The Best Things in Life

Well after doing a runner in Rome, you would think I might be planning on going straight at least for a while - but no, I spent this glorious Indian summer afternoon scrumping for apples with my neighbour who is 72 years young and very able up a ladder! We literally cleared a whole ancient apple tree of Bramley's - otherwise they would all go to windfall and be wasted, so I now have four carrier bags full to be distributed amongst friends and neighbours. The other freebie I have discovered today is walnuts, somewhere in this village there is a walnut tree, the birds are picking them and then dropping them all around our gardens, the plan for tomorrow is to find the tree and pick my own walnuts - how fantastic is that?

A whole day of chocolate

I made this - can you believe it? The eyeball features are actually chocolate spheres, and the dust is irridescent edible powder - it is more amazing in real life than in the photograph.

When I left work in March, my colleagues bought me a day's chocolate workshop as a leaving gift, and on Friday 1st October I went along to Slattery's in Whitefield, Manchester and learned how to work with chocolate - it was fantastic! Unfortunately, or rather due to poor planning, I went off to Italy the day after, so I haven't had chance to do any practicing, but now I am home again, I am going to be making chocolate cakes on a weekly basis.

The model I brought home will be perfect for a birthday cake for my daughter - a cake like this which is covered in thin layer of marzipan and then coated with chocolate ganache will keep for around 3 weeks - let's hope it tastes as good as it looks, if not it wont be my fault, the cakes were ready prepped for decoration on the day.

If you live anywhere near Manchester, or are up North for a visit, you should book for morning coffee, lunch or afternoon tea at Slattery's, it is a family business, a confectioner's/cake shop with an amazing display of celebration cakes, then upstairs a tea room/restaurant, and on the top floor a cookery school which offers lots of different options for beginners to professionals. Highly recommended!

Italian Adventure Part 3

What sort of person would do a runner from a high class joint like this - if you have been to Italy you will understand how this could happen to someone quite easily - the system goes like this - you go to the till and buy a ticket for what you want to eat or drink, then you go to the counter and tell the handsome waiter what you want - he is too clever to bother looking at the ticket, so gives you the drinks. When you have spent a couple of hours over a boozy lunch and just want a coffee to pep you up, you lean on the counter, tell the waiter what you want, he provides, you leave satisified and afterwards realise that neither of you paid the bill! To make up for this outrageous deed, you return the following day, order the same and pay for it (3.5 euros for a double espresso and an iced coffee - who said Rome was expensive?) and leave a generous tip, hoping that you have not been caught on camera! Since this is the system in many Osteria and bars throughout Italy, I wonder how much they loose out when us foreigners don't know how it works?

Maison Matilda - luxury B&B Treviso - the inner courtyard

Our room - "The Music Room"

Well I am back and it was a success!! I cant believe how busy my fellow bloggers have been whilst I was away and I have only caught up with a couple so far, when my phone contract is up I will get an i-phone so that I can blog on the trot.

Anyway, here is a synopsis of the Italian road trip which I think went very well, I didn't once have that feeling of hating the hotel room and wanting to be home, which is quite normal for me at the beginning of a holiday.

We started by flying courtesy (£75 return) of Ryanair (not bad once you have the relief of knowing that your hand luggage is not overweight/over sized and you will not be charged a king's ransom to check them) Liverpool airport has had a makeover and is significantly better than the last time I flew from there, although when you fly cheaply the name "self-loading freight" rings very true - don't ever think of paying for priority boarding with these companies, it means nothing.

We were visiting Venice initially so flew to Treviso airport and stayed in a beautiful luxury B&B called Maison Matilda - perfect for a quick transfer from Treviso airport, and handy for the 4 euro train ride into Venice.

Our lovely host Alex made breakfast to order each morning, fresh berries with honey and greek yoghurt, pastries and unusually (for me anyway) little breakfast pizzas, with freshly squeezed orange juice and espresso - the best breakfasts of our trip.








Venice was breathtaking as usual, the weather was perfect, everytime I go I find another amazing tiny canal and a great bar to sip an aperitif or two. Have you tried the local tipple, an Aperol Spritz - it is the colour of Irn Bru or Tizer and tastes not dissimilar but looks so elegant and is often served with a huge green olive - delicious!

The owner of Maison Matilda took the lovely man to collect the hire car and we set off into Tuscany with an initial flaw when the dopey chap from Sat Nav took us north for 15Km before we just knew something was wrong - you cant beat a map can you? Next stop Antica Casa Rondini in Colle di Buggiano - another luxury B&B in a car free Medieval hill top town rising above the Tuscan plains

This village has a micro climate and orange, lemon and grapefruit trees were in all the gardens, then hanging over the garden walls into the narrow walk ways were fat ripe pomegranates. Buggiano has one tiny old restaurant where we ate fabulous local fresh ingredients including wild porcini mushrooms and black and white truffle. We tasted pappa al pomodoro, and ribollita which are fantastic Tuscan soups, more like a thick vegetable puree. The following evening we shared the best pizza we have ever eaten - thinnest crispiest crust baked in an open wood fire, followed by tagliata of beef served with truffles and rocket, truly outstanding.

