Seabream for Supper

So, today I was feeling extravagant in a 'January student loan procrastinatey going to spend lots of money because I'd rather do that than study for exams' sort of way. So, ooooh, I bought some fish. Not that exciting for most but I've refused to buy it in Siena for the best part of oh god I don't know ( because I've spent most most of my time here enjoying myself with wine and mojitos not keeping track of time) lets just say many, months. I understand why it's expensive; it's hard to catch (slippery buggers), not exactly going through a boom period reproductively thanks to us and its come to Siena a long way from the sea. Also those that aren't students that live in Siena are pretty well endowed in the moneybags department so they can afford it; this is the logic of the traders I presume.

So when it comes down to it, I think 'mmmmm fish? Or mmmmm too many martinis? Or even mmmmmmmmmhmmmmmmmmm Italian leather?' And I'm sorry to say that the fish has rarely won.

But this time however, I'm feeling a little bit outrageous so fish it is, and alcohol it is also, to go with the fish. How perfect. So I turn to a certain book that I have and turn to the chapter fish, where I find.....a recipe for the fish that I have bought  with an ingredients list that I ALREADY have to hand!!!

And so I braaaaved our igloo of a stairwell to fetch some lemon-thyme that I am proud to say has survived unlike that pansy of an orchid I tried to sustain. I gutted and scaled the Sea bream with the help of my admirably un-squeamish friend Senem who is a darn sight handier with a knife and a scaly thing than me. I tried to balance one glass olive oil bottle on top of the other to eek out the last remnants but failed and subsequently smashed a nearby empty wine bottle everywah. I cowered as I flung the thyme in to the sizzling pan of seasoned garlic and it veritably exploded. And then to top it all off, I hung my nose over the pan for the rest of the cooking and thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. Che odore di vino!! Surprisingly,  none of it was done under the influence of aforementioned Vernacccia di San Gimignano, however this blog was...

And so here it is, the finished thing, bit of salad too. Fabulous, and despite my pretensions of Bear Grylls style heroism it was easy as pie. All hail Katie Caldesi's REALLY GOOD recipes (that I actually followed to the letter this time) and the brilliance of Mr and Mrs Ockenden in giving me her book which also has sections in each chapter telling you how to do things such as kill lobsters, make tortellini, truss quails and joint a rabbit. This is perfect for me - if there is one thing I hate in a cookbook however mouthwatering it's recipes are, it's the poncy assumption that you were born with the knowledge of how to prepare an octopus.

#'The Italian Cookery Course' by Katie Caldesi

Fusion Food

It would appear that bulgar wheat is here to stay in my so far small  list of things that are not essential but to my mind, store cupboard staples. These are things such as:

• Anchovies: useful as both a quick pasta dish and for giving flavour to roast lamb, and I would also just eat them straight from the tin covered in oil given half a chance
• Chai tea:  so much more than normal tea
• Lentils: nutritional and filling for when you can't afford meat or haven't been to the shops in a while

... And now bulgar wheat: recently I have made many great things with this magically expanding stuff, today I had yesterday's cold creation of bulgar wheat with fried aubergines and tomatoes but brought back to life with a generous amount of torn parsley, some marinated olives and feta chunks, all drizzled with a bit more of last night's dressing. 

Is this the accidental amateur version of fusion food? Of Turkish origins but given a little bit of Italian 'ciao!'? Like the time I made an Italian beef stew that went on forever so got turned into a kind of tagine or curry with toasted almonds, honey, cinnamon, ginger, chilli, paprika, coriander seeds and cumin  instead? Whatever it 'officially' is that I'm inadvertently creating, I like it. It means that I don't have to define myself; when people peer into the pot, wrinkle their nose and ask what I'm cooking, I don't feel pressured that it doesn't look like, lets say, the 'classic Italian minestrone' that it should look or smell like,  because it isn't. There are no mistakes to be made, and I'm spared the disappointment of having made something that bears no resemblance to its picture in the book, or isn't as good as it was in the restaurant. So there, have that.

January Salad

So, it's 2013 and thus my friends are engaging in diets to reduce their invisible fat. This is not compatible with our much loved dinner gatherings. We decide that I am hosting and so I joke 'Salad?' as a proposed menu. To my surprise I am greeted with decisive yes's. 

So salad it is and I am left with the task of creating one that won't make them regret their enthusiasm or detract from an otherwise enjoyable evening. Out comes my big fat Italian Bible and I find some great looking recipes, such as fig, goats cheese and honey which I know and anyone can instinctively tell, is a great combination. The trouble is, none of the wonderful ingredients required for such salads are in season - what sane Italian eats salad in winter?! No, they wrap themselves up in cashmere and fur galore and leather boots and eat stews and soups and mountains of calorific Pici ( a Sienese variation of spaghetti, on steroids).

