St Martino's Day

The grapes were harvested long ago and November 11th is the official uncorking of the new wine. It is a common thing to make your own wine. Today, friends and family will be sharing a meal and tasting each other wine. So, be careful on the streets today.

Friday Feature

Happy Birthday Marine Corps, November 10th. I am a day early but take this as a reminder. The Marines only look for a few good men and we have one in our family. So, salute to him and all those ..currently or who have served as a US Marine. Once a Marine always a Marine!!

POCKET COFFEE

It is back in the shops! This is the best picker upper in the world! When that 3:30PM dragging feeling comes on this little espresso laced chocolate will wake you back into life.

Did I buy some. I did and I am doing a diet challenge so must limit myself to one per day!

Rainbow

This one isn't as good as the one taken by my friend in Calabria* . We don't often see rainbows here but this was a nice surprise on a gray drizzly day.

*http://bleedingespresso-sognatrice.blogspot.com/2007/11/weather-you-like-it-or-not.html

Veteran's Day Italia

Not many of these fellas left but they got together in front of the city hall for a march to church and festivities following the service. This wasn't my war. In fact my father was fighting with the Allies on the other side. It is however a day to remember those who died in service to his/her country.

One woman marched with the group. She wore a medal that noted her husband's valor. Another patch signifies the regiment.

The mayor walked with the retirees. You can spot him wearing his official sash.

The local band kept the mood and the step lively. But as usual...........NO LINES!

Friday Feature

Today is All Soul's Day in Italy and yesterday was All Saint's Day. Businesses are at half day or closed. It is much like Memorial Day in the USA. It is tradition to spend the day caring for the graves and bringing flowers. You can pay to have lights put on a grave for these few days. For many Italian families this is a time to come back to their home towns to offer this respect to their deceased love ones.

Olive Oil

My friend Angela and her family finished picking their olives and Wednesday morning had an appointment for crushing them into oil. Did I want to come along? I did want to and off we went. There were several other folks there with their olives and we got to watch the process.

The olives are weighed and then dumped into a basin for the trip up the conveyor belt to the wash process. While traveling the conveyor the leaves and stems are filtered out. The wash process is the timely step in the oil pressing. After washing they are sent to the crusher where the oil is sent in one direction and the residue in another. It passes through two filters and finally into the containers.

It is all a rather straight forward system.

The water heater was an interesting feature as it is fueled by nut hulls.

The mix that is extracted which includes solids that remain after crushing the olives is called ~sansa~. This includes the pits, skin and pulp residue. Another process creates this sansa oil. My friend told me restaurants use alot of this oil.

These pots were on the property. They were used in earlier times to store olive oil.

This is only one way of extracting oil from olives. This place isn't far from Oliveri so it is convenient to have them done there. The proprietor and his wife are pleasant and nice to do business with.

After it was all said and done ...my friends gave me this....LIQUID GOLD!