We've included this blog on our site to add some regularly updated content that may be of interest to Salento visitors. A property-related blog seemed a little dull and obscure and wanted something that would be more fun to write and hopefully also to read.

We're both really into food: cooking, eating, shopping for food as well as attempting to cultivate vegetables in our garden. So we have decided to blog on this subject, adding regular updates about the changing seasons and what we are cooking and eating, as well as what is going among the characters that work the fields around us.

 

Venice's Salento Blog has now moved to: http://welovesalento.blogspot.com

05/05/08

The vines are looking beautiful. Last week’s job was to go through each plant again and remove all the leaves below the first tiny bunch of grapes. That was the important job to do before Antonio tractor man comes and sprays them. I was also told to pick the little buds growing out of each layer of leaves. I think the aim is to keep the grapes protected by some leaves but not to let the plant get too bushy to block the sun or the spray.

I’m not entirely sure what he is going to spray them with or why, we’re learning as we go along. Of course we would prefer to go organic but I feel very grateful to him and his family who are helping us out so much with the vineyard and the rest of our land. We think it’s best going along with what they say for this year to learn the traditional, local way of doing it before making any changes.

We did draw the line at using weed killer on the rest of our land. He couldn’t understand while we’d prefer him to come with the tractor to cut the grass rather than just kill it. He said that even if we didn’t use weed killer, our neighbours would and our land and water would end up being polluted anyway. Isn’t that a bit like saying that everyone else steals so why don’t you?

Antonio and I have endless arguments about it and he never passes up an opportunity to make a dig about it in conversation. Yet I feel that when we make a bit more of an effort and do things to the land, like with the vines for example, he respects us a bit more and is prepared to see our vision.

We make a good team with Antonio, his partner, Mariassunta, his mum, Maria and Uncle Achilles. We are incredibly lucky to have found them because before we met Antonio we had a nightmare finding anyone to work on our land, let alone for all our clients, most of whom have bought rural properties. Now he is working for everyone, even our doing bits and bobs for our Italian neighbours.

He is a bit of a character, I wouldn’t mind him knowing that I said that. He was in the navy as a young man and travelled the world. He lived in London for a while and ran a restaurant in Bologna. He was even an international truffle smuggler at one point.

We’ve met a lot of Antonio’s since moving to Puglia. Sant’ Antonio di Padova is the patron saint of our local town, Cutrofiano. He’s the one who is often depicted holding a child or a baby, as when he died on 13th June 1231 children are said to have cried in the streets, according to his Wiki page. June 13th is our local festa day when all the shops are shut and there’s a market and live music and fireworks.

On our cell phones all the Antonios have a code name to differentiate them. Over the years we’ve had Antonio PCQ (text lingo for ‘small’ in the local dialect), Antonino (another lil’ Tony), Antonio Future (the name of his computer shop in Cutrofiano), Antonio Earring (lots of piercings), Antonio Fathead (don’t ask) to name a few, along with our good friend Antonio Tractor. I would have it saved as Antonio Tractor Man if I was allowed that many characters.

21/04/08

I’ve been meaning to write about our new vineyard for some time. We bought it last November to allow us to enlarge our house one day (the size of the house needs to be in proportion to the land, according to local planning laws).

The first job was to cut back last year’s growth. The long vines are removed with gardening scissors and only the stumpy trunk remains. We did that gradually over the winter, before the new buds came through. Then we had to rotivate the soil to get rid of the grass and wild flowers without using weed killer. I say ‘we’ but we actually paid an old bloke to do it for us.

When we got back from holiday three weeks ago there were just tiny little buds appearing on the stumps. Every day the plants seem to have grown a couple of inches. This week’s job was to ‘edit’ this new growth. Each plant has three main branches and each of these needs to hold only two new shoots, the rest have to be pulled off. It’s an easy and satisfying task.

I would like to be ale to tell you all the things we need to do between now and November, when we have the first taste of our new wine. However, I have absolutely no idea as we humbly await instructions from our friends and neighbours who seem to tell us what we have to do just a couple of days before it’s too late. Watch this space.

31/03/08

It’s been quite a month for us, our first proper holiday for 7 years and the first time together outside Europe.

We decided on Jamaica for several reasons. I had been before with my parents when I was 17 and loved it, while for Darren it was a place he had always wanted to visit. March is the best time of year there weather-wise and flights were cheap. We couldn’t really afford it but decided it was a false economy to wait as when Mickey turns two we’ll have to start paying extra for him.

It was a mind blowing trip to an extraordinary country, situated halfway between heaven and hell in my opinion. People asked me if it had changed in 15 years but all I could reply was that certainly I had changed a lot. I found the poverty quite disturbing, exaggerated by the enormous gap between rich and poor.

There is plenty of tourism today in Jamaica but it mainly consists of American-owned all-inclusive resorts. Guests are told that it’s not safe to leave the hotel so they don’t, and all their money is spent there, without a dime entering the local economy (unless you count the ridiculously low wages of hotel staff).

We travelled around the island with the help of Brian, a young rasta friend of a friend who enriched our experience with local knowledge and insights. We loved the people, nature, beaches, food and music and hope one day to go back.

However, not even a small part of me wanted to stay on and live there. Salento isn’t as dramatically beautiful and lush as Jamaica but it has many points in its favour.

For starters it’s so much safer here – I’d hate to live even with bars on my windows yet most foreigners over there feel the need to employ a private guard. I think I would always feel an outsider in a developing country and uncomfortable about my position in society.

In Italy we are welcomed by the local people and treated as equals (usually!) Sure, there are differences in our cultures but these are not so great. It’s not hot all year round here but at least the winter kills off all the nasty insects. In one hotel I encountered at 10cm long scorpion in the bathroom in the middle of the night!

Right now we’re still adjusting to being home and our bodies are trying to catch up with all the travelling around and stimulation. We’ve been lucky with sunny days and the first signs of spring lift our mood. We are happy to be home.

13/01/08

We’ve just come back from England after celebrating Michelangelo’s first birthday there. We had a lovely party and saw friends and family and the birthday boy received so many toys and books that we couldn’t bring them all home with the scanty Ryan Air luggage allowance.

His toy collection has had to move out of our garagio living room/kitchen/diner/office – as you can see the room as enough uses as it is. All the toys are now on the lower shelves in the room that will one day be his.

I’m proud to still be breastfeeding past his first birthday. Although this is in line with the World Health Organisation recommendations and breastfeeding is nowadays universally accepted as the very best thing for babies, it is amazing how many people start disapproving after the baby gets to a certain age.

I plan to keep breastfeeding for at least another year. I don’t need to leave him for a full time job and we don’t have any plans for another one quite yet so it seems silly to stop.

The milk itself is probably the most nutritious liquid on earth, tailor made by my body especially for my little boy. I recently read that as well as being generally healthier, breastfed babies grow up less likely to be obese and with higher IQs.

I’m sure that the nutrition of the milk is not the only benefit. The closeness of nursing creates a secure bond between mother and child which makes for a happy, confident child. And it need not exclude other family members, Mickey is often grinning at Darren while he feeds and was always kicking my mum with his feet when she sat next to us on the sofa over Christmas.

While it is more time consuming than giving him a cup to feed himself there are also benefits for me, other than having a healthy and happy child. Breastfeeding helps prevent some cancers and bone problems as well as burning between 500-1000 calories per day.