Regardlessly, I ended up with a good selection of different leaves, herbs, and fruity dressing-ingredients to liven things up a bit. Having distractedly torn up a bit of your bog standard salad, some red chicory, a touch of rocket and chopped up some plum tomatoes and feta cheese, I scattered it with jewel-like pomegranate seeds and ripped parsley. To top it off we drizzled it with a dressing of the oil that came with the olives we had for nibbles (no waste here!), some eucalyptus honey and freshly squeezed orange juice. I had also bought pinenuts to garnish it but I forgot to add them what with all excitement.

And voila! All in all, better than your average salad but a bit messy (pomegranate seeds are slippery customers) to make regularly if you're intending on eating nothing but the green stuff for the rest of January before giving up (too much floor cleaning anticipated). 

Of course, we counterbalanced all this goodness with a good slug of red wine grazie a Vivien and a naughty dessert of biscuits endearingly named 'Abbracci' (hugs) and melted Nutella courtesy of Megan.  This we ambitiously aim to ski off come February where of course we won't indulge in any sort of unhealthy après-ski cuisine...

Poached Pears

Bought pears of the kaiser variety at the supermarket on Monday and discovered what a mistake I had made that very afternoon. Although fairly ripe, the texture was extremely grainy which made for a disgusting mouthful.

Not wanting to eat any more of them raw and having half a bottle of vin santo left over from cooking the quails, I decided what they needed was poaching. After a quick google, I followed a basic recipe of spices, sugar, lemon rind and vin santo adjusting the amounts to my own preferences. I can imagine it would be lovely served with marscapone as the recipe suggests but that's not the sort of thing I keep to hand. Maybe I should. But then again, I do try to run competitively and things like marscapone are just not conducive to training no matter how hard you try.

While the pears are cooking I sit and think about how I don't remember having eaten poached pears for a long time, but they were one of my favourite things as a child. Mum used to take me to my grandparent's house most weekends to have Sunday lunch and there, if in season we would follow the unfailingly magnificent roast chicken with a pudding such as lemon apple, apple Charlotte or poached pears which were kept in kiln jars in the larder. The smell reminds me and leaves a smile on my face.

...So, while the pears were cooking I also got sidetracked into reading other food blogs as you do. It was interesting and inspiring, and a man from The Telegraph reviewing 'the best' food blogs described the food blogger as an 'elusive' type. Am I elusive? Perhaps I was this morning, I moved in a sloth like fashion about the house and saw no one. However, now is the time for fast action as I lift my nose from the digital page before me and smell caramelisation occurring and I know that in the very next second that smell will change to burning. Fortunately, our kitchen being small, I managed to leap to the stove in time and rescue the reducing syrup so that although rather more jammy than intended it is still edible.  

The pears are good and I save some for breakfast (still no fresh bread) but the sauce makes them a little too sweet and cloying. Granny's were better simply plain, no embellishments;  if you start with good pears they will speak for themselves. Having started with bad pears, I think the wine, lemon and cinnamon improved them but the addition of the reduced poaching liquid afterwards was definitely de trop and cursing myself, I admit that it really would have been excellent with marscapone just to lift and refresh it slightly as it so needed!

# http://madonnadelpiatto.com/2009/02/27/pere-al-vin-santo/

#http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/7798474/The-best-food-blogs.html

Lazy Pancakes

Sometimes it's a good thing to run out of supplies. Today I ran out of bread for breakfast (at least bread that wasn't stale, to be made into pangrattato Italian style later) so I was forced to leave my boring daily routine of bread and jam and think a little.

Not exactly the height of inventiveness but I made pancakes. Something that I love but rarely ever make except for on pancake day ( and that's if I remember that it is actually pancake day). Why? I am extremely lazy, too lazy to spend time making something that I don't count as a proper meal or isn't a cake. I also struggle to find an occasion for them, usually breakfast is rushed on the way to lectures so not then and any other time seems extravagant and unnecessary as they are not exactly the epitome of healthy nutrition. However, today is just right as I don't have a choice, there is nothing else in my cupboards that could possibly constitute a breakfast. 

