Today we went to our health department to see about the new Tessere Sanitaria we need to get every January. The new fees are quite a lot higher. €2,000 flat fee per person plus an income based extra amount. It is quite a lot more than we were paying in all the previous years. But we had read that we’re eligible for the health care for free now that we have our PdS Lungo Periodo – or permanent residence. Thing is not many of us immigrants have gotten this long term card yet. You’ve got to jump through a lot of hoops to get it and only after 5 years continuous residence. Also, we were on the early edge of retirees moving here. So, that meant our health department had never seen one before. As you can imagine, many phone calls were made. Much ass covering was done. But in the end we walked out with cards good for five years, AND for FREE! It is a very good day. This card will also give us coverage in all of the EU. Very handy.
Last night I decided to make risotto in the instant pot. I had read it was a great and labor saving way to do it. I had some left over shrimp stock and some shrimp so I adapted the recipe for that. The recipe is here – instant pot risotto. I cut the recipe in half and used shrimp stock instead of chicken. Pretend you see shrimp on top of this…we ate them before I could take a photo! 😋
i went for a little walk today. The weather is pretty nice, the cold is gone and highs are in the 50s in the daytime. Here are a couple pictures. One is the park near us called le pinette. And the other is a cute preschool they built last year. I love the little buildings with big windows and high ceilings and bright colors! Really attractive.
Finally, here is my wonky lemon tree. She’s inside for the winter, or until construction starts. She gave us lots of lemons as always.
I heard about the deep freeze dipping far south — state al caldo!
Hi everyone! I know it has been a while. Once we got back from England and got through the Christmas activities things slowed down — and so did I!
The week after Christmas was quiet. The 26th is a holiday here so that was a four day weekend. Our neighbors across the hall brought us some delicious brownies. Hand decorated by Celeste and Chiara. Really sweet of them and sweet to taste too! My birthday is the 28th but I never really do anything. Having a birthday in the week after Christmas is stinky. No one feels like doing anything…including me! So that day passed quietly.
I stayed up until midnight watching the new year come in all over the world on CNN, every hour. There were some pretty amazing displays. I also wanted to see the crazy fireworks in Umbertide from our roof. I can see the town fireworks from here easily down by La Rocca, which I couldn’t see from our old apartment. And then all the Italians are mad for their own shows and boy did they ever. Our next door neighbor, with a roof terrace too, shot off some pretty big and sophisticated fireworks. I took a video which I tried to edit but it didn’t work – sorry. The fireworks farther away are the city fireworks. The ones right above me are from our next door neighbor.
New Year’s Day we went to the New Year brunch (yes a brunch!!) at Calagrana. Brunch isn’t a “thing” here. I haven’t been to one since being in the US. Great menu. It was very hard to choose. We both decided to have the Acciughe which is anchovies. Not just any anchovies but Cantabrico from Spain. With toasted bread and butter. Mmmm. Then I had the Mac and cheese 😁 But Wait! Not just your run-of-the-mill Mac n cheese…it was truffled Mac n cheese! It was good!
We had dinner at C’Era una Volta with the folks who bought Joseph and Paul’s house. Their daughter who lives in Rome came as well. It was nice to meet her. And we had dinner with Susan and Gary.
Susan was an important part of why we moved to a Umbertide in particular. She had a blog about her little vacation apartment on the piazza and I found it. Back in 2013 there weren’t as many blogs about Italy as now. I reached out to her a bit before we came. We also found another tiny blog by a (now) friend in Montone and he put us in touch with Jim our real estate agent. Jim found us a little apartment to rent for three weeks. So we came on a house hunting trip. We looked all over Umbria but by then, we found we quite liked this little town, so we bought our first apartment and flew back home to move permanently here. Thanks to Susan and Gary. The bittersweet is that they moved to Florence a couple years ago and we saw them less frequently but they still had their pretty place here. This dinner last week was our last super together here. They had come to move their belongings because they had sold their house. The end of an era. We will stay friends. I am sure.
