Superworm, Small Businesses, and the Salad for every Summer

Caprese

We got back from Amalfi over a week ago, but I am only just getting to writing anything, after the inevitable loads of laundry and mountain of admin I had to get through first.

So, you ask, how was it? This first, official, family holiday.

Hot, stressful and siren-song beautiful; and so it will be seamlessly assimilated into the fat, ragged old book of family holidays throughout history. Now we just need a holiday to recover.

July and August are not months I would ever choose to travel in. Especially not to anywhere hot or potentially heaving with sun & spritz seekers. When people ask when they should come here to Sardinia to visit, I always advise against these two months. In fact these are now the months when I entertain thoughts of flying back to England, for a simple 23 degrees summer day, which would feel like sitting inside a cucumber. But no, not us, we headed in our non-air conditioned car for the Sorrentine peninsula. Partly in the name of research (there were lemons to find, eat and write about) and partly as a first fun summer holiday. Or so I thought.

the Business looking as if butter wouldn't melt

Like all good family holidays, there were small puddles of pleasure, mostly involving mozzarella (more on that later), but there can be no denying that travelling on a modest budget with a small child is like taking a small business on the road with none of the necessaries that such a small business needs, or any staff to share the load. Because having a baby is like having a business. A business that consumes money rather than making it, but generates just as much stress and requires just as much mental, emotional, physical and financial investment (actually perhaps more of the physical and emotional stuff, depending on the type of business we are talking about). I have issues with the word business, anyway. It would be nicer to call it azienda, which in Italian is much less prescriptive (business sounds a bit like pin-stripes and perverts to me) and more just any enterprise (including a farm. How nice is that. The same word for a tech start up and a goat farm. I love Italian egalitarianism). Having a child is like having an azienda. It requires a level of organization and forward-planning that I never thought I would possess (and frankly never wanted to, delighting in my disorganisation). Well, those days are over. Now I have special knapsacks for nappies, with special woven pockets for wipes, and special pouches for puree. I have spoons and plates and bibs and endless bits of cloth because God knows they may be useful, for not only do you need to carry the wipes for all the billion spills and ills, but you must also carry a hefty load of climate guilt about all the wipes you are using, and so to ease such guilt you shove in a muslin last minute, simultaneously sighing inwardly that you will also have to wash it straight away, and so are you really doing anything for the planet or just making your own life difficult? These are just a handful of things that your tiny mobile Business needs. Then you have to think of all of the environmental/climactic factors and how they may affect your Business; hats for bright sun (to be thrown to the ground immediately and rescued and replaced in a never-ending battle of delight/determination (the Business’s) and resignation/amusement/faux anger/frustration (yours); high factor scentless sun cream (for the Business’s sensitive skin), something warm in case of cold, something shady for when the hat comes off for the eight hundredth time, something clean for when other clothes get poo/food on, sunglasses for delicate eyes which will equally be cast to the ground, and so on and so forth until you realise that you have left the house with an entire suitcase of bits for the Business, but you forgot to put pants on and do not have your own phone, wallet or keys. 

Of course there is one colleague to aid the running, but he is as tired as you, if not more so, because you at least have odd jolts of hormones, like weird Jelly vodka shots, that keep you going when you feel all but dead, and all your other colleagues, who are fresher from full night’s sleep and the unbearable lightness of a life where they hoover but once a week (rather than after every meal) are far away (and if the metaphor is wearing thin, I mean the usual help you may or may not be lucky enough to have – whether it be nursery, parents/parents in law/family/neighbours/baby sitters/nannies(!) etc.

No, my friends, running a small business is not easy, and it is (obviously) even harder when you take it on the road.  

But here we were, with our small, sweating, freshly one-year old Business, on the road to Amalfi.

*

All began well, with a smooth departure from Cagliari, where we were just kissed by a cool whisper of the Maestrale, and we drank beer in plastic cups, and ate crisps, and the Business tottered around moistly making friends, and we felt for a minute like we might even relax during this week ahead.

