You’ve clearly all been hanging on the edge of your nails, biting your seats, waiting for us to reveal the winner of the guess-the-price-of-the-harvest-festival competition. The true price was…

(drumroll…)

€7.95. Which makes Josephine the winner! Congratulations Mrs Mills. Commiserations Rob, looks like you’ll be sleeping on the floor.

Of course, everyone’s welcome anyway. Consolation prize. Wooden spoon. You buy the ice cream 😉

After the transient comes the steady state. We’ve found some kind of routine here in Italy: Amy has a wallchart with all our plans on for the coming months: it has scheduled in who’s visiting, when we’re doing lessons, holidays and so forth. There are a fair few weekends with a blank space, which I presume are ski weekends 🙂

We’ve been invited to go out for dinner at a wee restaurant in Piemonte. The usual menu (I’m quoting here) is 4/5 starters, 2 first dishes, 2 meat dishes and then desserts, coffee, etc. Amy’s hoping there won’t be offal. I’m hoping that any offal (which seems likely) is unrecognisable. Pate? Fine. Sheep’s eyes? No, thanks.

The weather over the weekend was decidedly British. Grey. Cloud. Drizzle. We had hoped to go for a walk in the Roya valley, just over the French border, but the cloud would have obscured the view somewhat. So we made the most of it and had an ice cream. I decided to go for an extreme ice cream: pick the two most intense flavours on the menu and combine. Previous experience told me that the coffee ice cream has quite a kick: it’s pretty much a giant frozen macchiato; whilst the ‘Chocolate Fondante’ ice cream is like chewing your way through a bar of Green & Black’s, only colder. Together they were quite amazing, though I did need a glass of water afterwards.

I’m very excited to see what’s on Grom’s November menu.

Ah, graduation. I received an email recently from the a Mr Events Team, who presumably works somewhere deep in the (Sheffield) University administrative labyrinths. Mr Team told me that I should have received my Graduation Pack, and that I should send him the completed form. Of course, I received no such thing. After a flurry of emailing activity, we established that it is not possible to defer my graduation as I had hoped: it would precipitate a severe knock-on effect on the summer graduations, apparently. So I’ll be graduating in Sheffield in January, on the 15th.

I expect we’ll be staying in Sheffield for a few days either side of 15th. It’d be good to see you Sheffieldese there. I’m sure somebody has a birthday around then… care to take it a little early, Josephine?

Right now, I’m listening to a mix CD which Dickie made for us a few years ago. Dickie, this selection of tracks makes me giggle at nearly every turn! Jurassic Five right after Colin Hay. Genius, thank you.

James.

Now, for all of those of you who have been waiting patiently… it’s competition time! I doubt any of you had been expecting a competition, so to be honest, I won’t be too upset if you haven’t been waiting, patiently or otherwise.

So, today, I went to market and bought…

3 beautiful red onions

3 equally beautiful red peppers

1 lemon

4 whopping spring onions

1 huge bunch of chillies

1 bunch of basil

1 large bag of green beans

1 paper bag full of beautiful button mushrooms

many tasty tomatoes (over 1.5kg to be precise)

… and a partridge in a pear tree!

(I was just kidding about the partridge, by the way).

A veritable harvest festival of produce! (You can see them all on the photo below). Anyway, the competition is: how much did I spend purchasing said produce? Answers, please, on a postcard… or just as a comment on the blog. The person with the closest answer wins a weekend’s accommodation in Turin (no fighting over the small sofa bed if bringing a guest), including a tour of the city and maybe even an ice-cream if they are good.

So, over to you!

As to more mundane matters in our lives. I have met some more of my students this afternoon. They are 12 years old and they have such good English it’s depressing. Feeling a little out of my depth… Anybody got any ideas on who to make grammar “fun” (for a normal person)?! I think it’s fun just as it is, they clearly do not and I am in need of some kind of gimmick!

