Pasta a Mano

It's no secret that the Italians are obsessed with their food. Last week my language school took this to another level, and dedicated a whole morning's lessons to those two champions of Italian cuisine: pizza and pasta.

So it is that I can now proudly present, my very own home-made pasta recipe:

The only ingredients you need are flour, eggs, and time (at least an hour, more if you want to make fancier shapes).  

Measure out 100g of flour for every egg, (100g is enough for 1-2 people).

Put your flour in a pile on the table and make a little well in the top

Crack open your eggs into the little well. Don't worry if it spills over the edge like mine, just keep as much of it together as you can.

Mix the flour and eggs together. Start by folding the flour nearest the edge of the well on to the egg (this is the messy bit), keep going until you have a nice ball of dough that looks something like this:

Now you need to knead the dough, (this develops the gluten, which gives the pasta its strong consistency and delicious taste). If the dough starts to get a bit dry just add a few drops of water.

Once you've finished kneading, your ball of dough should have a nice smooth and springy consistency. Wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Then you need a good rolling pin and a lot of elbow grease to roll the dough as flat as you can, preferably until it's only a few millimetres thick

Once you've done this, you can decide what kind of pasta you want to make. Biscuit cutters can be put to good use here.

I loved my star shaped (stelline) pasta, but if you're pressed for time something like linguine is a quicker option. You can make it by rolling up the pasta and then slicing it, as shown by the lovely Emma below:

Once you have successfully made your pasta shapes, pop them in some boiling water with a pinch of salt and leave to cook for 2-3 minutes. Make whatever sauce you fancy (we went for tomato with funghi and parmigiano). Once the pasta is ready, mix with your sauce, tuck in and enjoy!

Buon Apetito!

Buon Natale!

The lights are up on Via del Corso, the market is in Piazza Navona, and I've spotted a lot of Santa cyclists, rollerskaters and buskers all around the city in the last few days. You can't shop anywhere without walking into mountains of panettone, we have a lovely big tree up in our house, and outside the Vatican there is even a life-size representation of the nativity scene. Christmas has come to Rome.

However, despite all of these festive changes, I have to reluctantly admit that Rome just can't do Christmas quite like London. In the UK the run up to Christmas tends to start somewhere around mid-October, which come December is so tiresome that most of us are secretly begging for the whole thing to be over with. Yet in my first run up to Christmas away from home, I am actually finding myself daydreaming of mince pies, mulled wine, frosty pavements, blinding Christmas decorations and of course the relentless sound of Christmas songs on the radio. It is the 22nd of December and I haven't even managed to find a mince pie in this city, I've barely heard a peep of Mariah Carey or The Pogues, let alone glimpsed a bit of Love Actually or Elf on the telly. Yes, despite my love for Italy I miss old-fashioned English Christmas, which is why I'm flying home tomorrow night to have a proper celebration of this wonderful season in gluttonous, OTT, freezing, festive England. 

Buon Natale a Tutti!

Ancora ti amo Roma, even if you haven't quite got the hang of Christmas

My Tuscan Summer

Somehow I was lucky enough to spend a full two months travelling around Tuscany this summer.

The first place I ventured to was Cala Moresca near Porto Santo Stefano, a point of Italy's coast which directly faces the Isola del Giglio where the Costa Concordia famously sank in 2012. We could actually see the Concordia (albeit very faintly) across the sea from us as we sat at the restaurant one night for dinner!

The sea here was honestly the best sea I have ever seen and swum in in my life. There is no beach - you just jump right in from the cliff edges. There was also a swimming pool located atop one of the cliffs - but why anyone would choose that over the shimmering blue sea I have no idea.

Cala Moresca - Yes there are people sitting up there high on the cliffs waiting to jump into the rocky waters below

The sea at Cala Moresca again - I think I could swim here every summer for the rest of my life and not get tired of it

See those two dots of light in the distance? That's the Costa Concordia!

Sunset view from our dinner table

After spending 4 weeks by the sea, we moved around visiting different cities.

Siena was small, extremely pretty, and historically the ancient rival to Florence. Every summer there is a famous horse race here, the Palio di Siena, which packs out the main square in the town. Luckily we weren't visiting on that day.

