Wood fired ovens and the pizza dream team

This week at Numero 182 has seen more seeds planted in the poly tunnel; more tiny seedlings springing into life; a beautiful new set of shelves constructed in the poly tunnel (doubling its capacity); some long overdue burning of brambles that were cleared from the uppermost terraces way back in October (yes, Allison, those piles - although more raking & burning is still needed!); a lot more dirty, dusty work on the apartment ceiling (this time taking up the concrete floor in the office); some beautiful warm spring weather (spring? who am I kidding?, the weather this week has been better than an entire British summer - we hit 29.5C yesterday!!); and 31 March was the first evening since October that we haven't needed to light the fire in the house.

Teeny tiny tropea onions.

A bean stalk!

Beautiful self-propagated borage.

Artichoke.

New fruit trees going in.

New shelves: capacity doubled!

Burn, baby burn.

Office floor Saturday morning.

Office floor Saturday mid-afternoon.

Office floor Saturday night.

Office floor Sunday afternoon.

The apartment bedroom is/was under there somewhere...

Of course, all of that was interspersed with the usual dog walks, Italian lessons, supermarket trips and almost daily trips to Frateschi - although on Friday Stuart decided enough was enough and decided to pay the extra to get Frateschi to deliver materials to us: despite its spacious bus-like qualities, there's only so much that will fit into our car and while it seems extravagant to pay €35 for one of the Frateschi guys to spend 5 minutes chugging up the hill in the truck, it made a lot of sense to get all the of the rest of the cotto tiles and bags of concrete that we will need to finish the apartment ceiling delivered to us, job done.

That little lot should see us through to finish the floor/ceiling.

Dog walking.

The week hasn't been without its social events either, and what a social we had! On Wednesday we were invited up to Vellano to the property where Stuart has spent a fair bit of time working with David building new concrete steps, cutting trees, helping set up a swimming pool, and clearing land - the home of British couple Paul and Veronica. Paul and Veronica had come over to Italy for a short break over Easter and had kindly invited us, along with David, Sarah and Donatella, for a pizza evening. This wasn't just any old pizza though - it was to be the first time they had used their wood-fired pizza oven since buying the house 8-9 years ago.

Cooking on ... wood.

Wood-fired cooking has, of course, been going on for millennia, and round ovens built with bricks or local stones have been built in Italy for many centuries - indeed, 30 brick ovens were found in very good condition among the ruins of Pompeii, some of which even still had petrified bread in them.

The abundance of bread production in Italy (every region has its own particular style of bread - if not more than one style) has been attributed to the popularity of these brick ovens throughout the centuries - unlike in some other countries, where it was rare for individuals to have their own ovens or the rights to use one, Italian families did typically own ovens, albeit fairly small ones. Communal ovens were also common though, and you can still see the old communal ovens in many of the old villages - people would knead their own dough at home and then take it to the public oven to cook it.

The communal oven in Castello di Tocchi.

Our house had its own wood-fired oven, which was situated at the back of the house in just about the spot that our new 300L hot water tank now occupies. The oven could be accessed either from inside the house (during the colder months presumably this was the preferred option and brought warmth into the house) or from outside.

Sadly, the wood oven at Numero 182 was knocked down long before we bought the house, but we do have some photographs of it in its dilapidated state - and the new woodshed floor is built on its foundations.

Wood oven from the outside - sadly we never saw it.

The oven from outside.

The blocked up indoor access to the wood oven is the spot on the wall covered in  what looks like test paint patches.

We do plan to reinstate an outdoor wood-fired oven at some point, but this is likely to involve having to apply for yet more planning permissions (despite not being in any way attached to the house) and is still a little way down our list of important jobs to be done. When we do finally get around to it though, we will be calling on the expertise of our friend David, who has been on a River Cottage wood-fired-oven-building course and will be able to give help, direction and guidance on its construction.

Traditionally, wood fires would be started with bundles of small twigs known (in England at least) as faggots. Pieces of wood would then added in increasing size until the oven got up to full temperature, at which point it would retain a lot of its heat thanks to its construction.

