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, 

Playing House

As promised, here I am again to regale you with tales of my flat, with added photographs for good measure! More of that later; first, allow me to fill you in with all that's happened in-between blog posts. WARNING: it's a lot.

So, Wednesday we paid the rent, and got the keys - or rather, key, as there's only actually one key to the flat door right now - so Marine moved in on Thursday, and I stuck to my guns and moved in on Friday, when I wasn't working. I was planning to have a bit of a lie-in that day too, but Claudia's housekeeper had other ideas. Once I was washed, dressed and fed, the two of us began to execute some complicated choreography, during which I tried to pack the rest of my things up and see if I'd forgotten anything, and she tried to make all the beds and hoover the floor. We got there in the end, and I had a nice lunch with the family before shifting my stuff over to the new flat in the afternoon. Luckily, it's about 30 seconds walk from Claudia's place, so it wasn't difficult.

Once I'd unpacked and settled in and had a shot of ridiculously strong coffee (no sugar, as we had yet to buy it), Marine and I went grocery shopping. Forgive me for making the assumption, but I believed we would just be splitting the cost of everything we bought. Not so - Marine got this strategy into her head where she would pay for what she wanted, I would pay for what I wanted, and we would both pay half for the things we'd both need, like sugar and washing up liquid and soap and milk. Call me crazy and unreasonable, but to me that seems unnecessarily convoluted...

Anyway, Friday night saw us back at Claudia's. I went over to give Simone another English lesson, Marine needed her new timetable, and we both wanted to make use of Claudia's incredibly generous offer that we can pop over and use her wifi whenever we want (I think she's adopted us both as her English and French daughters). I also made pizza and calzoni from scratch for the first time ever, in partnership with Simone, which involved him bashing the dough instead of rolling it out and dropping tomato sauce on my shoes more than once, but the end results were delicious. I must get the dough recipe so I can do them myself!

Saturday morning, our landlord was supposed to come round, but – surprise surprise – he didn’t arrive until the afternoon, so we spent the morning making apple cake and rearranging the kitchen. We hid such monstrosities as the vase of the china flowers that was in the middle of the kitchen table, the broken lamp by the oven and the two horrible blue plates that were hanging above the fridge (we kept the third one, which has pretty yellow flowers on it). After a simple lunch of pasta and tomato sauce, the landlord and his mate arrived to tell us that we wouldn’t have hot water until at least Monday(!) because no plumbers work over the weekend...

Also managed to get the internet (if you can call it that) sorted on Saturday, after trudging out through the pouring rain under a shared umbrella to buy an Internet Key. It’s basically dial-up, but it suffices for Facebook, checking my emails and updating this ol’ blog, although if I actually want to use the video side of Skype in the future I will have to take Claudia up on her offer, as she has a significantly speedier internet connection. Fortunately, an added bonus of the package I bought means it’s only €12 a month for unlimited usage! Not a bad buy, I reckon.

Sunday was a relatively lazy day, and today saw me returning to work, teaching two new classes, doing a LOT of food shopping (and getting a free chef's knife because I spent over €15 - that's one less thing I'll need to buy)...and we now have hot water! Showers are so much nicer when you're not petrified with cold.

Right, so, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Da-da-da-daaaa! Photos of my new home for the next 7-and-a-half months! :D

 Our lovely new kitchen, minus the hideous vase on the table

 Sofa-bed, which is unfortunately one of the hardest things I have ever sat on, so we added pillows

 Our bedroom, with sheets and blankets provided by Claudia :P

 The painting that hangs above the beds - one of the pieces of art we both wanted to keep!

 The eNORmous wardrobe, which takes up an entire wall of the bedroom...

And the bathroom, now with both hot and cold running water!

Next time the post may not be as long, depending on whether anything interesting happens, or even if I can be bothered to write as much as I did today. Until then, 

Teaching and House-hunting

Here I am again! Right in the middle of my second week of active teaching, fresh from a lesson about the Queen and playing Pictionary with the kids in the youngest year. 

Today also marks The Day That I Start Teaching Simone English - Simone being the eight-year-old son of my mentor, Claudia. I've cut out the months of the year in both Italian and English so he can match pairs, coloured bits of paper on one side and written the colours on the other (hours of fun to be had flipping tiny bits of paper) and made a sheet of cartoon animals that I am rather proud of: 

So, we're all set for today's lesson. I'm starting off easy, just vocabulary rather than sentences, but it will be interesting to try and teach English while speaking Italian, unlike the way I do it at school...

In other news, I have found a flat! It's about five minutes away from the school on foot, and it's just had all its furniture put in - so new kitchen, new tables, new wardrobe, new bathroom, new beds, new everything! The first rent instalment needs to be paid today, and then once I've packed up all my stuff again, I'm going to move in on Friday. Marine, the French assistant, is moving in this afternoon, but it's easier for her as she's been staying with us for the past few days, so all her things are already in their suitcases.

