Today is Epifania, a holiday, the day the 3 magi came to visit the Christ child. It marks the official end of the Christmas season. Now we hunker down and try to struggle through the longest, coldest and darkest month.
We are in the very beginning of a frigid week. There is a polar vortex that’s covering most of Europe. France is the coldest since 2012 and I would wager it will be here as well. Predicted to have -5C (23F) tonight and -8C (17F) tomorrow. Coldest in the 11+ years we have been here. So cold that the cover covering he lemon and kumquats will not be adequate protection, so they now are inside upstairs.
I also looked up olive trees and how hardy they are. Seems mature trees can tolerate to -9C but young trees only to -4C. I’m wondering if this will damage these around here. I hope not. They say the cold is good to kill the fly larvae, but this is pushing it.
For a treat, it began snowing here about 1pm. Is is very pretty. Slowed down now (4:30) but with that cold coming it could make for treacherous roads, Video I took, I hope it is visible.
I have been making cold weather food the last couple of days. I made a big pot of potato leek soup for lunches, and a big pot of chili last night. Sticks to the ribs and warms you up.
Stay warm if it’s cold where you are. If it’s warm, enjoy it! Ciao!
I decided to make Hoppin John soup instead of traditional Hoppin John. I made this last year and really liked it. It is also a one pot meal and I was not up for making multiple things. I had left over rice so that made it doubly easy.
I was tired last night because we decided to move from the top floor to the bottom floor in our apartment. It was quite a lot of work. Just emptying the refrigerator and freezer was a lot! I am trying this out this year but I am not sure I will do it again. Part of the reason is the stufa is on the main floor. We have a pallet of pellets in the garage. We wanted to use them and augment the heat. I also wanted to just test it out. It seemed a waste to never use anything but a bedroom and the bathrooms on this floor. The upstairs will now not be heated to save money. We will move back up in the spring. Anyway, we concluded a hard days work would kill us 😁 We moved Luther’s desk and chair down, that was a pain, and then there were all the spices and some food. Multiple trips. But it’s done now and the experiment begins.
We are going out for lunch in a bit with good friends from Montone. That will be a nice treat!
Hi everyone! I hope you’re enjoying your holiday. I wandered into town on Christmas Eve to take my biscotti Americani (chocolate chip cookies 🙂) to Angelo and Bar Mary. I also stopped by books for dogs for a drop off of some things I thought they could sell, it was busy. But the market was already breaking down because it was Christmas Eve. I sat and had a glass of vino bianco at Bar Mary. It was nice outside in their enclosed seating area. No one there but me.
Cheese stand still open.Market closing.On the way home. This is Piazza Carlo Marx, in front of our house.
Luther shared the biscotti I made with all our neighbors in the building and I dropped a bag at the girarrosto downstairs. Nice people, Sarah and Luciano. They work so hard. It is amazing how popular they are. People were waiting in line outside. People come from all around to pickup their orders for Christmas Eve or day lunches or dinners. Super popular but that means they are open on all the holidays. Hard workers those two.
For Christmas Eve dinner I made Cinghiale in Umido. Wild boar stew. Braised in the oven for 4 hours. Turned out very good and tender. You never know with wild boar.
For Christmas dinner I found a small turkey. Only 6.6 pounds, 3 kilos. So I made that with mashed potatoes, broccoli, gravy and cranberry sauce. I like to make a turkey once a year and the stores have started to stock them for the holidays. The turkey was tender and juicy. Now we have left overs for dinner and best of all…turkey sandwiches!
I went out into the hall and saw the offerings from the little girls who live across from us. Their sign says, “welcome and eat well baby Jesus and the donkey”. I thought it was cute. There were bowl and cups with a bit of food left behind. 🥰
We caught up with the families. I spoke to my sister and her husband. I emailed all of the Hamptons on Christmas Eve. I heard back from Luther’s youngest brother, in California. And from my niece in Southern California, who may be paying us a visit in the summer. We had a video call with Luther’s middle brother and some of their family. They have small grandchildren who spent the night and woke at 5:30am so everyone was exhausted. Anyway, everyone is doing pretty good, all things considered.
