So said Pliny and he was probably right

The good green stuff

          "Sip the wine and splash the oil." Pliny the Elder (Rome, 1st C AD). Good old Pliny, always there with a pithy comment. 


           The third week of November is the highlight of our year, when ten friends from four countries arrive on Via Palombaro to spend a week picking our olives, drinking the local garage wine, and catching up on what has happened in the U.S., the Netherlands, Namibia, England and Italy over the last year. 


           What is it about olive picking that is so engaging, so refreshing to mind and body? Is it the fresh air? Is it the respite from ongoing (and often tiresome) responsibilities? A chance to get back to basics, to the relationship between humans and the land? A moment to be with friends, without cell phones ringing or texting, appointments waiting, chores to do?

Pickin' and grinnin'

    There is nothing more satisfying than standing with your upper half hidden within a net of olive branches, filling the basket across your chest with the fruit that has emerged after another flinty Umbrian winter, drenched spring, and bone dry summer. Looking from the house, it seems that the olive trees have each grown a set of denimed legs. 


            The aimless chatter of familiar voices emits from the trees like birdsong, spiced with laughter, hoots and hollers, and sometimes a song (our Swedish friend comes from Todi to pick with us and amuses himself by singing Scandinavian folk tunes). Occasionally, a mild expletive that soars across the field, when a basket full of olives is dropped, if the olives begin to roll off the net and down the hill, or if a ladder shifts, throwing its occupant to the ground. 

The end of the day

           With regard to our friend, Pliny the Elder, we can't say that the Olivistas exactly sip the wine during Olive Picking Week. We probably splash both the vino and the olio, if truth be known. We work hard, we have fun, and we end up with something tangible and delicious: nuovo olio, the new oil, fresh, green, something we contributed to producing with our own hands. It's not digital, it's simply delicious. 
    


   

Life is Just an Ocean of Cherries; What to Do About It

    Somewhere around 1998 we planted a cherry tree at La Casetta Rosa, our house down the road. We just love cherries. For years, we had a few cherries here and there, most of which were enjoyed by the birds and the wasps before we ever got to them. This year, though, things were a bit different. Our cherry tree went on a growth spurt never seen by the likes of humans and 2011 will be a harvest for the ages. We picked cherries and gave them to friends, we picked cherries and ate them and ate them and ate them and gave more to friends.
    Finally, we recognized a problem: we needed to do something about the cherries filling up our kitchen and quick. Otherwise, they would all be ruined. Last Sunday morning I got up early and consulted my recipe books. I went into storeroom #2 and found a dusty box of empty canning jars, left over from the summer Jim and Carolyn stayed and went crazy making fig preserves. 

    I decided to start with Ciliegie sotto Spirito, a tasty concoction of 1) cherries 2) sugar and 3) pure grain alcohol. I found a bottle of the spirits in the back of the pantry, where it had lain since the year we made plum wine. (That's a whole 'nother story; suffice it to say that one of the bottles was left in the sun by some workers painting the living room and it blew up, scattering broken glass and plum wine all over the terrace, where every bee within flying distance arrived within thirty seconds to drown in sweet delight. A real mess).
     So, I started with the white lightning recipe, filling several liter jars. Next, I moved on to pickled cherries with white wine, white vinegar and fresh tarragon (called dragoncello in Italian, such a wonderful name). After that, I still had a few empty jars, so we tried pickled cherries in red wine, balsamic vinegar and brown sugar. Then we were out of jars and, as it was Sunday, the stores were closed. There were still a lot of cherries, even counting what we would eat with our lunch guests, with our dinner, and for breakfast the next day.
     Back to the computer. There is no cherry pitting implement in our kitchen, so I needed a recipe for how to freeze cherries with the stones in. Found out you wash them, dry them, spread them out in single layers to freeze separately and then put them together in Ziplock bags in the freezer. This was all well and good, but my freezer, which isn't the largest, was full of figs and plums from last year, along with a variety of things including a bag of Parmesan rinds for winter soups, half a frozen polenta cake from Christmas, and half a bottle of sorbetto limone with pro secco. The cake and some other over-aged packages (Il Magnifico calls them left-evers) got tossed, the sorbetto was consumed and we were in business freezing cherries. Supposedly, they will last a year and will taste like fresh fruit when defrosted. I will report back.

