Category Archives: everyday life in Umbria

Trying to move onward with the knee

One of my posts prompted a comment about recuperation in the US vs Italy. I opined that in the US everything is go, go, go and get well, and back to work. Here it is piano, piano, take it slow, heal, you’ll be fine in good time. So which is better? Hard to say. I’m following instructions and trying not to feel competitive with those who are moving faster than me…after all, whats my hurry? 🙂 piano, piano.

That said I am not really happy with my walking ability. The knee is quite weak with it buckling unexpectedly when I take steps. This makes me less confident in my ability to walk. Other things are going well. The knee bending is very well. Sleeping is easier but I wake a lot when shifting positions and going from bent to straight leg. Next week I plan to go to the local pool with my friend Joanne who will show me the ropes there. Then I can do aqua exercises. I’m told this is an excellent way to work the knee.
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Other than the knee last week I had a unique experience. I had received a letter in the mail with an appointment for my annual mammogram. So we headed to Città di Castello to the hospital. I’d been once before so felt fairly confident going again. I sat at the desk where the woman, in pretty violet scrubs, looked up my records online and nodded to a man, wearing brilliant red scrubs, who came and took me to the scanning room. I had a bad feeling about this. His hame was Marco. He asked a couple of questions and indicated I should take my shirt etc off. Well. I had never had a male mammogram techician before but one has to go with the flow as it were so I did. It wasn’t so bad. I just have to wonder why a man would choose this profession. Yes he gets to see and touch lots of breasts but it is hardly titillating.
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Afterwards we visited one of our butchers. We needed provisions. Then, while Luther parked the car I made a loop through our Kilo zero market. The veggie people have just what is growing nearby. Cabbages…many sorts. Kale. Chard. Spinach. A few root veggies. This is the time of the year when the farmers who lived off of their crops are ready for some spring growth. They have been eating the available greens growing now, supplemented by the preserved bounty from last summer. Nearly gone. The good news is that spring has started to put in a pretty steady appearance. I am starting to look forward to the spring early veggies.
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I’ve also started to clean up our terrace. I bought a nice wood rack for the wood we didn’t use.

And I’ve been scrubbing the grout and tiles. My pots are being slowly dug up and the old plants relegated to the trash. I will be ready in May when we start to plant again. I am thinking about what to try this year. Always fun to plan! I have lots of pots now since my failed corn adventure last year.

Pasqua Pranzo…Easter Lunch

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As anyone knows Easter or Pasqua is a very important day in Italy. And it seems, more for the big lunch that everyone goes out to enjoy together. We had reservations with two other couples at our favorite place, Calagrana. We started our short 15 minute drive and ran into a traffic jam. OK Easter Sunday, 12:45 yes it can be rush hour in Italy…Rushing to lunch that is! And it seemed everyone was headed to a restaurant or someones home.

It was a pretty day in Umbria. Sunny, a little chilly but at least it was not raining. Our lunch was excellent as usual. A real feast. And here is photographic proof!

Table greeted us with a sure sign of spring.

Ravioli with foie gras. Came close to missing this picture!

One of the entrees. Lamb porchetta with Yorkshire pudding

Salmon

I did NOT like it…. Hah! SO good.

Dessert

Eggs for on the way home.

To prove it was a pretty day, here is La Rocca in Umbertide when we returned.

Buona Pasqua a Tutti!!

Magical night!

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It had been forecast we’d get some more snow last night so I took a peek at 5:30am. It was Magic! Piazza Mattioti was snow covered with nary a footprint or tire track. I took advantage of the once in … maybe a lifetime…chance to get a picture. Here it is!

And Via Grilli, our small street was the prettiest I’ve ever seen it!

The Deep Freeze…. brrrr

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All of Europe is being affected by a Siberian front bringing frigid air where it has no reason to be! This morning I woke to -9C temperatures.