We have also posted some more photographs below showing our adventures/non-adventures from last weekend. These include some nice photos of the mountains (from the bottom obviously!) which we took on Saturday. On our drive to the ski lift we passed through a village called Filey! I thought this was hilarious and on our way back to Turin, feeling rather dejected as we could not go and ski, I insisted we stop to take a picture and eat our sandwiches. You will see the Hotel Filey in the photograph, and to be honest, it was such a small village, that was about all that was there. You can also see one of the squares in the city centre which was being decorated with these tiny lanterns when I passed on the tram towards the beginning of last week. There is some kind of public holiday happening on Tuesday and lights and decorations are going up all over the city. I just had to go back to see the finished article in this particular square and it was well worth it – there are hundreds, maybe thousands, over the entire square! We went on Saturday and also discovered a very lovely little market being held there. You can also see some beautiful views of Turin – one of the mountains at dusk from our balcony – a bit grainy, but still pretty. The other a very autumnal scene in one of the parks in front of the politecnico. We sat there today to eat the sandwiches I had taken in for James and myself! The bright yellow leaves kept floating down, but unfortunately, the photograph doesn’t convey that. It was very pretty if you will take my word for it. Finally, there is a photograph of a poached pear we made with chocolate sauce. The pears in question were absolutely huge and delicious. You may even guess from the background that they were enjoyed in front of a showing of Star Wars!

We had hoped to go for a nice walk in the Alps this weekend but our plans currently look to be scuppered by the weather – it is supposed to be raining tomorrow and cloudy on Sunday (not such good weather for mountain walking). We shall see how it goes and keep you updated accordingly.

With lots of love, Amy xxx

We have been most remiss with our posts – we are very sorry. Thank you to everyone for continue to write comments though – we do really appreciate it and we haven’t been ignoring you!

We had a bit of a tough weekend with a few let downs. We had hoped to go skiing, having heard about snowfall in the Alps, but alas it was not to be. What with high winds on Saturday closing the ski lift, and an inability to use our bank cards on Sunday to get cash or petrol which we needed to get out of the city to get to the ski lift, we’ve had better weekends. It wouldn’t have been such a trial if our bank cards had worked at some point on Sunday. As it was we had to wait until Monday before they worked, so we were penniless (save for 70 cents in my possession) until then! The “link” which connects the English to European banks was down, and, clearly, it doesn’t seem to be a priority of the Italians, or the English, to fix that on a Sunday. Believe me, I could rant further!

So, weekend aside, what have we been up to? We have discovered an enormous fruit and vegetable market, and a large fish market (very exciting for those of us who like fish!) which is only a five minute walk from our apartment. I had a coffee flavour ice-cream today which was fantastic. We also managed to buy monthly tram/bus/metro tickets – an accomplishment, even if it is small. James has started work at the Politecnico and all is going well. He has a desk and an office and much red tape to get through! My English teaching is going well, I have met with one of my charges so far. I think it’s enjoyable because she is very lovely and very keen to learn. Long may that continue!

I/we have also made a couple of general observations about Italy which we thought we might share with you.

1.They seem to share the continental obsession with job preservation, which we seem to lack in England. I went to buy a cheap mobile phone (I realised that my current one is locked and wouldn’t accept an Italian SIM card). I went to a high-street electrical store, a little like Curries or Comet, I suppose. I went to the mobile phone desk and asked the assistant in my best Italian if I could please have one of those (yes, there was some best Italian pointing too). She understood me – bonus – and proceeding to pick up the telephone. She called two different people. My limited Italian failed me at this point and I presumed she didn’t have one of the phones behind her desk and was asking someone to bring one over / checking they had some in stock. Maybe not… She wrote the name of the phone and the price on a piece of card and handed it to me. I was to take this downstairs to the till. Okay, I thought, so off I went. I found the till (I hoped!), queued up and sheepishly handed the card to the assistant behind the till, all the while willing it to be the right till. It was! Hurray! She rang through the amount and I gave her my bank card… Still no sign of the phone. Strange, methinks. I paid, she gave me the receipt. I looked very confused no doubt. She told me I needed to go to another till to collect the phone. This is getting silly I thought. (i) I’m in a bit of a rush and; (ii) So far, there have been FOUR shop assistants involved in this transaction. And for a 30 euro phone! So, I set off in search of the next till and, eventually, though again there were no signs to suggest that this was the till where you collected your goods (it was actually labelled ‘Returns’), and I finally managed to get my phone, from staff member number five! Blimey. Why not just have one person deal with the whole transaction, I wonder. Job preservation is the answer – just like the French road sweepers who neatly sweep up all the autumn leaves into a beautiful heap, and then leave them there to get blown about all over again. They come back again the next week and start again. Obviously it works (in some fashion) to have five members of staff help you buy a mobile phone, so why change it….