I intend to photograph the new flat as soon as possible, if only to reassure my loved ones that I'm not living in squalor :P

Lo Sciopero

The last two days have been, in a word (or two), ABSOLUTELY MENTAL. 

I had to go to Rome for an induction to being an ELA, where they taught us loads of useful ways of managing the classroom, planning and preparing lessons, using games and songs to actually make it interesting to learn English, etc. etc....all of which was really helpful, as previously I had very little idea of what to do or talk about!

Maybe that's not strictly true. I did bring lots of postcards, a map of the roads of Milton Keynes, a train timetable, photos of my family...the list goes on. I also brought Marmite and English Mustard, which will be an interesting thing to try :P

But back to the induction. I managed to meet a girl named Charlotte who I haven't seen since we both went to a Royal Holloway open day about three years ago (she does the same degree as me now, but at Kent, which was my second choice), plus loads of others who are in Campania at least, if not Pompei, so we can travel around the region and see each other. 

All in all, the induction itself was lovely - free coffee, pastries and lunch, and a nifty British Council bag to boot; it was the journey back to Pompei that was the problem. There was a sciopero - a strike - today, which meant none of the city Metro or bus services were working. I had to walk to Roma Termini, but after having a mini panic attack I was informed that the inter-city trains were working, so I managed to get to Naples unscathed and spent the journey in a carriage with a Sikh, a priest and a woman with the biggest pink suitcase I have ever seen. 

Once I'd arrived at Naples, however, things went pear-shaped (or 'a forma di pera', which I didn't realise translated but it probably means something that is literally shaped like a pear...so..a pear...) when I discovered that the regional trains to Pompei weren't working either. So I rang Claudia, and she said she would come and get me, but then my phone ran out of battery so I couldn't tell her that I took the Circumvesuviana line - literally, the trainline around Mt Vesuvius - back to Pompei. When I got back to the flat, nobody was home, but luckily I plugged my phone in and rang Claudia and nobody was angry in the end, but now I am the butt of all the tourist jokes in the household.

Let's just say I will never travel in Italy during a strike again, at least until I can drive...

Let's begin!

I begin my exploits as an English Language assistant in Pompei with my first blog post!

Well technically, I've already been here for a day and this is definitely not the first thing I've done (today I visited the old ruins of Pompei and saw mummified people and a mural of a very cheerful Venus, for example) but there we go.

I also got to see the school I'm working at today, which was nice. The staff are friendly, the headmaster doesn't speak a word of English, and the kids tried to tell me a joke which took about ten minutes to get to the end, but it was actually quite funny. I don't start there till next week now, as I have to travel up to Rome for an induction with the British Council. So Wednesday =  start of new job.

Now for some observations about Pompei!

1) It is currently far too hot for September. But maybe that's just me being British, I can't be sure.

2) The only wildlife seems to be stray dogs, pigeons, lizards and insects. Also, one small cat that we saw near our hotel.

3) Italian mosquitoes are the only ones that like to eat me...

4) It is possible to buy dinner for two here for less than €20, unlike in Venice and some other parts of the country. All you have to do is ignore the places with 'tourist menus' and follow the people who look like locals to a place with cheap and delicious pizza.

5) After eating my first calzone for lunch today, I can confirm that they are, indeed, very tasty. 

6) If you go to the right handbag shop when they have a promotion on, you can get a free cuddly turtle!

7) If the weather is too nice for an umbrella (which it probably will be until November), and you don't want to carry it around when it's been rendered obsolete, use it instead as a sunshade (also helps if, like me, you forget your hat). 

8) There are some very nice hotels here, even if they look a bit scruffy on the outside. Fortunately, ours does not, and it has some very pretty mosaic tiles :)

9) There is a train line here that has the sole purpose of circling Mt. Vesuvius and going through all the little villages around it. They have the main train line, and the little Circumvesuviana. It's a bit like the St Ives Branch Line, I suppose.

10) Flats in Pompei are HUGE. Claudia, my mentor at the school and one of the English teachers, has a flat for four people with four rooms, which might not seem like much, but let me say this: my mum and dad's bedroom could probably fit twice into one of theirs...

I think that might be the end of my blogging for now, at least this entry. I'll leave you with a few more of the pictures I took today!

Ruins of the Pompei Amphitheatre 

 View of Vesuvius from one of the reproduced vineyards

 Looking down one of the roads (no idea what it's called) with 2000-year-old paving stones. Very bad for ankles...

I'm not entirely sure what this used to be, but it's one of my favourite photos so far :)

Until next time,