Hot summer days bring “panzanella time” to central Italy. This rural dish of la cucina povera (literally “cooking of the poor man,” ie humble cuisine), la panzanella (bread salad) is a perfect summer food for the hard-working rural people: tasty, filling and simple ingredients, not requiring cooking over a hot stove and easily prepared prior…
Linda and Ken left us this note after their June 2017 stay in our Casa Nuova country apartment: “Thanks to a mutual friend, we were able to meet you – what a gift! Assisi was alive because of you. Ken and I so appreciate your kindness and warmth. You made us feel at home, right from…
A highpoint of springtime in Umbria – indeed, of all of central Italy – is Assisi’s stunning early May medieval festival, Calendimaggio, welcoming the arrival of spring in four days of glorious euphoria. The splendid medieval pageantry is certainly a highlight of my annual early May ten-day Annesitaly “Inside Umbria” Celebration for ten people ready…
….and not just a kaleidoscope of flowers but seeds, wild field greens, wild fennel, leaves, and walnut, cypress and other seed pods blend in stunning floral tapestries to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Domini (sixty days after Easter) in Spello each year. This medieval hill town’s piazzas and labyrinthine alleyways are carpeted with sublime floral…
Si! Good things can come in fours: try this buonissima pasta sauce made with four cheeses: Pasta ai Quattro Formaggi Ingredients (for 5 – 6 persons): about 1/4 cup each of four cheeses: gorgonzola, groviera (gruyère – or Emmenthal, Swiss cheese), pecorino romano, a mild cheese milk, q. b. (“quanto basta” or “ as much…
No doubt about it: Spello’s full floral blossoming is always the Sunday morning of Corpus Domini, sixty days after Easter, when the Host is carried in solemn procession over the stunning floral tapestries carpeting Spello’s medieval alleyways and piazzas. But to share in la passione spellana for le Infiorate, you’ll want to head to Spello…
We just picked our last fava beans for this year and some are now in the freezer. The other day, the fava beans highlighted a simple tasty, pasta dish, pasta con le fave – the way Peppa makes this dish. And do enjoy the recipe for Pasta con le Fave Ingredients fresh fava beans, about…
In 1971, Alice Waters basically launched a California version of the Mediterranean diet when opening Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, promoting farm-to-table fresh local ingredients. Although I’d studied at UCB in the early 70’s, I finally tried out Chez Panisse just a couple years ago although I was rather puzzled by its rave reviews. The…
With hot weather, nothing more refreshing than pasta with a fresh tomato sauce. Why have a sauce simmering on a hot stove on a steamy summer day, after all? You might ask, “Why have pasta at all for lunch on a hot day?” For an Italian, though, what’s lunch without pasta? Years ago, Pino’s wonderful…
Sharing Umbrian rural culinary lore tidbits is always part of my U.S. Umbrian rural cuisine events (and when cooking with guests in our Assisi farmhouse). Like “fare la scarpetta,” that (acceptable) Italian custom of cleaning up tomato sauce or succulent juices of meats by wiping the plate clean with a piece of bread, What laughs…