BBR Dinner: The Great Wines of Italy, Tuscany vs Piedmont

More eating and drinking...

Lots of top notch wines. I wish I could remember more of the fascinating info from the chat by Chris Pollington, the man knows his stuff.

All I can remember is the Tuscans use the Sangiovese grape and eat beans, the Piedmontese use Nebbiolo and eat rice. The staff would keep topping up my glass and I did not say no often enough. I was struggling to keep my eyes open by the end. Oh dear :-(

Aperitivo

2006 Gavi di Gavi, Cru La Maddelena, Roberto Sarotto, Piedmont

Bresaola con Rucola e Parmigiano
(Shaved bresaola with wild rocket & parmesan)

2005 Chianti Classico, 'Rubiolo', Gagliole, Castellina-in-Chianti, Tuscany

Un' selezione di funghi di bosco
(A tasting of Italian mushrooms & funghi)

2001 Barbaresco, Cru Vigna Erte, Cigliuti, Neive, Piedmont

Abbachio a la Romana con polenta e pomodorini secchi
(Roast lamb with rosemary, polenta & cotifit tomatoes)

1994 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva, Ugolaia, Lisini, Tuscany
2000 Barolo, Cru Monprivato, Giuseppe Mascarello, Castiglione Falletto, Piedmont

Formaggio
(cheese) Pecorino

2004 IGT Colli della Toscana Centrale, Pecchia, Gagliole, Castellina-in-Chianti, Tuscany

Torta di mele con gelato di Mascarpone
(Apple tarte fine with Mascarpone ice cream)

2005 Moscato d'Asti, Bass Tuba, Bava, Piedmont

Berrys' selected coffee & chocolate

Monday, September 24, 2007: Cookery School Day 2

Mino returns and Day 2 sets the pattern for the rest of the week: a excursion in the morning, lunch, class from 4 till 7:30, dinner at 8 for whoever was about. Usually us two, Carole and Mino, their friend Mair from Wales, Zia, and a couple of paying guests from the Truddhi holiday apartments where the lessons are held.


Truddhi Cookery School

We visited a diary where they made mozzerella, all by hand from local milk. What amazed me was that all the mozzarella, even the little ones are all knotted by hand - you couldn't make it up!


[Hover for title, click for larger version]

Then we made fava bean and chicory, orecchietti, stuffed rabbit and Mino's version of bread and butter pudding. This day we mostly watched and helped a little. As the week progressed we got more and more hands-on which was better. Partly at our insistence and partly (I am guessing) that Mino realised we were able cooks.

A fuller set of Day 2 photos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8179454@N02/sets/72157602209424622/

Sunday, September 23, 2007: Cookery School Starts

Sunday was the start of the cookery school. Mino was in Wales at a food expo promoting Puglian food so we had Sunday lunch at his sister Zia's house. She fired up the pizza oven and we did a number of flour based dishes: focaccia, orecchietti, something else and then a tiedda (hotpot) of chicken and potatoes.

Zia and a forno a legno (wood burning oven)

It was all conducted in Italian as Zia has very little English which was good fun. Then we sat down with her family for Sunday lunch - it was a privilege to be invited into her home and family.

Zia and Mino also appeared on the BBC series "Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escape" in the same Puglian episode as Rosa:

Zia, Rick Stein and Mino Maggi *

This was where the rest of the course was held. More tomorrow...

* Buy the book from Amazon

Saturday, September 22, 2007: Trullo Azzurro Guest Book

We were reluctant to offer Trullo Azzurro for rent until we had the boiler fixed (see "A new boiler for Trullo Azzurro").

When we did open it up for booking via http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/ we were pleasantly surprised to get five bookings (plus one via a colleague). Plus we already have a booking for next year!

One couple were there when we arrived and raved about the place. After they left we read the guest book and it brought home to me the impact the place has on first time visitors. We have got so used to it we forget what an impression it makes. The comments were uniformly glowing. A couple of our guests kindly let us quote from their emails:

"Thank you, we had a wonderful time. We all had a wonderful holiday in a beautiful part of Italy, in a beautiful house. Our teenage girls loved it especially the historic sites (doing GCSE history this year)." Deborah & Roger - Aug 2007.

