Actor Willem Dafoe’s comment about the Van Gogh film “At Eternity’s Gate” (at the Golden Globe awards) struck me: “It really deeply affects people because it changes how you see things. It…
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On the week-end after the feast of the beloved St. Anthony Abbot (January 17th), the blessings of the animals takes place all over Italy. Many a medieval hilltown fetes Sant’Antonio for days…
It was an icy January day outside but warmth enveloped in Peppa’s house. And it wasn’t just the warmth of the wood stove where Pino toasted us la bruschetta …nor the warmth of…
You might know that Norcia, Umbria medieval mountain-town gem, is famous for its norcinerie. “Norcineria” can’t be translated with a single word: “a pork-butchery store selling other local products” sums it up. And…
Even the torrone – Christmas nougat – closing our mid-December Christmastime feast with a sweet note, was homemade. A Nello specialty. Nello, hard-working farmer and torrone-confectioner …
Groveling black pigs, sprouting saffron, the harvesting of mountain grapes and a banquet lunch turned an October outing with our daughter Giulia into “an event to remember.” Giulia even did a video…
As always, we celebrate our Thanksgiving the Sunday after the holiday and fourteen of us celebrated the Festa di Ringraziamento together this year. ….and today for lunch, I nibbled bits of our leftovers.. There…
We’d first savored la roveja legume a few winters back in Cascia during the Umbrian mountain town’s winter festival starring this “lost bean.” Cascia in January Roveja…
First stop on our return from the olive oil mill with our just-pressed oil? At Peppa’s to let her judge the goodness. She’d been out harvesting her own olives with her sons…
They called us into the olive mill yesterday: it was our turn. Pressing time for our 300 k+ of olives which we’d hauled in the day prior. Delivery of our…