It's a New Season!

I can't believe it's been two months since the last post. Given that we've been in family lockdown, you would think I would have had more time to post. The fact is, I've been as busy as ever and just haven't made the time. Plus, in many ways, there's not much to report.

However, it's been on my mind to note the changing of the seasons. Up until now, the weather has been quite mild and the thermal mass of the walls has kept us comfortable. However, after a few weeks of highs in the 40s and low 50s, it's starting to be time to take some chill out of the air. All this to say that we turned on the radiators yesterday. 

Since we are constantly indoors, the biggest change that we see is in our food. Produce is very, very seasonal and provides a great source of variation. Here are some of the things that are happening:

1. Grapes. We are seeing the last of the harvest, but there are lots of varieties available. One of our favorites is ironically a hybrid with a New World grape that emerged quite some time ago: it is called "uva fragola" (strawberry grape), and has a flavor quite similar to a Concord grape (or muscadine, even). It is quite small (large blueberry-sized), purple, and has the tartness right under the quite-tough skin. Delicious! Other types are pointed, globular, large, small, and differently colored. We mostly get green grapes, though some are light yellow, and purple is also not uncommon. Red isn't generally available, but there is one variety that we see from time to time.

2. Chestnuts. I have fallen in love with roasted chestnuts, for indiscernible reasons. They are pasty, chewy, and were initially abhorrent to me. However, it's been a good five years that I am thrilled to see them available, and I inevitably get some. There aren't a lot of fans in the household, though, so I don't have them often, sadly.

3. Oil! The olives are being pressed now. On the rare occasions that I have had to go in the car the last few weeks, I have found myself behind tractors pulling trailers full of olives to the local presses. Here, olive oil is bought once a year from someone you know. The "olio nuovo" is justly celebrated: opaque, bile green, and astringent, it is amazing on toasted bread (bruschetta, pronounced "brew-SKET-ta") with a rubbing of fresh garlic and salt. Yes, you just pour it on with joyous abandon and fill every pore. That said, the bread here is dense and doesn't have a lot of pores to fill. We have purchased 4 tins of 5 liters each, about quarter of what people here typically buy on a per-person basis, from what I've gathered. As the year progresses, the oil clarifies (you have sludge on the bottom of the tin) and yellows. The flavor mellows and it becomes much less pungent and flavorful.

4. Wine. The new wine (red) is also out. It always has a softer flavor than the older wines, because it is not as fermented. It is traditionally consumed with chestnuts at any kind of gathering, festival, whatever. There's definitely a reason for it, since the pairing is delicious.

5. Mostaccioli. These are little cookie-things that are made almost like pretzels in that they are boiled before baking. They are made with the wine must (the mush that is left after pressing), raisins, flour, maybe a bit of sugar? some aniseed, and that's about it. The shape is made by rolling a little rope into a circle and then pinching it at the intersection of the rope ends (almost like a wreath with a diameter of 1 1/2"). They are crispy and crunchy and oh-so-delicious. I've never made them, but I can get them at Pianegiani in this season.

6. Citrus. The clementines, lemons, and oranges are coming in. The blood oranges will arrive around February, though. Limes have only been available to us in the past 3 years or so.

7. Pumpkin. The season for hard squashes is here. We get all kinds of squash called by the same name ("zucca"), which translates to pumpkin. However, this would include what in the US is called butternut squash, another squash that is similar to a butternut but larger and has a variegated green/yellow skin, a large, tan-skinned pumpkin, a more American-look orange pumpkin, and more. You can buy them whole or cut to the size you need. Pumpkin is used in soups, with pasta (combined with pancetta and a sharp cheese, it's quite amazing), as a spread on bruschetta, and so on. Pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread is not a thing here. I may have to make some for our friends to try at Christmas!

8. Apples. Apples are back in season! And pears. Michael loves the pear and chocolate cake which is a fairly common dessert for menus here.

9. Mushrooms. Everyone around here is going mushroom-hunting at this time of year. I would unquestionably gather toadstools, so I'm not part of the general effort. However, the extension service here offers workshops every year in mid-November and will inspect the mushrooms you pick to make sure they're okay to eat. I'm really excited about doing it, but have yet to have my availability and the workshop's align. In the shops and markets you can find all sorts of yummy mushrooms, though, so I don't feel too deprived.

