Survival Kit

Nutella, biscuit sticks for dipping, and an iced tea all in one convenient package. 

Good Bye Italy!

Off I go to England to visit Flora! Quickly I just want to say how lucky we might be in America for domestic flights. Here on Ryan Air get charged €70 if you don't check in online, €70 if your hand bag doesn't fit in the overhead bin, €45 for a checked bag at the airport, €15 additional if you don't print your boarding pass, and tons of extra little fees for using a credit card, being an American or anything else thhe feel like. Granted the flight was only €23 but still, next time I fly in America I'll be happy to know all my charges upfront. So take heart- air travel could be worse! 

Modena: A Food Paradise

'You don't go to Emilia-Romagna for the wine'. True, you go to eat. Emilia-Romagna is a food paradise and today I took full advantage of the fact that I've wandered into the land of milk and honey. I organized a picnic entirely of IGP/DOP products and I'm quite proud of the results-Proscuitto di Parma, Vignola cherries, 36 month Parmagiano Reggiano (quite literally the most intoxicating texture and flavor Parmasean I've ever experienced- grainy at first, then melting, and full of delicious lactic flavor and then the tang and salt). I also got some grapes (because I'm addicted) and some other cherries, similar to a fresh maraschino) that were tart, but delicious, and perfect in shape and color. I also felt I  had to have a little Porchetta because I know it would probably be the last time! It's roasted pork filled herbs, like fennel and garlic, fat, and spices. 

Afterwards, I had gelato at La Moretta which serves only seasonal and artisnal flavors- I opted for honey and Pecorino Romano, and a frozen panna montata (Italian whipped cream) with chocolate and sambuca.

To end the day, I sat in the lawn chairs with a glass of the Lambrusco from Ca Penelope. They cultivate the grapes on the property organically and harvest each year. If you look closely in the distance, you can see the first row of the vineyard. 

I wish someone had told me how wonderful this area was sooner. Please, if you ever go to Italy, be sure to head to Emilia-Romagna. The people are kind, the food is incredible and the scenery feels like you've stepped into a gorgeous coffee table book. 

#CowSelfie

This is Rosa, our resident cow who is treated more like a beloved family dog than a milk producing bovine animal. Every morning we take her out to pasture, tie her on a long lead to a tree and let her munch away. Then we bring her home at night. This is me walking her through the parking lot of the agrotourism on our way to some nice green grass. 

Modena Clouds

Crepes by Amandine

Amandine is the very picture of French sensibility, grace and wit. For her sabbatical year she chose to travel to Italy and learn the language, learn about the culture, and also be in the country side which she has missed after 6 years in Paris. Of course I couldn't pass up the chance to heckle her into cooking something, so when my Italian hosts begged for pancakes I gave my conditions- one day I make pancakes, and one day Amandine must make crepes! My pancake were a total disaster and tasted like something you'd scrub the sink with, in part because of the difficulty in finding an equivalent to baking soda. Italian Bicarbonate of Sodium seems like an exact equivalent but doesn't have the same make up I think of our American leavening agent. It's ok, Saturday morning I get a chance to redeem myself. 

So what follows is Amandine's crepe recipe, and it produces the most delicious, silky crepes I've tasted. 

250grams Flour

4 Eggs- we used gorgeous fresh eggs from the chickens here on the farm

500ml Milk

Rum or vanilla

1 extra large pat of Butter (1-2 tablespoons) Melted

Add the flour to the bowl and crack the eggs in the middle. Whisk until it resembles a dough. Once all the flour and the egg are combined, add the milk slowly at first while whisking to incorporate. The dough should now be a very, very thin batter and  very easy to pour. Add vanilla or Rum (or both! The rum adds only a tiny bit of flavor) and mix. Pour in slowly while whisking the melted butter. Heat a non stick pan on medium. CAUTION- mistakes are made after this point. Up to here, it's very difficult to make a mistake since the batter is fairly forgiving. After this point the most common mistake is that people put way too much batter into the pan, and I did too, until Amandine gave me a lesson in crepe batter pouring. Don't think you can get the batter to cover the pan if you're holding it in your non dominant hand, because you can't. You need to ladle with your opposite hand and while ladling a tiny bit of batter into the pan, swirl the pan with your other hand so the batter coats the bottom evenly. This is done very very quickly. If your batter starts to cook too quickly and you end up with thick streaks of cooked batter before it's thinned out and covered the rest of the pan- the batter is too thick. Add more milk. Once the crepe is dry on top, flip. Wait 30seconds to a minute and you have your wonderfully authentic French crepe. 

