Category Archives: Italian life

Busy Saturday

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Lots going on in Umbertide today! I headed into the center of town to visit the market and also to do a short shift at Books for Dogs. I had forgotten that Sunday was the big, exciting day when the Giro d’Italia goes through town. See the banner below. It is a very famous bicycle race. Almost as famous as the Tour de France. Of course, ours is more important HERE. The cleaner up people were out mowing grass all along the route. Including the park next to the river.

It was a pretty day. The market was busy. Slow Food had a booth open. I bought some asparagus, spring onions, baby zucchini and some itty bitty new potatoes. But there was lots I didn’t buy, like new peas and fava beans. And the brand new local artichokes! It is so nice to see all these new spring veggies after a long winter of the same old winter veg. Inspiring.

I did my stint at Books for Dogs. A busy day. Now that the weather is nicer more folks come out. A couple of pictures of the goods. The winter things are gone and we are ready for the summer.

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In my own garden I took a couple pictures. The first is our Christmas tree. He is spending his summer on the terrazzo and seems quite happy, judging from all the new growth. The next photo is the lemon tree with all its flowers. it also is very happy. And last is a teensy, tiny lemon just forming from the flower. There are probably a hundred flowers so it is not possible for them all to become mature lemons, as time goes by, some fall off.

I am feeling better from my cough. So happy. I even have energy to do some gardening. I planted another tomato, this one Sardinian with a darker skin colour. I also planted a tabasco pepper because I couldn’t get a Jalapeño. They had scotch bonnets and habaneros but I didn’t want those. I also got two basil plants. Next week flowers, chives, sage will come.

Buona domenica to all.

Back to everyday life

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It’s good to be home, even with this crappy cough. I have a doctor appointment tomorrow but I’m doubtful she can help. It is just una brutta tosse, a bad cough, that keeps on giving! I had a surgery scheduled yesterday for a cataract but had to cancel because of it. I was disappointed because I’m looking forward to perhaps not having to wear glasses! How exciting.

Anyway, the weather is pretty good now. Not super warm but nice. I visited the Umbria Iris farm again last weekend with my friend Doug. We also had un caffè in the piazza and shopped the market. I’m very happy to have fresh eggs readily available. But that’s only in the spring when the chickens are really laying. I love fresh, free range chicken eggs. Fifty cents each.

Iris farm. Views are to die for. The maintenance on this place must be daunting! And the money invested incredible. Very nice to visit.

Doug bought three of these.
Iris’ for sale.

The day after we returned home we had our new handyman, called a tuttofare in Italian, Roddy, come and do the work we needed done around here. It took almost three days! The biggest part was the five windows that faced the weather that needed to be sanded and resealed. He also hung pictures for me and my curtains. And he replace a piece of wood that had been removed by another “helper” who never returned and he painted the two planters that looked really bad after their paint had sluffed off. It feels so good to get all the maintenance, and also things that I had waited for, for such a long time, done.

Here is the contact info for Roddy Gee owner and proprietor of Umbria La Vita. Www.umbrialavita.com
+39-340-162-8854
umbrialavita@gmail.com

I chose a new color, a light gray. The former owner was into pink. I am NOT a pink lover. So the new color really makes the old pink look crappy. Sooner or later that must be painted. But they look spectacular. 😁

We had aperitivo with our friends Christie and Jane and some of their friends one evening. It’s always good to see friends. 🙂

We also had our new friends Sarah and Don, who just moved here (!) over to our house so we could look over their applications for their first Permessi di Soggiorno. The beginning of a long road. It is always so nice to have new friends move into town. And we love helping them with the arduous process. I can’t wait to see their progress in their new home in the Niccone valley.

For me, I have a long list of things I want to get done. It is planting time and I need to get the energy to go out and get soil and plants for the planters. That’s tops on my list. Here are the baby olives on our little tree.

I will be working at Books for Dogs this Saturday. I will visit the market before work. We are in a transition season. The spring veggies are slowly showing up. Yay for the change of seasons.

Ciao for now!

Hi folks!

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I decided to put out a quick post. Luther and I both are battling a mean cold. Called a raffraddore in Italian in case you’re interested. We went to the Books for Dogs charity Quiz Night. Fifty people packed into a small room. Superspreader event for sure. I’m glad it wasn’t COVID. We had a lot of fun but I’m not sure that makes up for battling this cough. We did come in second however…😉

Anyway last weekend was Pasqua, Easter. A Big Deal in Italy, and we kind of missed the whole thing this year. We had reservations with friends to go to Pasquetta lunch, little Easter, Easter Monday. But we had to cancel.

Sadly, we lost our beloved Papa Francesco on Monday. We will all miss him. The funeral and then the conclave to elect the next Pope will come next. I will be interested to watch it all.

