Category Archives: Uncategorized

Pranzo guests!

We have done a few errands this week. We found a store called Leroy Merlin which is like a Home Depot. It has a lot of stuff we needed. I got some plastic bins to help organize stuff and some plug adapters. Luther said electrical stuff here is haphazard and I’d say that’s an understatement. Everytime I go to plug something in I need an adapter. They have grounded plugs and ungrounded plugs and the reverse for outlets and I never have what I need!

We also paid a visit to Deruta of ceramics fame. I bought some salt and pepper shakers and a utensil holder for my counter.

DSC03748

DSC03747

We got our stuffa (pellet stove) working. Yay! Keeps the room nice and warm and is pretty festive next to the tree don’t you think?

DSC03750

We also got our grill!!! We ordered a standard Weber grill which I am intimately familiar with. Now I can start cooking but first I need to find charcoal. Baby steps. Luther put the grill together while I was working on lunch for our first guests.

DSC03749

We invited Susan and Gary and Joseph and Paul (all American lunch!) and I decided to buck tradition and make a green pozole since I had shipped some of the needed ingredients. It was a bit different because I had to substitute some stuff but it came out pretty good. Anyway my guests seemed to like it. I think when I cook, if possible I’ll make things that we can’t get here. It is nice to have some variety. We really enjoyed entertaining in our new home!

Christmas in Umbertide

The Christmas Market is going strong in the Piazza and along the nearby streets. They have some pretty nice things. Lots of hand knitted hats and scarves. A stand with beautiful towels and linen. And this could not happen in the US, there is a white truffle stand! I was walking along and caught the unmistakable aroma of the truffles then looked around and there they were.

Truffles
DSC03736

Prices are 10 Euro, 15 Euro, or 20 Euro for a truffle of varying sizes.
DSC03737

Various merchandise.
DSC03735

DSC03740
Did I mention they play music from loud speakers all over town? Mostly Christmas music but they also like the Eagles. AND they have put red carpets in front of the stores in the Centro and nearby streets. We have a red carpet right down Via Grilli where we live. They have lots and lots of lights up at night on all the streets too. Very festive.

Via Grilli
DSC03733

Other parts of town.
DSC03734

DSC03739

DSC03741

Last Friday we went to an amazing concert in the Church on the Piazza San Francesco. It was a Homage to Mozart played by the Chamber Orchestra of Perugia. There was a wonderful almost duel between the first violin and a woman playing a viola. I had heard that piece before but when you see and hear it in person it is mesmerizing. There will be three more concerts by them between now and the end of the holidays. We will surely go. And they are free. Big turn out as well.

Permessi
We got some AMAZING news yesterday, finally, at long last, our Permessi di Sogiorni are ready for pickup on Saturday December 20. Wow. What a Christmas present. It only took five months. We have to begin the process all over pretty soon.

Media
We have gotten our Skye TV set up now and now have more channels that we will ever need. All different languages and lots of English stuff. I have to say, six months without TV was not a problem for me. Right now Luther has found the Padre Pio Network – only in Italy.

We also ordered some speakers to be delivered and set up Monday. We have been having internet issues. The WIFI is in the living room and the office is at the other end of the house (not really that far) and we have issues getting internet there. This house is over 300 years old and there are some mighty thick walls which we think are impeding reception. We need to work on this.

Upcoming
We are invited to Lynda’s house. She rented us her apartment last January on our house hunting trip. She lives here full time now and is British. She is going back to the UK for Christmas and we are taking care of Sandy her 14 year old cat. We are invited for mince pies and mulled wine and to meet Sandy. How Happy Holidays!

We have a busy week ahead. Vera is coming tomorrow to clean Susan and Gary’s apartment that we borrowed. Speakers come tomorrow. We have some buying errands to run. We have also invited our first guests over for lunch on Thursday. We will be six, Susan and Gary and Joseph and Paul. I found some cilantro yesterday and am excited to do something southwestern – or as close as I can come to that here.

WE HAVE MOVED! FINALY!

At long last we are in our own home. December 8. It is soooo wonderful! We had a house cleaner in. Her name is Vera. She cleans for Susan and Gary too. She spent two full days cleaning and it looks good. Here are pictures.

