A Tuscan View - from Umbria

Spellbound.

23rd June 2008

It’s 5.45 on the morning after the longest day of the year.  It’s warm but the sky still has the soft pale blue, almost white, look of dawn.  The sun, low and hazy, has yet to stoke and build up her heat.  The brick steps are still cool and there is freshness in the shadows.  We are up, the whole family and, with barely a tussle, have managed to assemble - bleary and blinking - by the car.

We drive through the sleepy, breezeless countryside past putty coloured olive groves and inky cypress trees standing still, silent and spellbound as the Sunday morning bells ring in the day.  Soon we arrive at Citta della Pieve keen and hungry.  Here the streets are being carpeted with flowers and it is this that we have come to see, the Festa dei Fiori in honour of S.Luigi Gonzaga, protector of the Casalino Terziere.

These beautiful decorations are made once a year on the nearest Sunday to the Summer solstice.  The festival’s origins are lost in the mists of time but some say it marks the solemn procession of Spring.  Many of the designs are traditional, taking their inspiration from the Renaissance and the local master Perugino, but every year new designs are added in rich and subtle colours.

Flowers and scented herbs are grown in the surrounding countryside specially for this extravaganza and for 3 months prior to the day locals collect and dry the blooms and seed heads in preparation.  No money changes hands, it is simply the Italian way.

 We wanted to be in Citta della Pieve early in the day to see the work in progress, volunteers have been up through the night creating these vibrant scenes.  Ordinary people, nonnas and nonnos with their grandchildren, the man from the bar and another, the big gruff man who sells tickets for the Perugino and hides his broken smile. Today he walks up and down spraying the flowers with sugar water which will harden and set the blooms.

There is an atmosphere of hushed business and an up-beat vibe.  The whole place glows in the intensifying sunshine, the vivid colour of the petals radiant against the old stone and red brick of the town.

This wonderful show of dedication and artistry is made all the more fascinating by it’s fleeting nature, later this evening a procession of townspeople will walk over the flowers to the main piazza scattering the blooms to the gutter in their wake.

As we walk between the images taking photos, laughing with our girls, chatting with the old guys, restraining the dog and stopping for cappuccio and cornettos, I have to admit it was well worth the wake up call.

We so enjoyed photographing this glorious event that you can find more pictues of the flower designs in the side bar, just give me a day to sort it out...

The best thing I ate:
Risotto with roast fennel and peperoncino a casa

Yes it’s hot, but sometimes only risotto will do.  There is something so therapeutic about the making and eating of risotto, the ritual of adding the stock and stirring, watching while the little translucent grains grow plump and creamy.  Followed by the soothing balm of eating a bowl full of bliss.

  A good risotto can calm a frazzled spirit, comfort a fragile soul and even cure a hangover!  But for this magic to work it has to be made well and that means practice.
The rice should still retain a slight ‘nutty’ bite and the consistency be an unctuous oozing mass, not too soupy, not too stiff.

 Find a good recipe for risotto bianco and get practising, I suggest ‘The best of Anna Del Conte’.  It is this book that gave me a great tip for preparing risotto in quantity without having to stand and stir, red in the face, while others are knocking back the aperitivo.  ‘Jamie’s Italy’ also has a good variation.   Once you’ve got the knack there is no limit to the good things you can add to your risotto.

With a nod to Jamie (and for a big gutsy flavour) I stirred in soft caramelised roasted fennel and boosted it with crushed fennel seeds, lemon zest and the subtle hint of peperoncino and, what do you know, even marito’s hangover was cured!

Where to get it: 
Make it yourself. 

Zen and the art of the decespugliatore…

19th June 2008

 In London, when I used to hear a faint buzzing hum on a hot Summer’s day, it was more than likely a hovering helicopter, checking the congestion or searching for an escapee from the local prison.

When we thought of moving to Italy, one of the overriding sounds that I always imagined and hoped for was a similar faint, distant hum of Summer, but this time caused by crickets, bees, or simply the hazy heat rising.
Unfortunately I was wrong.

That sound here (especially at this time of year) is nothing to do with nature, it is the buzz of the ubiquitous ‘decespugliatore’. Americans know it as the ‘weed-whacker’ and, in England, it is simply called a ‘strimmer’.

To memorise and then to be able to pronounce this inexplicable word makes you an honorary Italian in my eyes and, despite the rising heat in Italy, my decespugliatore was hard at work today, along with so many thousands of others across the country.

Yes, grown men in orange boiler suits, you know the ones, spend hours each day strimming Italy’s countryside.

Some say Italians are a little obsessed with this method of weed control, I say no.
Once you’ve strapped on one of these beautiful machines with the correct mix of petrol and oil (‘miscela’ it’s called, available from country petrol stations on request) you can see why the hours seem to fly by.

You go into a kind of hypnotic trance, strimming away at anything that has the temerity to raise its head above about an inch off the ground. It’s mesmerising.

In England I used to feel quite sorry for anyone with that job, I just couldn’t see the attraction. Now I know that they are the lucky ones, not those fancy uniformed and sunglassed helicopter pilots.

The stupidest thing I did today;

Just got a bit carried away with my decespugliatore…now I have a little explaining to do.

Pedalo fun

10th June 2008

 It’s all about the lake.  The Etruscans farmed here and Hannibal fought here.  Lago Trasimeno is the largest body of water on the Italian peninsula, 54 kilometres around. A vast expanse of luminous water, changeable with the light and seasons; sometimes milky pale and silver, or azure blue and shimmering in the lazy heat of noon.  Ringed by misty mountains it makes a perfect backdrop for the fortified town of Castiglione del Lago.  The way the town juts out on a promontory means that it is almost completely surrounded by water and seems to dominate the lake.  This is the landscape of Perugino and for landlocked Umbrians, this inviting cool blue water has the magnetic pull of an ocean. 

Along the shore there are lakeside restaurants and bars, little grassy beaches and sandy lidos.  In summer there is all the buzz of Italian beach culture with swimming, sunbathing and pedalo fun.  Call me old fashioned, but I love a bit of pedalo fun, especially with young children.  I have always found the combination of manic aquatic cycling coupled with the risk of accidental drowning to be highly entertaining.  Meanwhile, blue and white ferries glide through the languid waters on route to the lake’s three tranquil islands Maggiore, Minore and Polvese.

The best thing I ate

Cake

I must admit (and it will come as no big surprise) to a greedy love of cake in all its many forms.  The cake, or cakes, in question were jubilant birthday offerings to celebrate the sunny age of nine.

Underneath fluttering bunting and pastel coloured balloons, by the side of the limpid lake we shared a festa with the tall one’s Italian friends.

Italian birthday cakes are blousy, flamboyant affairs.  There is none of the sturdy weight of the English counterpart.  Under the elaborate decorations the Italians favour light puffs of sponge sandwiched with softly billowing custard and cream, more like a deliciously corseted trifle.

The real stars of the show were the miniature tarts and ‘bombolloni’ that had also been made by Michele, a young and gifted Castiglione based baker, in his laboratorio.  They looked so pretty it was hard to choose.  Cute and kitsch, vanilla scented mouthfuls of pure extravagance.

Where to get it: 
GMB Castiglione del Lago