Tuesday 28th May

Tuesday 28th May

Up a bit earlier today as Stefania needed to go into Cugnoli to get a few things. Stefania’s car has still not been fixed so MAC is running her into town in our car. She has some schoolchildren from Pescara coming today for their ‘open learning’ day when they can see some farm life and Stefania makes ricotta cheese with them to show them some of the facets of country life that they do not see in the city. They get to see the animals, chickens, ducks, rabbits, etc. and to learn a bit about them. Of course, they also see the olive trees and learn something about how the oil is made from the fruit when it ripens in the autumn.

At last today, the day started out bright and sunny even if there are some dark clouds over the horizon. Hopefully they will stay away.

This morning, we are going to run some errands in Chieti if we are not required to help with the schoolchildren.

We were not needed to help with the children so we took off, intending to go to Chieti but changed direction to go to Cepagatti a small town nearby, instead. 

We arrived and parked and found a small store where we could get a ‘birthday voucher’ we had prepared for Stefania’s birthday tomorrow printed. The young lady in the small store was very helpful and took the USB stick on which we had the file, soon brought it up on her computer and after a small adjustment, printed it off in color for us and put it in a protective plastic cover. After a couple of other purchases we left the store and walked down the street to investigate other shops. We also tried to obtain some money from an ATM. MAC was successful but my card, with which I have had constant problems, did not work again. We stopped at a patisserie and bought a pastry to eat and then tried another bank with the same result for me. We called Chase, yet again who informed me that the card was fine but even using the ATM with the representative on the phone, the card was again denied. I am extremely frustrated with Chase as this also happened to me in India and although I informed them of my travels in advance and they know this as they repeated the notice to me, the card still fails to work.

Then we went on to Eurospin which is a very nice supermarket just outside the town. First we refilled the car with gas  and then picked up a few things at the store before returning home. On the way back we decided to see if Stefania’s car was ready and we pulled into the garage only to see Stefania pulling out having picked up the car herself.

We returned to Ulivo our house and then had the bright ideas of cooking dinner for Stefania!! MAC had a recipe which called for shrimp and orzo and so we told Stefania, who agreed to be entertained by us and this precipitated a quick drive to Megalo and the supermarket CoNad. We picked up some seafood, mussels, calamari and shrimp, orzo, of course, salad, bread, wine and other ingredients in a lightening run around the store. Then it was hightail it back to LFMD and get on with tidying the place up and starting to prepare the food and cook it. The calamari was very fresh and quite large, so large, in fact that two of the calamari had whole fish inside them which they must have just caught and started to eat when they themselves were caught. I have never seen that before and regret that I did not take a photo of it. The calamari were soon cleaned and cut up and set to simmer. We peeled the shrimp and then boiled the heads and skins, etc. in some water to give the orzo some extra flavor when we boiled it not knowing that orzo does not absorb flavor so that was a bit of a waste of time. 

We had smoked salmon, asparagus and, more as a joke after our adventures in Prezza I bought some artichokes (carciofi) which I also boiled.

After we had cooked the orzo, we mixed the seafood and other ingredients into the orzo for a tasty dish as a main course. This was all washed down with a local biological Trebbiano white wine. We finished the meal with a fruit flan for dessert. Stefania professed that it was ‘delicioso’, which I think she was sincere about. She was tired and soon left for an early night which she deserved as tomorrow, will be her 75th birthday.

We soon cleaned up the table and washed the dishes and retired to bed.