Hall from in front of back bedroom and office.
DSC03721

Office.
DSC03718

Next two are the pantry.
DSC03719

DSC03720

Next three are the kitchen.
DSC03724

DSC03722

DSC03723

Dining room
DSC03728

View out really clean picture window.
DSC03729

Luther in the living room.
DSC03730

Space age dishwasher.
DSC03713

I even put up our itty bitty Christmas tree.
DSC03732

Here are a few pictures from the office window of the town Christmas tree and the Wednesday market.

DSC03717

DSC03715

DSC03716

A funny thing that would never happen in the US. We bought a 48 inch smart TV from Formica. He set it all up and left. We have not paid for it. €849. I guess we’ll have to walk over and pay them sometime. Strange.

I need to catch up

Apartment
Today is Thursday, one week after Thanksgiving. I am cautiously optimistic that we will move on Saturday. The heat has been fixed and the floors are being finished. The kitchen has been finished by Pedini. We have shelves installed in the pantry! I have been able to do a little organizing of the kitchen.

IKEA trip
We took a trip to Florence to visit the IKEA there and see how it compared to the one we visited in Ancona. MUCH busier. We went on Monday. I would hate to see it on Saturday! I had a big long list of stuff we need for the house, mostly for the kitchen and bath. We also bought bedside tables for our room and a bookshelf that will serve as an end table beside the sofa. It will have storage as well. We left home at 9AM and arrived around 10:40AM. After we shopped it took half an hour to check out! But that meant it was about 1PM and time for lunch.

We drove to Chianti and had a nice lunch in the wine area. Nice folks in the empty restaurant. They gave us a piece of chocolate cake that was awesome.

Returning the Renault
We had taken to calling her Sirena after the voice on the GPS. We hated to see her go. The lease agreement had been extended twice to the limit of the possible term. We had an appointment to drop her off in Rome near the airport at 2PM on Wednesday. We drove to Perugia first to rent another car. I drove Sirena down with Luther following in what we now call the Clown Car, a Lancia Ypsilon. He had a heck of a time keeping up! I kept a close watch on him all the way there as Sirena was guiding me back to her home. It was pretty stressful as I hadn’t really driven much in the 5 months since we had come here. But it worked out OK. So-long Sirena.

We drove over to nearby Fiumicino for lunch. We found a staid old restaurant with waiters who may have been there since 1929 when they opened. The food was good though. We kept it to a pasta for me and risotto for Luther. Both with local, delicious seafood.

We drove the clown car to it’s limits on the way home and arrived around 5PM after stopping at the Coop for some supplies.

That should do it for the catch up. I hope I can have some pictures of our new home AFTER we move in in my next post. Cross your fingers for us!

Did not happen…

Update. We did not move in as expected today. There was an issue with the heating and they need the heat to refinish the floors. They were supposed to sort that out today then do the floors tomorrow. So maybe Monday or Tuesday? At this point I am not holding my breath.

Thanksgiving!

I am a lucky person to have shared our American Thanksgiving, and my first one in Italy with my good American friends Susan and Gary and their guests from California and six of our Italian friends and two Italian children. It was an amazing feast! It has been documented in pictures below.

Alas, I was still cooking in the borrowed apartment as we are not quite ready to move into our place yet. My contribution to the meal was dinner rolls, green beans, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. The cranberries had crossed the ocean with Gina and Mark. I also decided to roast the little Cannara onions in balsamic vinegar, stock and herbs to share. I had to send Luther on an errand to buy a mixer and it was pouring rain. He manned up and walked to Formica and therefore made his contribution to the mashed potatoes.

We gathered at Susan’s and Gary’s apartment at about 12:30. Gary, Gina and Mark had gone up into the Niccone valley to Calagrana to pick up the turkey. Since none of us have a big oven Susan had arranged with the restaurant to obtain and cook our turkey. I might add it was the largest turkey any of us had EVER seen. 15 kilos or about 35 pounds! Eli, restaurant owner and British, had started the turkey at midnight and collaborated with her sister in Philadelphia on Skype. The turkey roasted for 12 hours. She also made some wonderful appetizers, a pork roast in case there wasn’t enough food (!) and a pie. She sent along the drippings for us to make gravy.

Susan’s beautiful table!!

20141127_133315

We started the preparations and Simone, Simona and Fabio arrived with contributions of their own. Simona and Simone are Milanese transplants who live off the grid on a farm south of Umbertide. Fabio is a technical guy and also creates olive wood utensils, lamps, etc. Fabio was the most excited of everyone. He had seen our Thanksgiving on TV and this was his first actual one. Most of the pictures below are from him.

