A new pope is elected

Congratulations to all catholics of the world. They have elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina as the new pope and he has chosen the name Francesco (Francis) - after Francis of Assisi. Bergoglio is the first pope ever to take this name.

Earlier this evening pope Francis spoke for the first time to all the people that had been waiting in St. Peters Square and he seems like a very open and nice person; really like a bit of "fresh air". Lets hope that this is really the case.

Anyway, once again congratulations - auguri con il nuovo papa!

How to increase the use of olive oil...

I told you some days ago that this autumn we made 200 + litres of olive oil. Now I have to figure out how to use as much olive oil as possible..... And I've come up with a few ideas. So today I'll share the list with you. The average Italian use approx. 25 litres of olive oil a year and I'm trying to (at least) reach that level....

1. Make a soffritto. (fry onion or garlic with carrot and celery in some olive oil and use it as a starter for further cooking, i.e salsa, soups etc . ) It makes your food taste wonderful.

2. Put some olive oil on your vegetable soup, it tastes superb

3.  Some olive oil on a piece of toast that has been rubbed with garlic and sprinkled with salt makes a wonderful bruschetta.

4. If you make fried potatoes you will definitely use a lot of oil.....

5. A tasty dessert or a little snack.... Peel and slice an orange. Sprinkle with salt (and pepper if you feel like). Poor over some olive oil and enjoy!

6. Enjoy your gelato (ice cream) with olive oil and salt.  I have to admit that I haven't tried this yet, but I will definitely give it a go when it gets warmer outside....

7. Use oil instead of butter for baking.

8. Olive oil is a wonderful make up remover. On a moist cotton ball poor some drops of olive oil and use as a "normal" make up remover. Rinse with hot water.

9. You can also use olive oil as a face cleanser. Put a few drops of oil on your fingertips and lightly massage your face. After a few minutes put a wet (and hot) washcloth on your  face and leave it for a few instances.When the cloth cools down wring it out again under hot running water and put back on your face. After a few minutes rinse your face with more hot water and pat dry. After this treatment you will have wonderful, soft skin.....

10. Mix a tablespoon of olive oil with the dog food and the fur of your dog will get soft and shiny....

11. Some olive oil poored onto a paper napkin will help you light the fire place at home....

12. If you have an old steel kitchen sink that looks a bit tired it can be polished with a few drops of olive oil.

13. Make a Meditteranean casserole.... I'll post the recipe as soon as possible......

Do you have some great tips that includes the use of olive oil? Please feel free to leave a comment. I'll be glad to hear from you.

Terremoto! (Earthquake)

Saturday evening turned out a bit different than what we had expected. At 1020 pm there was an earthquake here in the region of Lazio in the province of Frosinone, which is where I live. I was at home watching tv when suddenly I felt the ground shaking. It didn't last more than a minute, but I have to admit that it was pretty scary when it happened. The magnitude was 4.8 on the Richter scale and that is more than enough for me.... Just hoping that this is it for now - but still, I will probably be sleeping with my clothes on and "one eye open".... Just to be sure....

Update on 2012

I'm still here - in case anyone was wondering. I haven't left Italy, but I've had a loooong break ....... For several reasons. Partly because of us moving house last year. Secondly, because now that we've got a fairly large garden there's quite a lot to do. We have fruit trees such as plums, pears, peaches, figs and nespole. And apart from stuffing myself with figs (figs are one of my favourites so I felt like a kid in a candy store....) for three whole months I made jam from all the different fruits and I also made canned fruit for desserts. It was a lot of work all through the hot summer months, but the work pays off. Now I have enough jam and canned fruit to last me all year long...

And then we have olive trees.  85 of them ..... And most of them are really old  and they haven't been pruned for a long time so it looks more like a jungle than an olive grove. Which turned harvesting in to a bit of a nightmare. Luckily I didn't know that beforehand.... But now I understand why olive oil is fairly expensive. (Learning it the hard way, though....)

From 100 kilos of olives you get between 12 -18 litres of oil and as I just said, it's hard work. At least the way we had to do it. Because of the state of the threes we couldn't use the eletric, "vibrating" tool (a type of rake...) that just "shakes" the olives from the three. We had to use manual ones. In fact, the easiest way was to "comb" the branches with our hands - which of course totally destroys your hands. (Also learning the hard way...)

The threes were so difficult to harvest that it took two people (a friend of my husband and me...) more than a month to finish - and then we had been working around ten hours a day.

Anyway, we now have more than 200 litres of liquid "gold" - looking good and tasting even better. The taste is a mix between green apples and grass. And I can tell you that after you've tasted real, homemade olive oil you will never again touch the store bought oil (if you can avoid it, that is...)

So, what are we going to do with well over 200 litres of oil? Well, in addition to giving some to my in-laws we "paid" our helper with olive oil. Here they appreciate the oil more than the money.  And I don't think it will be much of a problem finishing off the rest of the oil. The average Italian uses about 25 litres of olive oil for cooking every year. And although I'm not Italian I can assure you that I'm using as much as anyone else living in this country. In addition to this I've come up with some other ways to make use of this fantastic oil. And I'll tell you how in another posting.

