A WEEK IN OUR LIFE ON THE AMALFI COAST - EP 170

We are Nikki and Carlo and our family live in Positano, Italy, nearly 500 steps from the road but surrounded by fruit and olive trees and with a fabulous view. Our garden overlooks the sea and we grow our own food. We show you what life is really like on the Amalfi Coast. So please subscribe and welcome to the Positano Diaries. In these cold windy March days the temperature on the Amalfi Coast is considerably lower than usual for this time of year and just as it seemed that the world had figured out how to deal with Covid, new threats are dominating the headlines. What with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the terrible flooding in Australia it's hard to know what the right thing to do or say is when it comes to social media. In the last week I've seen people criticise for voicing their thoughts and also criticise for staying silent. So you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I've come to understand from many emails and messages that people come to my Instagram and YouTube to relax and escape from the worries of the world. Over the last two years through the pandemic I've had so many people thank me for giving them a break, providing some escapism, helping them to switch off and boosting spirits after a hard day that I know that they want just that. People don't come to my channel for my opinion on current world situations. There's more than enough voices out there on social media, TV, radio and I really don't feel that it's my place to join in. Now don't get me wrong this does not mean that I'm not aware of what may be happening in the world or that I don't care. It simply means that I'm keeping my thoughts and worries to myself. I don't want to worry or antagonise people more than they already are. So that means that my social media, my Instagram stories and posts, my YouTube videos will carry on being a place to get away from it all. A break from the news, just simple everyday life on the Amalfi Coast. After losing my mother quite suddenly 16 years ago I came to realise that we only have one life. This is it. There's no dress rehearsal, no chance to do it again. So I made a deal with myself then that I would try my hardest to live my life to the max, make the most of every day, appreciate the simple things around me and notice the beauty around me too. So today while cities are being bombed and while people are losing their homes I gather my friends and family and the people I love around me for a simple picnic on the beach. And today's picnic was brought to you by the letters J and P and the number 15. You too can wear these fabulous cashmere ponchos and fish sweats and tees from JP Boutique Amalfi. JP is currently offering 15 euro discount on all orders over 100 euro until the end of March with the discount code nikkipositano15. Details in the description box down below. As you know we don't like to waste products and anything that's still usable so our trusty fridge freezer which we've had for about eight years is now being taken to our neighbours. So we're swapping a puppy for a fridge freezer. So later on in the day Carlo is going to load this up on the carello and take it over to the neighbours. We've cleaned it all, it's all empty, we've got all of our stuff in the new one now which is supposed to be bigger but it's definitely a bit smaller but that's fine. It looks pretty, that's all that counts. They are everywhere! I'm just popping over to the neighbours now because one of my friends might be picking up a puppy so I'm going to go and meet her and tell her all about the other ones. They must be huge now. Do you want to come too? Do you want to come and see mummy? Why not? Because they're all bigger than her now, she's a bit overwhelmed. Are you going that way are you? Daddy! This little one still loves her home, she doesn't have anybody come to take her yet. Bye bye fridge! So I've just got back from a yoga lesson and finally the greenhouse is getting a new coating. The other one got ripped to shreds, the plastic obviously after a few years disintegrates and then we had really really rough winds and it ripped it all to shreds so they've had to put a new one up. Is this just one piece of plastic? Yes. Stick together? Yeah yeah it's one piece. 16 metres for 8 metres. Now I know Luca had plans to do this yesterday and the day before but we've had some days of really really strong winds and it would have been absolutely impossible. Finally today the wind has calmed and they're getting on with it. Where do you think you're going? We'll show you how we're going to bring two dogs and two porcini on a motorbike. I've just been with Elizabeth and Marianna for drinks at the bar, drinks when I say drinks I mean cappuccino, and we're just waiting for Carlo to come and pick us up. Is this going to be Indy's first time on a scooter? I'm not quite sure how it's going to go but we will show you and here is Carlo, hello! So Holly is going to be in her usual place there and I think the most sensible thing to do is keep Indy on my lap. Tommaso is already there. I don't think she'd be scared. If you don't have dogs you might not know that when they're puppies they're not supposed to do steps which of course is a huge problem here so that's why I'm carrying her because she's a little bit too young to do especially nearly 500 steps. Of course dogs in Porto Tamponsitano have to get used to doing steps much quicker than dogs anywhere else but for now I'll carry her. So in a couple of hours? And welcome to our new kitchen. For our first cooking demonstration today Tommaso has come down and he's going to make risotto, scampi, gambari and lemon. So we're going to do a fish broth and he's going to make it from scratch. You can buy the powder and put that in but Tommaso's going to show us how to do a fish broth from scratch and then he's going to do a sort of crustacean butter is what he's called it so like a scampi and prawn butter and make a beautiful risotto with lemon as well. and we pull it like this or from the tail in this way or simpler, we make a light cut here and you see the intestine is removed which should not be eaten because it is very bitter, ugly and rightly so, that's the ---- of the prawn the ---- of the prawn we didn't want it so what is this? So now we take the butter we melt it and we put it in the pan with the prawn shells you see already here you can see the color of the prawn it's a kind of orange to give flavor to our risotto we're going to butter the risotto at the end with the prawn butter we're grating some lemon lemon zest in the oil so we flavor the oil that we use later in the risotto but to give a touch let's say to grease the butter the prawn, we need a bit of acidity of lemon, what can this lemon zest give us? this we're going to put it in the fridge Ok, so now it's time to put everything together we've got the fish broth in the pan here, the crustacean butter is cooling in the fridge we've got some rice that's going to be toasted in the pan and then slowly, spoonful by spoonful or ladleful by ladleful we'll add the broth to it which makes the risotto very creamy just adding it bit by bit, rather than all at once and there's some chopped parsley ready at the very end we will add the prawns and the scampi and the crustacean butter to the risotto Risotto is ready! Wow! I don't know what to do with the food What? Sit! Good! Do you feel clever? And you were sitting all the time weren't you? Sit! Sit! Good Just washed my hair and it's gone rather floofy not much I can do about that Anyhow, that's the end of today's video I hope you've enjoyed it thank you very much for watching and thank you to everybody for all your lovely comments on last week's video we are still waiting for the tiles to be done and hopefully the kitchen will be finished in the next few weeks but we've got the main part of it done and that's what's important so I'm going to leave the recipe that Tomaso did in the description box below and also the information on JP Boutique's discount code so you can all find that in the description below the video I will see you in next week's video thank you very much for watching thank you to all my patrons for supporting me alright, I'll see you next week, bye!