Locanda Vini e Olii "The Blog": November: Olive picking!

Locanda Vini e Olii "The Blog": November: Olive picking!

November: Olive picking!

As we say in Italy: after April it comes May. September is long gone, the grapes have been harvested and our wine is secured in the vats. It is now time to pick the olives! It's November and in Tuscany you can tell it just driving around the countryside: hundreds of improvised workers populate the hills around Florence. For about two weeks whoever owns as much as a "tongue of land" with olive trees on it is engrossed in the ceremony of the olive picking. The fields' workforce quadruples. Accountants put on their gloves, surgeons take theirs off and pull on some boots, lawyers march with ladders over shoulders and farmers look at all of them and shake their heads... My family, of course, is part of the show. My parents bought an old barn in the late sixties with one hundred olive trees attached to the property. Today the barn is a house and the trees still produce excellent olive oil. It’s my mom’s job every year to check the tools. First the nets to recuperate the olives that fall from the trees. One of them is new, the other is old and ripped; it is probably the same one that my grandparents bought to replace the World War Two parachute that they used to use. It is going to be o.k. for this one last time, next year she will buy a new one… Ore will she? Next are the “manine”, little plastic combs in the shape of hands. Everyone should carry one: they run through the branches leaving the leaves, tacking the olives off. We also need two ladders and some gloves. In different parts of Italy, more recently, it is current the use of motorized sticks that slap the trees and make the olives falling down in to the net. We don’t use them. This system is valid for bigger plants and flat terrains. We live on top of a hill and our trees are only twenty five years old because of the great freeze of 1985 when all of them died for the intense cold. I also believe that there is something deeply wrong in the beating of an olive tree.

We are now ready to start. It’s nine o’clock on a freezing Sunday morning. The morning frost is evaporated but it’s still cold. Luckily today the wind is giving us a break. We start with the further trees and we want to finish a row by lunch. I place the net and my brother helps with the “pioli”, little wooden sticks that we use to secure the net. My dad has already started with the bottom branches, my mom take care of the other side. My wife has disappeared on top of the tree and I climb the ladder to reach the top part. After about twenty minutes all the olives are picked and on the net ready to be collected and place in the crate. It was not a big tree but produced about half of a crate or 20 lbs of olives. It will give us 2 lbs of olive oil if this year will be productive and the percentage will be around 10%. By lunch time it’s wormer and we all toke off our jackets and heats. It’s time for a quick snack: bread, prosciutto, pecorino cheese, a glass of wine and we are ready to go again. By five o’clock it’s dark and you are not able to see the olives anymore. We collect our tools and we put every in the storage room. Last thing to do is to collect the crates and pile them under the “loggia”. They need to have air in order not to mold.

The morning after I am off work so I can help my parents who both toke the week off. It takes us about two weeks to complete the job and if it doesn’t rain too much and we can pick almost all the olives we can get up to10,000 lbs! When all the olives are in the crates it’s time to bring them to the “frantoio”, the oil mill. My mom has booked for us a spot in the morning so we load all our cars with the precious goods, they will smell like it for weeks, and we slowly move toward the destination. As we get there we encounter many tractors and trucks coming from the mill full of freshly pressed olive oil. They work for big farmhouses and usually press their olives during the night.

It's our turn! we unload the containers in a giant whole where they are sucked up, washed and send in the first machine. Two big stone wheels crush them leaving a brownish thick paste. The paste goes through many processes and is always kept cool, which is very important to not alter the flavor of the oil. After about one hour the first drops of golden-green liquid are coming out. It's more a fluid, really. It's very dense full of sediments and has to rest for at least a week in order to be used. It smells delicious, tough, and the first thing we do when we get home is to try it on some sliced grill bread. It's still very spicy and strong. It's so good and we are very proud of it!

Michele Baldacci. 11/24/2010.

GRILLING WITH AN ITALIAN TOUCH

MEMORIAL DAY

The first long week-end of the summer. All the Grill Chefs are ready. Latest gadgets purchased and best meats ordered at your local butcher.