The weekend before Easter, Palm Sunday we did go out for pranzo. All around Umbria they hand out olive branches rather than palm fronds on this day. You could see places everywhere to pick some up. Pranzo was at Ristorante UNE where we had been a number of times in the past…before they were famous… Last year they received a Michelin star. It wasn’t much changed, except for the prices doubled. It used to be €45 per person for a five course fixed price lunch, which was a steal. Now it is €90. But I get it. Thing is, there were only five tables for two for a Sunday lunch. I wonder if it’s because of the prices. Anyway, it was good, I took pictures of course. This first one was on our way up the little road to the village. So green.

Here are some of the courses. I enjoyed the meal but I was full-to-uncomfortable. The next three are just some of the ten different small appetizers we had. Captions under the photo if I recall what it is 🙂

Snails on a skewer with cauliflower
This was my favorite of the appetizers. Filled with porchetta with a cheesy dip,
Primi. A carrot flan with black miso, underneath the raw, thinly shaved mushrooms.
I just remember the top thing is rabbit. Those yolks are quail and barely soft boiled so they burst in the mouth.
Dessert. Ice cream stuffed with fruits and chocolate underneath the meringue
Assorted extra desserts…which I couldn’t eat! Too full.

Next week we have planned a trip to Spain. I sure hope we are both better by then! We will fly to Valencia then train to Alicante and then to Madrid. All new places for us. We have a house/cat sitter who arrives from London at the Perugia airport Sunday. That gives us a day to show her the ropes. Of course there will be a trip report! ☺️. Ciao for now.

Happy Women’s day!

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Today is International Women’s day. Here in Italy, women are gifted a sprig of mimosa to celebrate. I worked at Books for Dogs this morning and the town was festooned with mimosas. There were big buckets of it on traffic islands, and in front of stores. Women were walking everywhere carrying their mimosa. It is said the mimosa was chosen because it manages to flourish even in difficult conditions and is associated with women’s own resilience and ability to win their rights. Here’s mine. Gifted to me when I went into the Farmacia to fill a prescription 🙂

I normally park on the other side of the river when I drive to town on market days. The river was pretty and I saw my first fisherman!

My little kumquat tree is loaded with fruit. Most isn’t quite ripe yet. You can tell when they are ready because they get extra orange and soften. I have a great recipe for Chicken and Kumquats which I made tonight. My tree.

We have a plethora of pizzerie in our town 😁. They have all different types of pizza. From the super thin, almost cracker crust that is called Roman style to the thicker crust of the Neapolitan style. Last Thursday we went to Degusto which is very near us and Neapolitan in style. Delicioso. This is Luther’s. Mine was prettier but I didn’t take a picture before I destroyed it, by cutting it. Did you know they don’t cut pizza into slices here? You get the whole pie, uncut. I use scissors to cut it if I get it “to go”.

No bathroom updates to speak of. They finally got the wooden form that they needed to use to cut the tiles around the shower stone. But that’s as far as they got. I hope next week we have more progress. This has been a major roadblock. I realize things happen on “Italian Time” here but this is getting tiresome. Oh well. Piano, piano.

Feels like springtime

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We are heading into a slight warming trend. The earliest fruit trees are blooming pale pink. The almonds are white. It’s uplifting. We decided to go to Calagrana for lunch. They have begun to open for Sunday lunch again. It was fun. There were three tables of English speakers and two tables of Italians, one of which was 14 people. So I think we English speakers were overpowered today. This is a change from the past when it was primarily English speakers. I’m actually very happy about this. We saw some friends from North Carolina who have a home here. And the other table were all Books for Dogs people. The big Italian table were having fun and VERY loud. As always, the women sat at one end of the table, the men, at the other. 🙄

The food was delicious. I chose the Crostone topped with roasted peppers, anchovies, capers and tomatoes. So good. The combination of sweet peppers and tomatoes, tart capers and salty anchovies really worked. Picture by Ely of the ingredients.

Luther had the house smoked Umbrian trout with pickles and toast. No picture. Our second course choices were lamb chops for Luther and Guancia (beef cheeks) on puréed potatoes both really good.

Calagrana had a tough week this week with the loss of Archie, everyone’s favorite terrier. He worked the front of the house and had his own bench, which if you sat there, you shared with him. He had been at Calagrana for all the years I had been going and I really missed his sweet little self today. 😔 RIP Archie. 🌈

Bathroom. Last week they began the process of waterproofing the floor and walls. This is the future shower space. We are getting closer to the “pretty stuff” 🙂. Here are the latest pictures.

Buona Domenica a tutti!

Sanremo Music Festival

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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.
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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.

Bathroom

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I promised some photos. The first two are of the bath after the appliances and plumbing was disconnected. The next one is today after all is gone.

Now, it’s ready for the plumber who’s coming on Monday. Then I think the muratori (wall guys) will come back and smooth the walls and floors and finished the enclosure for the toilet. After all that, the pretty stuff happens 🙂.
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Our weather has been quite mild for the last couple of weeks and lots of rain. Weekend coming up. We have a few things on. Tonight we are going to our Italian family’s house for dinner. This is Vera and her husband and a Danish couple that she works for. We’ve met them before. They are wealthy and that’s hard to do in Denmark! Tomorrow, I’m working at Books for Dogs then I’ll go to the market. Sunday we are meeting American friends who live nearby for lunch at Calagrana. They are the ones that we help with the olive harvest every year. Calagrana is closed for the season, but they open now and then for a lunch or dinner and we get an email when they do. We have not been since Thanksgiving, so I am looking forward to that!