I’ve never had a problem with my weight except for gaining more than the average for my pregnancy. But now it is a question of eating as much as I can to stop losing too much. Now that is my kinda diet.

09/12/07

Yesterday was my dad’s birthday, the second since he died last June - he would have been 85 years old. Appropriately, I spent the morning working on getting some press for his book, The Poker Encyclopedia, which was published posthumously.

Birthdays of dead people are strange because it makes you think of them but not in the same sad way as the anniversary of their death. Although the wound is still raw I am, 18 months on, able to think about him in a happy way. Actually he hated his birthday and never liked to celebrate it, as if doing so would remind his body how old it should be.

December 8th is also a national holiday in Italy as it celebrates the Immaculate Conception. It should be called the Immaculate Misconception as everybody seems to think as the conception of Jesus but in fact it is the conception of Mary and not be confused with the Virgin Birth. If you don’t believe me, look it up!

The holiday also marks the official first day of the Christmas period which ends with Mickey’s birthday on January 6th. We had a bit of spring clean this morning and now we’re starting to think about baby-friendly decorations. A Christmas tree with beautiful presents and chocolates would be asking for trouble.

Talking of presents, we’ve been doing a lot of shopping online this year with only a few more tricky ones to buy. I’m belatedly getting into eBay, perfect for me right now as I can’t ever manage to get out of the house in time for the second hand markets anymore.

If you are stuck for a really great gift then may I recommend The Poker Encyclopedia as an informative and entertaining read for anyone interested in the game.

27/11/07

My, how the days, weeks and months fly. It’s already the end of November and the last of the fig leaves blew off our trees in yesterday’s wind.

It’s not been cold lately, however, with daytime temperatures in the high teens. Unfortunately that looks set to change if the online forecasts are to be believed. We use three sites - weather.com, tempoitalia.it and bbc.co.uk/weather. They always say different things but you can usually detect a general trend.

I like Salento in the winter. We do get cold weather and really disgusting, rainy days but you always know that you will get some sun at some point. I don’t get that desperate feeling like in the UK that there is no chance of feeling hot sun on your face until April.

Having an open fire lifts my soul on wintry days and nights. It’s the next best thing to the sunshine, I think. Most households have one in the kitchen to cook on. Yesterday we were walking around Matino with clients at lunchtime and the delicious smell of smoky, barbequed meat filled the alleyways of the ‘centro storico’, making it difficult to concentrate on viewing properties. 

Mickey loves to ‘help’ me build a fire by tearing up newspapers and watching them burn. He likes handling the logs, probably because they are natural and uneven and feel slightly dangerous. Luckily the traditional high cooking hearths are perfectly baby-friendly and well out of reach, especially important since he took his first wobbly steps last week.

05/11/07

I just phoned my mum in north London and as a backdrop to the conversation was the noise of numerous firework displays going on in her neighbourhood. Unsurprisingly, Guy Fawkes Night isn’t celebrated in Italy but we had our share of holidays last week.

Only in recent years has Halloween been imported from the US. It has become a chance for ghosty masks and costumes to come out and teenaged hoodies to gather on street corners. At least the young boys are much less scary than their London equivalents – one group politely smiled and waited for me and the baby to walk past them on the square in Corigliano before they continued letting off bangers.

November 1st is a proper national holiday and celebrates ‘tutti santi’, or All Saints Day. It was also Darren’s dad, David’s, birthday.  The shops and offices were closed but it is obviously a popular evening to go out to dinner, as we discovered when we tried to book our favourite restaurant in Lecce, ‘Le Zie’, and it was full.

November 2nd is ‘tutti morti’, or the Day of the Dead. Over here it is a day for visiting the cemetery and thinking of dearly departed. My Venezuelan sister in law introduced a rather nice Mexican tradition to our family this year.

The family gather round for a special meal on this day in honour of the dead with their favourite foods. Photographs and special objects are also placed on the table to remind you of them.

For my dad they bought Brick Lane bagels and smoked salmon, accompanied by potato salad and coleslaw. Figs were his favourite fruit so they were there too, along with Marks and Spencer’s bucks fizz which he was also partial to. It sounded lovely and I wish I had been there.

It’s interesting that there are all these festivals all over the world that celebrate death at this time of year. As we know, Christian festivities are usually based on more ancient celebrations. There must be something about the dawn of winter that creates a need to remember. It’s such a big deal here that nobody even gets married during the month of November.

As it was we didn’t dwell on the dead on the 2nd because it was David’s last night here. This year it was more important to focus on the living but next year I plan to cook up a feast for Elkan.

09/09/07

My wish has come true in the shape of a pumpkin - a perfectly round, orange, autumnal pumpkin that is sitting on my kitchen table. Summer is officially over, the grapes have been collected and squashed and currently swim in their juice in huge vats in the surrounding garagios while the inhabitants of those houses have moved back to town.

It was quite a sudden change of seasons. One day we were sweltering in the heat, whacking up the air conditioning in the car and hiding from the sunshine and the next a windy, cloudy sky came along and with it a sprinkling of rain – our first since the beginning of June.

While not so good for holidaying Brits, it’s great news for our garden. The months of brutally hot weather have left the countryside parched with some of our little trees looking like they might not make it. We couldn’t even afford to help them out with a daily watering as the well was so low we had to conserve every drop for household use.

Now what to do with the pumpkin? It was a gift from Antonio, the tractor man who helps maintain our land as well as that of our clients. He has a huge amount of his own land which he uses to cultivate everything possible and with great success.

Perhaps roasted in the oven or grilled on the fire? Maybe mashed with potato, butter and black pepper as an accompaniment to a hunk of meat or even in a starring role in a soup. Cristina makes a delicious pumpkin jam and I must find out what she puts in it.

Right now I won’t do anything with it. So beautiful on the table, it’s far more attractive than any florist’s bouquet as well as a cheerful reminder of the new season.

31/08/07

It’s the last day of August and of most people’s summer holidays. September is back to school and work as well as la vendemmia, the grape harvest.

The people round here will be harvesting much earlier this year after the hot, dry weather we’ve had, otherwise the grape will dry on the vine and be no use for wine. On his way to a client’s house this morning, Darren saw many people had started today.

We’ll have to learn all about it as we’re in the process of buying the vineyard next to our house. This way we’ll be able to extend our house to make it big enough for our growing family as well as visiting family and friends from London. God knows how we are going to manage the vines, though, they’re so much work all year round.

Baby and I went for a walk this morning and visited the neighbours. First we went to see Gino, who was watering his winter veg seedlings; fennel, cicoria and cima di rape. He says he’s got enough water to grow the little plants but if it doesn’t rain soon he won’t be able to plant them out.

After watering he went to turn off the petrol pump on his well and we joined him at his house while he rolled and smoked a cigarette from his home grown tobacco. He shook his head while he told me how bella it used to be round here in the countryside, back in the day.

There were lots of children back then; his two girls, Uccio’s kids, and the three Specchia boys at our house. The fields were full of tobacco and the workers would sing the old songs as they picked and dried the large, aromatic leaves.

There was no electricity but the Specchia’s had a battery operated TV which they would bring round to Gino’s and they would all watch it as if they were at the cinema. There wasn’t enough food in those days but people were kinder and happier he believed.

Now that every house in the village has a plasma TV and fridge full of food there’s no need to get together and share what they have. It must be strange to be Gino and see the young taking for granted all the things they dreamed of back then and losing the traditions, the integrity and the joys of the old way of life.