Romance in a Single Bite: A St. Valentine's Day Tale

“What is love if not the language of the heart?” “My soul is a furnace of love: stoke it to the full.” “A loving heart is forever young.”

     You carefully unwrap the silver foil. Then, as you savor the silky richness of a Perugina Baci in your mouth, you smooth the wrinkles from the crumpled inner wrapping. Written on parchment in four languages is your own personal love message, vestige of the clandestine love affair that is one of Italy’s most romantic tales. After all, baci in Italian means kisses.
    Valentine's Day in Umbria reminds us two different lovers:  St. Valentine, from Terni, whose love affair with his jailer's daughter cast a permanent haze of romance over Umbria, and Luisa Spagnoli, who might have breathed a little too deeply of that pheramone-permeated air. 

     
Luisa was a beautiful and determined woman who married a poor young man from Umbria around 1900. The two struggled to buy a machine to make candy confetti, the sugared almonds popular at Italian weddings and other celebrations, which they installed in one tiny room in Perugia. Eventually, to enlarge their business, they needed a partner. That’s when the young Giovanni Buitoni, heir to the Perugina company, entered the picture. In 1907, two men and one compelling woman began to work together, setting the stage for romantic combustion.

      Luisa was the confectionary genius who created the Baci, using whipped milk chocolate blended with chopped hazelnuts, topped with a whole hazelnut and coated with rich dark chocolate. Her creation, originally called cazzotti (a "punch" of chocolate), is whispered to have been inspired by the steamy illicit love affair she carried on with her business partner, Giovanni Buitoni, under the nose of her husband.

      As the story goes, Luisa contrived secret ways to communicate with her lover. Luisa sent baci to both Giovanni and her husband to sample in their offices, but only Giovanni received the poetic love notes she wrapped around each candy. From the introduction of the baci on Valentine’s Day in 1922 to this day, every piece comes wrapped in a message of romance. (There’s also a rumor about the breast shape of the baci. . . . )

     The story of Luisa and Giovanni’s affair lives on, as does the legend of St. Valentine. Not only are the candies themselves a memorial to their love, but the advertising for Baci for almost a century has centered around a passionately embracing couple. Marketing posters feature a passionate embrace between two lovers. Are they Luisa and Giovanni? Who else could they be? In the 1920s, Federico Seneca, the designer, called them “The Lovers,” which he based on the Hayez painting of the same name. War weary, people needed romance and, after all, chocolate and romantic love are closely linked.

     The history of the Baci is immortalized at the Museo Storico (museum) at the Nestle Perugina in San Sisto near Perugia. The Aztec upper classes first enjoyed chocolate as a bitter drink, sometimes flavored by red peppers; then the Spanish, who brought cocoa beans to Europe, discovered that sugar enhances chocolate’s flavor. In the 16th century, the physician to the Spanish king Philip II used chocolate as a fever reducer. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Italian scientist and de Medici physician Francesco Redi combined drinking chocolate with ambergris and musk, which must have been horrible. Later, chocolate was found by clever murderers to be a good way to conceal the taste of poison.

     In early 19th century Netherlands, Coenraad Van Houten invented a way to use hydraulic pressure to turn chocolate into a hard cake. His process, called “Dutching”, made it possible to turn chocolate from a drink to a confection. Thank you, Coenraad, from lovers of candy bars everywhere.

       On a day when the Perugina factory is in production, the compelling aroma of chocolate consumes both mind and body. The resulting primal urge can only be satisfied by – what else? -- baci. Fortunately, they are for sale in the museum shop, along with posters of embracing lovers. The displays include TV commercials from the fifties and sixties, including one with Frank Sinatra singing the praises of Baci.

