Castles, Cookies & Olive Oil
A lot of big things happened this week. I learned how to decorate some fancy Christmas cookies, I went on a tour of an olive tree farm and learned how olive oil is made, and then Scott and I drove over to Lake Garda for the weekend and had an AMAZING time touring two castles and driving up into the Italian Alps.
Sunday: Last Sunday evening, Scott and I went for a walk as the sun was setting. We wound our way through the neighborhood behind us and found a new path through a field that was quiet and peaceful.
Monday: I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to use the bathroom and noticed this beautiful moon glowing through my bedroom window. I didn't think taking a picture would do any good, but I was surprised when I checked in the morning and saw that it actually turned out pretty well.
Tuesday: I pushed through a difficult phase of the quiet book by connecting all the pages together and then mounting them into the inside cover. It took all day, but it was SUCH A RELIEF when I got that part done. That is seriously a tricky phase to navigate through. You have to think several steps ahead of each thing you do so you don't ruin a future step . . .
This is one of those interesting Italian car wash setups where you park the car, and you can even get out and stand nearby, while the contraption does all the work for you.
(Sorry - there's not a lot of action until like the last 5 seconds or so)
Before the sun went down, we washed and cleaned out the car, and took several pictures to help us list the car for sale.
While we were getting the car washed in Italy, we got this photo from Scott's parents back in Idaho. Winter had officially arrived!!
I asked our neighbor, Kim Parkinson, to send me a picture of what it looked like there, too. She sent me this photo looking from their front porch across the street to our house.
Tuesday evening, I drove about 20 minutes to get to Dedra Tolman's house where we would be learning how to do some intricate cookie decorating. Our church is so amazing! The Relief Society organization is a group of women (18+) who not only meet together 2x/month at church to learn and discuss a variety of religious topics, but is also designed to teach homemaking skills, life skills, and have opportunities to serve within the community. It is a WORLDWIDE society of amazing women who have so many talents to share. Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and wherever you go in the world, you will find a group of women having meaningful and fun activities regularly that you can participate in. Everyone is welcome. :)
This was one of those activities where we got to learn a skill that none of us knew how to do before coming. Everyone was very excited to learn some cookie decorating techniques as the holidays are just around the corner.
Somebody had taken quite a bit of time to organize each person's "station" ahead of time. We each had a box with everything we needed inside.
FIRST, I need to note that the Royal Icing was prepared ahead of time by Lindsey Zisa, our instructor. She gave us a demonstration on how to make the icing before we began decorating. She uses meringue powder instead of egg whites, because she says it is much more reliable. She likes to use food coloring GEL instead of the liquid, and she likes to incorporate a flavor into the icing (such as almond, or lemon, or mint).
First, you cut the tiniest tip off your piping bag. Less is better. Pipe a skinny line of icing around the cookie to form a circle. She showed us that it's better to lift your piping bag up in the air slightly above the cookie so that you LAY the line of icing down instead of trying to squeeze it directly onto the cookie.
Next, squeeze harder to get some good blobs of icing into the center area. Do not try to fill it all in.
Use a toothpick to gently swirl the blobs in the middle to incorporate them and blend them into the circle that you made around the perimeter. I think the circle acts as a nice barrier to hold everything in the middle.
Next, pipe a series of long and short lines of green icing all the way around. They don't need to be perfect or amazing. You'll see why in a minute.
Video of the COOLEST PART: (15 seconds) This is where we used a separate toothpick to turn those lines into beautiful leaves. MAGIC!!
Rebecca told us that they have to work quickly to harvest the olives in order to ensure the freshest quality of olive oil. Once the olives are shaken from the tree, the staff only has about 12 hours to make them into olive oil.
These are some of the crates full of olives. While many of them belong to the Bonomini farm, local farmers can also bring in their own personal crops to convert them into olive oil as well. If the crop is large enough, they can use the Bonamini equipment to press and make oil for themselves. If the crop is small, they can just donate their olives to the Bonamini business and trade for bottles or containers of already-made oil.