Through the wood we walked to Mama Rosaria’s house. She’d been up in her vineyard this morning, cutting the dry bunches off the vine. While Michelangelo crawled around on the floor she picked off the good grapes and put them in a saucepan ready to make jam.

After such a lovely walk baby was tired and fell asleep in the sling on the way home. I managed to keep him sleeping while transferring him to the bed, giving Mama a bit of time to write this blog.

23/08/07

I hate to say it, especially as many are reading this from the cold and wet British Isles, but I’m bored with summer. I’m sick of the impossibly hot days and tanned locals.  I’m fed up with all the festas and fireworks going on in every village, every night. And most of all I am tired of the summer Mediterranean veg.

There is admittedly a lot you can do with aubergines, courgettes, peppers and tomatoes. But by this time of years it feels like we have had them roasted, barbequed, steamed, sautéed, stewed and in salads and bakes so many times and I’m pining for something different.

I’ve got my mind a misty autumnal morning. A soup of wild mushrooms bought off the back of some Calabrian bloke’s lorry, down from the mountains with boxes of goodies.

I’d like to be able to light the fire and slow-cook soups and stews all day in the pignata, a curvy ceramic cooking pot. It’d be nice to eat lunch right under the midday sun and snuggle under the duvet at night.

But as I sit here at midnight still dressed in a vest and shorts with the ceiling fans whirring overhead and every door and window in the house wide open, I am trying to seize the moment and remember how much I will miss summer in a few months time.

It’s easy to wish one’s life away. Tired after a long day with baby I can forget how amazing and adorable he is and how it will seem like no time before he’s a big grown up, hairy man.

So I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a better attitude. I’ll savour those salad tomatoes which you can’t get quite as good anywhere else in the world or at other times of the year. I’ll fit into my day a swim and a sunbathe. And I’ll appreciate every moment with my little baby boy.

Just remind me of this at 11 o’clock tomorrow night after the 3rd listening of Lily Allen, OK?

08/08/07

Everyone is complaining about what a rotten year for fruit and veg it is. Most people’s trees are bearing little fruit and their tomatoes are sick and it’s been put down to the hot, dry summer we are having. Yet I’m sure they said that last year and the one before that; growing up in rural Suffolk I remember my dad telling me that farmers love a good moan.

As I’ve said before on this blog, the fruit trees that we planted are all doing pretty badly. We don’t give them enough water, fertilizer or general TLC. But the trees that were already well established when we bought the house manage to cope with next to no maintenance. I guess after the land was abandoned for 15 years only the fittest survived.

Right now it’s fig season. These trees grow like weeds round here, we’ve even got one that rather worryingly pops up out of the corner of the house each year despite always cutting it right back. Last year there was actually a fig on it!

We have been told that there were a lot of fig trees planted during the second world when there were food shortages. To stop them from going hungry, dried figs were eaten like bread. They are so good for you that it probably how many people survived those times.

We have four proper trees and at this time of year I find myself eating about 20 figs a day. Baby also loves them. We’ve been experimenting with ‘Baby-Led Weaning’ which involves babies feeding themselves finger foods instead of been given purees from a spoon.

Figs are perfect for this as he can scrunch them in his little hands, suck out the fruit and smear himself (and everything in the vicinity) with the sticky flesh. It’s best of all to pick them straight of the tree and eat them on the hammock in the shade, keeping all the mess outside. What a nice and natural way to first experience food.

There are so many figs that it’s impossible to eat them all and as they are perishable they need to be preserved if they are not to be wasted. Darren loves them dried and prepares a batch most mornings.
 
The fresh figs are cut in half and put on a drying rack made from canes made by our neighbour Aldo. They are left for a few days in the sun to completely dry out and then rinsed, dried again and stored for the winter.

As Mama Rosaria loves to say, “The thorns of the summer are the roses of the winter."

25/07/07

'La Campagna' (the countryside) is full of 'gente' (people) now as summer is in full swing. Nighttime is when you get the biggest sense of the laughter, music, grilling meat and twinkly lights across the surrounding fields. It is a great contrast to the rest of the year when it is just the daytime farmers and us.

After a few weeks of acceptable summer temperatures we're back to living in the Salento Sahara. It's hard to get anything at all done during the day, especially with baby in tow. But if we manage to get a sleep in after lunch I feel my energy levels rise in the evening. As does baby - it would be impossible to have a British routine for him with bedtime at 8pm. It is at that time when he is able to crawl about and discover the world without getting too hot and bothered.

Maybe that is one of the reasons why Italian children are more integrated into the culture and used to being around adults than kids back home. The word 'babysitter' has been borrowed from us into Italian because they traditionally haven't had a need for it. The idea of going out without your children and paying to leave them with a teenaged girl is quite alien.

As a parent there are pros and cons to this. It means that you are not restricted in going out, especially as there are no places you can't take a child - kids and babies are welcome in bars and restaurants alike and no one judges you for keep your child out at any time. But there is often a grizzly hour before baby can be convinced to crash out in the pushchair and sometimes it just doesn't happen and we finish our meal and leave. It's a gamble but we have had some good evenings out since becoming parents.

Last night there was a power cut across the entire grid in Salento. It lasted for about an hour. We discovered that we didn't even have one candle in the house and after finishing our dinner in the dark we walked round to Cristina's to scrounge one. As usual, they were having a great party with loads of guest. We were a bit miffed not to have been asked actually and also quite unprepared - as the lights suddenly came back on I was revealed to be in my nightie!

Cristina didn't see that as a good enough reason not to stay and have dinner, nor that we had actually already had dinner and baby was grumbley and ready for bed (it was around 11pm after all). And we did go home mainly because we weren't in the mood for at least an hour of being novelty English at the festa and if they really wanted us to be there they should have invited us beforehand.

After baby was nicely tucked up we finished our chilled wine outside, just the two of us, and although the power was back on, we turned the lights out again to fully appreciate the stars and beauty of the balmy summer's night.

21/06/07

In Italy what we call Midsummer’s Day is considered the first day of summer. It’s officially the season where you’re allowed to wear the colour white which the locals of both sexes love to do in an extreme fashion.

It’s the longest day of the year and I can never get my head round the nights starting to draw in already. We’ve been enjoying a fantastic heatwave this week with temperatures reaching 38 degrees in Lecce. It’s a little cooler here in the countryside and much fresher by the coast.

Yesterday afternoon was spent at our favourite seafood restaurant enjoying a very long celebration lunch. We had prebooked a kilo of lobster and spent over an hour picking at it and taking turns holding the baby. With lobster as his first ever taste of fish nobody can ever say that boy wasn’t born with a cuchiaino d’argento in his mouth.

La Maruzella, as the restaurant is called, is pure Jamie Oliver. It’s a shack on a rock on the sea with a fridge-load of amazing fish, cheap white wine and not much else. There are always about 20 people working there; mainly guys and a few mamas.

Our friend is Donato, a real seafaring ladies’ man who likes nothing better than provide you with the feast of your life, sit and drink wine and smoke fags with you and play the flirtatious latino. He’s lived all over Europe and has 11 children and three ex wives. He’s democratic with has affections, yesterday he was working his magic on an elderly Swiss lady.

We stayed for several hours and enjoyed the fruits, and spectacular view, of the sparkling Ionian sea. Afterwards we had a refreshing dip. It’s best to spend the morning on the east-facing Adriatic coast and evenings on the other side to be able to enjoy the sun sinking into the still, clear water.

