Tag: springtime in Italy

Just a bit of nostalgia if you don’t mind

We own our house in Italy with our friend Kiki. Our favorite thing is when all three of us can go there at the same time. Second choice is either of us being there. And making the left behinds jealous. Which we got to do to Kiki in March. And now it is her turn. She just wrote saying she was in the garden, bathed in late afternoon sun, listening the swallows swooping and the tower bells ringing while having nibbles of pecorino cheese under a pergola of yellow Lady Banks roses.

It is the best time of year. I’ll be there in daydreams and in the meantime will be happy with memories and photos.

Here is a video of what Kiki is suffering thru there in the garden. From this exact moment last year.

And its not just all about our garden. The whole countryside is the Garden of Eden as we speak as evidenced by this video shot on May Day at Spannocchia last year. With thanks to our buddy Steve Callen of Panicale and Australia for his magical music and editing. Speaking of Spannocchia, they are the 1,000 acre agricultural tenuta outside Siena, but they are also sponsors of the Italian Life Expo coming up in Portland, Maine next month. See, if we can’t get ourselves to Italy in June, we’ll bring the whole county to US. If you are going to be near Portland’s harbor the 9th – the 11th, come get your daily requirement of Italy there.

ok, see you in Italy (or see you in Portland, June 9-11)

Stew Vreeland

DANIELLE, MY BROTHER

Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye
God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes – Elton John

Coming back from Magione, the lake, Trasimeno, is always a distraction. Especially now. Its waters in wide warm swaths of turquoise, its islands trying to decide whether to stay anchored in the lake or magnetically attach themselves to the sky of the same color gray carGRAY CAR! RED LIGHTS. BRAKES! STOPSTOP. The gray car turning against the tide of heavy traffic in both lanes – into a busy restaurant. No turn signals. Just brakes. The rest of us, in cars going both directions are scrambling to digest these sudden changes. And slam, one car, two car, three car, four, slam to a stop – inches from each other. Is that how it happened Danielle? Hand’s still gripping my steering wheel I can see out of the corner of my eye, he’s waving at me. Just outside my open passenger window. Right arm raised. Against a blue sky or a blue lake behind him. Can’t quite make it out.

At first I just saw the white cross beside me. Behind the new guard rail separating the traffic from the drop off down to the lake below us. At road speed I might not have noticed the cross, let alone the photo in the midst of its crown of flowers. And it would have been hard to have seen the name “Danielle” written in script above the photo. Easy to take it in here, from the seat of my suddenly lurched-to-a-stop Fiat. From the look of the photo it was taken on a day just like this. A day like any other to a twenty year old with the sun at his back and friends to wave to ahead of him. For the rest f his life. Danielle did you know how short it was going to be? Were you happy in the moment? Are you waving goodbye when the picture was taken? Or waving to get us to slow down today?

Heart beating a bit from our near miss, I’m trying not to, but I keep hearing the crash. Ours that wasn’t and his that was. The sound travels in shock waves, rattling sticks and leaves as it crosses the street, bounces off the parking lot and roughly whips its way through the windows, jostling glasses and silverware on the wooden tables. Heads snap up and freeze, diners digesting, processing, the quick in the crowd scrape their benches back on the concrete floors, and run towards the source of the sound. I see the would-be rescuers, wrinkled cellophane cut outs in a video loop, jumping up running for the crash, jumping up running toward the crash, jumping up, running, jumping. Glassy ghosts of survivors, are still here, still running, still hoping for a different ending the next time the video plays. The survivors themselves probably aren’t here right now. But Danielle is. Still waving as I drive off.

Bringing Italy home with us

If you are like us, you get a taste of Italy and you don’t like letting go. We just got back from Italy but some part of us feels that we’re still there basking “Under The Tuscan Sun.”

But! Did we tell you we’re working on a way to stretch out that “being there” feeling? That’s why we’re helping start the first ever Italian Life Expo in Portland, Maine. June 9-11th at the Ocean Gateway right on the harbor, across from lead sponsor Auto Europe’s world headquarters.

madampresidenteDozens of exhibitors including generations-old, but undiscovered family vineyards from Lake Garda to artisans in copper from Montepulciano, prosciutto and cheese makers from Parma to tour operators from Siena, so many shiny objects to hold your attention.

