We Promised Parking Hints -- Here They Are

        We promised to do a post about parking in various Umbrian towns because so many visitors come by car and then don't know where to park. We don't know everything and we are ready for input from anyone who has a better idea to offer. For now, here are some  hints.

        GENERAL INFO

      If the lines for parking spaces are blue, you must pay for parking. Parking areas also have a P on a sign either at the spot or directing you there. Be careful not to park in a handicapped space. To pay for parking, you must find the machinetta, the self-service machine. Use coins if possible, as some won't make change. The search for the machinetta can be frustrating -- they are usually mounted on a grey column and have a P sticker. The prices can be different depending on the place, so add money until the display shows the approximate time you want to leave. Then push the green button and collect the ticket. Now you must go back to your car and place the ticket (not upside down) on your dashboard so that the police can see that you have paid and are not using an expired ticket. (At some places with blue lines and no machinetta, you may have to go in the nearest bar and ask if they sell parking tickets. If so, put it on your dashboard as you would a ticket from a machinetta).
       
        TODI

        We like parking in the Orvietano parking lot because from there you can take the elevator up to the top of the town. We also prefer the steeper road up to Todi, which is reached coming from Ponte Rio -- there is a bridge, then an immediate right. There is a small building right at the corner. It's a straight shot up the hill to the gates of the town. Turn right there and follow the walls (and signs) around to Orvietano parking. If the elevator isn't working, there is always a shuttle bus every fifteen minutes. If you stay past midnight, you will have to walk down the steps, which are reached by taking the road next to Oberdan restaurant down to where the stairs begin. It's a parklike walk. If you think you will be later than midnight, you must pay the parking in advance so that your token will open the gate to get out of the lot. Otherwise, you'll have a problem.
        If you prefer to drive up to the top, chances are you won't find parking. There is a parking lot at Piazza Garibaldi, which is usually full, and there is some public parking in front of San Fortunato church, which is also usually full. If you don't find a place, you'll have to drive back down and start over, which is why we really like Orvietano and the elevator.
         If you decide that driving straight up the hill is too daunting, take the next road to Todi, after the train station, and you will wind your way to the top. You will arrive at a round about at Porta Romana gate to Todi. Facing the gate you will follow the walls around to the left, passing the big Bramante church (Consolazione) and staying to the left until you see the sign for Orvietano parking directing you to the right.

       *** The Orvietano parking lot has a gate at the entrance. You will take a green plastic token from the machine at the gate. You will keep this token until you leave. The token is electric and the clerk will use it to see how much to charge you. You will put it in the gate to get out. See above for after midnight departures.

      ORVIETO

      In Orvieto we like to park across from the funicolare station, which is halfway to the top of the town. Follow the signs up to the centre, up and up until you arrive at the big parking lot on your right. The funicolare station is where the shuttle buses come to take you up to the piazza of the Duomo. Also, right here is the Pozzo di San Patrizio, the historic deep well that early inhabitants used to bring water safely up from the bottom of the rocca. Buy a ticket for the shuttle for 1 Euro inside the funicolare station. You will probably want to walk back down the hill to your car, as the streets are lined with shops, restaurants, and galleries.
       Your other option is to follow the signs to the train station and park there. You would then take the funicolare from there up to the station mentioned above, take the shuttle, etc.
      
        DERUTA
      
       Although we often buy ceramics at the southern exit from the E45, sometimes we like to go up to the old town. The ceramics museum is a good one and there are many small studios with working artists. Therefore, drive up to the centre, following the signs. Outside the gate of the town, there are some parking spaces. If those are full, there is a bigger lot just down the road across from the cemetery.

        PERUGIA

      Thank goodness for the wonderful Mini Metro. To catch it, get off the E45 when you see the sign for the stadium (stadio) at the Madonna Alta exit. You will find a very big parking lot and the Mini Metro station there. Buy a ticket from the machine and hop on this very clever transport system. Get off at the last stop and you will be steps away from Corso Vannucci. The parking here is free.

