The last of the wine festivals in September is the Bacco festival in Rufina.We were on our way home from our friends Beatrice and Adriano’s wedding in Castagno d’ Andrea in the hills above Rufina and had to stop on our way back to Florence to let the wine cart pass by! All the cars…
Going whole Hog in Calabria
The Dodaro’s Giuseppe and his daughter Francesca, went whole hog and the peperoncino festival. Their family stand, all pork products , with chili were fabulous. Giuseppe has spent time in Toronto, and was thrilled to speak English with me.I adored the ‘Nduja, called a spicy salami, but when researching how to make it, found out…
Recipes— From my house to yours!
This is where I will put links to recipes on the blog to make them easier to find! Watermelon Granita Death By chocolate: Salame dolce, Vestri’s hot chocolate, Chocolate Orange Vodka, Wild Boar in Dolce Forte ( sweet and sour stew)Anchovy meFake fish Fennel Pollen Pork with Grape “pearls”Oven Roasted Apricots and farther down on…
Chocolate and Chili
Get ready for Eurochocolate and Ottobre Rosso!This year Chocolate and Chili are making a big splash! HOT CHOCOLATE takes on a new meaning! At the Peperoncino festival, Eurochocolate presented Paul DeBondt’s newest chocolate’s , with a smoked jalepeno and a habernero,as well as many other producers. For the first time, Chili is being featured in…
A Diamond in Calabria
Just got back from the Peperonicino Festival in Diamante in Calabria.It was a blast! Although not a huge village, Diamante is on the coast, called the Riviera del Cedri, the Citron coast,famous for the giant lemon like Citron which is quite refreshing after all that chili. The Calabrian Chili pepper comes both sweet and spicy,…
Saturday in Siena
Living the Dolce Vita isn’t all it is cracked up to be.The vision that most people have of living in Tuscany, or living as an expat comes from books like under the Tuscan Sun or A Year in Provence; written by people living here on vacation.What a perfect way to see Tuscany! Real life is…
Tuscan 5 minute lunch… 3 Euro
I have been catching up on updating my website getting my tours ready for fall and all the things that back up when Florence closes in summer. So today, off to the store for some grocery shopping at the COOP.Quick lunch as we were starving. We bought some:Pre-sliced Carpaccio and we had: our wild arugulasome…
Slow Food… Slow Down
The symbol of Slow Food Movement is the snail. Today as we were driving down the our village, Certaldo, to have our Sunday morning cappuccino, pastry and buy the paper, we saw quite a few cars parked along the country road. Next week, hunting season starts so there were hunters, without their guns, out with…