Forklift drivers dump one crate at a time into the sorter. This step sorts out the olives from the leaves and stems.
Video of the sorting machine: (34 seconds) *Note: the leaves and stems are used for compost once separated out from the olives.
Once they've been cleaned, they can go to the pulverizing machine. Here, they get mashed into a beautiful (and thick) purple soup.
From the masher (on the left) it heads over to another separator. In this step, the pits and the pulp are separated from the liquids using centrifugal force.
Rebecca told us that they usually use the discarded olive pits for additional compost material. But this winter, fuel costs (to heat the home) have gone up in price by 4x here in Europe. She said that buying pellets for a pellet stove used to cost about $4/unit. They now have to pay $15 for the same size of unit. (I don't know how much each unit is) They tried a recent experiment by using the olive pits instead of pellets in their stoves AND IT WORKS!! It works so well that other families in the area have asked if they can purchase olive pits to heat their homes instead of having to buy the expensive pellets. WOW.
Once that has been completed, and the olive oil has been isolated, they fill up these giant tanks for further refinements. The more refining the oil goes through, the more "extra virgin" it becomes.
We were then led into an adjacent warehouse where several tanks are kept temperature controlled until an order needs to be filled. They sell their olive oil all over the world, not only to individual consumers, but to restaurants and other organizations as well.
Rebecca pointed to this painting and explained several steps of how olive oil was made anciently.
Next, we walked over to the tasting room next door, passing some beautiful baby lemon trees on the way.
At our table was Andrea (on the left), Catherine (black jacket), Katie (white jacket), and Alison. Marnie was over taking pictures across the room.
We would be sampling 3 types of olive oil using small cups and pieces of bread. There were also samples of other products they sell in the shop (pesto, tapinade, and something else . . . I can't remember what it's called).
Rebecca taught us to do a sharp intake of breath through our front teeth as we took a sip of each type of olive oil. She said that this helps to distribute the oil throughout the mouth, including the taste buds at the back of the tongue. She first had us hold our little cup with the oil sample by cupping it on the top and bottom with our warm hands. The oil was a little cold as she poured it from the bottle, and needed to be warmed up to release the flavors. You cup the top to protect those flavors from disappearing too quickly before you can taste it.
It felt a little like we were having a wine tasting or something, ha ha. I've never actually done any wine tasting since I don't drink alcohol - but the procedure felt snobby and amazing at the same time.
This was a VERY cool visual explanation on how many olives does it take to make this much oil.
7.5 kilos (16.5 lbs) of olives =
What a delightful day! I learned so much and was so appreciative of the whole educational experience.
She did a great job. I love how she uses hot rocks as part of the massage. It feels so amazing, especially now that the weather is colder. She noticed that in my right forearm, there is a small lump. She seemed very concerned about it and gave me a lot of counsel on what to do in the next few days. She wants me to see a doctor about it as well . . . it's probably nothing serious, but I'll get it checked soon.
Both Charmaine and Amber called back to back as we were getting settled into our AirBnB. I had a good chat with each of them. Charmaine was driving to work in San Diego, so we didn't do a video call. But Amber and I did. :)
Because I'm on the other side of the world, when I'm usually close to the cemetery where Jonny is buried, I wasn't sure how to spend the day. I decided to keep it simple and just pray to feel close to him. As soon as I ASKED for that in my prayer, he was instantly there and my heart filled to the brim in one second with all the love he had to share with me. It was incredible!! It's like he's always right there anyway, whether I'm asking to feel close to him or not. He is a special boy and I'm really looking forward to meeting him in heaven some day.
I took a picture of Scott on the bridge as he was also taking a picture of me. :)
Lindsey showed us how to do the wreaths from start to finish first, emphasizing that with the royal icing, you need to work quickly before it sets. It only took about 1-2 minutes to do each cookie.
Lastly, pipe some red icing dots on in clusters of 3 for the holly berries. VOILA!!! Ah. Mazing. As I said earlier, that only took about 1.5 minutes from start to finish. Every single one of us felt like a million bucks as we saw what we had accomplished by the end of this.
