In Love with France, At Home In Italy

My orto (vegetable garden) is a thing of beauty, but I take no credit for that. It has generations of contadino wisdom behind it.  When I arrived in Umbria in May for the summer, the peas and favas that now delight us at table were already planted. Ditto for the lettuce, basil, parsley, beans, artichokes, onions, cabbages, chard, cukes, zukes, and garlic.  I will, however, take credit for my nutty experiments with rainbow-hued chard seeds, the ribes (red currant) stalks from my friend that I cluelessly but optimistically stuffed into the ground, and the 6-foot, bolted and blue-flowering  radicchio that I stubbornly refuse to pull up despite the head scratching of Farmer G.  But then again, he laughed when I stuck into the ground the prunings from the roses, several of which have turned into sturdy new plants.  He recently came by to stake the tomatoes and pole beans with bamboo stakes grown and sharpened by himself. I, a former lu...

It's a beautiful almost-summer day for an outing in Orvieto. What to do? Having transplanted herself here over 50 years ago, our friend E knows everything that's going on the city, especially during its Jubilee Year. It's not every day that one gets to see birds of prey in action and even eat porchetta sandwiches in the process, so we took her suggestion to see nature in action. In addition to the stunning views from the park above the city, a good part of the fun was to watch Italian kids and their families enjoy the demonstration. The last time I got this close to a "guffo" (like so many great Italian words, doesn't that sound more fun than "owl"?)  was when I rescued a baby guffo trapped in our pool (see  ADVENTURE ON THE HIGH SEAS (OF OUR SWIMMING POOL)  from July 2011).  As you can see below, the adult version is way more impressive, especially when its wings are fully expanded. I like the way this young lady's topknot ...

Well, it wasn't so easy to find, since Zia Graziella's home restaurant is located kind of in the middle of a field at the end of a nameless dirt road. You only know to turn there if you can see the homemade wooden sign with the fading letters. We had read about it in Toni DeBella's blog, "Orvieto or Bust," after having met Toni, herself, at an expat gathering the previous night. We are usually slow to swing into action even after reading a "rave" review, but Jim was feeling adventurous, and since moving to Italy, I am learning to be less of a poop. At first we weren't sure we were at the right house, since the only evidence of life was two cute dogs. There was another house up the hill, so we turned back to see if that could be where Graziella hangs out. A nice gentleman came out of his house while chewing his own dinner to reassure us that our first stop had been the right place. He apparently has to redirect a lot of lost se...

Today's adventure:going to the hospital for an ortopanoramica. Doesn't that sound dramatic? Well it does involve a gizmo that takes a theatre-in-the-round-style X-ray of the teeth to show what's left of them, and to predict the location of the next dental disaster sure to come my way. Despite all the sacrifices I have made to the gods of dentistry, they still refuse to smile on me. This was my first hospital visit, and as with all things Italian, a learning curve is to be expected, not to mention a whole exotic vocabulary that you need to know. When your Italian dentist tells you that you need an ortopanoramica, it also means that you will need to see your dottore di famiglia, the doctor to whom you have been assigned, but whose office location and hours have changed without you being any the wiser. Once found, the doctor will give you a signed richiesta rossa, the magic slip that you will take to the farmacia who will make your appuntamento at the...