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Recently we hosted a class of 7th graders for a day at the farm. This trip had been rescheduled several times due the truly rotten weather we’re having this spring, but we decided to go ahead, rain or not!  Learning to plant vegetables with the math teacher. I love roses. I just can’t get enough of them. yes, they are work…these beautiful plants are subject to fungi and nasty critters; they need to be pruned, deadheaded and given ample amounts of manure in order to display their best. I think it’s worth it.  Pierre de Ronsard, a showstopping climber Fishcakes…when I was a kid and we moved to England, my mother often made us fishcakes for breakfast. My mother made us all sorts of fabulous things for breakfast…baked beans on toast, kippers, sardines on toast, welsh rarebit…such fond memories I have! I love fishcakes, usually made with mashed potatoes and fish. Shortly after we moved to Rome, the big supermarket in our neighborhood acquired their first freezer case. Big…as in the size of a small grocery store nowadays. Freezer case…it was a chest freezer, the kind you might have in your garage or basement! Regardless, this chest freezer was stocked with frozen peas, ice-cream and frozen fishcakes! I’m still in awe.  Millet fishcakes with caper sauce served with fennel and orange salad Whew. I’m exhausted. We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Holland to visit family and friends (gotta love Ryan Air!) returning via Como so that I could select the new scarf collection. Hans, being the good sport that he is accompanied me, it was so much nicer than being alone!
I found so many beautiful fabrics I had a hard time deciding which and how many…honestly, I feel like a kid in a candy store when I’m purchasing scarves. I always stay in a tiny quiet friendly village along the lake as I find the city of Como to be , well, noisy. I guess I’m totally spoiled living here in the countryside where the only noise at night are owls, nightingales and our cats prowling about. Lake Como is a beautiful place; glorious villas and charming towns hang on the steep sides of the narrow long deep blue lake. This week it was grey and rainy in Como, so I didn’t take many photos outdoors, because they all looked like this:
Gloomy. But, I’m in Como to do business so I’m mostly indoors, catching up on the lives of the people I’ve been working with for years, touching, seeing and inhaling beautiful fabrics and doing my best to drive hard bargains. I’ve always enjoyed bargaining, I consider it an art form…one needs to respect the unspoken rules and the person you’re bargaining with. It’s a seesaw of giving and taking done with knowledge, humor and good will which results in both parties feeling that the final transaction is just and fair.  Fabric Samples At each manufacturer I am offered a coffee and a good 45 min or more is spent chatting. Doing business in Italy requires a lot of chatting and developing personal relationships. The latest stories about families, politics and every day life are exchanged. Then invariably I’m told about this factory and that factory closing. Fabric printers, fabric manufactures, factories that dye fabric, factories that sew, finish, etc closing their doors. Most of these places are small to medium sized family run businesses that simply cannot compete with the markets’ ever growing love affair with really inexpensive products.  Recently woven silk fabric destined to be printed In Como, the textile workers are paid a decent wage with wonderful state benefits (like free health care), given a 4-5 week paid yearly holiday, paid sick days and national holidays and so on and so forth. The dyes are EU approved and expensive measures are taken against polluting with waste products. The yarns are spun, dyed and woven here, then cut, sewn and packaged here. As I’m sure your getting the picture, it’s an expensive process.  Weaving a jacquard silk fabric. See the burgundy fabric on the bottom roll? I am told stories about how the fabrics are copied by some unscrupulous manufactures abroad…then made with less threads and inferior quality fibers, silk often cut with poly, so they look the same in a photo, but are not the same at all. They are then marketed as being exactly the same as the original quality tie or scarf or whatever.  Hand checking a printed fabric for any flaws Everyone is worried. There is economic crisis in Europe. All of the places I buy from are amazing businesses that work their tails off trying to stay in business without cutting corners with wages, working conditions or product quality. I am awed by their perseverance.  Tying silk threads onto the needles. This woman has fingers that literally fly, so nimble! The designers are amazing too…each manufacture makes new designs of textiles twice a year…these are not factories that churn out oodles of meters of the same fabric year in and year out. The designers work with the buyers…every buyer is different, and different countries have different tastes…both in style and pattern. For example, right now in much of central Europe, extra large scarves are popular while at the same time in Japan, skinny delicate scarves are popular. I find this all fascinating as I love all sizes and shapes of scarves.  Showing off some new designs  design room and fabric samples. Computer programs are used to see different colors on a pattern. I’ve often sat with the designer, changing colors (a little deeper blue on this part etc…) on a pattern until it is to my liking before an item is off to the printers!  Color swatches Fortunately in Como, lunch time is still sacred. They take less time than down here in Le Marche, but regardless an hour and a half is still dedicated to that most wonderful time.  A typical working people’s trattoria near one of the factories  Salad Buffet So now on to the less exciting business of cataloging, giving identities and writing descriptions. I get what I call square eyeballs from so many hours behind the computer doing this. One of these days I really need to learn how to type properly…I type with 2 fingers on one hand. It’s tedious and my own fault for never learning. Next week, photographing. I’m not a photographer and I do my best, but I know the photos can be better. I’ve asked my friend Domenico, a professional photographer to give me a hand this time and he graciously accepted. I’m so excited to get some professional help!
