A Blacksheep goes a Glamping.

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Pecora Nera • Posted in Wine • Tagged an englishman in italy, Glamping in Italy, Hobbit House, Pecora Nera • 17 Comments

A damsel in distress phoned me and asked if I could come to her rescue. Ok I might be over exaggerating a little bit. I supposed what really happened was Jill said, “want to come to my gaff and help me put up a pergola in the garden, come for a couple of days and try out the new Gypsy Caravan” Sure why not, will I have to share the Gypsy Caravan with a gypsy who has wild hair and bells on her ankles and plays the tambourine?

Jill and Millie’s New Gypsy Caravan. I don’t see any bells on their ankles…

Unfortunately and much to my disappointment, there wasn’t a wild gypsy in sight.

Jill and her daughter Millie built this Gypsy Caravan from scratch during the pandemic lockdown. And Glamping, well it is Glamorous-Camping. On Jill’s Glamping site, she also has a Beautiful Hobbit House, I have stayed there a couple of times before the pandemic.

So back to the damsel in distress, I managed to start the chain saw and we cut and screwed the pergola together, often arguing as to who got to climb the ladder and be in charge of the electric screwdriver, I only nearly fell off the ladder once.

And then we settled down to the serious job of drinking a nice bottle of prosecco, followed by a nice pizza in the local village, another bottle of red and then I think another couple of glasses back at the house. Fortunately, there are solar powered lights hanging in the trees and along the path to the Gypsy Caravan so I managed to stagger down to my bed, did I mention we also tasted a little Brandy as we laughed and put the world to rights…

Jill and Millie building the Gypsy Caravan

Day two, I tried to start the chain saw so we could cut down a couple of small trees to finish the pergola, despite me cursing the machine and threatening to bury it down the garden, it wouldn’t start. Jill even had a go at trying to start it, I will be honest, I was silently praying under my breath that she didn’t manage to start it.

So armed with a little handsaw and wearing flip-flops we went out into the wilds of her land in search of a couple of thin straight trees we could cut down.

I got prickled to death and I complained bitterly about it. Jill promised me I could use the wonderful bath they have on site. As I was cutting down the trees and trying to find my lost flip-flop I was imagining relaxing under the stars with a glass of wine after a the hard days work, but some how we forgot (I think we opened some more wine) and so you now get to see Jill in the bath and not me, which I am sure is better.

To finish here are a couple of photos of the Hobbit House.

I am not sure which is my most favourite place to sleep, the Hobbit House is wonderful, however if by chance there had been a Gypsy in the Caravan, it would probably have tipped it for me. If you want to spend a relaxing time in the hills of Emilia-Romagna contact Jill, she will also cook some divine food for you, if you ask nicely.

How to find Jill Link

Air BnB Hobbit House Link

Air BnB Gypsy Wagon Link

Thanks to Jill for a couple of days of pure fun and next time sort out a wild gypsy woman for me.

Summer Fruit Recipe

Posted on July 29, 2019 by Pecora Nera • Posted in home, Wine • Tagged englishman in italy, grappa, limoncello, Mrs Sensible, Pecora Nera, rumtopf • 9 Comments

If you have recently walked down your garden, you are probably wondering what to do with all the fruit hanging off the trees. If you live in England the problem may be all the fruit the wife keeps buying from ASDA or Tesco.

I phoned Mrs Sensible and she suggested I turn it into jam. Obviously I instantly dismissed her sensible idea and decided to turn it into a Rumtopf, or to be more precise a Grappatopf.

First you either have to pick the fruit from the garden or pinch the stuff the wife has bought.

Only use soft fruit ie strawberries, plums. Apples, pears etc don’t absorb the alcohol very well.

No they are not cherry tomatoes, they are little plums

Wash and cut the fruit into bite size pieces, if they have stones take them out. I left the stones in the little plums, because if I had removed the stones there would be nothing left.

Preserve it in alcohol

Try to make sure the fruit is relatively dry or the water dilutes the alcohol and we wouldn’t want that would we. Add the fruit to your jar.

My little jar

When the fruit is in the jar add sugar. The ratio of fruit to sugar is 1 kilo of fruit and half a kilo of sugar.

