Fools Gold...

The other day a car pulled up in the car park, a big sweaty hunting guy dressed in combat gear opened the boot and a crowd gathered to marvel at what he had in his boot...I couldn’t resist...was it a dead body, an animal or maybe a kidnap victim??...I went over to look and sure enough it was quite a spectacle...not quite what I was expecting but nevertheless we were all impressed with his massive haul of freshly picked porcini mushrooms!

Yes, it’s definitely that autumnal time of the year when the flavoursome porcini grow wild and abundantly in the woods. I mentioned this incident to a friend who then told me that his elderly mother had even found some in the woods so that was that...my mind was made up and the next morning I would set off to find my own treasures. Hey, if an overweight sweaty bloke and a doddery old woman can find them then this would be a piece of piss for an old mountain goat like me.!

I’d heard that they grew high in the hills so the following morning I set off with a large bag and a trusty wooden staff to (a) look the part and (b)fend off any cinghiale, hunters or ruffians that might want to steal my ‘soon to be had’ expensive fungi haul. 

I checked I wasn’t being followed and started to climb using small paths, animal tracks and canyons, gaining height and isolation, well away from civilisation and into beautiful leafy woodland, a perfect medium for the large porcini to prosper and grow.

I soon started to see loads of mushrooms...wow...yellow ones, red ones, white ones and even spotty ones but the elusive brown one was nowhere to be seen...I carried on, they must be here somewhere...

...3 hours later and hot and sweaty I had covered a fair bit of ground so I sat down wearily by a large oak tree in order to think my strategy. The problem seemed to be that the colour of these woods were predominantly brown, the trees were brown, the leaves have turned brown, the soil was brown and the bloody mushrooms that I was looking for were also bloody brown so this made the damn things harder to find...so hard that after all this time I hadn’t seen a single one!....I also realised that I didn’t know my Clitopilus from my Stinkhorns so all the mushrooms I had come across I didn’t know if they were edible or poisonous...Shitake!..this was harder than I thought!

I wasn’t going to let this get in the way...I set off again, more determined and with a mental image of me grating Parmesan over a large dish of fresh pasta tagliatelle abundant with fresh porcini later that evening.......Mmmm...can’t wait.

...another 2 hours went by and the porcini count was still at nil...I started to wonder if this was a joke...how could I have come all this way and not found even one?..did they really exist or is it like looking for a three-legged haggis or a tiny little green leprechaun?...by now I was so high I could see the lake below on the other side of the hill so I decided enough was enough...

I took the next hunter’s track and headed back down....what a bloody disaster, I had nothing to show for all my efforts, I was tired, sweaty and getting hungry...my only hope now was that I came across a fat, sweaty smug bloke with a full basket or even better, a defenceless old woman so I could club them to death with my trusty staff and steal their prized porcini....that was the only way I was going to find the bloody things around here!

Today’s track needs no introduction, an indie classic and a timeless groove to enjoy from the Madchester era of 1989. Listen here https://youtu.be/NSD11dnphg0

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing...

So today, Friday 13th, has been the second and final day of the 2019 Vendemmia for the organic Syrah wine of the Doveri Cantina, near to Cortona. An early six o clock start saw us sipping coffee and munching creme- pastries, a usual pastime before a busy morning in the vineyard....and was it busy, wow....In the cool of the morning I watched many big strong, rough looking girls and boys scurrying up and down the rows, snipping away at the bunches of ripe grapes as the morning sun came up and before long the crates were overflowing and were being loaded on the awaiting truck.

I thought it best, as a non paid-up union member, not to get too involved so I took on a self-appointed overseeing management role otherwise I’m sure I could have lost a finger or two or worse, at the bottom of one of the longer rows where no-one would have heard my pathetic whimpering screams.
So, after an hour or so watching (managing) this impressive spectacle of organised labour the boss and I returned to the cantina to prepare the machinery for the subsequent arrival of the 🍇 truck.

The machine, the ‘Di-Raspatrice’, so named as it removes the grapes from the stalks or ‘Raspi’ and ‘trice’ pronounced ‘treechee’...well that’s the machine bit, ok?

