Stop press – Regional Cooking Disaster

I am a reasonable cook (maybe not a natural) and I am arguably better at desserts,cookies and cakes due to a sweet tooth from the age of sixteen but I suffer from a potential problem that I need to have a precise recipe to follow and if not things can go disasterously wrong!

I am trying to learn more regional recipes for when I move permanently to the Lunigiana (levante) region in Liguria.I have mastered home made pesto no problem, coniglio ligure no problem but breads and farinata and foccacia so far have been a bit of a disaster area!
Farinata di cecchi so far has been a wet heavy dough which you would need a very strong stomach to eat. Foccacia ligure on the second attempt turned out ok but this was using another recipe found on the web. The first said half a cup of tepid water with the levito a birra but thenit failed to mention to keep adding water until a point you arrived at a workable dough and then it said cook it in a very hot preheated oven for 20 minutes so I took them at their word and put it in at 250 degrees and it turned out a burnt and inedible rock.  But I am not giving up. Having managed to get a reasonable foccacia on the second attempt I am now a little more optimistic that only practice will make perfect. Well lets hope so.

‘Comfortable Lady’ How not to Import a sculpture into Italy

I was recently in South Africa on holiday and I saw a sculpture which I really liked so decided to buy it. They explained that it would be shipped to my nearest international airport in Italy(Florence). I would then have to arrange customs clearance and transport to my home.. how hard could it be. I was not unduly worried as I had shipped something similiar to the UK before and had not had any problems.Well that was the wrong assumption to make.

This sculpture is in soap stone and is done by a Zimbabwean lady who lives in SA. It weighs 150kg and is going in the garden at some stage. I had a call from the shippers to say that it has arrived and that the they could do the customs clearance for me and transport it to my home.They quoted me a figure which seemed ok plus 10 euro a day storage whilst clearance was taking place but that should not take long. I asked if they would be unloading it and could then put it in the garage. No was the answer, getting it off the truck and into the garage is down to me unless I wanted to pay a lot more for the transport. I then asked if they could at least put it on a truck with a hydraulic lift and I ( and some strong friends) would move it into the garage once it was on the ground.( lets hope I am not being too optimistic here). Fine we compromised on this. This morning another call. The invoice for export from SA stated it is a stone scuplture. Yes thats what it is. Well it should have stated it is simple modern work of art by an artisan sculptor and because it didnt the Belle Arts have to get involved to assess whether it should be allowed in. Well that inspection alone is going to cost me an extra 200 euro in fees but then 10 euro a day in storage until they do it. Obviously now the cost of this whole exercise is in the lap of the gods. Well lets hope for the sake of my overdraft the gods are going to favour me. I will let you know when I have any news.

Fango Fango Fango(mud)

Well progess has suffered a bit due to the amount of rain we have had which has slowed the work. The road to the house is a sea of mud(fango) and a four wheel drive is needed to get there. The new parking area and entrance door and stairway up to the house is taking shape.

View to house from the new carpark

Also the new terracing including  the swimming pool technical area are constructed. The next big works is the earth moving for the pool and garage  lets hope we have some drier weather to allow this to go on. In the mean time we are ordering the bath fixtures and fittings.