Vecchio uomo inverno

We've had a blast of winter here in the bel paese this week. Over the weekend, the mountains around Rome were white-capped. Further east, up Amandola way (pictured here), there was the first serious snowfall of the season.

Michael snapped these fotos this morning from the field next to our houses. Two weeks ago these slopes were gold, red and brown. Now, it's just white. Che belle! Bravo, Michael.





(BTW... my editors are not publishing my truffles story until next autumn. But you can get a sort of preview if you check out Michael's version on his blog. I wonder what Michael pays per-word.)

Perugia, a tabloid tale

Is Perugia the Ibiza of Italy, as the Corriere della Sera reports? I've never seen any evidence of that. These days, the Etruscan wonder is splashed across the pages of British tabloids, discussed on chat shows and her bones are picked clean by bloggers (not this blogger.)Locals wonder if normality will ever return...

I've been quiet on the topic of the grisly murder that occurred in Perugia earlier this month. It's shaken many of the Perugini we know. Eric wrote this piece over the weekend that tries to sum up the impact the spotlight has had on the city. Some of the names may be familiar to you.

Olive amandolesi!

I have an odd attachment to my trees, particularly the olive trees. Xtina often says I love the trees more than her. This is simply not true. I love her and the trees equally. Most days.

Last year, for the first time, the olive trees finally produced, though the yield was pretty poor. This year, I can happily report, both trees gave us a large basket-full of olive goodness. The smaller of the two trees produces the hefty olive ascolane. The second, larger tree (pictured below) produced Italian black olives.



Update: A few weeks later now, and I'm trying the first batch. My mother-in-law has prepared them with orange skins and a bit of salt. They're a bit pruny, with a lightly bitter after-taste, but very nice! Next year: oil!

On the trail of Tuber magnatum pico

Last weekend was a rare treat. I went hunting with my neighbor Michael and a journalist friend from Rome Eric, searching for the precious tuber magnatum pico, or white truffle in the hills below my house in Amandola. A year ago, I learned these pungent aphrodisiacs (or so some claim) can be found in certain wooded sections in the valley around the house, and so I organized a giro with local tartufaii Alberto Mandozzi and Marcello Bianchi. We were hoping to find one or two under an oak or birch tree. Finding one, it seemed, would be the only way we could afford this delicacy this year. Why's that?

Well, I paid last year 30 euros for a 30-gram piece. This year, an equivalent piece could be had for between 150 and 180 euros; an incredibly dry spring and always-high demand have sent prices soaring. As a result, I bought the cheaper, and not nearly as good, black truffle. Set me back 17 euros. As Xtina said again this year, "once you go white, you just can't go back."

How'd we do? We didn't find any, but we were invited to a decadent meal hosted by the local truffle hunters association in Amandola, of which Alberto is president. It was a meal that will not be forgotten: a seven-course marathon, four of which included a healthy helping of white truffle shavings. (Pictured below is la fonduta, a Piemontese soup of several types of cheese coated in white truffles.) At this year's price, the meal would have set anybody back a few hundred euros. Thankfully, it was a BYOT affair. We ate what the association managed to unearth this year. Che fantastico!

...meanwhile from the other side of the planet

While I've been doing the glamorous movie thing, Xtina has been on the other side of the world on another mission for her NGO, this time in South Africa. She's been back and forth between JoBurg, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria and beyond, usually in the most desperately poor neighborhoods.

She sent me this email update that I thought I'd share with you:

You have to imagine the poorest place you have ever been to, a desert dotted with little laminate shacks, no outdoor illumination, nothing. You drive along the main road in total darkness and suddenly you see this huge construction, temple-like, a piece of Vegas in the middle of nowhere. Lights, guards, 5 stars hotel, lounges, a vast green park (outside there is a very dry land), and slot machines, hundreds. The Sisters told me that the whites that come here look only for one thing. Guess what. I think this was the most outrageous contrast I have ever seen in my life. Probably people here are used to it.

This morning (wake up at 6) we went to another mission in the poorest village...they have a clinic, well organised with many girls that study and volunteer as home care assistants, especially for AIDS patients. Very nice girls, they walk for kms to get to their patients. Then they have nursery and pre-school. Tons of kids screaming my ears off. They don't have enough brick classrooms, the youngest (2-4) stay in containers...so hot...

They took me to visit a couple of patients, one woman with polio in a wheel chair...she was so happy that we brought her a new one...and the family with AIDS. The woman was very proud to show me her wedding dress...she did it herself...they have nothing else, four walls and nothing inside, bare rooms with some linens but at least they have gardens in the back where they grow vegs. They live off the government grant, 80 euros a month.

The thing that shocks me the most is that there are no men around. The women do all the work, in the gardens that the sisters give to the women to grow vegs I saw 2 pregnant women carrying water, ploughing the land...no men. They don't feel responsible at all, they wander around, play football and many of them steal as much as they can during the night. Thieves broke in here several times and stole all the computers...

I don't feel too sad, I explained to the girls today that even if they don't see it they have a lot. They have a community, a network of people, they have their land, they have the opportunity to study..I wouldn't exchange this with a struggling life in the city...I don't know if I was very convincing.