A Tuscan View - from Umbria

Casual obsession

Having to get the car fixed is never a good thing. We end up stranded and a little helpless. However, when you get it fixed at a garage with a sign like this one, it makes it all seem worthwhile, to me at least.
My casual obsession with typography meant that I spent quite a few minutes waiting for the light to catch this sign ‘just right’, much to the amusement of the mechanic, who now joins the ever-increasing number of Italians who think I'm a buffoon...

The stupidest thing I did today;
Allowing a friend to introduce the children to the wonderful world of ponies.

meme - the movie

Rupert (the hero) has done his job in record time, and our next job is to put it onto the website but, before we do, it needs to pass the ultimate test - blogworld!

All the feedback for the website was so helpful and, as this is my first (and probably my last) appearance on film, it seems right to pass it by you guys first.

We dodged rainstorms and pestered the butcher, we struggled through muddy fields with a tripod and a dog, I messed up my lines, my dialogue is a little clumsy at times and I know it looks like the biggest meme in blog history - but we needed to do it and so, here it is (if you can spare 4 minutes and 32 seconds)...be kind!

The stupidest thing I did today;
It might well be posting this...

With a little help from our friends…

During our time in Italy focusing on this project, we have had a lot of help from a lot of people. We know we’re really lucky to have some wonderful friends, people who have been extremely generous with their time and their talent.

 This week, just after we decided we needed to make a promotional video without spending any money, who better to turn up from London than Rupert; old friend/editor/producer and film maker who was willing to give up a week of his time to help us.

Rupert, our hero.

The hastily assembled crew, which consisted of me (tripods, umbrellas, dialogue coach, hair and makeup), marito (a star is born!) Martyn (another old friend on stills) and the girls (annoying sound effects) were unflagging despite the rain and the wise words of yet another old friend ringing in our ears, “you should have done it in the summer”. We think we got enough film ‘in the can’ for a four minute video (with marito secretly hoping for a mini series!)

Working with a professional filmmaker was a fascinating experience; someone who can walk down an unfamiliar street and instantly see ‘the shot’, who can judge light and atmosphere with a glance.  The creative process that goes into making a short film is astounding, the ability to encapsulate and distil all that visual information. 

So, although marito may think he was the ‘star’, the real star of this whole production was Rupert, he even managed to coax ‘Big Al’ out of the butcher’s for a cameo role!

 Now we have to wait for the final cut but, rest assured, the ‘premiere’ will be right here for your amusement.  Until then, it’s back to the daily grind for marito I’m afraid, apart from the occasional starry tantrum!

The star, struggling with his lines...

The best thing I ate;

Penne con zucca et salvo arrosta
(Penne with roast pumpkin and sage)

Well, goodness me, in honour of Halloween, marito brought home quite the most enormous pumkin I have ever seen.  Extremely beautiful it was too but, waste not want not, I have risen to the challenge and we have been feasting on it ever since.  With a nod to Judith in Umbria, my fellow blogger and culinary muse, I have been refining my recipe for roast pumpkin and penne, quite delicious in a very savoury, sweet, ‘pumpkiny’ kind of way.  It’s quite a rich dish and would go well with an astringent green salad on the side, not the Italian way, I know, but here goes anyway…

About 1kg pumpkin skinned and cut into small chunks
3 or 4 whole cloves of garlic (in their skins)
2 peperoncini, finely chopped
a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves
a large handful of sage leaves (left whole)
150ml of good olive oil
Sea salt
Ground black pepper
400g penne
freshly grated parmesan cheese

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees.  Put the pumpkin, garlic, peperoncino, thyme and sage into a bowl, then pour over the olive oil and season generously with the salt and pepper.  Mix the whole lot together (being careful not to break up the sage leaves). Tip into a roasting tin and roast for about 30 minutes or so.  Different types of pumpkin (and there are many) have different cooking times so it’s best to check after half an hour, what you’re looking for is a melting texture with slightly caramelised edges.

Meanwhile cook your pasta until ‘al dente’.   When your pumpkin is cooked, remove it from the roasting pan with a slotted spoon and keep it somewhere warm, while you pop the garlic out of it’s skin and mash it into the sweet oily pan juices.  Tip the pan juices into the pasta and mix thoroughly.   Pile the pumpkin on top of the pasta making sure everyone gets some of the lovely crispy sage leaves.  Add a grating of parmesan if you wish.  Serves 4 to 6 people depending on the ‘greed factor’.

Where to get it;
Make it yourself

Day of the Dead

We interrupt our blog to offer our contribution to Dia de Bloglandia,

three images in memory of a great friend and a true artist, Patrick W. Welch.

Flora and fauna

I must admit to being a little worn down by the building process at the moment, even though I know we're nearing the end of it.

I feel like my wheelbarrow. I used to be slightly embarassed of its green, shiny newness amongst all the battle-hardened others. It's now had two new wheels, needs rewelding, has been repaired countless times with wire and steel rods, and it still doesn't work very well. (It's actually a better analogy than I was expecting, now I write it down.)

Self portrait

Another sign that the building work has become so all consuming was when my youngest daughter gazed up at the sky on a cloudless night and said, "Look daddy, the moon looks just like concrete" - and, to be fair, it did.

