Umbria Bella

Dancing the Liscio in the Piazza

2012-08-05T09:38:00.001+02:00

The festival in San Terenziano is in full swing. Whole families come for dinner in the piazza, enjoying local specialities like strongozzi with funghi porcini at picnic tables beneath the trees. At nine the music begins in front of the medieval borgo and everyone between 8 and 80 dances the liscio accompanied by a crooner (or crooness) and a brace of accordians. The streets are filled with

Pane: From Wheat Field to Baker to Table

2012-05-05T15:01:00.001+02:00

Wheat growing in central Umbria Pane sciapo On my walks in the countryside I keep passing wheat fields so green I want to roll around in them. Eventually those grains will ripen, be harvested and milled, and metamorphosize into the piece of saltless local bread on the table next to my plate. The lack of taste discourages mindless nibbles while we wait for the antipasto, but it's

Snowed in with Internet, phone, and the miraculous bed heater

2012-02-10T09:19:00.001+01:00

Italy is snuggled up under a blanket of snow after the second big storm in a week. Last Friday, our drive to Umbria from Rome, normally a two hour trip, took eight hours. We were stuck twice in snow and ice climbing the hill to San Terenziano from Todi Ponte Rio. When we finally arrived on Via Palombaro, we were forced to leave our car at La Casetta Rosa and walk down through the

THE OLIVE OIL TSUNAMI

2012-01-05T16:19:00.000+01:00

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So said Pliny and he was probably right

2011-12-03T18:09:00.001+01:00

The good green stuff "Sip the wine and splash the oil." Pliny the Elder (Rome, 1st C AD). Good old Pliny, always there with a pithy comment. The third week of November is the highlight of our year, when ten friends from four countries arrive on Via Palombaro to spend a week picking our olives, drinking the local garage wine, and catching up on what has happened in the

Hungry?

2011-07-04T23:16:00.002+02:00

Steak tagliata at Lo Scoiattolo Never let it be said that we fail to meet our responsibility to report on the ristoranti around Umbria. It may require a lifetime of eating, but our mission and our focus are unwavering. How else would we justify those extra 5 kilos? Here's the latest list of favorites: Taverna Sette Taverna Sette in Trevi Run by a group of energetic

The Most Amazing Place in Umbria

2011-06-21T14:51:00.003+02:00

Sometimes words really aren't necessary. In the case of the Gran Piano near Castelluccio during flower season, all you need to know from me is how to get there. Drive 28 km. from Norcia, up and up and up into the Sibillini Mountains, about 5,000 ft. Come around that last curve, slam on your brakes, grab your camera, and marvel at the astonishing view of this vast high plain

Umbria in a Week? So Many Choices, So Little Time

2011-06-11T20:20:00.001+02:00

How to choose what to do in Umbria in just one week? You might follow Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, 2005), who said that instantaneous decisions can be better than those based on lengthy rational analysis; in other words, wake up in the morning and see how you feel. Or, you could do your homework up front and decide where you want to go based on your own personal interests: history, art,

Life is Just an Ocean of Cherries; What to Do About It

2011-06-05T17:02:00.001+02:00

Somewhere around 1998 we planted a cherry tree at La Casetta Rosa, our house down the road. We just love cherries. For years, we had a few cherries here and there, most of which were enjoyed by the birds and the wasps before we ever got to them. This year, though, things were a bit different. Our cherry tree went on a growth spurt never seen by the likes of humans and 2011 will be a harvest

Umbria, Southern Style: the Bottle Tree Cometh

2011-06-05T14:23:00.004+02:00

When the peach tree that shaded our terrace at Yellow House started to die, we thought we'd have to take it out. Poor ole thing had been producing peaches as hard as baseballs for the last five years, it had bunions growing where branches had been trimmed in other generations, and early this spring it developed a terrible case of a wet black fungus that harbored zillions of little black

Martedi Grasso, Mardi Gras, Carnevale: It Began in Italy

2011-03-06T18:31:00.003+01:00

A Carnevale princess on a street strewn with cordiandoli (paper confetti) Mobile, Alabama, the town founded by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1702, was the capital of French Louisiana from 1702-1711. In 1703, the settlers celebrated the first Mardi Gras in the U.S. The symbolic colors of Purple (justice), Green (faith) and Gold (power) became official in 1872. But, it was the Italians who

Romance in a Single Bite: A St. Valentine's Day Tale

2011-02-14T14:15:00.003+01:00

“What is love if not the language of the heart?” “My soul is a furnace of love: stoke it to the full.” “A loving heart is forever young.” You carefully unwrap the silver foil. Then, as you savor the silky richness of a Perugina Baci in your mouth, you smooth the wrinkles from the crumpled inner wrapping. Written on parchment in four languages is your own

