ITALIAN FOODIES

While we were in Atina this summer there were a couple of festivals on so that meant lots of “street food”. I loved this little stall selling bruschetta and lamb outside the local butcher.

ciao:)

more tomatoes:

courgettes and their flowers

peaches:

ligurian basil, the best there is:

strawberries:

ciao
xx

When we arrived in Genova this summer we hired a car to drive to Deva as it is only about 45 mins from the airport, Bru’s cousin normally picks us up but he was working so we decided it was as easy to drive ourselves. We barely fitted into the car with all the luggage we had, our scales didn’t work properly so between me, Bru and Alessia we had a total weight of 78kg plus the MIL, I know, an absolutely ridiculous amount for 2 weeks and we flew Ryanair to London and then onto Genova the next day, having a father that works in the airport comes in handy sometimes;)

Anyway, we took the motorway to Deva and went to the wrong pay station at the toll, we took the Telepass instead of the cash. Now, I should point out at this stage that I did offer to sit in the passenger seat as I’m fairly good at directions etc but no I was put in the back because of my lack of Italian and the “MIL” took pride of place in the front with Bru, me bitter - NEVER!. So between the 2 of them they managed to go to the wrong toll, we didn’t know what to do as we didn’t have the telepass and Italians don’t do sitting in their cars waiting for the stupid tourists in front to figure out what they’re doing so there was a lot of horn blowing and a very panicked “MIL” in the front. I sat very quietly and smugly in the back with a kind of told you so attitude, yes I know very childish but I wanted to sit in the front, “nobody puts baby in a corner”:) .

In the end the MIL had to jump out and press the help button and they reluctantly let us through the barrier, now being Irish we just assumed everything would be fine and we would just pay at the exit and didn’t bother listening to the MIL that we had to go back and get a ticket. She rang her brother and it transpired of course(this woman is always right goddammit) we should have went back for the ticket and we wouldn’t be able to get off the motorway at Deva so we had to take a detour to another town and collect a ticket, a €50 fine and a right telling off from a very grumpy Italian. I don’t know which was worse  - the fine or listening to the MIL for the rest of the journey;)

What has all this got to do with Portofino I hear you ask? The only place to pay the fine was Rapallo so we decided to make a day of it and visit Portofino as we have never been before and it’s not that far from Rapallo. It ended up that we didn’t have to pay the fine after all that as the guy at the “fine office” was really nice and couldn’t believe the other guy had given us the fine etc etc so it was all a big load of nonsense really but really the moral of the story is ALWAYS let me sit in the front

The drive to Portofino was beautiful, I loved Santa Margarita and hope to go there for a few days next year. Portofino itself was so quaint and picturesque, we had lunch of linguine with clams in a small little restaurant on the main street and went for a gelato and a “passegiata” down by the port afterwards celebrity spotting but saw nobody we knew:(

There were lots of fabulous boats coming in to deck, a bit of a crowd gathered for this one as there was a rumour that it was some big Italian footballer, we all waited for about 2o mins while they disembarked and then some random guy came out, everybody sighed and went on their merry way.

ciao
xxx

I loved this little van selling Italian meats like proschuitto, Italian sausages, salami etc, they also had a great selection of Italian cheeses. They were a father and son team and were really happy and very friendly, there was 3 old ladies buying their meats while I was taking their photos and they all thought it was really funny, I don’t think they get many tourists wandering around taking photos of them very often. I loved the presentation of the meats and wish we could do that here but I don’t think the health board would be too happy about it, it always amazes me how we are all in the EU with the same regulations but it definitely differs from country to country.

italian sausages - mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

teamwork

ciao:)

Monday is market day in Atina and the centre of the village is taken over by stalls selling everything from clothes, shoes, cooking utensils and lots and lots of fabulous fruit and veg. It’s always a bit crazy as the roads can’t handle the traffic and there is always a traffic jam right outside our apartment, the road is so narrow, something always happens so there is lots of horn blowing and Italian profanities which is great to watch - “stress Italian style”. There was so much to photograph so this is just a little snapshot!

I love this collection of mokas;

Since getting my garden done I have become a “flower freak”, for any of you who don’t know me personally this would be totally out of character for me. I even have window boxes!! I drove Bruno mad commenting on the colours of flowers etc everywhere we went, I think he’s ready to trade me in:) The flowers at the market were so vibrant and colourful and I loved this stall selling every type of lettuce possible

The selection of vegetables and fruit is always amazing in Italy as there is so much more variety than you find here and take a look at the prices!

there was lots of beans including borlotti which I’ve never found here;

we had the sweetest tomato sauce made from these tomatoes:

peaches, pears, peppers - OH MY!!

courgette flowers which are up there in my top 5, love them deep fried 

olives anyone?

and here’s the road outside the apartment with Bru carrying home all of our purchases

ciao:)

p.s. taking photos of the local market isn’t the easiest thing to do in a small village, I got a lot of very suspicious looks except at the Italian cold meats van which I will do a seperate post on as they were so nice.

