olive oil bread.

Ariel and Hannah bake bread all the time. After baking so many batches of biscotti, I decided that it's about time to try bread. I've always wanted to try, but I guess I never really got around to it.

So I tackled olive oil bread. On the farm, Maria and I made fives loaves together, so I knew what the dough should look like...she bakes bread all the time, so she didn't need to use a recipe. Which is great for me, really.

Pictured here, is my attempt.




It was fairly good! I think another 10 minutes in the oven would've made it pretty delicious. Because of the olive oil, it's kind of thick, I think. It probably could've used more salt. More bread-related updates to come...I haven't had a loaf that's good enough to call it a completely success yet.

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spring break food part 2: italy (pescosolido).

After Paris, I flew to Italy. I got in late to Pisa airport, so I took a bus to Firenze and stayed with my friend Tori. I left relatively early the next morning for Rome, so I didn't really spend too much time with her (we caught up at dinner when I went back, to be discussed in the upcoming post).

On the way to the train station the next morning, I stopped by my dear old Il Forno bakery and the Mercato Centrale (daily fresh food market) to grab some breakfast. I ate my two bite-sized pastries, one sfoglie (my absolute favorite, although I like them without chocolate), and giant apple on the train. When I tasted the olive oil in the two little guys, I definitely felt some gastronomical nostalgia (why does that sound like a disease?).




So once I got to Rome, I took the metro to Anagnina and then hopped on a bus that took me to Sora (2 hours). Why? Well, I decided that since I was way too lazy to plan 3 weeks of spring break travels in Europe (woah, spoiled much? geez), I'd camp out in one place for a while. I perused www.workaway.info (kind of like wwoofing) and found an agriturismo in Pescosolido (total countryside, next to the Abruzzi National Park) that was willing to take me for 10 nights. In return for room and board, I'd have to work for 4.5 hours each day. Most of the work I did was farm-related (feeding, digging, planting, gathering), but there was also plenty of cleaning and dish washing to be done. Washing dishes after a meal for 18 is surprisingly not that terrible.

Maria did all the cooking. Her food was simple but very delicious and filling! I definitely took mental notes on everything I ate, and since then have tried my own variations. I didn't take too many photos, but here are some of my favorite things:

For breakfast, the volunteers got bread (that Maria baked) and jam/marmalade/jelly. Sometimes Maria made her own, and this one was legitimately the best jam of my life. I asked her what was in it, and she said pumpkin and sugar. That's it.


Here's the bread that Maria makes. I helped her make it once; I think we made 5 loaves. Here's a pitcher of the wine that Guiseppe (Maria's husband, 65, only speaks Italian...I mostly worked with him doing farm things) makes every year. It kind of tasted like a more fruity cider (as in, the alcoholic kind).



He also makes olive oil, from the olives in the groves. It had a VERY strong olive oil taste and was already slightly salty. It complimented the ricotta cheese that Maria would always make from the goats milk that I would bring in every morning from the barn (sounds romantic, doesn't it?).



Here's Giuseppe's olive oil with sprigs of Sicilian basil. I swear, I'm doing this at home. Next to it is a jar of peperoncino aka hot pepper, a favorite of Giuseppe's. He always stressed that everything he made was biologico and had no chemicals.



Aaaand the final photo? The baby goat (yes, from the farm) that the family ate for Easter, next to the fire it was roasted on.




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