10. Greens. Chicory and "brocoletti" (aka rape) are back in season. These are delicious boiled, then stir-fried with olive oil, garlic, salt, and hot pepper. 

11. Truffles. The trick to get flavor from fresh truffles is to grate them into olive oil. Apparently, the oil blends with the flavoring substances of the truffle in a way that allows the flavor to emerge. I'm just now feeling brave enough to buy and use fresh truffles. 

Things we're seeing less of:

1. Eggs. I have tried to reduce my support of egg batteries. The laws are a little more stringent here than in the US with respect to beak trimming, space per hen, fresh air, and so on. Even so, I feel sorry for the animals and have taken to buying eggs from locals who have their own chickens which run free and eat bugs and lead good chicken lives. Interestingly, though, as the weather gets cooler, they are much less productive. Therefore, our egg consumption will probably be reduced somewhat.

2. Melons. These are a summer fruit, and are no longer to be found.

3. Hmmm. I don't know. I'm sure there are other things, but it's easier to notice a new presence than to mark an absence. I'll just have to highlight the new produce when it comes around again!

Buon appetito,

Alexandra

House Update

 We can finally declare the construction finished, with minor caveats (details like a few lighting fixtures come to mind, as well as some organizational/storage solutions)! I figured it was time to give a new house tour, since I've had several people asking me for photos; this way, I can put them all in one place.

Here goes...first, the front hall:

Taken from the front door. We take our shoes off here, to help keep the rest of the house cleaner

The second entry hall, where we store coats. I was 
recently working on painting the wrought iron railings.

These were handwrought for us by a local artisan, who 
strongly suggested we paint them. After having done it, we
are in complete agreement. The color just enhances his beautiful work

I couldn't resist extending the color to the outside grating

The dining room/kitchen:

I finally redid the fireplace screen. The fireplace
dates from the 1500s

Looking towards the kitchen

Looking to the entry stair (below
the parapet wall). The upper 
floor is reached via a staircase to the left,
just beyond the arch

Living Room:

There is a powder room inside the arch, to the left. The large cabinet to the right is a "madia", which was used for breadmaking, and features a lid that raises and opens into a platform (where loaves were left to rise). It's super-convenient for easy accessibility, but must be kept free of stuff!

Powder Room:

Guest room/studio

Looking towards door, the cabinet to the left of the door
contains my sewing machine and craft supplies

There is a built-in table with a plenitude of 
drawers and other storage, folding up completely when we 
have guests. The closet space to the right of the 
picture is the guests' hanging closet

This cabinetry is on the back wall of the guest room.
It features a queen-size fold-down bed and/or a 
work table. The table came in handy when 
Florence was in quarantine here and had to 
eat in isolation!

Guest bath:

 The guest bath has similar tiles to the powder room, but it painted yellow rather than blue. The real showstoppers in my mind are the hand-thrown sink and the hand-carved shelves. The top shelf has a curved profile so that it minimizes the space in a small bathroom while allowing a larger basin.

Stairway to bedroom floor ("second" floor in Europe, "third" floor in the US)

This staircase is notable for its width; most houses of this
age have poky staircases that are hard to navigate. 
The reason is simple: to create the staircase, at some point
in the past, the owners enclosed a medieval street. This 
was the width of the road that originally went through from
the palazzo's courtyard to the side street of the palazzo.

"Bunny land" is at the bottom of the stairs,
which is an enclosure for the periods they don't have free roam

Upstairs landing:

Master bath:

This bath is a great compromise: you can have a soak, but its tapered profile uses much less water. 
I'm still mindful of water use, though, so I don't soak often. The cabinet was made by the same 
carpenter who did our kitchen, and he worked with my idea of incorporating the tile into the door.

When you can do it, a separate toilet cubicle is well-established here.
The same carpenter made the shelves.

The door goes into the hallway. We have heated towel rails, since winters here are very humid and otherwise the towels won't dry. Plus, nice warm towels!

The alcove continues into the bathroom cubicle.
At some point in the past, it was a doorway.