So I’ve decided to do two things; firstly look the other way, and start to appreciate the changing landscape whenever I take the dog for a walk (while we pretend to look for truffles), and secondly get back to painting. It's a good thing too, as I'm running a Botanical Illustration course next Spring.

Last year I was able to visit a group of experts in this field and, to my surprise, some of the most interesting work seemed to focus on plants in the process of turning from green to brown as they dried and decayed. There was something mesmeric about watching these painters so focused and concentrated on their subjects, sometimes working through magnifying glasses, and often using lamps fitted with special daylight bulbs to allow them to continue working through into the night. I knew immediately that this was an area I would be foolish to ignore, especially living here, literally tripping over so much flora and fauna.

Some botanical illustrators work in a true, scientific way, documenting and recording the exactitude of the species and giving notes and measurements on the page very precisely. Others, like this particular group, have also developed this type of illustration into a true art form and the images are stunning, plants so real you can almost touch and smell them. You can see their work at www.amicusbotanicus.com

During my Art degree we never spent much time on this area of study but, as I’ve become older, I’ve started to appreciate more the subtlety of this exacting discipline and, living here, you've got no choice. You have to love nature.

Anyway, here’s my early offering of the season, it’s called ‘Parthenocissus quinquefolia’ (or Virginia Creeper to you and me).

The stupidest thing I did today;

This is perhaps the stupidest thing I’ve done all year and I can hardly bring myself to write it down, so all I’ll say is that it involves seeing a poor abandoned kitten one morning outside a bar …

Wine heaven

There comes a time when the wine finally runs out.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that you are the one who drank it all, but it does mean that you have to get some more.

Around here the best (and most economical) way to buy wine, from ordinary table wine to the posh stuff, is to buy it from a ‘cantina’ (cellar or winery). You can buy it by the bottle, and in many cases you can also buy it ‘sfuso’ or loose.  A visit to one of these places is a treat in itself, especially if it’s one near the wine heaven, Montepulciano.

There is something rarified about this noble little town, high on it’s ridge, midway between Florence and Rome. Flurries of classical music escaping from the Accademia della Musica echo through the alleyways and the air is diffused with the aroma of fermentation as thousands of barrels ‘cook’ gently in the vast cellars below the streets. 

I grew up around wine.  My dad was a wine importer and it was both his business and his pleasure.  Most of our family holidays were based around the wine regions that interested him, be they France, Spain or Italy. It was normal for us, as children, to play ‘catch’ amongst the vines or hide-and-seek down in the musty cellars.  I remember my sister and I giggling and lunging at each other from behind the barrels as my mum and dad talked earnestly with wine producers, sniffing and slurping, dad taking notes and swapping cards, loading the samples and freebies into the back of the car.  Later, as surly teenagers, we were allowed to join in those exquisite tastings, a privilege that was always guaranteed to lighten the mood.

 
The smell and atmosphere of a wine cellar, whether full of ageing oak or shiny stainless steel is intrinsically woven through my memories of my father.  As with so many things, I wish I had listened more intently and asked more questions.  My knowledge of wine is now, sadly, missing my ‘personal expert’ but my enthusiasm, which I inherited from him, remains undimmed.

One of the things my dad was best at was sniffing out a good affordable wine. He wasn’t a wine snob, he loved it all.  During the 60’s and 70’s it was buyers like my father who expanded the English palate for wine by importing drinkable, but inexpensive, table wines from France, Spain and Italy and gradually pushed the ubiquitous sweet German white wines to the back of the supermarket shelves.   He liked to buy wine from small, creative, independent producers who grew wines with ‘personalities’ imparted by a combination of climate, soil and grape variety.   “Wine”, he liked to say, “is alive”.  One of the only things we can consume after 200 years, still changing and evolving, waiting for the pull of the cork.  In one sense it’s just a drink, and yet it is capable of engaging our senses and imagination, it’s depths and complexities can communicate something intense and beautiful.

The ‘cantina’ that we visited was Ercolani located just outside the walls of Montepulciano. We tried some wonderfully plush vintages of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano before opting for the youngest (and cheapest) one which we bought ‘sfuso’ in large 5 litre demijohns.  We also tried their deliciously sticky Vin Santo and some mind-bending Grappa, but that’s another story.

 
The best thing I drank today;
see above...

Someone else's life

The hills around here are full of ruinous houses, sometimes complete hamlets have been left to rot, organic beauties, slowly changing with decay.  Remote and isolated, choked with brambles they stand at the end of rutted tracks, their vacant windows gaping.  They may be wrecked and wretched but to me each one seems like an opportunity.
 

To celebrate my birthday earlier this week, marito took me out for lunch not, as you might expect, to some ‘fancypants’ expensive restaurant but on a picnic jaunt high up in the Umbrian hills.  The sky was clear, hard enamel blue and the sun low and hot, a runaway Summer’s day.

One of my favourite things to do is drive the rough white roads, with no particular destination in mind, looking for things.   Maybe another Madonna or an unexpected view but, as we drive, I am always aware that just over the hill or around the corner might be the thing that thrills me most, an abandoned house.

Usually, my curiosity is restricted to a brief glimpse and a craning neck but it was my day and I got to choose the picnic spot.  This time I was going in.

