Things we love: geese working in the fields and then becoming dinner, biodynamic farming, glimpsing the sun. Our day at the Plani Arche Winery.
Things we love: geese working in the fields and then becoming dinner, biodynamic farming, glimpsing the sun. Our day at the Plani ...
We continue our adventures in the Umbria countryside at the house of Pardi Linen. An explanatory tour with the always lovely Augusta Pardi was followed by a perfect, classic Umbrian lunch.
Our adventures in Umbria countryside continues Read more
We continue our adventures in the Umbria countryside at the house of Pardi Linen. An explanatory tour with the always lovely Augusta ...
Things we love right now:
Cloudy Montefalco spring days that break way to sun, small cantinas, DiFilippo wine, being treated like a local.
The week is just beginning. Vinopalooza 2015 is gonna be good.
Things we love right now: Cloudy Montefalco spring days that break way to sun, small cantinas, DiFilippo wine, being treated like a local. The ...
One of the things we have found so appealing about Italy and the Italians throughout the years is their ability to slow down and enjoy the life that is right before their eyes, noses, ears, tongues and fingers. Often summed up in the phrase la dolce vita, we have built our business and our lives around spreading the gospel of slow. And we even sum it up in Via Umbria’s tagline – Discover | Savor | Share.
Italians don’t just pay lip service to savoring life, they simply cannot ignore this genetic predisposition, ingrained as it is in their DNA. More than once when involved in business negotiations or getting to know a new supplier we would break for lunch and rather than continuing the negotiations over the meal all talk of business would be banished until the last grappa was consumed. Usually three or four hours later
But despite being ambassadors for this way of life, we have always had a difficult time walking the walk. Anyone who has travelled on one of our tours and who has gotten to take a peek behind the curtain knows that in organizing these apparently carefree experiences, the reality is anything but. It’s not just that the candle is burnt on both ends, the leftover wax is literally doused in lighter fluid and until the table itself is set aflame and the house afire.
And so as we returned to Italy last week, the first five days to be shared with both our daughter and one of our sons, we resolved to be truly Italian. To slow down and put aside all thoughts of work or business, anything that would distract from enjoying the here and now of being with our family. And despite not just a mountain, but a whole range of Everests that demanded our attention – more than you, dear reader will ever know – we did a pretty good job of staying focused on the things that matter. Family. Friends. Connections.
And what a memorable and meaningful five days it was.
Five short days with family. But when you slow down and savor each moment as we did this week, it seems like a blessed eternity. The Italians definitely have gotten something dead on right.
Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy
Italian Way to Enjoy Family Time Read more
One of the things we have found so appealing about Italy and the Italians throughout the years is their ability to slow ...
Welcome to a new section on La Dolce Vita, “Our Amazing Artisans,” which features those who create and craft the special objects in our store.
Today is the fantastic day of Carnevale. Here in DC, many people had an extra reason to celebrate, as the extended weekend of President’s Day got an extra boost with some help from a winter storm. So whether you’re feasting on an extra day of brunch, curled up with a cup of (spiked) hot cocoa or taking part in a giant Snowball Fight, this day is your last chance to get all those “unholy” tendencies out before Lent. Bill and Suzy got a taste of a wild Carnevale two years ago, but for today we all remain here in Georgetown, dreaming of attending a lavish Venetian ball.
One of our favorite Italian Carnevale traditions is the wearing of masks. But even through this day only comes once a year, we can’t stand to put our beautiful masks away, which is why we hang them on our walls all year round.
Our masks are sourced from the studio Alice le Maschere, where they are dreamed up and executed in a small town close to Florence. Two years ago, the Menards were led to the studio, and seduced by the exquisite creations.Today, we carry the most eclectic selection in our store, where we have lovingly modeled them for your Carnevale enjoyment.Take a peek at Bill’s post to discover why this studio is so very dear to us.
So go nuts on this Tuesday and have a fantastic Carnevale!
