A Great Meal

Last night we went for pizza in town. It was supposedly the best pizza around, according to Phillip. I definitely have had better, but didn’t want to make Phillip feel bad. They had over 5 pages of different types of pizza. I chose Caprese . It really was foccacia bread with chopped tomatoes and mozzarella.

Today started as a beautiful sunny day. Supposedly (no one really knows) Nirav is returning, so the Wwoofers cleaned the house. I have not done so much cleaning in over 20 years. I really miss my cleaning lady. My nails have never looked so bad.

Celine and I had lunch duty. As I have said before, it is very intimidating to cook with such good cooks in the group. I decided to make something that I love, Polenta; I made it the way my mom use to make it by putting it on a large platter with sauce on top.

To make the sauce all I had was two cans of tomatoes. So I took Fennel, my new best friend, garlic, and onion and sautéed in a lot of olive oil. I added oregano and the tomatoes and cooked for 1 ½ hours. It was fantastic in my opinion. I served it over the polenta. I made broccoli in the oven with bread crumbs, garlic, and oil as my second dish. You always serve some type of second dish with your pasta. I also made an appetizer of olive brushetta.

We were able to eat outside because the sun was still shining. When the sun is shining in Sicily, there is nothing more beautiful. That lasted until 3pm and back to rain.

There is some dissention between the Wwoof group, including me, and Nela. Nela and Phillip have been managing the farm while Nirav is away. They are a young German couple. Nela definitely is a type A personality. We have an opportunity to go to another farm and watch the woman make bread. Apparently it is a beautiful farm and we really want to go. Nela said she would call, but did not. She definitely has another agenda. We are all pretty upset, since there is nothing to do around here and it is a great opportunity. Even in Italy there is conflict….

Great news – I was able to upload all the pictures to the web in Picasso: http://picasaweb.google.com/pmilano09/Farm3#

I hope you enjoy them. Stay tuned to whether we go to the new farm for a bread making class. Ciao for now.