Master bedroom:

The doors and shutters are all closed right now because
we're in full summer and avoiding heat gain as much as possible.
Normally, this room is extremely light and airy because
of both sets of (very large) windows. The ceilings here are about 11'
and the windows are actually the size of doors

The "tinello"

"Tinello" translates to "servants' hall"; we can't imagine why it was called that on the floor plan we received, given that it's a central location on the second floor (with its high ceilings, it would have been reserved for the family, not the servants). However, it's a sweet word, and we like it. It might more aptly be called the library now, and we use it for a variety of activities. My favorite times in it are when we play bridge in the evening...particularly in the winter, when we can have a fire! The fireplace comes from an old building in Milan and dates (I think...I don't remember exactly now) to the early 1800s. The bookshelf was made for us, and incorporates details from the mantel courtesy of one of our amazing handcarvers. The wrought-iron chandelier dates to the late 1800s, and I'm still dying to figure out how to make the dragons breathe fire.

We have 11-foot ceilings here, as well, so the ladder is necessary to reach the upper shelves.
The doors lead to the upper hallway outside the master bedroom and bathroom.

The left-hand bookcase is open, showing the "secret" entrance to the girls' room. The staircase
on the right leads to Michael's office in the attic.

The doors in this photo lead to a small hallway off which is the boys' room and the kids' bathroom

Girls' room:

Florence loves below-the-stairs beds, so we happily obliged. The smallest bedroom of the house, it was a challenge to fit in the right furniture for both girls. I have the fabric for Florence's curtain, which I need to work on. The door is actually part of the bookcase in the tinello.

Closets are not a thing in a house of this era (or in most houses here, from what we've seen).
A large armoire is the solution, and has the advantage that you could take it with you were you
ever to move. I need to continue the refinishing work I started, but at this point, I'm waiting for cooler
weather. Plus, the degreaser is stinky, and Florence is staying in the room at the moment.

There is a room for the boys, with very high ceilings and a separate closet that Jeremy uses as a studio. Since the ceilings are so high, we built a large loft for James. 

Moving upstairs, we have two box rooms for storage, and Michael's office! 

Top of the stairs in the attic

While the ceiling is indubitably low, we have done our best to keep it from being claustrophobic. Michael can really only stand in the central eight feet; it's a good thing he works from a seated position! That said, he loves having a large, airy space where he can move to his sofa to get more comfortable. He also has a tiny balcony from which he can enjoy a 180-degree view of the countryside.

I'm never sorry when we have to go over finances or family bureaucracy, 
because it means a comfy seat!

The door leads to the hallway at the top of the stairs. We took advantage of 
alcoves to put in a printer stand.

Just a sliver of his gorgeous view!

So, that's it! The house from bottom to top. Let us know when you can come visit and see it in real life...at least once Covid-19 is no longer a threat!

Love,

Alexandra

Pictures! Of bookmaking!

I have stolen Mummy's phone so that I could take some pictures of my progress.

So far, I have managed to get through the second signature of my book (out of an estimated 15). Basically, that is a stack of four sheets of paper folded in half. These then get sewn into a text block. While sewing these, you sew the pages onto some cord so that you can attach the covers. A large part of my design was inspired by this video. I like her work a lot, and it was the reason I decided that making a book could be more than just an "I really wish I could."

I have also marbled the cover pages and sealed them, since the marbling inks have a fine glitter that likes to come off.

I feel like I'm slowly getting somewhere, despite my nib's doing its very best to be annoying.

My little work setup

I can JUST maneuver my computer to get it under the little arches,
 so I can use it to read what I'm supposed to be writing down

This is what my patches look like. When I mess up, I don't have enough paper (or energy) to rewrite the whole set of pages. Since each sheet of A4 paper has four book-pages on it, it quickly gets out of hand. So instead I have been making patches, since I can't just scrape off the ink like used to be done when using parchment

This is a signature (although it is missing one of its pages
since I was working on that one right about the time I took this photo) 

The last page of the first signature and the first page of the next one.
This is roughly what it will look like bound

This is the effect I managed to get while marbling, and while it is not exactly
 what I had planned for the book, I still think that it is very appropriate  

My marbled cover sheets 

These cover sheets have just the slightest shimmer to them

Learning to use gold leaf!

Working on drawing small animals performing spells. This is what I want to have in the empty
space at the bottom of the pages. I think it is EXACTLY what the book needs.

I will be using leftover leather from this project...