Arrosticini (a small cubed fatty lamb) being grilled in the "Campo Imperatore" at the "Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso" One of Abruzzo's gorgeous national parks

Try this:

Marinate you meat 1 day in advance with extra virgin olive oil, whole cloves of garlic, rosemary branches. Place your meat and the marinate in a ziplock bag, remove as much air as possible and refrigerate. Before grilling, pat dry to minimize flames. Grill as usual. The meat will have more flavor and will be tender. Works really well when using grassfed beef as it is leaner and can use a little extra "grease". You can use the marinade to baste your steak.

Make this:

A great sauce to go with grilled steak:

SALSA VERDE PICCANTE

1 clove of garlic

1 bunch parsley

10 leaves of basil

half bunch of tarragon

capers

fresh peperoncino (italian hot red pepper) or crushed red pepper flakes

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

red wine vinegar

juice of half a lemon

Chop all herbs together with the capers to a med fine texture.

in a bowl, combine herbs, extra virgin olive oil, 2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar and lemon juice. Add a pinch of salt and peperoncino to taste.

pick up the garlic with your fork smashing slightly and with the garlic still on your fork, mix the sauce well. If you want more garlic taste you can leave the garlic clove in the sauce to add intensity.

Dreaming of tomatoes

If the heat keeps up we may get some early tomatoes!

The Pappa al Pomodoro is back on the menu!

To stay cool, nothing does it like a good chilled soup.

FENNEL & DILL CHILLED SOUP

3 Fennel bulbs
2 Spring Onions or a buch or scallions
Small bunch of dill or baby dill
Extra Virgin Olive oil
Salt & Pepper to taste

Cut the bulb onions in thin slices including half of the green leaves
Place in a pot with olive oil to cover bottom of pot, add salt and cook on very low heat until the onion is translucent and soft.
Clean the fennel, cut out any bruised part, chop and add tot he pot.
Cook on low heat for about 10 minutes, add half of the dill and cook for 2 more minutes. Cover with hot water (just enough to cover vegetables) and bring to a boil. Cook until the fennel is soft when poked with knife or fork.
Chill.
Put cold soup in a blender and blend until completely smooth.
Taste for salt level and if you need to add, add to blender and pulse a couple of times.
plate and decorate with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and chopped dill and if you like a touch of freshly ground black pepper.

Buon Appetito.

For more recipes, buy the Sardegna book!

SARDEGNA - SARDINIA by Catherine de Zagon | BOOK INFO

Last thoughts started at the airport in Rome and finished in Bed-Stuy!

We are at the airport and it looks like we will be able to leave.

Will we survive the black cloud?

Obviously we did... I am now in our loft in Bed-Stuy and I am trying to tie the loose ends of this travel blog.

Here are my parting thoughts.

First I should say it has been an amazing trip. Full of colors, flavors

and great people.

I had the great surprise of spending time with my aunt who had to reinvent herself at fourty-something in a new country with a new language and in a very rural male-dominated area.

She had to start all over and prove herself over and over. Today, she is extremely respected and loved and is still working. We left her house as she was on her tractor ready to cut the grass...

Next I feel lucky to have shared our time with two amazing women who are fun, loving, beautiful and talented. Thank you Maja and Janice.

Sardegna was a raw beautiful place but I must admit, my heart beats faster when I approach the hills and mountains of Abruzzo.

Sardegna may lack the charm of small villages and gorgeous architecture, it does however more than compensates with pristine emerald clear waters, raw nature and warm amazing people. It also has incredible produce, fish, honey, sweets and many wonderful specialities.

Italy is a rich and diverse country. One should be so lucky to have the time to slowly and leisurely get to know every region and every town within. If you travel to Italy, do not try to visit all at once. Pick a Region, choose a town and explore within. Get to know the people, shop at the markets walk around and take it all in. After lunch, have a siesta. Drink lots of vino and just be. If you cook, keep it simple. Let the ingredients shine and add as little as you can.

While the sky is blue, a black cloud might ground us at Fiumicino

We are on our way to Cagliari to fly to Rome. So far the flight is on time and operating.

The cloud has not reached Rome yet thought it lingers over Tuscany.

Tomorrow we are scheduled to fly home to New York and that is a little more uncertain...

I thought I would leave you with this funny looking fish with very "human teeth" He was however grilled to perfection and delicious! His grill companion (we had 2 of them) had normal fish looking teeth pointy and thin but this guy...

See you all on Tuesday if cloud permits.

If our airport hotel has wi-fi or Vodaphone, I will try to upload the pictures and a few more recipes.

Ciao, C.