Category Archives: Festivals and Sagras

Ferragosto

6 Replies

Hi everyone! Yesterday was Ferragosto. 15 August which is also Assumption day. The Roman holiday celebrating the harvest was combined with the religious holiday. It originates from Feriae Augusti, the festival of Emperor Augustus who made 1 August a day of rest after weeks of hard work in the agricultural sector. As the festivity was created for political reasons, the Catholic Church decided to move it to 15 August, which is the Assumption of Mary allowing them to include this in the holiday.

In present day Italy it signals the beginning of the most popular vacation time. If people can afford it, they go to the beach or mountains or to their country house. Everything grinds to a halt. Many of the factories close from 1 August to 31 August. Most businesses will close for a week or two. Getting anything done is impossible so it’s best to go with the flow and take it easy!

On the first floor of our building we have a rosticceria called Girrarosto di Sara e Luciano. They are hugely popular. People buy entire family lunches on holidays like Ferragosto there. I awoke during the night and smelled them cooking, roasting meats, at one AM! They cooked all night. On Saturday morning the people lined up for their food. We often smell the cooking smells up in our apartment. They do a roaring business but work very hard.
~~~~~~
Mornings are cool. We always have a nice breeze on the terrazzo. I take advantage of that because by about 10 or 11 it becomes unbearable. Morning sun on the table. ☀️

We hadn’t planned anything for the holiday but friends, Roselyne and Steve, offered to bring up some ratatouille they made plus focaccia and delicious mini tarts from their town bakery. I made cookies and we had the warm vegetable dish with a steamed egg on the side. We also tried a Perticaia sparkling rose before lunch and with lunch a muscadet. Roselyne is Belgian/French and the muscadet reminded her of home. 🙂 We hadn’t seen them in a long time and is was nice to catch up. A perfect way to spend Feragosto.

Laundry Day
Sunday is my traditional laundry day. It is when the power is cheapest. They have structured rates. Monday through Friday from 8 AM to 7 PM is peak rates. Then intermediate rates are Monday to Friday, 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM and 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM; Saturday, 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM. The cheapest are Monday to Saturday, 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM, plus all day Sunday and public holidays. So Sundays have become my laundry day. Peak rates are usurious.

In summer the clothes dry so fast on the terrace in the sun. I take advantage of that to not use the drier. Most Italians don’t even have a drier. The act of hanging out clothes to dry is so integrated into Italian society it has become part of the fabric of life here. An added bonus is how fresh they smell, like sunshine!

Photo credit Sarah Bahous. – laundry in Napoli

Garden woes
I’m having problems with my tomatoes. They are literally cooking on the vine. Honestly. The sun is so incredibly hot and on the terrace the temperatures are over 40C or 104F. I have found out from on line friends and they say they are still edible and easy to de-skin, so I’ll use any more I get for sauce. Here are pictures.


What’s Cookin’ (besides us!)
I’m using my Orto Box vegetables. I made zucchini fritters last night to use in a salad. Not quite successful. I didn’t have a recipe so it could have been the wrong ratios. Or it could have been the thickness of what I dropped into the hot oil. I’ll try again, since I’ve got plenty zucchini 😁🙄

I also made a “Summer Tomato Tart” using a David Leibovitz recipe. Turned out ok. Served with a green salad. It had a flour and polenta crust which made it a bit crumbly. Take a look.

Then I decided to make a cold cucumber soup. Tangy with yogurt. Super easy to make. But I don’t think I would make this recipe again. It was still nice on a hot evening. I served with ravioli in butter sage.

Ciao a tutti! 👋

Odds and ends

10 Replies

We work our way through February. It has been the wettest February I can remember here. It is always the rainy season but not as much as this. It is good for the water table. We will enter the dry season in May and nary a drop for months. So we are going to be in good shape for it.

We had a lovely lunch at Calagrana on Sunday. They have been closed since Christmas. They actually got to take a month long vacation in the US with Ely’s sister who lives near Philly PA. I’m happy they had a good time. We had a good chat with Alberto the Chef. He tried Philly cheese steak sandwiches (loved), and hoagies (hated). And had a seafood boil (loved).

Sunday was their “soft” reopening. They had all but two tables filled. We had all missed them and were happy to go have a meal. We asked a couple, Sarah and Don, who bought a place and moved about 8 months ago, to join us. I had been meaning to get them there with us for a long time. I’m sure they will want to take guests, family, friends who visit there. We all do. We had a lovely lunch. Sarah and I had the tagliolini with cream sauce with truffles. So, so good. Don had the cheese soufflé with truffles. Luther, the ravioli. All the pasta was made in house. Both Don and Sarah professed to not really love truffles but I think they came away believers. They each had the roasted baby chicken, Luther and I had the rack of lamb. It was all delicious. We were so glad to be back and share with new friends. Sorry no food fotos!

