Voodoo night

We are currently in the middle of Trevi's summer music festival so tonight we are going to see Denise King and the Olivier Hutman quartet. This will be outside at Villa Fabri which has a wonderful view down the valley towards Spoleto after a geat pizza at the Casareccia. I fever you come to Trevi you must have a pizza here . They are great.

The Casa Margherita Cookbook - Cuoco

Filled with great recipes both traditional and inspired by the food of Umbria. Its full of evocative images that give the reader a real feeling of life here in Umbria and a taste of its cuisine. Avaliable at www.casa-margherita.com for only €10.00 and throughout Umbria.

It's passata time

Not quite as we intended as what were sold as being San Marzano have turned out not to be 100% SM but Cuore di Bue and another unidentifiable type. One of our neighbors had the same problem and went back to the nursery to complain!

Anyway there is passata to be made. Very simple no onion no garlic just olive oil, chopped tomatoes and salt. Bring them to the boil and then simmer away for an hour or until you have a thick tomato sauce. The bottle in sterilised bottles.

A view of Trevi this morning

These are rainclouds and not smoke. Today we have had quite a lot of rain which has been a relief to everything as it has been too hot and too dry for too long.

The scourge of southern Europe

No not Mrs Merkel in this instance but wildfires. This is smoke hanging in the valley just the other day. Nothing like as serious as those in Portugal, Spain and Greece but the first time I have seen this here.

Do I not like that

We've had a summer heatwave now for about a month with temperatures in the high 30°c. This on top of a winter where we had only about 40% of the normal rainfall means that the olives, whilst very hardy are starting to let some of the fruit go. They dry up and are dropped from the tree. Not a good sight.

The forecast has some very heavy rain forecast over the next week which may halt this process.

Don't publish in summer

Obsessing as I am about the Casa Margherita cookbook - Cuoco I finished off the ISBN application today. For those who don't know the ISBN is the bar code on the back of a book. Each country has it's own body that issues these numbers. The Italian one is closing down for holidays soon which means that any application for an ISBN received after the 25th July will not be worked on until they return on the 27th August. You relax guys take the weight off................