We waved goodbye to the shining city, piled up on her hill, the Duomo white in the sun, and we stayed on deck to see the sun set. We took selfies and we smiled, feeling almost smug. I had even made sandwiches so we didn’t have to spend a small fortune in the Ferry bistro, where they double the price and halve the freshness on principle. I’d roasted aubergines with garlic and oil, folded them into soft semola panini, topped them with fresh basil, tomatoes and feta, and drizzled a little extra oil over before wrapping them in paper. I’d pre-prepared the Business’s brodo. I felt like a Bloody Good Mother/Business Owner for about 5 brief seconds. And then, as we descended from the deck, I remembered with a stab to the heart that I’d left the coolbag in the car, and all dreams of Goodness died within me. So, off to the ferry bistro we slunk.

The Business ate pasta with pesto, in a greasy Ikea high chair, and I had a nice-enough - if slightly watery - Parmigiana. We kept up the brave faces.

The night in our bunks passed without event, even though the growing Business now occupies most of the bed, so my poor Business partner – fortunately slender – was left a mere melon wedge of mattress.       

We woke to a disappointing lack of cream croissants at breakfast, and had 2 or more hours of twiddling our thumbs before arriving into Napoli. So, after a brief look into the children’s soft-play area, where two tired parents sat on tiny foam chairs and scrolled amidst a pervasive smell of socks, we went up on deck again. And then I remembered why I love the Ferry.

There is just nothing like arriving by sea. It doesn’t matter how pathetically cliched it is, or how many times I have been on a ferry, I just can’t help thinking back to Titanic, and have to stop myself actually throwing my arms into the air and singing Celine Dion. Arriving by sea is majestic. It’s grand. It’s thrilling. It’s everything that getting shoved around in a cramped, airless aeroplane as people empty the overhead lockers and forget all forms of polite behavior is not. I loathe flying. I love ferrying. The little coastguard boat arrives, snapping at our huge heels like a spaniel, below deck they do whatever it is they have to do, and then off he goes again, into the distance, leaving a trail of spray behind, the driver waving. We wave back from our great height, and the seagulls begin to swoop closer as we see land approaching. There is a feeling of timelessness, or of time stood still, as we cruise magnificently into the sprawling bay of Naples. And what a view! Land mass after land mass, island after island, sky scrapers, moored super yachts, floating pleasure palaces, fishing boats, rocks and cliffs crusted with castles. The whole of the huge bay of Naples laid out before us, with dark, ominous Vesuvius shrouded in cloud and brooding in the background. Even the Business is oddly speechless.

Slowly, slowly, gracefully, without so much as a wave, we cruise into the port of Naples, and our fellow passengers throw scraps of (non cream) croissants to the gulls, who swoop and dive and grab greedily from extended hands. And then the mad rush to the cars, down hot narrow staircases coated with dog hair, into the belly of the ship with its suffocating smell of engine oil and exhaust. The orange-suited men shout and gesture and point, a drooping fag already wedged between their lips, they look like they have lived underground forever. The heat, the asphyxiating scent, and then a flash of daylight and we are out, out into the air and suddenly in a new, bustling, bright city, with no idea which lane we should be in or where we need to turn left.

*

Our first accommodation was in Massa Lubrense, a little town just below Sorrento, which I had found by chance because it boasted an AirBnB called Casa di Limoni, or the Lemon House. The apartment was on the first floor of a grand old palazzo with crumbling whitewash and vaulted ceilings. Luigi, the enterprising young owner, had followed a lemon theme, complete with lemon doormat, lemon-yellow cushions, and a huge lemon canvas on the bedroom wall. The kitchen was a cupboard and the bathroom even smaller but there was a washing machine, one air-con unit and a large bedroom with a view out over lemon groves. The old wooden shuttered window had a wide marble window ledge, and I dreamt of sitting and writing whilst gazing over the green-netted lemon groves in the early evening light. This, of course, never happened, because of the Business and his many, ever-changing needs. We settled into our chaotic routine of watering, feeding and following around the Business, as he acquainted himself with the property and all of its life-threatening opportunities.

As we learnt from a few forays into the town itself (we were about half a mile out), the main road (the only road that follows the Sorrento coast) was surprisingly busy, mostly with a series of stinking and screeching motorini (scooters). But we found the back tracks which were cut into the hill through the lemon groves, the old donkey tracks I liked to think, which meant we could arrive into town without seeing a soul. With the Business strapped in we waddled into town almost every night, passing the iconic Maccelleria (a wonderful Aladdin’s cave of a shop with a lemon-painted ceramic sign that sold just about everything) down the hill past the pretty church in its piazza to the benches facing the view of the whole of the Sorrentine peninsular and Capri beyond. Here we watched an impossibly pastel sunset, and admired the bustling restaurant below, before turning downhill into the slightly less salubrious back alleys on the hunt for a hidden gem. After stopping a shop owner and asking advice, we found ourselves down a dark side street at Cicciotto’s, a little, dimly lit pizzeria who’s giant exposed air con unit whirred and leaked onto the street outside.

