A Bad Choice

One of my favourite local-ish wines is Bonarda, from the Oltrepo Pavese district, in the western part of Lombardy, not that far from Comboland. Bonarda is perfect red wine for glugging in quantity, with about 12º of alcohol, nicely acidic and just so slightly fizzy. It'll never win any prizes of course as it's for people with peasant tastes (me) but it's great fun. Doing some idle browsing in a supermarket the other day I chanced upon this Sangue di Giuda (Judas's Blood!) from the same district so I thought, whoopee, I'll have some of that bleeder. Error. It's sweet and foul. Live and learn. Excuse rubbish photo, I was so disappointed with Judas's wine I necked a bottle of decent Barbera as recompense.

Rescue!

A degree of excitement came into our dull, rural lives this weekend when the air ambulance clattered overhead and parked up, as it were, over the tree clad hills. Apparently some peasant had almost sawn off one of his legs with a chain saw. Claret everywhere, as you might imagine. Anyway two paramedics were winched down and then winched back up with said peasant. The smoke was the result of the downdraught fanning the embers of a fire that the other woodcutter had lit to guide the helicopter in. By the way, if you ever need an ambulance in Italy you dial 118; the fire brigade is 115 and the police is 112. Or is it 113? Hmm.

Any Day Now. Perhaps.

Well, the three months are up and it's time to have the blood tests again. I went to the doctor on Tuesday and got the prescription. So I could have gone yesterday, done the tests and then gone to the nearest bar and knocked back five Negroni. However because in my awful Protestant way I believe deferred gratification to be good for you and being almost certainly deranged because of profound alcohol deficit syndrome (PADS) I will not go for the tests this week which means even more days off the sauce. I am of course presuming that everything is tickety-boo with regard to the liver. If it is shot to bits even after all this abstention then it's time for the pearl-handled Beretta.

The Fat Bull Festival

There has been the Festa del Bue Grasso for 370 years at Moncalvo near Asti and this is the second year on the trot (hoof?) that I've been. Essentially it's a day dedicated to the consumption of meat and then more meat. In the morning there's a show of prize bulls, when that's out of the way (I didn't see one bull; we were in the bar drinking Prosecco) it's time to make one's way to any of the several excellent restaurants in the village and the gloves come off.
The menu was: raw minced beef (with just a little lemon), then veal in a tuna sauce, then tripe with peppers and garlic, then agnolotti (huge mutant ravioli stuffed with meat and served with a roast meat gravy), then the main course which is seven different cuts of boiled beef, served with three garlic-based sauces. Then there was a pudding (no meat as far as I could taste), coffee and two bottles of grappa on the table amongst eleven of us. We were a little disappointed the cheese board didn't pop its head out. Needless to say we drank industrial quantities of Barbera d'Asti.
The chap in the photo getting the first of his three helpings of agnolotti from the not unattractive waitress is a Real Man. Obviously we swapped stories all afternoon. In the summer he lives in the Alps at 6,700 feet with his goats and cattle. No electricity. And he goes up on foot with the animals. His Mum, together with their supplies, goes up by helicopter (€200 + €22 a minute flight time). In the winter he works for the state electricity company, chopping down trees underneath high voltage power lines. Just before the tripe he started regaling us with his Great Chainsaw Accident stories. His favourite was his friend who had a kickback from a tree trunk (he was working without a helmet like they all do, too hot) and he managed to chainsaw off his right ear, half his cheek and most of his shoulder. The blood squirted out for more than three metres apparently.