The first week of our holiday was spent in Deva Marina which is a small little beach town about 30 mins from Genova, Bru’s Zio Bruno and Zia Maura have lived there for years in a fabulous house up in the hills with the most amazing view. Their house was full up so we stayed in a small hotel near the beach and then went up there to eat every evening out on the terrace. I’ve spoken about Bru’s uncle before, he was a world champion boxer and there was a book released about him while we were there which was pretty exciting.

Zia Maura is a great cook and her favourite words are ”mangia, mangia, she will not rest until you have eaten until you can eat no more. There was lots of steak and Italian sausages done on the outside grill:

some rabbit or stuffed veg anyone?

Bru’s uncle loves his wine so we had lots of really good local wine, he also grows his own vegetables so the salad was fresh from the garden every evening.

Strawberries is the only fruit the princess will eat at the moment so she was in strawberry heaven as they have loads in their garden. 

I don’t think there is any left 

I love that their house is only 5 mins drive from the beach

but then this is the view from the terrace:

ciao:)

we hung out here and we were officially the whitest people on the beach!

we had these with fresh ”cornetti” every morning for breakfast!

we had “aperitivo” every evening before dinner!

we had lots of family dinners “al fresco” on the terrace!

we had lots of these after dinner!

and quite a few of these too;)

and then went for a “passeggiata” in the evenings and walked it all off:)

p.s. we also went to a 2 Michelin Star restaurant and met one of the top pastry chefs in Italy, will post about them all later! Almost forgot, more importantly the princess got her first pair of baby crocks and her first anklet:)

ciao
xx

I’m sure you’ve heard me mention the family restaurant in Atina many times on this blog so I decided it’s about time I did a little post on it!! IL Vicolo means little laneway in Italian and yes that’s where it is - down a little lane way!! It’s owned by Bruno’s Zia Adele, Zio Lello and Zia Franca and his Zia Terese works there too so it’s pretty much a family affair. It’s situated in the basement and is quite big for a small town but then people come from near and far!

It has so much character and the brick work is amazing inside, it is divided into 3 rooms, there are no candles, no music and believe it or not no menu!!! You basically eat what is on that day so you are guaranteed fresh, home-made, seasonal produce everyday!!

They are known for certain dishes, one of  them being “pasta fagioli” which is one of my favourites

On Friday’s a local fish supplier comes to the village and sets up his little stall and sells the nicest fresh fish so we were lucky enough to be there to help with the eating:)

One thing I really love in Italy is the rocket, the leaves are much bigger than you get here and have a much nicer flavour!! There’s a lot of preparation in it though as it all comes fresh so lots of cleaning and pulling off stems to be done which is Zia Franca’s job:

They are also famous for their home-made limoncello, once you’ve had home-made you can never go back:)

They all thought I was a bit mad taking loads of photos as they have never heard of blogs but I thought it would be nice to give you a little snap shot into a real Italian kitchen:)

p.s. I’ve been meaning to write about this great new idea by Paul over at siopaeile, he has created a collaborative google map focused on farmers markets, artisan food retailers and individual farmers who sell directly to the public. The idea is that anybody can see what’s available in their immediate vicinity at a glance. This supports local farmers and enables people to source the freshest produce. There are also environmental arguments to buying locally as you know. Not only will people be able to see at a glance who is selling fresh produce in their area on the internet, they will also be able to see this information on GPS devices.

So imagine you are driving home in your car and you have one of the GPS devices. You spot that the farm you are just passing is selling home made cheese or new potatoes. I think a lot of people will be tempted to visit the farmer. This will be a whole new avenue of advertising for Farmers so check it out!!

Our week in Italy feels like a distant memory already, it’s amazing how you just slip back into normal life so fast but hey we’re planning the next one already in June so I’m afraid lots of posts about Italy in the future but I’m sure you won’t mind!! Our main concern going was how the princess was going to survive the plane journey but of course after all the worry she was perfect and had a ball. I’m sure Aer Lingus are still peeling off Barney stickers from the back of the seats in row 5, thank god for Barney!! We arrived Easter Sunday night to lashing rain, what’s new, every time we go on holidays it is always raining when we arrive whether it be the summer or winter time and it doesn’t matter what country either. I’ll give you a few examples, Lanzarote a couple of years back, it rained for the week, we even had to buy new shoes because we only brought one pair and they got saturated the first night so we had to go shopping for some warm clothes and shoes. Sicily 2 years ago, we arrived and it was beautiful, we walked down to the beach to have a look around and it started to rain and it continued for 2 days. August in Atina 3 years ago, it rained every day for 2 weeks at 2 o’clock on the button, not just rain either, the worst thunder storms in years, my sister’s wedding 2 weeks ago - it rained all day. The thing is every time this happens everyone says how strange it is and how great the weather has been so I’ve come to the conclusion “yes it is us”, so I’ll give you all advance notice whenever we go away for a weekend or a holiday just so you can make sure you don’t go to the same place as us:) - I’m serious!!!