        SPOLETO

       We like to park across the Via Flaminia (SS3) from the town and walk across the old ponte  (bridge) and down to the town. It's a very dramatic way to enter Spoleto. What you need to do is find the San Pietro church, which is on the map, across the highway from the town. Follow the road to the left and you will arrive at the entrance to the walkway across the old aquaduct. Park there. With camera in hand, walk down the path and across this amazing bridge. When you arrive on the other side, look back and take a photo. Then walk down to the little piazzetta with the fountain with the face. You are now above the Duomo. This parking is free.
      Trying to park in the town is difficult because there is a series of one way streets and if you make the wrong turn or the parking lot is full, you will have to start all over. You could try Piazza Liberta', which is where the tourist office is located, as well as the Roman theatre. There is a machinetta here.

        ASSISI

      Assisi is the most famous town in Umbria and, therefore, can be overwhelmingly full of tourists in the summer. We take the road that passes through Santa Maria degli Angeli and drive up towards Assisi until we are almost to the top. There will be sharp turn to the right and to the left, you will see a piazza where the entrance to the big parking lot is located.
This parking lot also offers underground parking, which is very nice in summer. There are also restrooms. To get to San Francesco duomo, you will have to walk up the hill, but not nearly as far as if you park other places. You take a parking ticket when you enter the lot and pay at the booth before you leave.
       If you turn to the sharp right, as mentioned above, you will find another public parking lot on the right. From here you can walk through the entire town of Assisi to reach the Duomo, which can be interesting in cooler weather.

       MONTEFALCO

       Parking in the main piazza is iffy and the machinetta only gives you one hour. Plus, sometimes you can get up there, especially in tourist season, and find the road is blocked.
So, you should either 1) go in the Borgo Garibaldi gate on the west side of the walled town. As soon as you enter the gate, go left around the wall. There will be parking places along the wall, marked with blue lines, or, 2) turn left at Borgo Garibaldi outside the walls and go as far as you can toward the roundabout at the lookout point, Ringhiera Umbria. There are also parking spaces just beyond the lookout. From here you can walk up the Via Ringhiera Umbria to the Museum of San Francesco and the main piazza.

       BEVAGNA

      Coming down from Montefalco, Bevagna will be on the left just as the road turns sharply to the right. The landscape is flat here. The first entrance to Bevagna can be seen from your car. There is a parking lot before the bridge outside the walls to the right. The lot can be seen from the road. Otherwise, if you go to the other end of Bevagna (towards Foligno), you will find parking outside of that gate, as well.

         NORCIA

     Norcia is surrounded by a heart-shaped wall. We usually turn right along the wall and then left again at the point of the heart. There is parking along the wall and across the street from the gate that leads into the town on Via Roma. This is the closest way to arrive at the main piazza. 
        





     

THE OLIVE OIL TSUNAMI

Olives waiting to be pressed at a frantoio, Umbria

      In the aftermath of the current olive oil scandal sweeping across Europe, four or five multi-nationals will be chastised for blending oils from several Mediterranean countries and selling them as 100% Italian, or, as Extra Virgin when they aren’t.  This European network of inter-locking corporations, defined by La Repubblica, the Italian newspaper (Dec. 26, 2011) as a cartel and an agro-mafia, will probably be fined. 

     Consumers across the globe will be left with a bad taste in their mouths, determined never again to buy Italian extra virgin olive oil, which has always been thought by many to be the best.

Old olive trees, Puglia

     As a result, thousands of small independent producers, often with families dependent on the annual harvest to put the next year’s food on the table, will be unfairly tainted, tarred with the same brush as the mass market suppliers. They may be producing DOP oil (Protected Designation of Origin, an EU designation), recognized as the best regional extra virgin olive oil, but they might as well be making the same sorry swill stocked on the shelves of supermarket chains around the world.

      Whose job is it to police the industry? There are regulations in place in the European Union and fraud units assigned to the daunting task of finding the cheats in the olive oil trade.  The U.S. passed regulations about olive oil categories in 2010, but they are voluntary. Nobody has enough inspectors. It’s the perfect situation for fraud.

       So, what is the consumer who loves olive oil to do? 

