Category Archives: cooking

Lemon harvest!

My little lemon tree had 12 lemons on it! I am amazed at the output of these little trees. They flower and fruit all year. Already we have many new flowers and baby lemons. So I harvested ten of the pretty lemons and decided to make preserved lemons with them. Then I can make some Moroccan food this fall. They have to sit for at least three months.

Bellissimo view with our new Tende di Sole open.

Table set for dinner all’aperto. Nice. Did you know Al Fresco doesn’t mean eating outside in Italian? It means spending time in jail!

Kilometer zero market

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Beautiful weather has brought EVERYONE outside for the Kilometer zero market. I’ve mentioned it before but to explain again, it is a market of only local and self producing or growing vendors. Diverse but much smaller than the Wednesday market. I bought a jar of tiny preserved artichokes and the nice lady gave a jar of asparagus paste to put on bread, fish, chicken, just about anything. I also browsed through all the stands, thoroughly enjoying the scene.

Items for sale by the nice Senora

The local Alpaca farm called Maridana Alpaca brought in their wares. All natural colors of the Alpacas.

The baker from Citta di Castello is always at this market with pizza bread, focaccia, breads, donuts(!) and sweets.

Next weekend is Pasqua which is Easter. Everywhere you go there are small to giant chocolate eggs and specialized cakes and biscotti. This is a cake all wrapped up and ready to go! Today is Palm Sunday and I was treated to a lovely bell serenade from the big bells in the old church on the Piazza. They are wonderful.

This is my favorite greens and vegetable man. He also sells herbs and plants for the garden.

Local honey and products of the bees.

Black kale is what the sign says but I’ve never seen any like this before. I didn’t buy it. I think you’d prepare it like any cavolo nero.

And here is the Slow Food booth. They had all sorts of free food for the taking. I tried that square cake. It was apple and super moist.

Anyway, that was my day at the market. And later that afternoon me made the Passagiata (stroll through town) along with a bazillion Italians. Then sat in Bar Mary to have an aperitivo and watch the action. We are happy it’s spring!

Gorgeous Saturday

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We are just back from a three night trip to Torino (Turin). I will post about it soon. But today we are just enjoying this beautiful spring weather. Everyone is out and about and Umbertide is coming alive after the long hibernation. I bought some more asparagus today. This time it is wild asparagus that people around here go out in the fields and woods and forage. I am looking forward to trying it tonight. I am now using my new Canon EOS 100D camera. Takes nice pictures! Click to see larger versions.

I also got a tip from a friend about a butcher I had never tried. I don’t know why I hadn’t as it is very close to us. Perhaps because there is a large butcher just before you get to it that I always went to to buy our meat. This butcher shop is quite small. The selection is different too. They always stock Pork Belly or Pancetta in big slabs. I got to try it recently and it was melt in your mouth good with great cracklin’ skin. They also always have lamb and of course beef and chicken. I decided on a pork leg and first seared in the oven, then slow cooked it. We will eat it tonight.

This time of year is artichoke season. I do love them. But I don’t buy them like the Italians do! they get dozens at a time! Goodness knows what they do to them. I’d like to know!

And these are the beautiful “famous onions of Canarra”. They are very sweet. Two people come with their van every week. A very old man and a young man who must be his grandson. They are very nice and I always tell them buongiorno even if I’m not buying that day. The onions are beautifully braided. I buy whole ropes of them. They are perfect on salads and roasted. They also caramelize like a dream.

This is the old man. I’m sorry his face is in shadow. It was a very sunny day. His grandson is in the van behind him braiding more onions.

We made it!

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Well it’s here…March. Meteorological spring. And it shows. The winter wheat is brilliant green. The forsythia is blooming. And I found some new things in the Wednesday market.

First, a picture from my kitchen door. Still wintery mountains but blue skies and the temperatures are reaching the 60s sometimes.

I’ve seen agretti, or monks beard, always the first spring vegetable we see. Since Luther is not fond I don’t buy it but it’s a real delicacy only found in central Italy. This week I found asparagus! The first of the season. I asked the lady selling it where it came from and she said Spoleto which is here in Umbria. So I bought some!