So we arrived late that night and had missed the Easter feast but there was loads of leftovers so lots of lasagne, lamb, pizza rustica and Italian desserts were consumed before bed.

The weather was really bad for the first few days so we did a lot of relaxing, eating, shopping and watching Italian Big Brother and Italian X Factor, yes they have all this rubbish TV too!! I’ve mentioned before that Bru’s aunt has a restaurant in Atina which I will do a separate post on so we didn’t eat out too much as we ate there and at the apartment with “chef MIL” most of the time. We ate at a very simple local fish restaurant for lunch one day and had beautiful swordfish, linguine with clams, fried squid and fish antipasto.

I’m always amazed at the difference in quality of fruit and veg in Italy compared to Ireland, the market was cancelled because of Easter but this was the selection available in the local supermarket;

Atina itself is very small and is situated between Rome and Naples, it is up in the mountains so it does tend to get a bit more rain than other parts but it is so beautiful and untouched.
 
                                          
We hadn’t been in 3 years and absolutely nothing had changed, it is so old and rustic and very characteristic which is probably boring for the young people that live there which there are very few of anyway these days as most of them move to Rome, it’s inhabitants seem to be on the older side and in the holidays all the returning immigrants and their families. It is the perfect place to retire as there is a very relaxed pace of life and a great little community, they even have a club for the older “gentlemen” where they play billiards etc and all stand outside all day chatting or watching a foot path being fixed,  oh to have the time to stand around watching builders at work:)

There isn’t a huge social scene there at night as there are only a couple of local bars to have an aperitif or a couple of beers during the day and it is soooooo cheap, €3 for 2 Peroni and €5 for a bottle of local house wine. I even photographed the receipt to prove it:)

The FIL enjoys himself while he is there and who are we to say no to a couple of proseco at 11.30 in the morning:) God I love aperitivo and the free nibbles “stuzzichini”, I’m sorry but it beats a pint of Guinness and a packet of dry roasted any day!!;)

There are a lot of emigrants like the FIL who return on a regular basis from all over the world and probably most Italian fish and chip shops in Ireland are owned by Italians from this area. One of the FIL’s friend’s has been very successful and has a huge architect company based in Rome which designs all the Armani stores and Italian banks etc. Bru’s cousin Pasquale is working for him and is currently in China as project manager for 2 Armani shops and 2 Armani cafes!! It is this friend who owns the Ferrari pictured in my last post, as successful as he is he is one of the nicest guys you could meet. He gave us the keys to the Ferrari and we had a look around inside and took a few photos much to the amusement of the locals, “tourists” I could hear them thinking but hey I’ve never even seen a Ferrari in Ireland and to maintain Bru’s rep I took all the pics, they all think I’m from Sweden anyway:)!!

The same guy has his own wine “cantina” where he stores his wine collection and opens it to the public during the wine festival in August. This is quite common in Italy, I spoke about the wine festival we went to a couple of years back where we visited about 35 cantina and had a couple of glasses in each one which resulted in a very sore head the next day:)

I love the pace of life in Italy, everything is centred around food, cappuccino and cornetti at the bar in the morning, an aperitivo before lunch, a long lunch, a bit of shopping, an aperitivo before dinner, a big dinner and then a digestif and a passigiatta - pure heaven!!! The princess loved it there even though she wasn’t too happy with everyone trying to kiss her all the time “bacioni”, even the other babies kiss each other but she still has too much Irish in her which will have to be beaten out of her;) They even made her “babychino” at the bar every morning - an espresso cup with the froth of the milk and when she’s finished with that her spoon goes into mine, she’s a bit addicted to coffee tbh, she kept trying to stick a spoon into every one’s espresso and of course they were all letting her as they thought it was so cute, it hasn’t been so cute every morning since we came back and she has decided it’s time to move on to cappuccino and “babychino” is only for babies not 16 month olds:)

Ciao!!

p.s. thank god I don’t go to Italy that often because all this photo uploading is driving me crazy!!!:)

this is the casa:

this is the view from the casa:

we ate lots of local rustic food:

helped digest it with lots of this;)

we took lots of passegiatta:

oh and we rented a car but they were all out of Fiat Punto;)

lots of detailed posts to come but the bags are still unpacked, the child hasn’t been washed in days and there is still a half bottle of home-made limoncello to be drank so you’ll just have to wait;)

Ciao!!