Tag: Umbria

Basics & Tips, Fall Harvest

A Canadian Thanksgiving

2008 was our first Thanksgiving away from home!   We had travelled to Italy with two friends and our plan was to celebrate Thanksgiving by cooking dinner in the “villa” near Lago Trasimeno in Umbria.   My husband and I had  grocery shopped in Tuscany and Umbria two years earlier and knew beforehand that Italians […]

Basics & Tips

Roman Holiday 2015

This time we spent 3 weeks in Rome…and yes to all of you who say “3 weeks”…really? Yes, really! We tried new places to eat that we  heard about and returned to a couple of ones we enjoyed on our past two stays in Rome. We visited the Castelli Romani with a good friend, stopping for […]

Basics & Tips

New Friends…aka Nuovi Amici

Having just returned from spending 3 weeks in Rome, you’d think I would be writing about the amazing things we saw and did. But not now! Our stay in Rome this trip was made very special by two new friendships made on Facebook. Gareth Jones introduced us to Josephine Wennenholm via Facebook and Wendy Holloway […]

Fall Mains

Sausages With Black Grapes

For a printer friendly version of this recipe, click here. This recipe is a specialty of Umbria in Italy according to Julia della Croce and comes from her cookbook “Umbria.” This is a dish I like to make in the fall using local grapes. We had picked up some “Skoocum” grapes from Klippers Organics at […]

Basics & Tips

First Trip to Italy

A few years before we made our first trip to Tuscany, a friend had loaned us “her favourite movie ever”, Under the Tuscan Sun. What I remember most, besides her incredibly gorgeous lover, Marcello, and maybe the food shots, were the views of the Tuscan countryside. It was so stunning I said to my husband, […]

Basics & Tips

EVO, Salt And Other Musings

One of the many delights of traveling  around Italy is having many opportunities to taste wonderful Extra Virgin Olive Oils. I have a fondness for the oils of Umbria. They differ in taste from Tuscan oils. Both are delicious. I fell in love with and brought home, an oil from that year’s harvest referred to […]

Basics & Tips

It’s Arrived!

    We have eagerly been anticipating the arrival of our 2013 extra virgin olive oil from Amelia, imported directly from the farm in Umbria, since the harvest in November/December. It’s arrived early this year!Umbria produces excellent tasting oil and is as good, or even better than Tuscan oil. On a visit to Montefalco in Umbria, we tasted […]