"Just a quick email to say we had a fantastic time at the trullo. The house was extremely well appointed and to a very high standard - there was nothing else we could have needed. We were nearly seduced into making an offer to the farmer who owns the trullo farm at the top of your hill we loved it so much!" Eleanor & Rick - Sep 2007

Most satisfactory :-)

Friday, September 21, 2007: Lunch at Rosa's

We like to get down to our favourite beach side restaurant every trip if we can: La Rotonda Da Rosa down between Savelletri and Torre Canne. Friday it had to be, as weekends are too busy and the next week we were on the cookery course. Rosa is a real character with a cackle of a laugh and greets us like long lost cousins.

At Rosa's with Andrea and Elaine in June 2007

She is now famous having appeared on the BBC series "Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escape". Apparently last week a coach-load of Brits turned up and had their photo's taken with her and hunted autographs. This came as a surprise as she hadn't seen the programme. Mary had the thoughtfulness to get me to burn an extra DVD to give Rosa as a 'regalo' (present). Here is a screen grab with her in:

Rosa cooks ricci (sea urchin) with pasta for Rick Stein *

Weird to see someone you know on the telly!

* From Episode 3 - Buy the book from Amazon

Birthday cake 2007

We flew out to Italy on my birthday (55 if you really want to know). My mother had given me this cake on the Sunday before we left. Very delicious but not enough time to eat it all so my colleagues at work rallied round and helped polish it off.



We went out for a birthday meal in "U'curdunn", the best restaurant in the locality along with (Italian) neighbours Chris and John and a couple of their friends

What was even better was that we have discovered a local taxi firm i.e. Francesco, so I was able to drink as well as eat :-)

Loire Wine Tasting at Charteris Wine Society

Another fine wine tasting at the Charteris Wine Society excellently chosen by Charles and co-presented by Jeremy. In fact, I would say, their best yet. A good wine tasting has a theme and structure, this had several:

• Firstly of course the river. A tour upstream and then back down showing the river's wide range of grapes and styles.
• Secondly the "dinner party" sequence: dry 'aperitif' white, full 'food' white, light red, full bodied red, sweet white (but no room for the sweet red).
• Thirdly several wines were in pairs to allow a compare-and-contrast learning.
• Fourthly all bar one readily available from the same merchant (The Wine Society) thus showing the Society to advantage.

The wines - grape variety:

• Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine, Le Clos du Château L'Oiselinière, 2002 (Chéreau-Carré) - muscadet
• Savennières, L'Enclos, 2004 (Eric Morgat) - chenin blanc
• Coteaux du Giennois, Domaine de Villargeau, 2006 (Marc Thibault) - sauvignon blanc
• Pouilly-Fumé, Château de Tracy, 2004 - sauvignon blanc
• Sancerre Rosé, Domaine Serge Laloue, 2006 - pinot noir
• Côte Roannaise, Vieilles Vignes, 2006 (Sérol) - gamay
• St Nicolas de Bourgueil, Les Rouillères, 2005 (Frédéric Mabileau) - cabernet franc
• Chinon, Domain du Raifault, "Le Villy", Cuvee Prestige, 1995 - cabernet franc
• Coteaux de la Loire, Moelleux, Vieille Sève, 2004 (Alain Boré) - chenin blanc
• Vouvray, Clos du Bourg, Moelleux, 1989 (Huet) - chenin blanc

And what did I learn?