The owner’s daughter sat in a corner and played half-heartedly with a pink plastic helicopter, but her eyes lit up at the arrival of the Business. She instantly began presenting him with toys, and her father, the owner and pizzaiola, took him for a tour of the ovens and gave him a piece of dough to play with. The pizza was simple, crisp and straightforward; generous with the cheese. There was no special sauce or finest mozzarella, or long-leavened sourdough crust. But it was good and hot and the beer was cold and the hospitality incredibly, touchingly, tear-jerkingly warm. We left happy, the Business having been baptized with his first Neopolitan pizza experience.

The next day was on to Sorrento, for a tour around the town. We managed to find parking (no mean feat) and then wove our away around the busy city, not really sure what to see, before stumbling across some pretty backstreets which seemed to be the main attraction. Here it was that we found the famous stalls advertising Sorrento lemon sorbet, and so of course we bought one. The lemon it came in was the size of a small melon, and they had scooped only about a third of its pulp out to fill with sorbet, which was fresh and sharp and satisfyingly real-tasting, as I had feared it might have succumbed to its own success and thus taste artificial. No, it was a true, zingy, sherberty lemon sorbet, and the vendor stuck a great wedge and a lemon twig complete with leaf in the top. It was so attractive people stopped us in the street to ask where we got it from, and once the sorbet itself was finished we found ourselves taking bites out of the lemon itself, sweeter than the lemons we knew, with a thick, firm, foamy and fragrant pith that was delicious to chew on, and only very slightly bitter. Having eaten our way through most of it we wrapped the remainder in a napkin (too precious not to take home) and carried on our aimless wondering. We stumbled across the Chiostro di San Francesco, a beautiful, cool and quiet Medieval cloister presided over by tumbling bougainvillea and weeping willow, and then from there found ourselves drifting towards a busy viewpoint where people posed for photographs and the view behind them seemed to go on forever.

Below were striped umbrellas and bathers, and beyond an endless blue sea, dotted with the occasional white boat. After suitable oohs and ahhs we took one more turn around the town, before a brief stop in a book shop (Lorenzo), and then back to the car and back home to feed the Business. He (and we) eat pasta with homemade rocket and ricotta pesto which I had brought with us, and which has gone slightly rancid after a hot night in the coolbag below deck.

After the obligatory naps ( for Lorenzo and the Business) we headed off out into the lemon groves, winding our way across the hills to the town, lemons drooping overhead. There were plenty squashed on the ground, too, and the hot smell of them filled the wind-less alleyways. At the Maccelleria I bought a fresh mozzarella, which I was told, in English, is ‘very good, very fresh’. I noted it was warm, and not kept in the fridge but on the counter. We wandered down to the benches for the Business to clamber on and watched another flamingo sunset, then head back for a supper of tomatoes and our very fresh mozzarella, which is truly mind blowing. It is huge, the size of the Business’s head, and as I say; warm, milky, and weeping. Fresh and creamy, grassy and as meaty and satisfying as the best steak, but also as light and delicate as a daisy. Like the best steak, we eat it in fat slices, and I am in love. The tomatoes, too, were extraordinary. They collapsed at a prod from the fork and were as big as apples and as juicy as melons. We finished with some grass-and-jam tasting green figs the colour of tree frogs, also from the magical Maccelleria, and then once the Business was in bed I made myself the famed Poor Man’s Pudding of the region: thin slices of our salvaged Sorrento lemon sprinkled with sugar. It tasted like pancakes, but without the bland pancake bit. It tasted like childhood. It tasted amazing, and I would happily eat it every day, to finish every meal. Fresh and sweet, and reminiscent of the end of nearly every meal I ate as a child, which took the shape of homegrown fruit, liberally dunked in gritty sugar.