Saturday was Epifania, Epiphany. The twelfth day of Christmas. The day the Magi came with gifts for the baby Jesus. The day before was when Befana, the Christmas witch came to visit all the children and leave gifts (or coal if you were bad) in their stockings. Remember the all Santa Claus band recently? Well this night we had an all Witch band!
Waaaay back before Christmas, you may remember the trip report of our short trip to England. Remember the lost backpack that Luther left in the rental car? Well ever since then Luther has been working to get the thing shipped back. We had the help of one of the nicest people ever to work for a rental car company, Victoria. She kindly packed the backpack in a box and affixed the label. It was ready for shipping. The first courier he chose used another company to pick things up and twice they claimed they couldn’t find the Enterprise Rent-a-car desk at the airport. Now seriously…who among us has not been able to find a rental car place in a strange airport? None of us of course! But these dolts couldn’t. So Luther regrouped and tried UPS. He got a message the package had been picked up! Yay! Then nothing. So Luther contacted UPS and they said the package had never arrived to them. They said he should check the shipper. Luther reminded them that THEY are the shipper! Hmmm. So they said they could try to track it but Luther couldn’t ask for that since he didn’t send it. He would have to ask Victoria to do it, which he did. Even though she was on vacation she said she would. Yesterday a courier dropped off a package for us and I went down to get it. It was a small box but it was from the UK! And it was from Victoria! And delivered by UPS. So the long lost backpack is back. The important item was Luther’s hearing aids. €3,500 that we didn’t want to lose. The champagne flowed last night. So relieved!
The cold weather is upon us. I find myself staying in mostly, but I am getting much done. I’m packing our smaller things, books, pottery, etc in preparation for the kitchen to try to keep the dust off. We also are trying to renew our health coverage which expires each year in December 31st. The problem. Italy passed a new budget and they changed the amount that we stranieri have to pay. But no one knows how to implement it since it just was passed December 29th but went into affect on January 1. They are just telling people here in Umbria to come back. It could put us all in limbo for a long time. But I’m hoping we will get resolution soon.
We also are doing jigsaw puzzles. We have always done this in the winter, since I was small. Luther loves them. This one is coming along. Only the really hard-to-do part is left.
I have many wishes for this year. I won’t list them all but I hope we can work together more and there will be more kindness and caring for our fellow humans.
We are in Thanksgiving week. There are a few other things happening. We have done some doctor stuff. We got our flu shots Tuesday. But we want a Covid booster and our doctor said we need to go to the health department (CUP). Well I asked in the Facebook group for expats here called Umbrialiens and got some interesting insights. I got a link from a friend for online appointments and was surprised that none were nearby. Another friend north of us said the Upper Tiber Valley, where we are, has a shortage of vaccine. Only health care people and over 80 years old can get it. I guess that explains the lack of locations near us. I really don’t understand how our little area doesn’t have vaccines when the rest of our region does. 🤦🏻♀️. Mystifying. Anyway, we made an appointment in a town near the lake and will go in December. I know so many people with the virus. I really don’t want to get it, or if I do, I want it to be not terrible. ~~~~~~~~ I had a lovely coffee with a good friend, Elizabeth today. She is doing well and expecting a lot of guests in the upcoming months. She wrote a book a few years ago about the Upper Tiber Valley called Sustenance which is a wonderful chronicle of the artisanal producers in the valley. ~~~~~~~~ We had a lovely dinner with our friends Susan and Gary last night. We went to Grace, our nice neighborhood restaurant. Good food. Great to catch up. You may remember they were our first friends here and had the small apartment we stayed in during our first renovation. And another bigger place. They have sold both so they won’t be here often and we miss them a lot. We are simpatico is in all ways. Hard to meet people like this. We did plan a vacation together next year for October. Should be fun. To the Loire. We are compatible travel companions and always have fun together. 🥰 My most interesting dish from dinner was a red cabbage soup. I love the color!
