Fiera Antiquaria: Arezzo Antiques Fair

Just an hour from Florence is Arezzo – a beautiful Tuscan town which featured in the 1999 Oscar winning film “La Vita E’ Bella” with scenes shot in its main square which is host to an annual jousting competition and the antiques fair. I went to the antiques fair last year and spent several hours in this one square and its surrounding streets taking reams of photographs of antiques and furniture. Every time I turned around or walked a little bit further there was another mini scene of random objects sitting next to each other creating a quirky display. You can find old pin ball machines next to taxidermy and unwanted cinema seating next to a stall of hundreds of books and smiling porcelain animal figures. There were piles of old church decorations: statues of Jesus with only one arm next to candelabra and other religious objects. I even spotted a statue of Mary strapped with plastic ribbon (the kind to mark out a space that is out of bounds) to a metal barricade next to a small digger! The careless way in which antiques are seemingly abandoned creates scenes of contradiction that are brilliant to photograph. The fair is a good image of Italy: a country so filled with beautiful and intriguing places to discover that it is never ending just like the mounds of objects on display.

The fair is on from June 5th to 6th 2010 in the Piazza Grande.

Castagnaccio (cast-a-nya-cho)

Castagnaccio is an Italian cake made from chesnut flour. The flour has a hint of a smokey flavour as it is obtained by placing the chesnuts on a grate through which they are roasted by a wood fire underneath. The flour is easily found in Italy but I am not sure how easy it is to find in the UK.

What you need:

300g chestnut flour

50g raisins

30g pinenuts

50g walnuts (or just do 80g pinenuts)

1 orange (for the rind)

Rosemary

3 dessert spoons of sugar

Olive oil

Salt

1: Mix the flour, sugar, a pinch of salt, the orange rind shredded and half a litre of water making sure that there are no lumps.

2: Add a few dessert spoons of olive oil and leave the mixture alone for about an hour.

3: Grease a large oven dish and pour the cake mixture into it.  The mixture should be spread quite thinly. It isn’t a thick cake.

4: Place the sprigs of rosemary ontop and sprinkle the raisins and nuts ontop.

5:Drizzle about 4 dessert spoons of olive oil over it and cook in the oven at 200 centigrade for about 45 minutes.

It is delicious eaten warm from the oven with a dollop of ricotta.

Tartufo Bianco Affogato

This is a typical Italian dessert of ice cream covered with white chocolate vermicelli with espresso poured ontop. Affogato (meaning “drowned”) is a good simple dessert: just pour espresso over vanilla ice cream. I enjoyed this one in the hills just outside Florence and I particularly love the kitsch pearly pink shell bowl!

Tomato and Fennel Tart

I adore fennel and I know that not everyone feels the same as any aniseed taste is often a problem for some! The tomatoes in the tart are pretty sweet so the fennel flavour adds a good variation and physically a good bite.

What you need for the pastry:

300g white flour

100g butter

1 egg

A few pinches of salt

And for the top:

Olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

5 good sized tomatoes

Half a fennel

Fennel seeds or any other herb you fancy

1: Put the pastry ingredients in a bowl and mix together to make a smooth pastry.

2: Boil the tomatoes for about 5 minutes, then put them in a bowl and squish them a bit. Drizzle olive oil over them and sprinkle some fennel seeds on top. Add the garlic (cut into small pieces).

3: Slice the fennel and keep the grassy bits ontop.

4: Spread the pastry smoothly in a quiche dish. Bake the pastry for 10 minutes at 180C. Remove from the oven and spread the juicy tomatoes on it. Lay the fennel slices over the tomatoes. Put the tart back in the oven for 20 minutes. Check and if the pastry is not golden leave it in for a little longer.

Panzanella

Panzanella is great in two ways! It is delicious and it is made from off bread. Off bread?! How could that be great? Well, it’s more like hard bread than off bread with penicillin being cultured on it. This is how….

What you need:

Hard bread (about 3 slices per person)

Cucumber

Tomatoes

Red onion

Fresh basil

Olive oil

Put the hard bread (no strange coloured bits, that’s too off!) in a bowl with water and let it soak for about 10 minutes. Then, wring it out in a colinder breaking it up into small pieces. Chop up some cucumber, red onion and tomato into thin slices and add them to the bread, drizzle olive oil and vinegar (if you like) over it and add some basil leaves. You get to feel doubly good eating it because it’s healthy and you aren’t wasting bread!

Pasta Frolla Biscuits

If you’ve made a crostata and have too much pastry it is perfect for biscuits. You can add a touch of cinnamon to spice them up.Or don’t make a crostata and just make biscuits!

You will need:

300g flour

120g butter

120g sugar

1 egg

a pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix them together with your hands until you have a smooth pastry mix. Add cinnamon or cocoa powder or anything else if you like. Form the pastry into shapes and bake in the oven at 180C for  15-20 minutes.

Strawberry and Nectarine Crostata

This is a great easy recipe that an Italian friend’s mother introduced me to several years ago. You can make it several different ways by using different fruit and jam. Nectarines are in season and they make a  really great crostata!

For the pastry:

300g flour

120g butter

120g sugar

1 egg

a pinch of salt

For the top:

1 large nectarine

Half a jar of strawberry jam

Put all the ingredients for the pastry in a bowl and mix them together with your hands quickly until you have a smooth pastry mix.

Spread it evenly into a buttered quiche dish or baking tray and bake for 10 minutes.

Slice the nectarine into thin slices.

Remove the partly cooked pastry from the oven, spread the jam on it and lay the sliced nectarine ontop.

Put it back in the oven for another 20 to 25 minutes and it should be ready!

Pane, vino e zucchero

Bread, wine and sugar

This is an old Tuscan snack I found out about whilst chatting to the owner of a local art shop whose mother eats it every afternoon!

All you need is a slice of bread, a slosh of red wine ontop and a good smattering of sugar and there you go: boozy, soggy, sugary snack! It’s pretty yummy actually….

Think Summer Pudding without the fruit and preparation!

Paint your own shadows…

Draw your own shadows…

Florence has a lot of trompe l’oeil windows painted on buildings, some are even embellished with a  grate and foliage! Maybe it’s just to keep the symmetry of the facade where a real window doesn’t belong. Whatever the reason is, it makes you look twice. I found these sketchy tromp l’oeils on these two windows with shadows permanently inked on the walls!