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By Suzanne Carreiro, December 4, 2008 14:27

My driveway in Umbertide after a rare snowstorm.

Note:  These “postcards” are extracted from the emails that I sent to friends and family while I lived in Umbria. (Umbria is Tuscany’s neighbor to the east.)

Ciao a Tutti,

My year here in Umbria is almost over—I will be home at the end of January.  I leave here with mixed emotions.  I am anxious to see family and friends at home but at the same time, I cannot bear to leave my good friends and “adopted” Umbrian family—and the little cat Nano (midget) who has become my constant companion.

My favorite Umbrian cat, Nano (midget).

Here in Umbria the weather is a common topic.  For months, it has been much warmer than usual—it is colder inside my old stone house than it is outside.  It has hardly rained since the incredible thunderstorms we had in July and August, but we’ve had a lot of fog.  Even with unseasonably warm weather, a pair of socks still takes at least three days to dry (clothes dryers are not common here).  I don’t think the bath towels I washed days ago will be dry until spring.  A few days ago, the temperature dropped.  Maybe winter has finally arrived.

It is festive here, of course, with Christmas festivities.  Strands of lacy lights line the sky above the streets, a huge tree covered with small white lights fills the main piazza, and shop windows are filled with toys and Babbo Natale (Santa Claus).

A couple nights ago, I went to a friend’s in Gubbio, one of the most beautiful medieval hill towns in Italy, to learn a couple of the city’s specialties.  Driving into town, I saw the most dazzling sight—the entire hillside of the town was covered in blue and green Christmas lights that turned the hill into the world’s largest Christmas tree, so they say.

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By Suzanne Carreiro, June 6, 2008 16:02

Note:  These “postcards” are extracted from the emails that I sent to friends and family while I lived in Umbria.  (Umbria is Toscany’s neighbor to the east).

Ciao a Tutti,

My son Jacob was here for the month of May, and what great fun we had!  But now I am trying to make up for all the time I goofed off.  We did some sightseeing here in Umbria, and we spent his last few days in Rome, in the Lazio region just south of Umbria.  There is no city like Roma on earth!  But I’m a little shell-shocked.  After saying goodbye to Jacob at the airport, I took the train back into Rome, and then a little later, I took it back home to Umbria.

My son Jacob outside the Vatican.

During the few hours I was alone in Rome, someone cut an 8-inch slash in my purse with a knife and then stabbed it several more times, trying to cut through the lining.  When I discovered the gaping hole in my purse, I was astounded and frightened.  I never noticed anyone near me, and I never felt anything—my hand was always hanging onto my purse, just an inch or so from where they slashed!

After trying to keep up with my twenty-six-year-old son in Rome—and escaping the purse-slashing incident without injury or loss of money—it is good to be back in tranquil Umbria.

In fact, June is one of the nicest months in Umbria.  Rain is rare, it isn’t too hot yet, and the landscape is at its prettiest.  The hills are a patchwork of colors.  Golden fields of grain—oats, wheat, and barley—border hillsides dotted with the grayish-green olive trees and dense forests.  In the valley, the corn and sunflowers are over a meter high.  Just a few yellow sunflowers break the monotony of green, and the rest are getting ready to open. Rows of tobacco are breaking through the dirt and are now six or so inches tall. The grapevines are filled with leaves and tiny, tiny grapes.  At night in the countryside, the dark ‘campo’ twinkles with fireflies!

I am busy working on my book.  I spent two days last week cooking with a friend’s mother (Bruna) who is an exceptional, traditional Umbrian cook.  We made gnocchi and the classic duck sauce that goes with it—tomatoes, duck, veal, lardo, butter, olive oil, carrots, celery, onion, and plenty of salt.  All simmer together to create a thin, velvety sauce that clings to the gnocchi—I’ve never had a more exquisite sauce (the meat is served as a separate course).

The next day, Bruna and I made cappelletti—tiny meat-filled pasta that is served in broth. The filling took a couple hours to make—from simmering to grinding.  Then the real work began—kneading the pasta (10 eggs worth) for 20 minutes, rolling out the dough (we used a hand-cranked machine), and cutting 2-inch circles in the dough.  Bruna did all that.  Then her husband pinched off tiny pieces of the meat filling and dropped a pea-sized bit onto every circle of dough.  Three of us folded, twisted, and sealed the pasta—it took over three hours.  Usually Bruna makes it alone; it takes her the entire day.

This week I am madly testing recipes and writing—with a break on Thursday when I head to Castelluccio near Norica, in southeastern Umbria.  Castelluccio is famous for its fields filled with flowers—and more famous for its tiny, delicious lentils.  I head there to see the flowers and then go to a tiny town near Norcia to watch Pecorino cheese being made.  Then I hope to make it to a small factory (in an old monastery) where they make prosciutto.  Umbria’s best prosciutto comes from Norcia.

