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Right now in a disused cottage outside of town, the men of the Forti family are brewing up this year’s batch of vino cotto, following a recipe that historians reckon dates back about 3000 years. For the next 10 days, Simone and his father Decimo will cook around six tonnes of it in an operation that runs 24 hours a day. At Simone’s restaurant last week he told me what they were up to and invited me to come check it out – so I did, with my mate Al Langan who was in town for the week.
12 midnight – As I head for bed, the fishing fleet from Civitanova Marche is skulking into port. Fishermen’s wives and mothers are plodding along through the dark to the moorings to take charge of the previous 24 hours’ catch. Within a few hours the fish will be unloaded, the boats refueled, and the fleet will rumble slowly back towards the dim horizon. But for me it’s time to sleep.
3:30am – In the early morning silence, I hear tires on gravel as Matteo (the head waiter at Taverna) pulls up behind our house. Together we go to pick up Gianpaolo (chef) at his house in Sforzacosta. It’s unsettling to see chef in street clothes – he looks young, like a chubby bleary eyed boy. Together the three of us are heading to the Civitanova fish auction where a scrum of wholesalers and restaurateurs are converging to fight over the newly arrived catch. We only manage to mutter a few civil things to each other until we reach the Autogrill on the superstrada where we each sink a cappuccino and pastry. Then the mood lifts.
Last week, desperate for a bit of mountain action after the “August” hiatus (should they really be called the “August holidays” when nothing reopens until the 20th of September?), nine of us got together for a trek into a forgotten corner of the Sibillini National Park called Val di Tela. Things got off to a dicey start as we ended up cutting across some very exposed ground to reach the tiny saddle that gives access to the valley. But we survived and were soon meandering through a rarely visited area of the park. Video after the fold.
Henry and Carletti on the caterpillar this afternoon. Loro Piceno’s answer to the matchbox car.
Written last week but not posted as our internet connection has been down…
The ongoing pasta crisis in Italy is in the news again this week as price hikes prompted Italy’s four biggest consumer organisations to call a nationwide pasta strike yesterday (original post on this blog here). Like good citizens we did our bit and added our 2p to the national ire, but it’s unlikely the strike will have any real effect. Wheat farmers are replanting to take advantage of the exploding demand in biofuels – a situation only likely to get worse in the medium term.
And as if the pasta crisis weren’t enough to shake Italian culture to its foundations, this year is going to be particularly bad for olives, at least in this region. Locals are uneasy as the olive trees are mysteriously bearing very few fruits. None of the farmers I’ve spoken to has been able to point to a definite cause (though this year’s drought seems a likely culprit), preferring instead to fall back on the peasant’s super weapon: mystical stoicism – ah, there are good years and bad years. Life is sacrifices. But they’re now regretting selling off last year’s surplus and worrying about how to stretch their current supply. It’s going to be a lean year – so stock up now.
Last week Tessa, Henry, Mom, and I drove to Urbino in northern Marche. Urbino is the other cradle of the Renaissance, where in the 15th century Federico da Montefeltro attracted to his court some of the most outstanding scholars, architects, and artists of the period, creating an urban centre that UNESCO describes as the “pinnacle of Renaissance art and architecture.” And so last Thursday afternoon we piled into the metallic peat family truckster and hit the road.
(Spotted by Mel at Elemental) Cyril Sweett have published their research into the potential for improving energy performance of existing building stock. The importance of greening existing buildings is brought home by two facts:
- 44% of all CO2 emissions in the UK comes from energy use in buildings
- According to one of the report’s authors, in 2050 60% of Britain’s buildings will still pre-date the 2006 revisions to Part L
So we can look forward to the carbon reductions required by Part L being ratcheted up in future, but the overall effect will be modest, even in the long term. If we want to save carbon NOW then energy consumption in existing buildings is too important to ignore.
Predictably, the report’s top recommendation is for “brave decisions” by the government. But in a political climate where politicians would rather engage in creative accounting than be decisive on climate change, it’s hard to be hopeful.
What’s going on?
There’s been a fierce debate among energy bods this summer over the environmental effectiveness of combined heat and power (CHP) and CHP with cooling (CCHP) – a debate closely tied to assumptions about the carbon emissions associated with grid electricity in the UK.
What happened?
As noted in this blog in May, Arup associate director James Thonger opened up with a broadside aimed at the GLA policy of requiring CHP and CCHP on new developments. In particular he refuted LCCA claims that gas CHP saves 54% of carbon relative to grid electricity. The LCCA is headed up by Allan Jones, former green god of Woking and now darling of the London Mayor, who didn’t take the criticism lightly.
The stultifying heat has finally let up, so yesterday afternoon I strapped on the kneepads and laid clay tiles on the terrace. It got me thinking about how much time I’ve spent on the floor in the last year.
Even at the beginning of this restoration project, when there was still so much to be decided, we knew we wanted terra cotta floors. The price seemed reasonable, the clay is quarried and fired locally, and they look fantastic – nothing would be more appropriate to the house. But the reality was much more complex and it involved a hell of a lot more time, expense, and stress than we imagined.
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