I also met with my architect, Irma, at Nicoletti, the falegname (cabinet maker) who will be making our cabinets. It turned out to be productive but somewhat stressful. The decisions I was making I’ll have to live with for a long time. 😳 I was surprised to see the list of orders for custom made cabinets included the UK and France. It was cheaper for Nicoletti to make them and ship them than to have them made in their own country. I went into the factory part which was a beehive of activity. They can make ANYTHING exactly like you want. Pretty impressive. Anyway, now I’m in the queue. They will make them in January or February and install them in March. Hopefully the first two weeks of March since we will be in the US after that. I don’t really want my house-sitters to have to deal with it! I could always put them off until we return I hope! ~~~~~~~~ Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We will go to Calagrana which will be making the traditional meal. The evolution of Thanksgiving at Calagrana is interesting. Ely being British and Alberto Italian didn’t know much about the feast. About 9 years ago our friends Susan and Gary wanted to have thanksgiving but they couldn’t cook the huge turkey at home. So Susan hired Ely to roast one for her, plus appetizers etc. Ely was up all night roasting the 35 pound bird and talking to her sister in Philadelphia who collaborated. We picked up the turkey and had the feast at Susan and Gary’s house. That was the same for the next year. Then we decided it was easier for us to go to Calagrana than to bring the bird from there to us. Ely and Albi invited us into their home since the restaurant was closed for the winter. That went for a few years. Then, Ely having become an enthusiastic Thanksgiving fan, decided to open the restaurant for the feast to anyone who reserved. So now that’s what we do. Tomorrow we are guests of Susan and Gary and we will be a table of ten I think.
I am thinking that next year, once I’ve got a kitchen, I’ll have a meal at our house maybe for our single friends who would enjoy coming together for the feast. And some of our other new friends. Since Susan and Gary now live in Florence and have sold here I’m not sure how often we will see them.
HAPPY THANKS GIVING. EVERYONE! There will be a post about our meal soon.
Mundane things we got done this week. Some good, some not-so-good. ~~~~~~~~ I forgot to mention that we had a call from our Polizia Municipale on Saturday. They had a citation for us and had to deliver it. We said we were home so he came by to our house with it. (So weird that they do this.) Turns out we were on vacation on our cruise when this infraction occurred so that meant it was our house sitters. They did tell me they went to the Adriatic coast and that is where they got this speeding ticket. Luckily it wasn’t too much over the limit so no need to ask for their drivers license info so we can say who was driving. No points involved. We paid the fine and will wait to see if we get any more to decide whether we will bother with asking them to repay us. Sometimes it’s not worth it. ~~~~~~~~ Monday we spent 3 hours at the ginormous Perugia hospital waiting — and 15 minutes of that time was for procedures. Ugh. I’m getting an orthoscopia of my sinuses and had to do pre-op tests and an interview with the anesthetist because I will be asleep for the procedure. So that’s done. Now I wait to find out the date for the procedure. I just hope it’s not on Thanksgiving or just before since we are going to Thanksgiving lunch at Calagrana with friends. Here is the waiting room…tick…tick..tick. ⏰
~~~~~~~~ Tuesday I drove to Sansepolcro in nearby Tuscany for my, much needed, haircut. I love that little city. It’s in the upper Tiber Valley just like we are. They are right up at the end of the valley where the big mountains start. The town has just over 15,000 people so just slightly smaller than Umbertide. It was a gray day and I had a little time so walked a little into town from the gate and took a few pictures. None are very good. The town has all their Christmas lights up already.
