ostuni

Hi Everyone,

How are you? Enjoying summer?

Due to a ton of different reasons we drove down – 2000 km’s yes – unexpectedly to Puglia, the car loaded with some small furniture. This week was the only one still available and I was eager to redecorate Casa Vita.

Just some small things I added, but for me interior design is about details and colors. Want to see what we brought?

This étalagère and two old antique plates (with garland with roses) I bought at the garage sale at the Yvestownshop. And it matches perfectly with the kitchen tiles and cactus bowl and jug.

Then this cute little ‘cloud table’ from Sissy Boy and two raspberry colored stools from Westwing.

Two light weight white tables for the white patio.

The wooden side tables I made last Spring turned yellow because of the varnish, so I painted new ones, didn’t varnish them anymore, just painted the grinded tops with white oil.

Since it was a rush of coming and going of guests, we did a lot of washing and other chores in and around the house.

Yesterday was a lovely day.  We had family over to visit and for the first time we baked homemade pizza! Oldest had tried it in June with his friends and they found it to be the best pizza ever 😉

Did you ever make pizza yourselves? What’s your receipe?
Here’s how we did it:

• Use small dry wood (there’s plenty from the olive trees here) together with some paper to get the fire going
• Certainly take enough wood (the fire went out a little bit too soon for five pizzas)
• Let it burn till the wood has turned into red coal
• Move the coal to the sides, so you get an empty space in the middle
• Take fresh dough from the bakery here in Ostuni (you get five pizzas out of one kilo of dough). Take the dough out of the fridge one hour before. Cut in pieces and roll into balls. Roll it out on plenty of flour.
• Put enough flour on the plate so the pizza doesn’t stick to the plate. Put the dough on the plate before you start “decorating.”
• The toppings: some tomato sauce and any other toppings you prefer (I used peppers, olives, tomatoes, anchovies, capers) and of course mozzarella (ask for mozzarella specifically for pizzas–it must be dryer than the regular one).
• Don’t over do it with toppings; the pizza might get too heavy, and the crust will fall apart
• Put the pizza in the middle of the oven and close the door
• Check regularly, and turn the pizza a little bit, so it won’t stick to the stone
• It takes about fifteen minutes for a pizza to get ready

Buon appetito!

Ciao tutti,

I am in Puglia right now. Preparing Casa Vita for the summer season. There are still two weeks available in the summer. Let me know if you would like to spend your vacation here!  We are returning to Belgium tomorrow, and I still have a long list of to do’s …

So I am just going to treat you to some pictures. Continue Reading

Apparently February is one of the coldest months here in Puglia. I arrived on a chilly Tuesday night, and it was raining.

Wednesday morning, a little cloudy. Time to do what has to be done and head off to Ostuni: extend our house insurance and a go to the Ufficio communale, dipartimento rifiuti, my favorite visit. I stayed about an hour in the City Hall, half an hour trying to understand the system of the waste collection – it is more or less the same as last year. And half an hour trying to explain “Ché disastro” it was for tourism last year. Continue Reading

Buongiorno Tutti,

Hubby and I spent a few days in Puglia during the Christmas holidays to make sure everything was okay at Casa Vita and to escape the New Year’s Eve obligatory madness. I confess I don’t like to celebrate on command.

The first day was gorgeous, cold but a clear blue sky. Oh boy, did I miss this. I had just started with taking my vitamin D, to balance the lack of sun we had in Belgium in December: 5 hours total! So this way I managed to get 12, spending the last day in Puglia 😉 We walked on the beach and had lunch (behind windows) with a view of the sea.

Continue Reading