We are preparing for a new trip. We have house/cat sitters arriving on Sunday. We are meeting up with my sister and her husband for another small ship cruise. Again on the Windstar line. This ship holds 300 people. We will fly to Amsterdam and depart from there and sail down the coast to Bordeaux. Then fly home. I will, of course do a trip report. Right now many preparations are being made. Getting the apartment ready for our sitters is the prime importance. And also, of course packing for ourselves. We are almost ready. Still just need to make up a second guest room since our sitters are two women who want separate bedrooms.
Last night I finally tried the outside wood BBQ. I made a garlic, yogurt marinated chicken thigh recipe. It came out well but I needed either more oil on the grill or not skinless thighs. They tended to stick. They tasted good though. I will use this grill more now.
Stay tuned for my upcoming Trip Report. Buon fine settimana a tutti!
It is agosto, August, time stops here. I read some complaints on Facebook expat groups about the fact you can’t get anything done now because everyone is on vacation. You might be surprised, but really everything does stop. Go to your bank. There are no tellers. All construction stops. Factories close. Everyone is at the beach or in the mountains. My comment to the complainer, who said Italy can’t progress because of this stupid August thing, was to say, Viva la difference. Although it can and is frustrating to live in a culture so unlike the culture in the US. The very nature of the inconveniences make Italy, Italy. I didn’t move here for convenience and US sameness. I moved here precisely for the differences. For 45 years I worked in the “progressive” USA and fought for a work/life balance. Who is to say the crazy work, work ethic of the US is better?
On a lighter note, I walked to and from the Wednesday market and I grabbed a couple shots of this newly created “garden(?)”. I was amused. Snow White and her dwarves, fake grass, fake water lilies! Who says the Italians can’t be tacky? 🤣😂😅
I forgot to mention that we learned a little more about our apartment. Paolo, our cabinet maker, seems to be fascinated with this apartment. He was surprised, as so many are, to find a place like this in this area and in this building. Unexpected I guess.
Anyway, he must have mentioned it to other people and in the process he learned the original owner was a strange one. He had a storefront but did no business, his money sources were not known and he seemed to have no visible means of support. This means one thing to me. And you can probably guess what that is. He ended up bankrupt and this apartment went up for auction. The people we bought from were it’s second owners. I assume they got it for cheap. The original owner is no longer living. It is always interesting to learn about your house.
Again I made pesto. I wish you were here, I would give you some!
The title of this post is the name of Italy’s famous flying team. It means the tri-colored arrows — tri-colored for the colors of the Italian flag. It is recognized as one of the best aerobatic air patrols internationally. They fly Aermacchi MB-339 single-engine, two-seat advanced training and light tactical support jets. There are ten jets, nine fly in formation and there is a single outlier. We were thrilled here in Umbria to be paid a visit by this famous team. They headquartered at the Assisi airport for the week, flying practice runs over the countryside and doing two air shows, one in Perugia and the other in Foligno.
I should also mention, in the time since we moved here the Perugia/Assisi airport has really grown. There used to be only 3 or 4 flights a week but now we can fly from there all over Europe. And it is so easy to use. Twenty minutes south of us with easy parking and only 2 gates. It makes air travel fun again! ~~~~~~~~ Last week Paolo, our cabinetmaker, finally finished the work. His last thing was a built in cabinet with shelves into an odd triangular shaped space in the main hallway. When we moved in it was empty with no molding so I assume something was built in and removed by the seller. There was also an ugly spot on the wall that had been hidden. Our painter, Luca, fixed this when he painted but the space cried out for something to fill it.
Here is the finished cabinet. I think it looks nice. I will find something else to put on the empty shelf. And we will use the cabinet below to store the bags of pellets in the wintertime. Good place to hide them.
Lunch today was a panino. We had gotten a sample of flooring for our new kitchen and had to return it today. On the way home we picked up some nice prosciutto, both cotto (cooked) and crudo (cured). Prosciutto is just the word for ham here. I also bought a delicious ciabatta bread. Did you know that meant slippers? It is for its shape. The bread is chewy and really tasty unlike much Umbrian bread.
The weather today must be one of the top ten days ever on this beautiful earth! Cool breezy, sunny, puffy clouds, crystal clear air. Simply amazing. View from terrace at Calagrana. Am I right? Is it not perfect?
We joined four friends from Canada. One old friend and three new ones. Our friend Karen comes every summer and rents in Tuscany but not terribly far from here. They were blown away by the beauty of the restaurant and it was perfect as always. I loved my starter. In fact four of us got this. It sounded so good. Grilled peaches on a tomato bed with prosciutto.
Next will be some of our pastas. One a tagliolini in a creamy sauce with truffles, the other Fishioni (a type of pasta) with sausage ragù, arugula and pecorino cheese. So good!
The dining terrazzo full of happy diners.
Great seeing friends and sharing a delicious meal. Buona domenica a tutti!
I was, for some reason, craving this particular pasta from Sicily. A super simple dish which comes together very quickly. All you do is take about 6-8 anchovies in oil and put them in a pan with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and cook mashing them until they melt into the oil. Add a handful of pine nuts and cook a bit, then a chopped garlic clove and a handful of soaked and drained raisins or sultanas and a few stalks of minced parsley. I also put in some hot pepper flakes (natch😉). Cook the spaghetti and drain, saving some water, and toss into the sauce with some water as needed to make a creamy sauce. Serve with grated cheese if desired. Super fast, super easy, and super yum.
It pushed my pasta craving buttons perfectly. Tonight, southern fried chicken and potato salad! I’m nothing if not eclectic. 😄
Tomorrow we lunch with friends at Calagrana. We had a lot of big storms yesterday afternoon into the night. The world nearby is washed clean after weeks of drought and it is beautiful now. Clear with brilliant blue skies and puffy clouds. It is very cool with highs about 22C today and downright chilly in the night. Loving a break. The heat will return.