The next day was Friday, and after a rough night we headed downhill to the Marina Lobra, which I had heard was pretty and within walking distance, or so the little leaflet in the Lemon House told me. We were early, and there was no one much around apart from a couple of old boys on a bench watching the world go by and muttering under their moustaches.  The marina was impossibly pretty, the descent down boasted the most spectacular views (and Morning Glory) and there was one bad bar at the base where we had a mediocre breakfast before heading back up again. The climb was steep, and the Business heavy, but we made and it and clambered into the car to head off to Vico Equense, mostly because it was supposed to be less busy and still pretty, and also because I thought I had seen an entire shop of baskets there on the way through. I will go a long way for a basket. We didn’t find much to see in Vico, apart from another magnificent view point down by a pretty pink church, and then the Business began rumbling and we knew we had to stop for lunch. We ate at Tito’s, which Google had recommended, and where they could not have been nicer or more accommodating for the B and his many sticky needs. He ate a delicious pasta al sugo, which I was inclined to steal myself, and I ate a lovely, slightly odd dish of gnocchi stuffed with melting, lemon zest-spiked provolone and clams and zucchini flowers. It worked, and each parcel was a delight. The B was busy with Superworm, or in Italian, Superverme, who he had found at the library and which he adores. I love that Julia Donaldson has made it across the pond, and the rhymes in Italian are genius. Weaving our way across the whole of the Sorrentine peninsula, Superverme was our constant companion. As the rhyme goes: Superverme, tu che non ci hai mai tradito, superverme, sei un mito! (this became the mantra of the holiday).

Aware that we were already two days in and still no lemon-themed stories had come to light, that evening I took myself into Massa, unencumbered by the Business. I wandered into a shop where a lady sat with her back to me frantically sewing something. Behind the till she had a sort of sewing cave which I liked the look of, spools of thread mounted on the wall, and pieces of pretty fabric strewn everywhere. I interrupted her and we began chatting. Soon her sister arrived, and, the two ladies being granddaughters of lemon growers and general connoisseurs of all things bright and beautiful, I soon had 3 pages of notes and plenty of advice about where to go and what to avoid. Pina, the seamstress, told me I should try lemon zest in my Moka, which she said will cure a headache and is uplifting and delicious. Her sister (whose name I forget but who makes ceramic fig leaf dishes) told me to put lemon zest in my polpette, which I told her I have done and do. Pina said ‘mi piange il cuore’ (her heart weeps) for us being here now, and all the poor ignorant tourists who come at this time of year when it’s too hot and too busy. She told me to come back in April or October, and I promised her I would. I hope I do.

After stopping into the local ceramic stop to buy some token lemon-painted things I head home to a second supper of tomatoes and mozzarella. The cheese is already totally different to how it was yesterday; solid, rubbery, and with little flavour. Oh the evil sorcery of the common fridge.

And then it was time to move apartments, further south down the coast towards Amalfi. The next stop was San Michele, high up in the hills beyond Praiano, and apparently well placed for exploring the next lemon-themed towns of Amalfi, Ravello, Minori and Maiori. We packed up and headed off, the B in foul temper, due to the cropping of 4 molars simultaneously. We passed through Positano, impossibly pretty, the proud ‘pearl of the Amalfi coast’, and full to the gills of immaculately dressed tourists, only slightly shining, and then dropped down towards Praiano, where I have been assured there is a beach that is not too busy and a restaurant where we might even be able to find lunch.

Praiano

I noticed that the beach here is not as I know it at home. It is stewarded, and umbrella-d, and paid for or booked beforehand. There is monitored parking, and immaculate and symmetrically spaced loungers, and bars and showers, and what the Sards would call ‘servizi’, which all of our local beaches lack. The water is glass-like and perfect, and the umbrellas photogenic, the bars chic and the spritzes delicious, but it just doesn’t feel like the beach as I know and love it; rugged and scruffy, but above all, not busy. (Note: the main beaches in our region do get very busy in high season. But that is when/where I avoid them and either go early morning, or late evening, or I go to the noted weirdo beach-lets dedicated to dogs or nudists. I think it is funny that these two beach-loving tribes are grouped together. This works well for me as I can take Bechamel, but I am, inevitably, less keen on all the old naked guys). Anyway, we bypassed the loungers and headed along the path cut into the cliff to Il Pirata, a restaurant right out on the water.  

