Close Call

I promise this is the last post about mushrooms. But this year is a very special year in terms of the quantity and quality; Italians are going bonkers in their frenzy to collect. Cars parked badly on grassy verges, shouted pleas of "Giuseppe, where are you?" echoing around the woods, the grunting as creaking baskets are loaded into car boots and the thump, thump, thump of the helicopter ambulance as they look for an open area to pick up some fractured fungaiolo who leaned over just a little too far in his quest for that big fat one and fell 40 feet down a ravine.
And there was a bit of a mushroom frenzy in Casa Combo last night as a good number of these little beauties were wolfed down in the company of friends and a serious amount of Barbera d'Asti. Paying the price today. They play hell with your digestive system.

A quiet night out

Please come around for some supper they said. But it's Friday tomorrow, I replied weakly, and I'm teaching at eight o'clock and I don't finish until one. Oh, don't be such a poof, they said, we're only cooking a plate of Milanese (delicate slices of beef, coated in breadcrumbs, and then fried in good oil), there's a plate of tomato salad and that's it, you'll be home by ten o'clock. Needless to say, at half past midnight we were bellowing out "Canto, canto, canto" and "Rido, rido, rido" and I was begging Mrs Combo for just five essential minutes of grace so I could drink some more Marzemino (an obscure red from Trentino and, in my opinion, the more obscure it remains the better). The bloke in the dodgy glasses bailed out early, as you might imagine.