...and this project for the cover. I haven't decided which colour will be the accent colour and
which one will be the main colour. It may end up depending on how much of each I find in the closets.

This is the stone that will be going on the front cover

So that is my update on it all.

Florence

A new project

Obviously when in lock down, we are all picking up hobbies. I decided that it was clearly the time to do something I have wanted to do for a while. Make a book! And I found a great excuse to do it. Since the family has been getting into D&D, I decided that I would use that as a topic for my book.

I've wanted to make a book for AGES. Every time I got to see a manuscript, I have a longing to have and make my own. When a video popped up on youtube where the video maker was binding a book, I decided that I had the ability to get all the materials I needed. I also decided that it was something that I needed to do, like making my cape (which I finally made last year over Easter- best decision ever).

When my roommate moved out, she left me some paper which is lovely to write on. So, clearly, it makes a perfect opportunity. 

Since Mummy has some leather, I decided to use that. It is amazing green leather, and there is also some left over from the chairs in brown. I have a lovely stone that was given to me that is rather large, flat, and tan, with little fossils in it. I decided that the druid spells would fit the book best, especially as I can't/don't want to copy out all the spells. 

I have started work already and have decided that the best calligraphy for the book is the round medieval style. I have started working on that.

It's less blurry than it is in this picture, but I can't seem to get the camera to focus properly.
To be fair, it's a computer camera.

It looks better in person

So far, I have only gotten 4/109 spells, but it's fine, I'll get there slowly.

For each spell, I put a longer description on the left side of the pages, and a short summary of the information you might forget mid-game on the right.

I discovered that I can see through the pages just enough that I can use a template for lines and put it behind the page. This saves about an hour every single page, so is a FABULOUS discovery. I'm VERY pleased with myself.

The goal is to copy out the spells with little vines on the borders of the pages, with more and more flowers as the levels of the spells goes up. I'm also hoping to put some illuminations in the capital letters, and eventually (probably after it is bound) some illustrations on the bottom of the pages that aren't entirely full.

I'm not sure what the cover pages will look like, but I think that there is a good chance I will try to marble them. Which adds yet another component that I need to learn about.

All in all, a VERY ambitious project, but I'm really pumped up about it.

Florence

Trip Down Memory Lane

Last week, I took my 94-year-old shoemaking instructor to visit the town where he grew up. Asproli, a little hamlet 12 km (7 miles) from Todi, is the place he calls home (despite having left it upon his marriage at the age of 18). We had an absolutely delightful afternoon.

Asproli is somewhere on the top of the distant hill. This
is taken from a hamlet near his wife's childhood home

As we drove, we were chatting about how his youth had been. He worked for his father from an early age as an apprentice of sorts, but also went to school and did the things most kids his age would have done. They came to Todi occasionally (by foot or bicycle, and let me tell you...these grades are not for wimps, particularly considering that the bikes didn't have gears!), mostly for business or civic reasons rather than for diversion.

The church his wife attended; it is even smaller than it looks
in the photo

Early on in our drive, we came to a fork. He suggested I take the right-hand road, since it had switchbacks. That road did not exist until after the war; until that time, the steep white (gravel) road was the only means of access. None of the local roads were paved during that period, as you'd imagine. The first notable landmark was his wife's family's house. Obviously redone in the 1960s, he said it was virtually unrecognizable...and then he chuckled, and pointed out the corner of the field where he and his (then girlfriend, now wife) used to kiss in secret.

We stopped by Asproli's cemetery to pay respects to his brother. His brother died at the premature age of 52, and Zoppini was clearly moved to be there. We also found his childhood friend there, who had died in his 70s in the 1990s... One of the things about the burial customs here is that they often have ceramic plaques with photos of the deceased somehow glazed onto the surface. It's a lovely opportunity to picture how the person was in life. Interestingly, his parents are buried in Todi's new cemetery, as there was no room in Asproli's cemetery when they died. There appeared to be plenty of vacancies when we visited, though, so either more capacity had been created, or the there had been some renovations in the meantime.

Each hamlet we passed through (and there were about five or six!) had a family home where the youth of the area would come dance of an evening. It seems that dancing was the main entertainment, and they certainly took it seriously! Zoppini and his amour would meet (he on his bicycle, dancing shoes carefully stowed in a bag, she on foot) at the designated locale, and dance the night away. Woe betide him, though, if he arrive home late!