The chimney of a wood fired oven is at the front, above the opening. This means that the flames are drawn across the ceiling of the oven and the smoke is drawn straight out at the front, creating a veritable inferno - the temperature can easily get up to 500-600C.

Bread was perhaps the most basic and staple food item baked in a wood fired oven - to bake bread, once the fire had died down a little, the dough would be placed in the oven and then the oven would be closed with a wooden door doused in water to create a steamy environment inside the oven.

Wednesday was all about pizza though, and despite owning the property for several years, Paul and Veronica had never before got around to trying out the wood oven that lives in a snug little outhouse at their property. You'd never had know that this was the first time they'd used it though - Paul had cleaned it up a couple of days prior, and by the time we arrived, he and David had got the fire going and looking toasty, and a table was all set in the cosy outhouse next to the oven.

Earlier in the day, David and Sarah had procured a batch of pizza dough from Vinicio, a guy in the village who is famous for his bread and pizzas. Vinicio is the father of Serena and Simone, who run the Bistrot in Vellano, and it is he who makes the pizzas that the restaurant serves every weekend. For a fresh batch of 1.6kg of dough (which was more than enough to feed 7 of us), Vinicio wanted no more than €2.60 for his efforts!

With Vinicio's dough, and the toppings and cooking masterfully handled by the dream team of Paul and David (later joined by Stuart), we were soon tucking into amazing piping hot pizzas with delicious toppings and perfect crispy bases.

After rolling out the dough to the right size to fit on the paddle, the pizza base must be well floured underneath so that it slides easily off the paddle into the fire and can be spun easily to get an even cooking. By the time the oven was properly up to temperature, pizzas were cooking in little more than a minute - you can tell when a real wood-fired oven pizza is cooking by the way the dough bubbles up as it cooks, and once it has a good golden colour it's done, although it has to be said that the extra crispy, almost charred bits add extra taste and authenticity and are just as important.

Favourite topping combinations of the night, for me, would have to be the thinly sliced potato with gorgonzola (potato on a pizza? it works, try it!), but close contenders were the tuna, onion and pepper, the mushroom & gorgonzola, the ham & cheese, the vegetarian (tomatoes, cheese, courgette, onion and peppers), and even the plain garlic, olive oil and salt. Simply delicious!

We had a lovely evening in great company, and the opportunity to experience our first wood-fired pizza cooking (in person rather than in a restaurant) was fantastic - a really great way to spend an evening and it made us even more determined to make our "project wood-fired oven" a priority.

Buona Pasqua!

Having decided to take the whole of the Easter weekend off our 'normal' work routine, Friday morning started with a trip into Pescia and a coffee at Franco's bar in the square. Franco's is our favourite place for coffee - in our opinion they make the best cappuccinos around (and the cheapest at that), but we don't often get the chance to go in, whether because we have Reggie in the car with us or because it's a Saturday and the market is on in the square, or because it's a Sunday when the bar is closed, so this was a rare treat for us. We didn't linger over our coffees though - we'd made use of the special button on the car parking meters in the square that gives you 10 minutes' free parking. It seems we've now been in Italy long enough to have started to adopt the local coffee-drinking practices, and while we're a little way off downing our caffeine fix while standing at the counter sorting through our change, we're rarely seated for much more than 10 minutes these days (and we definitely don't drink cappucinos beyond lunchtime!).

Next on the to-do list was to fill the car with fuel, so we headed out to the methane station at Chiesina. Before we could get there, however, we were being pulled over by the police (Carabinieri) for a document check. This is now the fourth time we've been stopped for a document check - which is very routine here. We had a quick chat with the friendly policeman, and once he'd satisfied himself that our documents were in order, we wished him a happy Easter and went on our way. We refuelled, made a quick stop to pick up some chicken feed from 'Mr Chicken', then hit both the supermarkets for the weekly food shopping.

We made it back home in time for a quick lunch before taking Reggie out for a walk. We headed up to the quarry track above Vellano and gave him a good run around before heading home to roll up our sleeves.

The afternoon's work started with Stuart handing me the pneumatic drill to continue taking up concrete floor while he went to Frateschi to buy some more cotto tiles and bags of concrete. I discovered that it's a lot easier to bear the noise of a pneumatic drill when you are the person using it than it is when you're in another room trying to do something else (as I had been last week)!

