Blogging today from sunny Italy. We are visiting friends who lived in London for 5 years before returning to what can only be described as an idyll of bucolic loveliness. Living now up a mountain outside Rome, with heart stopping views, with access to food so fresh and simple and clean and in season that I can hardly bear to think of eating anything out of cellophane again. Add to this a country so replete with history that stony remnants of the glories of ancient Rome, can still be found sitting around in fields, like so much flotsam and jetsam. A chunk of carved pillaster in an olive grove, reminders of ancient grandeur are everywhere and commonplace. Claudio and Catherine are the perfect hosts, enthusiastic, energetic and endlessly patient with all our questions. They have really bent over backways to give us a week that we will never forget, not to mention a gastronomic introduction to Italy that would never have been available in even the finest restaurants ( While Catherine cooked she patiently tolerated my head over her shoulder, answered my questions and happily shared from her encyclopaedic knowledge of food facts ) Claudio has driven us around this part of Italy in his big old Mercedes minivan, we've gone off the beaten track in ways that would never have been possible had we been by ourselves. Past ancient hamlets carved out of the side of the mountain, looking like it grew out of the living rock, through the gladiatorial, horn-tooting arena of motorists that is the city of Rome, taking a detour to go swimming on a beach with black volcanic sand. The bubba looked as though he had been rolled in ash. Yep, we went swimming and it's nearlly November, AND we needed sunblock. Gotta go, Claudio is cooking pizza in his big old pizza oven on the terrace tonight. Potatoe and rosemary, tomatoe and mozzarella, pepperoni, anchovy...my mouth is watering already.
Comments
Oct. 28, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by barbieheart
Oh, my goodness. I am SOOOO jealous. I will have to confess this one....
Oct. 28, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
Lucky!
Leigh Ann
seeingafaroff.blogspot.com
Oct. 29, 2006 - No fair!!!
Posted by deedeeuk
You are on my dream trip!!!! I'm soooo jealous right now! We have just spent a week here in the cold and rain. Just kidding! (about the jealousy not the rain!) Sounds like a wonderful time, hope it was. You'll have to post some pictures of it all when you get back. I'm currently home alone, while DH is in Prague on business for three days. It's one am and I'm cleaning up after a four year old who has been sick three times since he went to bed. I don't suppose you want to trade places right now do you? :-) A warm sunny mountainside in Italy sounds wonderful right now! I'll have to settle for some Mozzerela and Olives I've got in the fridge - if I close my eyes I could always pretend!
Oct. 29, 2006 - italy
Posted by catherine
it has been wonderful living your holiday and looking after you..wonderful and an honour. you have a special family, amazing sons and a gorgeous husband whose italian may never be fluent..but his ability to enjoy my cooking has won him a corner of my heart..
love catherine
Oct. 29, 2006 - italy
Posted by catherine
it has been wonderful living your holiday and looking after you..wonderful and an honour. you have a special family, amazing sons and a gorgeous husband whose italian may never be fluent..but his ability to enjoy my cooking has won him a corner of my heart..
love catherine
Nov. 1, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by ihopeyoudance
Wow! Reading your entry brought the place to life in my imagination... I felt like I was there! (Hmmm... the only problem is now I'm hungry.) :):)