Considering how little I practise the art of pancaking, I think I've improved over the years. This time there was no messy first pancake when there is too much butter in the pan or I've overdone it on the batter or got the heat too high.  It was great, and quite relaxing too, just swirling the batter until a perfect circle was formed, no flipping though - that requires an audience. Afterall, it isn't quite so funny when you're on your own and one of your precious creations goes tits up on the floor.  I'm not sure why it's funnier to flip communal pancakes, maybe because I'm always more generous with the amount of batter made on these occasions so it doesn't matter so much if one gets lost. Maybe I'm just mean.

Anyway, sticking with the theme of change, I tore myself away from the unbeatably classic lemon and sugar topping that I usually have (maybe not quite "tore" as having exerted such effort before 9am in making the pancakes, I couldn't be bothered to squeeze a lemon - yes, scowl away you larks!) and took a lavish dollop of eucalyptus flower honey bought from Luigi at the market which made for a brilliantly sticky and delicious filling. Fig jam and peach jam were also tested out but their flavours were not quite strong enough to make a contrast with the pancake. 

The trouble with pancakes is that they fill you with that pregnant contentedness so much so that I'm now struggling just to leave the kitchen table and even attempt the washing up, let alone the dreaded revision.

In Search of Belle Viste

We only had stale bread in the house and my marmelade e' disparu so we were'forced' to go out for breakfast round the corner. Two cappuccini ( I still can't help filling mine with sugar), an unexciting and meanly cream-filled bun 'senese' for me and a vela alla Nutella for mum as we thought a sailing themed pastry was apt for her. She was slightly disappointed by the 'claggy' pastry though which was only just salvaged by the Nutella filling which nobody could ever complain about!

Moving on swiftly from our disappointment, we were nearly disappointed again  by the Palazzo Chigi Saracini being closed. However, just as we were leaving the courtyard, out popped a man with an envelope who kindly offered to give us a private tour of as much as he could before running off down the street to the post office.  Luca also generously gave us a book on the place for free before he left, which shows the full extent of how beautiful a building it is. I'm thinking of going to one of the concerts there although I'm not much of a classical music buff.

Off we trotted too to shop for essentials such as milk for our tea and jam (how British!) at Conad upon which the fog lifted to reveal a beautiful day so we decided to seize our chance and hire some bikes to head out into the view from my balcony. Wolfed slapdash spag with pesto and pecorino for lunch to fuel us along. 

Once biked up, we promptly got lost and thought we were going to get killed on the motorway which was far too close for comfort. After much debate we turned back, ate an excessively pippy orange and returned the bikes to the lovely man at the Rossi bike shop who shows us where we should have gone and only charges us 10 euros for the two bikes and a good map which alone should have cost 7 euros.

We bought chestnuts from the man in Piazza Matteotti on the way home to cheer ourselves up - so warming on a chilly day. After sprucing up a bit, we tried the art gallery which was also closed ( one of the less convenient Italian habits, they don't really do Mondays) so we end up at the natural history museum instead which is fantastic if not a little grim in places (think mummified human limbs and stuffed Siamese lambs) and free!

After having had the place to ourselves for a good hour of ogling biological oddities we went home for Proper tea and lime and chilli chocolate which isn't  for wimps. We then pass the time until dinner trying to think of what we'll make with what we have that could be interesting with the aid of two extremely  useful books; 'Scuola di Cucina: Verdure e legumi' by the Slow Food movement and 'The Italian Cookery Course' by Katie Caldesi.

We end up doing polpette di cicoria (chicory) with bulgar wheat (in white wine and yesterday's stock with chopped tomatoes and anchovies). It didn't entirely go to plan as there was too much liquid for the bulgar to give it a strong taste and I didn't squeeze the boiled chicory enough meaning that the binding egg was diluted and therefore they fell apart on frying. Still tasted good though. 

After an unintended post dinner nap, we went for late drinks at my bar of choice, 'Bella Vista' with Senem and her friend Stefano. We talked about all sorts of things like nudity and feminism in different cultures over mojitos and my personal favourite, the cocktail Bella Vista of ginger and orange which is brilliantly intense! It's an enlivening sort of place full of interesting things on the wall  if you're ever bored by the conversation (not that you ever will be, interesting places attract interesting people) with the kind of relaxed atmosphere where you can dress to kill or go in your sloppy joe. You can dance if you do or don't want to which you won't feel self conscious about doing at all, at least not after your first cocktail - they're generous too.

#Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Via dei Citta, 89   http://www.chigiana.it/

#Cicli Rossi Martino, Via Camollia, 204/206

#http://www.slowfood.com/

#http://www.caldesi.com/la_cucina_caldesi/

#Bella Vista Social Pub, Via San Martino, 50 http://www.wherescool.com/spots/bella-vista-social-pub-siena/