On a recent mid-March Spoleto guided tour, my tour guests and I spotted a shop window displaying perfume bottles flanked by branches of yellow mimosa tied with yellow bows: In harmony with the bright yellow of the flowers was my yellow mask, the same one I had been wearing on March 8th, International Women’s Day,…
If you read my recent note on Giuseppa making her homemade fettuccine, you’ll already know that the best in the rural cuisine of Umbria reigns in the farmhouse kitchen of Giuseppa, in the Deruta countryside. Come with me for lunch at Giuseppa’s after our morning tour of Perugia and enjoy the feast. After the pasta,…
In the Deruta countryside, Giuseppa opens home and heart to all. When you arrive, Giuseppa comes out of her house, perhaps with her two beloved Jack Russells and that welcoming smile says it all: On a recent visit there to video Giuseppa cooking up Umbria goodness, we stopped first to see the prosciutti aging in the cellar…
A box of Carnaroli rice in the kitchen cupboard, a pot of meat broth on our stove, a hefty chunk of orange winter squash on the table and snow flurries and biting wind outside joined together to inspire a recent lunch dish: risotto alla zucca. Carnaroli is the preferred variety for many for risotto… …although…
Years ago, when Pino and I worked the land here in the hills outside Assisi, our rural neighbors taught us how to prune our vineyard, harvest our olives, scythe field greens for our rabbits, raise our pigs and turn them into prosciutto, capocollo and salami. We learned how to cook up the geese, guinea…
Prosciutto, pancetta, salami, salsicce, coppa, barbozza. The names unite in an enticing rhythm, so appealing to your ear. Even if you’re a vegetarian. When I dropped in recently at the house of rural neighbors Peppe and Gentile, their daughter Paola and her husband Leandro were putting finishing touches to many of these items: “gifts” from…
Steps away from Naples’ Gothic Church of Santa Chiara…..….. ……the Baroque Gesu’ Nuovo church sits in solemn splendor on the Piazza Gesu’ Nuovo. The “New Jesus” church (the name deliberately distinguishes it from a pre-existing Naples Gesu’ church, called “Gesu Vecchio“) was built on the site of the 15th-century palace of the powerful Prince of…
In the difficult years following World War II, in the working class district of Naples, i quartieri spagnoli (“the Spanish quarter”)…………many a creative napoletano became adept at the art of arrangiarsi (literally, “to arrange oneself,” i.e., invent a way to survive). Many depended on some sort of income from the American soldiers, including Elisabetta Vitiello, who opened a…
The Basilica di Santa Chiara in Naples is a regal church…..– and not only for its elegance but for the purpose of its construction: to house the bodies of the royal descendants of the Angiovin king, Roberto I, called “il Saggio” (“the Wise”). The Angiovin coat-of-arms incised in marble greets the visitor walking up the main…
Crowded and colorful, bustling, energetic, and animated, gritty and crumbling – no panoply of words can ever describe Naples’ Quartieri Spagnoli. The street network of the “Spanish district” was set out in the 17th-century during the Spanish rule of the Kingdom of Naples. The troops were quartered here in this district bordered by one of the main…