Cooking at home in this heat is a little more problematic. The oven is out at any time of day if it is inside the house as ours is right now. We used to have a crappy old cooker out the back which was great in the summer, although a bit miserable in winter months. Now we’ve got our brand new Smeg we’ll have to wait for this heatwave to end before we can bake or roast again.

We’ve got people for dinner tonight but I admit we cheated and have ordered in a Cristina’s. I have now idea what she has been preparing all day in her overheated kitchen but whatever it is it will be delicious, it always is.

La Maruzella, Lido Conchieglie 0833 208900
L’Antica Dispensa, (Cristina’s restaurant) via Palermo, 9, Cutrofiano (LE) 0836 541577

18/06/07

Food feeds the soul, the body and the mind. Our relationship with food affects and reflects our relationship with the people around us and with the Self.

I’ve been reading The Mood Cure by Julia Ross which discusses curing mental illness, especially depression, by a strict diet high in protein and vegetables with supplements of essential amino acids to stimulate and build up the neurotransmitters.

I say reading but it’s more flicking, I can’t bear the American self-help style of writing. I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna say, I’m gonna say it, and, just in case you didn’t geddit, I’m gonna say it again to sum up.

Still, this particular book has an interesting point. Banish refined starches, caffeine, chocolate, nicotine, alcohol, marihuana and all the substances that we consume to give us a quick high but ultimately take us lower. Work on building a firm base of brain chemistry by healthy eating.

Nice theory but in real life it is usually exactly those substances that keep us going. Is it the best idea to deny an unhappy person a yummy comfort bowl of spaghetti pomodoro or my own personal self-help favourite, a coffee and a fag?

Most of us manage to control our ‘real’ and ‘false’ moods (read the book, or see the film, made by family friend, Stefan Sargant) and still eat what we do but for those having problems coping it could be a good idea.

But how the hell can you give up everything that is bad for you? I am not the right person to answer that question. I’ve never been on a diet in my life and only managed to give up smoking when I was pregnant. And that was only by eating an excessive amount of sweet things to replace the smokes.

In the end most of us manage to survive on a highly personal cocktail of mood foods and substances – whatever it takes to survive this extraordinary experience called Life.

06/06/07

When we got off the plane at Brindisi late last night we were hit with that hot country feeling and I felt relieved to be home. By the time we reached Corigliano we hit the wet weather and we could see from around the garden and the cats' bowls full of water that it had rained a fair bit.

Today is still a bit grey and thundery but it feel almost tropical. Baby is sleeping and I'm listening to reggae in my shorts and it takes me back to being in Jamaica.

All this time spent in London this year and last has made me so grateful of time spent at home. I instantly feel healthier on the first morning here than I ever do in London. It may be because back in the UK I tend to binge on all my stodgy British favourites.

We enjoyed a mega plate of cod and chips one lunchtime but as soon as the plates were cleared the stomach rot started to set in. As with recreational drugs, you need to calculate come down time after a fat fest like that.

Today's lunch was a great deal healthier and I feel a million euro. A storeroom classic - dried large green lentils and a handful of short grain rice put in a pan with some cloves of garlic and a teaspoon of salt, covered with cold water.

Keeping an eye on water and adding more when necessary is the only thing you need to do until they are soft and ready to eat, drizzled with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

I've got a million things to do around the house and for the business but can't summon the energy. Instead I'll relax, Jamaica-style, on my front porch and relish all the senses of home until my little boy decides to wake up.

24/05/07

It looks like baby has inherited both his parents' enormous appetites. After four and a half months of what feels like continuous breastfeeding our little boy has suddenly started eating Real Food.

His very first dinner was Sheila's delicious fennel soup and we were all impressed with how happily he got it down him (both in the tummy and on his clothes). It's quite difficult eating or drinking anything in front of him now as he lurches out and grabs anything we put to our mouths. I'm all for self-discovery childcare techniques but this is a little problematic when it's a glass of chilled vino rosato.

It's a great time of year to embark on one's eating career. Babies love sweet food like breast milk so the fresh early summer fruit, such as cherries and strawberries, make excellent munches. Good for mum too as it'll be a while I fear before we manage to wean the little creature off the boob and I need all the nutrients I can get.

Another fruit just finishing right now is the nespole, small, orange-coloured and not commonly found in the UK. We are lucky to have a big tree outside our house so breakfast is right there when we open our garagio doors in the morning. They have a consistency a bit like a plum but taste more of apple and have three brassy coloured stones. I can't believe they would be very marketable at home as they are incredibly perishable and messy to eat.

Fruit picked straight from the tree seems to fizz with vitamin C and goodness. Some say that the particular fruits in season give you the right nutrients for that time of year. For example citrus offers vit c in mid-winter and water melon a thirst quenching drink in the heat of the summer. I'm sure that's true plus the huge sensual pleasure to be had from picking and eating, and the aesthetic delight of trees laden with colourful bontà.

18/04/07

I've been away from Salento for exactly a month - I left on St Patrick's day and got back yesterday evening.

What were the first glimpses of spring a month ago have now fully bloomed. There was quite a lot of rain at one point and now an abundance of greenery and flowers glimmer in the sunshine.

I have been enjoying outstanding weather in England but the Mediterranean rays that are beating on my back as I write are of a different league.

So lovely to be back in my little blue house with both my boys, plus Monkey the cat as well of course. Now I've got to remember how to speak Italian...

27/03/07

I've been in London for 10 days and while it was freezing for the first few days I'm now enjoying warm, sunny days, while poor Darren is weathering the rain storms in Salento. It's very unusual for it to be warmer here so Mickey and I are lucky.

I braved Tesco for the first time yesterday and it seemed so alien from the Cutrofiano market: every packet of food seeming to aspire to a certain lifestyle and our baskets proclaiming our identities as we budge past each other in the crowded, windowless retail wharehouse.

It's a treat for the things we miss - I bought a massive pack of Finest Scottish smoked salmon that tastes so much nicer than the Norwegian rubbish they sell in Italy. I'm looking forward to eating it on lovely brown bread with avocado - two other things that are difficult to get back home.

But I'm in the middle of making a broccoli quiche and it just seems wrong unpeeling the vacuum packaging off my floret. It almost doesn't resemble a plant, more of an anonymous food item. Where are all the beautiful green leaves to feed my compost? Just as well maybe as it would be just more rubbish to lug down from this 2nd floor flat and dump in the wheelie bin.

15/03/07

I'm sitting outside in the warm sunshine writing this on my new PC laptop. This year it feels like we haven't had a winter as we are now bouncing forward into spring for real.

Long gone now is the Mimosa and almond blossom. Yet while the Mimosi (flowers are feminine and trees masculine in Italian) are a dried out dirty yellow, the almond trees are sporting the brightest green leaves you ever saw.

There is life on the figs. Some of trees have little leaves poking through while the ones that produce the fiorone first harvest fruit have already tiny, mini figs that grow before the leaves.

The pomegranate are also waking up for spring and are covered with little dark red leaves. All but one on which so far there is nothing. Maybe he didn't survive the winter - what there was of it.

It feels marvelous to be writing this outside and be wirelessly connected to a broadband internet connection. Our adventure in Italy has grown alongside technology - at the farm in 2001 we used to trudge to the top of the hill to download emails via the infrarosso on our mobile lined up with Darren's powerbook.

