100% Natural

There are many claims made for olive oil. From its good for your skin because of its high levels of vitamin e or its anti-inflammatory properties or its help in reducing cholesterol levels.

Maybe one of the reasons for this is that it is a very natural product. Nothing is added and nothing is taken away. When you buy a bottle of olive oil that is all there is in the bottle - no additives, no preservatives nothing more.

Also when olives are pressed the process is clean. The fruit is crushed and then water added and then the mash is spun at great speed to separate the oil from the pulp residue and then finally the water naturally separates from the oil.

Drooping, sagging and getting heavier

The olives are slowly getting bigger and their weight is causing the branches of the trees to droop down as you can see here. By the time we come to pick the trees are quite burdened and the branches spring back upright once you have removed all the fruit.

Market day

Yesterday was the monthly farmer's market in Trevi. Casa Margherita took a stall as normal selling it's extra virgin olive oil. The market was quite quiet with people preferring to enjoy the weather elsewhere.

One of the other stallholders was selling these garlic bunches for €5 which give your kitchen at bit of bellezza.

Another vendor sells pulses and various types of flour - chick pea, chestnut, farro, corn, potato to but name them all.

These different types exist from necessity. If you didn't have wheat to make flour then you couldn't afford to buy and so needed to make the best of what you did have. Needs must ....

We like the farro as it helps make a very moorish onion bhaji.

Nocturnal noises off

The hills are alive.....with nocturnal activity. Our Westie, Winnie, loves the evenings now as the air is full great scents and smells and she can happily spend an hour or so on our doorstep - as seen here - drinking in the night air. Occasionally she will run off barking like mad or more infrequently, but more worryingly for us, is when she darts off silently. Or as silently as a slightly rotund Westie can be.

The cause in part of the nocturnal noises will be wild boar (chingiale) and also porcupines. We see evidence of their digging in the grove and can no longer have bulbs in the garden as they all get dug up and eaten.

The annual visit

The grove below our house is owned by Avvocato Finocchi who lives and works in Spoleto but spend the greater part of August in his summer house in Trevi.

Every year he comes up with Alveiro who tends them on his behalf to see what the harvest prospects are. I also work with Alveiro when pruning my trees as he has spent his life working the land and so it is good to tap into his knowledge.

They make a strange couple Alveiro and the Avvocato but it is good that he sees it as important to look after the olives rather than just abandon them as others have done around us.

Pizza pizza

The best pizzeria in Trevi has re-opened its doors again after a refurbishment - La Casareccia. We will eat outdoors in the main Piazza and have a pizza with a thin thin crust straight from the oven and not a hint of pineapple to be seen on the menu. Washed down with a bit of their decent house white and then on to listen to a concert.

Il Chingiale

I love this monoprint that Rachel has done of the Italian wild boar - Il Chingiale.

We saw them quite close to the house very late at night one time but since then the sightings have been rare and from afar. Which is probably actually good news.

Anyway, a New Yorker got in contact with rachel the other day to ask if he could use the image on a limited number of bottles of wine he is producing for friends later this year. Rachel said yes of course - as long a we get a bottle as well! Check more image out at www.rkwilliams.com