So, another Christmas has come and gone. I hope you all had a nice holiday. Friday was a holiday here as well, San Stefano. Fino alla prossima volta! 💕
The winter market is upon us. I was supposed to work at Books for Dogs on Saturday but it was so slow they sent me home. This gave me time to shop. We were, and still are, in a very cold, damp, dark and foggy time. It has been six, long days with a break on Monday no sun, but no fog. I have been hiding inside. Many friends around here who all live up in the mountains surrounding us are above the clouds that blanket the valley. They report bright sunshine and warmth. Envy, envy, envy.
I lucked out and found turnips with beautiful fresh turnip green tops. Not common here. I’m pretty sure people grow them because Vera once brought me some from her mother-in-law’s garden. Somehow they don’t end up in the market or grocery. Who knows why? 🤷🏻♀️ I love the spiciness of the turnip greens and cooked with pancetta, garlic and pepper flakes it is perfect as a pasta sauce, so that’s what we had for dinner!
This is cuisine povera. Poor people’s cooking. The pasta I used was around €1 for the packet and I used 1/3 = 30 cents The pancetta was one quarter of a two pack which was €2.95. = 90 cents. The turnip greens were a throw away so they were essentially free. Then there was a sprinkle of pepper flakes, and two garlic cloves, some olive oil and a sprinkle of pecorino romana cheese at the end. Negligible amount, maybe 50 cents. So we had two bowls of pasta with left over for my lunch for about €1.80 or about $2.10. AND…it was delizioso!
I grew up Southern. All my aunts cooked southern style. Luther’s too. Turnip greens were never wasted but they would never, ever make a pasta. That’s just too Italian. It’s nice to find nearly the same preparation they used to cook the greens here, but used in pasta dishes. Small world. Buon appetito!
Sunday lunch with good friends. We have a group of friends – all Americans. They all live south of us. Two live in Spello. One between Spello and Assisi on Monte Subasio. And one in Foligno. These places are all very near to each other. We are about 45 minutes north of them. I wish we were closer. We get together every month or two for a meal at one of our homes or an outing to a good restaurant.
i wanted us all to be together for a time during the Christmas season. I decided to host. Normally I plan and make the meal but this time I thought a potluck would be fun. I provided the two entrees and the panettone dessert. They brought munchies to start and two sides. Although one turned out to be a yummy soup. A little shuffling ensued so we had a first course of soup, then a salad and the mains. It was a very fun afternoon. The fog lifted for a time and the sun shone but then it rolled back in just in time to make their drives home difficult. Here are photos. Some of them mine, some by Roselyne and Steve.
Centerpiece from local floristI made baskets and filled them with chocolate as giftsThe set tableCounter where I was going to put the food.Clementines which I forgot to put outOne main, poached salmon with a cucumber dill sauce.Roast beef sliced thin with shaved Parmesan and horseradish mustard sauce.Doug finishing up his saladThe finished product.The panettone. We ordered a week ago at our local bakery and picked up this week. It is pistacchio and a boozy berry or grape. So fresh and delicious. A world apart from a store bought panettone.All of us except Steve.
We have no other official plans for the season so this was our big celebration. We do have friends who we may have lunch with after Christmas. And I may ask some others over. We are planning to move house from upstairs to downstairs for a couple months to use the stufa to supplement the heat. But first the Christmas tree needs to undecorated and returned to the terrace. Ciao for now!
This week Italian food was designated a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, becoming the first national culinary tradition in the world to receive such recognition in its entirety. Exciting news.
Here are some fun statistics I read. Italian consumers eat 30 billion plates of pasta annually, drink 56 billion cups of coffee, and consume almost 1 billion kilos of baked goods and sweets. Pasta remains an identity symbol, consumed at 23.3 kg per capita—the highest figure worldwide.
Here are some food pictures from my collection from different regions. Hope you enjoy seeing them.