Crouching amongst ragged grasses was a small stone house.  I felt the baked dryness of the door and the old wood split and broke away as I forced it open to reveal a single square room.

Weeds billowed in through broken shutters and hazy dust clouds hung suspended in slants of sunlight.  Rubble covered a floor of crude terracotta tiles that were laid directly to the earth, in the centre was an up turned wormy table blanched to the colour of ash and along one wall a row of empty bottles.

Old sacks, parts of a broken iron bed, some kind of sieve and a long handled spade were all that remained of someone else’s life.  In the heady silence of the afternoon I felt it would be easy to inhabit that room. To clear away the rubble, right the table and mend the bed, to spend an evening drinking rough red wine with the ghosts, as bats swooped in and out of the open rafters and cold moonlight crept into the corners.

I would sleep in the old iron bed and wake to put my feet on the parched floor, warmed through by heat rising from the earth, worn and rough like calloused skin.

Luckily marito is not so romantic.  ‘What do you think’? I asked, as he blundered in with the dog.  I won’t repeat his answer in its entirety but the phrase ‘totally insane’ featured prominently.

Best thing I ate today:

Calming, comforting carbonara; basically a pasta sauce made with eggs, cream and parmesan.  Soothing and somewhat soporific, it’s a delicious supper dish now that there’s a faint chill in the evening air. You can make endless variations on this theme by adding handfuls of this or that.  Just make sure that you don’t overwhelm the creamy sauce.  Some of my favourite additions are: small chunks of crispy pancetta, or crumbled Italian salsiccie and a few green peas, or maybe a scant handful of pre-cooked purple sprouting broccoli.  Here it is in a simple form with just the added heat of peperoncino.

Kinda carbonara con peperoncino

Pasta – Penne is good, approx 300gm
4 large organic egg yolks
2 large handfuls of freshly grated parmesan cheese
Olive oil
100ml thick cream
2 small peperoncini, chopped
2 gloves of garlic chopped
Sea salt and ground black pepper
1 small handful of finely chopped flatleaf parsley

Cook the pasta until 'al dente' and, while its cooking, make the sauce.  Put the egg yolks and cream into a bowl and mix together with half the parmesan.  Season with salt and pepper.

Then in a heavy based frying pan gently sauté the garlic and peperoncino for about 5 minutes and take care not to colour the garlic.  As soon as the pasta is done drain it and put it back into the, still hot, pasta pan, then mix in the garlic and peperoncino followed by the sauce.  Toss it all together until the sauce is glossy and silky looking, you may need to heat the pan up a little bit more but be careful not to scramble the eggs.  Add the rest of the parmesan and the parsley and give it another stir.  Heap it into a bowl and serve.

In Italy they sell a lovely mix of peperoncino, garlic and herbs called, 'Erbe piccante per spaghetti' in little packets at the supermarket. They don't cost much and last for months...

Where to get it;

You've probably already got it all in the fridge, waiting.

Last Supper

Even Italian summer holidays have to come to an end and, last week, that end finally came.  The girls went back to school.  Half-days only at first, to help them get over the shock, I suppose.  We had a 'last supper' under the twinkling fairy lights marito has rigged up in the pine tree and talked about the highlights of the Summer, “getting my arm back” for the small one and “going to the sea’ for the tall one. So that’s that.  The long holiday is over for another year.

 Whooping with delight (they really were that bored), and dressed in clean ‘grembiulis’ (a kind of apron favoured by all Italian schools) and loaded down by the obligatory enormous ‘zainos’ (rucksacks), the girls fairly ran into school that first morning.  They left us light with relief and freed of responsibility, a celebratory cappuccino was definitely in order.

Grembiuli 

But something else had happened, something subtle, a slight shift of sensibilities. At the school gates we were no longer known as ‘stranieri’ (foreigners - that strange and wary word), but with some slight affection we seem to have become ‘Inglesi’ (English) and that, for me at least, is triumph enough.  Because I know what the locals have always known: that no matter how wide our vocabulary, how good our accent, what team we choose to support or the depth of our tans, deep in our souls we will never be Italian.
But that’s OK by me, just give me a cappuccino and I’m happy to watch.  After all, they are so much better at it.

The best thing I ate today;

More bruschette! Yes I know I’ve been banging on about bruschette all Summer and, if truth be told, I am a little obsessive when it comes to food.  I get kind of stuck in a groove, the impulse to keep on perfecting a recipe takes over and, before I know it, we are eating bruschette every day of the week.

Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s delicious in all its forms and makes a perfect, healthy lunch, or antipasti, or breakfast, or dinner… midnight snack anyone?

Here they are, the last of the Summer season, until next year.

Bruschette con pepperoni

3 red peppers
Olive oil
Sea salt and ground black pepper
1 tablespoon good balsamic vinegar (but there’s no need to take out a loan)
A teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves
1 glove of garlic peeled and cut in half
6 slices of country bread

De-seed the peppers and cut them into strips.  Heat some olive oil in a heavy based pan and sauté the peppers until they begin to soften, then add the balsamic vinegar and the thyme leaves. Continue to cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes (the idea is that the peppers begin to caramelize) but add a little water if they get too dry. Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Meanwhile toast your bread (try and use a griddle if possible because I’m sure it tastes better) rub one side of the toast lightly with the garlic, pile on the peppers and drizzle over with a little more olive oil.