I also found these small cartons of tomatoes. They were grown in Sicily and reminded me of the Cherokee Purple variety. It also says on the carton I can see who grew my tomatoes on their website!

I bought a new camera so I need to come up to speed on it so I can again post good pictures. We’ve also been doing our beginning of the year chores. Signing up for our health care this year was a royal pain. Normally we just take our social security statements in and pay our money. This year they told us they needed our paper to have a stamp on it from our American embassy in Rome. All of the stranieri were scuttling about trying to figure out how to do this but finally, after a phone call we managed to get it sorted. The Social Security section of our embassy has all our records…a surprise to me…so they were able to stamp it and send it to us via the Poste Italiane. So that’s done.

We also are starting to go through the process of getting our Permessi di Sogiorno renewed for the coming year. The fees have actually dropped this year to about 60 Euro each down from about 130 Euro last year. There also seems to be another thing or two changed so we will have to wait and see.

Next week we again are trying to get our Italian driving licenses. This has been an ongoing saga. Stay tuned!

Pranzo

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Last Sunday we were happy to join Alberto the chef at Calagrana, the nearby Agriturismo, for Sunday lunch. Ely is in England tending to her Mom. We missed her. But we enjoyed Alberto’s “old fashioned lunch”. It consisted of a starter of lasagna bolognese (no picture – ate it before I thought!). He said it was his grandmothers recipe. Next we had steak Diane. It brought back memories of my sister making this for my mother. It is traditionally made tableside.

Then we had a Lemon Padlova which was unfamiliar to me but was excellent.

Archie is the resident terrier and happy to visit.

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Last week, I was craving banana pudding but realized I could never make it here without Nilla Vanilla wafers. BUT! I remembered a resource I had not tried called My American Market based in Europe to provide Expats with ingredients they are craving. Once I got on their site I couldn’t resist the other items and figured it was worth it to buy them all at once! Sure!

Here’s my haul. Pam is something I’ve been wanting for ages. You cannot bring aerosol cans on airplanes so there was no way to get it here.

Winter snow

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Winter here in Italy has been brutal so far. Friend in Abruzzo, next region to us, had 3 feet of snow! Other friends way down south in Basilicata and Campagna are also slammed with frozen water pipes and lots of snow. Yesterday earthquakes south of us triggered a tragic avalanche in Abruzzo which completely buried a hotel. 4 dead and 27 missing so far. We felt the quakes here but they were not strong. There were 10 quakes in the last 24 hours.

We have had our first snow. It was only a dusting but probably the most I’ve seen here since we came. I heard it was much worse up in the hills surrounding us. Still it was pretty.

From our window.

Montone is the hill town nearby. This is the mountain upon which it sits. It was snowing so the view is softened.

Luther wanted a steak yesterday. Cuts here are very different from the US but this one is familiar. Here it is called a Contrafiletto. In the US it is a ribeye. Ready to grill!

The fire was welcome in more ways that one. It warmed my frigid kitchen up and I sat close by to enjoy the warmth. It also cooked our dinner of steak and two potatoes wrapped in foil and embedded in the coals.

Finished product. It was pretty good. They don’t finish beef on grain here so it is not as marbled. Hence it is not as tender. Good flavor though.

Cinghale Stew on New Years Day

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OKAY for all you folks waiting with bated breath for the results of my Cinghale stew (wild boar stew) here are two pictures. First is the boar after marinating for 2 days in red wine plus other stuff.

This is the final product which we ate last night.

It was surprisingly yummy. I don’t own a crockpot but I looked up how to emulate it. It said to cook in an 200F oven for 6 hours, covered tightly. This worked well. The meat was tender and falling apart.

I got this recipe from the internet but modified it some. Here it is:

Wild boar – cinghiale – Stew

2 pounds wild boar meat, cut into stew-sized pieces

Marinade:
1 bottle red wine minus 1 glass
2 Tbsp. vinegar
1 carrot, 1 stalk celery, 1 onion, chopped into big pieces
2 garlic cloves, peeled
4 bay leaves
Juniper berries, whole (to taste); approx. 1 Tbsp.
Sprig rosemary
Sage if desired
Red chili pepper flakes (to taste); approx. 1-2 tsp.

