Cooking in Orvieto

When I discovered we were going to Italy, I had less than a week to make arrangements.  It was a little crazy.  Among a million little things, I also purchased my tickets, found my passport, made menus for the kids (including dairy free/gluten free options for Eva), shopped for groceries for those menus, made lists of the kids' important information (e.g. doctor's office, insurance information, poison control, their regular routine, etc.), cleaned my house, arranged for my ride to the airport, tried to brush up on my basic italian, packed, and rented an iPhone.  I also tried to think about what I wanted to see and do in Orvieto.  I decided to google "cooking classes in Orvieto."  I found out about an italian chef named Velia de Angelis who taught private cooking lessons in her family villa in Monterubiaglio. I sent her an e-mail and arranged a private all-day cooking lesson.

Our original menu included zucchini flowers fried in a vanilla batter and filled with cheese; fresh parmesan eggplant roll with cherry tomatoes, dried ricotta, and fresh basil; ciabatta bread; umbrian flatbread stuffed with spinach, onions, and olives; fresh tortellini or gnocchi if the tortellini was too time consuming; a dried pasta; chicken thighs filled with bacon and green apples; and either a chocolate parfait with passion fruit or a lemon tiramisu for dessert. Sounds mouthwatering, right?  We were also supposed to visit the olive oil mill Cecci. The Umbrian region is famous for black truffles and for olive oil, so I let her know that I wanted to learn how to select a good olive oil, and I wanted to taste really good truffles.

We arranged for the lesson on Friday.  Her sister and brother-in-law picked me up in Orvieto and drove me the 15 or so minutes to Monterubiaglio.  The family villa was a bit of a mess when we arrived. It turned out that Velia and her husband had just moved from their apartment in Orvieto to the family villa to save some money.  They were still getting settled in. She slept in that morning, and had just woken up when we arrived.  She said she woke up in a panic because she wasn't prepared for my visit.  She didn't have all of the ingredients we needed, and hadn't been able to get the internet to look up what we agreed to make together.  We also weren't able to go to the olive oil mill.  Needless to say, I was a bit bummed.  To make up for it, she did invite me to her champagne bar in Orvieto to cook the zuchinni flowers in the vanilla batter.  I appreciated that extra effort on her part.

Despite the fact that she didn't fully deliver what she promised, she did give me a full day of cooking, a cute little apron, 50 pages of recipes, a trip to her family villa (which really was quaintly set in the country), and some good cooking tips.  Probably the best was learning how to make, roll out, cut, and cook tagliatelle.  I also learned that I love the flavor combination of chocolate and figs. 

We made eggplant rolls with cherry tomatoes, dried ricotta, and arugula; rolls stuffed with dried ricotta, red onions, and green olives; rolls with cherry tomatoes and olive oil; a loaf of bread with toasted almonds rolled into it; fresh tagliatelle in a tomato and arugula sauce; pasta carbonara with artichoke hearts; chicken thighs with bacon and arugula; mini crostate with figs and chocolate, and a large plum preserve crostata.   I was very busy cooking, so didn't get to take many pictures.  I did, however, get to snap a few when things were prepared. 

The mini fig and chocolate crostata.

The three types of rolls we made.

The eggplant rolls with cherry tomatoes, ricotta, and arugula.

The pasta carbonara with artichoke hearts.

The fresh tagliatelle (doesn't it look so beautiful?)

Velia tossing the tomato sauce we made into the tagliatelle.

Some of my tagliatelle on the plate with one of the stuffed rolls with green olives, red onions, and ricotta.

The chicken thighs with bacon and arugula on a bed of lettuce.



Ciao from Italia

On May 26th I was lounging around in my jammies and checking e-mail.  I spotted an e-mail from one of Chris's acquaintances entitled "Ciao from Italia."  I opened it and read "This may be the strangest question, but what are you doing for the next three weeks? . . . . Want to come to Italy and sing Giovanni?"  WHAT?!!   I ran into the family room and handed my laptop to Chris.  I said, "Is he kidding, or is this real?"  Sure enough it was real.  Less than a week later Chris had a new passport, round-trip tickets to Rome, and a gig singing Don Giovanni in Orvieto, Italy.  A few days later, I joined him in Orvieto.  It was wonderful!  Many thanks to my sister, her husband, my parents, and my neighbor who helped take care of our children and our home so Chris and I could share this adventure.

I have hundreds of pictures and a few fun stories to share, so you can look forward to some upcoming blogposts on our trip to Italy.  Here's a quick sneak peak of Orvieto.  I took this in the countryside outside of the city.  Orvieto is the city in the distance, set atop the hill.

Family Pictures

It's been two years since we last blogged?!  Well, since a former student of mine and a colleague of mine did some research on how blogging eases the transition to parenthood for new moms, I decided I ought to try blogging again--not because I'm a new mom (Christopher's almost 4!), but because it's linked with a host of great benefits including closer connections with friends and family, increased feelings of social support, decreased depression, and better marital satisfaction.  You can read about it at this DOI.  (I can't get the link to work, so google this DOI and you'll find it: DOI 10.1007/s10995-011-0918-2)

I suppose I'll start with some new family pictures so those who are far away can remember what we look like.  We rarely get family photos taken.  I'm not sure why they end up at the bottom of our priority list--our kids are adorable! Our wonderful neighbor, Nickell Blair, is a fabulous photographer. Here's the link to her website: http://nickellphotography.blogspot.com/.

She took some great pictures of us, and I wanted to share them with you all.  I updated our profile picture with one of my favorite family photos, but here is another.

Here's my favorite picture of Christopher.  Didn't I say our kids are adorable?

Here is a great photo of Eva.  She was feeling sad during the whole photo shoot, but she managed to muster this genuine smile for one great shot.  When she smiles, she radiates joy, doesn't she?

 Here is a beautiful photo of Elena.  It was hard to choose which to share because every picture of her looked glorious.  She is so photogenic, just like her dad.