Someone asked Lindsey, our instructor, how she learned how to do all of this. She shared that when her little daughter passed away, she needed something to do with her hands to keep them busy. She tried needlework and crocheting. She tried painting. She tried several things, but nothing worked until she tried cookie decorating. Through trial and error, she really found a talent and a love for something new. And it helped to heal her heart in the process. WOW.
Wednesday: I met up with 5 other ladies to go on a tour of an olive orchard near Soave, about 40 minutes west of my house. I learned that this group consists of several ladies whose husbands are here in the military and they get together every Wednesday to do a field trip of some sort. I am now part of this group, and I am looking forward to more fun adventures in the months to come!
There were 6 in our group along with a couple from Germany who joined us. Behind Rebecca in the photo below (she's wearing all black), are some of the olive trees. On the ground you can see some green matting underneath the trees. They have some motorized tools that "rake" and "comb" the branches of the trees to shake all the olives off. The ground netting can then be gathered up to dump all the olives into large crates.
The name of the olive farm is Frantoio Bonamini. It's been continuously here in this spot since 1965, but was functioning before that in another location. Our tour guide was Rebecca, granddaughter of her two grandparents who built up this farm in Illasi, Italy.
Video of the olives getting dumped in: (14 seconds)
Next, the olives need to get washed. They have been sitting on the tree for months, getting coated with rain and dust.
Video of the olives going through the "washer": (24 seconds)
Video of the mashing process: (17 seconds)
Each of the 5 compartments on the "masher" has its own time control (as seen below), and each is climate controlled. It takes about an hour to fully mash everything into a nice consistency.
This is what it looks like when the liquid is separated from the pits and the pulp. It still needs one more run through another centrifugal force process to separate the water from the oil though.
They do sell an unfiltered olive oil in their shop. Italians really like unfiltered olive oil. It's stronger and more flavorful. The color of unfiltered oil is more cloudy, which some people are fussy about. (I bet it's just mostly the judges that get fussy - in a competition, ha ha.)
Rebecca told us that by law they have to put an expiration date on the label when they fill a bottle. But unless the olive oil has been left sitting in extreme heat for long periods of time, or if the bottle didn't have its cap securely on, then it can last indefinitely. But since the law requires an expiration date, they put 18 months as the expectation.
Their olive oil can sit for long periods of time in the tanks and be just fine for when it's time to fill the bottles or containers. How nice.
Next, we were led back over to the shop where we started.
Video of a portion of her explanation: (48 seconds)
Below: Their black olive oil on the left has won some top awards in Italy. The middle oil, a green olive based oil, won the GOLD MEDAL at an international competition in NYC!! WOW. And the one on the right is their unfiltered olive oil.
I liked the black version better. It was more mild but still flavorful. The green version was spicier - she described it as "peppery". But it can also be more bitter. The unfiltered oil was the most "peppery" and bitter, but also the most flavorful.
50% water
20% pulp
17% pits
13% oil
After our tasting session was all done, we walked back over to the showroom to do some additional tasting and some shopping.
I sampled some oils that had been infused with extra flavors, such as: garlic, lemon, rosemary, oregano, basil, truffle, pepperoncini, and one other one that I can't remember. I really liked the garlic, lemon, and rosemary. A friend had also told us that the Rose Balsamic Vinegar that they sell here is TO DIE FOR. I tasted a little spoonful and I would have to agree!! Oh. My. Gosh. SO GOOD!!
Thursday: I finally went to get a massage. I haven't had one in almost 3 months now and my forearms were really in a bad spot. I get carpal tunnel issues, mostly in my right forearm, and regular massage has kept it at bay for several years.
I walked about 10 minutes from my house to go to the same place that I went back in May. SpaLab is the name.
A couple hours later, Scott and I headed west to go on a weekend adventure together. He had a 4 day weekend once again, only this time it was Thurs-Sunday instead of the usual Friday-Monday. We chose to stay at the south end of Lake Garda so that we could explore some beautiful places in that area.