 Anyway it takes two to tango or operate, one to stand looking cool and tip in the grapes and another to operate the stick below. The ‘tipping’ job is ok and the boss took this so I got the ‘Nobs job’, sat on a crate, rooting about underneath with the stick to prevent the blockages with the grapes and sticky stalks role.....well let’s just say that the novelty wears off quite quickly!....

This work, although deemed as ‘Molto Importante’ by the smiling gaffer was in fact a pretty crap job and even got demoted during our discussions to the title of ‘Lavoro di cazzo’....so as I sat there waiting and wishing I had a proper job it was with great relief when I saw his lovely elderly father, Benito,  rock up wanting to help out. He was very swiftly interviewed, trained and employed full-time under the job title ‘Head Stick Operator’ (HSO). In turn, I was automatically promoted to (HPO) ...a highly skilled job with responsibilities involving a Hose-Pipe, crates and a soft brush for the rest of the afternoon....Happy Days!

Once finished and cleaned up we enjoyed another of Mums home cooked, home reared 4 course ‘piatti’ extravaganza on the big table in the cantina including crostini,lasagne, roasted rabbit and chicken with potatoes and veg and a fig and nut cake , baked and provided by his sister....all washed down with the 2016 and 7.

 A Great end to a great Vendemmia....🍷

https://youtu.be/IhTvifGShw4

Today’s blog track comes from the old surfer dude, Jack Johnson from an old 2005 album I used to like called ‘In between dreams’....enjoy the link.

Pearly Dewdrops Drop...

There are probably a number of folk out there that have a fair bit of wine knowledge but as some wise old scabby pigeon once told me “you never stop learning...” so I thought I’d share my wine experiences and knowledge with you as this week we had the Vendemmia...the Italian word used only for the harvest of grapes for wine production.

Per vendemmia si intende la raccolta delle uve da vino, in quanto nel caso delle uve da tavola si usa semplicemente il termine raccolta.

This in short is the day when the grapes are declared as ready for harvesting as they can be, the moons is in the right phase and the man from Del Monte has said  “YES”. 

At this point in time you need a crowd of folk to pick them, some clean plastic crates to put them in and a big truck to take them back to the ‘Cantina’ for processing...and just for all you wine romantics il just quash this notion right now....it’s hot, sweaty and hard graft to fill up the crates in the hot sunshine, lug them about, discarding the smelly ‘Muffa’ riddled bunches while trailing up and down the endless rows of sloping vines in a typical Tuscan vineyard.....but also it’s good fun!

muffa

(ˈmuffa) 

feminine noun

1. 1. (biancastra) mildew
   2. (verdognola) mould
   fare la muffa to go mouldy 
   avere odore di muffa to smell mouldy

Back at home we unload the crates and start the processing on the roof above the Cantina ...I may lose you here with some technological terms but try to keep up...

The bunches of grapes are tipped into the top of the ‘squishing machine’ by the ‘tipper’, a key player with strong  but steady role. The auger and rollers in the machine then miraculously separates the grapes from the stalks and spew them out into the awaiting ‘stalk bucket’. The sweet, dark grapes then fall out of the bottom of the machine and are funnelled down a hole that allows them to drop further into awaiting tanks below. As the funnel starts to get ‘bunged-up’, the responsibility then lies with the ‘stick operator’ to keep the flow going by ‘poking’

The stick operator 

 v. 1. the act of making quick or abrupt thrusts with a sharp object 

and without doubt......a role of utmost importance!

Here is the part where I explain about the ‘legs’....

Some call them the wines ‘tears’ and others link them to the quality of the wine or the signature of the alcohol content but I know that these beautiful droplets or streaks that form on the inside of the glass have a more sinister explanation...let me divulge my knowledge here...

As you savvy old wine guzzlers will know it is normal to see folk initially swilling their newly poured vino around their large crystal glasses and passing comment on the colour and complexity, the vibrant hue and the effects on the nose but then they usually delight in the interesting fact of the wines ‘legs’....so, let me explain first hand as to how a wine gets its impressive ‘legs’.