      Luisa Spagnoli didn’t stop with chocolate. She went on to found a fashion company based on wool spun from angora goats. Today more than 150 Luisa Spagnoli stores cover Italy, while Luisa’s chocolate is sold around the world and dark chocolate is still called “Luisa” in Perugia.

copyright Sharri Whiting Umbria Bella 2008 and 2011

Olivistas to the Table! Soup's On

If you look closely, you can see the olives silhouetted against the sky

6 am. CET, Via Palombaro, Umbria
      The countdown started 364 days ago when the last pickers left to go home to England, Germany, the US, Namibia and the Netherlands. Tomorrow ten friends from around the world will come for our fourth olive picking house party. We call them the Olivistas.

     We've spent this week in preparation. Since I am dealing with a demonic case of jetlag, having arrived from the States three days ago, I have been in the kitchen by five every morning, chopping onions for a soffritto that will form the base of one of the five soups we will have for lunch during the harvest. I am partially cooking each one before freezing it; mixed aromas emanate from various pots, wafting warm jetstreams of onions, rosemary, sage, and porcini throughout the house. There is also the scent of fig bread baking in the oven, making for a confusing cinnamon/onion olfactory experience.
    The Olivistas provide the manual labor to pick our 120 trees and we want them to be glad they came.  Even if it's a chance to get away from the daily routine of office/patients/computers/grocery store, picking olives is hard work. When the sun shines across the valleys, highlighting the autumn red Sagrantino vines stretching across the fields, it can be glorious. If it's damp and misty, it can be romantic (sort of), provided one is dressed for it. But, if it rains, it's just awful.
     This is when a steaming boil of farro, lentil, ceci (chickpea) or minestrone soup can provide the inspiration to get us back in the trees. We sit around the kitchen table, warmed by the fireplace, the soup, Omero's wine (sold by the liter from a kind of gas pump), and the conversation of friends who come back year after year to help us get in the harvest.
     Il Magnifico's job as host is to be the supreme organizer. He makes sure there are enough crates, baskets, nets, and hand rakes -- we pick our olives the old fashioned way. He books the restaurants for dinner (the promise of a traditional Umbrian meal gets us all through the day), makes the grocery runs and the emergency trips to Omero to replenish the vital red liquid. Of course, he has reserved our slot at the frantoio, where we will gather next Friday morning to turn our harvest into "Olivista Olive Oil," extra virgin, first cold press.
     But, now we are watching the stove and the sky. We try to organize everything, but are powerless to affect the weather. Yesterday started with sun, then turned to rain and hail, then recovered itself with a spectacular rainbow. The meteorologists say it will be sunny through Monday and then will rain Tuesday and Wednesday. We need at least three full days to pick, so rain on those two days will be a problem. I keep checking the iPhone weather app for those little sunny yellow symbols. Our guests are here for the week, so if necessary they will pick on Thursday and we will go wine tasting, sightseeing or shopping if it rains on a picking day. Or, we might even enjoy the delights of dolce far niente, the "sweet doing nothing," in the Umbrian countryside.

A wide angle wasn't wide enough

     The last pot of soup is on the boil and the slowly dissolving stars promise a sunny day. The birds are singing as the sky starts to lighten. The olives hang dark on the trees, waiting for tomorrow.
Copyright 2010 Sharri Whiting

Dining All' Aperto in Umbria Means Spring is Finally Here

Sometime in late March, one never knows exactly when, people in Umbria will wake up one morning to find their almond trees have burst into bloom. That doesn't mean that Spring is necessarily here, because two weeks ago it snowed on top of the almond blossoms, but it does mean that the seasons are thinking about changing. The next thing is the fruit trees-- pears, cherries, apples-- and the yellow mimosas. Dandelions are next and then. . .

     ta dah. . . the ristoranti and pizzerie open their terraces.  Now, we are sure that spring has arrived and summer is sure to follow. (By the way, did you know that al fresco
does not refer to outside dining -- it means "in prison." Though you'd want to know that.)