Here’s Midge outside Spannocchia who, with Institute for Italian Studies, are lead presenters of the Expo. One day last week, after this picture was taken, Midge, Paul Turina of Turina Italian Wines, and other board members went into Siena for a festive dinner at Antica Osteria da Divo by Chef Pino di Cicco. Everyone came back raving about him and counting the minutes till they could see him again at the Expo.

Good times coming. If you are in New England this June, the Italian Life Expo may be your ticket to Italy. It’s never been closer.

Tickets go on sale this weekend. Check it out.

See you in Italy!

Stew Vreeland

VOLO ! The Flying Bruno

“Bruno, hey. No heat. What do you think? What? yes, of course, I’ve tried turning it on.” He and I are leaning on the glass pastry counter, having coffee at Andrea’s Masolinos in Panicale.

“Bruno, hey. No heat. What do you think? What? yes, of course, I’ve tried turning it on.” He and I are leaning on the glass pastry counter, having coffee at Andrea’s Masolinos, in Panicale. His usual “sacco di cose da fare” list seems especially long today. He’s being roundly teased for his wardrobe and is taking time to model for his latest invention: a found piece of string just over his tummy holding the left and right of his suspenders together. High fashion on low budget.

“But, Bruno can you help me, can you take a peek at the silly caldaio?”

He holds up a finger says “technico,” pulls out his telefonino and using the same finger, starts punching numbers in to it. Walking out into the street for better reception, he is talking loudly into the phone saying “This American here in Panicale says he doesn’t have heat, can you come look at it? No, it doesn’t have to be today. Ho un chiave e entro come un uccello. (I have his keys, I can fly in and out like a bird.)”

And with me, at least temporarily out of his hair, Bruno’s off to his next adventure. Running off to left, toward the piazza, while I’m heading to the right, to the house.

A few paces apart, I turn and say to his back “Grazie per il cafe!” He doesn’t say anything or turn, or break his stride, but his silhouette raises one hand in mute acknowledgment. A few more steps, each going our separate ways, I hear him calling me. He’s still in the dark shade of Via Filatoio, but he’s almost at the piazza. The bright sun is there, behind him. He raises his arms up and down, parka flapping. He’s laughs and says

“VOLO!”

Spring ahead. Thinking Italy, Cortona & Umbria

Snow has melted enough here in Maine, that even though it is still deep – so deep you can’t slog thru it with boots – you still can’t snow shoe on it. Funny time. Time for it to go. And speaking of going. . . we are. To Italy next Saturday. March 19th. Yay!

Looking at the deep snow parked outside our windows here in Maine. Hoping it keeps melting. It has about three feet left to go. I know, “piano, piano” this too will pass. Our neighbors in Panicale, Umbria don’t see snow on a regular basis so it has a certain novelty to them. And after a snow fall, you can depend on someone to be grumping about it and you can also depend on someone else to say brightly “ricordi, sotto le neve c’e pane.” The corollary and only sometimes used as the rhyming finale is the less romantic, darker “sotto l’aqua c’e fame.” Snow does melt and feeds the crops which feeds everyone and of course it is better than too much water. So. Snow, good thing. In moderation.

Snow has melted enough here in Maine, that even though it is still deep – so deep you can’t slog thru it with boots – you still can’t snow shoe on it. Funny time. Time for it to go. And speaking of going. . . we are. To Italy next Saturday. March 19th. We’ll be in Panicale, Cortona, Siena for a couple weeks. Yay! Non vedo l’ora!
araucanaEggsCortona2
Every where I look we see things that point us to Italy. At lunch at my sister Gin’s next door today, we saw her Araucana chicken eggs in ceramic egg cartons we brought her from Cortona one time. Love the soft cream color that seems to be The Color of Cortona in the ceramic dept. And aren’t the eggs great? Not dyed. Just how they are. Almost too pretty to poach. Yes, we are ready for Italy and even Easter it appears from these eggs.

OK, See you in Italy! And soon!

Stew Vreeland