Add a suitable spirit to completely cover the fruit and sugar. The Germans use rum, but it makes the mixture a dirty brown colour. I prefer a nice rosy red colour so I use either grappa, gin or bacardi,

12 year old grappa

Keep layering fruit, sugar and grappa until the jar is full. This can be done over several months, personally I prefer to do it all at once for example when Mrs Sensible is unlikely to catch me or when she is in Sicily.

The fruit, sugar and alcohol create an incredible liqueur and the fruit is wonderful with ice cream or on its own. Each mouthful is an explosion of fruit and alcohol.

It takes about four months before it is ready, I normally check it every couple of weeks, give it a little stir and taste it, adding a bit more grappa if it has evaporated Hic!

VERY IMPORTANT

To avoid any chance of discovery.

1) Thoroughly clean the kitchen.

2) Dispose of the empty spirit bottles.

3) Find a suitable cool dark place to hide the Grappatopf. I chose the cellar because in 13 years I think Mr Sensible has only ventured down there once.

Remember to hide it

At the moment I have lots of skinned lemons in the fridge, because I have made some Limoncello and all the lemons are good for is squeezing and adding to gin and tonic.

If you are going to make a gin and tonic, do it right

There is a nice recipe for limocello lollies Here

If you have any other ideas how to use the peaches, plums figs etc please let me know…. as long as it isn’t jam.

How to cook spaghetti bolognese

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Pecora Nera • Posted in home, Wine • Tagged humour, Italian cooking, Mrs Sensible, Pecora Nera, spaghetti bolognese • 36 Comments

I know a couple of you follow this blog in the hope of reading one of Mrs Sensible’s authentic Sicilian recipes, not wanting to disappoint you I have decided to create the Pecora Nera Home Cooking Channel.

Before you try the recipe I did try it on little Mario to see what he thought and his initial thoughts were,

Please let Mrs Sensible cook next time

And Marco said

I’m sure he didn’t follow the recipe properly

So here is a link to my latest video from Pecora Nera’s home cooking channel.

For Christmas I will upload ‘ How to prepare a traditional Christmas Lunch

Christmas Lunch in a can

I was going to upload a picture of a whole Chicken in a Can, but it made me feel a little queezy and I don’t want to put you off my Spaghetti Bolognese recipe.

5 Kilometers! You are kidding, right?

Posted on August 1, 2016 by Pecora Nera • Posted in home, Wine • Tagged canelli wine run, englishman in italy, fun run, humour, Pecora Nera, wine in italy • 16 Comments

Mr H sent me a WhatsApp message suggesting we should both sign up for a 5 Kilometer fun run, my initial reaction was to quickly delete the message, however just before I pressed the delete button, I spotted the word WINE!

Bean Wine Run???

The run suddenly looked like fun, on the website I read they will have a refreshment table for the thirsty runners every kilometer. Not water but glasses of wine and proper food!!! Without asking Mrs Sensible, I immediately registered for the run it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Proof that there might be a bit of madness in my family

After registering for the event I mentioned the Wine Fun Run to Mrs Sensible. She then sent a WhatsApp message to the wife of Mr H mentioning the Fun Run, this was a shame because Mr H hadn’t managed to find the courage to ask / tell his wife that he was going on a wine fun run with me. I quickly dispatched a warning message to him.

While various messages were being sent from one phone to another, I decided I needed to invest in some proper running kit. Obviously I will need some running shorts and a hat to keep the sun from my eyes.

While I was looking for a nice set of spandex running shorts….. I came across these.

Unfortunately they are not available in Spandex

I can’t decide on which T shirt to buy. Because this is a special occasion, a once in a life time run, I may even print some Team Pecora Nera T Shirts….

I did find a suitable hat to keep the sun from my eyes,

The hat

I am a little disappointed, the hat only holds two glasses, the picture is not clear enough to see if it is possible to insert two bottles.

Mr H said his wife has agreed to allow him to join me on the run. He has also started his preparation for the run, which includes sit ups, press ups and running. ( I had to google these strange terms). I told Mr H we should have a support vehicle and staff, maybe a sommelier, cardio specialist and an ambulance.. you never know.

I am also taking this run very seriously, the first week will be used for organising and the preparation of my kit, the second week will include choosing which wine to take and trying to run whilst balancing the two glasses on my head. In the final week I may try a little stretching and an occasional sedentary walk.

Mr H with our support staff.

Mrs Sensible told me the local red cross will be at the run and I wasn’t to worry, I was really only concerned on behalf of Mr H. Because someone may have to carry me.