And now here I am in 2007, sitting outside my own house, on my own computer, enjoying the sun and a break while my little Italian baby boy sleeps in my bed.

11/03/07

Darren's top five grilling tips

1. Get a really good fire going well in advance - you cook from the coals not the flames.

2. Try to work out realistic timing of what you are cooking, chicken needs to cook right through or it is a health risk but don't burn the skin. Toast is a hot, brief affair.

3. Don't forget the quantity and space on the grill. If you've got loads to do preheat the oven to keep first batch warm while the next lot cooks.

4. Keep your eye on the ball, it's all very well having a glass of wine and chatting to your guests but the moment you turn your back the secondo is annihilated.

5. If using logs, keep a fire going on the edge to feed your grill.

08/03/07

March 8th is Women’s Day. It is an international day that has only been celebrated in Britain in the last couple of years in an awful government-sponsored kind of way but in other countries in the world it is a big deal.

In Italy it is the custom for men to give women the lovely scented, yellow mimosa flower. It is not just wives, girlfriends and mistresses who receive this sweet token of appreciation but also grandmothers, daughters, aunties, friends, teachers, and colleagues.

There are a lot of mimosa trees that grow in this area and a way to gauge whether it is an early or late spring is if the mimosa has already gone by March 8th. If so it needs to be imported from Holland.

Mimosa also happens to be my mother’s favourite flower, as it was also for her mother. And funnily enough my mum’s birthday is on March 6th so I when I see it I think of her.

For her birthday Darren cooked us all some lovely king prawns on the fire. While I am the one who generally does the ‘pignata’ style cooking as described in a previous blog, I never ever go near the grill. That is strictly Darren’s domain and I shall ask him to post a list of tips.

It could be because it is a more macho kind of cooking but he is actually very low key about it, unlike many other men we have witnessed. The funniest was at the agriturismo in Gargano that we worked several years ago, where we witnessed enough male posturing over sausages to last a lifetime.

Spring must be early this year as the mimosa on Mama Rosaria’s tree already gone for Women’s day and mummy’s birthday. Instead we enjoyed the prawns which were buonissimi, cooked by my man to perfection.

22/02/07

I think I might have been misleading people with this blog. People seem to think that here we are, living the good life in Puglia, with everything that ends up on our table coming straight out beautifully maintained vegetable garden.

I have to confess - with one thing and another going on in our lives we simply haven’t had the time lately. Now is the time to rotavate and start thinking about what summer veg to plant but unfortunately I think we are going to have to give it a miss this year.

Even when we were planting seriously we weren’t any way near self-sufficient. While it is an appealing fantasy, I’m far too lazy (and greedy) to realize it. For me, my garden should be fun, not a ball and chain. And there’s hardly a shortage of top quality fruit and vegetables for sale round here.

I’m the first to advocate the advantages of eating seasonally and locally, for health reasons and to cut down on food miles but I’m not a fascista about it. In my basket this week was a Costa Rican pineapple, Ecuadorian bananas and some surprisingly tasty grapes from Chile. I’m trying to offer my post-natal figure a more appropriate treat than a mini mars bar. Vanity before ecology, I’m afraid.

It’s a miserable day, not too cold but very wet – it’s turned into a bit of a quagmire outside. I heard on radio 4 online that it’s the same in London. I’m keeping myself and the baby indoors in front of the fire, waiting for it to pass (but trying to stay away from the chocolate box.)

10/02/07

Over a month has passed since the last entry and what a month it has been! The new year brought our baby, Michelangelo Elkan Howat, who was born 9 days early on 6th January at 12.51pm, weighing 3.5 kg.

While in England January 6th is the dreary day we take the decorations down, in the Christian calendar it is the Epiphany, the last of the 12 days of Christmas. Here in Italy it is also the day of Befana, a witch-like old woman who distributes sweets to the homes of good children as she travels around on her broomstick looking for baby Jesus.

So lucky Mickey will never have to work on his birthday, as long as he lives in Italy or any other catholic country. In fact this time of year is non-stop festa time around here. We are currently hotting up to carnevale, the holiday period during the two weeks before the fasting of Lent.

The Venetian carnival celebrations date back to the 13th century and are famous for the elaborate costumes and masks that are worn around the city and at grand balls for that period. To a lesser extent that tradition is followed across Italy.

Foodwise carnivale is a bit of a non-event for us, the only special dish being a very sweet, sticky dessert consisting of deep fried strips of dough covered in syrup, sugar and if you’re lucky, hundreds and thousands. Not so good if you’re trying to loose those excess post pregnancy kilos. And a good excuse not to eat them if you ask me.

A festa peculiar to Cutrofiano is on February 17th where bonfires are lit around the streets of the town to commemorate an earthquake that happened about 100 years ago. I’m not sure how come there was an earthquake here as I have read that we live in only 25% of Italy that is not an earthquake zone.

Two years ago the festa was amazing. Our friend Antonio set up his decks in the beautiful old Piazza Cavolotti next to the huge bonfire that was tended by Aldo, the old ‘contadino’ (literally translating as peasant, but in a non-pejorative way) who works the land in the field next to our house.

But last year was a bit of a disappointment as fires were banned in the centre of town due to safety regulations and celebrations were pushed out to the ugly modern suburbs. Let’s hope this year is more fun.

So lots to celebrate but then again all year round there seems to be some special occasion or other, either based on religion or the republic. Ultimately all the festas are just a good excuse for an extra big lunch. I was rushed into the delivery room a little early, I suspect. The obstetrician said he’d be out before one o’clock, and she was right, just in time for lunch.

30/12/06

This Christmas day it was just the two of us - three if you count the by now very large bump, eight if you throw in the cats. We (all) enjoyed a traditional English turkey lunch with the trimmings that we were able to get hold of locally. Sprouts were replaced with radicchio cooked with onions and vinegar (a far nicer option in my opinion).

It was a real feast and we got so stuck in that we completely forgot the stuffing that we had carefully put inside the bird and sown away. Still, made for delicious boxing day sandwiches.

I'm all for Christmas leftovers - there's never enough turkey for me to make all my favourites: Bubble and Squeak, Turkey brood (broth), Turkey and mushroom pie (my speciality!), Shredded turkey enchiladas and tons and tons of turkey sarnies. I'd like a turkey burger recipe if anyone has a good one.

But there gets to be a point, very suddenly, where you want a meal where there is no trace of the Christmas lunch to be found. The leftovers will be fine for another day and a big pan of water is put on for pasta.

Usually a spaghetti pomodoro suffices, the year we broke the turkey binge with a penne arrabiata (spicy tomato). Today we also had a nice pasta which I thought would be worth blogging about.

Orrechiette (meaning little ears) is the typical Pugliese pasta and traditionally it is eaten with "cima di rape", the green, leafy tops of a variety of turnip that makes for a very bitter vegetable.

It is particular popular in the north of Puglia, where we first lived five years ago, in the province of Foggia. It was one of the dishes that we were required to make in the agriturismo we managed.

We still haven’t acquired a taste for the cima di rape as we have for other things, like chicory and horse, that we also didn’t like to begin with. It’s just too strong a flavour. Luckily down in here Salento it isn’t so popular and the typical orrichette dish utilises other similar, but nicer, brassicas like broccoli or cauliflower.

It’s simple to make. Cook the vegetables in a large pan of salted, boiling water. Remove with a slotted spoon and put aside. Cook the pasta in the same water to give it flavour. In a large frying pan fry up some olive oil, garlic, chilli and anchovies. I also add a couple of chopped up spring onions if I have some and a tomato to give it a fresher (but less traditional) flavour. Then add both the pasta and the vegetables and mix.

