Mi Place La Cucina Italiana

September 10th, 2009

Buon Giorno, guessing you will be reading this while it is still morning!!! We are still all very happily ensconsed in our Villa Campo Verde, what a wonderful place!!! Life is very hard for us all, we awake each day to the blue sky and lovely 26 degrees, a swim and then all sitting outside at the big table for colazione. Mostly full of laughter as we practice our Italian. Today we are all giving each other an Italian name. We have Bruscetti ( Bruce ) Parmesean ( Pam ), Piazza Idiotica ( Me ) Tartufi Joelli ( Jo ), Fayrarri ( Fay ) etcetcetc, I will spare you the rest at this stage.

Each day we have had a great experience: First day we went to Perugia, through Spoleto & yesterday we went to Norci a wonderful little village filled with shops sporting Proscuitto and cheeses and fabulous Olive Oils, all on our way up to the mountains where we had a picnic in true Italian style. Along the way we stopped to wander among small villages each with their own personality and history.

Yesterday we have been to Bevagna & Montefalco. Bevagna is a small village filled with history and the smallest streets to wander amongst and then Montefalco is the home of the best Vino Rosso & Vino Blanco, plus fabulous linen, we had lunch in the "best restaurant" in Italy ( they claim ), Il Verziere; imagine Pecorino al coccio con prosciutto and Strangozzi al Tartufo ... yummm mammma mia, all helped down with local Montefalco Rosso. E Buonissimo ( It's delicious " ) !!! Yes and we have learnt how to say "Posso Avere un Bicchiere di Vino Rosso" ( Can I have a glass of red wine please )!!! Spoleto which is the closet "town" which is extraordinarily rich in historical attributes: all monuments are all connected in a endless continuum from Proto - historic age to the Lombard, from the middle age to the modern times. From here you can visit surrounding towns dense with memories from the roman age to present days alike. We have had our own private bus to take us everywhere and our tour guide plus Villa Owner Cameron who is a New Zealander now living in Eggi, he and his sister Beverly own the Villa and have the wonderful Simone & her husband Siad plus their Mamma & Pappa who make sure we have the best experiences in local experiences + of course the all important cooking lessons. The Mama & Jo are the "cucina italiana" team!!

Each day we all gather in the big kitchen and make some new Italian dishes, all so different from how we do them in NZ. We have learnt how to make true Italian Pizza, Gnocci, Tortillini and tonight it is Lemon Cello & Tagitalli. we have all these things at some time in NZ but NOT like this, it is so different with the flavour exquisite, simple and fresh!!!! Mi Piace la Cucina Italiana.

It is so hard to explain all these things without the photo's, we are constantly "clicking" and running batteries flat each day with the camera, can't wait to get all the photo's into a book full of these memories.

Today we are in Spoletto before returning for cooking lessons at 3pm, we will tell you about that one later ( guinea Fowl I believe ) !!!! Then we are off to the Opera: Stagione Lirica Sperimentale to see L'Elisir D'Amore.

Ciao Ciao for now xxxxxx Jo & Trish