Bruschette con spinaci

3 handfuls of left over spinach
Olive oil
Sea salt and ground black pepper
Nutmeg
1 glove of garlic peeled and cut in half
6 slices of country bread

Re-heat the spinach in a heavy based pan, stir in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and add a good grating of nutmeg.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Toast bread as before and rub lightly with the garlic. Pile on the spinach and drizzle with more olive oil.

Bruschette con pomodori

Surely everyone knows how to make this.  If not, email me.

The infarinata

I know it shouldn't happen like this, I ought to know what's going on, but every so often you visit a town by chance in the Summer, and you get an immediate sense that something is about to happen. Call it intuition, a sixth sense, or maybe it's just because a couple of thousand locals in medieval costumes are marching up the street towards you with drums beating, dragging ludicrously large cannons to the main square.

The festas here are great, and they just keep on relentlessly throughout July and August and even into September. Each one has its own historical charm and, more importantly, each one is taken quite seriously by the participants, even those given the minor supporting roles of 'common soldier' or 'wench'.

So we found ourselves in Citta della Pieve, wondering again what was going on. But this occasion seemed a little different from the others, something was definitely building up, and the mood in the crowd was quite excitable, there were chants and taunts towards the other groups of the town and all three; Castello, Casalino and Borgo Centro were definitely going to meet at the top for something.

We began to see people in the crowd putting plastic bags on their heads, some covering up their mouths and noses with their bandiere (normally tied around their necks) and others with cameras putting them in plastic bags too.

Then it began, the 'infarinata'.

In the middle of the 'infarinata'

From out of nowhere, hundreds, perhaps thousands of bags of flour suddenly came flying through the air from all directions, landing and exploding with some force all around the square. It was absolute chaos and mayhem. Everyone was at it, for about 15 minutes, until one of the groups, Castello, who had arrived in an enormous wooden castle for the fight, seemed to claim victory over the others, and the weary flour covered soldiers and wenches began to dissipate.

The Castello Terziere claim victory

But that wasn't the end of it, because that's the cue for the crowd to get stuck in, and so hundreds more people then ran into the square and took up the fight, this time with anyone and everyone.

 

The stupidest thing I did today;

Well, this was also my cue. I have always fancied myself as an intrepid war reporter type, so as soon as the small children began to scoop up the last bits of flour from unexploded bags, I finally emerged from my hiding place in a shop doorway and tried to take some dramatic shots. Suddenly realising why the other photographers had plastic bags over their cameras, I once again retreated to my shop doorway. Sorry.

The wild west of Tuscany

It wouldn’t be a true Italian Summer without a trip to the beach (well, not in this house anyway). So, making good on a promise made to the small one, we pack the car with all our junk, our picnic and our plastic bags and head for the coast.  (Not to be misleading, I have to admit that the nearest beach is a 2 and a half hour drive away, but I also have to say that it’s worth every minute).

We head towards Grosetto, taking the ‘short cut’ which winds up into the hills of Tuscany, past vineyards and castles and drops breathtakingly into the stunning Val D’Orcia before crossing the scorched coastal plain of the Maremma.  This is cattle country, the wild west of Tuscany.  Years ago the rich Sienese would pay the rough and fearless cowboys of the Maremma to ride bareback in the Palio.  Today, the dusty plain is divided into huge ranches and long-horned cattle slumber under the wide blue sky.

Our destination is the Marina di Alberese, part of the Maremma’s preserved seashore and, I think, the only stretch of raw, untamed coastline left in Tuscany (the rest being part of the true Italian tradition of beach culture; a haven of bright umbrellas, and kitsch beach bars).

At the sleepy little town of Alberese we stop for breakfast and buy yellow spades and spindly green shrimping nets.  In the bar, behind the glass front of a cabinet containing cornetti and pizette, I spot a tray of freshly made focaccia. It’s soft and oily and seared with a light salt crust. Four large wedges wrapped in wax paper complete our picnic and we are on our way.

Almost the best part of this trip is the drive on a long straight road through an imposing forest of umbrella pines, the hot resinous smell is almost overwhelming and wild rosemary grows along sandy pathways.  Past the corrals of white cattle and chestnut horses, on and on through the trees until, at last, you leave the car and walk to where the forest ends and the trees grow into the sea.

The narrow beach curves gently round and, in the distance, you can see bruised mountains against the cobalt sky and a spit of land jutting out towards the Island of Argentario.  Today the sea is light clear celestial blue, tipped with tiny silver waves and strewn along the beach are the pale bones of bleached driftwood.  People before us have built these smooth wooden carcasses into strange shelters, wigwams and sculptures, and they are left to stand and weather until they are claimed by the waves.

There are no umbrellas or sun loungers, the nearest loos are a 10 minute walk back through the trees. All you have is what you take, I love that. 

But the best part of course, the very best part, is racing full tilt across the hot sand towards the sea and feeling the first sting of the salty spray. Any beach, anywhere, you just can’t beat it.

You can find out a lot more about Italian beach culture with a guide to Italy’s top ten beaches over at Italyville, one of my favourite blogs and, while you’re there, check out the other stuff too. Joe is a first generation Italian American, his blog is beautifully written, funny and intuitive.  He comes from a family of butchers, bakers and pasta makers, what more could you want?