TTPPT:  Taste Trust Price Producer Travel  

Taste.  Educate your palate, just as you would if you were buying wine. There are plenty of alternatives to mass-market olive oil. Specialized olive oil stores have opened around the world and many offer customers the opportunity to taste the oil before they buy it.  Look for the freshest oil. Don’t go for the clear bottles, which don’t protect the oil from spoilage as well as dark glass or tins. Use your oil in a few months and store it in a dark, cool spot.

Trust.   Find a specialty shop that sells oil and develop a relationship with the owner or buyer.  Ask them to set up a tasting of several oils or set one up yourself. (See how the professionals do it by downloading Olive Oil IQ to your smartphone or tablet).

Price.  You get what you pay for, just like when buying wine. You may come upon a jug wine or a mass produced olive oil that’s pretty good, but if you want DOP extra virgin olive oil, or a bottle of DOCG vino, you will have to pay more than 5 Euros or 5 pounds or 5 dollars for it if you want a product that has been picked and pressed by a local producer in the traditional way.

Producer.   Find the producers whose oil you like and ask your local shop to let you know when the new oil arrives. Every year will be slightly different, dependent on the harvest, but eventually you will recognize a group of labels that offer the oil you want.

Travel.   If you’ve followed the wine routes, think about traveling the olive oil routes. All across the Mediterranean, from Italy to Spain to France to Greece, as well as in the New World, there are places to taste and buy local extra virgin olive oil.  Often wineries will also produce oil, so check the websites of the wines you like. Make the experience a part of a culinary vacation, as way of educating yourself to know what good oil tastes like, as well as to experience the ambience that is an essential part of a local olive oil culture. 

    This blog post was originally posted on http://oliveoiliq.blogspot.com.

copyright Sharri Whiting 2012

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. 
    


   

Umbria, Southern Style: the Bottle Tree Cometh

  
    When the peach tree that shaded our terrace at Yellow House started to die, we thought we'd have to take it out. Poor ole thing had been producing peaches as hard as baseballs for the last five years, it had bunions growing where branches had been trimmed in other generations, and early this spring it developed a terrible case of a wet black fungus that harbored zillions of little black bugs. 


    One sunny spring morning, we decided the old tree had to go. Il Magnifico and I dug around the storerooms #1, 2 and 3, and eventually found a little rusted saw and got to work on the misshapen branches. The flimsy instrument kept catching in the wood, so making any headway was like a trip to the gym -- in about five minutes our tongues were hanging out. Panting like hound dogs, we flopped down on the sofa and a long simmering idea surfaced in my Alabama- bred brain: our peach tree would have a second life, as a bottle tree. At last, I would have a little piece of the American South in my own backyard in Umbria (not counting the Mardi Gras beads strung in the olive trees).


    Il Mag went to the hardware store in Bastardo and brought back the biggest galvanized nails I've ever seen.  I scrounged around among the boxes and debris in the various storerooms for bottles, blue bottles to be exact. I've been following Felder Rushing's gardening show on Mississippi public radio for years, as well as his website (www.felderrushing.net/BottleTreeImagess.htm), so I knew from the hundreds of photos of bottle trees from across Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and other southern states that this was the color I wanted. 


    According to Felder's history, the desire for bottles trees originated in Arabia after glass was invented, spread through central Africa, and was brought to the southern US by slaves as early as the 17th century.  In the South, bottle trees were a way to have something inexpensive and pretty in the front yard--bottles catch the light, shine brightly at dawn when the sun shines through them, glow at sunset. Cobalt blue bottles have been said to capture and banish the bad spirits, keeping them away from the house. I certainly wasn't going to have a bottle tree without blue bottles and I could find just one. That was not going to do.

© Eudora Welty Collection,  

Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1930s

    A call went out for blue bottles. Friends in Mississippi promised to bring us some, my cousin in Alabama passed along an old Milk of Magnesia, and my aunt in Virginia finished off some German wine and passed along the empty. A Brit with no earthly idea what I was talking about dutifully kept her eyes open and found some blue bottles containing water from Wales. I was making progress.
     

