From Bad To Worse. Monday 21st September, 2009.

I came home armed with a small cob of salted Italian bread and a slab of salt and olive oil foccacia this morning, we enjoyed them lightly toasted, mine with sweet honey.

We arrived at the ESSO service station; about 20 minutes walk from home, by 11ish. We weren’t surprised our hire car wasn’t there as Claudia had promised. The guy in charge had no idea about it either, our lack of language skills made it difficult to explain that the hire car had been organised and we were to collect it here today. We had to stock the house with food and had been waiting to pick up the car to do so. As the supermarket was nearby, we decided to do the shopping and haul it home between the three of us which worked out fine.

It was so different supermarket shopping in Italy in comparison to France. JR was amazed at the amount of shelf space dedicated to different things. There is next to no bread where in France it dominates an entire wall. The range of mozzarella, buffalo and otherwise, takes up miles of the fridge section, breakfast cereal is almost nonexistent with only two choices, a variety of cornflakes and a box of something similar to coco pops, that’s it. Oh well, we will have to carry on the Italian breakfast habit of a bombacrema pastry (we had our first on the way to the supermarket today – OMG, memories flooded back to Hotel Regno breakfasts from two years ago!)

So, we arrive home fuming, no car, and the promised delivery of the internet key that was supposed to arrive yesterday still is not here – NOT HAPPY JAN! We get that Claudia is a lovely scatterbrain and is less than organised but this does nothing to calm us. We are all a tad snippy especially after both transport and internet access had been clearly arranged on acceptance of our home-exchange.

We composed an email, JR had to find an alternative internet cafe to use as the one he used yesterday is closed on Mondays. The new one required a scan of his passport and charged through the nose for only 10 minutes. Anyway, the email was sent asking Claudia to sort out the car hire and internet access as previously agreed and email us asap with a clear solution.
On top of this, JR had taken both AJ’s and my French mobiles to the phone shop to recharge them, surprise, surprise – they were locked and will not work outside of France. We were furious! We had specifically requested they be unlocked when we purchased them as we would be all over the place this year.

Luckily I had my Aussie mobile floating around so we took that back to the phone shop (much later as they only returned from siesta at 4) and were able to get it sorted after some delay as the lady in the mobile phone shop had no internet at the time so could not activate my new number, JR wondered out loud if we were in a third world country.

Mobile phone in hand and internet cafe now closed not allowing us to check Claudia’s response to our email with what to do about the car in the morning, I called Claudia and she was so apologetic. I really don’t think she means any harm at all, she is just terribly disorganised. We were able to share with her that the internet key had arrived at long last, the fact that it will not be activated until midday tomorrow is the least of our worries, we are just happy it is here and is another thing we can cross of the list. She assures me that the hire car will be at ESSO in the morning by 9.30 so fingers crossed all will be well.

AJ had requested risotto for dinner so I created a little recipe that goes like this:

Sautee two finely chopped onions in a sliky combination of fruity olive oil and melted butter, cook them gently with three cloves of finely chopped garlic, 12 year old sons do this job the best. When the onions are soft, remove the casings from four salsiccia sausages bought from the lovely Signora at the local Italian grocer, and separate the meat into small pieces, add them to the onions and garlic which will have filled the house with inviting aromas. Let the sausage cook through and firm up a little, give it time to brown a bit too. Add a generous supply of Arborio rice and stir it making sure it becomes shiny as it is coated with the olive oil, butter and juice from the sausage. I poured in a good splash (or maybe two) of bianco wine I bought from the supermarket which comes in a tetra pack like fruit juice, I paid a whole 1.15 euro (don’t be shocked) and stirred it into the rice on a relatively high heat until it was almost gone entirely. My pot of hot chicken stock was simmering away on the back of the stove and I ladled this into the rice bit by bit, JR and I took turns stirring. The rice became creamy and tender. I added a dollop of rich mascarpone (not a patch on my home made stuff) and too many calories of reggiano cheese, mixed it all together and called AJ in for a taste test. I gotta admit it was pretty damn fine even if I do say so myself.

It was JR’s treat for gelato dessert so we piled out the door and down the street to join the families wandering up and down the main street on which we live.
I look forward to seeing what tomorrow brings...