To finish:
Olive oil, 5 Tbsp.
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups (12 oz.) passata, plain tomato sauce, or tomato puree

Prepare the marinade with the wine, vinegar, chopped vegetables, garlic, bay leaves, juniper berries and chili flakes. Pour marinade over the boar meat, stir to coat, and marinate, covered, for at least 8 hours or overnight. (I marinated it two days. You can’t really over-marinate)

Drain the meat and vegetables, reserving the liquid. Chop the vegetables into smaller pieces and sauté them in 5 Tbsp. olive oil for several minutes, preferably in an enameled, cast iron casserole or any heavy stew pot. Remove.

Now add the wild boar meat to the pot, salt and pepper it, and brown the meat in the oil in batches. Return the vegetables to the pot. Add one soup spoon of the wine; let it evaporate at high flame. Now add the reserved marinade liquid, the tomato sauce or puree and bring to a boil; Cover tightly with a lid and foil to keep in the moisture. Put in a 100C/200F oven for six hours. This emulates a crockpot. If you have a crockpot then you can use that. The meat should be melt-in-your-mouth tender when done.

Delicious with roast potatoes and cannellini beans (white beans).

Buon Appetito!

A US wedding trip

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We are just back from our trip to the US to help celebrate our nephew’s wedding. A good time was had by all.

We arrived in DC on a Sunday and crashed. Then we did a couple of days sightseeing and a day of shopping. We visited the newly re-opened Smithsonian Gallery of Art – East Wing. The building is in itself a work of art designed by I.M. Pei.

It’s only flaw was a limited amount of exhibit space. With this redesign it now has much expanded space and they opened two of the three towers. On the roof terrace is a big blue chicken sculpture by German artist Katharina Fritsch.

We also got to see the recently de-scaffolded US Capital building. When we moved away it was completely covered. Now it gleams in the sun. It has never looked this good.

We dined on some ethnic food to include Oyamel, a great Mexican place, and Rappahannock Oyster bar which has world class farmed oysters. We’ve missed them! The big splurge was Komi which many said should have received a Michelin star in the recently published guide. I will say it was mighty fine. There is no menu. They bring about 12 courses, starting small and getting bigger as they go along. So good. And we elected to get the wine pairing. We never do this but we were glad we did. The sommelier is excellent and all the wait staff made us feel very special. Recommend it.

On Thursday we rented a car and drove to The Homestead in Hot Springs, VA – about a 3 1/2 hour drive. We attended the beautiful wedding of our nephew, Dave and his bride Shira. It was a Jewish ceremony although our nephew is Christian. It was lovely. I did not take pictures. It was outside and the weather was fine. We partied into the night. I wish this young couple all the best in life.

While there we strolled the grounds and played a rousing game of mini-golf with Luther’s brothers family who were there from California. Again, the weather was perfect. The trees were beautiful.

We are back home and I am happy to say we have finished our travels for this year. I am glad to be home in tranquil Umbertide. Long trip back. While we were gone there were three (!) earthquakes of 5.6, 6.1 and 6.6 on the Richter scale. No damage in Umbertide but in the mountains just 40 miles away is devastation. So much lost. One of my favorite cathedrals collapsed in the town of Norcia. Here is the picture I took about 2 years ago. Sadly it is almost totally destroyed. My heart goes out to the people. The one good bit of news is, no one was killed.

On our way home we stopped for provisions. I spied, of all things(!) corn on the cob! Now, if you’ve been reading this you know I have searched for decent sweet corn since our first summer here. I found some inedible this past summer. So I slyly put my finger nail into a kernel and lo and behold! it squirted juice. This meant it wasn’t totally gone to starch. I notice they are grown in Umbria so are local. I bought two cobs and cooked them last night. They were decent! Sweet. Not as good a fresh summer corn but, good. The only thing that puzzles me is…it’s November! I mean who heard of corn in November?

