If you truly wish to experience the region of Umbria, “Italy’s green heart,” head with me to our (green!) countryside to meet our rural friends. Just ask Nancy (from San Francisco) about…
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How do the Umbrians start Easter? Feasting, logicamente: before Mass, a breakfast of a glass of robust red wine, savory cheesebread topped with homemade (if possible) salami or prosciutto or capocollo and…
In June, strawberries will be in our garden – and strawberry tiramisu will often be dessert for dinner guests. In July, peaches come along and this dish is also buonissimo using peaches…
It’s not just the delectabler rural feast she cooks up that makes a meal in Giuseppa’s farmhouse near Deruta memorable: it’s her obvious joy as she serves up the foods the family…
The tiny village of Cantalupo near Bevagna is famous for snails, in fact there’s not much there except the Ristorante L’umaca D’Oro (“The Golden Snail Restaurant”). Most food festivals – le sagre…
Somewhere near the main piazza of any Italian town – no matter now small – il monumento ai caduti (literally, “the monument to the falllen”) – pays tribute to those townspeople who…
A small frazione (a “fraction” or suburb) of Assisi, Rivotorto, has a big heart: for three mid-February nights, local volunteers cooked up Norcia specialties as a fund-raiser for this southeastern Umbrian mountain…
Italy’s “good-eating” region is certamente Emilia Romagna where the region’s capital city, elegant, porticoed Bologna, lives up to its appellation, “la città del cibo” (“the city of food”). Bologna, Emilia Romagna porticoed…
Nowadays, only one farmwoman, Novella, sells her vegetables at Piazzetta dell’Erba (“the little piazza of the grass/grasses”, i.e. vegetables) Only Novella today at Assisi’s Piazzetta dell’Erba But years ago, the entire small…
Week-end ballroom dancing, kaleidoscope parades of floats topped with costumed and masked ebullient children and adults – and myriads of enticing sweets – tell you Carnevale (Mardi Gras) has arrived in Italy,…