Steam Trains In Tuscany

The train station in Bagni di Lucca has a faded decadence. When we first moved to the valley there was a rather sad bar, now there is only an ugly modern ticket machine and the ubiquitous yellow machine to convalidate one’s train ticket. However if you look up at the façade when entering you can imagine  a more elegant and perhaps more romantic epoch, this feeling is reinforced when you arrive on the platform and cast your eyes to the far side of the platforms where there is a neglected garden with a decaying fountain and a couple of delapidated stone benches peeping out of the long grass under the large dark pines. The two old iron columns used to fill up the trains with vapour in the first part of the last century also add an industrial elegance.

The other day I was standing on the platform waiting for the usual little train generally made up of only a couple of carriages that rattles up and down the valley between Lucca and Aulla when the station returned to it’s rightful time

As a steam train chugged in complete with carriages and passengers.

The train driver and his mates told us they had come from Pisa carrying a group of railway enthusiasts from the UK . He also proudly announced that train reached a speed of 90KM an hour though she was capable of more but had to respect the speed limit and the train was heading up to Aulla. A lovely trip even on the ordinary train.  The passengers turned out to be charming and charmed by their experience. Being a very civilised group of tourists they were stopping for lunch and no doubt a glass or two of the local vino in Piazza al Serchio.  

A Breakfast Treat in the Most Unxpected Place

Serena is never without a smile

What makes a 5 star bar, is it the bar in the centre of our village with its terrace facing onto the village square or the one at the top with a flowered lined courtyard? Yes I enjoy both and also the ones in the elegant piazza below my office in Lucca but on a winter’s morning (and also often in the summer) I put at the top of my list the bar at the Agip garage in Chifenti on the main road just outside Bagni di Lucca on the way to Lucca. What I hear you all saying: ‘would you choose a garage over a pretty bar in a piazza?’ The answer is simple from 4 am you can see the glow of lights and as you push the door open onto what looks like the Italian equivalent of a UK Little Chef. Serena, mother of 3 greets you with the most wonderful smile even at 4 am. The décor can’t be said to be sophisticated  but the smile gives you all the warmth of the Tuscan sunshine. The bar is always full, often Serena is helped by Sandra, who is equally good at dispensing her smile and a sense of joy. The bus drivers have a coffee while filling up their buses as do the local police forces, then there are the locals on their way to work and the crowd changes with the seasons. Now the skiers stop off for a warm coffee and a delicious homemade cake or mouth-watering cornetto on their way to a day on the slopes. On a warm damp September day you will bump in the mushroom devotees on their way to the woods.

I love to listen to the chat while waiting for my turn at the bar and now Serena prepares my macchiato without me even having to ask and presents it to me with a design, which always seems to match my mood, drawn in coffee on top of the perfect white foamy milk. Pure delight.

Ambiance here isn’t the furniture but the smile, good coffee and cakes and the stories of the punters.

A winter Sunset From The Walls Of Lucca

ON a cold  winter evening after a day in front of the computer or school books there isn’t a nicer way to unwind than a walk on the walls of Lucca to watch the sunset . That is exactly what I did with my daughter the other evening. Isabella took her camera with and captured the walls at dusk. More of her photos can be seen on  http://korakale.blogspot.it/

Happy Christmas

I think our persimmon tree makes the perfect Christmas tree.

Tanti auguri e Buon 2013

Celia e Enzo at  Un Prosecchino.

Enzo's Pasta con la Genovese

Sunday morning the weather was horrendous. It poured and poured cats and dogs. We kept receiving warning telephone calls from The Protezione Civile, telling the population that the Serchio river had broken the banks in several points those in a flood area were advised to climb to the upper floors.

Lucca itself looked safe and it seems that the city walls held the water. 

So we needed something to cheer ourselves up so I decided to unearth an old recipe that I have not done for yonks, La Genovese, one of the pillars of Neapolitan cuisine. It is basically meat stewed in onions.Our pantry is always reasonably well stocked. We also have a very good greengrocer within seconds and we are very lucky to have a friend, Maria Assunta, who gives us a lot of fresh produce that she grows in her allotment. So we had all the ingredients.

I have on my bookcase a few books of Neapolitan cuisine in which they discuss also the origin of this ancient recipe. I have used the recipe that my grandmother and then my mother used to cook at least one Sunday a month.

My books speculate about the origins of Genovese. They seem to suggest that it came to the Kingdom of Naples with some Genoese merchants in the 14th century during the Aragon dynasty. But looking at any cookbook dealing with Genovese food one fails to find it. So the answer lies elsewhere. Shrewder investigators suggest that it came to Naples via Swiss mercenaries from Geneva and there is a point in this speculation as onions are widely used in Swiss cuisine while they’re not a main ingredient in Genoa’s. To make things more complicated a 13^th century recipe book from the Neapolitan court was found in the National Archive in Paris and a similar recipe was recorded. Well apart from the academic speculations the reality is that it is a terribly good dish and not too complicated although some extra attention is required in the last few minutes of the preparation.

