Italian for a day!

The stork dropped me in the wrong place. I was so meant to be Italian... The whole way of life makes me happy. Of course the food is fantastic, but I think it is the generous spirit, the feeling of family... and still being able to tease each other is what is so appealing (not unlike my Indo-Chinese heritage really). My dream holiday is to go on one of the Gourmet Safari's to Italy, hang out with some villagers, bottle tomatoes and zip around on a red vespa.


Monday was the best day, I had no inkling of it in the early morning but through a series of fortunate events I was Italian for a day! Mum rang just as I was about to head off to Nicky's for some serious T-shirt business.... "Tiff the Italian lady up the road just rang me and asked if we want to bottle tomatoes"! I was quickly onto Nicky describing this as a once in a lifetime opportunity and I was going to drive by and pick her up... get ready!

We entered Ana & Joe's house through the garage where we were welcomed by dozens & dozens of red ripe tomatoes... the juice started to spurt as we washed & cut them into quarters. While Ana gave us directions on how not to waste any bit of the fruit, the virtue of a sharp knife, the need to pass on traditions and marital advice, she chopped up 3/4 of the pile. Nicky, Mum & I were pretty slow, but it was hard to concentrate on the sharp knife and listen to the juicy bits of advice at the same time!

After the cutting, came the boiling... apparently this is not essential, but it makes the process of sauce making that much easier. The crusher or processor... not sure what the machine is called, but it turns the fruit pieces into pulp. This was the second best bit. There was juice spraying everywhere as we turned the handle (a bit like those organ grinders you see in the movies) as the fruit was crushed and separated from the seeds and skin. Joe had the end of what looked like a bed post for us to stuff the tomatoes down the shoot... a bit of Italian ingenuity! After an hour or so we were tired but we now had two gigantic pots of sauce... shimmery red gold.

Here I am covered in sauce processing the fruit.


Winding again:


Still winding:


Fresh basil from the garden was stuffed into the bottles ready for Joe to fill them with sauce.


I thought that the sterilizing would be done by putting the bottles into a pot and boiling them in lots of batches. Boy was I wrong! Italian ingenuity strikes again! In the backyard was an old metal drum with a wood fire underneath. In went the bottles then covered by old clothes. I thought this was a bit weird! Washing & bottling, 2 birds, 1 stone and all that! It was actually to prevent glass spraying everywhere if one of the bottles should explode!

The best bit was lunch. Ana made a gigantic pot of the sauce, fresh basil, garlic and "too much to mention" amount of olive oil. With spaghetini & Parmesan it was just bliss. Ana also insisted that we all had a glass of Annie's Lane Cab Merlot, her favorite drop! Suddenly we realised it was already three in the afternoon... the day had almost gone. We were trying to leave but weren't allowed until we had freshly brewed coffee & an amaretti biscotti.

Ana has promised us she will teach us how to make cannelloni lasagne... Can't wait to be Italian again!

I think Nicky wishes the stork dropped her in Paris! Ana told me she wished the stork dropped her in Australia! Where do you wish the stork dropped you? T