I'm Tamsin Hickson, I live on an olive farm in Le Marche in Central Italy with my husband, sons, father, cats, dog, chickens, ducks (until Christmas).
recipes
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Tiramisu
This photograph isn’t a very appropriate illustration to accompany the recipe of one of the creamiest and most delicious of Italian puddings, but unfortunately the tiramisu prepared for me by my stepdaughter Chiara was eaten for breakfast this morning by Sam (so sorry Mum, I just kept having another bit…) so I decided to put [...]
Italian
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Headmistresses, or the secret of eternal youth
“Hey, dear!”
Two small words, but enough to strike dread into the hearts of all 600 teenage girls at Rustenburg Girls High School in the seventies. By the time we heard them, delivered in a hoarse whisper, it was too late. Miss Thomson’s crepe soled shoes meant she moved with lethal silence along the [...]
making things
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Finally
One of the reasons (apart from the incredible heat) that I’ve not written much recently can be seen above. As with all construction/reconstruction/decoration projects the end result seems oddly bloodless. What, you may ask, was stressful about that? A bit of paving around a pool, some terracing, a few plants. What you cannot see is [...]
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Olives…  It’s that time of year again. Aldo was summoned to the olive mill at six this morning to watch 330kg of our olives being squashed and line up the bottles to be filled. He predicts that we’ll need another two bookings at the mill as the faster olives move from tree to mill the better the oil. For the last two days Jasper and I worked as a team, with Aldo up a ladder working on different trees. Unfortunately my competitive spirit reared its ugly head, coolly observed by the infinitely more evolved person working with me. He said that competing for quantities of olives picked was a “sad” idea, and filled in the time by stopping up some of the gaps in my woefully incomplete knowledge of history.
“So what do you really KNOW about Julius Caesar?” he asked me, leaning back on the branch of our tree whilst I leapt about, trying to get those difficult ones high up.
My answer was vague. “Apart from Et tu, Brute? Um, well, emperor?” He almost fell off his branch with shock, “well, let’s see, ruler?” So as I picked olives he began the slow and daunting prospect of educating his mother.
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rural life
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Minotaurs and other things
It’s been a busy week in Mogliano.
After tea on Saturday Jasper told his cousin Thomas that they were called upon to battle invisible Minotaurs, in the field with the sheep.
Thomas, nothing if not practical, insisted on finishing his scotch pancakes, calling out of the window to Jasper on his way down to [...]
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Hi Tamsin,
especially not ours which is tiny, but does seems to have an impressive crop of fruit each year – to our untrained eye, that is!!
As the proud guardian of a young olive tree and a lover of olive oil, I look forward to having our own olives pressed – one day! I wonder if the olive oil specialist in your family – presumably Aldo (?) – would tell me how many olives (approx) are needed for a bottle of oil? Quite obviously, I’m not expecting to get a whole lot from one wee tree
Enjoy the rest of the picking.
Love your posts,
Sx
Re Julius Caesar – he gave his name to a salad? Oops…
Hi Sal – ah, therein lies a long and complicated discussion! It depends a lot on the year. This year we were told the yield was very poor, and in the end it turned out that 100kg produced 10 litres of oil. That’s very low – in previous years we’ve had up to 16litres. A good tree will yield about 80kg, a really good tree, or one harvested by Aldo (it seems…) will give 100kg. Some of those harvested by J and I probably barely produced 30… I must mention the salad to J.
Olive season! I wish I was there to experience it and of course, taste fresh olive oil! can you believe in Eataly (this really chic shop/restaurant with all the best stuff of Italy) they have olive oil tasting and man they are expensive! nothing quite like your own olive oil right? haha you get those rights!
That sounds like a bumper harvest. Hard work, but yours to enjoy. There’s nothing quite like it! p