The purists in Foggia wouldn’t eat it with cheese (it violated not one but two Italian food laws – no cheese with either fish-based or spicy pastas) but round here they pile on the grana (parmesan-type cheese) both in the pan and then again on their plate and so do we. Buon appetito and buon anno!

16/12/06

An English couple came to lunch this week and the first thing they commented on in the house was our battered copy of the ‘Silver Spoon’. This classic Italian recipe book was a Christmas gift last year from my parents and we have never used a cookbook as much. We all raved about what a good book it is, how often we have used it and the quality and simplicity of the recipes.

First translated into English only last year, it was originally published in Italy in 1950 and is seen over here as second most important book after the bible. Traditionally it is given as a wedding present to young brides to help them with the high standards undoubtedly expected from them from new hubby.

It is interesting to see immediately how different it is from most Italian cookbooks written for the non-Italian market.

Jamie’s Italy, for example, has some nice recipes but these are seriously outnumbered by stylish photos of the loveable mockney parading round Italy in a photogenic VW. Marcello Hazen’s ‘Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking’ is fantastically detailed but puts the emphasis on the regional and traditional.

The Silver Spoon is instead the definitive list of possible dishes in the world, according to Italians. It not only includes traditionally Italian recipes but also international favourites such as hamburgers and English roast beef. If it isn’t in there it’s off the radar and not worth knowing about.

As good old Jamie loves to tell us in his series on Italy, they are a fussy and unadventurous bunch. In the Puglia episode he tries to get the locals to eat some concoction or other that he has made up and is insulted when nobody likes it.

It’s comparable to a French chef going to Yorkshire 50 years ago with a new twist on  Yorkshire pudding or Sunday lunch or Fish and Chips and telling the locals that they’ve got it wrong. I can’t remember what Jamie’s recipe was now but I do remember thinking that it looked disgusting, with far too many ingredients, and completely inferior to the local original.

Italians are very closed minded generally about what they eat. But I suspect that it is this attitude which has preserved their food culture so spectacularly in comparison to the UK, where a walk down any high street lined with KFC rip offs and littered with fast food wrappers will show you that British people are more than happy to eat shit.

Yes, we now have a middle class revival in fine food, cooking as a hobby and seasonal eating in Britain. Yet this is still a luxury and just doesn’t compare to the general level of high standards you find over here in every domain, from homes to restaurants and even petrol stations, right across the country.

Maybe this narrow mindedness is the reason for this. An insistence that there is only one way to cook a tomato sauce, even when it is known that every mama in the street does it in a slightly different way, preserves the quality of that dish.

That there is a mama in the kitchen also helps; most households (in the south at least) do have a full time ‘casalinga’ (housewife) running a strict regime around the stove. This is often granny but could be mum or even a daughter but it is certainly true that an unfortunate affect of women’s liberation is a suffering in the nation’s cuisine.

These high standards at home obviously impact the quality of food dished out in restaurants. Italians won’t sit politely through a bad meal like we will, if they don’t like something that is served, they won’t eat it, simple as that.

The fact that Italians have a very small repertoire also probably helps – most families basically eat the same thing every day, even on special occasions when they just eat more of it.

The last and most crucial point of difference about food over here and over there is the quality of raw ingredients. It is easier to make a ridiculously simple pasta, such as the Roman speciality ‘Caccio Pepe’ when you have top quality pecorino romano, freshly ground black pepper, extra virgin Italian olive oil and decent Italian-made spaghetti. Try that with Sainsbury’s own label spag and you’ll end up with a glupey mess I’m afraid.

07/12/06

We have finally moved back home after ten days at our friends and first clients, the Donohue’s, house. They kindly let us stay there while we were having a whole list of work done on our house.

One day Darren noticed a little damp patch on the ceiling and he embarked on what he thought would be a few days work. Inevitably it took much longer. As he chipped away at the old grouting between the paving stones (that make the traditional flat roofs in this area) he discovered other problems that needed fixing. And once that was done he decided that it was time to repaint the outside walls.

We tried to stick to exactly the same colour as before, a very slightly lilacy sky blue. This was the colour we had the house painted when we first renovated it about two and a half years ago. Then we used the cheapest local paint, basically a whitewash with a tint, which creates beautiful vivid colours but is pretty useless at staying on walls.

This time we were recommended to use a more high tech paint called ‘quarzo’. It stays on for much longer and acts as a sealant and protects the house from damp. After much experimentation we nearly got the right colour but there is always a slightly dour edge to quarzo paint. We are going to have to jolly it up a little bit with brightly painted doors and windows, and lots of flowering plants.

We did read once that while labour is very good and cheap in Italy, materials such as paint are far superior in the UK. Worth bearing in mind for people who have the possibility to bring a van load of stuff when they buy a house here.

While Darren and a couple of friends worked on the exterior, we decided that we might as well get all the work we needed done at the same time. In both bedrooms we insulated the exterior walls with a special insulating brick. That west-facing wall was thinner than the other exterior walls in the house and we were losing heat and allowing humidity in.

Then it was time to finally pave the floor of the garagio. After two years of deliberating we settled on a cheap (8.50 euors per square metre) grey ceramic tile. We wanted something neutral and practical and we are very happy with the result.

We have had a bath tub installed and replaced the impractical white floor tiles with a bright blue, some leftovers from the Donohue’s. I am enjoying two baths a day right now, such a luxury after 2 years of only showers.

And that’s basically it. The house is ready for the little baby boy who should arrive some time soon - due mid-Jan so watch this space. Thankfully we now have a cosy and snug house to bring him back to. The next challenge will be working out exactly what to do with him when he gets here!

11/11/06

Today is San Martino, a special saint for Darren and myself as we both (at different times) attended Saint Martin’s art college. It is also the festa of new wine, where local folk taste the wine they made from this year’s grape harvest (and the one opportunity of the year to see your Italian friends pissed.)

Wine made in the traditional method wouldn’t be properly ready until around Christmas time but would now be at a point where it could be tasted and given a preliminary appraisal.

In recent years Vino Novello has come on to the market as an Italian answer to Beaujolais Nouveau. This is made in a similar way and is designed to be ready now.

To be honest I’m not an expert on wine, either tasting or production. I enjoy drinking it but I’m happy with the local euro a litre stuff and have no desire to own or maintain a vineyard. Olives are enough for me.

It’s been a hectic week in the grove. Our friend Ben (incidentally a wine merchant) has come to give us a hand and did a great job on Wednesday climbing up trees and shaking them.

I did the light work of hand picking and Darren tapped high up branches with a 3 metre cane. On Thursday we collected all the bounty from the nets and yesterday morning took 200kg of olives to the press in Cutrofiano.

This should make around 30 litres of olive oil. Darren is picking up this morning so we will find out the exact amount, as well as the level of acidity. Exciting stuff.

We need now to lay out the nets again in preparation for a second harvest in a week or so. We didn’t have time to do it yesterday, a shame because it was really windy in the night and it blew the nets around the grove, as well as probably a load of olives off the trees.

20/10/06

Suddenly the weather has switched. After weeks of mainly beautiful, sunny days this morning we woke up to grey, wet and windy.