I am hooked on making soap. The difference between a quality homemade soap and anything I’ve ever bought in a store, including quite fancy expensive soaps is huge. Our homemade soap doesn’t dry out my skin like other soaps. Hans has been using it as a shaving cream, he says it works better and leaves his skin smoother than shaving cream in a can. Encouraged by how nicely the lavender olive oil soap turned out, I decided to make an after sun, anti-mosquito soap. Yup. Summertime outdoor soap.  Summertime Outdoor Soap In the old days, farmers gathered together to help each other with various big chores, chores that need a lot of people. Here in central Italy, in the Le Marche region we carry on the tradition, having fun, sharing stories and laughs together. Here’s a silly video I made of the day: embedded by Embedded Video We’ve been busy making soaps. Why? Because once you try a high quality handmade soap made from luxury oils like olive oil, you’ll never use a commercial soap again. No kidding. Your skin will thank you.  Finished handmade olive oil soap with lavender I’ve had a rough few months as I’ve been repairing and healing my liver and kidneys, both damaged by the ibuprofen that I took over the summer to help with the pain and inflammation of a slipped disc. Yuck. It’s really not nice to be ill for months and months. Had I done my homework before agreeing to take the drug, I never would have taken it. But it was the beginning of our busy summer, I was in awful pain and there was no one else to do the work I needed to do. I happen to be quite sensitive to pharmaceuticals anyway, but the thing that astounds me is how many doctors and pharmacists tell me (after the fact, mind you) that ibuprofen and all of the NSAID drugs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) have this negative effect on quite a few people and can be in fact very dangerous. The doc who gave me an echo-gram the other day seemed genuinely surprised that the back specialist didn’t warn me about the possible effects. Go figure. You can buy this drug over the counter. Part of the healing process from a toxic overload is to stay away from all things that my body considers toxic. This being winter time, I’ve had some time to delve into studying what is toxic, why it’s toxic and where these substances are used. It’s a scary world. Now for years I’ve been careful and somewhat conscience of my buying choices and have chosen “natural”, “eco” and “organic” products whenever possible since my children were born, and that was 27 years ago! Gosh…time flies. Cosmetics, toiletries, soaps, detergents, etc. are often chock a block full of things you probably would never go near if you learned about them. Soap is no exception. My skin is very sensitive and inflamed as result of the liver damage, so what I put on it has become very important to me. I examined the “natural” olive oil soap I recently purchased only to discover that only a small percentage is olive oil, and that the olive oil they use is what we call pomice…it’s the oil they extract using petrochemicals from the absolute dregs of the olive, after the olive has been crushed several times. This resulting oil is great for engine lube, but not great for your skin. The main oils used in this particular “natural” soap are petroleum extracted palm and palm kernel. The other ingredients are a mysterious “fragrance”, several chemical preservatives and substances that make it lather. All this yummy naturalness packaged in an attractive green and white paper claiming it’s olive oil soap, natural, 100% vegetable, no petrochemicals, no added colors, and crafted by artisan herbalists. Well, the only true statement is the bit about no added colors, but they neglect to mention the bleach used in the palm oils. This soap leaves my skin dry and itchy. Imagine what a typical soap made with even harsher ingredients (like most soaps on the market) would do to my skin. We have olive oil. We have lavender and other herbs. So I decided to make soap that was good for my skin. The first soap I made was a 100% olive oil soap with lavender essential oil and hydrosol. This does not dry out my skin at all and it smells heavenly. 100% olive oil soap feels a bit slimy though and isn’t to everyone’s liking. So I dived into studying soaps and ingredients. I think there as many recipes and preferences for making soap as there are soap makers. My own personal conclusion: I’m making cold process soaps because my friend Leo who has a PhD in herbs and natural cosmetics and works in the sector, explained to me that by not heating the oils (as you do when you make a hot process soap) one retains the beneficial properties of the oils. Sounds good to me. I decided to use olive oil, as in real olive oil, not pomice as the main oil because it’s just terrific for your skin and after all, we do have olive trees. Olive oil is so terrific, I often use it directly on my skin, just like the athletes in the ancient world did. I then decided to mix a variety of luxury oils and butters along with the olive oil to make the soap even more nutritious for the skin and to result in a soap that does not feel slimy.  Luxury oils – Almond, Shea and Castor Next I decided (with Leo’s complete approval and encouragement) to use our concentrated lavender hydrosol instead of water in the recipes as hydrosol is very healing and calming to the skin. And lastly, I decided to add some mineral color pigment…all natural, it doesn’t get absorbed into the skin, but sure makes the soap pretty. Here are the oils I decided to use in the lavender soap: Olive Oil: Very moisturizing, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant, absorbs well into the skin, helps skin stay elastic. Unrefined Coconut Oil: Super skin nourishing, moisturizing, anti-bacterial Almond Oil: Skin healing, absorbs easily and is a mild sun screen Castor Oil: Deep moisturizer, anti aging, anti-inflamatory Shea Butter: Deep moisturizer, adds in skin regeneration, anti-aging, healing. Pretty luxurious ingredients if you ask me!  Lavender Olive Oil Soap What do you think of the packaging idea? Next up: a super skin healing after sun soap with essential oils to fight off mosquitoes…a summer time special!
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 Life in the Italian Hills: reflections on my eclectic life in the countryside of central Italy, a life that allows me to pursue my passions of which the most notable are: cooking and food history, gardening, textiles, organic farming and running an agriturismo with Hans, my ever so creative partner. Read more…. |
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