Next Monday and Tuesday, I am taking a professional cooking course—Pane, Pizze, e Focacce.

I’d love to hear what’s new with you.  Ciao for now, Suzanne Carreiro

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By Suzanne Carreiro, August 6, 2007 17:13

An ancient map of Umbria taken at the Vatican.

Ciao a Tutti,

What a summer we are having here in Umbria!  We have had one violent thunderstorm after another for several weeks.  A storm threatens at this moment and another one is expected to arrive tomorrow.  The storms destroyed a friend’s computer and two of his television sets and another friend lost his telephone.  The lightening has done something to my wireless internet set-up.  Neither my neighbor nor I (we share DSL) have been able to get online for most of July and August.
The temperature has dropped from the mid 90s to the mid 70s.  The sunflowers are spent and the days are shorter—now it starts to get dark at 8:30.  Mornings have been crisp and cool, perfect for my morning bike ride near the Tiber River or walk in the hills above my house.
Summer is the season of the Sagra—festival.  Every town seems to have one or two this season.  Last Sunday, I went to a small town near Perugia for a festa.  There were a half a dozen people in costumes from the middle ages doing the work common to that epoch—grinding flour, spinning wool, carving wood and stone.  The central piazza was lined with picnic tables and a band played in an upper piazza.  We ate a traditional dinner, served by waiters and children dressed in costumes from the 1500s.  It tasted as though someone’s grandmother had made each dish—gnocchi with goose sauce, garbanzo beans and pasta, beans and pork rind, torta with sausage.  Everything was delicious, including the wine.  I am trying to decide which festival to go to next weekend.  There are too many choices right now.

My tutor, Mario, during harvest--in the family's winery.

I work on my book every day except Sunday, but work is what I came here to do. My book proposal is almost out the door—all 150 pages of it.  I am in the final stages of making corrections and proofreading.  Tomorrow I hope to select the sample photos that I will include.  The next step is to send the proposal to agents until someone takes on the project.  I hope that all happens quickly.  Of course, it is far from over when I find an agent—a publisher has to buy it (if you know a good agent, let me know).
My head is swimming with all of the wonderful things I need to put on paper.

The pizza class I mentioned in my last letter was fabulous.  It was a professional class with only 6 students. The instructor has a bakery in a tiny town near me.  He has 20 years of baking experience and had a lot of very interesting, unusual things to say about flour and making dough.  The pizza was exceptional, but so were the breadsticks, the olive focaccia, and the dinner rolls.

Scaloppine with black truffles from the cooking class.

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a truffle class by a couple who produce a truffle sauce and sell other truffle products.  They taught us about the different kinds of truffles and showed us how to cook a few truffle dishes—scaloppini with truffles, frittata con tartufi, mashed potatoes with truffles rolled in a crepe. My favorite tartufi are the precious white truffles from Umbria, but they are not around until the fall.  I hope to go looking for black summer truffles next week.
In July, I spent three days at a local artisan butcher.  They make their own prosciutto, pancetta, guanciale (pancetta made from pork cheeks), and fresh sausage. One day I stayed at the butchers while they made fifty prosciutti and an equal number of pancetta.  I came home smelling like vinegar and garlic even though I had not touched anything but my notepad and camera.

Umbria's pork sausage--yummy.

The sausage here is squisita—ground pork, garlic, salt, and pepper—simple but fabulous.  And the guanciale! —sautéed and put on a piece of toasted Umbrian bread with olive oil.  Just about everyone here can afford to buy these gourmet products that in the States are a splurge.
I recently went to Citerno to learn about making vin santo (holy wine), a dessert wine that Umbrian’s love to dunk their cake and cookies into.  At harvest, the man and his wife hang wine grapes from the rafters in their attic to dry until the grapes are withered.  Some time in January, they will press the grapes and make wine.  The wine goes into a small wooden barrel with a bit of  “mother” wine, where it stays untouched for three years.  Delicious.  I am going back to help them hang the grapes in the fall. His wife has promised to teach me how to make the wonderful cake we ate with the vin santo.
In mid July, I made a trek to the southeastern tip of Umbria to a place called Campi.  I learned how the family has been making pecorino cheese for five generations.
Coming up next is a visit to a man who cultivates saffron, the onion festival in Cannara, and the lentil harvest.
I’m off to close the windows…the wind, arriving with the approaching storm, is slamming the doors shut throughout the house and blowing the pages of my book all over the floor.
Have a good rest of the summer.  Ciao, Suzanne