Yet there is something appropriately melancholy about it today which I don’t mind. I’ve barely been outside, instead I lit the fire before lunch. Not for cooking on though, we heated up some left-over pasta, more to cheer myself up.

But now it has been going for hours and is a toasty little corner, perfect for cooking. I’ve texted Darren to pick up some fish on the way home from teaching.

I’d like to have a book on cooking on fires – after a few winters here maybe I will be able to write one. They are very popular locally, with virtually every house having an indoor cooking fire, even in towns.

Fires are used locally for cooking in two ways – barbequing and slow cooking in terracotta pots. They are not pizza ovens as we might imagine.

I have to say that the local way of cooking meat on the fire is pretty unimpressive, especially compared with other cuisines. At otherwise wonderful meals you are often given cold, overcooked meat for secondi.

The local fish, simply grilled on the fire is amazing though, mainly because the quality and freshness of the fish is exceptional in Salento.

‘Pignata’ is the local word for the terracotta cooking pot. ‘Polipo alla Pignata’ (Octopus stew) is the most famous local dish cooked in this way and can be found in most restaurants.

My personal favourite pignata dish is Mama Rosaria’s chickpeas. I don’t know exactly how she does it but she manages to make just plain dried chickpeas, with the tiniest amount of tomato and parsley, into the most spectacular feast imaginable. It must be to do with cooking it for about 8 hours in the embers of the fire.

The pignata itself is an attractive curvy shape, not like that for looks but because it stands next to the fire, not on top like a hob. The pot is turned throughout cooking.

My friend and beautician, Samantha, told me yesterday that pulses are called poor man’s meat here. You rarely are given them when you are invited to someone’s house which is a shame because they are infinitely more desirable than a leathery chop.

Part of the love of plain meat here is a recent history of poverty, for a generation who went without. Gradually though, a revival is happening of traditional, often vegetable-based, dishes, served with a new sense of pride instead of shame.

15/10/06

Today I picked the first olives. Not for making oil – for that we’ll wait a few weeks for the fruit to mature a bit so they fall off the tree more easily. But we’ve already put down some nets under some trees to collect windfalls.

This week we’ll put the rest of the nets out and buy some more. They aren’t expensive, about 1.50 euro a metre (for the good nylon stuff) but if you think that we’ve got 4,000 m2 of olive grove it adds up! So we need to be strategic in where we put them and accumulate more each year.

Not all our trees produce every year. We have a total of 61 trees of various sizes and some are laden down with fruit while others have none at all and most are dwindling in between.

To help us decide where to cover with nets we took a screen shot of our property from google earth http://earth.google.com/ and made a map of our property and the position of our trees. We went round the grove and marked each tree on the map with a code, 0 = zero, B = bonta (the bigger the b, the bigger the bonta), P = poco.

It was cool to employ google earth in the millennia old tradition of olive harvesting, especially as the majority of what we are doing hasn’t changed much during that time.

It’s easy to walk in other’s groves and feel a little jealous at their production – each branch appears to carry bunches of shiny grapes. But we have done nothing to the grove since we bought the property in 2004 and nothing had been done for a few years before that.

After the harvest this year we need to invest in a guy to spend a couple of days giving all the trees a good prune. And then we need to decide on a way of putting down a strong dose of fertiliser. Determined to make that organic, we basically need to find/buy/beg/steal a truck load of shit.

Olives can’t be eaten from the tree – they contain oleuropeina that affects your kidneys and tastes disgusting. To make them suitable for eating they need to have the rinsed out of them.

So, to prepare eating olives (based on one of the many different versions we have been told by local old ladies)

• Cover olives in water
• Change water 2 or 3 times a day
• Continue this process for 6-9 days
• Drain
• Put drained olives clean jars with sea salt crystals (still not sure on the amount of salt – I put too much on last year – I am going to try about 8 teaspoons of salt per 1 litre container)
• Also add some flavourings – lemon or orange rind, bay leaves, garlic are the most common ones round here
• Leave the lid off and stir a few times a day for a few days
• After a couple of days, cover with fresh water and screw on the lid tightly
• Leave for 40 days

09/10/06

My dream is to have a pomegranate grove. The low, bushy trees are in themselves quite unspectacular but the regal, symbolic fruit that ripen in October that make them my favourite fruit tree. The bright red spring blossoms are also beautiful.

I’ve spent the last couple of evenings making pomegranate juice. On Saturday we were showing ‘Masseria Lillo’ to some clients, where we spotted two pomegranate trees that had obviously blown over in the storm. They were both laden down with fruit so we asked Hugo, the agent for that property, if anyone came to tend the land there. He said it was completely abandoned and told us to take the fruit. Which is how we ended up with two carrier bags full of pomegranates to use up.

There was no rush to use them as they are good keepers. They like a dark airy environment – spread out on a shelf in the larder for instance. But with all the fuss over the anti-aging properties of the fruit and the recent popularity of the juice, we thought it would be worth having a go making our own.

The first question we needed to answer was how to extract the juice. The juicy pink gems are covered with a bitter membrane that needs to be removed. Basically there is no easy or quick way of doing it and it ends up taking the good part of an evening to make just over a litre of the juice. But it is special stuff and the exquisite taste is certainly worth the hassle.

The first thing I found on the internet was a good way of opening the fruit. All my life I have been cutting it into eighths, like ‘half-time’ oranges but this is rather messy.

Instead, try this: “To peel a pomegranate, first cut off the crown and gently scoop out some of the center core without disturbing the seeds. With a sharp knife, score just through the outer rind around the fruit in quarters. Put your thumb in the core center and gently pull apart the sections. Peel away the inner white papery skin covering the seeds and discard. Gently invert the skin inside out and the seeds will pop out to be easily removed without bruising.”

The same website had these suggestions for juicing:

• Use a food mill to grind fresh juice from the seeds, leaving the seeds trapped in the mill.
• Pulse the pips in a blender with short bursts and strain.
• Cut the fruits in half crosswise and ream them as you would a lemon.
• Place the seeds in a sealed plastic freezer bag and roll over them with a rolling pin.

I’ve been doing the second method, and it is good – I won’t bother trying another way. I’ve been freezing most of the juice to reserve for when pomegranates are out of season but we have had a little glass each for breakfast. Darren also tried some with vodka and ice this evening and said it was delicious.

01/10/06

The last few days have been bellissimi – hot and sunny but in a distinctly autumnal way. On the morning of Tuesday 26th there was a really bad storm – the worst that I have ever seen here, with trees down and other wind damage across the area.

We first had to saw our way out of the end of our track, as part of an ancient oak had fallen to block the track. I wasn’t much use in my pregnant state – Darren did the essentials to enable us to get out with our hand saw and went back the next day with a borrowed chain saw. Both he and my cousin Jake dragged the large branches back to the house where they will sit for a whole year to dry out before they are ready to burn.

Clever (or lucky) folks managed to do their ‘vendemmia’, or grape harvest, the day before the storm hit. Many others weren’t so fortunate and have had to wait until now that the ground has begun to dry out to cut their crop.

‘Ape’s’ are 3-wheeled farm vehicles, characteristic of southern Italy, and over the last few weeks the lanes are full of them buzzing around, precariously loaded up with barrels of grapes or vats of freshly pressed grape must.

The streets of the local towns reek with the sweet fruity smell of the fermenting fruit. We had to persuade a new client over the weekend that the first floor apartment she was buying above an old man’s garagio in Galatone didn’t always smell of pungent new wine!