Caccio e pepe made the traditional way. – RomeCaccio e pepe – RomeFave e chicoria – Puglia SalentoSpaghetti con vongole – Amalfi coastRisotto con piselli- MilanPizza – Naples
Orecchiette rapini – Bari
A few pictures to whet your appetite. All “Italian food” is regional. You won’t get any one of these dishes in any other region. It is important to know the foods of where you are and also the seasonal aspect. For instance, you can’t make Orecchiette rapini in the summer. It is a fall/winter dish.
Hi everyone! We are in the midst of amazing autumnal weather. At least two perfect weeks. In the U.S. it is called Second Summer (formerly Indian Summer which is no longer used), in Germany it is called Goldener Oktober, and in Italy it is called estate di San Martino, which translates to “St. Martin’s Summer”. This term refers to a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that usually occurs around St. Martin’s Day on November 11th.
Umbertide is full of autumn color. I was out and about today and got a couple of photos of the trees and flowers.
After our trip to Puglia I was inspired to make one of the lunch dishes we had while in Lecce. The entire south of Italy, called the Mezzogiorno, always has been very poor. Most of the Italians who immigrated to other countries came from these regions to find a better life. The food that evolved there is called cucina povera, literally poor cuisine. Fave è cicoria is a traditional dish made from only four ingredients. Dried fava beans, chicory, which is available everywhere here now in supermarkets, (but would have been foraged in the wild back in the day), garlic and pepper flakes. Finally it is served with a drizzle of olive oil. Gnam, gnam. (Italian for yum yum 😁)
Raw cicoria.Dried fave without the skin. Very easy to use, all the work is done.Cooking the cicoriaCooking the fave Final dish. Gnom, gnom.
This week we were invited to join our Italian famiglia for a Thai dinner. Vera’s birthday was last Sunday and for a present her family gave her the gift of a Thai chef who came to her house and cooked a meal for us all. She invited friends and her two daughters (who chose the menu) were there as well as Graziano, her husband. The other guests were Nicolai and Annette, from Denmark whom we have met many times, and Nik and Henrietta who I had heard of but never met. Nik is a pretty famous artist. He is British and has an estate here in Umbria. They were super nice. If you wish to look him up his name is Nic Fiddian Green. He does primarily sculpture and his subject is horses. In fact he is exhibiting in a town named Middleburg in Virginia near where I used to live next year.
Anyway, the chef was a diminutive Thai woman and her caucasian husband helper. The menu was three antipasti, one primi, and two secondi. I took pictures of my favourites.
I accidentally ate a sliver of red pepper and it was HOT! once I had stuffed a bunch of rice in my mouth and recovered I told Desiree not to eat that! But she was curious. I picked up a piece and said just taste a tiny piece. Well it turned out it was a sweet pepper. So she went to the plate and picked up another piece. She must have thought I was crazy, and she popped it into her mouth. it is funny, the lag from first taste to when the heat hits, but it did.
It was a fun meal. I like that Vera is super adventurous when it comes to food, She is adventurous in most ways. She loves to travel and see new countries. As do her two daughters. She is inhibited by Graziano who is by no means adventurous. But he did like the dumplings filled with sausage. The meal had a nice amount of spice. Thanks Vera, for the invite! And buon compeanno! ~~~~~~~~ Then Luther and I decided to have a sushi lunch at the place we went to in the summer, Shiso. It is relatively new in town and is finding its footing. The menu was completely different this time. It tells us it is learning its audience and what they will eat. The last time the menu was more complicated. It has been simplified and streamlined. We decided to get the 16 piece chef selection. I was also intrigued by the Poke bowls. They had three sizes which allowed you to pick the protein, the sauce, and the extras. I may try that next time.
I leave you with a picture of our Simba. He had to see the vet this week. He is 16 and that comes with problems of old age. And don’t I know it! He is a sweety.
Ciao ragazzi! I know, I know and I feel really bad about being Missing-In-Action. But I have some pretty good excuses 😉. First off, I have had, and still am having issues with the website. It is down intermittently and this makes it hard to make updates. I am still working with my ISP. They are pretty inept.
