Ms Gloria Princess Storker

They say that in any good book "or my many many words of woffell " well with no TV and not to many people to have a deep and meaningful conversation I just have words that need to be realised, so release them I will .....

So apparently you need to introduce new characters other wise your readers may get bored, we don't want that do we! 

So lets introduce Ms"Gloria Princess Storker" 

Will she add murder, mystery or a hint intrigue? Well lets leave out the murder it's a bit messy and I don't like blood, but Pete it's still early days and after 100 or so of them Sandy may very well " be tempted".  Sandy did tell me that the knife that she packed was " for cooking "and  I have seen her use it at the cooking classes, "as the knifes in Italy were clearly not going to be sharp enough for my Sandy" and she said I over packed !

So over the last week in La Marche since leaving Venice Ms Gloria Princess Storker is clearly becoming the other woman in my life and I've got to say I'm not to happy about it. Its weird but Sandy seams to be more than fine with it. She said she is quite enjoying the little chats, the sound of another English speaking person. What are you saying, I talk to much! Me never, for that matter it was nice to start with, but lately she is so demanding and when she has something set in her mind so just won't give up.

 The other day we went out without her, I'd had had enough so while Ms Gloria was still sleeping, we were off and she was left confined to the villa.  I had the car and as it was about 15 km back into Piobbico our little village and as the roads were so wet and full of pot holes, Ms Gloria was house bound, I did leave a 1/2 a pot of amazing Italian coffee for her. I have been so enjoying my coffee every morning, it's my own little ritual, boil some milk on the gas top and get out my little 1 potter fill it with fresh ground Italian coffee and set it on the other burner and with in moments the smell of fresh brewed coffee fills the villa I open the old timber shutter doors head outside sit and admire the mountains and my Italian day has begun again, bliss.

I was over Ms Gloria's constant nagging and I could see Sandy was also thinking by this time she had stepped over the line and was becoming a bit of a pain also. Sandy and I escaped for our last day in Piobbico, just the 2 of us into Piobbico for another attempt to get a hot chocolate at our new Bar di Corso in the village.  What.... Am I speaking another language..... I have my "Easy Italian, LearnTo Speak In Just 12 Weeks " book with me and it does even have pictures, some days I feel like I'm 3 with my little picture book and the english words under it followed with the translation into Italian, but this still doesn't always help so there has to be a bit of miming and hand gestures and we eventually we may get there, but that 's 1/2 the fun trying !

Well Pete clearly " you are talking another language " or we would be having hot chocolate with milk while we sit in the bar with the thunder storm happening around us, the sound of thunder in the mountains is so loud as it echos through the valley , and not just a hot mouse in the bottom of a mug with some dipping biscuits  and a spoon. Today we crack it and we get 2 hot chocolates and they are great. Mind you I did like the hot mouse it was so thick and the little bicky

were yum.

So Piobbico is a little town 300 km south of Venice and has a population of about 2000 people and loads of them go to the Bar di Corso that we have called our local for our week in Piobbico. As we are off the tourist track inland into the mountains 50 km west from the Adriatic Ocean and about 1 hour to get here as the roads are slow and lots of curves and it has been so lovely the quiet country drives around the La Marche farming area. The farm here are mainly smaller fields in amongst the forrest woods, an acer of alfa here a small plot of veggies there. It is what they can fit and where there is a clear spot to grow something. On some of the hills there is wheat and it is beautiful how its sways in the heavy spring breeze, one could sit for hours watching the wheat dance in the breeze, it's still green, heavy with grain waiting for the heat of summer to dry. 

As for the soil here it is light grey and in clods the size of golf to tennis balls and looks to have a big clay content, can't see much organic matter as yet in the soil either, but it must be rich in minerals as and the veggies seam to be doing fine. At La Tavola they have tomatoes in as the snow only left 1 month ago and Jason planted several styles of tomatoes. Some for the table and some to bottle at the end of summer to get them through the winter and spring of the next year.

Jason cuts the tomatoes in 1/4 and scoops out the seeds and wet pulp ( save that for a sauce ) pops them in jars or in preserve vacolas bottles.

From a cold start bring to boil for 8 mins for a small jars and 15 mins for the larger. They will keep for 3 years, use no salt or oil and do not peel just tomatoes. You could flavour at this stage with aromatic or garlic which would make a great sauce straight on to pasta but with no flavoured it leaves your options open in the kitchen.

So yesterday 10am when we left La Marcha and our week at Jason's cooking school we started for even more mountainous area heading up to the east of the plains of the Tuscany region where Florence is the main city. Eventually into the Emilia Romagna area where  Bologna, Modena and Parma also on the plains are the main cities and of course the home of bolognese  sauce yum yum.

This area is the traditional area for the production of balsamic vinegar and Parmesan cheese for the next faze of our italian food adventure . It is a 150km as the crow flys and as we don't have a helicopter it will be about 260km down on the ground and we are told it should only take us 3 hours by the locals if we go on the bigger roads. But we have all day lets go via the alpine national parks and enjoy the smaller back roads.

I knew we can't leave Gloria behind this time as some of her direction and information has been quite helpful, after all we did encourage her to follow us from a Australia. 

For the first month Ms Gloria was just happy to lay around and rest and she loved Roma as we were all driven around by Danielle and Marina, and the Cruise the hot days by the pool she just laid there getting a mederiterion tan and in Venice we didn't even see Ms Gloria, not sure where she went probably hooked back up with Petro the cute 28 year old Gondolier. It was not until we were due to leave Venice when Sandy said where is Ms Gloria? lets take her for a drive down south and get some wind in her hair.

This was for me when the troubles started on day one in the car and for someone that didn't have much to say prior she certainly made up for it.

As soon as the three of us  were in the car she was off talking at a hundred miles an hour giving all sorts of directions and orders, do this.... don't do that.... " Make a U turn where possible " ." You have got to be joking " ,  " Make a U turn from this side of the road, what do I look crazy " , " You have preformed an illegal move " , " We'll perhaps you have directed an illegal move " !!!! " So perform a U turn as soon as possible " , " So perform a U turn as soon as possible " be quiet ", Ms Gloria Princess Storker give me a break....... We are going to be together for another 35 days so please be patient with me, Please.