Here the B ate more penne al sugo (less good) and I ate spaghetti al nerano, for the first time in my life. It was simply translated as pasta with courgettes and cheese, and then I remembered that I’d seen it on the telly with Tucci, and that it was somewhat of a cult dish. So I had to taste it. It was like cacio pepe, but with fried courgettes added. Salty, piquant with pepper, rich with cheese. The courgettes gave it texture, and a little nutty sweetness, but the crema made from the melted cheese, fried courgette and garlic oil and pasta water was pretty revelatory. I resolved to recreate it at home. The Business liked it too, as I knew he would; pasta, zucchini and cheese being three of his favourite foods. (a recipe for this will come soon, next blog post I promise)

We left happy and full, and headed off for the next flat. Up up up the hill we wound, on the windiest of roads, until we reached it at last, beyond a village called Furore, and then down some treacherous stone steps and at last into our next home; a large single room divided by 70’s bamboo-printed glass partitions, and with a view that made you want to weep (or perhaps die if you suffer from vertigo). This room was nothing next to the balcony, a narrow space with a ceramic topped table, looking out over an endless blue, the sound of the cicadas below clicking incessantly. We settled in, and the B began exploring. It was in this large, airy room, with its gently billowing white curtain and double doors opening onto the balcony, that the Business began to walk. After the first real plate of restaurant pasta at Tito’s (egged on by Superverme) he was now taking his first shuffling steps following me out onto the balcony, bringing me a selection of interesting objects (mostly lids. He really likes lids). It felt like the perfect setting for this momentous moment. It was becoming a holiday of firsts.

a room with a view

Our wrought-iron bed was painted in pea green, and sported a central circular panel painted with roses. There was an enormous faux grand chandelier overhead, and then the aforementioned bizarre bamboo partitions. The kitchen was well-equipped and efficient, and the bathroom had pink tiles with tiny flowers that made me nostalgic. I loved it all at first sight. And we made ourselves instantly at home.

That night I took it upon myself to head to the nearest shop for supplies. The nearest shop happened to be a few Km away but I saw a path on the map that cut down the hill, all stone steps and garden-spying, so off I went in the still-searing heat. The descent was long, and slow, but charming, and I passed a pretty church and stopped to take photos of flowers and forage some wild fennel and rocket. I began to wonder how far away this shop was, but ploughed on. Eventually I burst out onto the main road and a good general shop where I bought fresh ricotta for breakfast and some parma ham for the evening. I also got myself a can of Chinotto and a bumper bag of salted crisps for the walk home, as I knew I would need them. I set off up the billion steep stone steps, my heavy shopping in hand, and within seconds I was wet through with sweat. The Chinotto and crisps lasted about ten minutes, and then I was on my own for an achingly hot, windless and heavy hour climbing up and up and up, until eventually I made it home and dissolved into a puddle of perspiration. We ate peaches and prosciutto (with some foraged rocket for good measure) and then collapsed, after watching the stars from the balcony for a few happy seconds.

