still trying to find out what the hell is going on. 

The request to be attached to the main drains was acted upon by the water company much more expeditiously, although to the effect that today they have said that, contrary to what they'd previously said, there isn't actually a main drain anywhere nearby that we can be attached to...and so we may be looking at having a septic tank instead (which brings all sorts of issues all its own). We're on a flying visit to London today, and the drainage system in Pieve is going to have to wait for any serious attention until we're back in Italy again next week.

A moment of madness

In a moment of madness - or economy - I bought from a lady in Rome an entire bathroom, including ball-and-claw footed bathtub and heated copper rails, and the whole nine yards, and it arrived in the back of a truck, last week, neatly wrapped up in all its constituent parts. Ditto, a rather splendid wood-stove with integrated oven, which is due to be delivered sometime before the end of next week.

Home and hearth

And, meanwhile, on the hillside on the other side of the village, I've been getting stuck into clearing terraces, and contemplating the options for new planting when it comes time this autumn to start to transfer plants from the garden in Pisa. In the past ten days or so, it's been far too hot to do any hard-labour at the time of day I can get over to Pieve, so I content myself instead with picking fruit from the various fruit trees which are dotted about on the terraces among the olive trees (plums, apples, pears, peaches, cacchi, and a million blackberry bushes). 

Plum trees (six different varieties, at last count)

Olive terrace

more olive terraces (there are about forty of them, I fear...)

And, while we remind ourselves in London what a sweater is, Madam is in San Giuliano Terme, being resplendent.

Tonight's dinner:

Coddled Eggs, with mushroom & prosciutto

Spaghetti, with smothered onions

Strawberries and Cream (July, in England. No-brainer)

Mascarpone Pie

I've never rated Nigel Slater. He writes good food - that's how come I've been seduced on occasion into buying his books - but so often the words on the page don't translate to anything exciting on the plate. I suspect that sometimes it's because in his enthusiasm for a 'fast' result, he omits important steps because they would take too much time (cooking the plums before mixing them with blackberries and brandy, for instance, so that the end-result is melt-in-the-mouth...instead of which, in his uncooked-plum version, everything remains chewy and individual, and nothing blends together at all), and sometimes, it's just because he gets it wrong - no, Nigel, when Mascarpone is grilled, it doesn't 'melt' unctuously, it merely consolidates into a claggy lump. Nice idea, but in practice it just doesn't work. 

However. I fell across a version of this recipe several months ago in his '30 Minute Cook' and because it suited an immediate need, I tried it. And, it is splendid! I've served it at supper on a number of occasions now, and always to critical acclaim - the combination of chocolate and orange, alone, is particularly beguiling. I've added sugar (or sucralose) to his version, and only used sultanas, instead of a combination of sultanas and raisins ( we can't get the latter here, for some reason; same with currants. Non ci sono.) The recipe itself is a first cousin to Budino alla Toscana, in its combination of cheese and ground almonds and dried fruit, but since it is encased in Phyllo, there's no need for the egg which Budino uses, and there are some other differences too in the flavouring elements which are included. In this house, we've taken to calling this Bougaza, in memory of the sweet-cheese phyllo slabs (there was no other word for them) which we used to get in the seventies from the baker behind the Old House, in Greece. There are elements in this dish which seem as old as time... 

 For two individual pies: 

 Ingredients: 

1 sheet phyllo, approx 12" x 18"; 1 tbs melted butter; 110g mascarpone; 25g ground almonds; 1 tbs sugar; 40g sultanas; 15g chocolate (calletes, or else roughly chopped); grated zest of one orange. 

 Method: 

 1. Heat oven to 200 degees C. 

2. Brush the phyllo with melted butter, and cut the sheet into four. Use two of the pieces to line each of two 10 cm flan tins (I ease the pastry sheets into the greased tins at right angles to each other, and then, once the filling is in place, fold the overhanging pastry over the filling to enclose it fully). 

3. Combine all remaining ingredients thoroughlyl, and divide the mixture between the two pastry shells. Close the pastry shells, brush the top with any remaining butter, and bake for about twenty minutes or so, until golden brown. 

 Allow the pies to cool slightly before serving.

Finally...

 After nearly six weeks, I've finished clearing out the ruin! To the extent that I'm going to, at any rate. It's now at the stage where the geometra can take his photographs and finalise his re-structure plan, for filing with the Comune - after which, we just wait (and wait, and wait, and wait, as I understand it. Six months seems to be the norm to get any kind of approval). Having excavated down to the original floors, and carted away fallen beams, and boulders, and broken ceiling and roof tiles, and countless loads of soil, I then cut away as much of the creeper as I dared, without risking the walls coming down around my ears (and even that was a close-run thing, as at one point a boulder twice the size of my head crashed down without warning onto the scaffolding I was standing on, about six inches to my left, and very nearly finished me and the scaffolding tower off, in one go! It gave pause for thought.)

Tomorrow, I'll do some basic housekeeping, in terms of clearing away the spoil-heaps which have sprung up in the course of the clearing project, and then I'll have an investigatory poke at the other ruin, which is a little further to the east, and in much more ruinous state; if we can uncover some decent floors, then we have in mind re-cycling them for use as the base for pond(s) and greenhouse, and the like. 

So far, so good. 

Tonight's dinner:

Sformatino of fennel, with gorgonzola sauce.

Baked Sea Bass, with colatura di alici; braised cucumber.

Fried crepes, stuffed with apples, served with orange-marsala mascarpone.

Chicken with Lemon and Walnuts

 

The latest addition to the chicken repertoire. There are some surprising elements here - not least, the additions of ginger and black treacle, neither of which is obvious in the finished dish, but where both give greater depth to the overall flavour, and the use of beef rather than chicken stock is not entirely expected either. The end result, however, is delicious. 

As with all stews, this is even better if left to sit for a day or two, and then reheated to serve.

Ingredients:

1 chicken, cut into quarters; salt and pepper; 40g butter; 2 tbs chopped onion; 1 tsp ground ginger; 1 tbs flour; 450 ml beef stock; 1 tbs black treacle; juice and grated rind of 1 lemon; 50g (approx 8) walnuts.

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Heat butter in a large frying pan, season the chicken pieces and then brown them all over in the hot butter, for about five minutes. Remove the chicken pieces to a casserole.

3. Use the butter to soften the onion, again about five minutes, then stir in the flour and ginger, add the stock and bring it to the boil.

4. Add treacle, and lemon juice and rind, and walnut pieces; stir to mix together thoroughly.

5. Pour the contents of the pan over the chicken pieces, then cover and cook in the pre-heated oven for an hour.

Serve.

Progress

 

The hearth, now fully uncovered,
and the 'fornello' which has been released from the roots of the tree
which was
growing on top of it

 

The doorway into 'the hidden room' , now almost fully re-opened

 

The east wall of the ruin; creeper now more under control.

Tonight's dinner:

French Onion Soup

Chicken Breasts in mushroom sauce; salsify

Fresh Pineapple, with Mascarpone

Leftovers

 For starters, on 1 January:

Andibo No Abokado, Kani, Ikura Nose

Toriniku Kenchin-Mushi

&

Soroname No Ama Tofu

Followed by leftover Oden stew, and rice. The four-footed couldn't have been happier!

Tonight's dinner:

(Back to normal)

Ham & Mushroom crepes

Fennel-seed Hamburgers; buttered spinach

Budino Toscano