The food

This morning we fired up the wood burning oven and made pizza with a group from Holland. Massimo is amazing with pizza and turned out 40 or so in a few hours - topped with olives, mushrooms, artichokes, prosciutto, onions, basil, olive oil, sausage and of course pecorino fresca - a must at the farm. What a treat to work along side him and see him creating. Afterward, we put our bread inside - this time made with chestnut flour. The loaves are massive and beautiful.

Life on the farm has been great - meeting amazing people, both other workers and the guests. They are mostly from neighboring countries and Italy, but on occasion we have the rare American and a few folks from Australia & New Zealand. We had a pair of sisters from Australia - one owned a sheep farm with 3000 sheep, for wool, and the other owned an alligator farm with over 80,000. This is a rare breed and she sells the skin to Hermes for handbags that sell for about $50,000 and the meat goes to the Chinese community within Australia - prized for its healing qualities. She can't keep up with demand. What a business.

Tonight we had a group of 20 Italians come for dinner - they are always so festive with meals that last for hours. Dinner is always a multi-course affair with 3-6 antipasti (platters of sliced tomatoes with olives, feta or cukes; grilled eggplant with lemon juice and olive oil, thin sliced zucchini done raw with lemon juice and olive oil; often a farro (spelt) salad with capers, sun dried tomatoes, olives, veggies, etc; sometimes a lentil salad, melon with prosciutto, I have made Greek salad, bread soup (made with tomatoes, olive oil, stale bread) and panzanella ( a bread salad made like the bread soup) - it is the simple food of the peasant Tusancs. and of course, the home made bread - I have made at least 8 batches in the last 10 days - each one producing about 7 kilos of bread. wowsers. then its on to the primi - which is usually a pasta - I made pesto yesterday, sometimes we have it with tomato sauce, zucchini & olive oil, I made a batch of my ratatouille which was a big hit and have also made risotto; After that we have the secondo - the meat course - the meat will vary and some days we do not have meat, but it is typically meat from the animals on the farm - goat or lamb, once we had chicken; then we make some warm side dishes - garbanzos with rosemary, I made cannellini beans with sage, we make a lot of sauteed cabbage, I showed them how to make a great green bean dish with capers, sun dried tomatoes, onions and garlic. Its been fun that I have been able to introduce a few classic influenced Italian dishes that have been well received and have mixed things up a bit. And then there must be the cheese course - a selection of both goat and sheep and then we finish with the dolci - dessert. Its usually quite simple - Sandra makes a semolina flour cake with cocoa powder, I have made sorbet with some old peaches, I made a fruit salad with zablagione one night. then cafe or cappuccinos and grappa or vin santo. This is slow food at its finest - a celebration with every meal.