It’s Carnivale time in Italy. Think Mardi Gras. All towns have some sort of celebration. We have a parade. I have videos but suddenly the video embedded doesn’t work. Anyway here is a photo.

Tomorrow we embark on a short trip to Salerno. It is the bottommost town on the Amalfi coast. It is not like the touristy towns there it is a real, livable town, year round. We have friends there and are also meeting up with Susan and Gary. Our present plan is to take the train there and check in to our hotel. The next day we plan a trip to Paestum. We have all been there before twice to see the famous Greek temples, which are incredible. This time we will focus on a Mozzarella di Bufala farm. This is the area where the best, creamy mozzarella comes from. I have always wanted to visit a farm. During our previous trips I stared and searched to see buffalo [these are water buffalo brought from India centuries ago. They have very rich milk which makes the best cheese] and I never ever saw one. Turns out, they are kept inside. In the barns. No wonder I never spotted one. So this time we visit an actual producer and have lunch. Excited! The next day we plan to visit Caserta. Very famous. I’ve never been and actually don’t know what I will be seeing! The last day we will spend in Salerno. With our friends for lunch and sight seeing. Should be a fun trip to break up the winter. Stay tuned for a trip report.

I heard there was gong to be a thaw of all the ice that has coated the U.S. east coast! Good news! Enjoy. Ciao for now!

Christmas Eve, Christmas day

2 Replies

Hi everyone! I hope you’re enjoying your holiday. I wandered into town on Christmas Eve to take my biscotti Americani (chocolate chip cookies 🙂) to Angelo and Bar Mary. I also stopped by books for dogs for a drop off of some things I thought they could sell, it was busy. But the market was already breaking down because it was Christmas Eve. I sat and had a glass of vino bianco at Bar Mary. It was nice outside in their enclosed seating area. No one there but me.

Cheese stand still open.
Market closing.
On the way home. This is Piazza Carlo Marx, in front of our house.

Luther shared the biscotti I made with all our neighbors in the building and I dropped a bag at the girarrosto downstairs. Nice people, Sarah and Luciano. They work so hard. It is amazing how popular they are. People were waiting in line outside. People come from all around to pickup their orders for Christmas Eve or day lunches or dinners. Super popular but that means they are open on all the holidays. Hard workers those two.

For Christmas Eve dinner I made Cinghiale in Umido. Wild boar stew. Braised in the oven for 4 hours. Turned out very good and tender. You never know with wild boar.

For Christmas dinner I found a small turkey. Only 6.6 pounds, 3 kilos. So I made that with mashed potatoes, broccoli, gravy and cranberry sauce. I like to make a turkey once a year and the stores have started to stock them for the holidays. The turkey was tender and juicy. Now we have left overs for dinner and best of all…turkey sandwiches!

I went out into the hall and saw the offerings from the little girls who live across from us. Their sign says, “welcome and eat well baby Jesus and the donkey”. I thought it was cute. There were bowl and cups with a bit of food left behind. 🥰

We caught up with the families. I spoke to my sister and her husband. I emailed all of the Hamptons on Christmas Eve. I heard back from Luther’s youngest brother, in California. And from my niece in Southern California, who may be paying us a visit in the summer. We had a video call with Luther’s middle brother and some of their family. They have small grandchildren who spent the night and woke at 5:30am so everyone was exhausted. Anyway, everyone is doing pretty good, all things considered.

So, another Christmas has come and gone. I hope you all had a nice holiday. Friday was a holiday here as well, San Stefano. Fino alla prossima volta! 💕

Buon Natale!

6 Replies

It is Christmastime again. I am wishing you all a nice holiday season, whatever you celebrate. It will be quiet for us and that is just fine with me! I am having fun cooking. I have cinghiale which I’m making into a stew today, and a tacchino piccolo, baby turkey, for ourselves tomorrow. Turkey sandwiches here we come! Buon Natale a tutti! Let’s all be kind to one another, ❤️

L’immacolata

2 Replies

Today was l’immacolata, the feast of the immaculate conception. It is a national holiday. I wrote about it in another post a while ago. The weather was not as cold as usual. It was another piazza filling event with loud Europop music blasting but also a children’s choir which was nice. Then, the big event, the tree was lit signifying the beginning of the Christmas season. I shared the event with our new American neighbors, Don and Sarah. They kindly gave me a ride. A few pictures.

The tree!
The crowd.
For the kiddos.
One of my favorite shops.
The illuminated city.

And so it begins. Enjoy the season!

