Sub zero temperature

Beautiful view at Monte Fogliame with the snow on the ground and blue sky.

We are experiencing sub zero temperature at the moment. Frost is everywhere and the road is very icy. Yesterday, after lunch my friend and I decided to take a drive to the hill area which is called Monte Fogliame. It is absolutely beautiful, with the snow on the ground and the sunny and blue sky. I drove all around the hill and the Lake Vico too. The view was absolutely spectacular.

The whole Europe is experiencing sub zero temperature and thick snow is causing the train Eurostar (London-Paris-Brussels) to suspend their service for the third day . The thick snow is sweeping through out the North European countries with North of France, Belgium, Poland and the Netherlands are badly affected.

My kitchen garden is covered with frost. Surprisingly my endives and red raddichio are saved with freezing cold. It looks like they love this cold and icy weather!

COLD.....br,br,br...

The cold is here. The temperature goes down very fast and faster as usual as Christmas approaches. Early in the morning, the mercury goes down to -1 and seldom goes up to 5 during the day.

The Siberian cold air is sweeping through out Europe and The Eiffel Tower was closed 2 days ago because of heavy snow. We have to bundle up with layers and layers of clothes/sweaters..... and my poor feet are as usual very cold too despite thick socks and proper shoes.

However, when the sun shines I could feel the softness of cool air in my lungs and nose, that really feels good.

Brainless creatures....

I have received 3 small containers full with brainless creatures last weekend from a friend of mine, Santhia. He is an Indian Malaysian who is currently working in an Italian company near Rome. Together with his wife, Mag, we met to have lunch in the center of Rome (it was quite a nice Lebanese food) before he gave me these priceless presents... worms.These brainless creatures are very essential to the Earth. They work wonders through their digestion and reproductive system with their main role to enrich the soil. Without these worms the quality of soil can be absolutely poor.

Apparently Santhia has been breeding these worms for quite sometime in his compost box. When I first went to their house for Deepavali dinner, I saw the soil of his strawberry vases is absolutely black and the plants are full with flowers and fruits and from far I could see that they are very happy.Immediately I knew that he has worms inside those pots (he has many of them)!

After quite a hearty Lebanese lunch that afternoon and together with a good cup of cappuccino, I rushed back home with 3 containers of worms in my bag.When I arrived home, straight away I put one of them in the flower bed. The next day, I transfered another one to my compost box and with some high hopes to get more worms, I am breeding the rest of them in a big black vase with some kitchen waste.

Santhia is absolutely a nice person and he really has 'green fingers' and gave me a lot of tips on roses like putting blended banana skin around the roses to encourage more flowers! Surely I will not forget to do that in March and I hope by February, I will have more worms in my garden. Thanks again Santhia and Mag!

The Leaning Pisa Tower

We had the opportunity of taking the children to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa last weekend. Luckily enough, the weather on Saturday was very pleasant. It had been raining non stop for a few days before that. The journey to Pisa took less than 4 hours since we took the highway to get there. Since we were around Pisa around 2.30pm, we decided to go to Lucca. Lucca is such a pretty walled town. The wall is about 5 meters thick and circling around the town. There is one thing that is really surpising to me in Lucca.... the cost of parking the car is 10 cent per hour! If you want to park for 3 hours and more, it will cost you only 30 cent! It is such unbelievable! The cheapest parking in the town around Rome is 50 cent for half an hour.

We spent a night in Pisa and took the children to see the tower the next day. The tower is really spectacular... coming from the entrance suddenly you see it right infront of you, the white marble tower which has been the landmark of Italy for centuries, leaning to the right..... that is beautiful! That tower has been tilting right after the fifth year it was built in the 13th Century. This is due to the clay soil underneath the tower as the location is also near the river. The tower became famous also because of the gravity test done by Galileo Galilei. There were numerous restoration works to the tower and i think it has turned 'bleached white' because of that!

Kitchen Garden by late November

curly endives with red endives

My kitchen garden looks fabulous at this time of the year. I can say that all the vegetables are at their optimum health condition. My romaine lettuce, endives, puntarelle....broccoli are simply looking great. The weather is warm too! You could never ask for more for this temperate weather at this time of the year. This is the best autumn weather! The colors of the trees are changing every minute and they are losing faster too. The colors are so intense like red, gold,brown, russet etc... with all earth tones, you have to feel the abundance whenever you see all of them through out the day.The beauty is so 'revealing', you can actually feel joy deep inside you.

OLIVE PICKING

The time has come to picking olives. It is the time for therapeutic adventure..... having quiet time to yourself, 'melurut dengan tangan' all the olives from the branches could give opportunity to reflect on our lives. The process is very slow and takes time. Therefore, the actual price that we pay for a bottle of olive oil at the supermarket is never the real price because this industry is heavily subsidised by the European union. This is one of the heritage industries for the Mediteranean countries.This tree already existed since ancient time and they are very resistant to weather and never lose leaves in winter.

The weather is absolutely warm to pick olives now. It is really a blessing because a couple of years ago, we had to brave ourselves in almost freezing weather to pick all the olives around our house. Usually olive picking is almost a 'family or national affair'. Almost everywhere, we could see and hear people gathering together to pick olives. The whole family and extended family will spend a few days together for this activity and this could be fun.... picnic under the olive trees with warm tea and a few slices of chocolate cake or having warm lunch too!

The olives will then be taken to the 'frantoio' where they will be pressed. The quality of oil depends on various factors, like weather, location of the tress etc. The quantity of olives this year is much less than the previous year but the quality of oil is superb and we have almost 20 litres of 'olio olive extra vergine'.

Olive oil is like tea, it tastes better not by the process of 'aging'. They are best consumed as soon as possible, like other oils too. If the oil is kept for too long, it will lose its taste. The Italians like to consume new oil on the bruschetta. The taste of olive oil differs from region to region too. The oil that comes from the Southern Regions and certain places from Central Regions are very strong and sometimes can be quite 'kelat' and others can be very mildly strong and delicate.

The rain does not seem to stop. It is really autumn and the weather is rather variable. I could not do much in my kitchen garden or flower garden. Before the rainy season started last week, i managed to prepare the beds for the spring bulbs. Clearing all the weeds was not an easy task but i managed to work the soil too. By the time I want to plant the new bulbs of tulips and daffodils, the rain came and it looks like I have to wait until the soil becomes dry.

I normally plant all the bulbs gradually so that by the spring time, I will have the succession of colors in 4 weeks. I will try to plant all the bulbs from now until right before Christmas.

My kitchen garden looks very well, eventhough the weeds are growing like feeding them with high dose of minerals and vitamins. One of the weeds that is very useful is nettle. Nettle stings, but it contains a lot of iron and very useful for detoxification. Making frittata (omellete)using nettle is divine and simple. This year, I am allowing a lot of space for the nettles and i will have loads of them for my detoxification process!