Someone else's life

The hills around here are full of ruinous houses, sometimes complete hamlets have been left to rot, organic beauties, slowly changing with decay.  Remote and isolated, choked with brambles they stand at the end of rutted tracks, their vacant windows gaping.  They may be wrecked and wretched but to me each one seems like an opportunity.
 

To celebrate my birthday earlier this week, marito took me out for lunch not, as you might expect, to some ‘fancypants’ expensive restaurant but on a picnic jaunt high up in the Umbrian hills.  The sky was clear, hard enamel blue and the sun low and hot, a runaway Summer’s day.

One of my favourite things to do is drive the rough white roads, with no particular destination in mind, looking for things.   Maybe another Madonna or an unexpected view but, as we drive, I am always aware that just over the hill or around the corner might be the thing that thrills me most, an abandoned house.

Usually, my curiosity is restricted to a brief glimpse and a craning neck but it was my day and I got to choose the picnic spot.  This time I was going in.

Crouching amongst ragged grasses was a small stone house.  I felt the baked dryness of the door and the old wood split and broke away as I forced it open to reveal a single square room.

Weeds billowed in through broken shutters and hazy dust clouds hung suspended in slants of sunlight.  Rubble covered a floor of crude terracotta tiles that were laid directly to the earth, in the centre was an up turned wormy table blanched to the colour of ash and along one wall a row of empty bottles.

Old sacks, parts of a broken iron bed, some kind of sieve and a long handled spade were all that remained of someone else’s life.  In the heady silence of the afternoon I felt it would be easy to inhabit that room. To clear away the rubble, right the table and mend the bed, to spend an evening drinking rough red wine with the ghosts, as bats swooped in and out of the open rafters and cold moonlight crept into the corners.

I would sleep in the old iron bed and wake to put my feet on the parched floor, warmed through by heat rising from the earth, worn and rough like calloused skin.

Luckily marito is not so romantic.  ‘What do you think’? I asked, as he blundered in with the dog.  I won’t repeat his answer in its entirety but the phrase ‘totally insane’ featured prominently.

Best thing I ate today:

Calming, comforting carbonara; basically a pasta sauce made with eggs, cream and parmesan.  Soothing and somewhat soporific, it’s a delicious supper dish now that there’s a faint chill in the evening air. You can make endless variations on this theme by adding handfuls of this or that.  Just make sure that you don’t overwhelm the creamy sauce.  Some of my favourite additions are: small chunks of crispy pancetta, or crumbled Italian salsiccie and a few green peas, or maybe a scant handful of pre-cooked purple sprouting broccoli.  Here it is in a simple form with just the added heat of peperoncino.

Kinda carbonara con peperoncino

Pasta – Penne is good, approx 300gm
4 large organic egg yolks
2 large handfuls of freshly grated parmesan cheese
Olive oil
100ml thick cream
2 small peperoncini, chopped
2 gloves of garlic chopped
Sea salt and ground black pepper
1 small handful of finely chopped flatleaf parsley

Cook the pasta until 'al dente' and, while its cooking, make the sauce.  Put the egg yolks and cream into a bowl and mix together with half the parmesan.  Season with salt and pepper.

Then in a heavy based frying pan gently sauté the garlic and peperoncino for about 5 minutes and take care not to colour the garlic.  As soon as the pasta is done drain it and put it back into the, still hot, pasta pan, then mix in the garlic and peperoncino followed by the sauce.  Toss it all together until the sauce is glossy and silky looking, you may need to heat the pan up a little bit more but be careful not to scramble the eggs.  Add the rest of the parmesan and the parsley and give it another stir.  Heap it into a bowl and serve.

In Italy they sell a lovely mix of peperoncino, garlic and herbs called, 'Erbe piccante per spaghetti' in little packets at the supermarket. They don't cost much and last for months...

Where to get it;

You've probably already got it all in the fridge, waiting.

Comments

[Anita]

Great post! I too love old houses, ruined houses. Love the second picture, with the odd pattern of bricks and stones and the two shutters faded differently.
Also, imagine I'll make the carbonara before long...it's been years since I cooked that.

