Don’t miss wandering the medieval backstreets of Spello, floral profusion in springtime: Roman arches span a few of them… Near the top of the town, you’ll come to the Roman Arch of Augustus: …..and adjacent to it, feast your eyes on a beautifully-restored medieval tower. Called, “la Torre di San Severino” as it flanks the…
That rich coral-orange winter squash appeals to the eye as well as to the palate. I’m cooking with it frequently now in November, making soups, pasta dishes and antipasti. Here’s today’s pasta dish: Fusilli con Zucca, Prosciutto e Salvia (Fusilli Pasta with Winter Squash, Prosciutto and Sage) Ingredients (for 4 – 6 persons, approximately) Pasta…
That rich orange winter squash has enhanced many a soup and pasta dish for us this November. Today, polpette di zucca are browning in the oven of our wood stove. You’d literally translate “polpette” as “meat balls” but no meat in these winter squash patties. Here’s how to make Polpette di Zucca Ingredients about 1…
Thanksgiving is around the corner and winter squash will enhance many a “Turkey Day” feast. Here in Umbria, too, winter squash stars in many a dish from antipasti to gnocchi to soups to pasta dishes. Today for lunch we enjoyed winter squash/ricotta pasta. So tasty and quick and easy to make: why not enjoy this…
On a chilly November day, we headed to Sugano near Orvieto where Pino is working on restoration of the farmhouse of our son Keegan and his wife, Francesca. The winding road took us past Orvieto, perched on the volcanic rock plateau in the pearly November mist. [lcaption]Orvieto[/lcaption] We were headed to the Ritrovo del Cacciatore…
Woodstove chugging away these days as November chill sets in….finalmente, after an inordinately warm fall. The wood stove top is perfect for simmering soups and the speckled beans, borlotti, joined farro (the oldest wheat variety every cultivated) in a soup I made recently. Here’s the recipe: Borlotti/Farro Soup (for 4 – 6) Ingredients (note: all…
It’s always a joy to cook up Umbria with guests and delighted, Heidi, that you and your family and friends, cooked with me in our farmhouse kitchen. It made me smile to know that our day together was the favorite one of your vacation as you wrote in your note to me: “My favorite day…
Gathering together at the village wash area to scrub the family laundry was often a social highlight of the day for women of the small villages in Italy. Chattering animated the scrubbing but so did song. In 2013, Simonetta Chiaretti, born in Bolsena in the Tuscia area of central Italy (province of Viterbo, Latium), united…
Cultivated at nearly 1500 m on the vast Piano Grande (“Great Plain”), the famous tiny lenticchie di Castelluccio (Castelluccio lentils) cook quickly due to their thin, tender hull. [lcaption]Lentils in flower on the Piano Grande[/lcaption] [lcaption]Tender, small lenticchie di Castelluccio[/lcaption] I used our last packet of Castelluccio lentils yesterday for una zuppa di lenticchie. Before…
On an August day, exploring the Valnerina area, we stopped outside the medieval hilltown of tiny Preci for lunch, a bit mystified by the ristorante name, “Ristorante Il Castoro.” The “beaver”? No beavers here in Italy. The owner later told us that the name derived from the name of the nearby valley, Val Castoriana. [lcaption]Preci[/lcaption]…