La cicoria d’autunno is not the most tender, Peppa explained to me as we gathered wild chicory today in our field up behind the donkey pen. “Quella di maggio e’ la migliore”,…
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We recently headed back to the Mugello valley for a weekend with the warm, welcoming Manetti family (and, of course, Mamma Gianna’s cooking is an enticement, too). Funghi ended up being a…
I wasn’t visiting anyone in particular as I walked through Assisi’s cemetery on November 1st, but everyone I met there was: visitors had armfuls of lilies or bright yellow chrysanthemums for the…
“La macchina di Santa Rosa” is not the “car” of Santa Rosa, nor of anyone for that matter: it’s not even a car…but a “construction”, to put it in very understated simple…
When you are next in Umbria, why not stay in “Il Nido Tranquillo” (“The Tranquil Nest”)? The name perfectly fits this snug little apartment for two in the quiet medieval backstreets of…
Last white grapes still to be picked[/caption]“Poco ma buono” , wine experts unanimously declare the 2012 vintage. The lack of rain and intense summer heat hampered the proper maturation of the grapes,…
“…Nerone infiamma il Centrosud…e dopo…arriva Caligola”, early August newspaper tidbits report here in Italy: “Nero inflames central/southern Italy…and later…Caligula is coming..” According to an erroneous legend, the emperor Nero (Nerone) played his…
In the Middle Ages, the disparaging term “Il norcino” (literally meaning, “from Norcia”) grouped together a variety of improvisational impersonators of i chirurghi (‘surgeons”): il cerusico (“barber/surgeon), il cava-denti (tooth-extractor), and il…
Ah, Italy “the land of the endless discoveries.” One never finishes discovering the wonders “above ground” – let alone underground! And sometimes, serendipity leads you to yet another discovery. Gray weather at…
A friend joined me for the adventure: we took a curvy wooded road into the Valnerina and then up into the Sibiliine mountains in southern Umbria, until we came to tiny Preci…