— Via Umbria
Welcome to a new section on La Dolce Vita, “Our Amazing Artisans,” which features those who create and craft the special objects ...
Chef Simone has done it again! His tasty Orecchiette with Broccoli recipe was a big hit at Via Umbria this past Wednesday.
Curious customers of all ages were able to watch the cooking process and enjoy the delicious end result!
In case you missed out, here is the recipe so that you can try it at home!
Orecchiette with Broccoli
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Buon appetito!
— Via Umbria
Chef Simone has done it again! His tasty Orecchiette with Broccoli recipe was a big hit at Via Umbria this past Wednesday. Curious ...
Sunday, our group’s first full day in Umbria, lived up to its being a Sunday. For Sunday’s are a special day in Umbria as they are throughout Italy.
What’s so special about Sundays? Or at least what was so special about our Sunday?
It wasn’t simply the visit to the Luchetti family farm, a place of peace and serenity where nature takes center stage. Where chianina cows are raised and cinta Sienese pigs are fattened. A place where a 25 year old toils with the patience of a senior twice his age, cleaning and salting fat legs of pigs for their yearlong journey of becoming prosciutto.
It wasn’t simply the opportunity to share the day with another food and wine tour group from the other Washington (this one Bellingham), with our friend Jennifer McIlvaine acting as the glue that connected our group and hers. Although it was special to watch our guests bond immediately with their counterparts. Food and Italy have have a way of forging those bonds.
It wasn’t simply the blue skies and unusually hot “fall” weather.
It wasn’t simply the visit to Alma and Dino’s tidy farm, just around the corner from our farmhouse, just another patch of farmland that makes up a single quilt square on the countryside that is one enormous quilt of farms. But what a patch the calloused couple has created. Fields of lettuces, fennel, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower laid out in neat, tidy, fertile, bountiful rows, each one bursting with life. Truly bursting with life. Here you feel that farming is not so much work as it is a gift. To be the keeper, the custodian of these fields is hard work, no doubt, but in the joyous faces of Alma and Dino you can read that it a labor of love and contentment.
It wasn’t simply the meal, an hours long Sunday kind of leisurely feast set around a table twenty feet long and shaded with the retractable umbrella built into the couple’s mobile farmstand truck. A feast prepared by Jennifer and her former boss and everyone’s friend Salvatore Denaro. Salvatore, the notorious, noteworthy, noted chef, gardener, media personality. Salvatore, an imp and an impresario. Each dish passed around with a smile and a twinkle, each glass filled with a rousing chorus of “Vino, Vino, Vino.” Each occupant at the table feeling as though he or she was the special guest of honor.
It wasn’t simply having Jennifer and her husband Federico and their two adorable children steal the show and our hearts. Federico coaxing the infant Gabrielle to ham it up with the three liter wine bottle from Federico’s winery while his protective sister Olivia watched over the scene to keep him from any harm or too much embarrassment.
It wasn’t anything in particular that made this or any Sunday in Umbria special. It was all of it. For on Sundays in Italy it is not just family and friends that take center stage. It is life and love that is invited in, not just for a quick visit, but for a long, lingering sojourn.
I fear that by inviting ourselves into their world we may some day change and diminish – tarnish – that which is truly special in Umbria. Things like Sundays. My hope is that Umbria changes us first. Let’s hope that sometime in the near future, back in Washington, DC or Bellingham, Washington on a Sunday afternoon, while enjoying lunch al fresco with your family you, too, may hear drifting on the winds the refrain “Vino, Vino, Vino.”
Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy
Every Sunday is a special one here Read more
Sunday, our group’s first full day in Umbria, lived up to its being a Sunday. For Sunday’s are a special day in ...
Our return to Umbria was a day of new beginnings and new adventures.