• The Loire produces an extraordinary range of wines.
• The Gamay grape used to be one of my favorites. Moulin a Vent was one of the wines that moved me into red. But now it has dropped off my radar as a wine of choice.
• Rose wine I have always said goes well with Salad Nicoise and Seafood paella. Now I will add Sushi to the list (after I have given it a try). And this rose is a particularly girlie pink colour.
• My tastes are predictable. Mary wrote on her list "Mark will like this" against the St Nicolas de Bourgueil. How right she was - jammy and full of fruit.
• In the sweetie shoot-out the less obvious but better wine did win. The Coteaux de la Loire was sweet and enjoyable but the Vouvray, Clos du Bourg, Moelleux was a far subtler and more complex wine. Quality will out, in the end.

Previously:

• Austrian Wine Tasting at Charteris Wine Society
• Southern France: a new World of Wine
• New World versus Old
• Wines from the Veneto

Back from Italy

Apologies to my regular readers. The temporary hiatus in posting is because we have been in Italy for 9 days on a cookery school with Mino Maggi (see "Meeting Italian Neighbours (1)"). I will be retro-blogging loads of foodie pictures this week to catch up.

In the meantime, a traveller's tale (or two in fact):

Our flight from Bari to Rome was delayed by 25 minutes and we only had a 50 minute connection, including passport control. As we landed and entered Terminal A we were met by an Alitalia rep holding up a card.

He popped us onto one of those "old granny with stick" buggies with six other passengers and went careering off to Terminal C like a Formula 1 driver. Met us again the other side of passport control to get us to the gate. Great fun!

Then when we landed at Heathrow we walked up to the luggage carousel and out of the chute popped our bags where normally we expect a 30-40 minute wait: result!!

Marc Bolan a Celebration

MB3060 T.Rextasy 4 Tony Visconti & Strings
Originally uploaded by markmclellan

This Sunday saw the 30th anniversary of the death of Marc Bolan, my teenage idol. It brought fans from all around the globe to visit the tree, attend a ceremony at Golders Green Crematorium and go to Klub Xtreme which hosts an event every 16th September.

This year there was also a concert at Shepherds Bush Empire fronted by tribute band T.Rextasy with a number of guest appearances (reviewed in The Times).

For me it was also an opportunity to meet many cyber-friends from a a mailing list on Yahoo called Tilldawn (also http://tilldawn.net/). I knew many of them by their posts and it is great to meet them in the flesh and put a face to the name.

One of them is a Jorgen, a postman from Sweden who I first met at a similar event ten years ago. It was good to be able to offer him a bed for the night, save him the cost of a hotel and act as host for his visit. I will be posting load of photos to Flickr later...

UPDATE

Tillers outside Klub Xtreme (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwj5aFW0yNs

Klub Xtreme 16-Sep-07 (photos)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8179454@N02/sets/72157602078491475/

Born to Boogie DVD launch April 2005 (photos)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8179454@N02/sets/72157602067819450/

Food and Wine from the Sicily Region

at Enoteca Turi. This is a wonderful Puglian restaurant just down the road in Putney where we have eaten a couple of times previously.

This event was originally scheduled for Tuesday 11th September 2007. We tried to get in but it was fully booked and also it clashed with the Plant of The Grapes Rioja tasting. Because it was so popular Pam and Giuseppe decided to run a second event the following evening (last night).

Menu
Stuzzichini
Arancini di riso
Sardine beccafico
Primo sale with pacchino tomatoes
Mosciame di tonno
Barbazzale Inzolia IGT 2005 Cotta Nera

Layers of aubergine with mozzarella and caciocavallo
Fatagione IGT 2003 Cotta Nera

Cuscusu Trapanese
Red mullet, gunnard and monkfish soup with saffron couscous
Chardonnay IGT 2005 Planeta

Rabbit Stimpirata
Braised rabbit off the bone with onion, celery, olive, pine nuts and raisins
Calderara Sottana Etna Rosso DOC 2004 Tenuta delle Terre Nere
Rosso del Conte 2003 Tasca d'Almerita

Cassata Siciliana with lemon sorbet
Passito di Pantelleria DOC 2004 Solidea

Coffee

The food was excellent as was the company. We had a most enjoyable chat to complete strangers, Jo and Robin, and Liz and Jim. But then you would expect people who go to such events to be of a sociable disposition.

