Its fantastic to finally have a kitchen

After waiting many months, we were finally able to pack out my kitchen knifes and all the other stuff we had brought from Denmark. I'm so excited about it that I got up early (and still managed to be a bit late for work) to make breakfast.

May be I overdid it a bit, but we enjoyed it, and thats the important part. We are still talking about whether we actually think its a good idea to have purple espresso cups :-).

Have a nice weekend.



A self portrait with phone while running for the metro... My neighbors should think I'm too normal :-)

City of nobody

August has arrived (and almost passed, cause I have been very slow with this post), august, is the month of holiday in Italy, with the culmination of Ferragusto, which is one of the biggest family get-together's in italy. Which I spend in the mountains at saras mother.

I was a bit hectic because we arrived in Rome from Denmark, the day before in the afternoon, rushed home to water the garden and get one of my danish cookbooks, for I was the hero of the day to come(confused, read on). Then rushed (of cause not above speed limit rushing) to the medieval village following the Salaria. The Salaria is one of the ancient roman roads, which (as the name implies) was used to get salt. Surprisingly it wasn't the romans but an ancient pre-roman tribe called the Sabini who came to fetch salt from the marshes at the mouth of the Tiber[1](sabini is also the tribe, which according the legend of rome, lost many of its virgins, to the men of newly formed rome thought they needed[2]). So they should actual call it one of the ancient Sabini roads (instead of Roman, but...)

(Maybe I should have split this into several posts.)

Anyway if you find yourself leaving Rome in car going north, Via Salaria is deferentially a road to consider. its very curved (so for the carsick, its a no-go), and goes through a lot of unspoiled (except for the road ofcourse) nature.

Well we arrived just at dinner time (at teen) for homemade Lasange, served in the fresh mountain air and with lots of candlelights (which for a northern European like me is very romantic, but looks allot like a cementary for grownup Italians, So Sara and I were happy). Sadly the danish air had washed all my Italian language abilities away, so I was the happy eating mute all night, which was about an hour because then we went to bed.

Ferragusto (the family get-together day) was pretty cool, since I was the one who was cooking the second course(which is not the main course, because you eat first pasta, then roast). I was to make "flæskesteg" (roasted pig/Ham, with crackli) (I have pictures, but they must come later), with sauce and sweet potatoes. I was a bit nervous since it was only my second try at making such a roast, and Sara had tried an excellent roast at my sisters place in Denmark only days ago, so I couldn't just do the stupid and pretend that it was suppose to taste like that, if it was bad. Anyway the roast, which were ordered at the local butcher "this piece of meat with skin", came as a roast, without skin and then a bag with the skin of a fourth of the pig. With some work I managed to cut the skin, salt it and tie it to the roast(only a part of the fourth), and make it crackli (I dont like the word crakli (but I dont have any other, may be "crunchy" but thats candy according to this page (link))).

Everybody ate like they didn't just had a large piece of Lasagna (which we had) and a lot of antipasto (which we also had). For me it was a bit strange to eat a traditional danish roast, with sause and sweet potatoes in the mountains of Italy so far away from Christmas, but everybody loved it, and then so did I. so success :-D

My lunch break is over, so I better stop for now. Hope everybody is doing great. Next time I promise to tell about why I titled this post "City of nobody", its also about august...

Some steps of the italian conversation dance

For those of you who are interested in learning to talk Italian, I found a small tutorial, to some of the steps of the Italian conversation dance (which I talked about in this post)

Italian steps (Just click on the following link and click on the Italian sentences, then you will have English translation and illustration.)

buon divertimento (have fun) My favorite is to watch people on the street or in cars when they do this dance solo, while talking on the phone :-). But take care, because many of these can mean different things in the different regions of Italy.

One of the cool things of living in italy

Is that you can grow fresh spices outside, so to show of I took some pictures of what our vegetable garden is containing these days. Just to be sure not to step on any toes I should remember to say that my contribution to the actual caring of the plants is very small, and it is thanks to my Sara that this looks so good.

In front is our tomato plant, which Sara saved from certain death, when it was living in a small hole of the street downstairs, To the left is our lemon something and chili peper factory. Then to the right of the tomato there is some south american cactus'

and at last the plant only partly in the picture, is my elephant foot, which I picked out of the dustbin at my former work place. Together we nursed it back to health.
Then a closeup of the tomato plant.



These next two are plants which can be used for food, sadly I have forgotten what they are at the time of writing.
No, wait the one to the right is the mint... or? and the other one maybe Salvie.




Rosemary (the big partly broken one) and two timian, one should be greek, the other - well the other wasn't sold with any nationality, so I guess its homemade italian.



Then a picture from our kitchen, where we are growing several children of the plant I borrowed my parents and finally...

Mostly because it was a present from Sara and a thing I always wished to have, along with a palm tree my lemon tree. So it wouldn't really be home without it. And it already produced several lemons, right now there is two on the way. I cannot take to much credit for taking care of this one either... I did water them this morning, but thats only the second time this month.


The names has been changed to confuse me and the reader, hope Sara will check up on the blog and correct the names.

Have a nice weekend :-)