INSPIRATION

Cooking Bread & Roasting Chestnuts

As you can see Salvatore decided to fire up the antique bread oven. Although we were madly trying to prepare for winter, we set about taking advantage of the nice day to get out and cook some bread and roast some chestnuts. This antique bread oven was once used by all the families in this borgata, who would have thought that it would now be fired up by a family from Australia.

Soon after this Salvatore (the perfectionist) enlisted the help of our friends Aldo and Mirella who spent an entire day showing him how the locals cook bread (dozens at a time). Stay tuned for more on this and Aldo’s recipe for the perfect loaf….

With a few tips from the locals and much joking about our abilities to light a fire let alone cook bread Salvatore set about the task with his usual determination. I can tell you now that the bread that we ended up with was the best bread I have ever tasted, it took the whole day to create and a few minutes to eat.

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Each borgata has its own antique bread oven and we found them all through the countryside around the house.

This is one I particularly love, from an abandoned borga at the bottom of our hill. It is like something from “The Blair Witch Project” complete with a tiny bridge between the buildings.

We all are in love with the new country lifestyle and are very happy here in our little farmhouse in the mountains gathering blackberries, fungi, wood for the fire and loads of chestnuts.

Oh and of course cooking in our antique bread oven.

Who knew that a simple life would be so much fun… what have you done to achieve a simpler life? I’d love to hear from you….