Ca Penelope

To round out my WWOOFing experience, I chose Ca Penelope because it was an agrotourism with a restaurant, garden, animals and a vineyard. The jobs are varied, but of course my favorites are in the kitchen. Every morning starts with feeding the animals, and taking them out to the surrounding land so they can graze on whatever is available. Then we harvest strawberries, and other things for the restaurant which happens every Saturday. The atmosphere is young, and energetic- everyone on the farm is in their 20s, except the owner, Fabra, who is 62 but her heart is in it's 20s like most Italian women I have met this age. It sits just outside Modena where the Alps start and I know I don't need to say it, but the landscape is the most serene and bucolic I've ever seen. It's like a postcard, or an advertisement for Italian handmade bread. I almost can't believe my eyes when I wake up in the morning. Silvia, who manages the tourism and booking at the place, was kind enough to take me on a whirlwind trip up into the mountains on her Vespa (I know, I know- it was a little too Italian), but the photos don't do it justice. The landscape here is a serious of steep hills with deep, green valleys. At this time of year they are harvesting hay and rolling it into big, beautiful rolls. It's wonderful.

This is the agrotourism entrance. It is in a renovated barn and farm house with big beautiful exposed beams and vaulted ceilings on the ground floor. There are about six guest rooms and the loft. 

The hammock grove near the animals.

This garden was planted by Fabra and all the trees beyond the fence are different rare varieties of fruit trees. Each one has a little placard and I'm happy to report that my Italian is ok-enough to understand a little bit about each tree! A very little bit though. 

I took this photo while Amandine, Daisy and I were scouting out areas for the animals to graze. Beyond you can see the vineyard for lamrbusco grapes which they cultivate here on the farm. 

This photo and the ones that follow need no explanation....

Jordan and Gwen All Over: Part II

Despite my reservations about Venice after the crushing crowds of Rome, Jordan and I both admitted that this ended up being one of our favorite places. Although the amount of tourism is suffocating ( so much so that I'm not sure the island's cultural ecosystem can handle it), there are places that you do not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Dutch, American and English. Jordan and I loved circumnavigating around the major tourist sites (even though we popped into the crowds to see a few) and through the labyrinthine back streets. We had not planned on eating in Venice restaurants because of the terrible things we heard so we  packed a picnic of tellegio, fresh and smoked burrata cheeses, Nebbiolo wine, framboise di bosco (woodland strawberries- so good, I'll write about these later), prosciutto, coppa, Parma ham, basically everything italian we could get our hands on from the wonderful market in Padua. That night, when we lost all restraint and our economical plans of leaving after sunset, we went for the most romantic meal of our trip with wonderful food, candles and waited until the rain was finished at midnight before taking the train back to Padua. 

After Venice, Jordan and I headed to my cousins in Formia! It was a welcome break to stay with family who knew there way around. Jane and Peppe took us to Naples also, where we had the best pizza of our life. Jordan and I both thought it was definitely the best pizza we've ever had, but also may with the award for best thing eaten on the trip. The jury is still out though, and unfortunately I was too incapacitated by flavor to take a photo so you'll just have to imagine it. The photo wouldn't have done it justice though. We also took part in the village tradition of an 8km walk through the mountains on May 1st which is a national holiday to celebrate Liberation Day. Jane also cooked... A lot. It was delicious. 

Jordan and I also made a quick stop at the last farm I was working at, Fattoria Biodynamica, to make some cheese and get a little taste of Anna's wonderful hospitality and farm life.

That's Jordan makin cheese with us!!!! He's a natural. 

Jordan and Gwen All Over: Part I

You'll have to forgive me for forgetting the world for the two weeks Jordan was here and not checking my emails, answering my phone or updating my blog. But now it's time for a little photo diary of Our travels in two parts. It's brief, full of photos and I'll post a couple follow ups on things that were too cool to describe in just one sentence. I'll post the rest tomorrow. 