Antoinetta, Barbara, Emanuele and their boys arrived last. We had a prosecco toast and dug into the appetizers. Here are some pictures.

20141127_133151

20141127_133157

Next we dished up the Meal. Here is the ENORMOUS turkey which had the boys in total awe!

20141127_140503

20141127_140538

DSC03710

And the buffet with all of the dishes. I demonstrated to the Italians how to load up their plates and I was pleased to see they did so with enthusiasm.

20141127_141046

Fabio’s plate and the table.

20141127_141737

Onions.

20141127_133146

Gravy.

20141127_133135

Beans.

20141127_133140

Mark stepped up to carve the bird.

20141127_141251

20141127_141033

And finally we all sat down to the feast. We gave a toast to our friendship and our ability to share a wonderful, international meal.

DSC03711

Luther had helped with the wine selections along with Gary and Mark. Susan had made a pumpkin pie. There were two other pies we were too stuffed to eat.

Monte Vibiano

House Update
It has been raining for the last two days. Progress in the house: electrician is nearly done. They have finished the plumbing hookups in the kitchen but the oven is out of the cabinet and in the middle of the floor. I guess they are having problems with the gas hookup or something. They moved the bed, mattress, dresser, shelves for office, table and chairs into the back. They are nearly finished painting the living room which is the last room. I am still unclear as to how they will refinish the floors. I don’t think it will be ready this week but we shall see.

Visit to Monte Vibiano winery
Today was a beautiful day. We were meeting Gary and Susan and their guests from California, Gina and Mark. We had reservations to take the full tour of the Monte Vibiano winery. This entailed driving golf cars up into the vineyards and olive groves. They insist they are NOT golf carts but oddly enough the center of our steering wheel had a little clip to hold a score card. Hmmm. There was another group from Sweden, maybe 10 or 12 people. We all piled into the carts and off we went up through the village on tiny streets and into a beautifully manicured vineyard and olive grove. It was such a pretty autumn day with bright sun and still some color. Here are some pictures.

Row of golf carts.

DSC03682

Four hundred year old olive tree.

DSC03688

Autumn vineyards.

DSC03690

DSC03692

Narrow path we drove into the vineyard.

DSC03696

After we returned we went on a tour of the winery. Here are the French oak barrels in which they age the wine.

DSC03699

Then we tasted their four wines along with some of their olive oil. They have an interesting way with their oil. They put it into tiny bottles (10ml I think they said or one serving size) and then freeze it. They claim this keeps it as though it just flowed out of the presses. Could just be a gimmick but who knows! They have great marketing.

DSC03700

After we left we headed to Panicale, which was pretty close, for lunch. Our intended restaurant was closed but there was another one in town so we ate there and it was good if not great. A lovely day and we enjoyed getting to know Gina and Mark.

Gina and Mark had brought cranberries and allspice and cloves with them for my zinfandel cranberry sauce which I just finished making. Thanksgiving is just a week away and the preparations are underway.

When Umbertide was bombed

Emanuele loaned a book to me called la Nostra Calvario or Our Calvary. It is mostly about Umbertide before and after the war focusing on the bombing. The Americans and British were trying to stop the Germans in their retreat and tried to bomb the bridge over the Tiber river. They sent four waves of planes each with four bombs most of which fell on poor Umbertide. 72 people were killed. The bridge was finally hit.

Here is a picture of Piazza Matteotti where we have been living since our arrival. It was taken during a Mussolini rally. The door with the arch beneath the banner is the door to our building right next to the Bar Pazzi (Bar Mary today).

old photo umbertide-1

Cantine Aperte a San Martino

Yesterday was Sunday, November 16 and there was a festival called Cantine Aperte a San Martino or Cellars open for St. Martin. We had gotten a brochure with the participating wineries and a map from a winery we visited last week. It was organized by Movimento Turismo del Vino Umbria. We had planned to visit one or two wineries and then have lunch and then maybe visit another.

The weather was threatening. The first place we went was just south of Perugia and it was closed (!) and it was supposed to be participating. So we headed south near Todi. This one was called Roccafiore. It was quite an operation. When we arrived it was raining and after going inside where they have a gourmet restaurant, spa and hotel, we found out they, too were not opening the Cantina because of the rain. Shoot. We called and made reservations for lunch and decided to try one more. This one was called Tenuta San Rocco – a cluster of confusing buildings and it was POURING rain. Finally we found their make-shift tasting area which was in a newish building with the bottling machines. The man was very friendly and there was another guy and a young woman there. They not only served us wines but also two breads, a sweet, nutty cookie, and hot bruschetta and then they roasted chestnuts on a little brazier right there on the floor!