Then, I got a mean virus that was going around. Not COVID. But that is going around here too. I ran a high fever, 102F or 38.9C. That is higher than most fevers I have had. I had a headache and intestinal upset. I took ibuprofen and checked in with my medico who said it was going around and she had many patients with the same symptoms. After 3 days the fever and headache subsided but the intestinal upset lasted a week. The worst was that, unlike most weekends, we had a lot of plans for this one. I, sadly, missed our entire Otto Cento festa. I had, planned to meet new residents and friends to show them around. Luther had to be my stand-in. But they got me some pretty sunflowers to cheer me up. 🙂. Then, Sunday, we had plans for lunch with our lunch bunch, the gang o six in Montefalco at our favorite restaurant, L’Alchemista. That, too had to be canceled.
Anyway, all that is past and since then we had our annual street fair which is non-stop vendors from the train station past our house. Probably 10 blocks. I watched from our aerie. And once I got over my malady I began to cook again. I had had no appetite during the illness. I grilled a few times outside on the wood fired BBQ. A whole grilled fish one night and I got very adventurous and made a Lebanese dinner. I made home made pitas which cannot be found here. They were good enough for my first try. And with them we had tzatziki and fresh tomatoes with sliced new onions and a kebab of spiced ground beef and pork. It should’ve been lamb but well, that’s not easy to find. I grilled the kebabs and it was a yummy dinner, and different!
I worked a shift at Books for dogs and someone donated some art which I really liked, so I bought two. I love them.
I always grow a pepper plant or two. This year I tried Tabasco. Tiny little heat bombs. I’ve been tossing them into stews etc and they really perk it up. The photo is after I harvested most of the ripe red ones, which were many. My tomato plants are still producing but have slowed down. The Sicilian one gives lots of small tomatoes. The beefsteak gave a lot of big juicy tomatoes but now it has stopped. There are a number of still growing green ones that I hope will mature. Our weather is the terrific autumn weather we always get here. Our fall season is long and perfect.
Last week we attended the annual silent auction that is held by Books for Dogs every year. They get donations all year and save the best ones for the auction. It was combined with a wine tasting. I had not been to one before. They published a catalog so I had picked out a couple things I was interested in and I was successful. I bought a pretty agate and glass vintage necklace, and a contemporary carved stone rhinoceros. It weighs 3 kilos. I have another soapstone collection of Inuit soapstone carvings and this reminded me of them, but much larger.
We have a few things planned for the future. We rescheduled our lunch with the Gang for the 21st. And we will finally get to Calagrana with other friends we haven’t seen in a while. Tomorrow we are trying a restaurant nearby we have not ever been to. We will enjoy this gorgeous fall weather. I hope you do too, wherever you are! Ciao amici!
For those of you who know me you won’t be surprised at my excitement. I found sweet corn! And in Austria of all places. I freely admit I am a corn snob and connoisseur. I adore sweet corn and I miss it a lot, living in Italy. They grow a lot of corn for animal feed and to make polenta, It is the same in most of Europe. They only grow it as animal food. But not for humans to eat. When I have seen any it has been picked for so long all its sweet juices have turned to starch. I don’t normally even try it if I do see it anymore.
One year I borrowed a friends land to try to grow my own. I had brought seeds from the US, three different kinds. I was moderately successful. Here is the culmination of my quest that year in my post called Corn. That same year I also tried “container corn” on our terrace. Sadly that was not so successful. Post on the Terrace Corn.
Anyway, yesterday we made the trip to the farmers market and there was corn! I took a chance and bought three ears. As everything in this country, it was the neatest, tidiest corn I have ever seen. Not a tassel in sight. Here are pictures.
My report is positive. It was very fresh, sweet and juicy. Maybe not “quite” up to US standards, but close enough and we devoured it with our meal las night ~~~~~~~~ Starting to head into the homestretch of this, too long, stay in Austria. I miss my home and my messy Italy. Next week we head back.