The photos on the nightly news and of social media of a snow covered Colosseum in Rome are amazing. Mount Vesuvius is snow covered as is Naples. The Italians do not deal well with snow. They only got 2” but it snarled all the trains up for a day and a half and caused all kinds of traffic backups. Amusing for those of us used to “real” snow.
Here is our piddling little bit of snow we woke up to on Sunday.

Today is market day and I bet a third of our regulars didn’t show up. It’s so cold the produce is freezing and they have to cover it. They have a fire in a barrel to try to warm themselves. And resourceful folks that they are, they are grilling up sausages on the fire!
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Knee replacement update
It is a month from the day I returned home from the hospital. I feel like I’m doing well with the recovery overall. Still not walking except with crutches. My PT guy is encouraging though. I have an appointment at the hospital for an X-ray and consultation with a doctor in a week and a half. I am looking forward to that.

We also found out from a couple of sources that it is important for us to arrange to get all my records from the hospital now or it would be very difficult to do so later. So this is another thing we have to scope out…who do we see…how do we see them? Always something.

Looking forward to springtime. March is around the corner!

Knee surgery scheduled

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About 6 months ago, I told you I needed surgery here in Italy. Non-emergency surgery can sometimes be a long wait, as it was in my case. I got a call last week from the hospital…at long last…to schedule my knee replacement surgery. My first appointment was today, for pre-op tests.

Well, I’m back from my tests. It went well for the most part. Ospidale Silvestrini sits commandingly on top of a hill south of Perugia city. It is the University hospital, so a teaching hospital. The hospital is ENORMOUS. And a VERY busy place. We were to go to the Segretario Ortopedica. Luther looked it up and the instructions said to go to a parking lot called Menghini and find a specific door. The place has multiple buildings connected with enclosed walkways. Our building was A, third floor.

It was 7:50am and our appointment was for eight. We got there and saw a door with the correct sign and walked past a whole room of people waiting and down a hall to the Segretario’s office. Asking permission he invited us in. Suddenly, all the people in the waiting room seemed to swarm the room but he told them to wait. Seems he had no appointment for me. But I was lucky, and he was helpful. Once we told him we had a surgery date and he looked in that book and there I was, he moved to fix it. He called down for my blood work and we went down to building P.

It was a pretty long walk. There, room 17, our destination, had an open door. We asked to come in giving our name and they seemed to be expecting us. Again the waiting room was full. I was feeling we were jumping the line! There was a man and a woman there. He took my blood, she did pulse and BP. They gave me a form to fill out with my history and a number and we returned to the waiting room. I filled out the forms and my turn came and I went in to see a young anesthesiologist. He was nice and even tried a little English. He asked questions and answered mine. A little disturbing is that I may get an epidural only along with mega tranquilizers, so not a general. Man! I hope I don’t wake during the operation!

Next we went to radiology and got a number. Everywhere we went was busy but here was the busiest. They are just next to the Pronto Soccorso or emergency room. When I was called I went down and got a chest X-ray first and my knee second. The chest was because I told them I used to smoke when they asked if I had. And how much. But wow, I quit nearly 40 years ago. But still…X-ray. So all was finito and we headed home. It took about 2.5 hours. All in all, I’d say the hospital was as good as anything in the US. This is reassuring. Everyone was very nice, and patient with my Italian. I’m crossing my fingers the intervento will be as good. I am scheduled to go in two weeks for the intervento, or operation.
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My friend Angela here (I grew my corn at her place last summer) has a friend named Quintino. She calls him Quinto. I knew he brought wood to her house to split. He’d also leave it there. So I asked if he’d need a spot of work to bring me wood. Well he did, back in December and he would not take the money I offered! Un regalo, a gift he said. I said no, no carrying it all up here, and believe me, it’s heavy! So I asked Angela about how to pay him and she said block his way and make him take it. I got some more this week and this time I made him take it. He didn’t want to because I was a friend of Angela’s. Now I have way more wood than I need.🙂 oh well. Rocky has decided he LOVES fires. And Quinto even brought me olive wood. He said it was for carne…meat when I cook.