Ann and Dale

   Finally, our friends arrived from Oxford, MS, bringing with them a carefully packed box containing six beautiful blue bottles, along with their unmatched expertise on the South. Ann Abadie is associate director of the Center for Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi and an authority on all things Southern; her husband, Dale, is a historian. With them were law prof John Robin Bradley and, his wife, artsy Laura Bradley. With this level of Mississippi firepower on our terrace in Italy, we had no doubt our bottle tree would be imbued with a special magic. We each hammered in a nail and placed a blue bottle, with Laura's critical eye determining the perfect spot. 
    
   That was day before yesterday. Since then I've added an antique bottle from Cape Town to crown my tree -- since the idea for bottle trees came to the American South from Africa, I think its pale green glass is a fitting addition. Dale says I should move the bottles around once in awhile, for aesthetic reasons if not to confuse the roaming bad spirits. I might even consider adding red or yellow to the mix if I happen to find any. Any and all contributions will be accepted.

Bottle tree experts come to help

Bottle by bottle

   Fun reading about bottle trees:
http://usads.ms11.net/maxpower.html

http://usads.ms11.net/bottletree2.html
http://thiseclecticlife.com/2010/03/31/bottle-tree-at-last-maybe/
     
     

    

Reflections on Endless Washing Machine Cycles

Naples laundry...always an inspiration

   

      I am one of those expats living in Italy who has never stopped complaining about how long it takes to wash a load of clothes in my front loading European washing machine. Two hours and fifteen minutes for the cottons cycle is a mind boggling number.  In the US you can wash six loads in the time it takes to wash one load in Europe. What is wrong here? Don't these people understand that time is. . . time?

   Finally, thanks to the Internet, I've been put in my place. Who knew I was such an environmentalist? I was already rather proud of myself to have learned how to separate the paper, plastic, glass and indifferenziato (uncategorized) trash since Via Palombaro was put on the garbage recycling route in January. Now I am feeling even more virtuous with each load of dirty clothes I stuff into my European washer. 

     Here’s what I’ve learned from the websites listed below:

* Up to three times the water is needed for most US top loaders than for European front loaders.

* European front loaders are quieter than top loading machines

* European front loaders have more capacity without that pesky agitator taking up space

* Spin speeds in top loaders are usually slower, resulting in more moisture left in clothing.

* Top loaders that agitate are not as gentle on clothing and linens.

* European front loaders use horizontal-axis, tumbling drum system, which is why they require less than half the water. That's for a pre-wash, main wash and up to five rinses versus only the wash cycle on a top-loader.

* Frontloaders in Europe have internal water heaters, which saves the cost of using your hot water heater at the same time as your washer. This means that you can select temperatures between 30 and 95 degrees Celsius (86-203 F) and the machine will heat the water to that termperature. Rather than using bleach, it's possible to use very hot water on whites such as socks and sheets, thus saving the world from more Clorox in the water system.  Cold water is an option on newer machines and European detergents for cold water are now being sold, as well as good pre-wash stain remover sprays.

* Some models offer spin speeds as high as 1600 rpm compared to the average toploader's less than 1000, resulting in higher water extraction and faster drying clothes.

* The tumbling action of a front loader is much gentler on garments than the an agitator in a top loader.

      So, yes the long wash cycle is a pain. So, here in Umbria we find something to do while waiting the two hours, fifteen minutes for the towels to finish washing:

1) Read a book on my kindle in the bubble bath

2) Have a cup of tea on the terrace and listen to the birds sing

3) Bake a cake. . . from scratch

4) Take a long walk in the country

5) Inventory the pantry and go to the grocery store with an extensive list of staples to buy

6) Make my New Year's resolutions, including a plan to seek the virtue of pazienza (patience)

7) Hang the previous wash load outside on the clothesline to dry in the sun

8) Weed the orto (vegetable garden); toss the snails into the adjacent field

9) Make minestrone, chopping all the fresh vegetables (no cheating with pre-chopped frozen veggies, though they really are quite good)

10) Prune something -- an olive tree, a fig tree, a rose bush

11) Make olive oil infusions with rosemary and sage from the garden or lavender pot pourri

