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Thursday, June 28, 2012

New Stuff On The Homefront


Mom was wanting a few changes and one of them that she was looking at was a new patio.  Mom's moving forward with project #1.... 

They started on Wednesday pulling up all the old pavers that dad had laid numerous years ago (can't even remember how long ago).  They had looked at the bricks and determined that they were actually still good so, to save some money, mom opted to keep the old bricks, clean them up and re-lay them.  Wednesday they pulled the all up and cleaned the off and then laid out the outline for the new patio.

They're also just re-laying the whole sidewalk area as well so they busted that up.  I'm really sad now, though, because I didn't think until I saw it gone --- Karl, our names our gone :(  Karl had written his name and mine and the date (1973?) at the very end of the sidewalk by the driveway and they chopped that up and threw it away..... So sad.....

They're putting a little sidewalk around the side as well and then there will be stairs from the end of the porch as well - which will be nice because I know I always tend to just jump off that way and I know other people do too so - how convenient for us all now.

I'm downtown today for work so I can't wait to see how much more they've progressed today.  I left home before they got there so I don't even know what they're doing today.  Oh - we're also having the garden on the side of the garage replanted as well as the side of the house.  I asked them to keep the climatis there just because those were dad's babies, he always did like them.  We'll see if they can salvage the and get them to start growing fuller.

I'll keep you all updated!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Best Day Ever! - ITALY




And now for the best day ever!  This was honestly, almost all of us, one of our favorite days ever! We got to chill out at the house in the morning and then in the afternoon, Tita and Nonie of Umbriacooks4u came out to our house to give us cooking lessons.  Look them up if you're in Italy!

Actually, kind of a funny story.  I don't know if I mentioned before, but our house in Umbria was clear at the top of this mountain and you had to take these twisty, gravel, nowhere roads and it could be kind of hard sometimes, but we thought the directions that had been given us were pretty clear so we passed the same directions along to Tita and Nonie.


Around 2pm, Kim, Melody and I decided to go down to town, Pietralunga - about 15 minutes from our house - just to hit the grocery store, the bakery and grab a cappuccino.  We expected Tita and Nonie around 4 so around 3:30 we decided to head back to the house.  We hopped in the car and started back through the town and then up the hill.  The roads up the hill led to a few different houses and such and we sometimes saw traffic but not that often.  Well, this afternoon there was a white car in front of us when we turned.  I just got this feeling.  We're following it and its going pretty slow (which I do go a little fast :)) and then I see the passenger is holding a paper and I jokingly said "I bet anything thats the cooking class people".  We laughed and haltingly followed them a mile or so more and then the car all of a sudden just make a u-turn and pulls over onto the side of the road.  I stopped and I said again that it was probably the cooking class people but this time I was serious.  Kim ended up going up to the car, the two women inside looked a little frightened and then all of a sudden you saw these arms fly out of the drivers window and grab Kim and theres a lot of smiling and laughing that we can see and then Kim runs back to our car and says that indeed, it was Tita and Nonie and they were getting ready to just turn around and go back because they thought they were lost.

They ended up following us up to the house, and I laughed when Nonie (who is an American who married an Italian and moved to Umbria back in 1973) said that I drove crazy like the locals.  And I was really trying to go slow as they followed me.  No worries, we got to the house safe and sound and Tita and Nonie said to just relax while they put everything together for the class.  FYI - Tita is Italian and speaks hardly any English so Nonie did all the talking/translating as well as the cooking.



Tita and Nonie came in and arranged everything and brought all the cooking goods and foods with them -- we didn't have to do anything except enjoy and learn -- AND EAT!




We started in the kitchen actually making dessert (thats Nonie watching...)



And then we moved to the dining room to start making "Torta Rustica" with Tita.


Back in the kitchen to cook the Torta Rustica....  These are flat bread things that the farmers in Umbria used to be able to mix in one dish and then they would bake them on top of hot stones in their "campfire".



A finished Torta Rustica!

Back in the kitchen to do Tita's Torta Rustica Pie...

We all took turns doing stuff so sometimes, we got a little down time....

 One completed Torta Rustica Pie...

Now moving onto oven baked tomatos - Tita and Nonie showing us how to sprinkle the herbs on the tomatos -- like we're sowing seeds or fairy dust.....

Umrbia and Tuscany tends to have more "virgin" foods that are not with thick sauces.  Because this is the region where olives and wines come from and are grown, much of their cooking is with olive oils whereas down south, they don't have oil as much so they do the thicker sauces, and up north, by Milan, they don't have the oils either so they use butter a lot in their cooking.



Onto chickpea soup -- it has to have a herb bouquet that you kind of "fry" up in the a saucepan with olive oil...


Broccoli souffle kind of things....

Back to the chickpea soup...

Flambing veal for the main course...
 The tomatos are finished about now...

Ohhh - crazy - Parmesan baskets....




Filling the Parmesan baskets with pear compote kind of stuff....




And then we got to sit down and eat!  Tita and Nonie set the table and served us and cleaned up - all we did was learn how to cook and enjoy!


The appetizer - Two kinds of Torta Rustica and then the Torta Rustica pie and the Pear and Parmesan baskets.


Second course - Chickpea soup



Pasta is always its own course - spaghetti with oven roasted tomatos.

Main course - veal and broccoli souffles.

Dessert - hot chocolate "lava" cakes.....




And after Tita and Nonie cleaned up, we all had to do a group picture to remember one of the best nights ever!


Sunday, June 24, 2012

Tuesday - Two Trips In One - ITALY

Tuesday was a rearranged day -- we had planned on doing a little Chianti bike trip around the region in Tuscany to do wine tasting.  After we got to our house and figured how long it took us to get everywhere, we decided to rearrange this day and stay in Umbria, closer to our house.  We still wanted to do wine tasting so, we found a winery closer and took off over the hills to find Lungarotti Winery....



Since it was off season, we got a one on one tour.  The winery wasn't really busy and all the wine was snuggled away in their little barrels, waiting to emerge as class 1 wine.  We got to tour all around the winery and see all the nooks and cranies of the winery and then we got to do a wine tasting.  

 Inside the winery, some of the oak barrels where the wine "gets good".  These are red wines in the barrels.

These are refrigerated "barrels" for white wines.

This is a reserve room for the special red wines.  All the barrels are specific for the wine and are made with all different kinds of wood.  They smelled wonderful!

Labelling and bottling area.
 These are actually sparkling wines.  They have this process of letting all the sediment settle and the have to turn the bottles every now and again and then remove the sediment.

The Lungarotti "famous" red wine.
 Wine tasting time!


 A little family drinking.... Like aunt like niece....

We finished up early afternoon and decided we weren't done with the day yet so we took a quick 30 minute trip over to ASSISI.  I LOVED Assisi!


Stopping outside the city to take pictures...

 Parked and walking inside the city walls...



 Our resident navigator - in car and out....









 This was Brittany's first trip out of the states - that being said - she'd never been in a cathedral in Europe.  I had told her several times that once you see a cathedral in Europe, you've seen them all.  So - I figured it was time to make her see them all....



Outside the cathedral - supposed to be the lions eating the martyrs.

The original ruins of the cathedral underneath - from like the 1500s....


Not me......


Not us....
 Another cathedral on the other side of town -- but this one IS the cathedral of St Francis of Assisi.

This is St Francis and his cathedral.