Back from nowhere

(Aileen)

It’s been almost 3 whole weeks since my last blog. In my defence, I claim the following:

1. The last 2 weeks of July were plagued with day after day of incessant, flood-inducing torrents of rain. It rained. Then it rained some more. Then it rained even more. Middle England flooded, thousands of homes were affected, hundreds of thousands lost power, water and other basic utilities. News channels and newspapers covered nothing more than the latest on the rain and floods. July, as were June and May before it, was declared the wettest July on recorded history. With the constant grey skies and gloom-and-doom weather forecasts, it was hard to get excited about anything really.

2. Work has turned into the energy-zapping, brain-deadening, all consuming kind of work. A sorry excuse I know. But day after day in gloomy Worthing, with constant pressure from work, nights spent in a small uncomfortable hotel room, left me uninspired and unchatty.

So there you go - my excuses.

The sun finally reappeared this week, and today is absolutely gorgeous. Cloud-free skies. Temperatures hovering in the low 80s (farenheight of course). We stocked up this morning on picnic and BBQ supplies and have headed to the park across the street for a good heavy dose of Vit D.

We haven’t been in complete hiding though the last 3 weeks. We watched a Keane concert one weekend at the O2 millennium dome. We’d never been to the millennium dome before, and we were pleasantly surprised at what a great concert venue it made. It only took the British government 7 years to figure out what to do with the place after the Year 2000 celebrations. After years of languishing in true white-elephant-why-did-we-build-it-again style, this year they turned it into a concert venue, surrounded by a bunch of restaurants, bars, clubs. Keane were in good form (I think they were filming for a DVD), and we had tickets in the standing area and got to stand quite close to the stage.

Some pics from the O2 (L-R): Keane, O2 beach, the Smalls


Ed’s also been on quite the shopping spree. Our insurance claim for the theft in May finally came through. So Ed’s been quite preoccupied with putting together our new entertainment hub. Instead of buying a new DVD player and another home PC/Mac, we bought a Mac mini and hooked it up to our new TV. It’s quite impressive really. We’ve already spent many an hour perusing through iTunes for music videos which we can very easily download and then immediately watch on our boy-toy TV. Oh, and he’s also got a brand new set of tools – screwdrivers, power drill and the like. Lucky lad.

I haven’t gone handbag shopping yet. I’m still in the careful and lengthy selection process a.k.a perusing through Net-a-porter.com and eluxury.com for ideas. Still haven’t decided what to get, so am taking my time relishing the selection process and just happy in the thought that when I do finally decide what to get, I just need to go and get it – no saving required, a guilt-free pleasure. Yum.

Some recent pics (L-R): Today's cloud-free skies, recent meal of pork adobo, pork chop dinner

Welcome to Northcote Road

(Aileen)
Northcote Rd lies about ¼ mile due west of our flat, is about ½ mile long, and is a street we frequent almost ritualitisically every time we happen to be in town. I’ve mentioned it in some of my previous blogs, and thought it deserved a proper introduction.

Northcote Rd is the type of street that defines a neighbourhood. When we bought our flat, one of the factors we considered was it’s proximity to the said road. The road is quite modest, around 10 blocks long. But along the street, about 6 of 10 blocks are lined with small food stalls selling a variety of goods and a series of small food shops that are true treasures of the neighbourhood. On a typical Saturday morning, you might find us at one of the following stops:

Stop 1 – Veggie stand.
Manned by 2 lovely ladies and occasionally, one of their grumbling (but still sweet) sons (?). Offers a wide variety of vegetables. Ed loves the French salad greens. I love the wild mushrooms (available only during mushroom season) they keep tucked away in one of the back shelves. When I ask to buy some, they never fail to look at me incredulously with raised eyebrow and say “Are you sure? They’re £30 a kilo”. To which I reply “Yes, that’s fine”. The handful I get never exceeds £4 or £5 (for mushrooms are feather light!). And the exchange is surely to be repeated the following week when I get another handful of wild mushrooms.

Stop 2 – Dove butcher.
Established in 1879, Dove butcher has for generations been, and hopefully will continue to be a mainstay of Northcote Rd. They are purveyors of fine organic British meat – Scotch beef, Welsh lamb, and English pork. All marvellously tasty stuff. If you live in the neighbourhood and frequent Dove's enough, you may be bestowed the honour of being addressed as “Guvner” by one of the butchers (a title Ed aspires to I might add).