Thanksgiving – 2025

12 Replies

Hey everyone. We had a great day with eight of our good friends. We all went to Calagrana for our Thanksgiving feast as always. This has become a tradition for this group. The story is kind of fun. Gary and Susan treat the meal, Luther and I treat the wine. Here is the story…

Once upon a time, twelve years ago, Susan wanted to have a Thanksgiving feast for her Italian friends. But her oven was small and she had no cooking skills. So she contacted Eli of Calagrana fame. She was happy to cook her turkey. But wait…she was British and had no idea how to cook a whole turkey. Seems only Americans cook whole turkeys. As luck would have it, Eli’s sister lived in Philadelphia and they consulted through the night to cook this (enormous) turkey.

At this time Susan and Gary hosted the feast in their home so they picked up the turkey and some appetizers and served them at home. They did this for a couple of years. Then Susan and Eli conspired to do the meal in Eli and Albi’s house. We were guests there and the turkey was roasted. By now, Eli was a pro at cooking an entire turkey, and because it was popular, even with the others around here, it morphed into a yearly feast in the restaurant with them taking reservations. They always have a full house. It is popular. So that is how our tradition began.

First turkey. 2014.
Second turkey. 2015.

Our group is about 50/50 Italian/American. All of the Italians are “all in” for the feast. They have embraced it. It’s so nice to share traditions with our Italian friends. I will say, some really couldn’t embrace the concept of having all the food on one plate…you know…actually touching 😳. And gasp! There were no individual courses like they do here. But this group, have embraced it and all are just fine…especially our most enthusiastic Italian friend, Fabio 🙂 He exclaimed the first year he came, “why do you only do this once a year!?!?”

Here is the 2025 feast in pictures. Captions have descriptions.

Our table.
Antipasto. Well, we are in Italy so needs be multiple courses. These bites were delicious.
Primi. Amazing dish. There was a flaky crust. Inside was melty cheese and pumpkin bits. Underneath, melted Gorgonzola sauce. On top prosciutto. Yum!
The star of the show. A 16 kilogram turkey (35.25 pounds)
Turkey and…wait…Yorkshire pudding 🤔 ?! The chef is British, what can I say 🤷🏻‍♀️
Dolce. Vanilla panna cotta with apple compote and cinnamon biscotti. So scrumptious you had to eat it even when you were full!

Hopefully we can continue this tradition for a bunch more years. I hope you all had a lovely day too! Happy Thanksgiving!

Montefalco Harvest festival

10 Replies

Montefalco is the capital of the Sagrantino DOC wine producing area of Umbria and this weekend it was the epicenter of the completed grape harvest. Every year they have tastings and events culminating in a fun, hokey parade (of sorts). We just happened to have made reservations for our group of friends who enjoy lunches together. Then, yesterday I heard the ”parade” was starting at 3pm. I knew what it was about because I had attended this festival once before.

We all arrived and had a great table in the Piazza del comune. The main public space in the small hill-town. It was a gorgeous autumn day. As we sat there choosing our food and getting wine the other tables filled with groups and families. The hum of conversation and laughter filled the air. We asked ourselves more than once what it is about going out for a meal in beautiful weather surrounded by Italians that was different from every other place on earth. You can dine outside in nice weather in most cities, but you’ll never get the happy vibe you will in Italy. We love living here.

Here are some photos of the food, the piazza and the Harvest Festa. It is pretty clear the participants have been sampling the harvest wine! and having fun, of course.

The Piazza before.

The Lunch.

Our table.
Appetiser of roasted peppers and parboiled onions on a bed of tonno sauce. mmmm
Tagliatelle with Funghi. Not my favorite.
My dessert.
Inside my dessert.
Tiramisu
Amazing dessert of three things.

The Harvest Festival. It consisted primarily of tractors of all shapes and sizes pulling wagons full of celebrating people usually with a grape press and plates of food which was shared with the crowd. Very loud music accompanied each float.

The harvest grapes. Very sweet.

M.I.A

6 Replies

Ciao ragazzi! I know, I know and I feel really bad about being Missing-In-Action. But I have some pretty good excuses 😉. First off, I have had, and still am having issues with the website. It is down intermittently and this makes it hard to make updates. I am still working with my ISP. They are pretty inept.

Then, I got a mean virus that was going around. Not COVID. But that is going around here too. I ran a high fever, 102F or 38.9C. That is higher than most fevers I have had. I had a headache and intestinal upset. I took ibuprofen and checked in with my medico who said it was going around and she had many patients with the same symptoms. After 3 days the fever and headache subsided but the intestinal upset lasted a week. The worst was that, unlike most weekends, we had a lot of plans for this one. I, sadly, missed our entire Otto Cento festa. I had, planned to meet new residents and friends to show them around. Luther had to be my stand-in. But they got me some pretty sunflowers to cheer me up. 🙂. Then, Sunday, we had plans for lunch with our lunch bunch, the gang o six in Montefalco at our favorite restaurant, L’Alchemista. That, too had to be canceled.