The squisher

As the bunches of newly picked grapes are tipped in to the machine, so are a variety of   grape-dwelling insects including flies, spiders, ants, earwigs and the odd centipede. All these bugs collectively have a great many legs so as they all get mashed up by the ‘squisher’ their bodily fluids combine forming a sticky visceral substance resembling pearly dewdrop drops thus giving a wine the desired and much appreciated by the discerning drinker, the ‘legs’....

Anyway, I digress...

The stalk bucket

Now with the grapes securely in the large steel vats the fermentation process can begin which is a long , uncomplicated drawn out process that has to happen before you can taste the stuff so I won’t bore with these details at this stage...you will just have to wait for perhaps another update at a later date!

"Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" is a single by Scottish post-punk band Cocteau Twins, taken from their 1984 EP The Spangle Maker. The song was written by Cocteau Twins, and recorded at Rooster Studios in London.

https://youtu.be/s-5Xgw6d3h0

August and Everything After...

Im sorry Father but it’s been nearly a year since my last confession...well 9 months or so...the time it takes to make a baby👶 , grow an avocado 🥑 , mature a wine🍷 , develop an ulcer🤷🏿‍♀️....errr, or none of the above. 

Yes, I returned to the sunshine state of Tuscany 🇮🇹in the deep south of the Mediterranean homesick blues and have been here that long, contemplating and capitulating life as we know it.

So now, as we head out of the summer sun and into the autumnal shade I thought that maybe it’s about the right time to put finger to keyboard again and spend a small amount of my loose time lolling about with my creative thoughts to blog critical comment and witty repartee as and when the mood takes me.

So I looked back at my last post for a reference point to start from and saw the world at the time of my last post was being slated for being in such a mess, so, a good nine months on I’m glad all that is now behind us and the future is now looking incredibly rosy with peace and harmony across the waters of the world as all the economic and humanitarian issues have been resolved, blazing fires and riots quelled by strong intelligent leaders with all the lessons of the past learned to provide us all with a stable, positive future for years to come....tick✅☯️🤯🤮

That’s a load off my mind then and I feel foolish about my past criticism!🙈🙉🙊

Anyway, I’m back on the blogs, for now at least.

So, to recap the story so far...the sun has gone down on the last of the summertime Sagra’s, great local events promoting all locally sourced foods, cooked and served by locals on local village fields washed down with copious amounts of unlabelled wine and spirits distilled behind closed doors in secret Cantina’s that will remain undiscovered....unless you are invited!

Sagra’s explained....

Sagra’s are for everyone and in abundance in this area serving an array of plates of food on a theme over many weekends throughout the summer evenings from pasta, fish, steak and pizzas to Cinghiale, frogs, snails and rabbits to name but a few. The procedure of these events have been unchanged for years. First you need to arrive and park in a nearby field, as close to the entrance gate as you can facing the exit in case of the onset of intoxication later and then, along with everyone else arriving at the same time, in an excitable throng , you clog up the entrance by standing in front of the makeshift ticket desk manned respectfully by two of the oldest, slowest and most inefficient owd fellas from the village who in turn ask you to choose what you want to eat, hand write the order with a pencil then take payment, often without having any apparent change...a simple process that defines Italian bureaucracy. 

Deafness dictates that when it gets to your turn you need to speak up, make the order in Italian while remembering the plates of food that you and all your party want while adopting a patience that is a virtue and necessity around these parts. Now, finally armed with your food ticket you need to squeeze on to one of the many long, busy trestle tables and dangle you legs over one of the large pews claiming your position and hand over the order to an attentive serving wench(or Hunter)....following this the table will rapidly start to fill up with wine bottles, paper mats and an astonishing array of single-use plastic ware. Foods of choice then follow very quickly so it’s best to take an initial swig of the unlabelled vino, pour some water then get munching on the bruschetta and prosciutto because you can be sure that the pasta courses and the meat plates won’t be far behind...........Buon Appetito.