The best thing I ate:

Fig, ricotta and honey bruschette.

Throughout the whole month of August I have been silently stalking our fig trees, waiting for the first ‘Settembrini’ to ripen. For some reason they are late this year and I had begun to get impatient, but at last they are here and almost all at once. A huge, greedy glut of them.

This is my current favourite breakfast bruschetta;

Ripe fresh figs,
Fresh ricotta cheese
Local honey
Country bread

Toast your bread, I use a griddle because I think I’m posh, and I like the griddle marks.  Spread the bruschette thickly with the ricotta, top with a torn ripe fig and drizzle over with the honey.  If you are in company make plenty of them, if you are alone sit on the step in the sun and scoff the lot yourself.

Where to get them:
Make them yourself

La vecchia donna

With the football season just kicking off here, and without any English football to watch, I have decided that it's time to get myself an Italian team to support. Also, I've been told on more than one occasion that a man in Italy isn't fully dressed without the 'pink paper' under his arm and, at 1 euro, it represents a very affordable fashion statement.

Where I spent my first few years, in Malta (a tiny island 50 miles south of Sicily) everyone supported Juventus - I'm not sure why. Perhaps there was a certain magic or mystique or simply a natural appeal to one of the oldest clubs in Italy, set up by a bunch of English, Italian and Swiss lads who used the latin word for 'youth' to name their team and played in their, now legendary, black and white vertical stripes. I remember my brother and I collecting the stickers for our Panini football albums, always happiest when unpeeling a Juventus player. Their first Championship winning team in 1905 was, apparently, made up of a mixture of painters, poets and factory workers - wow, that's my kind of team!

However, living in Italy (but not in Turin where Juventus are based) it won't be easy to become one of the 'juventini' as all over the rest of Italy there exist a vast majority of 'anti-juventini'  who have no time at all for 'la Vecchia Donna' (the old lady) of Italian football.

So, after a lot of soul-searching, I have decided to turn instead to my 'local' team, Siena, who have come good in the last few years and play in the top division. The advantage is that they are a smallish team who play in a smallish stadium near the city, less than an hour from here, and so I might be able to get a ticket to a game.

The other advantage is that they also play in black and white vertical stripes, so I can buy the shirt, wear it and yet continue to secretly still support Juventus, on the inside. You see, there is a saying in football which goes something like, '...you can change your job, your car, your name, your religion, your partner, even your sex, but you can't change your football team...'

The stupidest thing I did today;
Probably deciding to get involved in the murky world of Italian football - great players, financial corruption, violent fans, drugs, the Mafia, the World Cup. It's an opera played out every weekend and the obsession of every Italian.

Ferragosto

August in Italy is a strange month, it has its own lazy charm but life, as we know it, shuts down.  It packs it’s bags and clears off to the coast, or the mountains, or ‘nonna’s farm’ in Puglia.  One by one the builders and the plumbers disappear into thin, hot August air until they are all gone.
For a while the cement mixer continues it’s lonely lament with only Marito for company until he too throws in the trowel and accepts that everyone needs a break.  My excuse for lack of blogging is simple, ‘ferragosto’.

You start to notice the mass exodus at the beginning of the month as the discrete and irritating little sign ‘Chiuso per ferie’ appears more and more frequently; the barbers, the forno, the take-away pizza place, one by one they all succumb. 

The motorways are suddenly filled with small Italian cars packed with people and their plastic bags all desperately heading for somewhere else and, quietly watching all this summer mayhem, quite still on her plinth or in her niche, stands the serene and ubiquitous Madonna of the roadside.

There are some more of these marvellous Madonnas in the sidebar, I hope you like them as much as I do.

The best thing I ate:

Succo di Mele

On the way to Castiglione del Lago is an apple farm, Az Agr. Mele del Trasimeno. The fruit, glowing rosily between dark leaves, can be seen on the beautiful espaliered trees from the roadside.  It’s a small organic concern, they grow apples and they sell apples and, as luck would have it, they sell apple juice too.

But this is no ordinary juice, it can be quite changeable, sometimes clear and golden and at other times almost pink and cloudy. It’s aromatic and full of lovely old-fashioned apple flavours; a heady mix of sunny fruit with a hint of aniseed and almonds. It is as deep and rich and sweetly complicated as any wine might be. I like it best after lunch, give me a small cold glass of succo di mele with a crumbly wedge of parmesan and I’ll happily pass on dessert. 

Where to get it;
Az Agr Mele del Trasimeno
SS71 Umbro Casentinese
Loc. San Fatucchio
Castiglione Del Lago
PG. Tel 075 9589722

Singin' the Blues

 Probably my first (and certainly my best) art teacher is a big blues fan.

I suspect that one of his many harmonicas is always lurking never more than a few feet away at any given time, ready to spring into action.

And so, with him firmly in mind, and accompanied by a bevvy of Zimbabwean beauties, the Mrs and two over-excited little girls (lucky me!) we headed off to the Trasimeno Blues festival in a local town on the edge of the lake. It's hard to imagine a more beautiful location for an evening concert; inside a medieval fort, surrounded by crumbling walls and ancient olive trees, with a small bar, a cool breeze off the lake and an atmosphere that's just so laid back.

