“Un Pugno di Sale” Adds to the Palos Verdes Class (Feb 9, 2013)

Another great cooking group the other night in Palos Verdes, CA – and once again, my U.S. tour’s theme “cooking is connecting” came to life as old friends cooked together and new friendships were formed while chopping and mixing, stirring and blending…and learning that “un pugno di sale” (“a small fistful of salt”) is what most dishes for 12 or so will need.
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Pitigliano… Medieval Wonder and Jewish Heritage

Pitigliano, precariously perched on a lava rock precipice, is on the eastern side of Lake Bolsena in southern Tuscany. Like the town of Bolsena on the Latium side of the lake, medieval Pitigliano is built in volcanic stone. While Bolsena’s lava stone is black/gray, Pitigliano’s porous stone is yellowish. As we strolled through the town not long ago, I reflected on how the porous yellowed lava rock of this medieval hilltown reminded me of the grizzly and stubbly face of an old man, skin weathered by sun.
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Assisi’s Christmas of “Il Poverello”

ven the holiday decorations in the medieval hilltown of Assisi – citta’ della pace – bear witness to San Francesco:  simplicity is the theme.  Over twenty-five years ago, Pope John Paul II chose Assisi as the perfect site for his peace gathering, inviting here 160 world religious leaders for interfaith dialogue;  “Il Poverello”, San Francesco, born here at the end of the 12th-century, is known worldwide as an emblem of peace, poverty and simplicity.
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Look Up to See Assisi’s Artworks

As Christmas approaches, many an elderly Assisi nonna is telling her grandchildren about Gesu Bambino’s arrival when she was a child: the children left out hay for the donkey of il Bambino and pasta dolce for Gesu. The pasta dolce and fieno were gone when the excited children crept down in the morning – but clumps of donkey droppings were outside the door – and the grateful Bambino had left tangergines, a handful of walnuts, maybe a few chocolates. What excitement!
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La Madonna di Citerna Comes Home

The tiny northern Umbria village, Citerna (pop. 3500), – ever heard of it? – will now be highlighted on the Italy map of any art-lover (and not only): after years of painstaking restoration, the early 15th-century polychrome sculptural wonder of Donatello, aptly named “La Madonna di Citerna,” has come home – to the village church of San Francesco. With the fanfare a queen merits.
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Turkey Goodness, Pino-style

Pino’s way to season a Thankgiving – or Christmas – turkey is a far cry from those U.S. “butterball” birds, complete with inserted thermometer to tell you how long to cook it! When we farmed, Pino slaughtered one of our turkeys, then plunged it into boiling water to loosen the feathers: the plucking and gutting was up to me. I’d do the stuffing, Pino did the basting…and then that turkey was roasted at Ristorante da Giovannino down the road: those birds were too big for our wood-burning stove oven!
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Woodstove Revival in Umbria

“L’Italia si riscalda a legna e brucia il caro bolletta” (“Italy is heating with wood – burning up the costly bill” – i.e, heating bill), a local Umbrian paper reported recently. Yes, as fuel costs soar, wood is back, fire has been re-discovered. Although we have propane gas heating – methane heats many a home, too – we hardly ever use it: our woodstove is used not only for all our cooking and baking but also heats our water and warms the house (circulating heat through the floors). Many an Italian home is woodstove-warmed today: since early 2012, the importation of legna da ardere (literally, “wood to burn”) is up 26% and the consumption of gas oli has dropped nearly 50% over the last twenty years. Over six million wood-burning stoves and fireplaces have been lit as cold weather moves in: an all-time record. Italy is now the world’s lead importer of firewood notwithstanding our 10. 4 million hectares of forest.
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Umbria’s Wild Boar Hunters

“Quando piove e tira vento, il cacciatore perde tempo” (“when it rains and the wind blows, the hunter wastes his time”) says the old saying, thus verifying why Ristorante/Bar Da Giovannino near our house was full of wild boar-hunters on a recent Saturday. Needle-like rain bucketed down as hunters in camouflage suits and the required fluorescent vests sat in the bar, sharing “missed hits” stories of past cinghiale hunts over espresso or panini di prosciutto with vino rosso – or shots of grappa (“takes the chill out of the bones”, elderly Siverio affirmed). All headed out for wild boar as soon as the rain let up. Two caposquadra (“team leaders”), Sergio and Italo, left with kilos of sliced prosciutti and paper bags of sliced bread for their squadra – about 30 of the 50 men would hunt that day – all hunters equipped with radios in their pockets (required by law) so that each knows the location of all. The number of dogs they’ll take varies: a team of about thirty will use twenty dogs or more.
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