Right that’s all for now ....I’m off to the Donkey race!

Today’s blog title comes from a Counting Crows album title, a good one too so check it out and give it a listen while you wait for the next instalment.

Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World...

What is wrong with The world these days?

The whole place is in turmoil...

I have just turned the idiot lantern on again for some uplifting festive cheer and there is Old MotherTeresa, the leader of the free world, stood there looking very old and grey and sporting a pained expression like she had just passed a big milestone...her backbench backstoppers voted her to go through to the next round but already I can hear the dulcet tones of Sir Allan of Sugar telling her ‘“It’s with great regret, but I’m going to be quite blunt...You’re a lightweight....You’re Fired! “

As temperatures plummet across Europe the vultures are circling and no-one seems to be in control of their own destiny?

The Italian mafia have said that they are not going to supply any more drugs for the festive period unless Arch angel Angela of Mirkleshire stops sending them migrants. 

In retaliation she has posted a selfie on Salvini’s Facebook page from the late night fling they had at the last G20 summit in Hamburg.

In The Netherlands, all the dykes with all the butt-plugs can’t even stop the hard Brexit from being shoved up to the backstop....and them boys know a thing or two about sticking things in holes...

The Spaniardio’s are having a quiet siesta after hastily making up beds for all the old wrinklies from all the cold, frosty EU countries to migrate there for their winter suntans, to drink copious amounts of sangria and save a bit on their hiked-up winter gas bills.

It’s also cooled down now in French France, after the heat of the summer sparked the ‘Ark de Triumph’ riots that were swamped with them pesky ‘Yella-bellies’ jumping around, complaining about the environment and the extortionate price of croissants in Paris which is now causing a backlog of Brie and triggering another amendment to give more bouts of indigestion to the festive constitution.

Across the pond, in the Islamic States of America the Red-knecked Trumpers have already snaffled the turkey for the Thanksgiving giving day and will be thanking the lord again when they get that fence up to stop them meddlin’ moustachio’d Mexicans....Amen brother!

In Ireland a backstop is not just for Christmas...but no-one knows what it is or where to stick it?...maybe ask a Catholic priest?

And as for the the Un-United Kingdom of Doom, the annual budget is on the Barclaycard, the Queen is dead....is she?,...well nearly! Are we in? are we out? The big bake off has buggered off while the Brexit bandwagon rumbles on with a clueless bunch of part-time drivers heading us into our own made oblivion.

As the snow starts to fall festive revellers in high spirits with high levels of intoxication had better watch out, and better be ware cos’ without a ‘Withdrawal agreement’ they risk office party pregnancies and higher taxes on childcare come the New Year, that is if what is left of the government ‘remains’....

At this very special time of the year lets just have some hands across the water, eh?

First let’s raise a glass of French toast to ‘No Brussels’ at Christmas. 

Then why not sink a few negronis in Naples instead of migrant boats, 

have a sneaky Bellini with a Belgian, sing a Christmas carol with a Canadian,

Share a a box of ‘Novichoc’ chocolates with an Oligarch, 

Pull a cracker with a Croat,

Roast your chestnuts with a Chinaman

Eat pie with a Thai

Play twister with a Transylvanian transvestite,

Have an Absinthe with an Albanian 

Wrap tinsel round a Turk

Bring coal to a Pole

Dine with a Dane

Basically, just try to get on with folk....its not that difficult.

This is not just any world,...this is our delicious, diet-free, drizzled canapé of a capitalist, screwed-up world...brought to you exclusively by Donald T for Turkey Trump...

 

Peace and Love ....

‘Keep on rocking in the Free World’....a monster of a track that if turned up loud enough will make all this shit go away...please try it. Thanks to Neil Young once again...a great man with morals....and great rockin’sojgs with timeless lyrics.

https://youtu.be/TnAgc1kgvLc

Drink the Elixir...

elixir

/ɪˈlɪksə,ɪˈlɪksɪə/

noun

1. 1. 

   
   

   a magical or medicinal potion.