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Mr H is strong enough to carry me

The run is on the 3rd of September, so please come and support us, and I mean support us in the literal sense.

Mrs Sensible’s asparagus and king prawn risotto.

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Pecora Nera • Posted in home, Wine • Tagged englishman in italy, King prawn and asparagus risotto, Mrs Sensible, Pecora Nera • 32 Comments

Last night Mrs Sensible created a fabulous meal and I just thought I should share the recipe with you. I don’t normally post sensible things like recipes or which hotel to stay in, there are plenty of blogs that do that, however as I helped cook this meal and I didn’t burn it, I thought you might like to try it.

Ingredients.
100 grams of rice
300 grams of fresh peeled prawns
6 fresh king prawns
6 fresh asparagus
2 knobs of butter
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 glasses of white wine
1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 small tomatoes
Pinch of parsley
Salt and pepper to season

Method
The very first thing you need to do is pour two glasses of white wine, Mrs Sensible used Arneis which is a fresh crisp dry wine from Marco Bellero’s cantina La Cà Nova

One glass is for drinking while you cook, the other gets wasted during the cooking.

Peel the king prawns, put the body of the prawns to one side and place the heads, legs and shells etc in a saucepan with half a litre of water, bring it to the boil and allow it to simmer. This will be your stock.

If a foam appears on the top of the stock, remove the foam.

Heads, arms, legs, shells etc in a saucepan.

Chop up the asparagus. Add the king prawns, garlic, asparagus and peeled prawns to a frying pan, then fry until the prawns change colour in the olive oil,

By now the smell is irresistible.

When they are cooked, place them in a bowl.

Search for the garlic cloves and throw them away.

Separate the king prawns and asparagus tips and place them in a different bowl, find the garlic cloves and throw them away.

Asparagus tips and King Prawns

Chop an onion and fry it in the frying-pan with a knob of butter. Do not clean the pan you want the flavour of the prawns to stay in the pan.

Onion and Mrs Sensible’s wooden spoon

When the onion is soft and cooked, add the chopped tomato and continue to fry.

The dreaded wooden spoon.

Add the rice to the frying pan.

It was at this point that i asked if we had used enough rice, I would have thrown another two handfuls in. But Mrs Sensible said there was enough.

Pour in the glass of wine and gently stir.

I nearly cried when she threw my good wine in the pan.

Stir until the wine has been absorbed by the rice and evaporated off.

Start adding the stock, make sure the head, arms and shell stays in the saucepan.

Add a ladle of stock from the pan and keep stirring the rice and the onions, as the stock is absorbed add another ladle of stock. Keep adding the stock until it looks like this.

Add the stock little by little and keep stirring or it will end up a horrible mess.

Mrs Sensible used nearly the full half a litre of stock, the trick is to add the stock slowly. keep allowing the rice to absorb the stock. I asked Mrs S why she didn’t just throw all the stock in at once, she told me the rice would go like pudding rice.

Nearly ready

Add the bowl of asparagus and prawns to the frying pan and stir.

Don’t you just love this action photo

Pour the risotto into two dishes and decorate with the king prawns and asparagus tips.

Eat and enjoy

If you want to know what my part in this masterpiece was…. I took the photos and chopped the onion. Oh and drank the wine.

Buon appetito.

Does this stuff really happen!!!

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Pecora Nera • Posted in Health, home, Wine • Tagged an englishman in italy, expat, fun expats, Italia, Italian eye test, Mrs Sensible, Pecora Nera, wine • 36 Comments

I received an e mail asking me, what inspires me to write my posts and does this stuff really happen or do I just have an over active imagination. So let me take this opportunity to put the record straight. Much to Mrs Sensible’s dismay, my blog is as it happens here. Mrs Sensible wouldn’t allow me to tell lies or exaggerate. If I did she would hit me with a wet wooden spoon.

Mrs Sensible is deadly with a wet wooden spoon.

How do I decide what to write about? Well let me give you an example.

Two weeks ago my reading glasses were sitting on my face at a funny angle, so I took them off and tried to straighten them. I heard a little snap and ended up with two monocles, one for each eye. Mrs Sensible just looked at me as my glasses fell apart in my hands. “What have you done now?” she asked. Nothing I replied as I tried to hide my glasses in my pocket.

A monocle for each eye.

