Monthly Archives: December 2016

New Years Eve

Yesterday I took a lovely walk along the Tiber. Cold but super clear. Here are a couple of pictures.
dsc06563

dsc06564

Today is New Years Eve. We decided to take a ride over to Lago Trasimeno for a lake fish lunch. Really pretty, cold and clear day. All our days are very cold now. Nights even colder. My little lemon tree is safe in the kitchen. Anyway, we visited San Feliciano. A pretty town on the lake. Not much happening there in the winter other than people strolling in the lakeside park. We found a new restaurant called I Bonci. I had the zuppa di anguilla or eel soup. It is the traditional New Year dish. It was good. Served over bread. Luther had the warm seafood salad and lake perch. The views were pretty. Here is from our table through the window to the outside.
dsc06574

And here are a couple of lake photos from the park and also over the mountain on the way home.
dsc06576

dsc06583

dsc06586

Tonight there is a band on the piazza and all the citizens will party. Fireworks at midnight. It will be below freezing at midnight. We will watch from the window if we stay up long enough. I had meant to cook my Cinghale stew today but I decided, since we had lunch, to save it for tomorrow. I’ll take pictures.

‘Tis the season of the Cinghiale hunt – wild boar

Our friend Vera gave us a good amount of wild boar meat for a Christmas present. I must say, there’s a first time for everything! Her father-in-law is an avid boar hunter and always has a freezer full. I plan to make it for our New Years Eve dinner. She even brought a good bundle of herbs to cook it with, juniper, sage, rosemary and thyme. I will stew it until it falls off the bone and make it into a ragu or I will just make a stew. Mm mmmm good! I will report back. I plan to cook it on New Years Eve.

We happened on a boar hunt last week. There were probably fifty cars along the mountain road and hunters with guns everywhere. A fire burned to ward of the cold. Dogs were in cages in the backs of trucks. It was around 10 AM and the hunt was already finished.

After a hunt. (They can kill any number of boar. There is no limit. It is not unheard of to kill 100 at a time!)
img_0461

Not knowing much about it I looked it up. Also I borrowed the pictures herein. Here are some facts I learned. There are about 150,000 wild boar in Tuscany and Umbria. A female boar has two litters a year with 3 to 13 piglets in each. Even though 30,000 boar are killed a year it is impossible to keep up.

Mama and her piglets.
img_0462

70% of the hunters are from Sardinia, Tuscany and Umbria. And Italy being Italy, each region claims its boar is superior to another region’s. Tuscans will tell you that the fiercest boar lives in the Maremma. Tuscans will also tell you their boar tastes best because it feasts on the chestnuts that grow in the area’s forests. Sardinians will boast that theirs, being an island boar, is closest to the animals the Greeks first found on Capri and thus is the true Italian boar. They claim it’s tastiest because it feeds on the acorns that fall from the island’s groves of oaks. Umbrians contend that their boar is the most refined and the best tasting, for a reason that is hard to argue with: The countryside is rich in pungent black truffles, a favorite food of the boar’s throughout the winter.

Cinghiale hunts called cacciarella (“small hunt”) are highly choreographed and organized activities. The season begins 1 November and ends 31 January. Squadre (teams) for each territory need official registration, a boss and at least 50 members, all of whom must take a hunting course. They must re-register annually and renew their firearm licences every six years. If on the day of the hunt less than 20 hunters show up, the hunt cannot officially proceed.

Hunting days are specified by law with three days per week assigned to each locality during the season. The teams work year-round training their dogs, who have a high possibility of being killed during the hunt. And not in a pretty way.

On the day of the hunt, the team divides into canai (the men with the dogs), postaioli (the men in position with rifles) and tracciatori (the trackers).

A typical start to the hunt involves 20 tracciatori searching for fresh traces. Once done, they go back to the base to confer with the capocaccia (boss of the hunt), who decides on the best zone. The 30-50 postaioli form a horseshoe close to the fresh tracks, keep still and wait.

Next the 10 canai come along, each with seven or eight trained dogs. At the capocaccia’s command, they release their dogs in hopes of flushing out a cinghiale and directing it towards the horseshoe-shaped trap of the gun-wielding postaioli.

Hunters may shoot only straight ahead, so even if a hunter sees the boar first, but it is not directly in front of him, he must wait for his fellow postaiolo to shoot so as not to endanger the lives of others.

Once the boar has been shot, it is taken to the hunting headquarters, weighed, identified by its teeth for age, and written in the records; then it is hung and bled, skinned and left for two days at 0°C to frollare-develop flavor and relax the flesh. Then the team divides the boar, with each person on the hunt getting a piece.

In Italy no part of the cinghiale goes to waste. The meat, of course, gets eaten, either as hard salami, softer salsiccia, or ham, while the best boars are often cured and aged as that great delicacy, prosciutto di cinghiale. The white tusks are occasionally carved into buttons and knife handles or mounted in gold and worn by women as pendants. The thick hair is used for hairbrushes, toothbrushes, dartboards, and the little sprigs you see on traditional Tyrolean hats.