Buon Weekend! (Yes that’s really a thing they say here. Much easier than fine settimana!)

Umbertide Christmas street art exhibit – Buon Anno!

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Every year for the last three or four, as part of the Christmas celebration, Umbertide hosts an outdoor art exhibit. It is on one of the main shopping streets, Via Garibaldi. Yesterday, since it was fairly mild out, I walked down the street, admired each painting, and took a picture to share with you all for New Years. There are quite a few entries. I now can more slowly look at them at leisure too!

You will notice that there is a religious theme here (of course). Some I couldn’t figure out how it fit, like the one with the rabbit. Rabbit? Shouldn’t that be Easter? Oh well.

You will also see that our own Saint from Assisi, San Francesco, plays a big part in these paintings. There are a lot with birds and St. Francis. He famously preached to the birds. He loved all creatures. The legend of St Francis and the wolf of Gubbio is one of my favorites. We have even visited the church under which the wolf was supposedly buried. It is only a legend, after all right? Then how? 😳 Read the legend in the link to the end to see. I counted 13 works below that feature St. Francis and the wolf.

My friend, Kathleen Mack has a painting in the exhibition. I promised her I would take pictures since she isn’t here right now. She has an apartment in town and comes for the Schengen shuffle, 90 days here, 90 days in the U.S. I will put hers first and then do all the others for your new years enjoyment! She chose San Francesco and the wolf as well. A couple have captions.

I note they mis-spelled her name.
Nicely done. Love Mary and Joseph’s awed expressions.
The rabbit.
A Presepe

I took a picture of the artists as well. Here they are.

Finally, the obligatory food report. 😁. Yesterday I tried a new recipe called Hoppin John Soup. I like regular Hoppin John for the new year but this was better to me. And if anyone is curious, no, you can’t get black eyed peas here. We have some beans that look like them, but they don’t taste anything like them. I have a small stash of them I brought over.

Finally, on New Years Even we are supposed to all wear red underwear, and eat cotechino with lentils for luck! I kinda think in 2025 we are all going to need that!

Buon anno a tutti!

New Supermercato in Umbertide!!

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Big days in Umbertide. We had heard rumors for years about a new super store coming to Umbertide. We waited, and waited. They had been repurposing the old Molino Popolare facility. It is a big piece of land on the main road south out of town. The old mill had been defunct for a long time. They tore down, and cleaned up all the small superfluous buildings but left the big four story old mill building. Rumors had it that would become loft space. Anyway, we had noticed them building a new road etc, but somehow, seemingly in the dead of night, someone snuck in a big, shiny, new supermarket! An EMI to be exact. Today we went over for a look see inside. It is open all day Sunday, not the usual here.

Front of store
From the back, to show the old mill building.

We went inside and applied for the EMI membership card so we could get the discounts. Then we explored. For you Americans out there this will seem mundane for the most part. But much of it is very unusual, especially for our smallish town. Here we go, captions if needed.

Interior of store
Fresh squeeze-it- yourself orange juice. Yay!
I guess I’ll try the guac someday.
Can you feel me rolling my eyes?! 🙄 puleeze.
Lots of fresh pasta both here and in the case.
Well it is almost Christmas after all…time for panetone!
Hah! Hamburgeria.
Aging beef
Prepared seafood. Fries with eyes! The fresh seafood looked great as well.
Prepared foods.
Disappointed in the cheeses. Nothing interesting.
Pizza by the slice.
Here’s something you don’t see here…donuts!
Freshly baked bread.
In the US the biggest aisle is cereal. Here….it’s pasta of course!
Prosciutto for Natale!

Luther gave the wine selection a three🫤. I found a few nice things. I bought a rack of lamb from the butcher. I found pork tenderloins which I haven’t seen in a few years. I bought three! I bought fresh bread and a few other things. There was no international section which I had hoped to see. Overall, it is a nice store. More variety than the Coop. But not a great store.

My little tree

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I got the little tree planted in a pot and have brought him in to decorate. I just finished that and he is quite pretty, if quite small! But he will grow. I used many of my old ornaments. But many I couldn’t yet since he is small. Here are some pictures.

It is pouring rain today. Horrible weather. A proper day to get a colonoscopy. I don’t want to over-share but I kind of think it is interesting to know. Luther had this procedure scheduled for today. It was necessary to get it fast so we opted to pay private which is always an option here. The medicine that we must all take before this procedure was different this time. Less liquid needed to be imbibed. Luther told me this medicine would cost $200 in the U.S. and here it cost €20.

After the procedure, all was OK. It is always a relief. It cost us €450.00 in total. Not bad at all if only needed every 3-5 years. But to be clear, this would be free on the national health system, if you’re willing to wait. I imagine a colonoscopy in the U.S. is more expensive that this. You can let me know!