After an initial period of terror - convinced I was about to fall through the floor and land in a heap in the apartment - I soon got into the swing of things and it wasn't long before most of the floor between the kitchen and the office/utility room was gone. I was slightly perturbed to find that Stuart was at that point outside with his chainsaw cutting acacia stumps on the terraces - certainly a job that needed doing, but with the noise of the chainsaw (and some distance from the house at that), I wondered how long it would have taken him to find me had I slipped through the hole and been calling for help from the apartment below... Thankfully that didn't happen, of course, and after I'd finished taking up the concrete floor, Stuart came in to make a start on the next step in the process.

State of the art air conditioning?

Next, Stuart cut some new lengths of beam from the old, varnished beams that had run through the false ceiling, and while he worked on cutting out some of the rotten beams above, I set to work with the grinder with its wire brush attachment to remove the dark orange varnish from the lengths of wood.

With the new beams stripped, we were just about ready to start laying down tiles when David and Sarah arrived, popping in to say hello on their way back home. It was almost 6pm by this point, and we were both covered head to toe in dust and dirt, so the arrival of our friends was a welcome excuse to stop for a well earned drink and break.

In fact, the quick hello ended up turning into a really lovely impromptu evening spent chatting, drinking and relaxing with our friends. It's often the unplanned evenings that are the most enjoyable and this was certainly amongst those. By the time we bade goodnight to our friends it was 10pm and there was still a very large hole where the floor used to be, so Stuart quickly laid the cotto tiles down to create a covering that would prevent dogs/cats going flying through to the apartment below, and after much needed showers and a quick bite to eat we retired to bed.

Saturday

We woke up on Saturday feeling the effects of both the previous day's hard work and the previous night's good time, but we had an appointment to keep at 9am, so there was no time to linger in bed or hit the snooze button.

The 'bee man', Alain, who had been planning to come and visit us last weekend but who had to cancel due to illness, had re-scheduled his visit for 9am on Saturday. To re-cap, Alain is a guy known to our friend Mara (who lives in a farmhouse on the hillside directly opposite us), who used to keep his beehives on her land before she and Franco bought the house, but since she and Franco have their own bees, this is no longer an option. Knowing that we were interested in bees/bee-keeping, and that we might have suitable land, Mara had suggested that we might be able to offer a spot for Alain's bees.

Alain duly arrived at 9am, greeted by Reggie's unstoppable barking. After a quick chat with Stuart and a look at our Flow Hive, Stuart took him along to the end of the drive to inspect the area we'd decided to offer - the clearing adjacent to our gates that was once an old quarry. He was impressed with the spot and thought it would be perfect, although said it would need a little more tidying first, and said he'd also like to put some hives on the other side of the drive (which will also need some tidying). He left, saying he'd be back in about a month with his 30 hives.

Bee meeting over, it was time to get on with the rest of our day, so with Reggie in the car we went for a coffee at Nerone's bar before heading up the valley to the track that leads from Vellano to Macchino. We had a lovely walk along this track - it's a really pretty walk, especially at this time of year - the weather was beautiful, and Reggie enjoyed himself immensely, despite trying to deafen a walker with his scary barks (the same man we met the last time we walked this track - he joked with us that one day he and Reggie will become friends) and trying to chase (and eat) three mountain bikers.

By the time we got home, there was still time to get into some work before lunch, such had been our prompt start to the day today, so while Stuart mixed concrete to pour onto the tiles he'd put down last night, I put the backpack strimmer on my back and headed down to the vegetable terraces to start strimming the long grass down there.

By the time I'd run out of fuel, Stuart had finished laying the new layer of concrete and it was time to stop for lunch in sunshine. By this time, the sun had really got quite some heat in it. Reggie took shelter in the herb garden while we soaked up the warmth of the spring sunshine on our faces.

Once lunch was finished though, it was time to get back to work, so I got the strimmer on my back again and headed down to finish strimming the lower terraces while Stuart worked on some more modifications to the gates - the latest Reggie-proofing measures combined with Stuart's latest upcyling wizardry which uses the springs from old washing machines to act as very effective gate closers:

When the strimming was finally done, it was time to swap the strimmer for the hedge cutters and we both headed for the end of the drive to do some more work on tidying the areas that are now officially earmarked for bees. We spent about an hour cutting back brambles behind the gates and at the top of the donkey track that leads downwards from the drive.

