Category Archives: everyday life in Umbria

Christmas day

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I’m making a soup for our lunches. And a duck is slow roasting in the oven. The duck comes from an old lady who raises them nearby. They are from her yard so biologically raised on corn and scraps. But I laugh to think of that. People back home in the US are so conscious of these “labels”. “Is it biologically raised?” They ask. But this is just the way it’s always been done here, and still is. It is “bio” but it is also “normal”. She speaks to her ducks as well, as she tends them. Then she dispatches them herself. The cycle of life and death I guess.

The duck came with its feet, neck and innards. I’m thinking a delicious stock will be in our future. I’m happy it didn’t have the head…I’ve gotten chickens here with heads…🙄. Once, in a fancy restaurant Luther got the rooster head right there on his plate!
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I am a basket maker. Have been for many years. This week I felt the urge to make one. I have a supply of reed I bring from the US. How odd they don’t have this here. Anyway. I finished this on Christmas Eve.

Our small, auxiliary cat, Simba, took a liking to the circle of cane I put on the sofa before making this. He thought it was just right for a nap.

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Soup is ready. It was made with vegetable stock, the normal sofrito, plus lots of greens and grains. Some tomatoes and also a rind from some Parmesan cheese, a rosemary sprig, bay leaves, some dried pepperincino, and a roasted zucca (squash). Drizzled with some of the brilliantly green new olive oil – it can’t be beat!

Tomorrow I will show what I did with the duck. I will say…I’m missing my sister a lot. And I miss Luther’s family – brothers, nieces and nephews…maybe next year we will be together… I’m hoping for visitors next year! 🤞😌 Meanwhile this year there will be FaceTime.🙂
Stay safe everyone. Andrà tutto bene 🌈.

Buon Natale!

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The end to a very stressful year is in sight. We will spend Christmas and New Year at home of course. And we will eat alone. But we will still have yummy things….just not Italian. Italy it is all about the feast of the seven fishes on Christmas Eve, and then lasagna with ragu on Christmas Day. These are the traditional festive meals. I love these traditions but this year I decided to go against the norm. I think, in honor of the fishes I will have fish tacos on Christmas Eve! 😁 And I was gifted a duck for a Christmas present from my friend Vera, so that will be our Christmas dinner.

I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I have hopes that 2021 will be a much better year. It can’t be a lot worse, that’s for sure!

Christmas season restrictions

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Yesterday, the government in Italy issued the rules we will follow for the Christmas, New Year, and Epiphany time period. They are ridiculously slow about these proclamations. For days before they “sign” it, we get all kinds of conflicting information. I’ve come to ignore the whole thing until the pen is on the paper.

Our three zone system here in Italy has managed to help reduce our new case numbers by almost half, and our positivity rate to below 10, which is the goal. But, as we all know from human nature, and also from concrete examples over Thanksgiving in the US, people feel a need to gather on these holidays. Natale in Italy is a family holiday. It will be very hard for people to not get together with their families. I completely get this. But if they do, they will inevitably spread the virus to their friends and families. Best to bite the bullet and stay home this year…for everyone’s good.

Here is the diagram showing what we will be doing here for the holidays from Corriere della Sera. Yellow means the restaurants and bars are open in the daytime until six. There is a curfew from 10pm-5am. We can travel between other yellow regions. Orange means bars/restaurants are open for take-out only and we are restricted to traveling in our region only (Umbria). Same curfew. Red means we must stay home unless for buying food, medicines, for medical reasons, or necessary work. Shops are closed. We are allowed to have two people visit in our home. This is our calendar.

I am happy to comply with these rules. I don’t feel anyone is infringing on my rights. I am appreciative of the Italian government for trying to control the virus. After all, the vaccines will be available to us all in the next six months. We merely need to wait and stay home. For everyone’s good. As I’ve said before…there is always next year. We just need to do this for this one year. How hard is that in the grand scheme of things?
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Stay home. Stay safe. Stay well. Stay alive. It will all be better soon. Andrà tutto bene 🌈

Slowly, slowly…our supplies dwindle

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I’m sure you’ve all read here in the blog if you’ve read for a while, that there are some things we love to get in the US and bring home to Italy. Things like spices and ethnic ingredients not available here. Although many things ARE available here and I’ve learned over the years how to find stuff, there are still a few things that MUST come from home.

Last week I used the last bit of my “Fish Fry” coating for fish. I looked it up, as I always do, on the internet and are there are many recipes for “do it yourself” fish fry. So OK maybe I can make it. We will try it and see. But I’d rather just have a new supply from the US 🙂.

