Auguri!

Auguri!
And a very happy, peaceful Christmas to all.

Hx

the quiet salon of Villa Vescovo

Every now and then I come across a beautiful, timeless interior and I feel uplifted by it's worn fabrics, faded wallpapers and dusky paintwork. I love that there is nothing new at all and outside the modern world is rushing by and here, inside this villa, all is calm and still.

olives safely gathered in

Tonight our olives are safely gathered in. A wonderful day spent under celestial skies standing in our silvery trees with purple, black, red, pink, green, smooth, speckled, wrinkly, shiny, plump, soft, ripe, round, oval, lovely olives tumbling into our nets. Thanks be to the god of olive trees.

la porta della chiesa

Church door, Amandola.

confession

Finding a church in disrepair is always unsettling, yet fascinating. Entering sacred places, once held in esteem, now fallen into rubble and tatters, their inner dignity exposed, I find most revealing. It is as if the neglected fabric of the building speaks. Not less of the word of God, perhaps more.

le marche oak trees

The acorns are falling and the oaks are turning. Their glorious moment has arrived and simply being here with these ancient Le Marche querce is an honour indeed.

feathers found in Fermo

As often happens, I had taken my photographs and was returning home, camera safely in bag, thinking I was running late and had more photographs to take in the afternoon light. And then of course, as often happens, the next picture lay right there before me. In these moments it is my heart that speaks and there is really no choice at all.

balcone delle Marche: 2

I have always loved balconies. Stepping out of a room and being outside, yet still linked to the interior at the same time. A half-way space. Neither one nor the other. Inside outside. And being able to look at the world from the same perspective every time and behold the same world, changed before you.

from a balcony nelle Marche

This particularly beautiful balcone faces south. Stepping out from your salon, to your left you have the sea, to your right the Sibillini Mountains and before you cultivated valleys neatly patterned with olive groves roll away. Pausing here in the fading light of an autumn day, faraway cities with evocative names came to mind; Dubrovnik, Istanbul, Athens, Casablanca ..

mele

The apple trees we have are somewhat wild. Grown tall and we need a ladder and the tractor to pick them, but anyway tonight we have many baskets full. Tonight their perfume pervades the kitchen and the day was filled with their blushing rosy skin in the low autumn sun.

The colour of a Fermo staircase

Gold. This is the colour of the light flooding into the staircase that takes you up to SAN ZANONE MANSARDA. And when you arrive the hallway is pink, the frescoes blue, the view expansive, the feeling safe and it is all just heavenly.

beautiful palazzo apartment

Exquisite, spacious apartment with breathtaking views to the mountains. Private balcony, frescoes .. furnished with Italian decorative art and antiques, also for sale by private negotiation. More soon.

Fermo find

Just found: the most beautiful garden with private apartment to restore. More details coming soon ..

Qualita della Vita

Qualita della Vita is something measured in Italian regions and cities. It is calculate based on certain criteria including on the price of a loaf of bread, the cleanliness of the air, the longevity of the people. I am sure my favourite town of Fermo comes very high on the list.

ceiling detail, Montemonaco

i miei pomidori

I was recently talking to Paolo in the bar and he was recounting the pleasures of his orto (allotment), in particular his delicious pomidori one of which had weighed in at 8.5 etti. Then later Filippo, the mechanic who was fixing my car began telling me, spanner in hand, eyes twinkling, about how nothing compared with the delicate, sweet taste of his home grown pomidorini, and then at lunch time when Sam suggested going to a local restaurant I realised I had been thinking about our own pomodori, that I already had my eye on the ripe ones I was going to pick for lunch. Anticipating their deliciousness I realised part of me had crossed over an intangible line; something to do with belonging to this landscape, everything to do with the taste of i miei pomidori.

Fernando's tart

Summer dessert recipe.

Go to Rita the baker. Buy one of her tarts prettily decorated by her sons and bring home. Try and save until supper time, but probably not succeed, but anyway sink knife into soft brushed pastry flowers and dark plum jam. Eat with fingers whilst shedding crumbs.