The sky was so heavy and dark that we needed to have the lights on. In this climate I started.

So these are the ingredients: 

500 grams (1 pound) lean beef in chunks

100 grams (4 oz) Pancetta cut in stripes or cubes (strikers of good bacon are a good replacement if you cannot find pancetta)

1 Kg (2 pounds) Onions

3 carrots

1 stalk celery

2 tbs olive oil

1 glass of white wine

Sea salt

A pinch of ground pepper

Water

Grated parmisan or grana to sprinkle on top

Pasta 350 grams (12 oz)

Serves 4

Preparation time 20 minutes

Cooking time:  2hours 30 minutes

1. Chop the onions, the celery and the carrots to be ready for the next stage

2. Pour the oil in a good casserole saucepan and heat it lightly. Add the bacon and cook it for a couple of minutes. Now add the meat (do not brown it) and ground pepper and cover it with the onions, the carrots and the celery.

3. Turn the heat up for 10/15 minutes and you’ll see that the vegetables will slowly release their liquid. Now add half a glass of water.

4. Turn the flame down, put the lid on top making sure to leave a gap (my system is to put a wooden spoon between the saucepan and the lid) to allow part of the liquid to evaporate slowly and let it simmer for a couple of hours or until the meat looks tender. While simmering if the sauce becomes thick and tends to stick to the bottom add another half a glass of water.

Now the difficult bit:

5. Remove the lid, add a pinch of salt and turn heat up to remove the excess liquid if necessary. When the sauce tend to stick to the bottom (now be very careful as you do not want to burn it!) pour very slowly the white wine. When you see that it has evaporated add half a glass of water to make it smoother and after a minute turn the heat off. The sauce is ready and should look brown and creamy.

6. In the meantime you have cooked and drained the pasta ready to be mixed with the Genovese. Short pasta is best: penne or rigatoni.

Sprinkle with grated parmesan or grana cheese.

The appropriate shapes of pasta would be mezzani o ziti but they are not easy to find outside Naples. I remember that for some time I was in charge with breaking this long pasta pipes into shorter sections. “Enzo vieni a spezzare la pasta” (Enzo, came here to break the pasta) my mother used to say. My little hands were always aching at the end of the task since at least ten people would be fed on Sunday. I kept the job for a long time: my younger siblings were reluctant to replace me. This time I haven’t got ziti o mezzani in stock so I settled for penne lisce, which were unusually big.

A glass of medium bodied red or strong white, if you prefer, will help you to wash it down.

We had our Sunday lunch quite late, 2.30sh, while it was still pouring outside. At five we noticed that it had stopped so following coffee we went for a walk. We saw large paddles of water but the sky was clearing up and the sunset was red giving us hope that the worst was over.

Lucca Comics 2012

It is that time of year again, when Lucca is invaded by strange creatures. In the Piazzas Harry Potter mingles happily with some creatures from outer space while Alice in wonderland steals a kiss from Jack Sparrow. Lucca seems to have perfected a contemporary form of carnival. The narrow streets may be packed but the good humour of this young crowd out to enjoy themselves gives this old city a burst of youthful enthusiasm.

Strange Objects in a Tuscan basement

When we moved into our country house in Tuscany we found the cellars full of things including some old farming equipment and some ancient tools made no doubt by an antediluvian owner.

One object we found particularly intriguing and for many months we couldn’t work out what its purpose was. Having the shape of a wood tanker but with a long long handle we even thought it had something to do with beer,  despite  there being a couple of good brewers in our area, this is mostly a wine culture and beer might have been an exotic drink a century ago for our villagers.

 Months later we had to start making some improvements at the house so our builder was invited to give us estimate of the costs. Idamo is more than a builder, he is also a kind of philosopher and loves local history and tradition. The strange mug immediately attracted his attention. He had not seen one for ages and he was sure that we didn’t know its rightful use so he had a little suppressed smile on his face when he asked us if we knew what was it for.

One can now imagine our silence. Well, he said, in the old days nothing was thrown away, really nothing. You have you beautiful technological septic tank  but it was not always like that. 

We went to a small cellar where he indicated to us the remains of an old hole.  In those years night pots were emptied there and the hole was covered with a wooden lid. One can imagine that over the weeks some kind of chemical transformation occurred. The result of this transformation would have been used as a fertiliser in the fields. The strange object was a kind of scoop to extract the human manure from the tank when it was ready. The patriarch of the family because of his experience, was in charge of the decision. Taken by the story I asked  ‘How did he know that the right moment had arrived?’. Idamo phlegmatically replied: “Very simple, he would dunk his little finger in the barrel, taste it and say: Oh it’s now ready”. 

We still don’t know the name of this useful tool so if anyone knows please let us know.