Today, I opened my penultimate bag of Carolina Gold Rice, also called Charleston Gold. I keep it in the freezer until I need it. And there is one bag left. Italy, of course, has many very good rice varieties. Most notable are Carnaroli and Aborio rice. A short grain rice used in risotto. I also use it for regular rice. There are also readily available, basmati, brown and multi-grain rice. All good. But none are Carolina Gold.

I learned, years ago, about Carolina Gold rice from a Low Country cook book. Of course I ordered some to try. It was probably the original rice brought from Africa by the enslaved to America. These people also brought the knowledge to grow it. The labor it took to grow, was intense, and were it not for the enslaved, it would never have been possible to cultivate it. A hard life. So it wasn’t surprising when the rice died out after the Civil War. Until the 1960s, when a couple of people bought old plantations and slowly revived the rice. It is now cultivated and sold by these plantations.

What? you may ask, is so special about this rice? Rice is rice, right? But not this rice. It is nutty, and buttery, and has a distinctive aroma when cooking and when on the plate. It doesn’t need any gravy or enhancement to be enjoyed. Both Luther and I adore it and I never have to say “this is Carolina Gold” Luther always knows. It is the aroma.

Anyway. We really love it and bring back pounds of it in our suitcase (much to the amusement of the TSA). Just another casualty of the Corona virus. Unable to go home, and having no guests to bring some we will carefully nurse this rice and hope it can be replenished in 2021. Believe me, there are many other things that are going on my shopping list for when we can go home. 🙂

We rejoice there is now a vaccine, and it will protect our health care workers. And then, later, the rest of us. A light at the end of the long tunnel we’ve all been traveling this year. I have very high hopes for next year. I am itching to have some guests! My guest room has lain fallow for more than a year. It wants friends to come. And we are excited to also begin to plan travel. All in good time. First a quiet and lonely Christmas for most of us. It has to be. We will live to see NEXT Christmas…Stay COVID safe…live to see another year! 🌈

Mercato

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I looked outside this morning, as I do whenever there is a market. It was larger than usual and set up around the Christmas tree. I headed down around eleven, hoping it would be warmer. I’m here to say, it felt like Christmas. Very cold.

I like the feeling of excitement as we get closer to Christmas. There were several new booths. And there was a Slow Food tent. They show up from time to time. Often they have samples so I’m always checking them out. Today, no samples. They were taking orders for Christmas baskets. And they were selling the things individually that would go in the baskets. I bought two bags of dried legumes. One, Fagiolina del Lago Trasimeno. The other Roveja di Civita di Cascia. Both of these come from Umbria and the nearby Marche. Both are ancient beans. They also gave me recipes to try. I love that they are trying to save these old varieties.

The Roveja is very difficult to cultivate and harvest. It grows at high altitudes in the Sibillini Mountains. To harvest them, you have to work bent down and it takes a long time. This has discouraged the cultivation of roveja and has helped to ensure that almost no one today knows this small pea.

Courtesy of Slow Foods

The Fagiolina del Lago Trasimeno is also a very local product grown near the big lake in Umbria. It is unknown outside of the area. Once it was widespread around the lake but again, the cultivation and harvest is a long, tiring and still entirely manual — from sowing to harvesting to threshing. The maturation is gradual. The beans must be harvested every day for a couple of weeks. The plants are brought to the farmyard and dried, then beaten. Afterwards, using sieves, the beans are separated.

It is a bean with an oval and tiny shape and can be of various colors: from cream to black through salmon and all shades of brown, even mottled. When they are cooked, they are tender, buttery and tasty.

Courtesy of Slow Foods

Slow Food tent

Gift basket at the wine tent.

Wine tent

We bought a big chunk of the Capra Stagionato. Aged goat cheese.

The chocolate tent! I admit, I bought some. Come on! It’s Christmas!

I dropped off a few things at the Libri per i Cani (Books for Dogs) shop. If I buy something that either doesn’t fit me or isn’t what I expected, I give it to the shop to sell. On the way back I liked this view down the passageway to the market and the Christmas tree.

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I also finally got a break in the rainy weather. Enough to stack the wood in the rack.

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Stay safe everyone!

Rain, rain, go away

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Ugh. The weather has been horrible for what seems weeks. Last week we had howling winds for two full days. And then the deluge. The Tiber river is in flood. I went for a short walk yesterday before I visited the market. It wasn’t raining when I started but it had begun to sprinkle by the time I got back.

It had receded a bit when I took this picture. You can see the water has covered the path recently.

River, heading for the town. The walls keep the water away from our streets.