2.On a similar commercial note, we went to hire skis last Friday evening, for our failed skiing trip at the weekend. First of all, there is only one member of staff in the ski shop who speaks English. He doesn’t know anything about skis, but he does speak English. He is therefore our best friend! It also means that any conversation we have in that shop requires a minimum of two members of staff (English-speaking guy, plus a member of staff who knows about skis), but from our experience it appears that there is a hierarchy of knowledge when it comes to skis in said shop, because a third shop assistant is always brought into the conversation for his learned opinion. In the UK, I’m sure that this would be frowned upon in most shops – one assistant per customer and get on with it! However, not so in Italy. Also, upon hiring skis, we were told that ski hire was 15 euros per day (each). Bargain. We were told that the skis should be returned on Monday evening; the shop was closed on Sunday and Monday morning. No problem. That’ll be 30 euros then. “Each?” I questioned? No, altogether it appeared. I wondered if we were supposed to pay the rest when we returned them… Nope, that was everything. Despite the fact we were getting the best part of three days’ ski hire, the shop was only actually open on Saturday and therefore, that was the only day’s hire for which we had to pay. Amazing! A refreshing change really, as I’m sure that most other places would have caught onto the trick of forcing customers to pay for at least the Sunday as well, given that you had no choice of returning them. Think car-hire companies for example!

Stay tuned, there’s some cheese coming up…

Amy

xxx

It’s been raining for two days here. The Italians keep apologising for the weather. They are most disappointed, and keep telling us that it’s normally so nice at this time of year. For this very reason we haven’t been out to do much exploring, nor any ice-cream eating (hence the title). Hopefully the weather will pick up soon (just less rain would be okay!) and we can get out this weekend.

The worst thing about the bad weather is that we can’t see the mountains from our balcony. The best thing about the weather is that it is snowing on the mountains! Sestriere is open! We may well need to investigate this further this weekend… We shall see.

We’re following Economy Gastronomy (cookery book) – braised mince this week. It’s quite easy to be economically gastronomical here, they haven’t heard of ready-meals. Not to the same extent as in England anyway. James was very excited to buy a big sack of risotto rice today (arborio), though we scoured the whole supermarket for celery, but to no avail. We bought something resembling celery, much greener and with more leaves. It tastes nothing like celery (!) but we’re using it anyway. Unsurprisingly (but still novel to us), there are two whole aisles full of pasta in the supermarket! In fact, we ought to report that this afternoon’s trip to the supermarket went off without a hitch – we understood all the questions asked (about loyalty cards and bags, etc.). This is quite an achievement for us. We are practically natives now. Ahem.

Although we bemoan the lack of ice-cream, you could say we made up for it with a small purchase (see photo below). An amazing cake with patisserie custard, whole cherries and general sugar-y goodness. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! I’m sure it could benefit from the addition of a spot of ice-cream though…

James now has an Italian mobile phone number, and Amy is off to buy one tomorrow. We’ll let you all know the numbers personally (not posting them here for obvious reasons).

Amy has found herself two more charges, offspring of one of the politecnico’s chemistry professors. First lesson is next Friday! Watch this space for updates. I’m also giving my first lessons tomorrow afternoon to the niece of one of James’ colleagues. Wish me luck!

So… James says onto more important things. Reviews! And of meat no less. He’s very excited!

Name: Salame alle erbe fini van loon. (Exciting, huh?!)

Price: 12,90 euros /kilo.

Colour: Glossy pink with a dark green edge (photograph below).

Smell: Meaty, herby, spicy. Yum!

Tasting notes: Wonderfully sweet, slightly smokey. The intensity of the flavour is enhanced by the thinness of the slices.

Bounce test: don’t be silly, now. It would just stick.

Score: 9/10 – we will definitely be seeking this one out again!

Also posted below is the panorama of the mountains from our balcony (on a clear day!) which didn’t come through on our last post. Sorry about that! If you’d like to improve on our stitching (Adam?), please leave a comment.

With all our love to all our readers,

xxx xxx

We’re testing out some new blogging software. Please excuse any mishaps – there’s geeking to be done 🙂

Name: Sauvignon Cescon

Cost: 3.79 euros

Colour: winey, greenish tinge.

Smell: Freshly cut grass on a July day, lemon groves in California, army-issue shoe polish, smouldering manure and a partridge in a pear tree.

Tasting notes: Citrus. Oaky. Pineapply. Clean and crisp. notes on Cillit Bang(!).

Bounce test: Fail.

Score: 8.5 out of 10. (bonus points awarded for having a stick attached to the bottle by a beautiful yellow ribbon (see picture below)).

Also, check out our photographs of the view of the mountains from our apartment balcony and, erm, James with bread. 🙂 indeed.

