Pie and Potential Visits

Over the past three weeks, there has been a lot of STUFF going on around here; the main thing being that I now live alone. A while back, Marine told me she couldn't afford to pay the rent any more (I was a bit sceptical, as she earns the same amount as me each month, but then I factored in my student loan and Erasmus grant, which she doesn't get, and suddenly it made sense), and she was looking for a cheaper place to live. Claudia and I managed to talk her out of moving to Salerno or Naples, partly because of the commute, but mostly because finding a cheaper place to live was the modus operandi, and if she moved to a bigger city then it just wasn't going to happen.

The thing was, she stopped mentioning moving out, so I figured she'd organised something and was staying with me. Out of the blue, about two days before she packed up and left, she informed me that she would be moving about an hour's train ride away to stay with a family she knew, and that I would be by myself from that moment on. Don't get me wrong, Marine is really nice, but I must say I felt a bit relieved at the prospect. I prefer living alone to living with really messy flatmates...

Anyway, she left, I pushed the two single beds together, and I've already had a comment from my landlord saying how much tidier the kitchen is now that the rubbish goes out when it's supposed to. Claudia is inviting me over much more frequently for lunch now - she doesn't like me being by myself, but I'm not complaining, as she's a brilliant cook. 

She invited me over for what can only be described as an EPIC lasagne (including mozzarella, ricotta, and tiny meatballs instead of mince) for Carnevale a couple of Sundays ago, and again on Pancake Day so I could make an enormous stack of pancakes. Unfortunately, I had planned to make them with Simone, and he ended up going to a party in the afternoon, so I went home and made them by myself. We ended up making a big stack them on Valentine's Day instead, and since he's been asking me to make them again ever since, I must be doing something right.

Work hasn't changed much, besides the fact that three of my colleagues now occasionally sit in on my lessons so they can improve their English, which took a bit of getting used to at first. I've been utilising Horrible Histories again for my older classes, as well as working through a playscript of Cinderella with some of my second-years, which is interesting to say the least, especially when we listen to the overly dramatic voices on the audio version! I've also been working on my reports that are due in in June, and would still be if I hadn't accidentally decapitated my USB on Wednesday, and had to buy a new one yesterday. Silly me decided not to back up her files, so I've lost all the stories that I've been dipping in-and-out of for the past three years, all my previous uni work, my poems, music, teaching resources, and my plans for the aforementioned reports! Even if they can be salvaged, I am not going to try and get it fixed while I'm here, but thankfully I could recreate some of the stuff, I wrote my report plans down on paper before I typed them up, and I can go on the Royal Holloway Moodle site and download the guidelines again so I know what to include and how to lay it out. Not a total loss, but a very annoying and inconvenient thing to happen.

Other news includes the addition of Friday  Pieday to my weekly activities - James and  I have come up with a little contest, mainly  to practise our baking skills, but also for a  bit of friendly rivalry. Each week we will  bake a new pie, one we've never made  before, and the winner is the one who  avoids such pitfalls as soggy bottoms,  unbalanced flavourings, burnt pastry and  leakages, and creates an all-round tasty and  nice-to-look-at pie. Last week, it was a  sort-of draw; my pie had a soggy bottom,  although the filling was yummy, but James did not provide photographic evidence of his pie, so we decided to redo the first round this week. It's a delicate business :P I've already created mine, a lattice-topped apple pie, and James has yet to finish his thanks to an out-of-date eggs issue.

Also, very exciting stuff, hopefully in a few weeks James will be coming to see me! We're planning to do lots of tourist-y things, and I've postponed my creation of 'An English Dinner' for Claudia's family until he gets here, so we can do it together. Scallops (if we can find them), followed by beef wellington, and lemon meringue pie - I actually bought the beef fillet the other day after a visit to a local butcher and a bit of a lost-in-translation moment, but I managed to get a kilo for €14.50, which was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be!

One week today, my brother Gary will be coming to see me too, which I'm really looking forward to (and not just because he'll be bringing me the jacket I ordered from Joe Browns a little while ago)! Hopefully the weather will have improved by then, as after a couple of days of crisp spring sunshine, it's gone downhill into the land of rainstorms and chills once again. Thankfully, my boiler is still working, although if it continues to be as temperamental as it has been in the past, that may not be the case for much longer! 

Until next time (probably March, unless something worth writing about happens between then and now)! 

This Week, I 'Ave Mostly Been Drinking Lemsip

So this week was fun, in an Oh-God-I-Can't-Breathe kind of way. It's flu season in Italy, and Giovanni had it last week, so this week it appeared to be my turn. I woke up on Monday with a thumping headache and a throat that felt like it had been vacuum-sealed, so there was no going to work for a few days. I've been living off a diet of Lemsip, soup and the occasional sandwich or piece of fruit, sleeping like the proverbial log, and keeping myself amused by inventing recipes and watching Disney films or Star Wars, depending on my mood. 

Thankfully, though, I am now mostly well again except for the odd sniffle, so I went back to work today and did a fun lesson about the Kings and Queens of England, culminating in having my class sing the Horrible Histories Kings and Queens song.

In other news, we've got our window shutter fixed, after nearly three months of not having one on the kitchen window. Thanks to the torrential downpours and ferocious winds of October/November, it got completely broken - the bolt snapped through the frame - and while we managed to eventually close it, the window-men just took the whole thing away and left us with the fishbowl effect in our kitchen.

I may appreciate having a nice whole window-frame once again and the ability to keep my cookery exploits and kitchen dancing private if I so wish, but I did NOT enjoy the forty minutes of hammering, drilling, and shouted Italian conversation yesterday afternoon, while it was being repaired and I was trying to snooze. 

And now for something completely different. Last Friday at Claudia's, after I'd done my usual lesson with a grumpy and tired Simone, Marine made us all an authentic French dinner, which included foie gras (I'd never had this before, and while I'm not sure if I'd like it on it's own, when served on a cracker with some red onion chutney it's delicious), cheese fondue (which wasn't quite thick enough and so was more like cheese sauce, but it was very tasty), strange grey crepes full of salmon and bacon, and tarte tatin. Upside-down puddings are some of my favourite things - well, puddings in general are some of my favourite things - so this last one was definitely well-received by yours truly. 

It was a really nice evening, with the nine of us - Claudia, Giovanni, Marine, Simone, Fabiana (Claudia's daughter), Fabiana's boyfriend (whose name escapes me), Giovanni's brother (whose name also escapes me), his fiancée Valeria, and myself - sat around the big dining table, talking and laughing and drinking homemade red wine, making jokes, and on more than one occasion having to fish for pieces of bread in the fondue. 

Anyway, the result of this, me being a bit tipsy after three glasses of champagne, was my suggestion that I do the same thing, only with English food. So now I have to organise a three-course meal for nine people, the largest number I've ever cooked for. Nice challenge!

That's pretty much the only interesting stuff that's happened to me over the last month, to be honest. However, now it's February, there is Pancake Day to look forward to on the 12th, and on March 1st my brother is coming to see me! Exciting stuff.

Until next time, my (hopefully) avid readers! 

Flying, Buns, And Things To Be Done

Things I like about flying:

• The moment of happiness when your suitcase is under 23kg and you don't need to pay a ridiculous amount of money for the extra weight
• Walking through the metal detector at security and not setting it off, then feeling slightly smug when the person behind you in the queue gets searched
• Finding fun ways to kill time before boarding, such as buying a bottle of Jack Daniels, two new books and a box of jelly beans in the Duty Free, and splashing out on some nice make-up in Boots
• Having lunch at Yo!Sushi for the second time ever, feeling sophisticated while you eat your cucumber maki and duck gyoza, and watching people walk up to the restaurant and peer at you like they think you're someone important and they're trying to figure out who
• Sitting in a row of two people with an empty seat between you, so you can both use the middle drop-down tray as a little table for your sandwiches, and bonding with them over criticising the quality of aeroplane sandwiches
• Getting off the plane and walking through arrivals to see a nice man from the car company with my name on a card, and not having to worry about how I'm going to finish my journey

Things I don't like about flying:

• Sitting on the train on the way to airport with your suitcase hidden from view behind you, so you have to keep bobbing up and down in your seat to make sure it's still there
• Getting glared at by the man who was inexplicably standing still in front of you, while you were trying to get out of the lift before it went back down again, because you accidentally hit his ankle with your suitcase
• The period of time when you're waiting for your gate number to appear on the noticeboard, and you can't concentrate on the book you're trying to read because you keep glancing up every ten seconds
• Queueing to get on the plane, surrounded by Italians complaining loudly about having to wait
• Listening to music while you read on the plane, and so not hearing the announcement that they're going to turn the lights off, and being annoyed after suddenly being plunged into darkness in the middle of a climactic chapter
• Having the jelly beans you bought spill out in the boot of the car that picked you up, and while you're apologising profusely to the really nice driver, you're secretly annoyed that you won't have any more jelly beans to eat

So yeah, that pretty much sums up my journey back. But the actual Christmas break was great! James didn't suspect a thing about my Surprise Girlfriend plan (ie telling him I'd be home a day later than it actually happened, and surprising him by appearing at his house when he thought I was on a plane), and we had some amazing days together in-between seeing the family and eating too much chocolate. 

Christmas Day was lots of fun; Mum's turkey dinner was a triumph of deliciousness, Dad had a classy moment with a cigar and a brandy, and Gary and I tried to put a Santa coat on one of the cats and failed miserably. Among other things, I got Paul Hollywood's How to Bake, a biography of Julia Child which I've wanted for months (although unfortunately I couldn't bring either of the books with me, as they were too heavy), an incredibly fluffy jumper, P!nk's latest album, and a cupcake-patterned onesie. Now, I used to think onesies were silly, but having tried it out I have to recommend them as a lovely warm snuggly bodysuit, which comes in handy when your house is as cold as mine, and because you can get some that look like superhero outfits, which is just cool anyway.

Thursday just gone, James and I christened How to Bake by creating Christmas buns - a first for both of us, but they went really well! Here is a photo:

Either I'm going to get Mum to post me the book, or she'll scan recipes and email them to me - either way, there are going to be quite a few baking exploits during the remainder of my time here! 

I have lots of things I want/need to do before I leave; wants include climbing Mt Vesuvius, visiting Naples and Sorrento, and taking a boat across to Capri once the weather is warmer. Needs include two reports I have to write in order to pass my third year, planning lessons for my official students and Simone, and directing a play with one of my classes. I have yet to think of what the play is going to be, but it must be shortish, simple, and English. I asked them to try and think of something too, so we shall see.

Anyway, that's me ringing in the New Year via the medium of blog. I'll update soon, or try to at least! Meantime, 

Food and Liquor

I have a friend called Bryony who writes a fantastic blog called This Is Uni Food, with recipes and photos of all her delicious kitchen exploits. Taking a leaf out of her cookery book, this blog post will be full of recipes and photos of the things I have been making for Claudia and Giovanni's Christmas present, and I shall add a final photo when I've put it all together into a lovely presentation box (which I have yet to make....)

So, here we go

Chocolate Truffles

Unfortunately, I only decided to take a photo of these when I'd finished them, but I think they look great for a first time! They're pretty easy to make too; melt 4oz (about 114g) of dark chocolate in a bain-marie (I like to use fancy words - put it in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the water does not touch the bowl) until smooth, then stir in 3oz (about 85g) of butter, 3oz of icing sugar and 3oz of ground almonds (I had to use finely chopped ones, but it didn't seem to be a bad thing). Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then scoop out teaspoonfuls and roll them into balls, before rolling them again in either cocoa powder (or chocolate vermicelli, which I did). Then leave them to chill and harden in the fridge on a tray covered in greaseproof paper. Once chilled, store them between layers of greaseproof paper in an airtight container - the tiny paper cases are optional - and they will keep for up to two months. 

White Chocolate, Cranberry and Pistachio Fudge

To make this lush fudge, you need: 3oz (85g) of dry-roasted, unsalted (seriously, make sure they are unsalted!!!), chopped pistachios,

4oz (114g) of dried cranberries,

14oz (about 400g) of white chocolate, broken into pieces, and 14oz of condensed milk. Place the chocolate and condensed milk in your makeshift bain-marie, unless you have a real one, and melt them together, whisking occasionally (and yes, I am aware that I am not using a heatproof bowl in this photo, but I could not find one ANYWHERE and my tiny saucepan seemed to suffice). 

When the mixture is smooth, take it off the heat!