V
I may be wrong but it seems like the people in Sansepolcro dress more stylishly than in Umbertide. I think I’m right though. Umbertide is a working class town for the most part and Umbrian to boot. Tuscany is, well, you know, Tuscany, so it is a little more posh. 😁 ~~~~~~~ Wednesday brought a meeting with my architect, Irma. I think all the details are nailed down now. She and I will go to the Falegname (cabinet maker) Nicoletti here in town who will custom build our cabinets. I will pick the color then. I’ve already chosen the countertop color and the color for the floor. Still must chose appliances, sink, faucet but that should be it. Today we decided to replace one narrow cabinet with a wine rack. The work won’t start until January which is pretty perfect actually. We will be here. We won’t have any guests. Hopefully it will be done before we go home to the US for the first time in four years in March. Here’s the plan before. Today we decided on cabinets that lift up rather than open normally. And the narrow cabinet on the left will become a wine rack.
~~~~~~~~~ Thursday, I worked in the gardens in the morning. I cleaned out and cut back the lavender and a big pink flowering plant that got huge, also the hostas and the ornamental grass I planted. There is still more to do but it’s better now. I also planted all the bulbs that my friend Jill gifted to me. Lots of flowers this spring! Won’t that be something to look forward to?
At a little after eleven I left to meet my bestie, Jen, in Passignano sul Trasimeno for lunch. It’s a pretty lakefront town. I think there are about 8,000 people and it is on the main train line. My friend lives in Foligno and doesn’t like to drive so this worked for us both and I love the lake. Here are some pictures from around town.
Along the lakefront promenadePretty park along lakeAlong the lakefront promenadePart of the old castle fortress above the townGlad these aren’t my stairsSomebody likes wineCastle fortress built on a cliff
We ate at Trattoria Pescatore. This place, like most restaurants around the lake, specializes in lake fish. Some of it is regional and specialized like they catch and eat eels, usually made into stew. I’ve had it and it’s actually pretty good. The food is very good. I had risotto with zucca and scamorza. That’s risotto with puréed winter squash and the smoked cheese they make here. Very good and perfect for a one course meal – rich. Jen had the Tuscan soup. It was a bit chilly so the food was quite warming. Here is the restaurant interior, very snug and cozy, and my risotto.
In summer they have a pretty shady garden area. It’s right in the Centro Storico. This photo is the walkway outside covered in vines.
Lago Trasimeno is the fourth largest lake in Italy and the largest on the peninsula. In summer it’s very busy and all along the shores are camp grounds and discos which close in winter. Pretty tacky. In winter the area is quiet and tranquil.
Tomorrow, Friday concludes the week with my Italiano class. It was a productive week!
I made a new soup which I adapted somewhat from a Washington Post recipe called Caccio e Pepe soup with chickpeas and kale. It was delicious. It was modeled after the pasta dish Caccio e Pepe which is one of the easiest pastas to make, just pasta, parmesan or pecorino cheese and black pepper. Comfort food. This soup was quite rich and very warming.
We also had a really fun, and filling(!) pizza night with Jane and Christie at Degusto. They have two types of crust. One is integrale or whole grain. Pictures of two.
Yesterday was a big day. Since we had managed to open our recalcitrant second garage we could order pellets and wood. In this new house I guess these are the benefits. No way we could store this much in the old apartment and we have this basement garage storage area which has easy access to the elevator. Much easier for us to shift these things here.
So, that’s done and dusted! Of course there is the sinus issue still looming. The dentist had to remove an old crown (with difficulty) and tested the tooth which is viable so they say it can’t be the problem. So next is a pre-op testing regime and I guess I’ll find out about a date for the procedure. I don’t look forward to that but I will look forward to feeling better, for sure!
This weekend is the festival of San Martino. One of my favorites!
So sorry I’ve been MIA. I’m here to fix that. 🙂 it isn’t like nothing’s has been happening. They are bits and bobs as the British would say. I have been doing a lot of the stuff for my sinus infection. I have gotten the second radiograph and gone back to the doctor. He wants to rule out teeth as the cause so I have a dentist appointment for next Monday for that. But the doc has already put me into the system for the scope of my nose. I was pleased about that so if the teeth are ruled out the scope will go forward asap. Enough of this medical stuff!