   "an elixir guaranteed to induce love"

   
   

   

   synonyms:

   potion, concoction, brew, philtre, decoction;

When you have collected all the olives you have to get them to the local frantoia.

These places are dedicating to processing the olives into oil and can get very busy. You need to book a slot so that you know the time your olives will go through the system so that you can be ready to collect the ‘Elixir’ at the end. 

We arrived early and had the first slot.

The weighed olives are tipped down a hole and sent up a belt to have any leaves blown away, then washed and augered up into several macerators before finally being pressed to death to make beautiful green peppery olive oil.

For every 100kg, (quintale)of olives you get about a 14% ratio of oil, so about 14 litres.

Bon appetito...

RIP Pete Shelley...always great to hear ur stuff!

Drink the Elixir was by a nice little Britpop indie band from 1995 ‘Salad’, which would be perfect for drizzling Tuscan olive oil on....see what I did there?

I used to love the scratchy guitars on this.....enjoy again here.

https://youtu.be/vV8QvsC68lk

Shaker maker...

‘Raccogliere le olive’

For the uninitiated, the olive harvesting in Tuscany goes on from October to December every year and peaks around tupping time, November 5th when absolutely everybody, whether they have olives or not, get out their nets, boxes, trailers and stand under their trees. It’s in their blood here and they can’t stop doing it and talking about it....everybody...everywhere!

All the olives that are picked here are for processing, usually at the local frantoia, and pressed to turn them into a delicious green, peppery oil and it’s big, big business. You can forget that crap stuff you buy at the Lidl, this is the real deal.

You need a few tools to do the job:

Paletti = stakes for holding the edges of the net to stop the buggers rolling away.

Cassetti = boxes take about 25kg and this year, with a bumper crop, one decent tree can fill 3 of these!

Rete Olivastra= a bloody big net!

Rastrelli = little rakes to use by hand to strip the olives off the branches.

Carri Carri = a cart or a donkey(chooka)...that’s the one on the left!

And lots of energy....it’s tiring work!

Today we are high up in the olive terraces again, in a beautiful garden with about 90 more trees to go...

We are averaging about 30 trees per day.

For the purists among you, turn off now because unless you have a spare two months there is no way that you can pick this many olives by hand so we have to have get the big power-tools out to give a helping hand....so to speak!

The ‘macchina di olive’, A mechanical aid connected to a battery with strong fingers that flick up and down and shake, rattle and roll the olives off the trees.

Today’s first weapon of choice is the ‘Tickler’ with a sleek, long slim shaft giving fast, long, deep strokes, perfect for teasing off the olives from the smaller trees, a snip at about €500 and does a pretty decent job.

For the bigger jobs we have the ‘climax’, a more heavy duty model that is better suited for the ‘larger lady’ as it’s carbon fingers are more powerful, and it’s 33 voltage can flick your olive off very easily and it comes with the added bonus that it doesn’t get stuck in a thick bush the same.....that’s worth the extra €300 dobbers!

Both models give a fully enjoyable experience for the user as long as you have a powerful battery, a firm grip and steady hand...

One downside is that by using a ‘tool’ you are more likely to get ‘tanti foglie’, which sounds like an STI but it just means that you just get loads more leaves and twigs in your nets, and this unfortunately just can’t be helped!

A quick word concerning health and safety........there, that’s that sorted then, but then saying that, if you get one in the eye from a great height you will know about it...been there, got at least half a dozen ‘T’ shirts.

Once the olives have flown off the trees in every direction the next job is to collect up the big nets and fill up the boxes.

The olives are emptied through a machine here that separates them from the leaves 

as they fall past a fan and you are left with a nice, clean crate of olives ready to go to 

the frantoia.

Lunch or ‘Pranzo’ is a welcome break and is always a ‘celebration’ with a table full of local food, bread, meats, cheeses, fagioli, salsicci, bruschetta, panettone, birra ,vino, grappa and good banter.

Frantoia blog next week.....hopefully!

‘Shaker maker’ is a great track way back when Oasis were great, this one off the first album.

https://youtu.be/LiAK3AD_HsU