Festa della Repubblica yesterday, it would have been a day off for everyone, if it didn’t happen to be Sunday. But we had guests for lunch and ended up spending a beautiful day with Laura, Dennis and Nadia and Cristian – it is priceless to have great neighbours!

Grilled octopus was my choice for our main course. Sometime ago Dennis cooked some for us before Christmas, it was spectacular, yesterday we made it even better. The beast was from Garfagnana, Dennis chucked it into the pot of boiling water with 3 bay leaves in it, no salt, having initially dipped it in 4 times “for shock effect”. It cooked for 30-40 mins, until the fork went into it easily, then the pot was taken off the heat and left to cool with its contents for about 3 hours. Then it was chopped up, seasoned with salt, pepper and lime juice and was ready to grill.

We served it on a delicious bed of broad bean puree, made with some fried aubergine and onions too and also grilled asparagus. Phenomenal plate of food, it tasted as good as it looked.