Photograph of Fernando's plum tart with lemon. Summer 2002.

The cool passageways of Fermo

I have been working in the summer heat in Fermo.
As I navigate my way through the steep cobbled streets I take the back routes so I can pass through the dark, ancient passageways of the town. This one is encountered on the short cut from Casa Marinelli up towards the duomo, and every time I walk through in summer I think of the centuries of people, the horses, the life that has passed by these same brick walls and felt the same welcome breeze on their skin.

summer

It has been the hottest month for a long time. The figs are ripe, the sea is warm, our feet are dusty. Dawn is my favourite time of day; a slight cool breeze with the first pink promise of sun. If you are coming, bring nothing but your coolest clothes. Everything else you could possibly need is already here.

the detail of Casa Marinelli: 2

I was recently visiting Casa Marinelli. It was a hot day with the first intense light of summer, but inside this abandoned house it felt deliciously cool. Stepping inside you enter a calmness, a darkness, dust upon dust, layer upon layer of the stuff of centuries and an inexplicable feeling of calm.

football and gelati

Summer has arrived along with new flavours of gelati too numerous to mention. And of course we have the mondiale (World Cup) to prepare for next week, a wonderful event that unites the community if not the world. I find the trick is to combine these two pleasures and starting next week I shall sample my way from limone to cioccolato, melone to tiramisu during the first rounds. Hopefully by the semi-finals I will have discovered the flavour I like, along with a team to support. But choice is never easy. Should I choose pistacchio and Italia, fragole and England or perhaps the seductive combination of tutti frutti and Brazil ..

This Modern World

Whilst visiting a house the other day I met a signora who lived next door. She had come to help her husband tend the vegetable patch. Their view stretched away before them towards the mountains. As I took my photographs I watched as they bent together over their work, slowly and skillfully lifting and dropping their hoes, digging their terra. Ottanta! (eighty!), she said with a twinkling smile when I asked her age. La! (over there!), she said, pointing to a house across the field when I asked where she was born. Everything about her brimmed with belonging and timeless tradition, most covetable in this modern world.

a moment in time

Seen today, not far from my home.

paradise found

High up in the mountains I have found a small stone house, snug into the hillside with a meadow for a lawn and a view as wide as you could wish for. It is an archetypal paradise on top of the world, with some land, wild flowers, white blossom, sea on the distant horizon and air so clean I felt I might float up and away.

first fave

The first fave (broad beans) have arrived along with the first fragole (strawberries). These tender delicacies are such a treat after the long wait of winter. And the asparagus keeps on growing. I found some stalks yesterday over two meters long, snaking, entwined in the fields. And I have decided all preserves in the cupboard must be eaten before the end of April. Soon I will have an empty shelf and vacant jars, all prepared for the new season's produce. Of course I have much to learn in the casalinga department, but kindly neighbours and friends give me advice freely and frequently, along with gifts of food they have made themselves.

the taste of summer

It has been a damp weekend, but we are grateful for the lush grass, the abundant wild asparagus and the trees are having a wonderful drink. As May approaches I have planned a weekend at the coast to walk on the sand, take some photographs and put my toes in the sea. And of course this being the Adriatic coast, we will visit our favourite fish restaurant and order steaming plates of spaghetti vongole, which for me is the taste of Le Marche summer. I can hardly wait.

Supper 4: Risotto primavera

I have just found wild asparagus growing in our woods.
VERY exciting. And so I am making risotto primavera for supper tonight. This is what you do.

Go to the woods and look for asparigi. This may take some time. It is thin, very dark green, almost black, nothing like it's pale green plump commercial cousin. Damp, undisturbed banks and clearings are a good place to search. Hours later, probably at dusk because you can no longer see, head home with whatever you have found. Find pan. Melt butter with a little olive oil. Gently fry chopped onion. Add brodo (stock), which of course you happen to have, pour in some best risotto rice and stir constantly. Season. As the risotto thickens, throw in your chopped delicacy. Keep adding the brodo until the rice is cooked to perfection. Serve with freshly grated parmesan.