Near the bridge the logs that wash down from the north get stuck and pile up into a dam. They will eventually be broken up by heavy equipment.

Look at this handsome cat. She gave me quite the stare but didn’t run away. She’s part of a new feral colony.

Someone has built the colony a shelter and brought a little house. You can see people are feeding them too. People don’t embrace spay neuter much here. It isn’t a “thing” so we have batches of kittens seasonally a few times a year. People obviously care about them. They get fed, but they don’t get any medical care. I wish they could be neutered. I would gladly donate money for this cause.
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Also this week I asked my friend Quintino to bring a load of firewood for me. He is a lovely Romanian gentleman and he seems to take care of all the foreign (and maybe other) ladies. I know him through my friend Angela. She tells him I’m looking to get wood and he bring big bags full all the way up to my apartment. I pay him well so he will come back next time! Nice man.

I’m anxious to start stacking the wood in the wood rack. But the damn weather won’t let me! I see tomorrow is supposed to be sunny. Crossing my fingers.
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Stay safe everyone! 🌈

Christmas restrictions in Italy

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New rules for us here in Italy, as well as for anyone who plans a trip to Italy during the holidays. Information is from The Local.
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Italy is tightening the rules for people crossing its borders this month.
While other countries may be relaxing their rules over Christmas, Italy has announced it will crack down on travel both to and within Italy.

Its solution is to impose quarantine on anyone entering Italy over Christmas or New Year, as well as stepping up mandatory coronavirus testing for travellers.

The rules, introduced in a new emergency decree signed on December 3rd, come into force immediately but will get progressively stricter the closer we come to Christmas holidays.

They will ease off after the traditional end of the Christmas period on January 6th, and be replaced by a new set of rules from January 16th.

Mandatory quarantine for everyone arriving over Christmas and New Year
The biggest change is that everyone who enters Italy between December 21st and January 6th will have to quarantine for 14 days, including people travelling from within the European Union.

That applies to all travellers, regardless of nationality and whether you live in Italy or are just visiting, and including if you’re entering Italy by private transport.

Upon arrival, you will have to complete a form (available here or from your airline) giving your contact details and the address in Italy where you plan to quarantine. You will need to organize your own transport from the airport without taking trains, buses, coaches or other public transport to reach your destination.

Once you’re at your place of quarantine, you should not go outside unless there’s an emergency, nor can you invite anyone over or socialize with other housemates (unless you’re quarantining together).

You are also required to inform the local health service, or ASL, so that they can monitor you. Depending on where you are, you should be able to do this by phone, email or by filling in a form online: consult your region’s website for more information.

Pre-travel testing extended to all EU countries
While Italy previously imposed mandatory coronavirus tests on travelers from certain European countries, from December 10th the requirement will be extended to people arriving from any country in the EU, Schengen Zone or the UK.

In addition, the new decree states that you’ll have to get a test before you travel instead of on arrival in Italy. That means you should prepare to arrange a swab within the 48 hours before you depart for Italy, rather than getting tested at the Italian airport or station where you arrive.

People who arrive without proof of a negative test result will have to quarantine for 14 days.
Before December 10th, only people traveling from ‘high-risk’ European countries – Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Romania, Spain and the UK – will have to test negative before they travel.

And between December 21st to January 6th, everyone arriving in Italy will have to quarantine regardless.

As far as we know, EU travellers can go back to testing negative to avoid quarantine from January 7th until the rules are revised again on January 16th.

Canadians can no longer visit Italy as tourists.
Italy has revised its list of countries outside Europe whose residents are allowed to visit for non-essential reasons, including for tourism.

Canada has been removed, along with Georgia and Tunisia. Residents of these countries must now prove they have an urgent reason such as work, health, study or family emergencies in order to enter Italy. (Citizens of these countries who live in Italy remain free to return to their Italian residence.)

Meanwhile Singapore has been added to the ‘safe’ list and Romania has been recategorised in line with other EU countries.

The revised list, effective December 4th, is as follows:

Australia
Japan
New Zealand
South Korea
Rwanda
Singapore
Thailand
Uruguay
Residents of any of these countries are free to visit Italy, but must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

Until now 16 countries were subject to Italy’s tightest travel restrictions, with entry all but barred.

But starting December 4th, these countries will be subject to the same restrictions as most other places outside the EU: travel is permitted for essential reasons of work, study, health or family emergency, or for people who usually live in Italy and are returning home.

Upon arrival in Italy, they will have to quarantine for 14 days.