Stop 3 – Bread stand. The stand offers a cornucopia of breads, pastries and other baked goodies. We usually pick up a French baguette to eat with the cheese we pick up at Hamish Johnston, which quite conveniently sits right opposite the bread stand.


Stop 4 – Hamish Johnston cheese shop. Since moving to Europe we’ve developed the taste for cheese, especially the stinky, foot smelling soft variety. Much of this new found obsession with cheese can be directly attributed to Hamish Johnston, which always has on offer a myriad of cheese options – cows cheese, goats cheese, buffalo cheese, French, Italian, Swiss, English, Irish, some with such far fetched names as “Stinking Bishop” or “Head of the Hundreds”. On a typical Saturday we’ll usually get a good sized chunk of Brie de Meaux (our staple cheese), plus some other soft variety, and a hard variety. Also on offer are great olives, plus other gourmet staples such as olive oil.

Stop 5 – Fishmonger. Right next to Hamish Johnston, on a cross street sits our fishmonger. This corner is their new home, having had to vacate their original shop dwelling several blocks north about 5 months ago. In the age of uber-supermarkets, fishmongers (along with butchers) are a dying breed, so we feel extremely fortunate to have our fishmonger still.

Stop 6 – Philglas & Swiggot. Our last stop on a Northcote shopping trip is always Philglas & Swiggot, an independent wine merchant. It’s the kind of wine shop I love – with a very personal selection of wines, small selections of each wine variety, but a wide selection of varieties. Each wine region is well represented. Many of the wines on the shelves will have tasting notes, which makes it enjoyable to peruse the shelves (I can spend hours in here) and fun to try new wines.

The picture is not all rosy though. As with many streets with any semblance of character in the UK, Northcote Road is under constant threat of becoming a cookie cutter street overridden with chain establishments. As property prices continue to rise in the neighbourhood (in large part probably due to the demand to be near Northcote Rd), merchants on the street increasingly face being priced out of the market and unable to survive the rents. Recent closures are the fishmonger (who now operates out of a portable stand) and Kelly’s Organic Food Store. Since we moved in, we’ve also heard about Hamish Johnston being under threat of closure due to high rents. It’s a terrible vicious cycle. Demand to be near the road and its establishment leads to increased property prices. In turn, increased property prices lead to closures of the very type of establishment people paid to be near. If things continue to progress in this way, in many respects, its farewell we should be bidding from Northcote Rd rather than welcome.

Pic: Fat Face (an unspiring chain clothing store which sits where our fishmonger used to be) - be sure to hiss as you walk by!

Quick callout

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Up for air

(Aileen)
After several weeks of grey skies and pouring rain, the sun finally came up for air, and it’s timing could not have been any better for it was quite the event filled weekend in and around London. We were quite spoilt for choice. On this weekend alone there were the Wimbledon finals, Stage 1 of the Tour De France (first ever time in the UK), British Grand Prix, the Live Earth concert, plus I’m sure a whole bunch of other events.

On Saturday, we opted to take our newly acquired picnic basket on it’s inaugural event out, plus a dose of Shakespeare in Regent’s Open Air Theatre. We started Saturday morning bright and early with an hour of tennis. From the tennis courts we walked over to Northcote Rd to pick up supplies for the weekend. From there it was back to the flat to pop the wine in the freezer for a quick chill, pack all the picnic goodies, check that tube was up and running, a quick shower, and then we were off.

It was our first visit to Regent’s Park and we were pleasantly surprised. It was quite beautiful in that manicured-English-garden kind of way, with a rose garden, and other little manicured sections throughout. We found a nice little open space of green near the theatre to plunck down and tuck in some cheese, salami, olives and wine.

Fifteen minutes before the show we lazily strolled over to the open air theatre. It was a perfect day for an outdoor show. Not too hot, not too cold. Blue skies and sunshine, but with enough fluffly clouds to offer intermittent respite from the UV rays.

One thing we really appreciate about the UK (and Europe in general) is it’s liberal approach to the consumption of alcohol outdoors. In NYC one can get arrested for consuming alcohol outdoors, which is extremely unfair for a well-behaved majority of people who would appreciate nothing more that to have a sip of refreshing wine in the sunshine. We had 1 bottle of French rose with our picnic. During the show we had our second bottle, a tasty Riesling.

So picture this – an open air theatre surrounded by lush gardens, a bottle of Riesling, a great performance of A Midsummer Night’s dream, sunshine - Aaaahh. Dreamy indeed.

