Cinque Terre

The olive harvest is going well. On Thursday we took three day's worth of olive harvest to the oil mill, where they weighed it and squeezed out the extra virgin goodness. We had 501 kilos of olives, which turned into 79 kilos of oil. This may seem like a small amount, but it represents a rather high extraction rate for the first of the harvest. Our hosts were expecting to collect under 60 kilos of oil at the first pressing.

The oil is a wonderful bright green color and has a very peppery flavor. I've been told that new oil is considered "hot" and after a month or two of aging the color turns more golden and the flavor mellows out. I find the flavor delightful as it is, especially on bruschetta.

In other news, Josh and I are going to spend the next two days in Cinque Terre, hiking the mountains along the coast. It is Josh's birthday on Monday, so this trip is my present to him. Also, I was lucky enough to find a couple of bottles of Irish Stout (dark beer is extremely rare here) at the local supermarket. Perhaps it won't be the highest quality of stouts, but I think it will make him happy.

Riparbella

We made it to our new farm and are doing well. We only traveled about 25 miles to a small town called Riparbella, which is near Cecina. From the front porch of our apartment, I can see the ocean and what I've been told is the island of Corsica. There are about 500 olive trees on this farm, and I have no idea how long it will take us to harvest them all. Our hosts said that the crop was so large last year that they were picking until Christmas. The trees have a cyclical production, however, and there are far fewer olives this year. This is our last farm in Italy and we will be here until the first of December. The internet connection here is limited, so updates may be more sparse in the coming weeks.

Ciao for now.

Che mangiamo

Hoot ha hum ho. We wound up picking this afternoon, when it was only sort of kind of maybe raining on us. The sky couldn't seem to make up its mind, but it was definitely damp. Ilaria says we picked close to 90 kilos, which sounds impressive, I think. Tomorrow we (the wwoofers) have set ourselves the challenge of picking 200 kilos, so wish us luck.

Tonight, for dinner, we ate spezzatino. The recipes I found on the internet are all much more complicated than what Marina cooked for us. It's so simple, I think you all need to make this asap!

Spezzatino

2 lbs of stew beef, cubed

1 bottle of good Tuscan wine (Chianti is probably what you will find most readily)

A little or a lot of garlic, depending on your taste

2 tablespoons of whole peppercorns (yes whole, don't even think about cracking them)

Salt to season

In a large pot over medium high heat, brown the beef in batches. When the beef is all done, set it aside and saute the garlic for a minute. Add the beef back to the pot, toss in the peppercorns, empty in the bottle of wine and let the whole thing cook low and slow for 2 - 3 hours. When the beef has turned into little globules of fork-tender-goodness, you are ready to eat.

If you want to be super Italian about this dinner of yours, you need a first course consisting of some kind of pasta dish. Spezzatino is your second course, and secondi are generally served with potatoes (ours were boiled and mixed with chopped parsley). Then, you can have the vegetables, or in our case, a salad. Finally, a dolce, either some fruit or an actual dessert (Marina made us chocolate salami). If you don't have the luxury of just passing out at this point, a shot or three of espresso is called for. Enjoy!

P.S. Chocolate Salami

Crush some plain vanilla cookies, add some sugar, cocoa powder and cream and mash this all together until it is smooth. Mix in some pine nuts and shape into a log. Refrigerate for a few hours and then serve to your unsuspecting guests. (I make no guarantees that your lack of specific ingredient quantities will produce the same results as Marina's supposed lack of specific ingredient quantities.)

Rain

It's raining today. It's been raining since Wednesday and when it rains, we can't harvest olives. Yesterday afternoon, the clouds parted and it was gloriously sunny. Last night, we had a perfect view of the stars. This morning: gloom again. We set out for the orchard, still with hope in our hearts. We picked through six trees before the rain started up. We packed up and now we are stuck in the house, waiting for a break. Forecast calls for clouds and rain until Tuesday and Josh and I have plans to leave for the next farm on Monday. It will be a complete bummer if we don't finish the harvest here. Blah blah blah. Rain rain rain.

Part 2

On 18 October, we decided to not bother with trying to find a safe space to stash our luggage and just went to the farm in the morning instead of late afternoon like we'd planned. Also, I think the city was wearing us out and we needed to escape. The train ride from Firenze to Pontedera was easy, but the bus ride from Pontedera to Chianni was difficult. We had to contend with the Italian word for “switch” (coincidenza), which we hadn't encountered before. Traveling to a small village on a Sunday (when public transportation all but shuts down) is a pain. We made it, bumbling through the transfers with our usual American panache, which is to say, lots of hand gestures and mis-communication with conductors.

Monday was spent working the olive trees. Our host didn't want to start harvesting because there were weather forecasts of rain later in the week, so we spent the day doing maintenance. I was working with the small trees, replacing the worn or missing ties that were holding the trees straight against wooden poles. I think olive trees would rather be tangled olive bushes, so the plants have to be trained against poles. Josh was once again pitted against his old enemy, the evil thorn bush. Which is to say, he was cutting down weeds.