Shemekia Copeland (never heard of her), daughter of the legendary Johnny 'Clyde' Copeland (never heard of him either), was heading the bill, direct from Brooklyn, New York.

They said her voice, even without a microphone, would be enough to crumble the walls and, when she eventually got on stage, you knew that she was the real deal; big, black and beautiful.

The truth is that none of us really knew much about the blues but, equally, none of us really had to. It was all about being there, sitting on the grass and waiting for Shemekia to crumble something.

I soon discovered that the Blues is all about 'love gone wrong' and Shemekia's 500 previous boyfriends all seemed to have a song written about them; vain, mean, lazy, no good hustlers and tramps. For some reason my 'posse' of girls found the whole thing very amusing...

The stupidest thing I did today;
Perhaps should have gone to see John Lee Hooker Jnr. the day before - I bet he's got a few choice numbers about previous girlfriends!

The colour of earth

The first coat of calce (lime-wash paint) is diluted to the consistency of milk.  As I slosh it on to the walls it streams down my arms and splashes on my feet.  It barely covers the newly finished plaster in a thin pale wash.  This is the ‘primo mano’ or undercoat in pure chalk white.  
The idea of calce is that it breathes. 

I love that idea, a house with a soul and walls that breathe.

After the primo mano you can choose a colour, if you wish, to add to the chalk base.  You are given a tin of pigment, which you mix in, and the broken colour is achieved in 3 coats each diluted to a lesser degree with water.  The end result is a colour that appears to move in and out of its own intensity, changing with the light and the undulations of the walls.  Well, that’s the aim anyway.

Since I first visited Italy, years ago,  I have been infatuated with its colours; the warm rosy apricots and rich terracottas of the peeling stucco in the piazzas.  Faded frescos with the soft tinctures of the Renaissance, ghosts of vivid lapis blues and true clear reds. 

In the countryside, the ever-changing grey green olives and inky dark cypresses stand against the ripened gold of wheat. And the land itself, its ploughed and fallow fields with great clods of soil like raw siena, the fertile colour of earth.

In the cavernous warehouse where we have come to buy the paint I feel suddenly nervous, almost overwhelmed by colour, but I know I haven’t come this far to paint yet another stark white wall, so I hold my breath and choose…

The best thing I ate;

Bruschette con pomodorini e ricotta or (less romantically) tomatoes on toast!

I have been making these a lot recently. They are great for lunch but even better as the sun sinks behind the hills, served with a gently fizzing glass of chilled prosecco. I think it is the intense tomato taste of summer, the piquant edge of the peperoncino,  or maybe the mellow sweetness of the balsamic contrasting with the crumbling cool ricotta that really gets me.  Enough already!  Just try it.

Serves 4

cherry tomatoes (about 30)
Balsamic vinegar (1 and a half tablespoons)
Extra virgin olive oil
A peperoncino  chopped really finely
Sea salt and ground black pepper
Country bread sliced about 1cm thick
Garlic
Fresh ricotta cheese (try and get the good stuff made of sheep’s milk from the deli counter)
Fresh basil

 Leave the tomatoes whole and put them in an ovenproof dish and spread them out in a single layer. Season them with a little salt and pepper and drizzle generously with olive oil and half a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.  Roast them in a hot oven for about 10 minutes or until the skins have burst and the juices started to caramelise.  Take them out of the oven and add the peperoncino, then add another tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and stir gently to mingle the flavours.

Meanwhile, slice your bread and toast it on a hot griddle until it is crisp on both sides.  Rub each slice a couple of times with a cut glove of garlic.  Drizzle with some olive oil and sprinkle with a little sea salt. 

To assemble your bruschette, spoon the tomatoes on to the toasted bread and top with a little ricotta.  Serve on a large white platter with some torn basil strewn around. 

20 more days

So much to look forward to here when Summer arrives, as it finally did a few weeks ago. We endured a long Winter this year and it was difficult to imagine the heat, as today it is difficult to imagine pulling on a second pair of trousers as a brace against the freezing cold. But a part of this Summer has been put on hold and tempered by the fact that our youngest child, the (not-so-small) small one, fell off her bicycle and broke both bones in her right arm.
She knew, we all knew, just by looking at it.

We took a tearful drive to the hospital and then had to make a longer journey to Perugia, as the nearest orthopaedic specialist was there on duty that afternoon.
The afternoon soon became the evening and we finally emerged, bleary eyed and blinking into the dark carpark, one of us wearing a heavy plastercast all the way up to the shoulder, set for 40 long days. Our little girl had no idea at the time what lay in store as the Summer began to take it's toll, but as we have now arrived at the 40th day, we are all at the end of our proverbial tethers.

I have been fortunate to have been otherwise preoccupied of late. Not surprisingly, things of a building nature are my immediate concern and it's a little like firefighting as I lurch from one emergency deadline to another. The stress of that is, though, tempered by allowing myself time every so often to go out in the car and 'discover' new and interesting places to draw and paint.
I call it research, and it is, but it also gives me a chance to stop for a time and focus on something other than power tools.

I just do quick sketches or small paintings to get a true sense of what it would be like for a group, then move on. So far I have a little 'library' of good places for morning painting, good places for afternoon painting, and loads of good places for lunch.