Anyway, all that is past and since then we had our annual street fair which is non-stop vendors from the train station past our house. Probably 10 blocks. I watched from our aerie. And once I got over my malady I began to cook again. I had had no appetite during the illness. I grilled a few times outside on the wood fired BBQ. A whole grilled fish one night and I got very adventurous and made a Lebanese dinner. I made home made pitas which cannot be found here. They were good enough for my first try. And with them we had tzatziki and fresh tomatoes with sliced new onions and a kebab of spiced ground beef and pork. It should’ve been lamb but well, that’s not easy to find. I grilled the kebabs and it was a yummy dinner, and different!

I worked a shift at Books for dogs and someone donated some art which I really liked, so I bought two. I love them.

I always grow a pepper plant or two. This year I tried Tabasco. Tiny little heat bombs. I’ve been tossing them into stews etc and they really perk it up. The photo is after I harvested most of the ripe red ones, which were many. My tomato plants are still producing but have slowed down. The Sicilian one gives lots of small tomatoes. The beefsteak gave a lot of big juicy tomatoes but now it has stopped. There are a number of still growing green ones that I hope will mature. Our weather is the terrific autumn weather we always get here. Our fall season is long and perfect.

Last week we attended the annual silent auction that is held by Books for Dogs every year. They get donations all year and save the best ones for the auction. It was combined with a wine tasting. I had not been to one before. They published a catalog so I had picked out a couple things I was interested in and I was successful. I bought a pretty agate and glass vintage necklace, and a contemporary carved stone rhinoceros. It weighs 3 kilos. I have another soapstone collection of Inuit soapstone carvings and this reminded me of them, but much larger.

We have a few things planned for the future. We rescheduled our lunch with the Gang for the 21st. And we will finally get to Calagrana with other friends we haven’t seen in a while. Tomorrow we are trying a restaurant nearby we have not ever been to. We will enjoy this gorgeous fall weather. I hope you do too, wherever you are! Ciao amici!

Otto Cento in La Fratta

4 Replies

Umbertide, previously known as La Fratta, is gearing up for our big festa— Otto Cento. 28-29-30-31 August. It’s a great festival which reenacts the creation of Italy in 1862 called the Risorgimento. Entertainment, competitions, music, food all in keeping with that era. Stilt walkers, street grinders, dancing, cannons! Garibaldi, the briganti and the ladies of the night! Our town produced an excellent video of the festa. Here is a link. Hopefully it will work for you.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1283586796745728?fs=e&fs=e

Now that I am back home with all my cooking things and spices I have been trying some new recipes. I’m sorry to say I didn’t take photos. One night I made my own tostada bowls out of flour tortillas. In the oven. It was a bit finicky but it came out nice. Brown and crispy. I used them as bowls. I made a mix of tomatoes, thinly sliced onions, avocado and a can of tuna. The sauce was made of lime juice from a whole lime, garlic, spicy peppers, mayonnaise. I tried out our peppers that I grew this year. Tabascos. Wow, they are hot. When I minced and mixed the two I had harvested into the mayo, lime garlic it was perfect. Spicy, but not too spicy. I tossed the other ingredients with this mix. It was really tasty, and pretty too. I wish I had taken photos! I also made ceviche which was nice.

August is winding down. The days are noticeably shorter 😔. Enjoy what is left of summer!

Sanremo Music Festival

8 Replies

When I first moved to Italy, I had never heard of the Sanremo Music Festival (officially called the Italian Song Festival). Over the years since, we usually have watched some of it every night of the four nights it is on in February. It is the longest-running annual TV music competition in the world on a national level. It started in 1951 and was broadcast live on Rai 1, the Italian public Radio station.

It does not celebrate the singers. The songs themselves are rated along with the musical arrangements. The songs used to be sung by two different artists, each one using an individual orchestral arrangement, to illustrate the meaning of the festival as a composers’ competition. During this era of the festival, it was customary that one version of the song was performed by a native Italian artist while the other version was performed by an international guest artist. I think it would be more interesting that way, than it is now with just one singer.

I enjoyed it better this year than normal. Maybe it is growing on me? Maybe I have been here too long? Who knows! Anyway, it’s fun and over the top Italian. The songs selected in the competition are in Italian or in any regional language and the three most voted songs are awarded. You vote by calling a number on your cell phone during the song if you like it. I even voted once this year 😁. I snapped some pictures. It is a very inclusive festival. For example, they had a piece performed by a group of people with physical or mental disabilities. It was very well done . That wouldn’t go over so well in the U.S. right now I think 🤔. Here they are.

See, I told you it was over the top Italian. 😉 that guy with the long train? It was 15 meters long.
~~~~~~~~
Bathroom. They set the round shower stone and concreted the floor. I had Irma and Alesandro here this morning and it’s going to start to get disruptive tomorrow. They will need to be cutting the tiles to fit and that will be messy and loud. They will be coming upstairs where we are living and going through to the terrazzo to do this. Oy. Oh well, it must be done.