So last night I tried out the olive wood. Smooth bark and small in size, it pops like firecrackers are going off in the house. So far this has not fazed Rocky. I grilled one of the good steaks we get at Etrusco in Bosco, a town south of us. It turned out very good and I had a nice, warm kitchen.

Autumn colors!

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November has arrived with it’s many yellow hues. I do miss the brilliant oranges and reds of the maple trees on the east coast of the US. But I can still admire the colors here as well. Buon Autunno a tutti!

Strolling along the Tiber.

From our big picture window.

I love this one with the soft mountains in the distance.

Cacio e Pepe — the Movie

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Yesterday we went to L’Umbricello del Coccio for lunch with friends who are visiting for the weekend. We went specifically to get the Cacio e Pepe umbricello that they make in the traditional way. Here is a movie showing the whole show!

Photo credit Ric Mosley

Another Sunday, another Sagra…

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This past Sunday we decided to visit Trevi, a hill town between Foligno and Spoleto. I had passed this pretty town perched way up on its hill many times but had never stopped. The occasion was their annual Sedano Nero festival. This means black celery. It is grown only between Borgo di Trevi and the Clitunno river on a small strip of land. It is not black but dark green and does not go through any processing, like whitening. It is planted and grown by strict traditions. The seeds are planted during a waning moon on the day before Easter. It has to be carefully supported as it grows. Most of the work is done by hand. It is one of the six Umbrian Slow Food specialties.

Trevi from above.

Trevi is also known as the Capital of Oil

This is the very beginning of the olive harvest. I bought some of the new olive oil. See how cloudy it is. And incredibly green. It is unfiltered.

The sedano nero was stacked like firewood everywhere!

It is a beautiful green. They say it is stringless. Not sure I’m buying that. So I bought some to bring home. I am here to say, it does have strings but less that normal celery has.

Also on offer were lots of specialties. We tried lots of cured meats. Many specialties were, of course, celery based. For instance, celery jam and celery cream.

This stand had many types of cured meats and sausage.

A discerning nun.

It was a very warm day so I felt for this man who was cooking up the sausages.

We decided to have lunch in Taverna del Sette. We sat in a pretty courtyard at the end of the short street. The sky was mesmerizingly blue.

Luther went for the celery soup.

And he tried the stuffed celery. It sure looks good.

I tried the cinghale ragu. Wild boar.

After lunch we decided to make a short stop in Bevagna since our friend Jennifer had not ever been there. It was Sunday and there was a small flea market going on. But for me, the best thing was coming upon a group of men just finishing up lunch outside a restaurant. They performed an impromptu a capello melody. It was hauntingly beautiful, the voices blended seamlessly. I wished I had a way to record them.

Scenes in Bevagna. Such a beautiful town.

The old guys. Every town has its own cadre of old men. They sit together companionably on benches, or they gather to play Briscola, the national Italian card game.

The Sedano Nero festival was one of the better ones I’ve visited. Not too crowded but plenty lively. And Trevi is a beautiful town that few tourists visit. Too bad, their loss. It was a lovely outing made super by the dazzling day.

Unmistakably Autumn

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Well, it’s official. It is suddenly Fall. Temperatures still rise to low 70s in the afternoon but as soon as the sun sets it is decidedly chilly. This is the time of year I have a hard time deciding what to wear. Inside the house is colder than outside so I tend to overdress. This is not a problem for Italians who dress to the calendar, not the temperature. So already they are wearing puffy winter coats and scarves. And I’m in a T-shirt.

And it is time to wrap up the corn saga. As you may recall, I planted corn in containers on my terrazzo and also in a friends garden. We had the hottest summer on record and consequently only a little of the corn plumped up and was edible. I believe I harvested 11 ears. And they were wonderful. The container corn was not a success at all. It tassled and had small ears that never matured. So here is our final goodbye to the 2017 corn project. Next year!

And the foods in our markets are changing rapidly. Gone are the tomatoes…sniff. And the melons. But we still have mounds of just ripe peppers to include the picante types. And we still have zucchini. The sweet, tiny ripe grapes from the fields nearby have just come in. And the pumpkins and winter squash have arrived as well.

