Spice up your life

After two weeks of making up for lost time, these past seven days have been more home-based as the novelty of freedom of movement has worn off slightly. Not that it wasn’t without its highpoints, in a purely domestic and everyday way, but don’t expect any fireworks.

Stephen started his week, as usual, with a visit to the factory but stopped on the way to do a spot of shopping at Sigma. The reason for this was that Tuesday, being 2nd June and Republic Day was a public holiday, so the supermarket would be closed. He only had a few odds and ends to get, but what should have been a quick whizz round ended up bit longer than that thanks to having to share the aisles with all the people making use of the extra, bridge day, because it is ages ago since they had any extra time of work…

When he returned he had not only the groceries with him but also our latest box of goodies thanks to Internet shopping. One of the things we have been doing over the past couple of months is going through various cookbooks and listing possible recipes to add to the repertoire of old favourites that we probably rely on too much. The problem with this is that as the books are British, many of the ingredients are not available in the local shops. I dare say you may be able to buy sumac and nigella seeds in uptown Milan but here in downtown MSP they are only just at the stage of viewing jars of curry powder with suspicion. A bit of research (which is what people now euphemistically call putting a name in Google Search) allowed us to discover an online shop with a treasure trove of spices. Now the bulk order we put in has duly arrived, the fun of doing something with them has to start.

I don’t want you to think that I’m being disparaging about cooking in Italy, but the lack of on-trend ingredients and designer foods points up an important difference between here and Britain. It strikes me that in the UK people have large family dining kitchens, watch the latest cookery programmes, buy the books and stock their shelves with all the different ingredients and then microwave a ready meal. Here in Monte, they buy fresh everyday, cook fresh everyday and sit down as a family everyday, which to me is far more preferable than having an unopened packet of kaffir lime leaves at the back of your cupboard.

There was, I’m sorry to say, a bit of bad news on Monday. Mum was taken into hospital in the evening because she was in a bit of a distressed state. Despite the paramedic saying that he thought it might be Covid-19, the tests at first the Northern General and then the Hallamshire, to which she was moved on Wednesday, showed negative for that. Her internal workings, however, needed a bit of attention, which means that she is not yet back home. We are hopeful, though, that things can be put in place for that to happen next week.

As I have said, Tuesday was a public holiday, which made unsurprisingly little difference to us at the moment other than Stephen was at home all day. So what did he do to occupy his time? Charge the batter in the Freelander, of course, with the intention of driving it over to the petrol station the other side of Torre San Patrizio, which always has the best prices, to fill it up. He got cold feet about this, however, as it is so long since he went anywhere in the car that he couldn’t remember how much petrol was in it (remember, it has the idiosyncratic petrol gauge) and didn’t want to come to a juddering halt half way there. Instead, he satisfied himself with driving backwards and forwards in front of the house before doing a twenty-three point turn so that the car was ready for a racing start whenever the urge came upon him.

There was not a lot happening, either, over the next couple of days. Following his foray into home liqueurs the other week, on Wednesday Stephen decided to experiment with turning some fruit from our own trees into cherry gin, following the same recipe as for the brandy only swapping the choice of spirits. Thursday he finally plucked up the courage to take the Freelander for petrol in a wide detour to the factory, from which he returned with a couple of courgettes freshly picked by Mrs C., which augmented our dinner nicely. The week ended in reassuringly vintage style with a haircut (me) and shopping (Stephen). In a concession to the new normal, I did ask Rocco if we could make a blanket booking of Friday at 9.30 for the foreseeable future, with Stephen and I alternating between him and Sigma. He was quite happy to oblige, which will make a comforting weekly routine when we throw breakfast at Bar del Borgo into the mix.

Which brings us to the weekend and the unresolved question of what to do with all those spices. The answer to this was threefold, splitting unevenly between Stephen and me. His part was to delve further into the world of preserving cherries by producing two Kilner jars of them, spiced, which involved sugar, ginger, cinnamon sticks and a quantity of vinegar. These are now maturing along with the brandy and gin, but should be ready for consumption sooner, in a couple of weeks. For my part, I knocked up a batch of Nigella’s beef with aubergine, which called upon cumin, coriander and Aleppo pepper, and how fine it was to have again the smell of cumin filling the house. Finally, in a visit to the world of Jennings and Darbishire, parcels from home, and midnight feasts, I opened up the packets of nutmeg, allspice and caraway to make, for the first time ever, a seed cake. The only problem now is finding a convenient dorm and waiting till after lights out to eat it.