Note: It is worth stating at this point that we were extremely pleased with our picnic bag’s performance. Food stayed fresh, wine stayed cool, all equipment conveniently tucked away in their specialised compartments. Thank you John Lewis.

After the show we headed home for a balcony BBQ (shrimp, squid and pork sausages from our fave butcher Dove), the first jug of Pimms for the year (for me) and some apple cider for Ed. We wiled time away on the balcony eating, drinking and listening to the iPod until the sun went down.

Some pics from the day (L-R): Roses in Regent's Park, Ed with picnic munchies, me, Trusty picnic "basket", Fairies, Ed with jug of Pimms

For complete pics of our day in Regent's park, visit the album by clicking on "England - Regent's Park" on the 2007 Smallzone travel page.

On Sunday we woke up with small alcohol-induced headaches, and much too late for our planned catch-Tour-de-France-at-London-Tower Bridge activity. With the assistance of some Tylenol, a strong cup of coffee and 3 slices each of white toast, I rallied the energy to head out, hope on 2 trains to Tunbridge Wells, a Kent town, and one that happened to be on the Tour de France route. I arrived to find a huge crowd gathered, and 10 minutes to spare before the cyclists came zipping by in a 45-second blur. Ed had wisely stayed in the hood and had a lazy day at Starbucks. We later met up at Le Bouchon (our friendly neighbourhood French brassiere) for a couple pints of beer to watch Federer and Nadal duke it out, before heading back home to enjoy a steak dinner prepared by Ed, accompanied by a Rosso di Montalcino we had picked up in Tuscany. A scrumptious end to the weekend.

Tour de France zipping by Tunbridge Wells:

Miscellaneous affairs

(Aileen)

Where of where did the summer go? It's been raining much too often for July. I heard on the radio on the way in to work that June registered as the wettest June ever. Ho hum. Italy seems like eons ago.

On the good news front, we finally got some movement on our insurance claims (almost 2 mo after the unfortunate event):
1. The contractor imbeciles scheduled carpentry work for Monday. So I worked from home on Monday. So of course they did not come on Monday. Ho hum.
2. They rescheduled for Wednesday. So Ed works from home on Wed. So they arrive around 11 and bring the wrong size doors. Ho hum. Ed's impression is that they were truly imbecilic (and aren’t cheap), and that any good carpenter would probably make a fortune here in the UK (in case anyone’s looking out for career alternatives)
3. Joy of joys - they come back next Tuesday to complete the work. Ed will get to spend more quality time with them. Ho hum.
4. Content insurance provided an update and our claim has been approved. We’re now having to choose between getting replacement items or cash. After some consideration we’re leaning towards cash. Shopping!

After a nice but short escape from reality a.k.a Italy, Ed and I are back to the daily grind. I’ve been down in Worthing all this week (except Monday – see above) working 12 hour days, staying at a hotel with a pepto-bismal pink coloured blanket (would take a pic except I left my camera at home), and eating way too much room service. Ed’s back in Woking grumbling about the suburban Starbucks employees not having a clue how to make a proper cappuccino. We spend a good portion of the day comparing how sleepy and/or hungry we are. We need to plan our next vacation. Something, anything to keep us sane.

Savoy Grill with the Eigners

Marc and Jaime were in town over the weekend, so we went out to dinner at Savoy Grill. It was great seeing them. There was much drinking, eating and catching up to be done, as the pics below illustrate (Ed and I spent Sunday recovering on the couch):

(L-R): The Smalls, Messing around with cheese guy; The Eigners, Starter 1, Starter 2, Main 1, Main 2, Main 3, Cheese 1, Cheese 2, Dessert
Not shown: Copious amounts of alcohol


To view complete pics, visit our "Around London" album by clicking on "England- Around London" on the 2007 Travel Zone page on Smallzone.

Bellisimo! (Part 1 - Tuscany)

(Aileen)
NB. I am including a small sample of pics in the post below. Please visit our website "The Smallzone" to view the complete set of Tuscany/Cinque Terre pics, as well as pics from other trips we've taken in the past.

We’re back from 5 days of glorious Italian food, wine and sunshine.