The next day was Sunday, and the boys decided to give me a day off. After breakfasting on our balcony, drunk on the view and my newly discovered lemon zest moka (thank you, Pina! We paired it with the fresh ricotta, honey, and toast) I put on a dress and set off on my own, slinging my camera around my neck and feeling like a woman reborn. The road alone is worth coming here for. It feels like something out of a classic Italian film, cutting through ravines, winding through rocky green outcrops, passing picturesque fishing villages now the stomping grounds of Influencers and, what the Italians wonderfully call, Veeps (VIPS). It was so early I could feel a little coolness rising from the ravines. The only car I passed – perfectly – a pale green Cinquecento, whizzing past me on the narrow road. The road is punctuated by tunnels cut into the cliffs, where the lane narrows and your heart races in the cool dark, before whoosh you are out again into the blinding daylight, with another impossibly beautiful view beyond. I stopped to photograph a beautiful Medieval monastery just before Amalfi, complete with a suave moustachioed man outside like a mascot, and then drove on through Atrani, Ravello and Minori, before parking in Maori. The larger sister of Minori with a bigger, busier beach but somehow less charm - I walked from here along the coastline to Minori, where there is limited parking but unlimited pastries. I had read about the famous pasticceria Sal de Riso, and seen the patron many a time on Italian daytime TV. He is accredited with having invented a delicious dolci which I too have written a recipe for; the pear and hazelnut cake with a ricotta filling, and also for his version of the classic regional sweet; the Delizia al Limone. I had read about this dolce long ago, and knew that I had to try it. Lily-white and spherical, the shape of a breast, it is a symbolic sweet of the area, and a celebration of lemons. Delizias differ depending on who is making them, but the essential principles remain the same: Pan di Spagna, a yellow lemon custard filling, and a white lemon cream coating. There may or may not be Limoncello involved, and the quantities and consistency of the creams differ, as does the decoration, ranging from piped whipped cream and candied lemon to a nipple-like strawberry. I entered the blissfully air-conditioned Sal de Riso and ordered my Delizia, to eat alone, standing at the bar. I was early, but the place was already filling with tourists. I ate the little domed cake, washing it down with a black coffee. It was as delightful as I thought it would be, light and delicately lemony, creamy and fluffy, though perhaps just a little mean on the custard. As Lorenzo is fond of saying; ‘la crema non e mai abbastanza’ (the custard is never enough). Satisfied, but by no means full (this is the lightest of fairy cakes) I headed out to explore Minori. There was a little market where I bought a beautiful, long linen tablecloth, and was very nearly convinced into buying little lace baby bonnets too (a close escape). Then into the back streets and stumbling across the pale lemon-yellow Duomo, rather wonderfully named Basilica di Santa Trofimena. I met a friendly pharmacist who gave me instructions for the Sentiero dei Limoni, a walk through the lemon groves between Maiori and Minori, and seeing as the day was passing, I decided to set off. As I headed slightly uphill out of Minori all was quiet, and I found my way to the beginning of the path easily. More stone steps, and very quickly I was alone, climbing up and along the famed Sentiero. It was thrilling being above the crowds, and only a mad dog or an Englishwoman would have been trekking this path at midday on possibly the hottest Sunday of the year but luckily, like a good English woman, I had brought a hat and so off I skipped, straw-hatted and damp with determination. The views were mind-blowing, truly inebriating; this coastline boasts panoramas that are so stunning you feel drunk with the beauty of them. I passed through olives, above shady lemon groves (the precious lemons hiding behind walls, perhaps a stray or two dangling over the path), I saw the famed chestnut-pole terraces cut into the cliffs. I wandered under shady vines, rustling in the breeze, and I revelled in the blue and white peace of it all. Halfway along the Sentiero I passed (another) pretty church in the shade of a huge plane tree, and then finally I arrived back into Maiori, coming down by the steps alongside the yellow and green tiled Duomo, and then finally back to the oven-hot car. A solitary adventure, and a day I will always remember, complete with a commemorative, lemon-custard filled cake.

That night we feasted, once again, on tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

And so it was Monday, our last day, and the only day left for lemon-based discovery. The ferry to Cagliari was that evening, and as ever, the time had gone too quickly.

Amalfi, for some reason, we had left for last. We set off in good time and left the car about a mile out of town, winding down the hill and drinking in the view. At the bottom of the hill lay Amalfi, the sea front dotted with more immaculate umbrellas and beach bars looking like they had just popped out of some classic Italian movie. Left off a chaotic roundabout lay the main piazza, with a gurgling fountain and the magnificent Duomo, squeezed into a corner. A medley of gold, coloured mosaic and black and white stone, perched at the top of a sweeping staircase, it is the crowning cathedral of this coastline, without doubt. Next to it was the impeccable Pasticerria Pansa, the very picture of old world glamour, all glass and brass inside, and perfect silver napkin holders sporting fanned scallop-edged napkins. We had breakfast, another (better) Delizia for L, and a lemon-cream filled doughnut cone for me.

A brief but wonderful visit to the Paper museum, where you can make your own Bambigena paper (paper made from rags) and buy beautiful pressed papers to take home, and then to the shop just below housed in an old mill, and selling the most magical and charming stationary I have ever seen, like a little shop out of Harry Potter (Amalfi is undeniably a little bit magical, famous for two magical things: lemons and paper). And then finally lunch on the waterfront, where B ate his third penne al sugo in a row (pretty good) and we had (another) Caprese.

Before we knew it it was time to go, and I hadn’t even made it to my Lemon farm tour, which I’d pre-booked weeks ago and which was really the whole point of the trip. We will come back, we repeated through gritted teeth, as we slogged up the hill in the heat, panicking about missing the ferry. And then, there was no car, for it had been towed, and I broke down in uncontrollable sobs in front of the immaculate white crescent of Hotel Catarina, where a chauffeur took pity on us and drove us to rescue the poor impounded Golf, which had – of course – been parked illegally. We thanked him profusely and set off at last, in the blazing heat of the afternoon, for Napoli.