Giuseppe had done his homework and gave an introduction to Sicilian political and gastronomic history and again before each course told us a little more about the specific dish and wine. They have done six of these wine and food dinners. With 20 regions in Italy they are planning plenty more events - where do we sign?

Marques de Murrieta at Planet of the Grapes

Another tasting at Planet of the Grapes last night, this time Rioja.

Almost the same crew as last time: David, Bron, Paul and this time Mary was able to make it. Frans the Bodega's Export Director gave us a good insight into the estate, its history and the wines.

• Pazo Barrantes, Albarino D.O. Rias Baixas 2005 @ £13.50
• Blanco Reserva "Capellania" 2002 @ £12.50
• Tinto Reserva 2002 @ £.50
• Tinto Reserva 2001 @ £14.50
• Tinto Gran Reserva Special Release (Magnum) 1980 @ £115
• Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial 1998 @ £33
• Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Historic Release 1978 @ £80
• Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Historic Release 1968 price N/A
• Dalmau 2001 @ £50

It was fascinating to do a vertical tasting for a change and going back so far with wines not available in the shops. As often I was in a minority regards which were the better wines. Mary reckons it is not because of any deficiency in my palate rather that it is my personal preference for jammy flavours.

Street Life (Art Is My Hustle)

Seen outside the London Graphic Centre in Shelton Street, Covent Garden.


Graffiti: Art Is My Hustle

I saw this and thought it was a colourful piece of street art but a quick Google reveals that it may actually be a cunning piece of advertising (via http://artismyhustle.com/) for T.Magic World.

What I cannot work out is whether this is, as it appears, an young innovative artist or some mega-corporation sneaky viral marketing thingy. Whatever they seem like colourful designer T-shirts so I thought I'd give him a link.

The Police Twickenham Sunday 09 September 2007

The Police_IMG_6826
Originally uploaded by golden/skans

Well that is handy. Someone has blogged the set list and Flicker'd a whole set of photos.

I am sure a whole slew of reviews will follow from fans all over. My two penn'th is that the bass was cranked up as you might expect when the front man plays bass guitar; it made my chest vibrate is was so intense.

It as a fine concert with a mixture of greatest hits and tracks I did not recognise but I guess that is my lack of familiarity with their complete oeuvre. Three men without any backing musicians can make a lot of music.

The only downside was the time it took to get home. The queues to get into the station and onto the trains meant it took an hour and three quarters to get home. I shall look at alternatives next time.

Bathroom Update (4)

Almost done! Andy came yesterday and fitted the second mirror door plus fixed one of the lights. We had our first bath yesterday and first shower this morning. All seems to be working just fine and dandy.


Bathroom before and after

Note the curve of the bath. That allowed us to move the bath to the wall side and hang the door the other way without bashing the corner. Having to buy a bath with a corner missing just about trebled the cost of the unit!

Previously: Bathroom Update (3), (2), (1), (0)

YMCA by Christopher - Puppeteer Extraordinaire

You know how certain songs are inextricably linked with particular memories. Whenever I hear YMCA by Village People I am reminded of a time when I was working in Basel, Switzerland and Mary came over for the weekend instead of me going home.

We stayed with our friends John&Andrea who were living over there and Saturday night went out for a meal over the border in France. It was a wonderful meal and as Andrea was the designated driver I do believe we drank her share of the wine.

On the way home to keep Andrea awake and alert we wound down the windows, wound up the stereo and performed a spirited rendition of this song complete with the full Y.M.C.A arm gestures. Andrea did keep one hand one the wheel though I am glad to say.

And here is another version, just t-o-o funny, watch and laugh :-)



URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNoIkuqwoCc

Thanks to Bob Carlsen for drawing this gem to my attention.

Fried Peppers with Garlic, Capers and Vinegar

This is one of Mary's favorite recipes so it has become one of my signature dishes. I make it regularly especially when in Italy (see "Our first dinner party"). It is excellent with barbecued chicken.