Torino is in the region of Piedmonte, literally ‘footmountain’, which produces some excellent wines. The most famous of which is Barolo, which is made using a rather bizarre process of leaving the juice on top of the skins/pulp for a month or two to ferment, before aging in oak barrels and bottling. Actually, there’s quite a battle going on between vineyards as to the best Barolo-making practice, between the purists/old-timers and the heretics/forward-thinkers.

Since we don’t have a bottle of Barolo handy (prices start around 40 euros a bottle), we’re going to tell you about the slightly less glamorous experience of drinking…

Beer.

You’ve likely seen the advertisements on the shiny box in the living room (ahem, whopping electronic canvas suitable for opening a small-time cinema. Adam. Rob. ) for Peroni. The beer that turns you into a beautiful woman who drives beautiful cars, whilst some idiot throws blue paint at you. Peroni is the Italian man’s Carling: over here it comes in a brown bottle with a dull brownish-red label.

If Peroni is the Italian Carling, then the Italian John Smiths is Birra Moretti. Not in taste or texture you understand, simply in supermarket-shelf-predominance.

Name: Birra Moretti

Producer: Moretti (of Milan)

Colour: Golden.

Smell: Sweet and beery.

Cost: 1 euro per 660 ml.

Tasting notes: Ahh, European beer. Not as fizzy as its UK cousin, and crisper, sweeter in flavour. Refreshing on a hot day, excellent with curry. Also good after a hard day’s skiing, I’d wager.

Bounce test: My extensive knowledge of materials science, physics and bottle-banks tells me that bouncing just isn’t going to happen. Did not attempt.

Score: 6.5/10

So, after all our boasting about how warm and sunny it is here, today the weather has suddenly changed. It’s still beautifully sunny with blue cloudless skies, but it’s really rather nippy! We’ve even dug out our winter coats. However, it did not stop us going for an ice-cream this evening and walking around the streets with it! See pictures below.

I had crema di grom (creaminess with chewy biscuit and chocolate pieces) and torroncino (nougat ice-cream!) and James had crema come una volta (we have no idea what it means but it was delicious!) and marrons glacees (sweet, sugary chestnuts, which are a local speciality). Neither of mine beat the pistachio from last week, but one of them is definitely taking the second place spot, I just can’t decide which one. I can also recommend the marrons glacees as I had that earlier this week too!

Whilst on our evening constitutional (just an excuse to get an ice-cream), we found a restaurant called ‘Ham and You’; it made us giggle anyway so we’ve included a picture of James outside it. Also, a cool picture where you can see the mountains in the background between the buildings, and that was taken right in the centre of the city. Finally, a pretty scary looking sculpture we came across.

That’s all for now. Lots of love to everyone. xxx

p.s. Thank you for all your comments!

Not much to report today – James started working at the Politecnico (unofficially, anyway – which means working from home), and I explored the beautiful park near the residence. I also found some potential customers for English lessons too, to provide us with a little skiing pocket-money!

We thought you might enjoy some pictures of the park, Parco del Valentino. It has an Orto Botanico (botanical garden) and arboretum and a Borgo Medioevale (medieval village and fortress complete with drawbridge). There’s also the Castello del Valentino (castle) in the middle. The castle is the seat of the Architecture Faculty of the Politecnico, but really only used for official matters now – a bit like Firth Court in Sheffield. It is one of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy and also an UNESCO World Heritage site. The park overlooks the river Po: lots of people were out rowing today as it was glorious.

Click the ‘read more’ link to see some photographs.

p.s. We also broke into our first tin of emergency baked beans today. Mmm!

Following outside competition in the cheese blog arena, namely Adam , I braved the market by myself today and came back with:

Name: Butterino

Producer: Not sure, it’s from the market. It did say on the label, but we’ve eaten that bit!

Colour: Creamy white, with a slightly yellowy skin.

Texture: Creamy yet crumbly. Not as crumbly as Wensleydale, it holds together really well. Some crumbly-bubbliness.

Smell: Mild and milky, a hint of sheep.

Cost: 13.80 al kilo.

Tasting notes: Despite the picture below making it look as if we’ve purchased a stake in a local farm, this is a really small cheese (hence butter ino). It’s about the size of a cricket ball, and we only bought half. It’s made with cow and sheep milk, and isn’t very mature – the rind is still quite soft. It tastes creamy and mild, with a sour note from the sheep’s milk.

Bounce test: Did not attempt. Get your mitts off my cheese!

Score: 11/10 (Amy) 10/10 (James) – amazing cheese!