Day 1 - Ryanair morning, Black rooster* afternoon
Taxi pick up at 3:15 a.m. (and the bastard came 5 minutes early!) Grumble. 10 minute taxi ride to Victoria Coach station to catch a 1 hour 15min bus to London Stansted Airport (a big fat lie as it can in no way be called London!). Arrive at Stansted before 5 a.m, and once again it amazes me how many other crazy people out there are willing to take a 6 a.m. flight…the airport is packed with way-too-cheery-for-5-am-people. Grumble. We are leisurely getting a Starbucks coffee when our flight status suddenly changes from “Please Wait” (no, not “Go to Gate”) to “Final Call”!!! It’s then a mad dash to the gate which feels like a mile away, a full grande coffee goes smashing to the ground, not-so-young people (us included) with suitcases are running up and down stairs, down long halls. We get to the gate and boarding has not yet started. Ryanair bastards. One of these days someone will have a heart attack or seriously injure themselves. Good morning to you too. We get on the plane and promptly fall asleep. When we awake we are in sunny Italy (Pisa to be exact) and the morning seems like a distant nightmare.

After a minor rental car blip (long lines, and for some reason we are quoted 450 euros instead of the 130 we got quoted when making the reservation), we are on our way – seeing what a Fiat Panda is made of as we pummel down the Fl-PI-LI highway on our way to the Chianti region. First stop is Castello Vicchiomaggio, a winery with a restaurant which unfortunately cannot serve us as they are busy entertaining a big bus load of tourists. Down to their wine shop we go for our first taste of Chianti Classico in Chianti, this is probably not the best idea on empty stomachs.

Back into the car in search of lunch. Two to three km later we run into Greve, one of the famous Chianti towns. We duck into one of the restaurants in their main square and proceed to enjoy one of the best meals on the trip. Bellisimo. Nothing better than a plate of perfect pasta (parpardelle with wild boar ragout for me, pasta with tomato and pecorino cheese for Ed), and some fabulous house Chianti. Yummy. Unfortunately we cannot linger though as we have our first winery appointment at 14:30.

A short 10 minute drive from Greve, we arrive at Fattoria Casaloste in Panzano, a small 17 ha. organic vineyard run by Giovanni and Emilia. Emilia shows us around. They are originally from Naples, but Giovanni’s life dream was to own a vineyard so they moved to Tuscany around 15 years ago, found a dilapidated farmhouse with a vineyard, spent 4 years fixing it up and working on their first vintage. Fast forward to today, and they now make some of the finest Chianti’s in the region, and continue to make their wines with strong personal commitment and care. It’s a family-run business with Giovanni in charge of making the wine, and Emilia doing everything else i.e. marketing, finances, winery visits in addition to taking care of the family.

Our next stop is Felsina, in Castelnuovo Berardenga. Felsina is on a completely different scale to Casaloste. The winery boasts over 300 ha of vineyards, and a stunning cellar to match. Felsina is famous for it’s commitment to producing 100% Sangiovese Chianti’s. Aside from the wine tasting, we also get a chance to sample their special olive oil line, where the same care and attention, as well as focus in single varietals goes into making the oils, and the varieties all have distinctly different flavours.

We then head to Casalore Il Libbiano, our Bed and Breakfast on the outskirts of San Gimignano. We are warmly greeted by Andrea (the proprietor), and manage to take a quick dip in the pool and admire the B&B gardens before scrumptious dinner, then a good night’s rest. It’s been a long, but fruitful day.

Some pics from Day 1 (L-R): Parparedelle pasta, Fattoria Casaloste Winery, Felsina


Haul for the day: 6 bottles red wine

*A note on the black rooster, which is the symbol of the Chianti Classico region: Legend has it that the feuding towns of Florence and Siena agreed to settle their border disputes by each setting off from their respective towns, a representative on horseback. The border would be set wherever the 2 representatives eventually met. The night before, Siennese threw a big celebration, and all ate and drank including the town’s rooster (a white rooster). The Florentines on the other hand, went to bed early, and did not feed their town rooster (a black rooster). Early the next morning, the black rooster was no longer able to take the hunger pangs and begins his crowing early. Florence’s rider therefore sets off earlier, and thus the Florence region (incl. Chianti Classico) is bigger.

Day 2 – Tuscan towns, Brunello di Montalcino

Breakfast at 8:30 and then we’re off to visit 2 Tuscan towns. The first stop in San Gimignano, with it’s distinctive skyline of towers. We climb the tallest and enjoy some great views of Tuscan countryside. Tuscany is incredibly beautiful, filled with rolling hills lined with rows of olives trees, grape vines, and of course the distinctive cypress trees. Many of the Tuscan towns are perched on hilltops.

