Umbria Day 1

 After two days in Rome we ventured to the hills of Umbria (the region just south of Tuscany) for a seven day culinary adventure.  We spend the week learning to cook authentic Italian foods by a real Italian chef.  We saw some beautiful medieval villages and ate lots of delicious food. We debunked some serious American myths about Italian food.  The worst ones - alfredo, chicken parmesan, and spaghetti with meatballs are not real Italian!  In fact, most any pasta dish with meat is not authentic Italian.  They eat the antipasti course, then the pasta course, and then the meat is served as a separate course!  This new knowledge totally crumbled our Italian world.

 Canalicchio is the name of the resort where we stayed, pictured above.  It was on a beautiful hilltop in a region of gorgeous rolling hills in central Italy.

 Day one we made anitpasti platters.  When we get home we're totally throwing a party and making one of these!  (Though we'll used American sausages, not the Italian cold cured salamis and ham :)

Second course - chocolate salami!

 And for dinner - Italian pizza. 

 One of the main agricultural products in Umbria is sunflower oil.  There were fields and fields of sunflowers all over the region.  We were there just in time to see all of the crops in full bloom.  Another couple of weeks and they'll all be gone!

Almost every day we would go for a walk through the valleys of Umbria.  These are just a couple of pictures, unfortunately no picture does the area justice.  It was absolutely beautiful!