Here’s a picture over by Assisi up on Monte Subasio. My friend Doug Hunt took it. It is the road to his house. The colors are amazing and the world so clean after the rain. Enjoy! 💕 Umbria is so beautiful!
The weather has turned perfect after the heat wave. Highs in the low 90s – 33C here. Breezy and low humidity. Last night we had the most spectacular sunset which I want to share. No enhancements, all natural.
Now that the heat has broken it is not so bad to cook so I have been cooking some. Nothing heavy. Last night a tuna salad stuffed tomato. Not cooked obviously. Quite nice, and as a side we had friggitelli, small green peppers which we fry and eat as a side or antipasto. Last year we grew to love these in Spain as tapas. I was thrilled to find them here too.
Last night, a shrimp dish. Hot honey shrimp on summer slaw. It was nice but next time I’ll be adding something spicy, like a sliced jalapeño.
How does my garden grow? You ask? The tomato plants are ENORMOUS and I’m excited to see our first ripening tomato!!
You’d think, living in Italy, it would be super easy to get a pizza to go, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong. Tonight we were excited to order pizza to bring home from our favorite pizza place, Degusto. They have delicious pizza with puffy chewy crusts. We had perused their on-line menu and chosen our delicious pizzas. We called and they said they weren’t doing any take out tonight. 🙄 Ok then. We tried the next one we like, Pizzeria Planet. We called at 7:15. The earliest we could get a pizza was 9pm. Ok then. So we reluctantly gave up. It IS Friday night. And it IS almost August, high summer, high vacation time. I think next time we will try it in a Tuesday. This is the one I chose. 😢
Saturday, and as in all Saturdays I went to the market. The weather is being perfect since we got out of our heat spell. Temperatures in the high eighties and it goes down to 60s at night. No need for AC to sleep. I took it easy today. Stopped by to see my favorite grocer, Angelo, and then for a cappuccino at Bar Mary to say hi to my favorite barista, Irene. I got my favorite cappuccino senza schiuma. It’s coffee without a ton of frothed milk like a normal cappuccino. I sat outside and watched the world go by.
Here’s a recent sunset from the terrazzo. Quite pretty! Buon fino settimana a tutti!
The story of our Italian family is a long one. In a nutshell, it started as soon as we moved into our last apartment. The place was full of the dust of construction and everything needed cleaning. My friend Susan introduced me to Vera, who cleaned her house. A super interesting and intelligent woman from Bosnia originally and then Slovenia. To avoid an arranged marriage (Islamic parents) she fled to Italy and became a nanny. She met her future husband, married and had two beautiful girls. And she began her own business.
Vera cleaned for us and we engaged her to chat with us in Italian after cleaning. Time passing and we became good friends. Eventually we were adopted by Vera and family and we adopted them. We all love good food and relish the different cuisines. Not normal for Italians. So that’s the back-story.
Sunday Lunch was the first in months. I hadn’t seen Vera since February. Now that we have a table and furniture we asked them for Pranzo. I decided an American lunch was the best thing given the heat. The menu was chips and salsa to start, sweet and spicy. Pulled pork sandwiches with hot sauces and coleslaw, grilled hot dogs with the fixins. Potato salad. And for dessert, peach tiramisù.
It was so nice to see everyone again. I had missed them so much. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures. Graziano is very tall and has made some tall girls! And beautiful redheads.
My new, favorite Italian word is….telecomando. Somehow it makes me feel like the captain of a Starship. What power I have here in my hand! I won’t keep you waiting, it is the word for remote control. I guess I’d heard it before, but now I’ve got fans with telecomandi — I assume that’s the plural(?) — so I’m feeling mighty powerful 😁
It’s still hot but it will be slightly less for the weekend. Then it goes back up to 39. But happily, after that it is a more livable 32ish. My salad last night was a burrata tomato salad. Burrata is a cheese made from the byproducts from making mozzarella. To me it is richer than mozzarella. I served it with cold cannelloni beans.
My next salad project will be a Panzanella, probably for tomorrows dinner. It is a classic Tuscan salad which uses up stale bread. Frugal, those Tuscans. It is only good when the tomatoes are at their tip-top in high summer since they are the star ⭐️ in the dish.
I have invited our old friend Vera and her family for domenica Pranzo. We havn’t seen her since maybe February? Vera and I love to cook. I showed her how to make American style ribs and how to cook a whole turkey. I have made Mexican and Indian for them as well. The whole family are very adventurous eaters. This is not the norm for Umbrian Italians. Due to a lack of a convenient upstairs kitchen I’m doing an American style BBQ. We will start with Salsa and chips, one spicy, one mild. I can make pulled pork in the slow cooker ahead of time, which won’t heat up the house. I’ll grill hot dogs. I made homemade BBQ sauce (hard to find here), and then we will have some salads, coleslaw and potato, and finally, a new-to-me fresh peach tiramisù. I’ll try to take pictures. I hope it isn’t terribly hot upstairs. 🤞
Since it is too hot to cook much, we have been eating pretty much all salads, all the time. Last night it was an Insalata all Greco — Greek salad. Can’t go wrong with that. Night before last it was a salad of hard boiled egg, tuna, tomatoes, cucumbers and cannelloni beans drizzled with olive oil. Tonight it’s cold pasta with sautéed garlic shrimp, green pepper, new red onions, pickled zucchini and celery. I topped it with a little homemade ranch dressing with plenty of fresh herbs.
Tomorrow is market day. It is also the peak of the heat spell. So I plan to get up and get to the market bright and early before it gets too hot. Stai fresco!