     

In our little green zone between Todi and Montefalco, we have some favorite restaurants whose food is even better when eaten outside. Who cares if a bee buzzes in the geraniums next to the table? What's important is that we are in plein air, with no air conditioning, experiencing the joys of eating Italian food in its natural setting. 

Le Noci in Grutti is a ristorante we discovered when we were furnishing our house thirteen years ago. We bought a sofa from Paolo Mobili, the local furniture man, and received a coupon good for lunch for two. Expecting nothing, we were wildly happy with what we found. Danielle, Marina, the mothers, the husbands, the ladies in the kitchen have put together a place where the pasta is a dream come true and their wine is pretty darn good and pleasantly cheap. We keep going back for the gnocchi stuffed with porcini, the triangular pasta stuffed with ricotta and covered with cream and truffles, the strongozzi with truffles or country herb sauce. In the warm season, Le Noci opens the shaded terrace and we spend leisurely evenings eating our favorite dishes and generally enjoying life.

La Cucina Vecchia in Collesecco is another ristorante we discovered during the process of moving into our house in 1997. Giovanni, the owner, is a small plane afficianado and has decorated the walls of the place with photos of old-time flyers and their single engine flying machines. We love his pasta with eggplant, pasta primavera, and veal tagliata with rosemary and sage. We ask only for vino della casa. Giovanni operates out of the bottom floor of his yellow house, which is set in a gated piece of property across from the school. In summer, we sit outside in his garden, relishing both the quiet and the food.

La Locanda del Prete is a newcomer in the world of restaurants in our little universe. We can see the medieval village of Saragano from our house and now we can see our house from the terrace of the Locanda in Saragano. The place is a bit more formal than our other favorites, which is a change from the days when Saragano's few residents sat outside in the evenings in their "relaxing" clothes, chatting and watching the fireflies. In addition to the restaurant, the Locanda has a wine bar and a cigar bar, an oddity in these parts. We prefer the terrace, where we sip a glass of pro secco and enjoy the expansive view.

The terrace of Federico II on the piazza in Montefalco is the best place to be in summer, at the height of the people watching season. Since Montefalco has been discovered by tourists interested in the Sagrantino Wine Route and the fine locally made linens, it's no longer a sleepy little town. The food here is both traditional and sophisticated, and the wine list is practically unlimited. For a more secluded experience, Federcio II's sister restaurant, Coccorone, is almost hidden on a narrow street. The terrace is tiny, but in summer it's delightful, packed with flowers, and secluded within medieval garden walls.

The best terrace of all is the one at our house, La Casetta Rosa, where the view is simply wonderful, though we have to prepare our own food. Sitting under the shaded pergola having a lazy lunch, with the only sound a distant tractor or a bee buzzing the jasmine, could be a preview of heaven.

   

THE ULTIMATE FIG

Yesterday at 1: 30 in the afternoon, I ate the last fig. Not the last in the basket. It was the very last, the final fig of the season. As I pulled apart the lime green peel with my thumbs, the pulpy heart seemed more ruby red than usual; it was an explosion of color, a sensuous shape fitting in the hand so perfectly, and a joyous mouthful of hot sunny days.

And that’s the thing, you see. That last bite of fig means it’s over. Summer is gone –this year the line of demarcation between seasons was abrupt and I wasn’t ready. One day it was 80 degrees, then came the first rain. When the sun came out, the temperature was only 60, where it stayed for awhile before inching back up a little.