I am sure wild asparigi brings good fortune to all who eat it.

the detail of Casa Marinelli

One of the things I like the most about this historic merchant's house is the detail. Worn with time, polished with use, the steps, the walls, the latches, the handrails, where they should be, extremely beautiful, dirty yet dignified.

Good Friday

Easter is important here in Le Marche hill-towns. Today, along with the traditional Good Friday procession, families are arriving home for the weekend. Cellophane wrapped Easter eggs the size of a child have appeared in the bakers, meringue cakes in the shape of agnelli (lambs) and colomba pasquale (almond sugared dove-shaped cakes) are being created and given with much generosity. And at the same time the fields around are ploughed and sown, the vines pruned and tied, the fruit trees neatly shaped and covered in delicate blossom. This morning I passed two doves sitting in a cherry tree. At Easter the farms and the feste seem to me quite inseperable.

The colours of Palazzo Romani Adami

I am often asked for special places to stay, and here is a wonderful palazzo, sensitively restored by the family to create comfortable apartments to rent by the day or longer. Each is painted beautiful colours; rose pink, lush apricot, deep acqua, lemon yellow, soft lilac, all a feast for the eyes, right in the heart of Fermo.

first plum blossom

La Madonna della Misericordia and La Signora with the key

I have found a beautiful fresco. I was visiting a house in the falling snow, my brave companions were damp, but enthusiastic and so we knocked on the neighbouring door to the church. An elderly signora in an apron appeared. She produced la chiave (the key) from which dangled a ribbon. She unlocked the church door and we entered a tiny interior and there above the alter was the painting I had heard about, La Madonna della Misericordia (Virgin of Mercy). It is, I believe a 15th century fresco by Lorenzo Salimbeni, dated 1404. I have sent word out to confirm. But what a find. As ever Le Marche reveals her treasures most quietly. La signora told us her two sisters were married here and an image of long ago summer weddings drifted past as the snow lay melting outside. How comforting to know that La Signora with the key and this finely depicted Madonna, cloak held out by angels so that folk can shelter beneath, watch over this quiet hamlet together.

Roma

I have just returned over the mountains from Rome. What always amazes me about the Eternal City is the easy-going way the ancient and the everyday inhabit the streets, tightly wedged together side by side. Elsewhere such monuments might be encased in a glass dome, impossible to touch, attached to a scholarly bookshop. But in Rome it seems you can move in beside an Emperor's temple, hang out your laundry next to a Corinthian column and simply get on with the task of urban living. Knowing Roma is there, as we live here in the Marche mountains, is a wonderful feeling.

the second sign of primavera

Today,
the first violetta.

the first sign of primavera

It was really hot this morning, hot enough to be outside with bare feet. Perhaps not a good idea in February, but it felt blissfully warm and balmy. I even opened the windows wide and in flew a calibroni, a big black blundering beautiful bee. I notice my irises have sent their first pale leaves towards the sky. By lunchtime the heavens had darkened, but this morning was the first glimpse of primavera and of course I realise there is much to do these next weeks before everything comes to life.

the light of summer

Today, with snow forecast and the fires ablaze, I remembered a shaft of intense summer light falling into the piano nobile of Palazzo Alaleona, and how deliciously cool it was to stand in the shadows of that wonderful building.

marmellata: 2

Just when I was thinking I was ahead, marmellata di arance smugly in the cupboard, Francesco in the market insists I make more marmalade with a different kind arance bianche he has brought especially from Sicillia. So yesterday after work I spent the evening slicing and squeezing a mountain of oranges, left them soaking as instructed and now they are on the stufa, filling the house with their heady perfume. Those who know me well, know about my little stufa, a rescue-stove found abandoned, dumped from a contadina farmhouse kitchen. It is adorable. Fill it with twigs and you can feed a family. The caldrone is another story, which I will come to later.

