Let the PARTY begin.

Homemade olive ascolane

For the farmers around Orvieto , the situation is serious this year. To start with although the vines produced excellent grapes that were full of sugar, unfortunately there was far less of them and the overall harvest in the area was reduced by almost 40%. Now, we are coming up to the olive harvest and looking at the trees its plain to see  we are going to have the same problem. In fact the olives on the branches are so few, (this maybe because of the heavy snow we had last winter and then the long drought during this spring / summer), the question in everyone’s mind is  : What`s the best thing to do, is it worth having an olive harvest this year?
For their part, my parents ( if you remember they have some olive trees in the region of Abruzzo), have decided it`s not worth all the hard work this year, and have decided to buy some from one of the bigger farmers and  take them to be crushed for the oil.

The village of Allerona is divided, but at the moment it seems that 65% of the people will go ahead and collect the few olives that they have. As for us, what are we going to do? …………….

On one hand, if we do decide to collect our few olives there is a lot of work to plan ahead, as every year we like to provide a good meal for all those who offer to come and help us, so, as you can imagine this involves a lot of shopping, cooking and organizing. On the other hand, we must consider that there is a  good chance that the cost of Extra virgin olive oil  will go up this year  and  it’s always better to have just a little of your own oil then none at all, right? Last but not least  to be considered is the fact that winter is close and  when you live in the middle of nowhere, isolated in the countryside, winter can be long and boring and we don`t see many people.

Certainly the olive harvest is a bit of a long and boring process ,to start with you have to put a net under the tree ,take down all the olives from the tree, pick them up and then start all over again under the next tree….. and the next and the next ,etc etc.! But it also can be good fun if you are surrounded and  work with lots of nice people. Family and friends old and new. ……..what should we do ?????????????.

My dear friends, those of you that know me ,even just a little ,will be in no doubt there`s only one answer  LET THE PARTY BEGIN  !!!!!! We have chosen a date THE  27th of October and  the time 9.30am, now the question is: who wants to come to this olive party ? The menu is going to be simple but good and plenty, wine will be on the table and  fingers crossed for the sun to be shining to make it a perfect day.

So send me an email or a message on FaceBook or Twitter if you want to join us. The gloves and the trendy plastic hand (now you must be curious ) will be here ready and waiting for you…..and of course a glass of wine too!