17 Wednesday Sep 2014
Break-in has occurred at 6th Canto:
Suspect-1 has overdosed on sale [salt]
Suspect-2 fast confirmed Insano [insane]
Plates filled and emptied, grazie. [thanks]
Only Defense appears in Photo: [Sole/Soul]
Never came close to caffè latte.
Ingredients, even names on occasion, should you ask Virgil upon waking.
17 Wednesday Sep 2014
Gluttony, as I seem to recall, can be found in the third circle of the Inferno (along with continuous rain and a junk-yard dog with a super-mean bite).
Look for us there tonight, as we journey to the home of Daniella and Luciano, among the finest cooks and hosts in all of Spoleto.
One night a week, they invite the guests of local apartment owners to feast on traditional Umbrian family fare.
And when their guests leave, hours later, they have had more than their fill of food and drink.
Whence they head back home, having made pigs of themselves, to lie down in the Inferno’s mud and go to sleep.
Object to the crude slop in Dante’s trope, if you wish. But check the news at 11:00 for the evening’s menu.
17 Wednesday Sep 2014
Posted in Travel
Re: Operatic voice I could just barely hear outside the cucina window, as I filled the moka maker and began to start our day.
Opening the window confirmed the genre and gender (as if they were ever in doubt). Live or memorex, still the quandary in that old commercial lingers.
16 Tuesday Sep 2014
Posted in Travel
16 Tuesday Sep 2014
Posted in Food
Not all that’s Italian is simple, certainly, nor vice versa.
Saturday’s “Simple Chicken,” for example. A wonderful dish, wonderfully simple to make. Thanks, Karen, for the recipe’s touch of home.
Repeating it again tonight makes supper a breeze, leaving Rebecca more time to paint up a storm with her new brushes. Broad and urgent, the strokes.
With me, blog calls for a change of pace. Then 3-ring circus of new Nightstand awaits. A good thing, since the rains seem to be springing up from nowhere.
16 Tuesday Sep 2014
Posted in Food
I always take my meds each day as directed.
Plus a healthy dose of frutta e verdura.
But Umbria’s also known for porchetta.
And now and again, no doc’s objected.
14 Sunday Sep 2014
Posted in Travel
With a sunny Sunday for a welcomed change, no better time for the Italian, religion, history, and transportation lessons to continue.
Off to the church of Madonna di Loreto it is, then! Assuming, the “comforting and sheltering” portico di Loreto runs far enough, or the traffic’s observance of the sabbath slows enough, to get us from porta S. Matteo to the outskirts of town–all in one piece.
News at 11:00pm.
13 Saturday Sep 2014
Posted in Food
Il pane, l’olio d’oliva, l’aglio, il sale. E il panne, l’olio d’oliva, i pomodori.
La zuppa di lenticchie, il farro, i porri
La pasta, il sugo di pomodori.
E il formaggio.
So simple: bread, butter, garlic, SALT, tomato; lentils, faro, leeks; pasta, sauce. CHEESE.
So good!
12 Friday Sep 2014
Posted in Travel
Don’t get me wrong. La Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, the Duomo, is quite magnificent–and its Piazza, with or without the festival in play, truly an amazing sight to behold as you come upon it, unexpectedly (as captured in these photos from October 2013).
But what a difference a year makes. More than ten days have passed, and we have not felt the need to rush out and see it, perhaps because we knew we had penciled in the “rock” dance performance (details unknown) in the Duomo piazza for this afternoon. Pictures to follow, weather permitting.
But it’s raining at the moment. Weather man calling for more. Not that we put much stock in the predictions when the clouds, and your relation to them, turn on a dime. So we’ll see. In the meantime, images from near and far stick around to play in our minds:
12 Friday Sep 2014
Posted in Food
With the door shut tight and without any light or movement inside, the sign required little translation:
Once the shopkeeper arrived, however, there was just no slowing her down. Fluttering around the il piccolo alimentari (a small deli), words flew faster than any hands or ears could catch them. We, of course, simply had to come away with most of them in our bag. A good thing, too. I mean, a very good thing:
Now, if we only knew the name. Not for a lack of trying: Il nome?, we ask. Something something something something, she replies. A quizzical look, we provide. Something crema something something, she offers again. Another quizzical look follows. La dolche crema di something something, the words are starting finally to get through. In the end, maybe, something like this: La dolche crema di mozzarella di bufafa. Yes, that’s right: we definitely like this.