Now stir in 2/3 of the pistachios and cranberries, making sure they're all nicely mixed in  (a bit of elbow grease is required here; as the mixture cools, it will become harder to stir)

Pour the mixture onto a tray lined with greaseproof paper, and spread it out so it's about 1/2-3/4 of an inch thick. Sprinkle and remaining cranberries and pistachios on top, and press them down with your fingertips. Put in the fridge for at least two hours to chill.

Once the fudge has chilled, cut it into squares and seal them in a airtight container. The fudge will keep in the fridge for about two weeks, but it's very moreish so it probably won't last that long!

Next up are the Peppermint Creams. Again, I did not take photos throughout the entire process of making these as I was kind of in the zone and oblivious to any distractions, but I took a couple while I was cutting out shapes from the rolled-out dough. 

Mix together about 11oz (320g) of icing

sugar, 4 1/2 oz (130g) of condensed milk, and two teaspoons of peppermint extract. You may need to work it a little bit, and when it starts to clump together, get stuck in with your hands and draw it into a ball of sugary dough. Lightly dust a clean flat surface with icing sugar, and roll the dough out until it's about half a centimetre thick.

 Cut out shapes - the most common one is circles, but I used a star-shaped cutter to make them a bit more festive - and lay them on a tray covered in greaseproof paper or cling film. Chill in the fridge for at least at hour, until firm. You can leave them like that, but another option is to melt some chocolate of your choice (dark chocolate works well and stops them from being too sweet) and dip one half of each Cream into it before laying them back on the tray and chilling again. You can also cover them completely in chocolate, and decorate them too - they're quite versatile!

Last up is my lovely Arancello. I've already given you the recipe for this, but today was the day that I strained the liquid and bottled it up. It's not quite finished yet; I need to buy ribbon to tie around the bottle, and decorate it with extra orange peel and cinnamon sticks inside, but I thought I would show you what happens when you let orange rind soak in vodka for two weeks: 

I love the colour! And I had a sneaky taste, it has a lovely warm orange flavour with a kick of cinnamon as you swallow. I will definitely be making this again!

Just to clarify, I did not create any of these recipes myself; I got the Truffle recipe from this book, the Fudge recipe from Elly Says Opa, the Peppermint Creams from Lorraine Pascale via Gourmet Gob,and the Arancello recipe from the BBC Good Food website.

I will probably next update this blog after Christmas, so until then 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Right. So.

First off, apologies for not updating for nearly a month. There have been myriad miscellaneous things keeping me busy, such as lesson plans, day trips and crises with our window shutters, but here I am now, bringing you up to speed.

The main big thing that I’ve been busying myself with lately is CHRISTMAS – I’ve done all my Christmas shopping for the family through the wondrous medium of Amazon, I’ve started putting up decorations in the flat – only paper snowflakes on the windows so far as it is impossible to hand anything from the ceiling without a ladder (and sadly no fantastically cheap tree from the local supermarket, but there will be other trees), I have pudding and cake and I have made plans to make a trifle with Claudia and Simone on the Wednesday before I fly back to England (two weeks and I will be home! I’m excited). I have also been planning lessons this week for the fortnight before the Christmas break, involving discussions about food, traditions, songs and so forth. I am even planning to break out the guitar for the younger classes. Just call me Maria Von Trapp.

I also went to Salerno last week with one of the other girls posted in this region by the British Council - we had lovely cakes and walked along the seafront, I bought a new umbrella, and we managed to arrive in the square just as they were about to switch the main Christmas tree on for the first time. It was a lovely day, and the Salerno Christmas lights are some of the coolest ones I have ever seen (most of them were made out of recycled plastic bottles too)! Photos can be found here.

Now, as everybody knows, Christmas is not only a time of joy and sparkly things and ridiculous amounts of food – traditionally, people give and receive presents, and I like to give presents. Having bought what appears to be half of the Amazon stock (if you go by my parents’ description of the pile of parcels that are currently sitting on my bed waiting to be unwrapped, delegated, wrapped up again and distributed to various people on the big day), I realised that I had nothing to give Giovanni and Claudia, and no real idea of what they would like. I already had a selection box to give Simone that Mum stuck in with the rest of the Christmas stuff, and after having a bit of a thinking sesh sprawled out on my bed with my iPod in one hand and a pen in the other, I decided that you really can’t go wrong with food. So, I came up with a plan for a lovely box of mixed goodies – all homemade – and I am going to make my first attempt at creating arancello, which is like limoncello but without the horrible lemon-ness, and it apparently tastes all Christmassy, with cinnamon and orange and warm festive spiciness.