With heavy rain forecast for our second day in Tuscany, we decided to visit a thermal spa, we went to the fabulous Grotta Guisti in Montesummano - where we lavished in hot underground caves dressed in outfits which made us look like horror film extras, then lazed in the mineral rich thermal waters in the outdoor pool - our skin felt lovely afterwards, and the rain never came so all in all another rather perfect day.

Florence was bustling, our hotel the J & J Hotel was another find, housed in a former monastery in the centre of old Florence, only one night here, but fabulous anyway.

And finally on to Rome - ancient and outrageous and wonderful and still need to go back because there is always more to do - my list for the next visit includes, the Baths of Caraculla, the ViaAppia and Civita Vecchia - getting back to Rome is never going to be a problem because it is the lovely man's favourite place in a tie with Venice. The hotel here was less fabulous than the previous places, we still managed to have a penthouse room, with a terrace overlooking Villa Ada, and a lovely marble bathroom, it was only when the guests in the neighbouring rooms returned that we knew the walls were so thin, we might as well have all been in one room!

One question for fellow bloggers - we ate veal steak in an old roman trattoria, we watched Janet Street Porter and her two veal calves Elton and David and understood that veal is actually the wasted by product of dairy herds (ie bullocks are not productive so have to go) - it was delicious and I didn't feel guilty thanks to Janet - what do you think? You can see from the photo that this was not meat from some tiny animal.

Italian Adventure Part Two

Everything is now planned - apologies for the lack of blogging, but the amount of time I have spent booking travel and accommodation has left precious little over for the usual day to day stuff and now I am immersed in a packing dilemma. Obviously it is Italy so I have to look effortlessly stylish but that has to be within the limitations of flying with Ryanair and the tiny baggage allowance, that plus the fact that the weather forecast for the week looks like everything except snow - my daughter was in Florence last week and was suffering heat exhaustion in a vest and jeans, whilst the locals were parading around in boots, coats and hats!

So - how many pairs of sunglasses? Whilst I have this theory that if I don't take any, the sun will shine so much I will have to buy some, I do have an extensive collection gathered over the years which begins with Raybans from the eighties and ends with Oliver Goldsmiths "Sophia" (I do actually own the goggle-ish white pair - bought in Amsterdam after inhaling some second hand smoke I think! and however on trend they are, they simply do not suit me). Now you can understand why the packing is taking so long when I can't even make a simple decision about sunglasses, don't get me started on heels and comfy shoes, or dressy for the evenings, or how many handbags is reasonable?

Autumn in North Wales

Spurred on by Hestia's Larder, I have been foraging locally and as a result we have been eating mostly purple food - figs, blackberries, damsons all mixed with Bramley apples from our tree. Last night I made damson cheese from a recipe in Roast Figs and Sugar Snow (it is the most amazing shiny jelly which you serve in small cubes with cold meats and cheeses), and today from the same book I am preparing Georgian Lamb which has damsons and spices to make a rich sauce. The kitchen is a lovely place to be on windy autumnal days, and since it is National Cupcake week (apparently?) I may make some peanut butter cupcakes too - crunchy peanut butter in the sponge, smooth in the topping - fab - and these of course will be a great help in the forthcoming diet (diets always start next week in this house).

Italian Adventure Part I

Well I was browsing for a photo depicting Florence, and this is what I came across! Sorry if it offends ;-} Apologies for the lengthy gap in my blogging, we have had a couple of health issues which are now thankfully completely resolved and have left me with a sense of live for the moment, really live for the moment. So the Italian Adventure is one I am hoping some of you well travelled bloggers might be able to help me with - we plan to spend a week in October (courtesy of Ryanair £75 return) travelling between Venice and Rome and I am on the lookout for some sensational places to stay in both cities and anywhere in between so any suggestions would be most welcome. I have included the photo of David because I would like to spend a day or two in Florence - I have been there before in July when it was too hot to do much other than quaff large amounts of Prosecco, I am still hoping for sunshine in October but not quite so much heat.

In the further spirit of living for the moment I am alternating between exercising like a demon and eating healthily and then a little of what you fancy does you good - dark chocolate with sea salt, champagne, white wine kettle chips and Crespo olives (all at the same time). Like Hestia, I am going to a wedding in November and have a target dress to slip into, so the diet and exercise stories will unfold - this week I WILL go to the gym, just paying the membership is not enough to loose inches unfortunately. AM says rowing is the way forward, the only problem is it is soooo boring, unless I watch Come Dine with Me as I row, and then I inevitably have to leave the machine to eat!

This poem which reminds me of our story is taken from a book of love poetry which was a 10th anniversary present

At school, friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears the soul. All loves of afterlife can never bring its rapture, or its wretchedness; no bliss so absorbing, no pangs of jealousy or despair so crushing and so keen! What tenderness and what devotion; what illimitable confidence, infinite revelations of inmost thoughts; what ecstatic present and romantic future; what bitter estrangements and what melting recriminations; what scenes of wild recrimination, agitating explanations, passionate correspondence; what insane sensitiveness, and what frantic sensibility; what earthquakes of the heart and whirlwinds of the soul are confined in that simple phrase, a schoolboy's friendship!