12) Reflect on the fact that living The Slow Life demands some concessions. If I had to choose between my WiFi and a twenty minute wash load, WiFi would win hands down.
Copyright Sharri Whiting 2011

While the towels are washing, the Umbrian countryside beckons

Links:

http://housewares.about.com/lw/Home-Garden/Home-improvement-renovation/Top-Loading-vs-Front-Loading-Washers-Which-is-Better-.htm

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/laundry.html

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/non_aviation/read.main/65637/

http://www.efficientlivingforum.com/content/189-us-vs-european-front-top-loading-washer-comparison.html

 

Will Work for Food, Provided it's Zero Kilometer Cuisine

    Anyone who's willing to come to Italy to spend a week picking olives the old fashioned way is a someone who appreciates biological, organic, fresh, local food and wine. Taking that step back in the process, from consumption to the actual harvest of something they are eventually going to eat, allows us all to reflect on what we do to our bodies when we hit the fast food counter. Fortunately, here in Umbria, our friends can enjoy what the Italians call "zero kilometer cuisine" -- just about everything they eat while here will have been produced in the region.

No olive left behind

    Yesterday, our ten pickers produced six full crates of olives from about ten trees, 10% of what we need to accomplish this week. Today, after a good dinner and solid night's sleep, we expect to fill many more of those green, red and yellow plastic boxes. We still have  the old wooden olive crates used in the old days, but have turned them into kitchen cabinets -- they are so heavy empty it's hard to imagine moving them full of olives.

La Signora picks the leave from her family's olive harvest

     Since food is an integral part of any Italian experience, especially a culinary trip, we offered a "workers'" lunch of fresh minestrone with parmesan and olive oil, salumeria from Norcia (prosciutto, salami), Stilton cheese brought by a friend from England, mozzarella, and a variety of fresh baked breads. There was the endless flow of Omero's garage wine, of course, and a polenta torta, citrus crostata and mandarini for dessert. After a cup of coffee we hit the trees again to work off lunch; we have to begin thinking of dinner.

      Standing amid the olives at La Casetta Rosa, we could hear our neighbors picking their trees further down in the valley. The rythmic cadence of Umbrian-style Italian conversation drifted up our way on the breeze -- they must have listened to us speaking English with accents tinged with Italian, Dutch, American Southern, English, and Namibian origins. We were all doing the same thing: picking olives while talking about our lives, our children and grandchildren, our gardens. In our group there was also talk of test driving Ferraris, future trips, and the anticipation of eating tonight at Le Noci, our favorite restaurant in Grutti.

     At Le Noci, Il Magnifico wrote down the orders ad La Principessa recited the menu. This is not required of all diners, of course, but since we have the fare memorized, we can cut out minutes from the process by presenting the server with a fait accompli -- in Italian. This ensures appreciation from Danielle and the ladies in the kitchen, who send out food out in some kind of reasonable order.

     Old favorites on the table last night included were fazzoletti (triangular ravioli stuffed with ricotta and topped with panna (cream) and fresh shaven truffles, strongozzi with truffles, gnocchi stuffed with porcini, tagliata (sliced grilled beef steak) topped with fresh arugula and balsamic vinegar, stewed cinghiale (wild boar), capriolo (venison), and veal prime rib. All this was followed by tiramisu, bavarese, creme Portuguese, and fresh baked cookies with Sagrantino Passito.

     It's 6:30 a.m. on Monday now and still dark outside. There is some stirring upstairs, so the pickers must be awake. After a quick cup of coffee, we will be back out in the piantoni (big plants -- local name for olive trees). Their picking sessions will be bookended with a coffee break in the field, a farmer's lunch in the kitchen, and tonight's dinner at Frontini, an agriturismo which, by law, serves a menu made up almost entirely of their own or nearby production.

     Olivistas Arise! Day Two has begun.