See what you think:

ARANCELLO

5 oranges

1 cinnamon stick

2-3 cardamom pods

1 vanilla pod

1l vodka

600g caster sugar

Extra cinnamon sticks, orange peel and such to stick in the bottle and make it look fancy

Okay, so the last bit wasn’t actually written on the recipe I found. And I probably won’t make as much as it actually states, but once I’ve bought some nice glass bottles and jars and some ribbon to make it look nice, it should be an interesting challenge. I started the process on Wednesday afternoon by labouriously peeling oranges and dropping all the peel in a jar, adding cinnamon sticks and pouring on the vodka. I could not for the life of me find cardamom pods or a vanilla pod in the supermarket, so it won’t be exactly right, but I added some vanilla extract to the mix and from the smell emanating from the jar when I open it, it seems to be working. All I have to do now is keeping shaking it up every day before adding copious amounts of sugar on Wednesday, then I leave it for a week again and it should be ready to go.

My variety box of lovely sweeties will hopefully include Peppermint Creams, Spiced Shortbread, Chocolate and Vanilla Pinwheel Cookies (be quiet, I like to capitalise things, okay? It makes them seem more significant), White Chocolate, Cranberry and Pistachio Fudge and Chocolate Truffles. I say hopefully because I’ve only ever made one of those things before (the Shortbread, and it didn't turn out that well, but I know what I did wrong now!) but it can’t too difficult when only two out of five things require the use of an oven and some of them can be made and kept in the freezer until necessary.

However, I have never been one to shy away from a kitchen experiment. My cookery motto is At least you can eat your mistakes.

Unless they will give you food poisoning; in which case, don't.

Until next time, my avid(!) readers, 

Photos!!

As promised, here are the photos I took on my adventure last week (plus a few extras I thought might be nice to see)!

 Cute dogs that I get to see on my way to work each day :)

 Views from the top of the belltower

 There's my house! Middle right, the bright yellow building :P

 Temple of Dionysus, reconstructed using scaffolding!

Exploits in cookery! Four-tier chocolate cake, layered with chocolate buttercream...

 Chicken korma with homemade flatbreads :)

 Pineapple upside-down cake! The first legitimate one I've made with pineapple

Chocolate, cranberry and vanilla shortbreads! Took these into school and they went down a storm with the other teachers :P

Hope you liked those photos, probably more to come in the future! 

The Italian Connection

Hello! I realise it's been a while since I last posted, and this is for two reasons. One, remember when I said my Internet connection in my flat would be sufficient enough to update this blog? Yeah...it isn't. I can never load the page before it dies, so I am writing this at Claudia's instead. Two, besides various lessons and excursions to the shopping centre, not much happened since the last post, but now stuff has so I have lots of things to write about! Yay!

Mum and Dad came to visit me last Friday - there was a holiday from Thursday-Sunday in honour of All Saints and All Souls - and that was lovely! They brought me lots of things from home; warm snuggly jumpers, my favourite fluffy gloves, many scarves and a fetching beret for when it gets colder (as it has been slowly doing over the past few days). Also, they packed lots of Christmassy things, like tinsel, trifle ingredients, Christmas cake and pudding, Quality Street, Roses and Fox's Bisquits (thank you Vinnie the Panda). Once I have bought a tree - they are on special offer in the local supermarket between 15th-18th of November, so I'm going to grab me one - and the year has moved into December, Christmas will hit my flat. I hope Marine is prepared...

Anyway, the first day Mum and Dad were here we went to visit the ancient ruins - we popped into Giovanni's shop to introduce him to Dad first, and he managed to ring up a friend of a friend and get us in for free by using the back entrance. He seems to know pretty much all of the people in town (meaning he can walk down the street and shake hands with a policeman without getting arrested) and by giving me a little piece of paper and an abundance of maps he saved my parents about €30 in entry fees, which was greatly appreciated! That day we also went to a lovely little pizzeria near the Circumvesuviana station, where we had a meal for three for €25, instead of going somewhere with a 'tourist menu' and paying €15 each! It pays to shop around.