Last year wasn't made just of "jam and olive oil" even though it was - and will continue to be - a large part of my "new life" here in the Italian countryside. I'll be back soon with more updates. So stay tuned ;-))

Things I'm missing in Italy...

After a while of living abroad you will probably realize that there are things from your home country that you're missing in your new life. It might be stupid, but there are a few things from Norway that I really miss. Apart from family and friends, that is....

1. Long summernights when the sun "never" sets. This depends on where in Norway you are living. If you're as far north as the North Cape you have the Midnight Sun, i.e in the summer you have daylight 24/7.  In Bergen where I was living the sun sets around 2300-2330 and it gets dark around 0200AM. And then sunrise is around 0400 AM. Which means that you have only 2 hours of "dark" night. For some people this might sound like a nightmare because they don't understand how we manage to sleep when it's plain daylight outside. However, the Norwegians are used to this, and this is something I really miss. So, one year I have to go back to Norway for my summer holiday....

2. Usually when you are finished eating dinner (supper, tea) in Norway we thank whoever has prepared the food (which means that before you leave the table you say "takk for maten" to your mum, your dad or the hostess if you've been invited to dinner at a friends house. "Takk for maten" literally translates as "thank you for the food" or "grazie per il cibo" which might sound a bit strange in English/Italian - and maybe also other languages.). It might sound strange, but I feel really rude, impolite, ill-mannered when I can't express exactly what I want. I usually say "grazie", but it still doesn't feel "right".

3. Since I'm already talking of food, I can admit that I'm missing the Norwegian "brunost" (brown cheese). I guess that brunost is to Norwegians what Vegemite are to Australians.... My Norwegian family is always bringing me brunost when they come to visit, but unfortunately I finish it off too fast... A funny story (that wasn't quite as funny when it happened) is the time when they stopped me in the security check at the airport and they went through my cabin bag and almost cut it open with a knife to see what was inside.... My bag was full of brunost and it so happens that on the computer screen this cheese looked a bit like the stuff they use for making bombs...(!) You know, the "play dough" they use in films to connect the bomb.... So, what have I learnt from this? To put the brunost in the suitcase I'm going to check in....

4. Oat flakes. That is, you can buy oat flakes here (and it will cost you an arm and a leg....), but it's not the oat flakes you can use for making porridge. Here they mix it in soups (minestrone) and no matter how long you boil the stuff, it won't turn into porridge.


5. Tooth picks (!?) Of course you find toothpicks here, but they have the size of a telephone pole and is unsuitable for cleaning your teeth. They use it mostly for "stuzzichini", that is finger food....


6. Tea leaves. This is incredible I think. I've looked everywhere and I can't find ONE place that sells  loose tea leaves.( One second thought, maybe not so incredible after all, since "no one" drinks tea in this country...)


7. Brown bread/bread with cereal, nuts, seeds etc. This is something that is dearly missed. I know you can find brown bread some places here in Italy (mostly up north in the country, but also in Toscana...), but where I live there isn't ONE single place that sells brown bread. Because of this I'm making my own bread at home, but the downside of that is that the brown flour will also cost you an arm and a leg. You have to pay around 2 euros for 1 kilo of brown flour! Oh well. The good news is that LIDL has opened a supermarket not far from here and they sell self raising (brown) flour so maybe this is my "salvation"...?


8. To be able to say something funny without even thinking.. It might sound weird, but it isn't easy being funny in another language. Many times I think of something funny to say (in Norwegian), but then it isn't possible translating into Italian (it might be because of cultural differences or it might be that it just isn't funny anymore when it is translated) and other times it happens that when I've translated the phrase into Italian the moment has passed....

9. The rain from my place back in Norway. (Bergen, where it rains more than any other place in Norway....) So, every now and then I miss the "clean" feeling after a heavy shower of rain, or I miss the sound of the rain. (Nothing is like going to sleep at night when the rain is pouring down outside...) The last couple of times when it has rained here I've put on my wellies (rubber boots, stivali di gomma), my raincoat and brought the umbrella and then I've gone for a loooong walk.


10. This is really a silly one. I miss the special "broom" with a unit for "clipping on" the cleaning rag. (Which means the cleaning rag never falls off by accident when you're cleaning the floors!) In addition to being a smart device it's also long enough for me to use. Here in Italy all the brooms are just to short so I end up with backpain after cleaning... (Yes, I know. I'm complaining! I just needed to get it off my chest....)

I guess that was all for now. I just want to add - because there seems to be people that are misunderstanding what I'm writing on this blog - that I'm not writing this because I feel superior to others or that I hate Italy or the Italians. I wouldn't be living here at all if that was the case. So maybe my next blog post should talk about what I like about living here? Will do!!

And oh... Sorry for not putting in any pictures in this post. At the moment I don't have access to my own computer with all my pictures. Will add pictures later. Have a nice week end everyone!