Siena's Cathedral

From the floor inside the cathedral

...and the ceiling (part of it)

Siena's clock tower in the main piazza

Pienza is a gorgeous little town that we stumbled across in between visiting some of Tuscany's more famous cities. Smaller even than Siena and Pisa and nowhere near as heavily jammed with tourists, I loved it mainly for its romantically named streets:

Street of Kisses

Street of Fortune

Street of Love

And also for these nuns:

Florence was very busy, very hot and very beautiful, I want to go back this autumn to see it again because I only got to spend one day there, along with probably thousands of other tourists. 

Cathedral of Firenze

Across the Arno

I can't seem to resist documenting sweet shops on my travels

There's only one reason people go to Pisa. The town didn't have much to offer other than the leaning tower, but nevertheless I think it is definitely worth making the trip and I'm glad I can tick it off my Italian bucket list.

This next picture is just something I took from our garden one night when the moon was absolutely huge and brilliantly shiny (this photo doesn't quite do it justice, but with the sunflowers and mountains there it's still pretty nice).

There is such a wealth of culture, history and amazingly good food in Tuscany that it was hard to leave at the end of summer, but then I remembered I was going back to my favourite city in the world so I didn't mind too much.

Una Notte a Napoli

Before I went to Naples I was told three things:

-        

       - Don’t wear any jewellery

-         

       - Keep an eye on your bag at all times and definitely don’t take a backpack

-          

       - Do not venture into the Spanish quarter because you won’t come back out again

Well, I managed to break all of these rules and still come out of Naples alive; and I’m so glad I did.

Naples is not a beautiful city on the surface - it’s crowded, noisy, a little bit tacky, and every piece of potentially beautiful architecture is covered in graffiti, but despite all these things the city definitely has its own particular charm. Naples sits by the sea and its main road runs parallel to the coast line which gives you a nice view of the Mediterranean, yet the road itself is full of the usual high street chains and nothing much of particular note. However, if you step off this noisy street, the rest of Naples is made up of a huge complex of wide apartment block buildings built between narrow streets and alleyways. There are religious shrines on every corner, laundry hangs from every balcony, live fish and fresh groceries are sold from corner shops, and lively Neopolitans shout and gesture in their own Italian dialect while playing cards and bartering in the street. 

Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius

See what I mean about the graffiti?

Nicola, a native Neapolitan and our wonderful self-appointed guide for the weekend, took us on a trip to the top of Vesuvius, the only active volcano left in mainland Europe. Vesuvius, which famously brought about the ruin of Pompeii in A.D. 79,  towers majestically above the city and is easy to see from miles around. We made our way up to the summit which amazingly was still emitting smoke. The view from the top is wonderful and all around us we could also see rock 'rivers' and debris left over from previous eruptions. We also passed  the remains of the old cable car station which used to bring visitors up to the summit but which is now completely destroyed thanks to the last eruption in 1944.

Napoli & Vesuvius

Summit of Vesuvius

Alex & Nicola at the summit

Vesuvius is the most monitored volcano in the world because of its particularly volatile nature and also due to the vicinity of Naples and many other smaller towns on its borders. Nicola has lived his whole life under Vesuvius and told us how school children in nearby towns regularly have to practise ‘Volcano drills’ and evacuations much like others practise fire drills. The people living next to Vesuvius have at most a 15 day warning before an eruption, and each town and the families within it are issued with a twin town and family elsewhere in Italy to evacuate to in an emergency. The people of Naples are characteristically relaxed about living underneath a fire-breathing volcano. On the drive up to the summit we passed houses, restaurants and guest houses, all just metres from the top!

We were also lucky enough to visit a beach on the Amalfi Coast about an hour’s drive from Napoli which was stunningly beautiful.

We also managed to fit in an evening out in Portici, a small town near Napoli where we sipped cocktails on the pier, and quite bizarrely even got our own little Italian audience purely because we were speaking in English.

This next picture doesn't really have anything to do with this blog entry, but I found this huge piece of graffiti on the pier in Portici and couldn't resist taking a photo: