Weekend happenings

As the weather gets gloomier the festivals get heartier...

In Trieste Tra un Mese è Natale (a month until Christmas) a fair of Christmas gifts (and I assume tasty treats) has been on since the 21st and finishes on Sunday. The only handy thing I got from the website was the location: da Piazza Cavana a Piazza Hortis. Lots of towns are having similar festivals at the moment; Turismo FVG and Giro FVG have more info about these.

Chocofest (in Gradisca D'isonzo) starts tonight and continues over the weekend celebrating all things chocolate, coffee and cream.

Purcit in Staiare is a festival to celebrate pig slaughtering by eating tasty piggy products. Blatantly using the information given here, purcit is the name given to Friulian pork and staiare is an ancient Friulian dance. So Purcit in Staiare is a party to relive the joyous events following the late November slaughtering of the home pig in the Friulian villages and the subsequent preparation of porky products that supplied the villagers with their protein and fat needs for the year. There is a free bus from Trieste to the festival on Sunday so you can eat, drink and be happy.

Aquiliea and really old stuff!

We finally made it to Aquileia last weekend and it was well worth the visit. We took the bus from the Cervignano train station and got off at the first stop in Aquileia to go to the Paleocristiano Museum (free entry). I can recommend the bar opposite the bus stop for coffee and pastries. Aquiliea was first established in about 183 B.C. and was a very important city up to the end of the 4th century AD. In 452 A.D Attila the Hun completely destroyed the town and, understandably, everyone ran for the lagoons (starting the establishment of Venice and Grado). The Paleocristiano Museum is built over the ruins of a 5th century basilica that was later used as a monastery. As well as the ruins, the museum has some marvellous examples of 4-5 century mosaics and stonework, the patterns and pictures used in this time period are a lot different from what we've seen in other churches; geometrical patterns (very Celtic looking) and animals and plants were used a lot.

Floor mosaics in the basilica; I particularly liked the squids in the bottom left photo.

We walked from the museum along the Porto Fluviale, this is a lovely tree lined path between the ruins of the river port that joined Aquileia to the sea. Our walk was accompanied by the soft sound of gunfire in the distance...I think it's goose hunting season (yee-haw). The Porto Fluviale ends at the rather impressive basilica. The basilica was built on the site of an early church and contains floor mosaics dating from the 4th century and frescos from the 4th to the 12th centuries. The Crypt of Frescos in the basilica. The frescos tell the story of Saint Hermagoras and the chopping off of his head. Against one wall of the crypt are boxes containing the bones of creepy dead people.

Connected to the basilica is a 5th century baptistery, it seems to be around this time that baptism for the young started to become the norm. In the 4th century, apart from emergency baptism of children, people seemed to hold out from baptism until they were getting on in years. This way they could do all the naughty things in their youth and then have the slate wiped clean.

The fifth century baptistery; seems rather pagan to me...standing stones, hexagons...

The Archaeological Museum (€4 entry + a DVD in English or German) is packed full of old bits and pieces and is one of the few museums we've been to where the staff actually seem eager for you to come in. A building in the garden contains the remains of a Roman boat that was found near Monfalcone. Aquileia itself is a living museum with ruins dating back to 1 A.D., and active dig sites dotted all over the place so just wandering around is an experience in itself.

Autumn and the grumps

Autumn seems to be well and truly here, it's cold and we have been living in a cloud (really,  the dew point has been verrry close to the temperature). On the plus side the leaves are all turning delightful shades of yellow, orange and red (and then a dead brown looking colour). This colour change gives me a thrill because in Australia most of our trees are evergreen.

The weather has ruined our weekend plans a few times, making for grumpy people, because we tend to like tramping around the outdoors.  I made a Grumpasaurus in appropriate Autumn colours to laugh at when this happens. Marito particularly likes the shoes. I shouldn't complain about the weather too much, my home state in Australia is currently roasting and some areas have a catastrophic fire warning, this warning basically means pack your bags and go...yesterday. The warning system was recently upgraded to include the catastrophic warning level following the fallout from the Black Saturday fires in Victoria.

We're going to try to go to Aquileia this weekend - last weekend was a washout - and then maybe into the Val Rosandra for more Autumn goodness.

Fiera del Dolce Tipico

Fiera del Dolce Tipico (fair of the typical sweet) started in Trieste yesterday and continues to Sunday evening. We had a look-see this evening, there are so many sweet treats we didn't know where to start...or where to finish! We're off to Aquileia tomorrow to play among very old stuff, then I think we'll be back at the fiera for dinner supplies...I count strudel di mele as a dinner option.

All Triestini get yourselves down to Piazza Sant'Antonio (the piazza at the end of the canal) presto!

Lard!

How things have changed...this morning I had to double back in the supermarket because I had forgotten to get some pancetta. For those not in the know, pancetta is cured pork belly, this site may help to explain http://www.pancetta.org/.

Pancetta is mostly lard (lard, lard, lard, lard) with a bit of meat, some salt and sometimes some other tasty peppers or spices. Coming from a country currently paranoid with the consumption of saturated fat I always have a little giggle when buying pancetta...but it is tasty. We're using it to make a little roasted chicken dish. Using very thin slices of pancetta, the recipe is thus: put some pancetta on the bottom of the dish, put the chicken fillets on top, put some more pancetta on top of the chicken, making sure all the chicken is covered so the lardy goodness will protect the (skinless) chicken from burning. Surround with parboiled tatties, then bung it in the oven. Serve with veggies. Yummy!

Once more all together now: "lard". Oh, and since coming to Italy and including such things in our diet, Marito has lost over 20 kilos, go home cooking!

Festa della Zucca

On Sunday we walked about 5 km south of Cervignano to the small village San Martino for the Festa della Zucca (festival of the pumpkin). The Italians do love a good food festival and I find the festivals are handy for knowing what veggies are in season (bring on pumpkin soup). As well as generally celebrating pumpkins, there was a re-enacted wedding with people dressed up as noble folk, plebs (I particularly liked one fellow who looked like Baldrick from Blackadder), knights and other sword wielding characters. There were a bunch of stalls selling something for everyone - wooden weapons, all things pagan, religious items, herbs and spices...

The pumpkin sculpting entries were a highlight, our favourites generally being the pirate based ones. There were a number of cigarette smoking pumpkins...did I mention these were made by children? Hmmm.

Anyho, to food, we started off our eating experience for the day with chocolate coated fruit skewers, this was followed by pumpkin gnocchi with butter and sage, polenta and cheese frico. Oh, and roasted chestnuts. Yummy!

Strassoldo

Yesterday we went to Strassoldo, a small village about 5 km north of Cervignano di Friuli. We walked from Cervignano train station, most of the way along a very good bike path which is part of the 175 km Alpe Adria bike route. Strassoldo has two old castles which are only open to the public twice a year. The castles were packed full of artistic folk selling their wares, a lot of it a bit fussy for my tastes, more suited to nonni I think. We had a bit of a disappointing lunch but the day was saved when we later discovered frittelle di mele. These are basically apple circles that are covered in batter, deep fried and then coated in icing sugar, brilliantly tasty and warming on a cold day.

FSM nella casa!

With the arrival of cooler weather in Trieste I was inspired to finish off my Flying Spaghetti Monster gloves so I can work on my computer without my hand freezing. Of course, the only possible option for dinner last night was spaghetti! Now, I can go forth and do science with his noodliness close at hand...

Cavalli e Profumo di Mosto

Before and after...

We passed a lovely Saturday at the Cavalli e Profumo di Mosto festival last weekend. The festival was in Medeazza, a tiny little village a sneeze away from the border with Slovenia. Since we couldn't get our hands on a pair of horses to join the horse excursions we went on a walking excursion instead. The walk rambled though the forest into Slovenia and back passing through wine-making regions. We visited a small church in Slovenia which was apparently made from a small ship, which seemed odd considering it was made of stone. On return to Medeazza we enjoyed a delightful pranzo at an ozmizza, watched over by the resident piggies.

Il Capo Matto

Looks like Berlusconi is in for some troubling times. When he became Prime Minister he changed the law so that he couldn't be prosecuted for criminal acts. Unfortunately for him, the Italian Constitutional Court doesn't agree...the law really doesn't conform to the vibe of the constitution (go The Castle). So now the bribery, tax fraud and false accounting cases against him can go ahead.

SMH

What's On....

This weekend is looking pretty exciting and full of tasty things to eat...so, putting on my tourist guide hat...

Sapori Friulani (Friulian Flavours)
Palmanova 3-4 October

Lots of food stands plus a photography exhibition, bike ride, a Friulian comedy show, and various markets.

• Program (pdf)
• GiroFVG page
  

40th Mostra Regionale della Mela (Apple Festival)
Pantiannico 1-4 October

Many apple type activities including a 10 km fun walk on Sunday and a Miss Mela competition (of course...)

• Home page
• GiroFVG page
• Program (pdf)
  

Cavalli e Profumo di Mosto
Medeazza 2-4 October

Medeazza is in the Duino-Aurisina area about 1.5 km from San Giovanni al Timavo. You can get to San Giovanni by the Trieste bus #44 or on the APT airport bus (#51). This festival looks like heaps of fun with a bunch of ozmizze open, a 3-4 hour guided walk each day (one crosses the border into Slovenia, and the other explores the trenches of WWI), "rural games" in the afternoon (I think games such as sack races...), music at night, and horse excursions (if you have a horse handy).

• Program (pdf)
• GiroFVG page
  

Stomp, stomp, stomp...in my new shoes

Sick of oweeee feet on the pebbly "beaches" around these here parts we finally succumbed to buying beach shoes. Unfortunately for me, they only had pink ones left in the women's stock, but I guess I'm lucky that they aren't covered in sequins and sparkles (both of which are wayyyy overused in women's clothing here). I feel slightly ridiculous wearing then, but maybe not as ridiculous as these fellows feel....

...actually, who am I kidding, I would love a pair of bell shoes.

Anatra and Norberta

I finished knitting Norberta a couple of weeks ago and she is now destined for a life with my nephew (if I can let her go). To be fair, I thought I should make a toy for my niece as well. Quizzing my sister I found out that she is obsessed with ducks...so Anatra was born and I spent a weekend quacking. Norberta has been spending a lot of time in the cupboard of late because we've seen a lot of these guys around the place lately, and a dragon can never be too careful.

Ham, ham, ham, ham

We went to La Festa del Prosciutto di San Daniele last week courtesy of Sam and the "Little Car that Could". San Daniele is famous for its prosciutto and with good reason...it's very tasty. As is the way with Italian festivals, since this was a festival for prosciutto that was pretty much the only item on the dinner menu. You order a serving of prosciutto and it comes with a bunch of bread sticks which you wrap the prosciutto around (bascially a ham-pop) and munch it down...best accompanied with some fine German beer.

Schengen schmengan

We found out today that Italy is suspending the Schengen Agreement (free-for-all border crossings) from 28 June 2009 to 15 July 2009 during the G8 shenanigans in the Trieste area. This means that all border crossings in and out of Italy will be manned, just like back in the day. This made me wonder if the crossing in the photo will be manned. This is one of the only border crossings from Italy that can only be done on foot.

This border crossing with Slovenia can be reached from the Val Rosandra on the Italian side. The hut is on the Slovenian side and is not in the best nick if some poor sod is going to have to camp out there for a week. On the Italian side there is a small village called Botazzo where said poor sod could get some bread and cheese for his lunch...in between checking passports...

Ferries and food

We started last weekend's food fest with coffee and croissants at a bar near the Trieste train station. We actually splashed out the extra few euro to sit down and enjoy our breakfast - normally we just stand at the bar because sitting down can inflate your bill by quite a bit at some bars. We then caught a train to Cervignano and a bus to Grado. Grado is a lagoon town that used to be an port for ships heading to the once important Aquileia, and is now all about fishing and tourism.

On our way to the beach we couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy half a kilo of cherries for 1.83 Euro (~ 3 Oz dollars, yes, that's right $3, not our first born child). The beach at Grado is very long and divided into the paying section and the free section. You can probably guess which part we chose to swim in. We still can't get past the idea of paying to visit the beach, sure you get to sit in a row of people on identical beach chairs under identical umbrellas but the benefits seem to end there. Actually, I lie, the sign above is a warning for swimming in the free beach area, the English version reads "Danger - bathing not safe for luck of lifesaving service". No that's not my typo. We're not sure if this is an observation on the success rate of the life saving service but with the water only up to belly height for at least the first 100 metres, and not a wave in site, we felt that we'd be ok.

For lunch we chose one of the many fish restaurants. I demolished a delicious plate of spaghetti con vongole (clams) - I think I could taste the sea water, they were so fresh. Marito had calamaretti fritti - these were lovely and tender and fried in a very thin batter. We washed it all down with the vino bianco della casa.

Walking around Grado after lunch, we soon found ourselves at a gelateria. I usually take the Gelato Challenge (randomly trying a favour I've never heard of or tried before) when purchasing a delcious icy treat, however this time went for the never fail option of lemon and strawberry sorbets. We caught a ferry home from Grado (this also would have been a good option to get there, had it been on any of the tourism 'How to get there' sites for Grado). Putting into Trieste, we stopped near the Pelorus - Roman Abramovich's 115 m, $US 3 million yacht, sorry one of Abramovich's yachts...note the helicoptor parked on board...


For dinner that night we made a delicious insalata caprese with ciabatta on the side. With a high yummy to effort ratio, I suggest everyone makes this salad and eats it up (tomatoes - cherry tomatoes are good, fresh buffalo mozarella, fresh basil, a good splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar)...make it now!

Green Cheese

The past few weeks have been rather busy with my mother (Madre) and sister-in-law (Cognata) visiting and literally sleeping under the kitchen table (our apartment isn't very big!). While they were here we went to the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, Skocjan Caves in Slovenia, Val Rosandra in Italy and Valence in Budapest. We also visited the airport carpark in Vienna...stupid car hire rules...