Breaking my glasses is not a huge problem as I also wear contact lenses. Unfortunately I lost several boxes of contact lenses when we moved house. I can find my corkscrew and my bottles of wine. We have eventually found the kettle, but my lenses are still in a box…. Probably marked Christmas decorations!!

Are they in the box marked Christmas decorations?

Like everyone else I have two eyes, my right eye does all the work and my left eye… well it is there only for decoration, it is called a lazy eye. It looks normal but it just refuses to work. When I went for my eye examination for my Italian driving licence, the doctor gave me a paddle to cover my left eye as he tested my right eye. Everything was OK, however when he asked me to cover my right eye and read the letters on the wall, I was tempted to ask him “what wall?” I managed to get around this slight difficulty by removing the paddle and having a quick look at the letters before the doctor turned around and asked me what he had just pointed at.

What do you mean, where has the wall gone?

So what inspired me to write this post? Well last week we had the COSI on-line discussion and I was sat in a bar with a glass of wine, squinting at my laptop. I couldn’t find any more contact lenses, my reading glasses are broken so my solution was to wear my normal glasses and over the top of those I put on a pair of Mrs Sensible’s reading glasses, with the double magnification and providing I partially closed my left eye I could read my laptop almost perfectly.

With my multiple sets of glasses I looked quite sexy

After a couple of glasses of wine I forgot that I was wearing two sets of glasses. When the waitress who delivered my third glass of wine, looked at me funnily I immediately checked to make sure my fly was zipped up.

The COSI webcam was a bit chaotic, but I enjoyed it. I sat there with a glass of wine in one hand, an ear phone plugged into my right ear and my finger stuck into my left ear to block out the noise of the bar, oh and two sets of glasses on. I think ‘M’ from Married to Italy sent me a message and said Pecora “ your webcam is on we can see you” I didn’t worry too much until I realised what I must look like, after all I was already getting strange looks from the people in the bar.

So do I make this stuff up? No this is life as I know it in Italy

As easy as ABC

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Pecora Nera • Posted in home, Wine • Tagged an englishman in italy, englishman, expat, fun expats, humour, italian food, Mrs Sensible, Spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino • 43 Comments

Are you the type of person that burns a boiled egg? Then have no fear, you are in good company.

As easy as ABC

Mrs Sensible decided that today was my cookday and I was to cook spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino. My cookday? “It is easy” she said, “there are only 4 ingredients. Olive oil, garlic, chilli peppers and spaghetti”. This is fine, but I cook bacon, eggs, mushrooms and fried bread, that is when I have supplies of Bacon from the UK in the freezer. I don’t do Italian, even my Sicilian aunty turned her nose up at my tuna and pasta spaghetti concoction, and she loves me to bits, plus I laced it with wine.

“Okay” I said to Mrs Sensible, “how do I cook it?” “Pan fry a little garlic in the small frying pan and a little chilli pepper. While you are doing this, cook some spaghetti when it is done add the spaghetti to the frying pan add a bit of water from the spaghetti, fry until it is done and serve.” she said as she watched her latest Inspector Morse DVD.

Easy peesy lemon squeezie!! What could go wrong?

Lots

I know that before putting any ingredient into a pan, it is important to open a bottle of wine. I chose a fine bottle of Sovrana from the cantina of Marco Bellero.

Sovrana by Marco Bellero

“How much spaghetti?”

“200 grams”

How much oil should I use?

Enough to cover the pan bottom, don’t burn the garlic !!

Uh huh!

Where is the spaghetti?

Bottom cupboard.

No it is not.

yes it is, I will come and get it for you.

Thanks!

The Spaghetti is here and you have burnt the garlic!!

Do I bin it?

Deep sigh, “Yes start again”.

So I started again, I fried a little garlic in a bit of olive oil and started to boil the spaghetti. When I thought the spaghetti was cooked, I wandered into the lounge with a bit of spaghetti hanging from a fork. Just as I waved it under Mrs Sensible’s nose and said “Is this cooked? Inspector Morse shouted “You have killed her, you were his doctor”

“No” she said.

So I wandered back into the kitchen. The garlic looked a little too brown so I took it off the flame.

Mrs Sensible shouted from the lounge “Have you grated the cheese for the spaghetti”

Erh! No

So she came in to rescue me and the spaghetti.

As she chased the garlic around the pan she said “I have never seen garlic so well-burnt”

“Uh huh” I replied

She threw the spaghetti into the frying pan, added some water, fried it and served it into two plates.