TORINO - Torino is a chocolate city. All chocolate. When we first got off our overnight train at 9am I ordered a hot coco with orange liquor (I'm on vacation, don't judge) and received a tea cup full of molten chocolate with liquor. I believe they just melted an entire chocolate bar into  a cup- a delicious, high end, infinitely satisfying chocolate bar. By the time I was finished, the parts I couldn't scrape off the side of my tea cup (it wasn't much- I really got in there) were literally hardened to the side of the cup- just like melted chocolate would. Oh yeah, we also saw churches, went to a jazz festival, went to the roof of the old fiat factory, went to Eatly and walked and walked and walked. It's a beautiful city and well worth a visit. Beautiful covered walkways line all the streets and cafés serve delectable treats. Jordan also got an Italian haircut while we were here!

PADUA - Jordan and I stayed in Padua to do two things- visit the Scorvegni Chapel with the frescos by Giotto that changed the art world forever, and visit Venice, but we ended up getting so much more because Padua is a wonderful city full of interesting things in its own right. There are canals and rivers, historical cafés serving wonderful coffee drinks (that's Jordan standing outside one of our favorites that served coffee with a dollop of sweet minty foam- to die for), a botanical garden (which also happens to have a Renzo Piano building as part of it) and the oldest open air market in Italy, of which we took full advantage. That's Jordan walking through the space where it's held (on a non market day) with two bottles of wine he selected for our picnic.

Venice, Formia, and Naples tomorrow! 

Modena

Jordan and I parted ways last night- he on to LA via Moscow (crazy) and me to the beautiful northern part of Italy, both of us happy and well fed. I opted for a slower inter city train to get me north, a journey which is taking 6+ hours instead of the scant 3 it would have been on a high speed train, but the scenery is well worth it. Here is a view I took from the last car of the train-

I don't know much about Modena except that it is home to Ferrari, in fact the bus stop I've been instructed to get off at is  named Maranello-Ferrari. More importantly, it is home to balsamic vinegar so good you can drink it straight, which I plan to do. It's also in the rich culinary region that produces Parma ham, and of course, the legendary Parmasean cheese. 

The farm I working on is an agrotourism, which means that it is basically a working farm that also functions like a bed and breakfast. Each agrotourism is a little different and the term is used fairly loosely. Some are extravagant luxury affairs catering to the purist food snob, while others offer more spartan sccomadations. It is a very, very common accommodation here and all over the country side of Italy you see sign posts for various agrotourisms. 

I have no idea where in the spectrum the farm that is hosting me falls. I chose this farm because it has a workshop producing various kinds of pasta, bread and other artisanal products that they serve to their guests and also sell. Cooking school here I come! I am so excited because my absolute favorite place in Italy is the kitchen and I have a feeling there will be a lot of it here, as well as a healthy dose of out door work with the various vegetables and fruits they grow. Thus satisfying both the 'feed', 'table' and 'air' I set out to find. I'll be sure to let you know how it works out, but all I can do now is day dream on my train, which is a very Italian 55 minutes late, and at a complete stop in a tunnel in the middle of nowhere for a reason I can't understand - so that's my 'fare' satisfied as well. 

Some More Bites of Rome

Here were a few of the most wonderful things Jordan and I ate in Rome... 

Enoteca Provincia Romana - Largo di Foro Traiano 48

Wonderful restaurant sponsored by the Province of Rome serving typical, inseason dishes. Right byTrajan's Colomn but not touristy and delicious. I had the ricotta spinach ravioli and Jordan had the delicious pancetta and pea gnocchi. 

Mordi e Vai - Testaccio Market, Via B Franklin

This sandwich place inside a market was so mouthwatering we went there after a full lunch and had to get something even though we were stuffed, and then went back the next morning for breakfast. The sandwiches were the best I've ever had (and I don't even like sandwiches normally), featuring traditional sauces and produce. The top sandwich was some kind of stewed pork that's as cut up and put in the sandwich after the breads as dipped in the juices, then topped with sautéed chicory leaves. The bottom sandwich is a whole artichoke hearts mashed into the bread and then topped with Pecorino cheese slices. Divine. The ones for breakfast were even better.

La Pratolina - Via Della Scipioni 248

Jordan and I went here for dinner to try the mixed croquettes and the pizza, but couldn't help ourselves when we saw the squash blossoms on the menu (bottom right hand photo). This place had the most unbelievable pizza- wild boar mortadella, provolone cheese, ndjua sausage, and pistachio pesto. 

Remind me to make pistachio pesto when I get home...

*i want to give a big pat on the back and acknowledgement to Katie Parl whose blog and app were completely indispensable in finding these places. Also, it was reading about Katie Parla that made me realize that master's degrees in Italian Regional Cuisine exist. I'll put a link here when my internet desides to work again.