Adventures with our best accomplices, S&A

Last week San Giacomo del'Orio held anther fun, and delicious, sagra.

The beginning of the party - Svetislava, Arnel, and a tray of delicious and curious tit-bits.

A whole, small, barbecued chicken - delicious.

A dish of nerveti, otherwise known as jellied gristle with onions - curious.

And those two too, of course.

A crowded piazza...
A lot of cheap wine...
And a 1€ tombola handing out water pistols...

It could only end one way.
(Tables of complete strangers, adults and children alike, in an all-out watery showdown. Hilarious.)

A couple of days later Svetislava and Arnel put on an amazing dinner for us.

First there was the melone canape - that's three types of melon spiked with basil and anchovies.

Then Finn and Arnel got stuck into the man task of removing the scampi exoskeleton, with pliers. 

Nicely done, too.

The zucchini flowers, having been stuffed with mozzarella and  anchovies were battered in a very light white wine mix, and set to sizzle in boiling oil.

The scampi were fried with orange zest.

It was all totally fun and amazingly delicious, until...

This is a terrible pic, but it was in the moment - Finn took his hand out with the pan of boiling flower oil.

After that there was a lot of keeping Finn next to the sink, hand under the running water. Accommodations were made when it came time to eat - a bowl of water with an ice pack in it beside him on the table.

Really nothing hindered the deliciousness of the evening, it was all amazing.

When it was time for dessert, team E&F still managed to pump out some very light lovely buttery crepe, on which it was a pleasure for us to serve up an introduction to the delights of maple syrup - a first for S&A.

The burn now -

the blisters have all but gone (it was really really blistered, with big big blisters), now it's just red and tender.

If anyone has any advice for boiling oil burns, please do share it with us.
So far we've been employing aloe vera and savlon and a bit of non-stick gauze.
Any opinions on such issues as whether salty sea swimming would be a better or worse idea are most welcome.

30 July 2011