Our next stop is Siena, one of the major Tuscan towns and forever rival to Florence (they have a long rich history of fighting) to stroll through her medieval alleyways, see the famous Piazza del Campo and her beautiful Duomo. We stop at a restaurant in one of the alleyways for a plate each of Pici, a pasta specialty of the region. Pici is essentially short, fat, spaghetti – absolutely delicious in a simple tomato sauce and a generous dousing of grated Tuscan pecorino cheese. Accompanied of course with a pichet of Chianti vino rosso. Yummmm.

Refueled and ready to go, we head south to Montalcino, home of Brunello di Montalcino, for our only winery visit of the day. Altesino is a well respected producer of Brunello di Montalcino. On arrival we are greeted by 2 big German Shephards (one of which saunters over and takes the time to “mark” our car), and 2 young American ladies manning the office on a lazy Sunday and in charge of giving the wine tours. Brunello di Montalcino has DOCG designation, just as Chianti Classico does. Both DOCGs require a predominance of the same grape i.e. the Sangiovese, however Brunello’s are famous around the world for being meatier, richer wines - the kind you hide away and forget about for a couple of years, as they become better with age. We splurge on a 2001 Riserva which we’ll hide away in the cupboard.

Next and final stop for the day is the hilltop town of Montalcino. At the pinnacle is a fort which has great views, and also happens to have an Enoteca where we share a 3 wine tasting – 1 Rosso di Montalcino (lighter, younger red wine), 1 Brunello di Montalcino, and 1 Supertuscan. We splurge on a 2001 Supertuscan, another for hiding away in the cupboard.

Some pics from Day 2 (L-R): San Gimignano, Sunflowers, Montalcino Wild Boar


Haul for the day: 3 bottles red wine, 3 packs of pasta

Day 3 – Florence, Ristorante “La Tenda Rossa”

We spend Day 3 taking in the sights of Florence. Florence is like a big open air museum, with works of art all over the place. The Medici family (rulers of Florence for many many years) were great patrons of the arts and supported Renaissance artists such as Boticelli, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.

No visit to Florence is complete without a visit to the city’s Duomo, and boy what a Duomo it is. It’s massive. We climbed the 483 steps to the top of Brunelleschi’s famous dome for some close up views of the dome’s frescos, and some amazing views of Florence and surrounding country side.

Once back down, a short stroll south takes you to Piazza della Signoria, essentially an outdoor sculpture gallery. Cooly looking over the hordes of tourists is Michelangelo’s David (or at least a replica, the original now sits in the Accademia), Cellini’s bronze statue of Perseus, Giambologna’s almost moving Rape of the Sabine Women, and Ammannati’s Neptune fountain. The Uffizzi (one of Florence’s main museums and a treasure trove of Renaissance art) was unfortunately closed for the day, so we instead took a short stroll to Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s oldest bridge, with a jimble jamble of jewelry shops lining the bridge’s walls.

Once we’d had our fill of Florence sights, we drove down to San Casciano in Val de Pesa to check into Villa I Barronci, another B&B to be closer to Ristorante “La Tenda Rossa”, one of the most famous restaurants in Italy, where we had a reservation for dinner. With the expectation of getting hammered, we had previously arranged for the B&B to drive us to the restaurant and the restaurant to drive us back to the B&B. This arrangement worked out quite well, since as expected, we had more than the recommended daily allowance of alcohol with our meal. We opted for the tasting menu. So we each had :
• A glass of prosseco to accompany our amuse bouche.
• A glass of San Gimignano white accompanied starter 1 (3 preparations of a strange crustacean creature), and starter 2 (fresh spaghetti and seafood in a pesto sauce).
• Another glass of white (not sure what but a “meatier” white) accompanied main course 1 (chicken ravioli with crisp bacon).
• A hearty supertuscan red (and in the case of Ed, 2 glasses) accompanied main course 2 (pigeon).
• Pre-dessert was a scoop of sage sorbet (initially strange but actually very good). A glass of Vin Santo (Italian dessert wine) accompanied the main desert.

All very good food and wine, but when compared to the glorious food and wine orgy at Cordeillan Bages in Bordeaux last year, we were sad to say, a little disappointed, but it was nevertheless a great way to end our 3 days in Tuscany.

Some pics from Day 3 (L-R): Duomo, View of Campagnile from Dome, David


Haul for the day: 1 wild boar salami