Copyright 2010 Sharri Whiting

Stalking the Wild Asparagus, not just reading about it

The late Euell Gibbons, probably the original locavore writer, wrote a book in 1962 called Stalking the Wild Asparagus. It was a folksy, humorous take on the recognition, gathering, preparation and use of the natural health foods that grow wild in almost every area. I found the title hilarious and it has stayed with me all my life.

Fast forward a lot of years to Spring 2010. We are living in Umbria. We know there are asparagi growing out there in the woods because here and there we think we can see the ferny/thorny looking plants which produce the thin succulent shoots we want to harvest. The hardware stores are full of long forceps-like tools, which both snip and hold the tender spears until they make it into your bag.

I'm not sure what to do or where to look, but I am determined that this will be the spring when I stalk the wild asparagus. Fidelma, my Irish friend, calls to invite me over for an asparagus hunt -- she has been given a gathering lesson by her giardiniere. We put on boots (in case the snakes are waking up from their winter hibernation) and gloves (to protect us from thorns), sling grocery bags over our shoulders, take up our "sticks" and we're off to her 5-acre backyard.

A veteran asparagus picker (this is her second time), Fidelma spots the almost invisible shoots immediately. I stand there squinting into the dappled shade of the underbrush,  trying to decide if this is a pursuit that requires sunglasses or not. I don't see a single thing that looks like an asparagus spear.

Fidelma looks over my shoulder and cries,"There's one! Get it!" I take off my sunglasses and get down on all fours, bottom in the air, and peer toward the ground. Finally, I see a very slender, dark green-purple stalk. I have found my first asparagus. I have become a hunter/gatherer.

We rummage around in the bushes for another hour or so, catching our hair in tree limbs, stumbling over roots, gradually filling up our Sidis bags with wild asparagus. Finally we each have enough to make asparagus pasta for dinner. We stand up and survey the landscape, which stretches in undulating green waves to Todi and, beyond, to Orvieto. Hilltop castles and medieval villages are silhouetted against the sky, where they have stood guard for centuries. No doubt their occupants enjoyed a plate or two of asparagus pasta in the springs of 1210 or 1610, just as we will in 2010. To us, being locavores doesn't only mean eating what's available locally in season. It also allows us to join hands with a tradition that goes back to the beginning of time in these ancient hills.

We emerge from the woods with muddy boots, dirty jackets, and with treasure. That night, we both cooked asparagus pasta like this:

Use your favorite pasta: spaghetti, tagliatelle, penne, rigatoni.

While the pasta cooks in salted boiling water,

wash and snap off the ends of the asparagus where they break naturally.

Cut or break the remainder of the asparagus into pieces, reserving the tips.

Make a soffritto of olive oil, a little peperoncino (crushed red pepper) and garlic (some people use onion, while others add a bit of chopped bacon); add some white wine.

Add the pieces of asparagus, leaving the tips until the last five minutes, as they cook faster.

Simmer the sauce for about ten minutes or until the pasta is cooked.

Put a few chunks of butter in the bottom of the pasta bowl.

Drain and put the cooked pasta in the bowl.

Pour the asparagus mixture over the pasta and mix together. Add more olive oil if necessary.

Serve.

Eat.

Copyright 2010 Sharri Whiting

Life's overarching moments

  

     There is an overarching theme to life here at Yellow House: someday, Lord willing, we will finish restoring this casa colonica. As we did for a decade down the road at La Casetta Rosa, we pick one project to do every year. We are unwilling to experience the unabated nightmare of construction for longer than six weeks at time. After that, it won't matter how long it takes because we will no longer be living at Yellow House: we will be moved into the closest asylum.

    This year we chose to work on what we had euphemistically called "the laundry room" for the past three years. You may see it to the right. Beautiful, isn't it? Since it shared a wall with our too-small living room, the idea was to join the two, creating more space for living and entertaining. We called Lucio, the geometra who is our ever-ready project leader. Lucio called Donatello. Piero and I met with them amid the junk piles. We decided that what we needed was an arch. 


    The arch. Don't take it for granted.

     According to Wikipedia, an arch is a structure that spans a space while supporting weight (e.g. a doorway in a stone wall). Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture, but it was the Ancient Romans who began systemically using arches in their buildings. 