The must will sit in people’s garages and sheds unopened until the evening of the 11th November. This is San Martino and the local new wine festival when it is traditional to taste the wine pressed at the end of November. There are some good parties, often the only opportunity we have in the year to see our Italian friends drunk.

The old people like to reminisce about the vedemmias of bygone days. Not a foot in the town over the age of 45 wasn’t employed in childhood to stamp on the grapes to express the juice. Unfortunately for many of the younger generation this is just another boring tale of past times, and they leave their elders to it in the vineyards.

We have three vineyards bordering our property. To the east and one meter from our house belongs to Antonio, one of the many many men we know of this name. Today he is there alone, cutting the grapes off the vine.

He lamented to Darren that while there would be 6 around his table at lunch today, there was only he working at his vines. A sentiment also expressed this morning by Mamma Rosaria, Cristina’s mum. Where have all the youngsters gone? Al mare? Down the local Irish pub enjoying some nibbles with a litre of Tennants?

13/08/06

Since the last entry more time than I would like has passed and a lot has changed both outside in the fields and in our personal life.

Yesterday the main crop figs on our five trees started maturing, with the first fruits starting to swell up and ripen, and I saw the analogy with my own body which has started to do a similar thing in the fifth month of pregnancy.

Yet as new life is celebrated, past lives must be mourned as I remember my father, Elkan Allan, who died aged 83 on June 25th after suffering from septicaemia for six weeks. I missed a large chunk of early summer here this year, as I went backwards and forwards to London during his illness and after his death.

The lush, green countryside I left in the middle of May felt dry and barren on my return at the beginning of July. The cycle of nature helps us accept the cycle of our own lives and prepares us for death.

Yet as a fruit tree sheds its leaves in Autumn, we are confident that it will blossom again in the Spring. When we lose the people we love the terrible thing we can’t accept is that they have gone forever.

I kept a container of his ashes to fertilise one of our baby trees but so far I’ve been unable to decide which one. The pomegranate is the first tree we have planted to bear any fruit, there is one small greenish offering that survived from about 20 flowers. It’s got another couple of months to go before it is ready to eat and after every storm I check it to see it hasn’t fallen off.

Of five new citrus trees, only one is looking like it is doing well. We are worried that we planted them in too exposed positions. We have since found out that they are best planted with protection from the north wind. While they have flowered in April for two years running, so far no sign of fruit has shown on any tree. Fingers crossed for next year.

The pair of cherries were the only trees we didn’t buy at a nursery. The farmer in the field next door, Aldo, is a master grafter and we were given them as a gift last winter. This Spring one of the trees produced its first blossoms, but we will have to wait for several years before enjoying a decent bowl of cherries, probably by that time our baby will be tall enough to pick them himself!

For the moment I’m not ready to give up Elkan’s ashes. It’s nice to have a physical part of him near me. Maybe when the baby is born in January it’ll be the right time to part with them as well as the best time of the year to fertilise the young trees to prepare them for the coming Spring.


09/05/06 08.25

For me there is no better time of year for seasonal vegetables than right now. We are nearing the end of the globe artichoke season, which started at Christmas further north in Puglia, near Brindisi and Bari where there are huge fields full of them. The last artichokes are still on our plants but I fear we'll have to cut them before they reach a decent size. They need to be cut before they turn thorny and the petals open out.

It's interesting how some seasons are the same here as in England while others are completely different. Our English gardening books tell us that the British artichoke season is late summer, while here it is the opposite end of the year. I'm interested to find out about French artichokes, being situated in between both countries. Maybe they produce all year round?

One season that is identical is asparagus, another passion of ours. As in England the season is tantalisingly short, a six week window in April and May. In this period we try to eat as much of the stuff as possible, especially as, unlike in England, the shops don't stock the imported stuff the rest of the year.

Two weekends ago we went off to a particular area nearby to collect wild asparagus but were told by a local man that we had missed it by a good couple of weeks. Next year, then! For our own asparagus we will have to wait even longer, our crowns that we planted in November will not produce for three years. Until then we will have to continue buying it (in large quantities) at the market.

Cristina's artichokes

Italians just don't eat whole artichokes the way we do in England. They remove all the inedible bits before cooking. I used to think this was too fiddly and I was always too scared of them turning black.

However, after tasting the amazing artichoke dishes served by friends and restaurants during the season, I've come round to their way of doing things and have found that it isn't really that hard.

I think one of the reasons they do it like that here is because the artichokes are a lot smaller, so if you are using the large green globes usually sold in the UK, you may have to increase cooking times.

To prepare the artichokes get your self a big bowl of cold water and a pile of lemons. Squeeze a lemon into the water and chuck in the rest of the lemon to infuse the water. Cut another lemon for squeezing onto the artichokes directly while you are preparing them and keep using fresh lemons as you squeeze them dry.

Give the whole artichokes a good rinse to remove any pests or pesticides - depending on where you get them from.

Take an artichoke in you hand and pull off the outer leaves. If they are fresh they should snap off quite easily. The general rule with artichokes is that anything that is green can't be eaten and anything yellow can.

So keep going round taking the petals off until you get the yellow bit. At this point squeeze some juice on the exposed yellow part. Then, with a sharp knife, cut of the tips of the leaves and scrape around the base (and stalk if there is one) to remove all the green parts. Cut of the base of the stalk and then smother lemon juice over the whole thing and then put in the water. Repeat for all the artichokes.

When you have done all the artichokes (it may take some time) take them out of the water one by one and cut into wedges, trimming off the furry choke, give another rub of lemon juice and replace in the water.

Meanwhile put a large pan of white wine vinegar and water mixed. Cristina goes for 50-50 but I think this is a little sharp (and also expensive) so I put in about 1 part of vinegar to 4 parts water. Chuck in some black peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves and bring to the boil.

When it's boiling, drain the artichokes and put into the boiling water. Cook until tender but still crisp, about 5 minutes. Drain and cool. Serve with drizzled with olive oil or preserve in jars completely covered in oil.

03/05/06 08.25

There's a haze obscuring the morning sun which I hope will clear to give us a scorcher - I don't need to work until this afternoon. The field in front of me is full of poppies, like a Monet painting.

This time last year Carmenuccio and his daughter were planting the tobacco seedlings into that field, as they had done every year since this young woman was the age of her own daughter, Vanessa, a student of mine at the Cutrofiano middle school.

However, this year and 2007 and 2008, the government are paying tobacco farmers not to produce. While the poppies are stunning now and will remain so for the next few weeks, we will miss the lush green tobacco crop in the middle of the hot, dry summer. We will also miss the heavy, musky scent of the tobacco on summer evenings, perhaps especially delicious to us smokers.

We wonder what will happen to the local tobacco crop after 2008. Twenty years ago it was a good earner and provided peasant families to make a big lump sum at the end of the summer, when they had planted, watered, picked and dried the leaves. It was such a big job that the whole family would move into the country to tend the crop for the duration of the summer.

That is, in fact, the reason why these little houses were built in this inland area of Salento, so suitable for growing tobacco. The 'garagio' is the big room that we have converted as our kitchen and living area but it was originally used for drying and storing the tobacco leaves. When we bought the house there were still the old wires on the ceiling where the bunches of leaves, already sun-dried, were hung.

Nowadays, tobacco production has moved to Africa and Asia, where land and labour are cheaper. The poor here are victims of their own success as higher wages and decent living standards have taken business, not only agriculture, to worse off places.