Coincidentaly, I had ordered corn to be sent to my sister. I picked it up on our trip so next year I will have corn! I hope to find someone with garden space to lend or rent. But one of these packets has “Container Corn”. It can be grown in pots! So next year my terrace will be farm-like. I am pretty excited about this!

Portugal

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Another trip report so skip if you are not interested.

Portugal. We arrived at about 7PM in Lisbon where we rented a tiny Fiat 500 and drove about 80 kilometers to the town of Obidos. We had rented a room in a B&B there. We arrived at about 9:15 and went right out to dinner as we were famished. Our innkeeper, Carlos, recommended a place very nearby called Restaurante O Caldeirao. We had their fresh fish which was OK. At least we weren’t hungry anymore and it was good that the Portuguese eat late. But not as late as in Spain.

The next morning we got on the road and drove the more than 200 km to the town of Tabuado. It was pretty hard to find. We had Google maps directions but the road that we turned on was unmarked. We turned right on the only road of any size we saw and found the Villa. It was called Quinta da Varzea de Cima. We met up with two Australian couples Jeff and Kaye and Steve and Shiromi. Both couples had visited us in Italy. We also met their friends Rhonda and Rob, also Australian. The villa had 6 bedrooms but we only used 4 of them. They were all comfortable and the villa itself was quite beautiful.

It had it’s own chapel.

Our room was to the right at the top of the stairs.

There were several outside tables and chairs.

They had a spring.

This was the amazing chimney. See all the holes at the top?

Below was the old cooking area with three things, a hearth, and what looks like two different types of oven.

If you look at the hill across from me you can see one of the many scorched areas from fires. Apparently it is normal. It was parched!

Big barrel made into a bar.

As soon as we arrived we all piled into the cars and went to the town of Amarante, which was about 30 minutes, by tortuous road, away. We had lunch in a beautiful restaurant on the Tamega river. Here are some views.

On Wednesday we drove down to the Douro river. This is the main area where the port wines are grown. We were headed for the town of Peso da Regua. Due to operator error we ended up WAY up in the hills in the little villages all through the vineyards. It was a bit nerve wracking since we were two cars following each other and the roads were very narrow. But Shiromi and I were very happily lost as we got some stunning pictures we never would have gotten. Take a look!

The town way down there is where we were trying to reach.

Here we all were trying to figure out where the hell we were!

Peso da Regua was a bustling town. Very hot and we had quite a bit of walking to do. I took a few pictures of the interesting doors and buildings. In Portugal you see tiles everywhere! This was a bar.

Interesting door with tiles above.

Derelict building with tiles.

Pretty garden in town with beautiful tiles on the building.

In this town we had trouble finding a place with room for 8 to have lunch. We finally did but it turned out to be a pretty amusing lunch. We were kind of late so they had run out of much food. The waitress was visibly annoyed when none of us wanted salad. Then when asked for things she said all gone. She pointed to what was left. It was very Monte Python-esque. We did finally get fed.

Thursday we spent just enjoying the villa and relaxing. Lunch was lovely cold cuts and cheese alla casa. We had what they call Mortadella but it would never past muster in Italy, the birthplace of mortadella bolognese. It had olives embedded in the meat and when sliced, there were slices of olives rather than the squares of fat mandated in Italy. Nice day.

Friday we headed back to Lisbon for three nights. The city was nice…I guess. Very crowded. We couldn’t get into many sights due to the crowds. Good food. Nice hotel in a very good location.

Traditional tile-covered building.

In main square by the port.

Loved the goslings and turtle

A parade we happened upon.

How did they do that to the horses rumps?

The monastery. Very ornate.

The city is built on two hills. The middle is flat. They have streetcars going up.

A neighborhood near the castle.

Old tile

Castle

The sidewalks and plazzas are intricately tiled. These make the plazza look like waves.

Brilliant fountain in the sun.