I've been busy.

For the patient back at home, unfortunately it's not quite as simple as just 'taking it off' today. You see, the bone hasn't quite set correctly and we will have to wait for the results of a final x-ray to confirm that she is now free to swim, ride her bicycle, draw, and do homework with her right hand. Our supportive, collective family-ban on all such activities seemed like a good idea at the time, but 40 days is a long time for anyone, certainly long enough for our wheatfields to turn from vivid green to golden brown.

So today has been a long time coming and, hopefully, the real Summer will start, for one little girl at least, very soon afterwards. We'll see.

The stupidest thing I did today;

I said, rather foolishly, as we went in to see the specialist, "I'm sure it'll be alright, then we can go swimming this afternoon!". Not according to the doctor.

He simply shook his head and said, "...ancora 20 giorni..." Aaaaaagh!

The early morning ferry

As usual we have a million things to do; lists, sub-lists, goals and deadlines and sometimes the hours just seems to slip away like sand.  But something subtle is happening here, Summer is weaving her hot magical spell, the children are in holiday mode and it’s catching.

Arriving early in Castiglione del Lago to run some errands, we happen to see the early morning ferry to Isola Maggiore heading for the jetty.  The water ripples silver in the sun and a cool reedy breeze blows gently from the lake.  Before we even hear the pleading cries from our offspring, Marito and I have exchanged ‘the look’.  Errands and lists will have to wait - we are getting on that ferry.

The spontaneity of it seems somehow thrilling and the children are half wild with excitement. The dog, a little unsure of his sea legs, is carried awkwardly on board and suddenly a very different kind of day is beginning to unfold.

Little waves slap against the wooden hull and the ferry heads out across the opalescent water to the island of Maggiore shimmering in the distance.  There are only a handful of other voyagers on board and in the quiet of the early morning the chug and pull of the engine is mesmerising.

Of the three islands that rise out of Lake Trasimeno, Isola Maggiore (close to the northern shore), is the second largest and the only one permanently inhabited.

We disembark and walk up the landing stage past some huge and mutant looking cats towards the Islands only village.  It is enchanting, the village consists entirely of a single street.  The quayside houses are built of mellow crumbling stone and behind them is the shifting grey green of olive groves rising up to the Church of San Michele at the island’s highest point.  Swallows swoop crazily in and out of the bell tower and the rasping cry of a thousand cicadas vibrates through the air.

Early in the morning (before the tourist rush) and with a population of less than 100, the place seems almost deserted - locked in time.  We walk up a rough and scorching track, the sun now blazing overhead through the olives and past a wild, abandoned castle towards the church. The sweeping views out across the lake make up for all the predictable moaning and the rather unpredictable gradient.  At last we reach a resting spot with a bench and a tap.  We drink, splash the dog and stick our heads under the flow of icy water.

It is said that in 1211 St Francis landed here and stayed for a 40 day sojourn during which time all he ate was half a loaf.  There is a little chapel marking the spot and a small Franciscan monastery.  The thought of only half a loaf makes everyone’s stomach start to gnaw and we retrace our steps in search of breakfast.

Back in the timeless main street I am struck by how much it resembles a film set, with it’s fishing nets drying in the sun and, inside dimly lit doorways little old ladies on rickety chairs making lace.

Half way down the street we stop to look inside the church of Buon Gesu, it has some wonderful, peeling frescoes from which baroque cherubs smile down from the faded lapis with naïve exuberance.

We see battered goal posts tucked into an alley way and imagine the island at night with children playing football in a street free from the noises and dangers of cars, and the old boys calling to each other across the way.  There is a solitary hotel and I find myself thinking, rather wistfully, how romantic it would be to stay the night.  To watch the sun set over the lake and slip down behind the distance mountains while dusk whispers in the olive groves and the hush of darkness descends on this tiny enduring community.

The best thing I ate:
Gelato, gelato, gelato.

After much experimenting I have to say I have found my favourite (local) purveyor of the cold stuff.  Caffé Venezia, via Porsenna, Chiusi.  I have tried lots and lots of lovely flavours here from the dewy coral coloured watermelon through various intense and smoky chocolate combos to my personal favourite, the creamy pale and elusive ‘gorgonzola and honey’ (I promise you, it’s delicious!).

The maker of these divine confections is the wife of the owner, and she is, quite simply, gifted.  She only uses proper ingredients (never any syrups) to produce the most sublime, silky gelato imaginable.  At once rich, voluptuous and also completely addictive. At the moment I am averaging about one a day and I freely admit I’ve lost my head as well as my heart. Is that too many?  Is that enough?  How many is too many?

Where to get it:
See above, if there’s any left.

Spellbound.

23rd June 2008

It’s 5.45 on the morning after the longest day of the year.  It’s warm but the sky still has the soft pale blue, almost white, look of dawn.  The sun, low and hazy, has yet to stoke and build up her heat.  The brick steps are still cool and there is freshness in the shadows.  We are up, the whole family and, with barely a tussle, have managed to assemble - bleary and blinking - by the car.