We had Pino, our electrician come to fix a few things. He is really a piece of work and I like him a lot. Speaks not a word of English, nor Italian. As far as we can tell he speaks mainly Umbertidese, our town dialect. He talks to himself in dialect all the time as he works, but as Luther says, he is extremely resourceful. He fixed our electric garage door, figured out why our doorbell wasn’t working, and fixed the lights on the terrace. Happy days!
Speaking of our doorbell. This is super annoying. Our bell stopped working a while ago and we contacted the condominium. They sent someone who said it was the button and got it working for a short time. When it quit again we contacted them, and the condominium, but got no response. Finally the condominium said it was our own problem because ours was the only bell affected. They said they could fix it for €900 (!). When we saw what Pino did, we realized it was a plastic plate with all four doorbells on it. Our piece of it was broken off. This is not a problem for just us. So now we will go head-to-head with the condo. It is easy to think they are trying to take advantage of us foreigners but that is not a given. We DO need to push back now so they know we are not easy marks.
We had lunch with some friends who are here part time and a couple we know from Foligno who have been here as long as we have. Lively and lovely lunch at C’Era una Volta next door to us. Dessert! It was a torta with cachi, also known as persimmons. Here persimmons grow abundantly everywhere and are big and delicious. They are ripe everywhere now.
I am reading a new book called Still Life. It begins in Tuscany during the Second World War, segues to England afterwards with our main character Alyssis. And now I’m back in Florence where Alyssis has inherited a property in Santo Spirito, a neighborhood of Florence from a man who was saved by him during the war. He was helped by his Notaio, Massimo, and Alyssis came with a small entourage of his former wife’s daughter, age five, by an American soldier during the war, an older man friend, Cressy, and an African blue parrot. Yes, an interesting group. The house they got was big and in a small piazza and of course everyone all around knew he had inherited and was coming. All the talk in the neighborhood. To cut this short, the house had a refrigerator. No one had their own refrigerator! They all used the local bar’s refrigerator. So when Alyssis asked Massimo if they could get a telephone his reply was, “Oh no no. Too soon. Too soon? Trust me. Too soon. Not after the refrigerator.” Too funny! Anyway, I kinda let this get away from me, but I recommend the book to people who like Italy.
Tonight is pizza night with our friends Christie and Jane. The weather is pretty vile. It’s been very windy and pretty wet. Gray skies make it dreary, and we went to standard time last weekend so now the night falls very early. Heading into the season I loath the most here. We lit the stufa for the first time this week.
I will publish this now but hope to post again soon. Ciao for now!
We have a few loose ends to tie up. We had a nice lunch with new friends who own a house in Centro. I gave them a little help by accepting their Amazon deliveries before they came. We went to Vineria Carmine for lunch. It was a windy day and a little cool but we did sit outside. We also asked if we could see the kitchen since my architect was also the architect here. (There will be a posting soon about my kitchen) Here are a few pictures.
~~~~~~~ Yesterday I “harvested” my olives from my little tree 😂 hahaha. I may cure them. There aren’t many, but it would be an exercise!
Speaking of the raccolta – harvest, we are awaiting news from friends who may allow us to help them harvest again this year. It has been very spotty here in Umbria. I know some who had none, but most had some. Our friend Fabio is in the middle of his harvest and says he has less olives but the quality is good. I will buy some oil from him. ~~~~~~~~ We had friends join us for Pranzo last week. This is how we manage to entertain on the terrace without a kitchen upstairs. We use my little cart and it goes up on the elevator. The next one is the table all set.
It is the weekend. I went to the Saturday market and then Luther and I went to Bosco, a town south of us, to buy beef and pork from our favorite butcher. Their meat is amazing. And they have cuts not seen in normal butchers here. I bought two tomahawk pork chops, one tomahawk steak, their primo hamburger patties, and filet steaks. All this was not all that unusual. We also got skirt steak and flank steak. Neither is found here and I do miss them. They also gave us a regalo, gift, of some interesting looking popsicles…just kidding…they are like pork (or maybe beef) cylinders on sticks to grill. THIS should be FUN!