Here is the inside of our AirBnB, which was a studio apartment. It was located near the center of Desenzano del Garda and was within a short walk of the Castle and the waterfront. (only about 5 minutes away)
We visited about her painting project for the day, which is her annual tradition to honor the memory of her stillborn son, Jonny. He would have been 6 years old on Thursday.
Once the phone visits were complete, Scott and I went for a walk down to the water's edge. Lake Garda is the largest lake in Italy, and Desenzano is the largest city on the lake (pop. 30,000). But the area where we were was mostly just pedestrian alleyways and cute little shops and restaurants.
Everything was quiet in the evening and we enjoyed just wandering around for a while.
Video of some ducks right next to me, trying to be brave enough to jump down into the water below: (35 seconds)
Video of the harbor area: (24 seconds)
They even had a cute Disney themed carousel ride for the little ones. It was closed that evening, and perhaps even for the season. But I can think of 2 little girls who would LOVE to ride on it . . .
Friday: After a simple breakfast that we brought with us (granola and shelf-stable almond milk), we prepared to head out on some adventures for the day. And yes, the AirBnB told us ahead of time on the listing that the kitchen "ceiling" was low . . .
The tunnel below is how we could easily get out to the harbor from our alleyway street.
We wandered around outside, since the interior was closed for the day. The views were quite nice.
(English explanation is on the lower right in the photo below)
Video looking out over the water from the castle: (36 seconds)
To find out more about Scaliger Castle, you can click here:
Near the exit of the castle are a couple of ancient Pirogues - boats that were recovered and then dated from the medieval age. I'm always in awe when something is preserved from THAT long ago. Holy moly.
The castle sits adjacent to a LOT of shops and restaurants. For lunch, we decided to get some gelato. (Because it has milk and milk is healthy.)
From the castle, we walked out toward the northernmost tip of Sirmione - to a beach called Jamaica Beach. I'm not sure why it's called that, but the pictures online looked intriguing so we made our way there. It was only about 10 minutes on foot from the castle, and there were certainly plenty of interesting things to see along the way.
A sign that says KISS . . . PLEASE - -
When in Rome . . .
Scott - (below) was being cheeky with all sorts of poses while I was trying to take his picture. What a guy!
We were very curious about these lower rocks near the turning point of the beach. They definitely looked manmade. But why? There were also several metal anchors wedged in along the height of the rocky cliffs. But why?
Since we didn't have any answers, we just kept on walking. We walked around the northern tip, and started down the other side.
At one point, we just happened to look BACK and HOLY COW - look what we missed earlier and didn't even notice . . .
I had read about some ancient Roman ruins at Sirmione but didn't take note of where they were. Well, we found them, ha ha. Sort of. We couldn't get up there from where we were, and had to move along with our day, so we decided to skip that for now. The area is called: Grottoes of Catullus. The ancient villa is dated back to the end of the 1st century BC and into the 1st century AD.
Private artisan gardens . . .
The beach was sprawling and beautiful, covered in white limestone rocks everywhere.
Video of the 360 degree views: (26 seconds)
Scott called his brother Gordon as we walked along, and enjoyed showing him everything that we were seeing.
Eventually we ended up back in the shopping district where we could see the Castle again.
I liked this sign very much. We think similarly. :)
There will always be something in this world to amaze me.
It was definitely the fanciest place I've ever been to and oh-so-relaxing.
At the end of your visit, you pay before you exit and turn in the watch. What a genius idea!
There are SEVERAL different thermal pools to choose from, some are indoors, some are outdoors. You can freely go from one to the next, and occasionally you do have to get out and walk to the next area.
This is the only photo that I took. My phone is not waterproof like so many i-Phones are, so I didn't want to carry it around with me. But you can look on their website to learn more about what they offer.
This is the link to their website. I hope it works for you because Google automatically translates everything to English for me . . .
There are caves and waterfalls with glowing lights of red, blue, or green to make it even more interesting. Several pools had jets that came on automatially every 10 minutes or so and ran for about 10 minutes. You can swim right up to a bar and get a drink or a snack. We didn't do that. We just swam for hours.