We finally called it a day after we'd cleared enough to open the area out a bit, and headed back to the house to put the tools away, close the poly tunnel, collect some firewood and finally relax on the patio with a glass of wine and the fire pit for an injection of extra spring-evening warmth.

Pasqua

After the busy and productive two days preceding, Easter Sunday saw a change in gear. With the combined effects of the clocks having changed overnight and having felt the need for a bit of a more leisurely morning, we weren't ready to leave the house until nearly 11am - I had to keep reminding myself that it didn't matter! We stopped for a quick coffee at Nerone's before heading to Sorana to walk Reggie in the woods beyond the village.

We were having a lovely walk until Reggie pulled me over flat on my face. We had heard the sound of an engine approaching, so had put him on the lead and waited for a man on a motorbike to come very slowly up the dirt track past us. Reggie waited patiently with me until the man had just passed, at which point he lunged after him, taking me with him until the lead slipped out of my hand, leaving Reggie snapping at the wheels of the motorbike and me on my hands and knees in the mud and leaves. We decided to call time on that particular walk at that point, and headed back to the car.

After our walk, we made our regular Sunday morning stop at Amanda's shop. Today, however, rather than buying something home-made to take home and heat up, we had asked Amanda to get a raw free-range chicken in for us that we could take home and cook ourselves. We were slightly shocked when Samantha handed said chicken to us in a plastic bag and we realised it was entire (that is, complete with head, legs, feet and innards), but Stuart was up for the challenge of cleaning it, and after collecting homework from Samantha, we headed home to make a start on cooking our Easter lunch.

There then followed a couple of hours of chopping, prepping and cooking. After finding and watching a YouTube video on cleaning chickens, Stuart duly cleaned the chicken - it might have taken a little while longer than someone who is used to doing this somewhat gruesome task, but he did it expertly and cleanly, and I was impressed! Florence and Reggie were the lucky recipients of the offal, while the neck and other bits went into making a stock (although I couldn't bring myself to put the head and feet in). While the chicken, carrots and potatoes roasted, Stuart decided to attempt to make aioli (garlic mayonnaise), but despite our combined best efforts, our first attempt at a home-made mayonnaise was considerably less successful than Stuart's first attempt at the cleaning of a chicken, and it ended up being more of a sauce than a creamy mayonnaise. It tasted good nevertheless.

We finally brought everything together ready to eat at 3pm: roast chicken, roasted potatoes, roasted carrots and pan-fried Brussels sprouts, all eaten in the fresh air and sunshine on our patio.

With the food dispatched, we lit the fire pit to give us a little longer outdoors, and spent a nostalgic while looking through the printed version of our blog that my Mum sent us last year. The 'blog book' only covers the first month or so after we moved here, but it was amazing to spend a while looking back at the way things were almost two years ago and how much things have changed.

When it finally got too chilly to sit outdoors any longer (the clouds had come over during the course of the afternoon), we headed indoors to light the fire and spend a quiet evening watching Spectre, which Stuart's Mum kindly sent us on DVD this week - a fitting end to a relaxing day.

Pasquetta

Easter Monday is Pasquetta here in Italy. It started out wet - the rain had started before we went to bed last night and had been going on and off all night. After another slow morning without getting up to an alarm, we had a late breakfast before heading out with Reggie. It may have been wet, but the upside was that we could be almost certain that no one else would be out walking in this weather!

We headed straight to the chicken-run walk and even made poor Reggie wear his raincoat, such was the heaviness of the rain when we set out. It wasn't cold though, but pleasantly fresh and with lovely spring scents in the air.

We met a group of three joggers out in the rain, but once we'd let them pass, holding Reggie on the lead to make sure he didn't try to eat them, we didn't see anyone else and Reggie happily ran around in the long grass getting himself soaked from head to toe, the water running off his raincoat in mini rivers.