Tuesday morning we seeded 330 lbs of beans over the field. Ilaria, our host, wants to get more nitrogen into the soil. I have no idea how well this particular tactic will work, but it made me think of my high school American history class and George Washington Carver. We had the afternoon off and our hosts convinced us to visit Volterra. Knowing nothing about this town, we set off. The mountain top upon which Volterra is situated has apparently been continuously inhabited for the last 3000 years. We picked up a map from the tourist office, which contained a brief history of the city. My favorite line is, “One of Volterra's last historical events, the revolt against the Florentine Republic, took place in 1530.” The town certainly looks like a place where nothing has changed in the last 500 years: narrow, cobblestone streets between rows of medieval, stone buildings. It has apparently been a center for alabaster production during this whole time. Every other store front was a place selling alabaster carvings, from chintzy mass produced tourist crap to artists' workshops with sculptures selling for thousands of euros. There were also a couple of cool sounding museums, but we were constrained by the bus schedule and didn't have time to check any of them out.

On Wednesday the bad weather arrived and our hosts said we had the day free. A new wwoofer joined us Tuesday evening and the three of us traveled up to Lucca, a medieval walled town about 20 km northwest of Pisa. Once again we were constrained by an awkward public transportation schedule that meant we spent about as much time traveling to and from Lucca as we spent actually inside the town. It looked like a really cool town with some really cool museums, but we didn't have the time to devote to them. I would love to get back to Lucca, armed with an itinerary and a map, to see what the city has on offer. The walls were especially neat, well preserved and with a tree-lined walking path on top that circles the old city. Our next farm is close by, so I think we will have the opportunity to try again.

On a final note, we found a wonderful bookstore in Lucca with a decently sized English language section. The largest and cheapest book for sale was Joyce's Ulysses. Even small trade paperbacks start at the equivalent of $16 and go up from there. Large paperbacks sell for $30 or $40 each, which is ridiculous. For those prices, it's a wonder that anyone in this country reads at all. Ulysses is a large book, but it was selling for around $17, so I bought it. Why not? Owing to its dense and complicated nature, it will probably last me until the end of this trip. Seems like a $17 well spent.

More pictures!

The wall around Lucca.

A cool lion with a big mouth.
Lucca's buildings all look like they are bearing silent witness to centuries of changing architectural whims. This one is particularly egregious.
Ruins of an amphitheater from Volterra. It was hard to get a good picture of the whole thing, but this is my best try.
A peek into an alabaster workshop.

Now on to writing all the postcards I've promised people...

Fun times and long updates Part 1

Thanks to a poor internet connection at the hostel, we've rather fallen behind on our blog updates. Let's see...what have we been up to?

On 17 October, we visited the Archeological Museum first thing in the morning. It was smaller and less well organized than the Egyptian museum in Torino. Only about 20% of the exhibits on the first floor were translated into English, but there they were mostly keeping small artifacts dug up from various ancient people's tombs. The second floor was devoted almost entirely to Etruscan pottery and had very good English translations. We know a lot now about Etruscan trading, artisan, and burial habits, but very little about who they were. This is something I think I will pursue more once we get back to the states and I can find a book or two on the subject.

For lunch we had a local specialty: tripe sandwich. Josh hated it, but I think it was the texture and appearance more than the taste. I neglected to pull back the bread to get a good look at what I was putting into my mouth and I thought it was great. I think they cook the tripe in broth for hours, so it just tastes meaty and soft. We found a really good gelateria across from the Pitti Palace, which made up for the bad gelato we had near the Ponte Vecchio.

Here are a few pics of Florence. The next update will contain post-Florence activities.

Found the panorama function on my camera. Have been [ab]using it with gusto. Here's a shot of the city from Piazelle Michalangelo. Maybe clicking on the photo will get you to a larger version? If not, then you'll just have to wait for us to show you when we get back!

Perseus with Medusa's head!
A copy of the statue David trying his best to ignore the tourist throngs below him. The original costs 6 euros to see, so we settled for this one instead.
A well preserved Stela from the Archeological museum. These things are covered in prayers and symbolic offerings for the dead.
A shot of the Duomo. My crappy little camera has trouble with close up shots of large buildings and this is the only picture with minimal warping.

Uffizi

After wandering the streets of Florence for several hours, we decided to stand in line for the Uffizi. The museum is one of the more expensive in town and it can take over an hour of waiting in line to get in. I'm definitely glad we checked it out, but I suppose Renaissance art just isn't my thing. The portrayal of baby Jesus occupied a majority of the paintings we saw, and some of them were hilarious, creepy or both.

For example:

Baby Christ looks on in disbelief at the wackos with whom he has to work.
This one doesn't need help from me. It's already subtitled "Madonna with the Long Neck." Also, baby Jesus looks like he just went through chemotherapy?
This one looks like he'd give that 19lb Indonesian baby a run (waddle?) for his money.
Tabloid Headline: Baby Jesus actually a shriveled alien crash landed on Earth! Read all about it!
These old dudes are pondering the fashion statement being made by putting Baby J in a pink dress.
See what I mean? The whole upper floor of the museum was filled with these things. By the time we got through this, the museum was closing in half an hour and we were too tired to even consider looking at the special exhibits on the next floor down. Too bad it's a pain in the ass getting in or I would try to go back tomorrow. Anyway, we have the archeological museum to peruse tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a learning experience.