    Donatello (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi; c. 1386 – December 13, 1466) was a famous early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from Florence. His sculpture of David in the Bargello Museum in Florence is considered almost as important as the David by Michelangelo. 

    With the Romans and a namesake Florentine sculptor as his inspiration, Donatello of Umbria set to work. This is a man who is a muratore (stonemason) and plumber, but when faced with the prospect of creating an arch he turned into an artiste.

     First Donatello prepared the support beams, inserting six steel bars into the wall above where the arch would be. To skip this step would mean our 200-year-old two-story house would most likely fall down in a heap of rubble. Next, he began tearing out the stone, piece by piece, of what turned out to be a solid wall almost a meter thick. The pile of stones outside grew...and grew.

     The air was heavy with summer and yellow jackets were swarming everywhere. Our living room furniture at one point was moved outside, along with boxes of liqueurs and aperitifs taken from the bar. At one point, there was so much heat that a bottle of homemade plum wine simply exploded all over the terrace and every bee on our strada bianca was there in seconds to have a drink. (Afterwards, they fell in drugged stupors on the lawn furniture).

    One day the men arrived with an "arch form" they had made. We had an artistic conference, to discuss how the aged bricks would work with the stone in the arch. Donatello was a man possessed; was he embodied by the spirit of the great Florentine sculptor? We chose to go with his design of two bricks turned sideways intersected with a row of bricks set on their narrow ends. How in the world would they put this together without it all falling down on their heads? Aha! They inserted the form into the space and somehow, some way, managed to install the bricks by blindly arranging them on top. Amazing.

    After two days' drying time, Donatello removed the form and voila! we had an extraordinary arch. There was much more work to be done, but this was the centerpiece, the creative experience, the moment of supreme satisfaction. Che bello!

Control, Comfort, Competency, Confirmation. . .Bliss at Yellow House

    There is snow on the distant mountaintops, my winter veggies are planted, and life begins again in Umbria. We've been gone two months, hardly enough time to experience culture shock on our return. Still, living in the country in central Italy is a stark contrast to daily life in Fairhope, Alabama, USA and every time we shift continents it take a little while to re-adjust.

    In my work in cross cultural relations, I often point out the four vital elements everyone needs to feel at home: Control, Comfort, Competency and Confirmation. Do I really need to experience these to fit back into life on Palombaro ridge?

    Ah, the control issue.  It's natural to feel a loss of control when you first arrive in a new place. After all, you don't know how to find your way, and you can't be certain you'll ever get where you want to go. Coming home to Umbria, I wonder if it's time to cede control to Il Magnifico, the Italian in the family, who has settled in front of the TV to watch Roma play Lazio at soccer, earphones cutting off communication with the non-electronic outside world. I decide to share power: I will turn up the heat and he can bring in the firewood.

     Comfort comes with the familiar.  Jetlagged, I crawl into bed, turn on the heating pad, snuggle up in flannel sheets and fall into a deep sleep. For others, acculturation may mean learning to eat without worrying about the taste or ingredients, going into a shop expecting what you will find there, hearing the difference between an ambulance and a police siren and knowing how to plan your travel from one side of town to another. For me, Umbria means the silence of the countryside, the comfort of lying undisturbed in my cocoon, with a hint of woodsmoke in the winter air.

     I explain competence to uneasy students this way:  in a new and foreign setting, you will feel competent when you know how to solve simple problems, such as paying a bill, getting telephone service, finding the emergency room if you need it, even buying an aspirin. In Umbria, competence means I left behind clean towels in the linen closet, longlife milk in the cupboard, a fresh box of cereal, pasta, and plenty of coffee. We can hole up here all weekend without leaving the house. Bliss.

     We can lose our sense of confirmation during culture shock because there are no cheerleaders to applaud us for learning new skills, such as getting on the right bus or figuring out a washing machine with instructions in a new language. During this time we don't feel love from our usual support system and that can lead to loneliness. 