On the first weekend with our visitors, Trieste kindly put on the event Piazza Europa, a festival celebrating all things European...mostly food! We sampled pork knuckle, pastries, cheeses, salami, biscuits, more pastries, breads, strudels...so many tasty treats. Madre and Cognata found this delicious pesto cheese - delightfully tasty and green.

Weird and wonderful things

We went to the Trieste aquarium the other weekend (and randomly managed to pick a day of "liberta entrata" - yay free stuff!). The funniest animal in the aquarium was the "Jackass penguin", I think named appropriately given the ass wiggling this penguin was doing. Upstairs there is a collection of snakes; being European most of the snakes are quite civilised and harmless. The ones that will give you a decent bite are generally cowards and will slither away. Also upstairs there was an exhibition dedicated to Darwin called "Nature Anomale". Basically a whole lot of stuffed deformed animals on display - two headed sheep, one eyed rabbits, four legged chickens.

After looking at such weird and wonderful animals, I decided to buy the giant bag of stuffing to stuff Norberta and make her a real dragon. Here is Norberta working out how to attach her limbs and wings...and a little while later, giving up and getting stuck into the limoncello!

Grotta Gigante

A few weekends ago we visited the aptly named Grotta Gigante (Giant Cave) in the also aptly named Borgo Grotta Gigante (Village of the Giant Cave). This is the largest tourist cave in the world and with a volume of 600 thousand cubic meters it can fit lots of other large things inside, for example St Peter's Basilica, or 240 Olympic size swimming pools or about 42 billion chocolate truffles...mmm...chocolate.

The cave takes your breath away both because of the beautiful and odd shapes and the shear size. However, you can't help but notice the damage that humans have caused. A lot of the surfaces are covered with soot from the acetylene lamps and candles that were used in the past to light up the cave. Those have been replaced by electric lights, however the electric lights prompt algae growth on the rocks. You really can't win unless the cave is closed to visitors, then the cave wins and we can't be having that.

Tours run every half hour or so and there is a warning before you go in that there are 500 steps down...and 500 back up again. I think a few people on our tour would have done well to heed this sign. The guide gives the tour in Italian but also has tapes in other languages which they play after each spiel. The English tape was a very English sounding lady, quite amusing.

There are a number of experiments run in the cave, mainly to do with the geosciences. One consists of two pendulums which are suspended from the ceiling of the cave and hang to the floor (~ 100 m). These are used to measure very small movements of the Earth's crust and can even pick up the tiny tidal motions of the Earth surface. Very cool.

Outside the cave is a little fast food place, however, despite the sign we couldn't find any bat and ball games, or insects from the gryllidae family. After visiting the cave we went to the gallery of Paulo Hrovatin. This fellow makes beautiful stone sculptures which I've never seen the likes of before, well worth a look.

Lots of cheese (and foccacia)

I just counted the number of cheeses in our fridge, six. Contrary to the name of this blog...lots of cheese for us! So, what cheeses do we have?

Treccione affumicato : treccione comes from the word treccia which means plait or braid, and affumicatio means smoked. So this is a smoked braid of...further investigation reveals that the cheese is called scamorza which is an Italian cows milk cheese (Italian cows mind you!). This cheese can be substituted for mozzarella; being a fan of smoked cheeses I quite liked this one and would like to try it on pizza.

Brie: across the border now to France...Marito can't resist a good Brie. This cheese is named after a town in France and doesn't necessary have to be made from French cow's milk.

How does one milk a sheep?

Pecorino Pepato Frecso: a fresh sheep's cheese with peppercorns. I wasn't a huge fan of this cheese but I would like to try the aged versions. We bought these cheeses to eat with a beautiful home made foccacia. Since being in Italy we've started making our own pizza dough, this is so very tasty and I recommend the extra effort (Jamie Oliver's dough recipe is pretty good). Foccacia is pretty much made the same way as pizza dough, but isn't rolled flat for cooking.

Ricotta: apparently not technically cheese, rather a by-product of cheese making, not bad for a by-product. We got this cheese to make tuna balls but have previously made gnocchi with ricotta, a fast alternative to potato gnocchi. As well as the usual fresh form, ricotta is available baked, salted and smoked, I'm intrigued to try these.

Mascarpone: also not technically a cheese, but a triple cream...need I say more? Yes, use it, it's good. For a few weeks Marito was under the impression that marscarpone was a healthier alternative to cream...ha!

Parmegiano regina forme: the good old parmo, always present in our kitchen (except when nasty cheese ladies have their way). We normally buy about 1/48 of a wheel, I am tempted to buy an entire wheel one day, but probably wouldn't be able to carry it home.