the cupboard door of Villa Vescovo

I found this gentle, Italian landscape in a villa last summer, it's winding road leading through an archetypal valley, past ruined buildings and cypress trees towards the distant mountains. It is painted onto a wooden door, the key located beneath the tree in the foreground, seemingly unlocking the way down the road and also the cupboard. The key has been turned many times and the continual locking and unlocking of the cupboard has worn away the grass beneath the tree, like centuries of feet walking the same route and wearing smooth a pathway. All most uplifting and reassuring.

the quiet Marche winter

A crisp, clear, frosty dawn. It is breathtakingly beautiful outside, snow deep up on the mountains and we are all wrapped up warm, including the agarve, which seem to be glowing, snug under their layer of insulation, waiting, as we are, for Spring. Yet there is much to do now and on a day such as this the bare, sleeping Marche landscape is quietly magnificent.

marmellata in the cupboard

It has been a busy day. Not only are the carciofi planted, but the marmalade is in the cupboard. Today the kitchen smelt divine and a heady sweet orange aroma wafted through the house. Getting up for breakfast on a winter's day, knowing there is marmalade for breakfast, knowing the oranges came from Sicily via Francesco in the market, brings a taste of summer to the deep Marche winter.

carciofi safely planted

I have just planted my artichokes, one in between each vine. I obeyed my instructions, trimmed the leaves and stamped them carefully into the damp earth. The digging kept me warm and the thought of their beautiful purple flowers kept me going. I pictured us eating them, pulling off the tender leaves, in May 2011. Planting something to eat gives me a feeling of great safety.

a sack of carciofi

Today, navigating through a blanket of fog, I went to the market to buy oranges and came home with 40 carciofi. They were lying on a hessian sack on the ground, freshly dug, tied into four neat bundles. I know the elderly man who was standing beside them. He doesn't have a stall, a table or a chair, more a patch of space to park his little van. I dug them yesterday, he said, please take them all. And without a second thought I did. It was the look of them up-rooted, their silver green beautiful leaves, them needing to be returned to the earth, his growing and digging and bundling of them and bringing them to market in the sack through the fog. He told me exactly what to do; trim them, stamp them in well. When will I have artichokes? I asked. Perhaps May, because it's late. Next May you will, he smiled.

celestial blue

Today I came across an exquisite glass door in which there were celestial blue panels. It was inside a palazzo near the basilica of San Nicola, Tolentino, the top floor of which I had been asked to visit as it is for sale. More details to follow.

Miracles of Le Marche: 6. Winter pine tree

The light at dawn has been exquisite these past few days. Opening our windows to the east, the sun fills my umbrella pines, which hold on the tip of each spine, a drop of dew. The trees, for moment, light up and sparkle as if a miracle is upon us. Which of course it is.

Stefania's Befana party

Yesterday was the festa of Befana, celebrated in Italy on Epiphany and although I have asked many people the origin of this witchy woman on a broomstick bringing sweets and coal to children, I have been told conflicting stories of her origins. According to someone in the hairdressers, she was spotted at the scene of the nativity, others claim she is pagan and comes down the chimney like Babbo Natale. All very confusing. However, what I know for certain is that she brings another national holiday, the chance to be together with friends and the food is always delicious. And yesterday Stefania's party in the elegant borgo storico seghetti panichi was no exception. Italian-esque sandwiches created from a light savory panetone-shaped bread, then re-stacked together to form the original cupola shape. So ingenious. The tea was delicate and there was a choice of shape of cup. I love this attention to detail, the way her family have adopted the English tea ceremony and embellished it, leaving out any British sang froid and instead adding flamboyance and fun. Thank you Stefania for a wonderful Befana party.

buon anno nuovo!

New Years Eve arrived as a blue full moon rose in the sky and dinner guests arriving saw a rainbow in the silver night sky. Their faces were wide with wonder. Beneath the chandelier, we ate our lentils for fortune and toasted in the new decade at midnight. My wish is for a peaceful, happy year ahead for all. Buon anno nuovo!