It is also, like Panzanella, a fine example of a "Traffic Light Meal". For the benefit of Americans 800gm is four bell peppers (I aim for two red, two yellow, never green - the capers do that).



Fried Peppers with Garlic, Capers and Vinegar
from one of Carluccio's recipe books.

Serves 4-6

800 g (1 ¾ lb) whole red and yellow bell peppers
4 cloves garlic
1 tbs salted capers (alternatively capers in vinegar)
4 tbs olive oil
2 tbs wine vinegar
salt

Cut the peppers into strips. Slice the garlic and put the capers to soak in a bowl of water. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the strips of pepper. The oil should be quite hot. Stir while frying the peppers: their skins should begin to scorch at the edges. Then add the slices of garlic and the capers, drained and dried before being added. While these ingredients are sizzling, add the vinegar and salt, stir well and let the vinegar evaporate for a minute. Serve immediately if you like, but an excellent dish cold.

Roy and Sue's Silver Wedding

Last night it was off to Brasted Village hall to celebrate the Silver wedding anniversary of longstanding colleague and friend Roy and his wife Sue.



As they are keen Scottish Country Dancers the evening's entertainment was a dance with a caller to herd us newbies about. I never learnt this stuff at school and have only been called upon to trip the light fantastic twice before: at Geraldine and Alisdair's wedding and Ros' 50th.

I did not want to resemble a pinball ricocheting around the dance floor so got a couple of hours coaching from Anne on the basics. It must have helped because I only sat out two dances and was pretty sweaty by the end of the evening.



You can see selected photos of "Roy and Sue's silver wedding on Flickr" [new window]

Maps Satellite and Digital

Like many people when Google Earth first came out I immediately looked for my house. In London I could clearly see the magnolia tree in the front garden, next door's car parked round the corner and even the road markings on the street outside our house. Amazing!

Next I went to look at the Hovel-in-the-Hills and what a disappointment. The photo seems to have been taken with a box brownie strapped directly to the satellite. Way up high and fuzzy with no detail, certainly not enough to even make out any individual buildings.

But recently they have uploaded some much more detailed pictures and suddenly we can see our house even if we cannot make out any details. The white patches to the West and South are the two fields created the year before last by the rock muncher.


View Larger Map

But beware the digital map version. It show gaps where there are roads and shows roads where there are bramble filled paths between two stone walls. Jim's Sat Nav sent him into the middle of a nearby cement works!

Maps Ancient and Modern

Ever since we took ownership of the Hovel-in-the-Hills™ we have been looking for decent scale maps of the local area.

The "Istituto Geografico Militare" http://www.igmi.org/ promised 1:25,000 (4 cm to 1 km or 2½ inches to 1 mile) but when we investigated they turned out to be discontinued. So instead we went for the 1:50,000. We are near an edge and so ordered two; one arrived and the other was out of print. And the level of detail is nothing like as clear as the Ordnance Survey maps. Pretty useless but we framed it and put it on the wall anyway.

Conversely the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 series are readily available in all good bookshops, specialist leisure shops and online from their website. In fact the OS go all the way to 1:1250 for business purposes and also do historical maps. For Wandsworth they even do an 1866 map at a quite extraordinary 1:1,056, that is 5 feet to the statute mile! Which I bought.

You can see every outbuilding, drinking fountain, fence and field boundary, even the garden paths are marked in the bigger houses. Our house is there - both the original building and the later rear extension. So we now know that extension is at least 1866 and the main house, obviously, older than that.

Now all I need to do is get back down to the library and that 1851 survey to get a positive fix on our property. Easier to do now I can match the census house numbers to the buildings on the map.

Bathroom Update (3)

Friday the bath arrived and the plaster starts to dry out. Monday the shelving unit was installed over the cistern. Tuesday the tiler started work on the walls.


Bathroom with bath, shelving and tiles

Even though they are moving along it is good that we have a shower and a second loo downstairs otherwise it would be off to work via the gym for a shower.

Previously: Bathroom Update (2), (1), (0)