We had a day out in Agrigento to visit "Temple of the Valley". It has ancient Greek temples (now ruins) , and apparently bigger than one in Athens. Wow! Yes, the site was massive and blew me away! Tell you more later. Also we enjoyed visiting was : "Secret Garden--Il Giardino della kolymbetra" www.fondoambiente.it for more info. We were walking around the temple and following a stray dog(she was cute and very friendly). Where we ended up? In front of the gate of this secret garden. It was quietly situated between the vallies, really, secret garden. As soon as we walked into the garden, we found orange trees and lemon trees. There were hundreds of them... The lady at the gate lend us a guide book for plants etc so that we could see all different kind of orange trees and taste them. There were benches to sit down and chill out, bins to put orange peelings.... We ate and picked loads. I never ate so many oranges. Blood oranges were the nicest, thick skin oranges were bitter and lots of pips. Clementines/mandarin(?) were also lovely and sweet, big oranges were also full of flavour and juicy. It was really lovey to sit down, chilling out after walking around the temples. It was paradise. The photo shown how many oranges we ate, only lasted a few days. Big round oranges were came from Maurizio and Ivana, so as grapefruits and few lemons, rest of them were what we picked that day. Maurizio and Ivana told us big oranges were good for eating, blood oranges were for juicing. We did both. We juiced ones we picked from the garden and some of theirs made lovely juice. We had it with our dinner. Felt really being spoilt... After we finished them, we bought (more!) a carrier bag full of oranges from a old guy with van on the street in a small town( I don't remember the name...). No-one spoke English, we didn't speak Italian, but we managed to communicate. Bag full of yummy oranges and 4 beautiful tomatoes costed us €3(can't buy fab oranges like that here!). They were well worth it. This is one of things I love doing, shop from locals like local people do. Taste the same food and experience! Wonderful! It's exciting.
We also sprouted some chick peas and lentils for our salad.
Close up of chick peas and lentils! After 3days, they started sprouting. They look cute and delicious! Yes, they were fantastic and made yummy salad. Sprouting is for me, ideal food for especially summer/spring holiday self-catering food. Cheap, nutritious, easy to grow and gives lots of energy. Excellent source for carbo and protein.
I just spoke to Marcus, somehow, more we eat cooked food in winter(especially), more hungry we feel... I feel still hungry after 2 bowl(big!) of salad...When we eat raw food, don't feel hungry much...Is it psychological? or there's reason for it?
Oh, one sunny day( it was sunny to start off with, then went cloudy...), we went to the nature reserve near by for a walk. Beautiful woods. It was right next to the orange grow. There, we met an Sicilian couple in their late 60's picking something. When we walked passed, I looked at what they had in their hands, they showed me and explained to us what they were and how to look out, and how to cook. All in Italian though! Guess what, they were wild asparagus. The lady even tried to give them to us. I just could not accept them, I felt bad receiving them they were their dinner! So, after we parted, me and Marcus were on our mission to pick some. We were very concentrating! After picking a few asparagus, finally understood what the lady said, I learnt how to look. They were quite rare items in the nature reserve. Still, this is how many we picked and of course, they went into our dinner that evening. Taste? they were bitter. So, I blanched, mixed into lentil pasta sauce.
I mustn't forget to mention, Maurizio and Ivana's green olives! They were yummy, this jar was full when it was given to us, as usual, didn't last long. I was pinching it every time I had a cuppa! (Actually reminds me of my granny, my mum's side, did. She used to put out pickles with soy sauce and rice crackers with roasted rice green tea, called genmai-cha. Something salty and Japanese tea somehow go really well together. I'm not sure if some other part of Japan do the same...) Those olives were from their olive grow, and they cured themselves. They were in brine(very very salted water), soaked for more than 1 year. I didn't know that was one of ways to cure olives. Learn something new everyday!
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