When our children were small, we headed to Palermo and Pino’s family every August – no visit complete without an all-family outing to Scopello. Our children and their palermitano cousins would scramble to the peaks of the rocky outcrops (“i faraglioni”) rising out of the aquamarine sea and gleefully leap off, arms spread and windmill-spinning, screaming…
The openings of the tower’s embrasures (once used for the shooting out of crossbows) had been covered over with wire netting and the birds were frantic: their nests were inside. Animal-loving (or at least “bird-loving”!), passers-by had noted the frantic flutter of wings and called the LIPA (Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli). The Italian bird-protection league…
The milling of the just-picked olives calls for a celebration. Pino called up Peppa as soon as the mill confirmed a date for the pressing of our olives: “Portiamo l’olio per la bruschetta” (“we’re bringing the olive oil for the bruschetta”). Peggy – now staying in our Assisi rental apartment – had joined in our…
We were on our way to Peppa’s for castagne e vino novello (roasted chestnuts with the new wine) when Pino’s phone rang: our turn coming up, pressing of our olives within the hour. Baldino and wife, Marisa join Peppa and Giancarlo for a feast. We’d picked our olives last week-end (well, most of them…) and…
It was a race against time this year. We’d hoped to get our olives picked before the predicted rainstorms arrived. I was up early on Saturday to make an olive harvest lunch for our gatherers, opting for an old favorite of farm women cooking for farmhands at harvest time: il sugo del contadino. “The pasta…
Verona’s Monet show drew us to this Veneto region splendor for an early November three-day weekend. …and Monet just headed up a parade of pleasures. His paintbrush could have created masterpiece views of Piazza delle Erbe, “la piu’ bella piazza di Verona”, seen from our B&B window, cyclamens on the ledge. A stroll from “our”…
These days, yellow and white banners – the colors of the Vatican flag – flutter off balconies and over pointed-arched medieval doorways cheerily blending with the vases of red geraniums hanging on Assisi pink limestone homes. The town launched into festive mode as of late September, preparing in collective euphoria for the arrival of Pope…
On the last day of Citta’ della Pieve’s October saffron festival, guided visits through the town focus on “the saffron hues in Renaissance master Perugino’s Citta’ della Pieve masterpieces.” Art intertwined with a culinary celebration: where else but in Italy? Diane and I missed the guided Perugino tours on our visit to the Giornate della…
We let the celery lead on a late October Sunday in Trevi. After all, we were there for the celebration of the renowned sedano nero (“black celery”) of Trevi, one of fifteen or so IGP products of Umbria (Indicazione Geografica Protetta – indicating a product which may be grown ONLY in a specifically restricted area).…
On October 3rd – date of the death of St. Francis of Assisi in 1226 – hundreds of African and Syrian refugees tragically died, too, drowning close to the coast of the island of Lampedusa. Fleeing hunger, wars and denial of basic human rites in their own country, they did not quite make it to…