A new tour group of eight soon-to-be ambassadors of Umbria
A first visit to Testone, a new restaurant featuring an all-torta al testo menu
A visit to and tour of Assisi the day before the Peace March from Perugia
Dinner at the villa prepared by Maria Pia
Stepping off the early morning flight from Paris to Rome made one thing abundantly clear. While autumn has arrived in France, in Italy it is still summer. Hot temperatures and clear blue dry skies greeted us on our return and the long sleeves we donned in Paris seemed most unnecessary.
On our drive from Rome we caught up with Wendy and planned the upcoming week and the following week’s tour, our conversation joyously covering all of the adventures that awaited our guests during their journey of discovery. We can’t wait!
We arrived at Testone, a modern Umbrian version of fast food restaurant tucked in a corner shopping center on the edge of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Testone is less fast food than it is singular food, each traditional torta al testo, the typical Umbrian flatbread baked over fire on a circular testo hand made and filled with freshly grilled sausages, sliced meats, local cheeses and various greens. It is simple food that is simply delicious and the enthusiastic young staff of waiters and managers provide a magnetic atmosphere that in short is fun. This was our first visit but won’t be our last.
A two hour walking tour of Assisi acclimated our guests to the lore and lure of the town’s native son, St. Francis. The usually busy city was positively bursting with humanity, adding to the festive atmosphere on this unusually balmy fall day.
But the highlight of the day, as it most always is, was the welcome dinner at the farmhouse prepared by the ever popular Maria Pia. Looking back through my photo archives I noticed it is difficult to find many pictures of Maria Pia and last night showed why. A veritable whirlwind of activity, when MP makes and serves dinner she is never the spotlight, her food is. She charges out with a bowl of pasta bigger than her head, serves it around and disappears back into the kitchen to finish up the next dish, which this night was the rarest of birds, roast chicken that unlike its American counterpart, has flavor to savor.
Aside from welcoming our guests for the beginning of their adventure the evening had an even more special purpose, wishing our dear friends Arlene and Arthur Cohen congratulations on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Over the years we have made countless friends introduced to us through Via Umbria (and its predecessor Bella Italia) and in many cases those acquaintances have blossomed into true friendships. Such is the case with Arlene and Arthur and so with the assistance of Maria Pia and her signature meringata cake, festooned with Roman candles, we celebrated our friends’ milestone. Looking up from behind dessert Arthur exclaimed to the assembled friends, old and new, “I can’t think of a place I’d rather be to celebrate.”
We agree, Arthur. We agree.
Tanti auguri e cohen-gratulazioni.
Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy
Our return to Umbria was a day of new beginnings and new adventures. A new tour group of eight soon-to-be ambassadors of Umbria A ...
We returned to Italy today after a brief soggiorno in France. As you no doubt know if you have been keeping up with our posts. [Note, there will be a test at the end of the month.] Continue reading Quite an Eye Full
We returned to Italy today after a brief soggiorno in France. As you no doubt know if you have been keeping up ...
Are you curious about the little blue car in our window? Let us take you back to its origins…
Are you curious about the little blue car in our window? Let us take you back to its origins… By the end of World ...
When seven o’clock rolls around in the morning it doesn’t matter if I am in bed at home in Washington, DC, or waking up to a cool sea breeze while the not so distant sound of waves lapping up on a white sandy beach soothes, or rubbing the sleep from my eyes as the sun rises over majestic towering mountains. And it doesn’t matter that the air is filled with the gentle clanging of church bells or the high pitched chirping of songbirds that mark the coming to life here in Umbria. The fact remain that I do not like to get up in the morning and dread even more the thought of taking a morning stroll. Continue reading One Small Step for Man
When seven o’clock rolls around in the morning it doesn’t matter if I am in bed at home in Washington, DC, or ...
Sundays in Umbria. We’ve spent dozens of them at the villa and it’s safe to say that Sunday is our favorite day of the week. Lazy days. Family days. The day of rest. There is something special about a Sunday in Umbria.