Giovanni and the Chianina

2011-02-11T19:55:00.004+01:00

Chianina in central Italy (photo from Wikipedia Commons) This is the story of Giovanni, who owns La Vecchia Cucina, a ristorante in Collesecco, and the Chianina beef that comes from a farm in Ponte di Ferro, about 5 km away. It is the tale of a marriage made in paradise, where a side of beef passes from pasture to kitchen to table, preferably to our table. Giovanni's arm is a twig next to

Reflections on Endless Washing Machine Cycles

2011-02-11T14:17:00.012+01:00

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Will Work for Food, Provided it's Zero Kilometer Cuisine

2010-11-15T08:48:00.000+01:00

Anyone who's willing to come to Italy to spend a week picking olives the old fashioned way is a someone who appreciates biological, organic, fresh, local food and wine. Taking that step back in the process, from consumption to the actual harvest of something they are eventually going to eat, allows us all to reflect on what we do to our bodies when we hit the fast food counter. Fortunately,

Olivistas to the Table! Soup's On

2010-11-12T13:23:00.000+01:00

If you look closely, you can see the olives silhouetted against the sky 6 am. CET, Via Palombaro, Umbria The countdown started 364 days ago when the last pickers left to go home to England, Germany, the US, Namibia and the Netherlands. Tomorrow ten friends from around the world will come for our fourth olive picking house party. We call them the Olivistas. We've spent this week in

Stalking the Wild Asparagus, not just reading about it

2010-04-28T16:54:00.003+02:00

The late Euell Gibbons, probably the original locavore writer, wrote a book in 1962 called Stalking the Wild Asparagus. It was a folksy, humorous take on the recognition, gathering, preparation and use of the natural health foods that grow wild in almost every area. I found the title hilarious and it has stayed with me all my life. Fast forward a lot of years to Spring 2010. We are living in

Dining All' Aperto in Umbria Means Spring is Finally Here

2010-03-25T13:49:00.001+01:00

Sometime in late March, one never knows exactly when, people in Umbria will wake up one morning to find their almond trees have burst into bloom. That doesn't mean that Spring is necessarily here, because two weeks ago it snowed on top of the almond blossoms, but it does mean that the seasons are thinking about changing. The next thing is the fruit trees-- pears, cherries, apples-- and the

Life's overarching moments

2010-02-19T15:52:00.007+01:00

There is an overarching theme to life here at Yellow House: someday, Lord willing, we will finish restoring this casa colonica. As we did for a decade down the road at La Casetta Rosa, we pick one project to do every year. We are unwilling to experience the unabated nightmare of construction for longer than six weeks at time. After that, it won't matter how long it takes because we

Control, Comfort, Competency, Confirmation. . .Bliss at Yellow House

2010-01-24T08:17:00.004+01:00

There is snow on the distant mountaintops, my winter veggies are planted, and life begins again in Umbria. We've been gone two months, hardly enough time to experience culture shock on our return. Still, living in the country in central Italy is a stark contrast to daily life in Fairhope, Alabama, USA and every time we shift continents it take a little while to re-adjust. In my work in

99 and 44/100ths Percent Pure on Via Palombaro

2008-12-13T08:36:00.015+01:00

It’s that season of the year in Italy, when virginity and purity are top of mind in all the churches (December 8 is the feast of the Immaculate Conception and it goes on from there). Piero says the teen aged girls in his time had a prayer, “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, who conceived without sin, help me sin without conceiving,” but that’s a conversation for another day.Then there was the message

An Embarrassment of Richness

2008-10-26T07:56:00.015+01:00

Here in Umbria we never get anything good to eat, but we try to make do. Yesterday morning, standing in the middle of the medieval center of Deruta, I threw back a big slug of hot chocolate so thick and creamy it made my taste buds dance a jig. Think of it as the perfect fall day: crystal blue sky, slightly cool air, sunny, with the aroma of chocolate in the air.It was the second

THE ULTIMATE FIG

2008-10-03T12:16:00.009+02:00

Yesterday at 1: 30 in the afternoon, I ate the last fig. Not the last in the basket. It was the very last, the final fig of the season. As I pulled apart the lime green peel with my thumbs, the pulpy heart seemed more ruby red than usual; it was an explosion of color, a sensuous shape fitting in the hand so perfectly, and a joyous mouthful of hot sunny days. And that’s the thing, you see. That

The Healing Power of Ceramics

2008-03-10T07:19:00.016+01:00

Therapeutic shopping is not today's subject, though indeed it could be, since nothing cures the blues better than wandering the ceramics factories in Deruta to discover something that I don't already own and didn't know I couldn't live without.This is about completely different kinds of miracles, beginning with the story of a single ceramic cup found in the tiny Umbrian village of Casalina,

The Red Lipstick of Cooking

2008-03-02T09:25:00.009+01:00

I know that spring is coming because the olive trees have had their haircuts. The perrucchiere dei piantoni (hairdresser to the olive trees, as I call Gino), has been here and the girls all look very chic.Because the goddess Athena planted the first olive tree and there are numerous women named Olivia in Italy, I have decided our trees are female, despite the fact that the Italian word for tree