Umbria Day 2

Day Two in Umbria.  It started with a relaxing morning and a beautiful walk in the Italian countryside, exploring valleys of olive orcahrds, grape vineyards, and old midieval ruins.  Then cooking classes, a trip to Assisi, and a lovely three course dinner at the end. 

 Two eager chefs (at least one eager chef, and one really good sport) ready to get cooking!

 We started by making a traditional Italian cake.  It is normally cooked in a ring (like a bunt cake).  Young men will use this cake for wedding proposals.  The boy would present the girl with the cake and, if she says yes, he puts the cake around her arm (threading her arm through the center of the ring).  The cake is baked once then covered with a meringue, then baked again in a low temperature oven for another 40 minutes or so.  With that much time in the oven, the cake had no chance but to be hopelessly dry - and, indeed, it was.  The flavor was good, but it needed some good, saucey berries to moisten it up!

 Next on the menu was potato gniocchi, a dumpling style pasta.  Here you can see our finished pasta finishing in the marinara, with a little mozzarella.

Second course - Umbrian sausage.  They grill the sausage and baste it with rosemary or fennel herbs dipped in olive oil.  DJ was just ecstatic to have cooked sausage at this meal instead of cured. It was really delicious!

 Dj enjoying his gnocchi 

DJ enjoying the cooked Umbrian sausage.  

 After our afternoon cooking lessons we visited the medieval city of Assisi, made famous by St. Francis of Assisi.  St Francis grew up the son of a wealthy silk merchant.  His name was not really Francis - this was a nickname given to him by his father, meaning "French-man", in tribute to Francis's French mother.  He lived the life of a normal wealthy man, even joining the army and fighting in war.  Early in his adulthood he saw a vision of Christ and converted to his service.  He denounced all of his worldly possessions, to the dismay and disapproval of his father, and dedicated the rest of his life to the ministry.  He is now the patron saint of Umbria, and the namesake of the current Pope.

 Assisi is such a beautiful city.  Positioned on a hilltop, the city streets wind in a circular spiral to the very top, where the cathedral of Francis's original vision is said to have occurred.  The city is all stone.  The only spacings between buildings is for narrow stairways shortcutting to the street above.  The Italian people beautify and bring life to this stone work by planing greenery and flowers wherever it will grow.

 Assisi has several openings like this one with stairs climbing up to a higher level of the city.  It was so intriguing, I wanted to climb up every one of them to see what kind of treasure I would find at the top, like it was a secret passageway of the city.  We could have spent a whole day in the city just exploring all these little paths.

 The church of St. Francis's vision.

We had the fun opportunity to spend the week with three other couples.  Above are just two of them.  Next to DJ is Charley and Christine, from New York.  Charlie was a police officer in New York city.  He had so many interesting stories to tell, we could have listened to him all night!  Christine worked for St John's University in Queens.  Such nice and genuine people, we were lucky to spend the week with them!  Next to Michelle is a couple from New York, Gail and Harvey.  Harvey was an engineer, then project manager, and now professor.  You could just see his analytical mind working away to understand every medieval machine or system we encountered in our sightseeing.  Gail was a psychotherapist and about the nicest person you could meet.  The last couple is not shown here - Charley and Trisha from Georgia.  They had lived the expat life in London, similar to what DJ and I have now.  It was so fun to compare experiences and get their great travel tips!  We were a diverse group and had some fun conversations over dinner and well into the evening.  We were lucky to have such great company with us!