Sunday, June 15, 2008

Change of the Seasons


The look of the landscape is changing. Long gone is the yellow mustard and the various shades of green are replaced by hues of reds and browns.
As the spelt matures, the beards of the wheat have given the parcels of land a maroon colour and the bright red poppies are out in full bloom. It truly is amazing how the nature here really works in harmony with it’s colour schemes. Apparently I am witnessing something really beautiful because the poppies usually are done by now as are most of the flowers…but the rain is changing the landscape this spring.
Life in the caseificio (pronounced ca-zey-fee-cho) is the same. Although apparently I have come up with a novel idea of blending sun-dried tomatoes with basil and garlic into the caprino fresco (soft goat cheese aka cream cheese). They really like it here and to my surprise they havn't eaten this combo. I thought it to be strange since it is the ingredients of the famous Italian ‘margherita’ pizza and the colours of the Italian flag. But I guess as a cheese spread it is something new.
They are always a little worried when I am making some ‘interesting cheese’. I always tell them it will be “buonissimo” (oh so very good) and I get the reply of “spero” (I hope).
Well no matter how big of a batch of the ‘formaggio margherita’ I make, there is never any left over. Even though the last batch I made had maybe a little too much garlic – it was all gone. I actually woke up at one point in the night thinking, “My god something stinks like garlic….”
It was my palms of my hands next to my face so I hid them under the blanket.

I really am enjoying the group of us WWOOFers on the farm. It is nice to have the company of the 2 girls and the guy and we all seem to get along really well.
The guy. I won’t mention his name or where he is from because I am about to make fun of him (I’ll give a hint though, starts with a U. and ends in an S.A.). I truly do like him -he is REALLY nice, a softie and very intelligent– except when he said this:
“Can I, like, borrow your electrical converter and adapter for my shaver…or wait maybe my shaver cord won’t fit with your adapter because… do you use the same kind of electricity as we do?” he asked.
“Umm...yes you can borrow it. Our cords are the same” I replied.
He replied, “Oh I wouldn’t know because I have never been to Canada.”
Right…
Then the thought of:
“Oh wait a minute you don’t live in igloos down there! Our electricity IS different. We have special electricity that doesn’t …you know….overheat the wires too much because if it did, our igloos would melt and there would be a massive flood. And hell! We would all drown because we don’t have boats as there is no need for them because there is no water in Canada, only ice!”
Then as the four of us were talking about travelling to somewhere that was 120 km from the farm here, he turns to me and asks, “What is that in miles?”
“I dunno…should be something like 70 miles. 100 km equals 60 miles. We use kilometres too.” I said.
“Really? I didn’t know that!” he exclaimed.
Right…
Then the thought of:
“Yeah when we start to build wooden houses like everyone else we might switch to using miles too.”
I like the guy. I really do but he was just too easy to make fun of.

With summer trying to creep in to Tuscany, there have been some new arrivals in from the vegetable market. In the kitchen comes fresh produce like bright red cherries, SWEET orange cantaloupe (it is so much better than what we get in Canada) and the big fresh bag of fragrant green basil that Massimo bought. To my delight, Sandra decided to make basil pesto with it (and yes there are different types of pesto).
I love pesto di basilico. Especially on fat little gnocchi.
Tonight the pesto was served on long, lanky linguini. As I savoured the flavours of the first green forkful in my mouth, I noticed a different taste.
“Is there nutmeg in here?” I ask Sandra.
She squints at me with this look of “is she gonna get it?”
“Ah wait…no - it’s cloves right?” I ask. CERTAIN I was right.
“No I think it is the old cheese I used from the fridge – I thought we’d use it up. It had a very strong taste.” She replied.
I guess that is why Maaike said she had to use gloves when chopping this cheese it was that strong of a smell. Maaike even grabbed a handful of lavender to chase the smell away from her hands.
The result of eating this cheese?
A farting fiasco in my trailer later that evening.
I guess you could say I was really cuttin’ the cheese!
Which I guess was kind of ok because I woke up in the morning and all of the ants that have been crawling on my shelf for the past month were dead.

Ok not really…but they should have been.

You know that cheese commercial,
“If you want them to leave home….stop feeding them cheese!!!”

If you want them to leave home even quicker just start eating smelly old cheese

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear you are having a blast

Cynthia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cynthia said...

Hey girl, how are you!!! i love reading your blog so intersting...hope you dont mind i poached it off of your facebook...I haven't made it through it all yet, but i'm working on it!!! sounds like your having a blast...and i love the U to the S of A....hahahaha
Take care!

universal elixir said...

rhonda! that is like ultra creative. love the photog.

universal elixir said...

notice i think, you changed your name and location and even the occupation. Have we lost you to italy forever? that's ok, gives me somewhere to stay when i come to visit....hhehahe. i like the idea of being more anonymous on this - it is like a...a painted veil.