I got pick pocketed on our last night They are Good! Unzipped my purse as I walked and took my wallet. I realized it quickly and called the CC companies but they had already charged thousands. And all in Central America. Who knows how it all works. Do they sell the numbers? Anyway, the good thing at the time was that I had used the ATM earlier and had not replaced the card or cash in the wallet so he didn’t get that. I was not carrying our passports but my wallet had my codice fiscale, Permesso, health card and VA drivers license. Rats. Next day I filed a police report. Apparently this is common there. The best news is someone found my documents! The police brought them to my hotel just before we were leaving. The other good news is I needed a new wallet anyway. I guess I’d gotten complacent and my guard was down. Lessons learned…do not carry all my stuff with me and split the credit cards between us. Also hold the purse with my hand and keep it in front of me.

Oh I forgot to mention we got ripped off by a cab driver upon arrival.

We had a 7:30 PM flight which arrived in Rome at 11.:30PM. So we got home at 3am. Ugh! I think I I’ll lobby not to arrive at midnight in Rome.

Final thoughts. We loved seeing Steve, Shiromi, Kay and Jeff. We enjoyed meeting the third couple, Rob and Rhonda. It was fun to cook together for dinners and tour around with them. So that part was nice. Lisbon…not so much. When we return we will stay in the Duoro valley which was green, vine filled and beautiful. It was incredibly hot everywhere we went. I think I’ll forgo summer travel to cities. Crowded and too hot. Portuguese is one weird language. Supposed to be a Romance language but they way it is pronounced makes it sound almost Russian. We could read quite a bit of it. Lots of accents and pronunciation a mystery to us.

Wending our way through August

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We are having spectacular weather. Highs in the 80s and cool at night. We have been enjoying it with the occasional Gelato or Aperol Spritz. Last weekend we had the local Vespa club arrive in all their thundering glory.

We also had a great time creating and attending a BBQ at an Agriturismo of friends, Simone and Simona. They are from Milan and now living rough, off the grid on the old family farm of Simone. It was abandoned for many years and they have spent years working mostly on their own to make it into holiday apartments. They first fixed up the old barn for themselves. And have spent a LOT of time just on the structure of the old buildings. It is in an earthquake zone so there are lots of rules for stabilizing and protecting everything. They are now getting ready to finish the first apartment inside. Here are some pictures.

This is the main building. Underneath are the large, airy barns where the animals used to live.

The views are nothing short of spectacular. They are very high on a ridge. The electric grid stops before their property. They use mostly solar and batteries.

The picturesque old chimneys. I love these. They are all over our part of Italy.

The BBQ grill with Fabio and Gary.

I had initially invited everyone to our house and was going to make the ribs. But Simona wanted us all to come there. So I got up early to prepare the ribs. I wanted it to be all American so I brought spicy guacamole, spicy salsa with the wonderful tomatoes we have now, and my moms potato salad. We found tortilla chips in the store! Everyone was open to the experience and had fun. We also had great, grilled vegetables, and one of their chickens. He was supposed to be grilled but he was deemed too tough so he was stewed. Dessert was a very light cheesecake and cool watermelon. What could be more perfect?

Random scenes. Here is the wind ruffled Tiber one afternoon.

I found CORN!! it is one of the things I miss most about the US. Summer, sweet corn. Alas, it was not to be. Tough as an old shoe. Horses probably wouldn’t touch it! BUT the good news is that I have started volunteering at the Books for Dogs booth at the market. It is run by mostly British women. They take donated books and DVDs and sell them to support several dog sanctuaries. Anyway, one of the ladies also bought corn. Later I asked her if we could plant a few rows next year in her garden. So MAYBE next year we will be able to taste that sweet summer corn!

Impending storm.

Volunteer sunflower against a blue sky.

The placid river in morning.

Here is a spider who has caught a tasty fly on our pepper plants. If you click you can even see the spiders little face. It looks so much like a human face.

Finally, we are looking forward to welcoming our next guests, Mary and Lenny! Their first trip to Italy and great old friends of ours. They will be with us for five nights and we will do some lunches, markets, wine tastings and sightseeing. Stay tuned…

Nancy Goes to Italy

A record of an American's dream to live in Umbria

Category Archives: cooking

Lemon harvest!

Kilometer zero market

Gorgeous Saturday

We made it!

Pranzo

Winter snow

Cinghale Stew on New Years Day

A US wedding trip

Portugal

Wending our way through August

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