Fun with Art & Barb 8.9.05

Art and Barbara, as all of you know who read her blog http://www.expatsinitaly.com/blog/barb/ are our American friends from Kentucky, who live in San Venanzo, about 20 minutes south of Perugia. They bought a house there and restored it and are now just taking every day as it comes. They are about our ages and retired and although we do not have a house of our own and have not gone through the same process, nevertheless have a lot in common in simply loving Italy and wanting to live here. They are also like the American welcoming committee for all the ex-pats here and are incredibly generous in sharing their knowledge and experience with anyone needing help of any kind. They wrote to us before we left Phoenix and were the first to offer assistance and friendship and English-speaking companionship.

Late last week they called to see if we wanted to go to San Venanzo for the weekend - well, to stay Saturday night at their house in order to go to a festival in Roticastello, a tiny medieval village near their house. On Saturday all the citizens were to dress up in medieval costume and there would be food and music and a general sense of family fun and festivity. Since we don't have a car, they suggested we take the bus to Marciano, which is close to them and Art would pick us up there and drive us to their house. Another family - Diane, her husband Pio and their six-year-old son Dante were also in San Venanzo, staying at a hotel next to Art & Barbara's - for the festival and so we would have the opportunity to meet them as well. Pio was born in Italy and lived in New York for about 40 years. His wife Diane is from Long Island and they talked about his desire to return to Italy where his family still lives and many of his friends. They are building a house near Rome. Their sweet little boy, Dante, is quite the artist and it was so much fun to see him drawing picture after picture of all sorts of things. It reminded me so much of my nephew Matthew who was always drawing as a kid and is now an artist.

The festival was delightful. Rotiscastello is delightful. This tiny town has been undergoing extensive restoration and is quite beautiful with its stone buildings and tower. Barbara has written extensively about the festival, and took some great photos, so I am going to suggest you go to her blog "artandbarbarelivinginitaly.blogspot.com" http://www.expatsinitaly.com/blog/barb.html to see her photos and read about her adventures. It's a whole other take on this Italian experience and really enjoyable to read. Suffice to say it was a very nice evening. We enjoyed getting to know Diane and Pio and friends of Art & Barbara's from England, Hazel and Adrian and just hanging out.

On Sunday we had breakfast at their house and watched CNN in English and drank American coffee in their spacious country kitchen. For lunch we all went to their favorite pizzeria "Ternana's" in Marciano and they drove us all the way back to Perugia since there were no buses on Sunday coming in this direction. They were coming back to Perugia on Monday night for the English-language film and so were interested in finding the parking lot nearest the theater in the daylight. Since we don't drive in Perugia, we weren't much help in navigating these narrow streets that are often one-way and barely wide enough in places to fit even a small car. Ultimately, we found the parking lot and they dropped us off close to our apartment and we planned to have them come here on Monday for dinner before the movie.


Making Dinner, or how NOT to bring Eggs to Room Temperature

On Monday we spent the morning cleaning the apartment. Partly because we were having "company" and mostly because we hadn't done any cleaning since before going to Paris so it really needed it. Barbara and Art were not expected until around 7pm so there was plenty of time to do that and to shop for and prepare dinner. Barbara is such a great cook, I was anxious to make something good that they would enjoy - or that at least didn't suck (and, OK, show off what I could do in the kitchen as well). I made some of my mother's tomato sauce with pasta when they were here last which is kind of the specialty of the house but now I wanted to make something different. I found an interesting recipe for a pasta carbonara with a different twist in the Bon Appetite magazine my friend Bitsy sent me a while ago that seemed easy and "gourmet" enough and another for a light salmon salad to go along with it, from another cookbook I have.

A really funny thing happened that I was too embarrassed to tell Barbara (see "she's a great cook" above) so she should get a good laugh when she reads this! The recipe called for whisking two eggs with grated Parmesan cheese and stirring the cooked pasta into it, which was easy enough, but the eggs had to be at room temperature so that when you toss in the hot pasta, the eggs cook. And of course I had not taken the eggs out early enough and was afraid they would not be warm enough to use. So I decided to put one egg in each of my jeans pockets while I cut and sliced and diced all the other stuff so they would warm more quickly. (You see this coming don't you?) All went well until I accidentally bumped the counter and one of the eggs in my pocket broke! It was like some silly comedy! How does one remove a broken egg from ones' pants pockets when it is now scrambled? Not very easily I can tell you. I made a quick change and then was back at square one with the eggs and had to resort to the pocket technique again, this time staying clear away from any furniture and holding them over the pot of boiling water to warm them a bit more. Everything else went fine. I managed to get everything done and on the table, we ate, it didn't suck, the torta from the bakery was tasty and we made it to the movie on time.

I'm kind of on the search for new recipes, having exhausted my repertoire at this point and not having brought enough with me. So if any of you have some you like that you want to send me I'd appreciate it very much.


War of the Worlds at the Zampano or One Cold Night in August

The Zampano Theatre is an outside amphitheatre where they show films at night under the stars (an amazing display in this part of the city). On Mondays they show English-language films and last night's was War of the Worlds. In preparation for seeing this movie Bob and I had read the H.G. Wells book and were interested to see what Hollywood would do with it and how much it would actually resemble the original story. We were surprised to see that Spielberg had actually stayed pretty true to the book with the exception of setting it in New York and the east coast in modern times. H.G. Wells was a genius of science fiction and his creativity and imagination are really impressive. My one complaint with his writing is that it was heavy on description of the alien invaders and the death and destruction and light on character development. Spielberg, in my opinion, kept pretty true to the spirit of the book and eve though he threw in the cute little girl and complicated family dynamic, this was not his usual tug at your heartstrings kind of movie. But you did not tune in here to get a movie review so I won't say any more. But if you see it, let me know what you think.

As I have said, the days have been quite cool. (Today is gorgeous and warmer with crisp blue skies and no breeze to speak of - I am sitting out in the yard writing) Sunday night we had an amazing storm with wind and rain and fog and yesterday remained quite chilly and windy. But we were all determined to see the movie so we bundled up - Bob put on a sweatshirt, Barbara and Art came prepared with jackets and sweaters and of course I had my usual layers when I expect it to be cold. We even decided to bring a blanket just in case. The move was supposed to start at 9:30 and didn't really until around 10, so sitting outside through the movie we were really cold, wrapped up in our quilt, spread over the four of us, like some sort of a slumber party for grownups! We were annoyed by a group of young Americans talking and laughing through the movie, typical. Parts of it I must admit I felt like laughing at also but they did get carried away and rudely.

It was after midnight when we said goodbye to them as they headed for their car and us for our apartment and bed. It was a lot of fun with them this weekend and we hope they feel the same. They promised to come back again in two weeks for "Million Dollar Baby" which will be showing then and maybe we'll have to bring a portable heater with us by then!

Today I plan to go down into the garden and do some sketching. It's such a clear day and I am becoming aware of the summer coming to a close in a few weeks - hard as that is for me to imagine, having lived in Phoenix for so many years, so I want to take advantage of the greenery and the flowers.

I hope to hear from you if are reading, let me know what you think. I hope you enjoyed the photos from Paris. We may throw a few more on there once Bob downloads the rest of his discs. In the meantime I hope all is going well out there.

Ci vediamo,
Rosamaria e Roberto