This time there was no celebratory drink on the deck, as we waved goodbye to the humid chaos of Naples. No winking spritzes and dewdrop hopes of a real holiday. Instead, I cowered in the cabin, exhausted, hot, red-eyed and wild-haired, thinking that I had ended this holiday more tired than I begun it. And so it is, I sighed, when one travels with a small Business. The Business in question sat next to me on the bunk, perfectly peaceful, slowly turning the pages of Superworm, and singing softly to himself.

And so to The Salad I will eat all Summer, the inimitable Caprese, which is (of course) simplicity itself, but which cannot be beaten. We ate a different version every day, but the ones we made at home were the best, and they involved a very fresh mozzarella and very good tomatoes. Bread for mopping is mandatory.

This recipes is also an excuse to tell you about Tonino and a Mozzarella to remember. Just outside Piano di Sorrento, on the Friday morning, on our way to Vico Equense, I saw a sign that said farmer’s market and screeched at Lorenzo to stop. The Tiny Saint slept and I rushed off to the roadside shack to see what I could find. There were crates of lemons outside, and a couple of Maremma sheepdogs (Bechamel’s brothers) both of which filled me with hope.

A small queue of 5 or so people waited in the shade of the shack, fondling the dogs and offering advice to the slightly sweaty owner, Tonino, who loaded boxes and bags with an admirable lack of urgency. On his left was an old wooden shelving unit stacked with dark unlabeled bottles (homemade wine), beside him an old wooden shop counter complete with antique scales (piled high with white and brown eggs, the occasional feather flying), on the other side an old defunct fridge unit stacked with brown beer bottles of passata and jars of honey, and all around him crates of dusky peaches, bulbous tomatoes and buckets of fresh green figs. This is my sort of shop.

I waited patiently for my turn, eavesdropping on my fellow shoppers and smiling at their treatment of poor Tonino (‘give me a good price today, Tonino, dai! And remember the zucchini with no seeds!’) and then bought some figs, a few peaches, tomatoes, passata, a bottle of dark wine. Then, as I paid, I spied something white wrapped in plastic in a basket behind Tonino’s blue-shirted bulk. He followed my gaze.

Mozzarella. Fresh this morning. I made it myself. From my cows. The last one.

The two ladies behind me instantly began clucking with consternation.

Tonino, dai, you promised you’d save one for us!  

I’ll give you half, and they can have the other half, he said, placatory. The ladies smiled and accepted gracefully, observing that it was only right, we all had to eat!

The mozzarella was warm in my hand. It was like holding something alive. I put my hand into the bag and tore off a piece. I have never tasted anything like it. It tasted alive too. Twisted into a loose knot, parts of it were warm and salty, other parts cooler and milkier, those hidden creases inside which has escaped the brine. It tasted like summer grass, and the sweetest white cream, and salt. It was so fresh I felt like I could almost taste Tonino’s hands, as he manipulated the curds, stretching and salting and working the morning’s milk. Eating it slowly in our hot and airless car I experienced the exquisite kind of sensory experience that only very good, very fresh dairy products can provide. Like drinking milk fresh from the cow, spooning warm fluffy curds of ricotta fresh from the pot, or licking gelato fresh from the churn. 

The Caprese is a salad born (supposedly) in Capri, and thus eaten all over the region. It has become somewhat of a cliché, but that doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) detract from its deliciousness. Its three colours mirroring the Italian flag, we ate a million versions of it on our trip, but rather than silly balsamic drizzles or the unnecessary addition of lots of pepper, the only real secret is sourcing the very best ingredients (I know, I know, but it’s the truth. If you are only eating a salad of 4 ingredients they have to be good). 

Find the best and freshest mozzarella you can get hold of, and some good fresh basil leaves. Your tomatoes too, must be flavourful and full of juice. Slice or tear, drizzle with good extra virgin olive oil and salt, and serve as you see fit. And try and go and find Tonino and his cows if you can, he’ll give you a good price, and an even better mozzarella.

For 2

2 balls of the best mozzarella (fresh, Italian and ideally made from buffalo milk, brought to room temperature)

A few large juicy tomatoes

Plentiful extra virgin olive oil

Salt

A few leaves of fresh basil

Slice/tear and arrange. Sprinkle, scatter, drizzle and eat, with lots of fresh bread.