    No problem here. Winona leapt into my arms the instant we opened the door, meowing, nuzzling, black cat hairs flying through the air. In the last 24 hours she has provided confirmation by clinging to one or the other of us like a baby possum, leaving only to open the door to go outside to check the perimeter, something she has greatly missed while we were gone. (Yes, we have a cat who can open doors). We wandered into the kitchen, vaguely wondering about lunch, and found a note, "Look in frig." There was a big pot of homemade vegetable soup left for us by friends whose thoughtfulness was warming confirmation of our support system.


    Control, Comfort, Competency and Confirmation -- the four vital elements of acculturation. Add a fifth: very happy to be home.
   Copyright Sharri Whiting 2010

 

 

99 and 44/100ths Percent Pure on Via Palombaro

It’s that season of the year in Italy, when virginity and purity are top of mind in all the churches (December 8 is the feast of the Immaculate Conception and it goes on from there). Piero says the teen aged girls in his time had a prayer, “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, who conceived without sin, help me sin without conceiving,” but that’s a conversation for another day.

Then there was the message from those Ivory Soap ads from the 1960s (1950s?): “it's 99 and 44/100ths percent pure.” All the post-war mothers rushed out to buy pure white Ivory and the “almost-pure” concept took off.

Then, somehow, the concepts of virginity and almost-pure were merged and came out as extra-virgin. I have no idea how. I do not set the standards here, but I’m sure there are millions of young women in conservative societies who would embrace the idea that just a little fooling around could still buy them the label of extra virgin bride.

My brother, the preacher, says he thought the extra virgins were the ones who didn't make the cut for the sacrifice-down-the-volcano selection in ancient times, kind of like those who don't get in the Top Ten in a beauty pageant, but I think he is mixing up his pagan rites with his hopes for his beautiful teen-aged daughter.

This is all to prepare you for the announcement that the olive oil from Yellow House and La Casetta Rosa, plucked from our motley assortment of a hundred or so trees by ten good friends, was tested and found to have an acidity of only 0.032%. To meet the standards of extra virgin, the acidity can be no more than 0.06%. So, you see, our gorgeous green oil is not only extra virgin, it surely must be extra extra virgin. Our oil is more virtuous than Ivory and the taste is infinitely better.

This was one of those banner years in the very short history of Olive Week at our place. The trees were just groaning with fruit, twice as much as in 2007. Our friends arrived from the South (Battle’s Wharf and Tampa), Tulsa (oil, yes; extra virgin, no) and Cape Cod, plus Namibia, England, and down the road in Todi. The days were long and sunny, so we managed to get more than 700 kilos of those little black nuggets off the trees and into the baskets, while exchanging gossip, arguing philosophy, falling off ladders, listening to Swedish folk songs (next year, Bjorn, think about the Beatles, in English, or opera, in Italian), and contemplating both the view and the zillions of olives hanging on the next tree over. Of course, there was much conversation about the American election, including numerous toasts to Obama with Omero’s garage red.



Our pickers were fueled with truffles, porcini mushrooms, pasta, hand cut prosciutto, home made farro soup, fresh bread, vino, and a wee drop of the plum wine made over the summer from a tree that unexpectedly rained fruit to prove it wasn't dead. Of course, we hit the local ristoranti circuit pretty hard and also managed to get to chocolate school.

Even now, weeks later, the pickers' hands are surely still twitching in their sleep; not unlike a dozing dog chasing an imaginary rabbit, they “milk” those endless olive trees. But, what an achievement! Ah, to have been acolytes in the grand ceremony of producing something extra extra virgin, the fruit of the land, green and organic, sustainably environmentally correct; with the dark moist earth of Umbria encrusting your boots, leaves in your hair, olives in your bra, proudly wearing scars from face-scratching branches to dinner parties across the globe. (See great opportunity below).PS.
A note to our pickers (you know who you are): In order to convince you to come back next year, we are naming a tree after each one of you, which will be pruned and fertilized with sheep dung. We will ask Bjorn to come over from Todi and sing your choice of tune to your tree, preferably when we are far away from home. You will receive photos of your tree during the year, so that you may see its progress, from buds in the spring to tiny olives to full, ripe, juicy olives ready to be picked -- by you. Va bene?