Saturday I showed my parents the shopping centre, La Cartiera, and we had a good wander through various shops, including H&M and somewhere that translates as ShoeWorld; in the former I exchanged a jumper I'd bought for Gary's birthday for a bigger size, and in the latter I got some high-heeled lace-up ankle boots that are probably some of the comfiest shoes I've worn! Whether that's just what shoes are like in Italy, I don't know. That evening I cooked dinner for the three of us plus Marine; pork chops with pancetta, onions and apples, carrots, an improvising creamy sauce and what were allegedly the ULTIMATE ROAST POTATOES (I can definitely say that they were pretty darn delicious, but not as nice as my Mum's :P). Everything went down well, and we had apple upside-down cake and custard for pudding, then prosecco and tortilla chips while Dad channel hopped and Mum and I did the washing up.

On Sunday, after a little wander around the Santuario (and the discovery that in Italy, when somebody dies their family will frame photo of them, a lock of hair, or a rather graphic drawing of how they died, and put it on one of the walls in the church corridors....there were some interesting depictions of people getting hit by cars, falling from trains or dying on the operating table), we had what can only be described as a MASSIVE lunch at Claudia's flat. Bruschette, mozzarella and ricotta, tagliatelle alla bolognese, escalopes in Marsala wine sauce, then cakes and fruit. Claudia loves to cook, and she loves to cook for lots of people, so this was a great opportunity for her! Needless to say, we were all stuffed afterwards, so while Claudia was chatting to Mum and Dad about my new timetable and other things, I sat on the sofa with Simone and helped him build the most complicated Lego aeroplane I have ever seen – although it did look great when it was done.

After our long lunch we went for a little amble around town, popping in and out of shops (I got a really nice bag in one, much bigger than my usual handbag as I need to be able to carry papers and folders and such to work!), having a small dinner at McDonald’s – because we’re classy – and then we discovered the Eden Park. Now, the Eden Park is basically a small version of Great Yarmouth arcade, just down the road from the ruins of ancient Pompeii.

I know. Massively incongruous, right?

Still, it was actually a lot more fun that I thought it would be! Dad had a go at playing Tron Legacy pinball and got annoyed that he isn’t as good as he was in his youth :P and then he had a go at the grabber machines – an obligatory action whenever we encounter one – and won Mum a cuddly Tigger sitting in a honey pot. We used the fortune-reading machine for a laugh too, which told me I am as healthy as a fish, and I need to get out more. I disagree with the healthiness thing at the moment, as I have a horrible cough, but there we go.

After the amusements, we got late-night gelato, one of my favourite things about living in Italy! If I want ice-cream at ten o’clock at night, then all I have to do is take a five-minute walk to the nearest ice-cream shop and I can get two scoops of different flavours, topped with cream or chocolate, in a cone or cup for €2. Magic!

Monday saw my unfortunate return to work, and Mum and Dad leaving to fly back to England, and honestly not much else happened that day. However, on Tuesday I decided to be a tourist and have an adventure! I packed a bag with umbrella, sunglasses, purse, camera and keys and set out into town to find interesting things to do. I went back to the Santuario briefly, mainly because it’s a b-e-a-utiful building and the decorated ceiling and walls are amazing. I also wanted to go up in the belltower, which reaches 80 metres above the ground and lets you see all across the city, and further. So, I paid my entry fee to the nice old lift operator, who took me up to the top and chatted to me on the way. He said his name was Vincenzo, and we shook hands, then he told me to stay up there as long as I wanted and ring the bell when I wanted to come back down. I took lots of photos while I was up there (which unfortunately will not upload on my slow connection, so I will edit this post at some point in the future and add them onto the end), and was legitimately able to say that famous phrase, “Hey! I can see my house from up here!”

When I returned to solid ground, Vincenzo very kindly handed me back my €2 entry fee and told me I was welcome to come back for free whenever I wanted! It seems I now have friends in high places (*badum-tish*) – not quite as many as Giovanni though, who seems to be one of the most well-connected people I have ever met, but then I’ve only been here for just over a month. I do have some acquaintances though, like the shopkeeper lady in a shop round the corner from one of the school buildings, who always smiles and greets me when I pop in to buy milk on my way home. Hopefully I will keep making friends with people, which could be very easy as Italians are really friendly.

Anyway, until next time,