We drive through the sleepy, breezeless countryside past putty coloured olive groves and inky cypress trees standing still, silent and spellbound as the Sunday morning bells ring in the day.  Soon we arrive at Citta della Pieve keen and hungry.  Here the streets are being carpeted with flowers and it is this that we have come to see, the Festa dei Fiori in honour of S.Luigi Gonzaga, protector of the Casalino Terziere.

These beautiful decorations are made once a year on the nearest Sunday to the Summer solstice.  The festival’s origins are lost in the mists of time but some say it marks the solemn procession of Spring.  Many of the designs are traditional, taking their inspiration from the Renaissance and the local master Perugino, but every year new designs are added in rich and subtle colours.

Flowers and scented herbs are grown in the surrounding countryside specially for this extravaganza and for 3 months prior to the day locals collect and dry the blooms and seed heads in preparation.  No money changes hands, it is simply the Italian way.

 We wanted to be in Citta della Pieve early in the day to see the work in progress, volunteers have been up through the night creating these vibrant scenes.  Ordinary people, nonnas and nonnos with their grandchildren, the man from the bar and another, the big gruff man who sells tickets for the Perugino and hides his broken smile. Today he walks up and down spraying the flowers with sugar water which will harden and set the blooms.

There is an atmosphere of hushed business and an up-beat vibe.  The whole place glows in the intensifying sunshine, the vivid colour of the petals radiant against the old stone and red brick of the town.

This wonderful show of dedication and artistry is made all the more fascinating by it’s fleeting nature, later this evening a procession of townspeople will walk over the flowers to the main piazza scattering the blooms to the gutter in their wake.

As we walk between the images taking photos, laughing with our girls, chatting with the old guys, restraining the dog and stopping for cappuccio and cornettos, I have to admit it was well worth the wake up call.

We so enjoyed photographing this glorious event that you can find more pictues of the flower designs in the side bar, just give me a day to sort it out...

The best thing I ate:
Risotto with roast fennel and peperoncino a casa

Yes it’s hot, but sometimes only risotto will do.  There is something so therapeutic about the making and eating of risotto, the ritual of adding the stock and stirring, watching while the little translucent grains grow plump and creamy.  Followed by the soothing balm of eating a bowl full of bliss.

  A good risotto can calm a frazzled spirit, comfort a fragile soul and even cure a hangover!  But for this magic to work it has to be made well and that means practice.
The rice should still retain a slight ‘nutty’ bite and the consistency be an unctuous oozing mass, not too soupy, not too stiff.

 Find a good recipe for risotto bianco and get practising, I suggest ‘The best of Anna Del Conte’.  It is this book that gave me a great tip for preparing risotto in quantity without having to stand and stir, red in the face, while others are knocking back the aperitivo.  ‘Jamie’s Italy’ also has a good variation.   Once you’ve got the knack there is no limit to the good things you can add to your risotto.

With a nod to Jamie (and for a big gutsy flavour) I stirred in soft caramelised roasted fennel and boosted it with crushed fennel seeds, lemon zest and the subtle hint of peperoncino and, what do you know, even marito’s hangover was cured!

Where to get it: 
Make it yourself. 

Zen and the art of the decespugliatore…

19th June 2008

 In London, when I used to hear a faint buzzing hum on a hot Summer’s day, it was more than likely a hovering helicopter, checking the congestion or searching for an escapee from the local prison.

When we thought of moving to Italy, one of the overriding sounds that I always imagined and hoped for was a similar faint, distant hum of Summer, but this time caused by crickets, bees, or simply the hazy heat rising.
Unfortunately I was wrong.

That sound here (especially at this time of year) is nothing to do with nature, it is the buzz of the ubiquitous ‘decespugliatore’. Americans know it as the ‘weed-whacker’ and, in England, it is simply called a ‘strimmer’.

To memorise and then to be able to pronounce this inexplicable word makes you an honorary Italian in my eyes and, despite the rising heat in Italy, my decespugliatore was hard at work today, along with so many thousands of others across the country.

Yes, grown men in orange boiler suits, you know the ones, spend hours each day strimming Italy’s countryside.

Some say Italians are a little obsessed with this method of weed control, I say no.
Once you’ve strapped on one of these beautiful machines with the correct mix of petrol and oil (‘miscela’ it’s called, available from country petrol stations on request) you can see why the hours seem to fly by.

You go into a kind of hypnotic trance, strimming away at anything that has the temerity to raise its head above about an inch off the ground. It’s mesmerising.

In England I used to feel quite sorry for anyone with that job, I just couldn’t see the attraction. Now I know that they are the lucky ones, not those fancy uniformed and sunglassed helicopter pilots.

The stupidest thing I did today;

Just got a bit carried away with my decespugliatore…now I have a little explaining to do.

Pedalo fun

10th June 2008

 It’s all about the lake.  The Etruscans farmed here and Hannibal fought here.  Lago Trasimeno is the largest body of water on the Italian peninsula, 54 kilometres around. A vast expanse of luminous water, changeable with the light and seasons; sometimes milky pale and silver, or azure blue and shimmering in the lazy heat of noon.  Ringed by misty mountains it makes a perfect backdrop for the fortified town of Castiglione del Lago.  The way the town juts out on a promontory means that it is almost completely surrounded by water and seems to dominate the lake.  This is the landscape of Perugino and for landlocked Umbrians, this inviting cool blue water has the magnetic pull of an ocean.