Today is October 3. It's a simply gorgeous fall day, with blue skies, bright sun and a light breeze. I’ve put aside my broken heart and turned my attention to the olives, which are almost fully plump. In six weeks, we will pick them, press them, and end the year with jugs of thick green oil so demanding of my attention that the figs will only be a fond memory until I fall in love with them again next year.
copyright Sharri Whiting 2008

A Crib for the Bambinello

Visits to traditional presepi (nativity scenes) around Umbria fill many an afternoon and evening during the holidays. According to legend, it was an Umbrian, St Francis of Assisi, who inspired the creation of presepi in 1223 as a way to celebrate the birth of Christ. Some presepi are live action, featuring local newborns, donkeys and costumed villagers; others are life-sized exhibitions placed in hidden corners of narrow cobbled streets and tiny piazzas, such as in the town of Corciano. Still others are museum quality shows of religious art.

Our favorite in the presepe vivente (live action) category is Marcellano, a tiny medieval village near our house, where the whole town turns into old Bethlehem. We arrive just at dusk and wander past ancient churches and synagogues, costumed blacksmiths and bakers, stopping to buy a cake made in the old way. Just as night falls, Mary and Joseph appear with a donkey and begin their journey, stopping at doorways to ask for a room for the night; all the while Roman soldiers loiter about, looking sinister. Finally, as we stand in the crush along the walkway that edges the town, we see the holy couple enter the stone road leading down into a shallow valley. In the lantern light, we crane our necks to watch as they head slowly down the hill. Eventually, Mary and Joseph settle into the open stable. Minutes pass. It is now very dark. We stamp our feet in the cold. The crowd is still, then stirs. Oohs. Aahs. The baby Jesus has appeared in the crib far below and the three wise men have arrived at the top, riding their donkeys, richly dressed and carrying presents. Above them, a big, lighted star appears, sporting a long tail. As they progress down the hill, the star leads the way, sliding down a long wire, to show the path to the stable. We are thrilled and moved, standing for a few moments in the dark, the only light coming from the glowing star above the candlelit stable. We make our way down to view the live tableau, then go home to hot buttered rum and a blazing fire.

A few miles away in Massa Martana is the Presepi d'Italia exhibition of 150 creches made by artists from around Italy. A stopover for Romans traveling the Via Flaminia, which was built in 220 BC, Massa Martana became Christian as early as the first century AD. The center of this ancient town is different from many of the Umbrian hill towns because, instead of gray stone, the buildings are beautifully colored stucco -- deep red, butter yellow, salmon pink, pale green. In the main church, there are two nativity scenes, both with empty cribs on December 23. The baby Jesus, the bambinello, hasn't yet been born and will be tucked in his bed only at midnight on December 24.

The presepi exhibition is open between December 24 and January 6, located in various locations around the historic center. There are tiny carved wood nativities and a room-sized ice sculpture, complete with snow. There are paper presepi, presepi created from nuts and bolts, from popcorn, from crystal, and stone; there are presepi in miniature castles, within whole villages, in simulated mountains.

Tonight, December 24, we will go to Todi to visit the presepi in the restored Roman cisterns under the main piazza. The piazza is one of the most beautiful medieval squares in Italy, lined by the duomo (cathedral) and four palaces, and highlighted this season by a spectacular Christmas tree.
copyright Sharri Whiting Umbria Bella 2007

The Twelve Days of Panettone

How many panettoni does it take to make a Christmas, I wonder as I navigate the mountains of red and blue boxes filling the aisles of Collestrada near Perugia. And, how many bars of torrone (nougat)? How many pandoro, baci, mandarini?

I see a woman with at least a dozen panettoni in her cart. She's left it parked in the aisle and keeps coming back and forth, throwing in two or three more, until the cart is running over with Christmas bread. I envision her as part of a gigantic extended family, in one of those houses that keeps growing with the generations. They sit at a table for twenty-four, passing the prosecco, the oranges, the chocolate and...another panettone. Someone wants cream, someone else want to cut the pandoro because he doesn't like the little fruits in the panettone.
His heart is cold to the story of Antonio, the 13th century Milanese baker, who fell in love with a princess and baked a golden bread to impress her. With the unification of Italy, candied red cherries and green citron were added to celebrate the colors of the new Italy. Oh well, cut the towering, sugar-dusted pandoro (egg bread) and pass it down the table. They'll all have some before the night is over.