Male boar.
img_0463

I read this account of one hunt on an estate in Tuscany. “It is tradition in Italy that there be a feast provided by the lord or lady of the estate after the hunt. We were not disappointed. Roast pork, Tuscan steak, pappardelle, spaghetti, sausages, cured meats, hunks of cheese, countless bottles of wine, and more were spread out on a giant U-shaped table set for 40. The hunters traded tales from the morning. We finished lunch a couple of hours later and walked outside to have coffee.”

The Christmas season

For us it has been a lovely time. We welcomed guests, had a small get together with the guests and friends, a beautiful Open House that we attended, a pizza Christmas Eve with friends, and a lovely Christmas lunch at Joseph and Paul’s house to which we all contributed.

Our friends arrived on December 18. There were three of them, two who live in Doha, Qatar and one in Jersey City, NJ. I know George from when he was a colleague of mine at MITRE Corp in the 1980s. We kept in touch and George and Mary visited us in Germany in the 1990s. Since then we know where each other are but seldom see one another so we were very happy that they got the time to come to Italy for Christmas. I am sure it is very different from Doha!  Warren, their friend from NJ, we had not met but were very happy to make his acquaintance. We only had a short time so we took them to Assisi, which is the top stop in Umbria. It was lovely for Christmas dressed up with many Creche. The Basilica of San Francesco took their breaths away as it always does mine. I was absolutely amazed. When we arrived– We. Were. The. Only. People. In. The. Upper church!! I have been countless times but not in December. Wow. It was a very spiritual experience. We have always jostled with crowds. The vistas from the town, even though the weather was spitting rain, were pretty. We had a special lunch at Piazetta delle Erbe, our favorite restaurant there. It was very good here are a few pictures of the beautifully presented food.

Risotto
img_0199

Lambimg_0200

Salmon
img_0201

Pork
img_0203

The next day we stayed in Umbertide for the morning market. Everyone tried the Porchetta, a local specialty of slow roasted pork with cracklin’. On a roll it makes the perfect breakfast! We perused the produce and checked out the “walmart” come to town with other wares. Afterwards they shopped at Buscatti for Umbrian textiles and the cashmere shop for beautiful fashions from Umbria. I bet many people don’t know Umbria is well known for it’s wonderful cashmere made right here.

We headed to lunch in Montone. a nearby hilltown, at a place called Tipico. Excellent, locally sourced Umbrian dishes. The day was beautiful. Not at all cold and blue skies. The views from Montone are spectacular.

This evening I had invited most of our American neighbors over to meet our guests and have a little refreshment. It was very much fun, I think, for all. Here is a very bad picture taken with my Ipad. Sorry.
img_1041

Alas, all good things must come to an end and we escorted them to the train station and sent them on their way for a few days in Venice. It should be pretty at Christmas. Italian towns go all out with the decorations and Venice, with it’s canals, must be beautiful with the lights.

Now things have settled down for a long winters sleep. We watch the fields that, even now, are awakening with the winter wheat, bright green. January and February are long, dark and cold but we take heart that the days grow longer now and spring comes here in March. A belated Buon Natale and I wish you all a Buon Anno!

It’s a banner day for us!

Luther took his A2 Italian proficiency test week before last and got notification a week later that he had passed! This is our (we hope) last hurdle to comply with our immigration agreement.

Today, we traveled again to the Perugia immigration office. We had copies of our house papers, our Italian health cards and our two A2 test certificates. The young woman there filled out all our forms and printed them out. Next she rubber stamped and rubber stamped dated them all. We went to the head honcho’s office and he signed all the forms, individually! And we were on our way. The top form said:

RE: Outcome of the Immigration Agreement assessment: Certified fulfillment.

The next page indicates we have achieved 34 points on the point system they use here. We needed 30. I’m letting out a big breath of relief. A 2+ year effort! And we didn’t have to take the dreaded Italian Civics class!

See the tree, how big it’s grown…

We brought the Christmas tree that we bought the first Christmas we were here inside for the season. It lives out on the terrace throughout the year except for December. This is the 2016 tree. it is sitting on the floor.
dsc06535

And THIS is the itty, bitty 2014 tree. It is sitting on a stool to make it taller. That’s no longer necessary!
dsc03732

Here is our town tree all lit up.
dsc06561

Today was an exceptionally foggy day. And, unlike many days, it lasted all day. I braved the cold and went out to see what sort of images I could get. I thought they would look better in black and white. Very atmospheric. Here are a few. Click for a larger version.

This is la Rocca or our fortress with a smoking chimney in front of it.
dsc06538bw

The bridge over the Tiber.
dsc06544bw

Road along the river.
dsc06550bw

Interesting tree.
dsc06554bw

The town walls and houses above it from across the river.
dsc06556bw

And finally, a lone fisherman.
dsc06543bw