What can I say… the wine was very good, however Mrs Sensible declared that she had eaten better pasta.

So here is the recipe if you want to try your hand.

Spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino

Spaghetti with garlic, olive oil and chilli pepper (and a glass of wine)

Difficulty

Allegedly very easy

Preparation time

2 minutes

Cooking time

15 minutes

Serves

Ingredients:
200 grams of spaghetti
1 small red chilli pepper – seeded & chopped
2 medium cloves of fresh garlic (squashed but unpeeled)
2 -3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
Salt, to season the pasta and to throw over your left shoulder for good luck.

1 bottle of good wine to drink while you cook.

Specialist Equipment

A large frying pan

A deep pan

Sharp knife

A good cook

A glass for the wine

How to cook:

1) Discard the seeds from the chilli pepper and chop the pepper into small pieces.

2) Cook the pasta according to the pack instructions and season with salt. If there are no instructions, E mail Mrs Sensible.

3) In a shallow pan, place 4 tbsp of olive oil and heat until hot, then add the garlic and chilli pepper. Cook over a low to medium heat until the garlic starts to turn golden (do not allow to burn)

4) When the pasta is ready, drain & transfer pasta into the shallow pan with the oil, garlic and chilli. Toss together and allow to heat through for approx 2-4 minutes. Serve immediately.

If you try this and it works, let me know. If you try this and you fail, please do not feel bad it is a very difficult dish.

Wine, whine, wine.

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Pecora Nera • Posted in Wine • Tagged an englishman in italy, bottles, englishman, expat, fun expats, Italia, italian, Italians, italy, piemonte, wine • 14 Comments

I am not a hoarder or a collector of clutter, ok I lie I hate throwing anything away. I have also been known to save items that other people would consider to be junk. For example I brought to Italy my dad’s spanners and old tools even though they are imperial and not much use to man nor beast, especially in Italy where everything is metric. But I still have them.

I also have 18 wine bottles that I salvaged from the local recycling bottle bank. I don’t normally collect wine bottles but these looked interesting. My wife was a little confused when I returned home from the bottle bank with 18 dirty, manky wine bottles, when I had been sent there to dispose of 7 wine bottles and 2 jam jars. When I struggled through the doorway under the watchful gaze of Mrs Sensible with a huge plastic bag full of bottles I was once again transformed back into a little boy again, trying to explain to my mother why I thought it was ok to bring an old bees nest home. Mrs Sensible was watching me as I cleaned them in the yard, I promised her that I would either recycle them back were they came from or if they were as interesting as I thought, I would keep them.

I sent a number of photos to the Sheffield Museum to see if they could give me some idea to the age of my bottles. A lovely lady called Clara Morgan sent me an e-mail confirming my wine bottles were hand-blown, and she said they dated from 1750 – 1800, nice.

The next question that I asked myself and in fact the question that Mrs Sensible kept asking me was “now that you have spent an afternoon cleaning them what are you going to do with them and are they worth anything?” I decided to store them in the attic while I pondered the question.

Drilling a hole in the base of each wine bottle and turning them into lamps was a sacrilege; besides when we had guests over for dinner they were a great talking point. That is until Mrs Sensible became tired of dusting around the bottle that I had strategically left on top of the bookshelf.

In my humble opinion Marco Bellero produces the best wine in Piemonte, he will also deliver wine to my doorstep just like Ernie the milkman in the UK used to do, until the supermarkets pushed him out of business. All I have to do is phone Marco and say 6 Barberra, 3 Grignolino and 2 San Pietro please. And the next morning the wine will be waiting on my doorstep.

One morning I showed Marco my antique bottles and asked him if he could fill them with his famous Barone di San Pietro especially as earlier that week I had tasted the wine while it was still in the oak casks. Marco thought it was a great idea and he agreed.

Eighteen bottles of fine Barone di San Pietro turned up on my doorstep complete with labels but no plastic caps. The bottle necks are too big for my caps he said apologetically. We haggled over the price and he kept saying no no e regalo, e regalo. My wife later told me the 18 bottles some 150+ euros was a gift or regalo.

Marco asked me when I was going to open the first bottle. On my birthday which this year falls on November 3^rd and I will open another bottle every birthday so I have enough wine to last me to the ripe old age of 69.

It’s great to look forward to something on your birthday.