FREDDO!! COLD and rainy

22 Ottobre
I am sure this link won't work, but if it does, you will see our forecast for the next 10 days is more like London than the Marche. We are expecting cold, rainy weather for almost the entire forecast!
http://weather.msn.com/tenday.aspx?wealocations=wc:ITXX0104
Bacco has his good days and bad days and after one particularly frustrating episode, he is consigned to the room I am in with all the doors closed as the eyes in the back of my head are not yet X-ray qualified, so they are only good inside 4 walls.
I met today with the travelling salesmen who talked me into some barbetelle or rootstock.. 2 cab. sauvignon, 2 cab franc, 2 merlots, 1 syrah, 1 petit verdot and 2 montepulciano varieties.
Now I will start to get nervous. This begins our dive into deeper waters. I am hoping for a miracle and some temporary strength for the dollar!!
Anyway, I have 2 rooms full of nice folks from England and America (grandmom is from CA) and I cooked 7 hours for them yesterday with a roast chicken ala Emeril as the main course, my by now famous lentil soup, sorbet of montepulciano grapes (some of which can still be found on the vines), Honey pound cake with honey frosting, and the antipasi were olive taponade with tenere olives (the famous local variety with which they make....), olives-Ascolane (stuffed with meats and cheese and battered and fried), the Beast (our 4 y.o. prosciutto-now about 40% eaten), and bruschetta. The contorni or side dishes were battered and fried zucchine and french fries cut with all cutting done with my mandolin.
I think they really enjoyed the dinner, so the gauntlets have been thrown down and we will have a vote friday after the dinner cooked by Raffaele!! Who says americans can't cook?
The pictures are of some of the early Autumn colors, Bacco nascosto, and the rain. I hear El Nino is dead and La Nina has taken over or vice versa. Ciao for now. dds
PS, you have to go back a few posts or many to see the significance of my title.