When we'd done our walk, we headed home via Amanda's once again. Amanda doesn't usually open on Mondays, but with today being a bank holiday here, she made an exception today and we called in to collect the loaf of bread that we usually pick up on a Sunday, as well as a friendly chat with Samantha and Amanda.

By the time we got home it was time for lunch - delicious roast chicken sandwiches, but eaten indoors today as even though it had dried up by that point, it was still a tad too cool to be outside - and a bone for Reggie.

After lunch we spent a couple of hours in front of the computers updating the blog and doing various other chores, and by the time we'd finished all that the sun had come out!

We therefore headed outside, but with only a gentle afternoon's activity planned: planting seeds. We spent a very chilled out hour and a half in the gentle warmth of the poly tunnel planting up more seeds and checking on what was already sprouting into life.

When we'd run out of both plant pots and labels we decided to call it a day in the poly tunnel and returned to the patio, where we made a start on weeding the herb garden. We're undecided as to what to do with the herb garden - Stuart would like to get rid of it altogether, whereas I would prefer to keep it (as would Reggie, who enjoys lying in it in the shade of the rosemary bush) - but either way, it was in desperate need of some weeding, so we made a start on the job.

Come 6pm, however, we decided we'd had enough of chores and, keen to make the most of the new longer daylight hours, we lit the fire pit and sat on the patio with a bottle of wine and our planting notes, writing up notes on what we'd planted and when, and attempting to draw up a planting plan for the coming year. This turns out to be a little more complicated than it might seem at face value, as some plants like (or don't like) to follow on from each other year on year, and certain plants like (or don't like) to be planted alongside each other at the same time. By the time we'd finished a bottle of wine and the temperature had sunk low enough for the fire pit to not quite cut it any more, we had formulated a pretty good planting plan for the year, although there's still more work to be done!

Feeling chilly, we retired indoors to light the indoor fire and reflect on a long weekend that has been the perfect combination of hard work, productive and relaxing.

Four seasons(almost) in one week

Monday started with rain which we'd been surprised to see on the forecast after such great weather up until Sunday evening, but as promised it had arrived later that night, casting doubt on the plans for the start of the week before it had even started.

I was planning to head up to Vellano to do a bit of strimming with Dave after breakfast, but at that time it was still raining - not heavily, but earnestly enough to make strimming potentially unsafe if not unpleasant, so we postponed for a couple of hours to keep an eye on the weather as it was meant to clear up sometime around midday.

I then dashed off to Maionchi, which was always the plan as I needed to replace the drive shaft on the strimmer regardless of weather - without it I wouldn't be doing any strimming at all.

By the time I got home it was just before ten and still raining, so Dave and I checked in and said we'd talk again around 11. With that, I decided to head into Pescia to buy some wood to make a new dining table. The gate leg on our existing table had given way (thanks to some broken dowels) last week when Helen and I were working on the laptop (the laptop thankfully survived the fall with the exception of a broken SD card port), so this seemed like a good time to put my plan for a new dining table into action.

When I arrived at the wood yard the ever helpful Elena rolled her eyes as if to say 'what now!?' but I explained that this particular project was simple and gave her the list of what I needed: 3 planks and 5 lengths of timber, all planed. After paying the €69 I waited outside for the guys to get and plane the wood and cut it to length before loading it into the car. Despite the damp start it was a pleasant morning, which meant the 40 minutes I had to wait for the wood was easily passed by looking around at the neighbouring fruit trees and at how they'd been pruned - not a bad way to spend the time, pruning fast becoming a new interest of mine with our very young orchard now behind the house.

With the wood on board I headed home getting back around 11 - there wasn't much time until lunch, so I decided to make a start on the table, having just agreed with Dave on the phone that as the weather seemed to be drying up and getting much brighter, we'd start strimming after lunch so long as it stayed this way.

With my trusty mitre saw set up outside I started putting the table together, having pretty much decided exactly how it was going to be constructed.

A happy hour and a quarter was spent chopping wood in the now sunny morning and as lunchtime approached I'd finished the table ready for our first meal of many on it.

After we dispatched a plate of farm fresh scrambled eggs on toast, Helen went back to the office and I loaded the car to head up the valley for a couple of hours of sweaty strimming in the sunshine before heading home to ease into the evening with a fire and dinner, pleased with the day's efforts despite the damp start.

