Erika, invited to our cooking class in the Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Showroom in Sacramento, summed up our cooking-and-feasting evening this way: “You truly transported us to the Italian countryside –…
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When you walk into the Barcellos family wine cellar in the San Joaquin valley, the poster on the wall near the door tells you everything about this warm and welcoming Fresno family:…
For the second year, a joy to bring “love and passion of cooking” to Fresno. Glad you picked up la passione, too, Marina and Pasquale…and all Merv’s other guests cooking in a…
How good to reunite with lovely Paula! She’d joined in an Umbrian rural cuisine cooking class last year in Laguna Beach – and this year, hosted her own class (with colleague, Gary)…
No better way to spend an icy January week-end than in Arezzo, especially if you’re staying at the warm and welcoming Casa Volpi. After meanders in nearby Monterchi, we arrived close to…
This first “Inside Umbria” adventure for ten persons simply has to be called “a celebration”: we’re celebrating husband Pino’s superb restoration work on our Assisi farmhouse apartments, Assisi Casa Campagna, with an…
While leading his long-horned oxen and playing his organetto, Peppe de Lillo sang le pasquarelle (traditional mountain verses) in harmony with a tambourine-player, launching Cascia’s “Festa delle Tradizioni Rurali”. Medieval hilltown, Cascia,…
Founder of the concept of the albergo diffuso (“scattered hotel” might be the best translation?), Giancarlo dall’Ara summed it up this way: “I think of an albergo diffuso as a novel that…
L’Aquila’s Christmas-market booths are backdropped by scaffolded buildings, devastated in the 2009 earthquake. A towering Christmas tree laced with dim twinkling lights in the main square stands tall in front of the…
Pino had warned me not to hang the braids of purple onions over the stove: “troppo caldo – spunteranno” (“too hot – they’ll sprout”). Of course, i knew he was right –…