Our favorite area to hang out in was the outdoor river. It had a lively current and went around in a large oval shape. We went around and around and around. Most pools have a temperature of 35-37 degrees Celsius. It was quieter outside, and eventually we could watch the sunset and see the stars begin to pop out above us. It was just lovely.
All too soon it was time to get dressed and leave. How sad. This is definitely a place we would love to bring our children and granchildren (and other friends and family members) when they come to visit. Hurry up you guys and get over here!!!
When we got back to our AirBnB, we took the same short walk up toward the castle behind our apartment because there was a kebab restaurant next door and that's Scott's favorite fast food. Yumm!
Saturday: After a lazy morning and getting checked out of our lodging, we started driving toward Malcesine (pronounced: Mal-cheh-SEE-nay) to ride the cable car up to the the top of Monte Baldo. But a few minutes into our drive, I saw online that the cable car was closed for some reason. I called and listened to a message in Italian AND in English that said yes, it was closed for some programmed maintenance.
After some quick research, we decided to try our hand at driving up as far as we could go on our own. The entire drive was spectacular. Every single inch.
There were times that the road was so steep that Scott just stayed in 2nd gear the whole time.
And then we continued to go up and up some more.
Video #1 going up to Monte Baldo: (38 seconds)
Video #2 going up to Monte Baldo: (20 seconds)
FINALLY, we made it to a safe area to park before the pavement turned to gravel. We could see a little bit of Lake Garda through all the trees . . .
Yep. I went potty in a little patch of forest on top of Monte Baldo. Tee hee. (Thankfully we had a roll of TP in our car.)
We had fun exchanging information and stories about our towns and neighborhoods as we walked along. They spoke very good English. Well, Johannes did, but Lena struggled a bit more. She understands more than she can speak. I know the feeling . . .
We passed an abandoned dairy partway up. I think it was past season for the cows to be up that high on the mountain.
Short video before we left our perch: (10 seconds)
You can see the snowy alps in the distance on our way down the road. I'm not sure where the Swiss Alps become the Austrian Alps, but I just know that we could see several layers of mountain ranges.
We took a slightly different route coming down from Monte Baldo, since we were headed back to Vicenza now. We both really enjoyed seeing even more new things on the way. Like this cute little chalet, tucked up against a hillside and cliff out in the middle of nowhere.
Both going up and coming down, we encountered SEVERAL hairpin turns. Sometimes Scott could get out of 2nd gear, but not very often, ha ha. These photos do NOT portray how truly exquisite the mountains were around us. I could have taken hundreds more photos and you would still not be able to put them into proper perspective. You'll just have to come over and we will show you in person. That is the ONLY WAY.
Below you can see one of the hairpin turns.
At the bottom of the mountains and just before we connected with the freeway, we came into this super cute town of Avio, where I saw a giant castle tucked into the cliffs.
I found some interesting information about the castle as we drove. It was built prior to 1053!!! DANG. I would LOVE to tour that ginormous castle sometime soon. It's less than an hour from our house.
You can find out more for yourself at this Wikipedia link:
What an amazing weekend. We said to ourselves many times, "This is UNBELIEVABLE!" And it truly was. I am so grateful for this beautiful world we live in. For mountains, lakes, and streams. For ancient civilizations that leave behind clues to their existence. For quiet moments and peaceful vistas. And for someone to share it all with.
A Little Bit from Grandbabies . . .
Jack and his family took a road trip to Philadelphia for the weekend. He fell asleep in his carseat before they even left home . . . what a cutie.
Jacob and Jack found a little den to hang out in. I love this picture so much!!
Amber sent us this photo of Gwen putting together a puzzle at school. She is (along with her sister) such a whiz at puzzles! She has endless concentration and patience for puzzles at such a young age.
She looks like she's got some sort of maniacal plan in place to take over the world or something . . . moo-ha-ha-ha-haaa
And then here's a super cute video of Gwen on the way to school this week. She loves the song that came on the radio. (20 seconds)
*You'll need to turn the sound up a bit to hear the song in the background. I think Gwen is tapping to the beat with her carseat straps, ha ha.
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