[joe@italyville]

That pasta looks delicious and I'm going to try it:) There's a sadness and wonder in those old abandoned houses. Makes you wonder who lived there, why they left... it is very romantic. great post.

[rosaria]

I just made that wonderful pasta. In the absence of peperoncino, I added coarsely ground black pepper and a little grated nutmeg. Bellisimo!

[Chris]

Well, you don't need ME to tell you have fabulous your blog is. And I love going into old or abandoned empty houses and imagining...

[Amanda @ A Tuscan view...]

Aww! Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It's so great to have you guys with us on this journey. Keep the comments coming we love reading them.

[michelle of bleeding espresso]

Happy belated birthday wishes...what a perfect way to celebrate! Mine is coming up next weekend, so I'm thinking I'll suggest a similar bday jaunt to P....

[Antonina]

Happy Belated birthday Amanda and many more to come! It was my birthday also last week on the 3rd.of Oct. Your soliloquize on your drive thru the country side and the little house was just lovely. As always Marito's comments make me laugh. I think I'll make the pasta tonight. This weekend is the Canadian Thanksgiving , turkey and pumpkin pie and any ground vegetable you can get your hands on.I wish your family a Happy thanksgiving and a bountiful new coming year.

[Megan in Liguria]

So enjoy your blogs (from both of you!). This is a sweet one. Keep 'em coming! Auguri!

[anne]

Happy Belated Birthday...pleased you had a super day!:-)

Love carbonara, I have some of those little packets with herbs in..picked them up when in Italy and I have been sent some. Yummy!!

[Scintilla]

After all those Bruschetta's, I can feel he kilos coming back with the Carbonara !
Hope that it was a great birthday...

[Ingrid in Umbria]

Cara Amanda,

Happened to find your blog - by chance, looking for other expat blogs from Umbria/Tuscany. Lovely photo! Complimenti! I am an expat Swede in Portaria(tra Todi e Terni) close to the Carsulae Roman excavation. Through my blog I am trying to give the Colori & Sapori of this lovely region. My blog address is wwwricciericicom-ingridj.blogspot.com.

[stephanie]

p.s.
Happy HAPPY birthday!

[stephanie]

I just love the stories that old abandoned buildings tell...the secrets hidden deep in layers of rust and patina.

AND the fig, ricotta and honey bruschette?? this looks amazing!!

[Maryann]

Hey birthday girl!! I hope you had a wonderful day. I'm with you. LOVE old houses! I fixed up a few and it was a great feeling of satisfaction. Lots of work, but all worth it to me in the end. Do it again?..um..no! ;)

[Judith in Umbria]

Auguri!
The difference in my neighborhood is that I know a lot of old people who were born and reared here so I can ask and get the whole story. Or at least one version of it.

[nyc/carribean ragazza]

Happy birthday!

I have been obsessed lately with a show on the Discovery Channel about British couples who buy abandoned house and renovate them.

I always wonder about house like that too.

[Kim]

Just wanted to chime in with the Happy Birthday wishes. The day sounds lovely, and the pasta amazing.

[casalba]

I'm with you. Love ruins from cottages to castles (and everything in between).

[Amanda @ A Tuscan view...]

Yes Charlie that is so true and because they are often in inaccessible locations and would cost to much to 'do up'.

Diane, I'm so glad you're enjoying blog.

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

[charlie]

I love abandoned houses too, but here they are mostly abandoned because they have been inherited by a bunch of litigous siblings who cant agree on what to do with the building so it just sits and rots away. Drives me mad!

[Susan]

Happy Birthday- and what a wonderful day you had! It sounds like such fun...much better than any fancypants restaurant. Your Carbonara made me hungry! I am due to make some soon! Auguri!

[Ice Tea For Me]

I love to look at old structures and try and feel what it might have been in the past or imagine the people that lived there. Your words were eloquent.

Sounds like you had a perfect b-day.

Happy Birthday!

[Diane]

Wonderful, just up my street, but not for my non romantic Sicilian husband, believe it or not. I must say I do enjoy your blog.
From a Welsh female
Diane