On Tuesday I took Reggie for an early morning walk as he'd missed out completely yesterday so as Helen had gone to the apartment to make use of her bike and turbo trainer I loaded Reggie into the car and headed for the chicken run, discovering along the way that Pescia does indeed have a rush hour and it is at 7:45am. This took me a little by surprise as I had assumed after almost two years here I would have known if there was a rush hour - it just goes to show that we've never been through town at this time of the day before and won't be planning to again if we can help it (not that it was anything comparable to a UK rush hour).

I got home just before 9.30am in time to pass the car keys to Helen so that she could head into Pescia to meet with Sue for coffee while Chris came here in their car to spend another session in front of the laptop working on the Pescia Rugby Club video.

As lunch time approached, Chris packed up and left, shortly after which Helen returned home. I'm sure there must have been a better way to plan this logistically, but that's how it fell into place and we did little to think it through.

It was a beautiful day, allowing us to have lunch outside on the veranda, which we didn't rush, before finally retiring indoors to make an attempt at tidying before Samantha arrived.

After Samantha had given Reggie one of his twice-weekly bread snacks she came indoors to kick off the lesson, which began with me having my homework checked - homework that I confessed to finding a real struggle. Having gatecrashed this lesson of Helen's (unintentionally, I hasten to add), Samantha has been giving me homework without fully understanding what level I'm at. Having only taught Helen she understandably had been making the assumption that I was of a similar standard to Helen, but that was proved wrong this week and after wrangling for over an hour with the homework, I left Helen and Samantha in peace with a plan for some easier homework, involving a couple of backwards steps, for me next week.

I then dashed up to Vellano again to meet David so that we could build a couple more garden steps at the property we're working on. However, on getting out of the car I realised that in the panic to get to Vellano I had forgot not only the concrete we needed (from Frateschi), but also my wallet to pay for it, so I left David removing the old steps in readiness for new ones while I dashed back home for the wallet, then into Pietrabuona for the materials, then back again to Vellano.

As David and I worked away in the warm afternoon, the wind started to pick up, getting stronger and stronger as the afternoon went on. As the evening went on the winds continued to strengthen, bringing back memories of the big storm the region endured last March - so much so that Helen barely slept.

Thankfully, it turned out that despite the strong winds here we had been sheltered somewhat by the hill behind us and there was no damage to report in the morning. There was less good news from Donatella though, who'd suffered the worst with the storms last year - there were no trees down this time, thankfully, but her poly-tunnel had been uncovered, the rood of her wood shed had partially come off and her pergola had been damaged, so together with David and Sarah we arranged to all descend on her after lunch to help put the place back together.

Before that it was our group Italian lesson in Vellano - even on getting out of the car up there we could feel how much windier it still was just another couple of miles up the valley and how cold the wind was here, - it felt like the coldest day we've had yet this year.

After a lesson on the uses of the word 'da', of which there are many, Helen and I headed home for lunch which today was definitely NOT outside - what a difference a day makes... just 24 little hours...

After lunch, I left Helen at home - despite wanting to pitch in and help at Donatella's, she had yet to turn her computer on today to check emails and work, so I headed off with a boot full of tools and screws to see what David, Sarah and I could do to fix the place up.

Fortunately the damage was not as severe this time and we soon had the place back in order and were sitting down for coffee under the pergola before we all headed home for the evening.

There was another complete change in the weather again on Thursday - back to beautiful clear skies and sunshine - and with such a lovely sunny start, I managed to persuade Helen to join Reggie and me on a walk along the river.

After getting home, Helen went into the office and I dashed to Frateschi for another car load of cotto tiles, concrete and steel before going home to make lunch - which was most definitely eaten outside on a day like today, it was glorious and felt almost like summer.

As we finished lunch David and Sarah arrived, having been out shopping for compost to get their seed planting started. We sat out on the patio with coffee for a while chatting before showing them how our seeds were doing in the poly-tunnel.

Once they left for home I spent the remainder of the afternoon in the utility room getting ready for the next section of repair before we settled into a bottle of wine to herald the start of the four-day weekend known as Easter...