Another romantic tale we recall, as we unwrap shiny Perugina baci one after the other, is that of Luisa Spagnoli and her young partner in the chocolate making business, Giovanni Buitoni. The story goes that, in the 1920s, Luisa invented the breast-shaped baci (kisses) to entice her lover, wrapped them in scraps of poetry, and sent them to Giovanni's office -- all right under the nose of her husband, right here in Umbria.

The old saying is "Natale coi tuoi e Pasqua con chi vuoi" ( "Christmas with family, Easter with whomever you want"). Here in Umbria, the expats become a kind of family, especially those who stay through the winter. The Italians come home to Mamma from all over the country and beyond, where they have gone to pursue careers that include growing bank accounts, rather than grapes, olives or sunflowers. At Le Noci in Grutti, tables are routinely set for two dozen or more, as groups convene to celebrate the holidays over steaming plates of gnocchi ripieni con porcini (stuffed potato dumplings with porcini mushrooms) or fasoletti con tartufi (triangular ravioli stuffed with ricotta, drenched in cream sauce, and sprinkled with shaved truffles).

We stuff ourselves without guilt, saying, "It's Christmas!"
Buon Natale!
copyright Sharri Whiting Umbria Bella 2007

Umbria in Winter

In the hot Umbrian summer, I sit on my front porch in like an Alabama backwoods granny and survey the scene. The background noise-- from chickens, ducks, pigeons, dogs, cats, sheep --has been thoughtfully provided by my neighbors, true Italian contadini, real farmers.

I soak in the ambiance that comes from the clucks and barks and meows and coos without having to feed, water or clean up. St. Francis of Assisi, my predecessor here in the green heart of Italy, might not be proud of me for this lazy approach, but I do enjoy it.

From my vantage point I can see three medieval villages perched on distant hillsides. Olive trees march up and down the rolling hills and in summer big reapers harvest wheat in the lower valleys. The jasmine and the roses add their scent to that of manure, and the sunflowers burst with color, signaling the warm times.

Fall, which, according to the rules, is still with us until December 21, was full of crystal blue skies, heavily pregnant olive trees, and ruby-leaved grapevines sprawling across the landscape. There were wine tastings and truffle hunts and afternoons at the frantoio, drinking wine and eating bruschetta dripping with new oil while we waited our turn at the press.

And now? The nine friends who came to pick olives have gone home, small bottles of green treasure in their suitcases. Though we've been here since 1997, this is our first year with so many more trees; to us, the neophytes, the harvest was magnificent, though our experienced neighbors complained of too little fruit. My kitchen shelves are lined with flacons of mossy green olive oil and bags of pungent porcini mushrooms; there are still a couple of truffles in the frig, left-evers (as Piero calls them) from the hunt two weeks ago. Tonight I will cook up some zuppa, with farro and the porcini, to stick to our ribs on a winter night.

Outside, though the day started with sun, the clouds have lowered, almost within touching distance of our hill. The sheep from down the road escaped their pasture again and I had to get up from the lunch table to shoo them away from nibbling my potted plants. They hurried down the hill on little stick legs, their shaggy coats swaying. Otherwise, we haven't strayed far today from the kitchen fireplace.

Why are we here in winter, when the skies blacken before five and the wind whistles around the corners of the house? We could be Christmas shopping in Piazza Navona in Rome or sitting on a wharf on Mobile Bay, dipping our toes in the water, but we've chosen this. Maybe because only one car came down our road today or because we can see little white flowers incongruously blooming under the olive trees or because there is fresh snow on the Appenines. Maybe tomorrow we'll bundle up and go see the Christmas lights in the village.
copyright 2007 Sharri Whiting