The change affects the following countries:

Armenia
Bahrein
Bangladesh
Bosnia Herzegovina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Dominican Republic
Kosovo
Kuwait
Moldova
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Oman
Panama
Peru
Rules for Americans remain unchanged

People travelling from the United States, India, Russia, China or any other countries outside Europe (apart from the eight on Italy’s ‘safe’ list above) remain the same: you can travel for essential reasons or to return home, but not as a tourist.

If you are eligible to travel, you’ll have to quarantine for 14 days.
You can avoid quarantine, however, if you travel on one of the new ‘Covid-tested’ flights starting between the US and Italy on December 8th, on which all passengers must test negative before boarding.

Remember that these flights only get you out of quarantine; you’ll still have to prove to border police that you have an urgent reason to travel to Italy.

Travel within Italy restricted
Domestic travel will also be restricted throughout December and early January.

No non-essential travel is allowed in or out of regions classified as high-risk red or orange zones under Italy’s tier system, which the government has confirmed will remain in place under the latest decree. Travel between towns is also restricted in these zones.

From December 21st to January 6th, travel between any regions of Italy – including lower-risk yellow zones – will be limited to essential journeys.

And on December 25th and 26th as well as January 1st, you will not be allowed to leave your own municipality (comune) except for emergencies.

Hotels can remain open
Hotels and other forms of accommodation are allowed to stay open throughout the holidays, though with the drop-off in tourism some will no doubt close.

There are some restrictions on serving food and drink, including a 6pm closing time for hotel bars and restaurants on New Year’s Eve.

For more information on international travel to and from Italy, see the Foreign Ministry’s website and check the restrictions in your destination country with the appropriate embassy.

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I wanted to let everyone know our new rules. These will be enforced and are mandatory. I’m sad for the loss of our Christmas this year. But it is, after all, Christmas 2020. A year unlike any other. I have high hopes for a return to quasi normalcy in 2021.

Stay safe everyone!

Parade of Christmas trees

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Our first tree here was in 2014. We had not yet moved into our house so we were in the little apartment in the building next to ours owned by our friends Susan and Gary. From this apartment we could see them bringing the tree down a tiny street. They don’t truss trees here — it was bushy and big! They had to be careful not to knock the street lamps off the buildings or the flowers from the balcony!

Coming through! See that lamp on the right? They had to bring a cherry picker to allow them to keep the branches from knocking it off the wall.
2014 – nice tree.

And just for the record, shortly after the tree arrived we moved into our own home. Here is our itty bitty tree in our brand new home in 2014.

Here are the trees from subsequent years. Some from ground level, some from our window. Somehow I don’t have a picture from 2017. 🥺

2015 – this one was smaller than the others but they had the extra lights strung across which made it nice. From underneath it was magic,
2016 – right after they erected the scaffolding on the Comune building to renovate it. Also one of my favorite trees.
2018 – one of my favorites.
2019 – this one wins the contest for ugliest tree! What were they thinking?!

Now in 2020 our tree has arrived and people have been busy with cherry pickers decorating it. I am told it came from a farm in Montecorona which is in the Umbertide Comune just beneath Monte Acuto, our big mountain. It is a nicely shaped and tall tree.

In normal times, the tree is lit on December 8, Immacolata or Immaculate Conception in English. There are big crowds to watch the scheduled lighting of the tree, and Babbo Natale, Father Christmas, or our Santa Claus is there for the kids. But these are not normal times. Susan told me the tree would be lit tonight. Sure enough, once it was dark I went to look and there it was…all lit up and beautiful. No crowds…no fanfare. It was rather sad. Look at some of the older pictures to see the normal crowds. Anyway, here is our 2020 tree…at least one thing is beautiful in this strange year.

Stay Covid safe everyone 😷…andrà tutto bene🌈

Bits and pieces

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The weather has been vile. Very cold and rainy. But some things needed doing. I took a trip, out of Comune which is not allowed except for necessity. My thinking was, I need to mail packages to the US and the only place is in Citta di Castello. There is a Mailboxes etc there. So I chanced it and breathed a sigh of relief when I crossed my Comune line on my return!

I also picked up a meal kit from Calagrana and a couple of pasties. It felt very christmassy up there. They are making Christmas baskets for gifts.

Tonight I made the meal. Very yummy Indian spiced lamb chops with a ginger infused rice and a salad of cucumber and sweet red onion. Excellent meal.

I put up our own Christmas tree today. It is pretty but I find I get sad when decorating it because all of my old ornaments are back in the US in storage. I miss them. They were collected from all over and have great meaning to me. One day I will get them over here. Here are my boys next to the tree.

Stay safe everyone. Andrà tutto bene 🌈