DSC03661

DSC03662

DSC03663

Chestnuts in a cup.

DSC03664

One of the wines was the Vino Novello which is almost exactly like Beaujolais Nouveau from France. Very young and meant to be drunk right away. It was fresh and good. They explained that it was due to the St. Martin festival that they had olive oil, chestnuts, and new wine as it is the tradition. I found it all charming. They harvest everything by hand. At the end Dottoressa Grassini who is the owner and enologist came and met us. She also was very welcoming. All in all a very fun experience.

New wine.

DSC03666

Off to lunch at Locanda Rovicciano in Castel Ritaldi. We found it in our Gambero Rosso Ristoranti d’Italia book. Excellent restaurant. We were seated in a room with a big fireplace. I bet it would be cozy in the winter. There were large Italian families dining and many children. It was fun watching them. The kids were pretty well behaved and could go outside and blow off steam while their parents ate and drank wine. The table in our room had four women and four men. The four men sat at the end of the table, then the four women all together, and then the kids. So strange. We would never seat ourselves like that in the States.

I had the quail eggs with white truffles. They were fried and place on top of toasted bread with shaved truffles. Yum!

DSC03674

Luther had Maltagliata which means “badly cut”. And it was very irregular. It had onions and bacon.

DSC03675

I had the spit roasted Quail for an entree and Luther had grilled lamb. He pronounced it the best lamb he’s had here. My Quail was tiny and crispy and smokey flavored and not too much food. It was wrapped in bacon and I am pretty sure roasted over a wood fire. Very Very good. My Quail.

DSC03676

Here is the sky just before we went into the restaurant. Spooky!

DSC03679

All in all a fun day. This coming week will see us moving into our own place, or so we hope. I finished unpacking what I could unpack so there are not so many boxes. We went shopping Saturday and bought a vacuum cleaner. A Dyson Animal. We hope that will help us keep up with the cat hair.

Doctor appointment

It has been some time since I posted because it has been pretty busy. We met with Emanuele in the house to discuss his issues with Pedini and the kitchen. Good thing he is paying attention as I had not noticed the issues. Biggest issue is that the hood over the stove has the lights about a third of the way under the sliding units that are on the wall. So we would never be able to change a bulb! Yikes. The second issue is that the quartz pieces that sit at the back of the counter along the wall has about an inch gap between the top of it and the sliding units. It would be impossible to clean in there and it would be bound to get spatter and grease in there. He has told Pedini they have to fix it and they should be back next week.

Since then I have begun to unpack the boxes of kitchen stuff and put it in the cabinets to at least get some of the boxes out of there. It is not at all organized yet but it is all in there.

Doctor
I had not mentioned that I had been worrying about my hip as it has been bothering me more and more. I had taken a little fall back in July and I had worries that I had damaged it. Being in a foreign country I was majorly stressed about it. I asked Susan to ask her doctor for a recommendation. She mentioned it to Emanuele and he was ON it. He had knee surgery last year and managed to wangle an appointment with his doctor who is very, very well thought of in the field.

I was very nervous before the appointment. It turns out that everybody goes with you when you go to the doctor here. It is very strange but I was happy to have the company and help. Susan, Barbara (Emanuele’s wife) and Luther all went with me. They all went with me everywhere including into the doctors office! They could translate for me and hear what the doctor was saying. He was a really nice man and very competent and he told me after manipulating my leg and seeing where my pain was that it was probably not the joint but muscular due to one leg being longer after my surgery. He scheduled X-rays for me right then and there.

We trooped down to the ground floor where we waited in a waiting room with a bunch of other people. The entire building is incredibly dreary with glaring fluorescent lights and ether orange, lime green or dark gold walls and mismatched furniture. It took a while but we got them done and trooped back to the Doctor who told me there was no problem with the replacement. Blessed relief! I have many problems that are all together making me have the pain. The longer leg, curved spine (old news) and other hip has arthritis as well. He told me I must always wear a lift in my shoe and I should do Physical Therapy.

Since I am not on Italian health care yet I was in as a private patient. He took us to another office where we were to pay. It cost 150 Euro for the doctor and 23 Euro for the X-ray. Just think what I would have paid in the US!