Recently I did an interview with a writer for International Living. She’s writing an article about retiring and the differences in prices people can expect between Umbria and the US. I was happy to oblige. One misconception is that we have to pay more to eat local and in season here. I remember visiting the farmers markets in Virginia and paying top dollar for the products. Not so here. If you buy seasonally, when the vegetables and fruits are at their peak and bountiful, you pay the least because there IS such bounty. And I am definitely a person who cooks and cares to eat good tasting food which is in season. I spend around 8€ ($9) for a big grocery bag of fresh produce.

Winter squash is so seasonal.

Almost too pretty to eat. Looks like sculpture!

The citrus has arrived. It will get better as we go through the winter.

Last of the Borlotti beans and eggplant. The eggplant is scrawny.

And the pears are plentiful and luscious.

The Wednesday market is very different than the Saturday one. The Wednesday market is mostly the big vendors who go from market to market in the different towns each day (for instance Città di Castello is Thursday, Gubbio is Tuesday). Their produce is not necessarily local. I believe they DO buy local when they have the chance but most of the food comes from the south of Italy and Sicily. Still local to this country but… And you can get things from them earlier than when they are coming into season here. You can also get tomatoes all year, from Sicily, but I don’t care for them. There are one or two locals who come to both Wednesday and Saturday markets. Now, the Saturday market is only very local products from nearby farms. Thus you really do eat only what is in in season nearby. Winter can be pretty sparse in this one.

Greens are what is growing around here.

And cauliflower…

And Cabbage…

And I thought I would plant some fall things this year. I got a few lettuce plants and four petunias. I think the petunias may last the winter. And we shall see how the lettuce does.

i primi d’Italia – festival in Foligno

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It was Sunday and we had plans to visit a fest devoted solely to first plates, or antipasti – appetizers in English. It is the only festival of its kind in Italy. The weather was not so good. Spitting rain. But not too bad and we had been wanting to go to this since we came. So, not letting the weather stop us, we set off to Foligno. This town lies 25 miles south of Perugia and north of Spoleto. As we looked around I thought to myself maybe it should have been on my list when we thought about Umbria. It is flat, has a nice big Centro Storico, and is on the main train line from Rome to Ancona on the Adriatic. Very walkable.

Main Piazza with Duomo.

Foligno is host to two big jousting tournaments held in June, called 1st challenge, and September, (called counter-challenge) . The contest is called Giostra della Quintana and is named after the Roman 5th road where the soldiers were trained in jousting. Believe it or not they have had this festival since 1448 (!) It has been held uninterrupted since then. The contest is between the ten “neighborhoods” of the city. Each neighborhood is represented by a Knight. They gallop on horseback trying to catch three rings, each smaller than the previous one. I must go see it sometime.

Note the flags on either side of the street. These are two of the Neighborhoods.

Another Neighborhood with pink flags.

Anyway, back to the Primi Piatti. The fest is four days long. Their were 14 booths all over town, each specializing in an area of Italy, or a type of food, like pasta. Some were kind of like restaurants where you paid 3 to 8 Euro for tastes. We walked all over town. In the main Piazza they had cooking demonstrations. There were random bands and lots of music. We visited the Sicily tent. It was very crowded we could barely make any progress. Then went to the Jewish food one. It was really just a restaurant with tastes and we didn’t want to do that. Next we went to the Pasta piazza with people selling all shapes and kinds of pasta. Then we visited the Street Food one which had Hamburgers, hot dogs, fried Olives, mozzarella balls and beer. Lots of beer. Finally we visited the area dedicated to local Umbrian foods. Cheeses, wines, olive oils, honey, confitures. It was a fun time. Next time we’ll go earlier and have lunch.

Marching band.

People enjoying the food.

The Booths

First booth was billed as Sicilian. A lot of the things in there were not from Sicily. This first cheese is a lovely oozing Gorgonzola which I had a taste of.