Church in Asproli; the attached building to the right is the rectory

Asproli's bell tower

When we finally arrived in Asproli itself, we revisited his favorite chestnut tree, the places he went asparagus picking, and his friend's home, which is now in ruins, sadly. He took me up and down the most dilapidated-looking, steep roads imaginable, and I confess that at times I was worried we would end up irrevocably stuck in the back of beyond. Spoiler alert: we didn't.

The view from the piazza outside the church

We did, however, see his village school and the church (with its attached rectory), as well as surprisingly running across Angelo, our beloved plumber! We had not at this point actually seen his family home.

The upper window is
where Zoppini was born

His home is the one in the background. There are two others
that are connected on the exterior, but are separate houses

The well is the cube in the center of the photo. Rabbits
were kept in a cage to the left.

Come to find out, Zoppini didn't actually grow up in Asproli, but rather in a clutch of houses well outside the town limits. Perched at the base of a tower that probably dates to 1000 C.E. are five or six dwellings. Three homes are attached together, in a style Americans would call townhomes (ironically, given they're in the middle of the country). The others are separate buildings.


Zoppini showed me the well behind his home, where they kept meat fresh in the summer. Apparently there was something that translates as "straw paper" in which his mother would wrap up any fresh meat they had. They would then put it in the well to keep it cool. It was unclear from his narrative whether it was actually immersed, but he indicated that the wrapping kept the meat dry.

The tower across from Zoppi's
childhood home. The tower itself
(according to him) is a large room
with an amazing view. You can
just see the exterior staircase to
the left.

Zoppini's uncle's house.
You can see where the exterior
stairs connected into the facade.

His parents lived (and he was born) in the front bedroom, along with his sisters. He shared the other bedroom with his grandparents and his brother, whom we had visited in the cemetery. This brother's daughter now owns the house outright, having bought out Zoppini about 20 years ago. Interesting politics: Zoppini's wife hadn't wanted him to visit because she didn't want the niece to think he was interfering in how she was maintaining the house! Politics were avoided easily enough, though, since she was not present while we were there.

His uncle lived across the narrow road/driveway, in a two-story home that had an external staircase. In sad condition now, it appeared abandoned.

View from the base of the tower

During our time working, we had talked about some of his experiences growing up. One was that Asproli would communicate with Casemasce using fire signals in a prearranged manner from the highest points around. Asproli's location for this was quite near his home. He had a chuckle about remembering something the local sage had said when he was around 12: "I don't know how or when, but in your lifetime, people will be able to cook without lighting a fire." This seemed tremendously remote at the time, but was actually in around 1940. If you think about it, it shows how isolated they really were: gas stoves were widely available and in full use by the 1880s in England (according to a quick internet search), and this was 60 years later that it seemed a distant, science-fiction invention!

The top of the rise (in the center
of the photo) was the point from
which Asproli signaled
to Casemasce.

Asking him about gelato and/or whether there was an ice storage house in Asproli (he'd not even realized that there was ice storage in Todi, go figure!), he told me that a fellow rode his specially-fitted bicycle from Todi to all the nearby towns on a Sunday to sell gelato. It was apparently a relatively affordable treat, since it was considered a perfectly normal purchase.

Moving along, to further villages, we continued looking at the buildings where he'd gone to dances, and then we saw the sign for Porzone. It triggered his memory that a friend of his, whom I'd met when the friend had been in the workshop, lived in Porzone and had told us to come for a visit. Did Zoppini know the house? No. Did he know the fellow's name? Nope. No problem, though: we saw another elderly fellow walking up the road, and described the friend. After a few different attempts at description, he realized that we were talking about "il Romano"...so called because he had lived for several years in Rome. No problem! We found the house easily from the description, and Il Romano was delighted for the visit! We had coffee and cake and a tour of the house (which, incidentally, had a wood-fired stove, and a small, portable gas burner), and everything was merry until Zoppini realized the time: after 6:15 in the evening. Sounds okay, but he was due home at 6!

We hurried off, him rather silent in worry about the chiding he would get for being late home.

However, when I saw him the next day, he was perfectly happy, and said he'd told his wife he'd had a lot of work to do the night before!

Love,

Alexandra