Popsicles!Etrusco burger!Flank steak
Our weather is still fairly nice. We had storms come through yesterday and now it is cooler but not bad. Tomorrow should be fine, so let me wish you all a buona domenica!
Umbria is a heavily agricultural region. I have written about the four main crops, winter wheat, corn, sunflowers and tobacco. Today I got to see a farm with animals. It was the first time I got a real idea of how this all works here. Many of our guests have commented on the fact they never see pastured livestock. Yes, sheep are often seen but cattle are not. They are mainly kept in the barns and fed or they have small outside pens. No pastures. It is due to the lack of manpower, fencing, space.
Today, I was part of a group of women, our former apartment buyers and two of their friends who are friends with Angela Pauselli, the daughter of the farmer who makes this pasta. I was happy to give us all a ride over there. I bought a lot! More than this picture!
This is an artisanal pasta maker here in Umbertide — Pauselli. They use old wheat varieties milled special for the pasta. We have purchased from them before but the shop is simply never open so I haven’t been able to get more. Sadly they are farmers and not marketers. They don’t promote the product or try to sell it. It makes me sad because it is very special and a very excellent product. It will disappear soon with no one to help. I am betting the slow food people would want to promote this. I will try to see what I can do.
We got a tour of the farm facilities from Angela’s dad. It is an extensive farm with a lot of livestock. They have a large solar farm so are somewhat sophisticated. Plus, as always they grow grapes (make wine for the family to drink), grow olives for oil, I saw a peach orchard, there were maybe 30 chickens. And pigs. The cattle were segregated into barns. The first was all the castrated males, destined to be butchered at about age two for meat. These cattle live in a barn. They are not pastured. Not the best life 🙁.
The castrated boys destined for butchering.
Animals are not generally pastured here. They are in the barns or in small enclosures. They feed them from the enormous, round hay bales they harvest during summer. The “girls” who were all together, along with the bull, and away from the young castrated males were mostly Limosine, Chianina or Charolais cattle. Almost all pure white. In the past the Chianina were used for all facets of a farm. They pulled the plow, pulled the cart, provided milk and provided meat. To me they are beautiful, large and known for their gentleness and docility.
Mom and calf.The bull. He was huge but seemed sweet.Bales of hay for the fodder.Spewing the hay into the troughs.Future prosciutto.Happy chickens!
When I got home I made pasta for dinner, 🙂, what else! I used my butter roma tomato sauce and some guanciale and pecorino romano. Mmmm.
We visited a caseificio, or cheeserie, today called I Formaggi del Pastore. It is owned and operated by the Monni family who moved here with their herd of 300 Sardinian sheep in 1960. These sheep have milk of excellent quality. Land was scarce in Sardinia but Umbria was full of abandoned farms with lush pastures.
A photo of a photo in the shop.
I know them because they sell at our Saturday kilometer zero market and are my favorite cheese source. Besides the Pecorino cheese, from the sheep, they sell goat cheese which is unusual here, also fresh mozzarella, fresh ricotta and fresh eggs. They have other Sardinia specialties like cheese filled pasta which makes a quick and delicious dinner. We visited the farm for the first time today. We are scouting out possible places to take our niece and her husband who are coming to visit the first week in October. She would like to see them making the cheeses. We were unable to see the proprietor today so we will try to talk to them Saturday at the market.
The farm is just below the pretty hill town of Montone. The views on the roads to the farm are nothing short of amazing.
Montone seen from below
Of course we bought some cheese. This one is classic semistagionato Pecorino. That means it has been aged for three months. It is still soft but it is firm. It’s my favorite. Luther likes stagionato, which is aged from three months to one year.
Hopefully, if all goes well we will be taking Rachel and Alex back to the caseificio to see the process. I will, of course, be taking pictures. Ciao!
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!
