Monthly Archives: December 2015

Resending October 20th

October 20lost first post, so will start over…
We took a taxi to the Villa Decugnano do Barbi for our cooking lesson. Decugnano is an ancient word that might mean villa, or farm or vineyard, but no one is sure. Dei Barbi means of the Barbi family who have owned the Villa since 1973. There are several buildings on the property, the villa where the family lives, a smaller structure available to rent, a swimming pool, the wine production and storage buildings and a former chapel with kitchen attached. We were given a walking tour of the vineyards, olive grove and the caves where wine is stored at a constant 51 degrees year round. We could see Orvieto 15 mines in the distance.  
We started our cooking class with Anna Rita and Rosanna by donning our aprons (which we got to keep) and chopping and slicing and making pizza and pasta douh. After kneading, we set the pizza dough in the sun to rise and started kneading and rolling out the pasta dough, made with flour, water and eggs. When it was ready, we sliced it about 3/4 inch wide and set it on a board to dry. I stuffed zucchini flowers with. Slice of mozzarella and would have added the traditional anchovy if it had been available. Dipped them in a batter, put them in an oiled pan and baked. Meanwhile, we sliced potatoes, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, chard and leeks, and carrots. Sausage meat, hamburger, egg, garlic, salt & pepper were mashed together and wrapped into a slice of thinly sliced veal, rolled up and secured with a toothpick. Put into a frying pan, two cups of white wine and cooked over a low heat for 15-20 minutes. This was our entree. Meanwhile, we spread the rolled out pizza dough into greased pans. One one we put zucchini slices, salt & pepper and Rosemary. Another potato slices, salt, pepper and Rosemary. One had tomatoes and garlic and the last one had tomatoes, basil and mozzarella added after the crust was done, just to melt the cheese. That was the only pizza with cheese. They were delicious. One pan was foccacia bread with salt and Rosemary. The pasta sauce was crumbled sausage, garlic, tomatoes, onion and carrots. The food was wonderful and simple to make. I will be making pasta at home…without a pasta machine. My pasta making machines are at the end of my arms! We also made cookies for our dessert. They were made with ground almonds, sugar, baking powder and egg whites and put into balls and baked 15-20 minutes. Each course was paired with a wine from the winery. We ate in the former chapel at a table for 10. There are three of those tables in the chapel with plenty of space. There is a huge window at one end where the altar once stood and it is framed with parts of the wooden altar. Pictures around the walls of religious cardinals and such and probably ancestors of the villa. The room looks huge in part to the high restored wooden roof. There are two bell pulls by the front doors. Now the front doors are all glass, which allows the diners to see Orvieto framed in them and the spectacular sunset! Just a beautiful vista! We returned to the convent, full of delicious food and having had a fabulous cooking experience. Would certainly recommend it to anyone going to Orvieto.  

December 9

after the 100 Presipios, we went to the Ara Pacis to see an exhibit of Toulouse Lautrec…one of my favorites.  There were about 170 pieces of his art, from posters, illustrations, playbill covers, and sketches.  In addition to his works, there were photos and films from the early 1900’s that depicted life in Paris during the Belle Époque.  It is sad to think that he died at the age of only 36.  This exhibit will continue until 8 May 2016 and should be seen if you come to Rome.  

December 9100 Presepi…we went to see an exhibit of 100 Nativity Scenes. Some were the 700 year old Sicilian style and some were very modern. Artists from all over the world had made Nativity scenes…or Presepi for this 40th International exhibition.  The ancient Sicilian style is a scene of an entire village with all of the inhabitants going about their daily lives. Rocks, caves, houses, hills, homes, shops, vegetation, people, animals and tucked somewhere in the diorama is a nativity scene with Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, Angels, shepherds, and wise men. The detail is as exacting as it can be made, and many parts are automated now. Running water, flickering fires and the people moving. Women washing clothes, weaving, spinning, knitting, cooking, rolling dough, bouncing babies. Men herding livestock, fishing, cutting wood, shoeing horses, cooking pizzas. We have seen some of these that are huge. In this exhibit they were smaller, but still with incredible detail.The more modern ones were made of Terra cotta, bread dough, wood, glass, pottery, beeswax, fabric and straw, cork, paper and cardboard, bamboo, wire, feathers, steel, stained glass, wool, corn stalks, felt, a painted ostrich egg, lace, pasta and rice, River sand, foil, clay, shells, spun sugar. One was made from parts of a Fiat 500 with spark plugs, valves and a muffler. One was made from ping pong paddles, balls and net. A very modern one was made of glass and crystals. One of the tiniest was made with seeds and spices. There is also a large, life sized one in St. Peter’s Square. This was a wonderful exhibit…and my favorite are the very detailed Sicilian style ones.  

December 8Today was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and also the opening of the Jubilee Door of St. Peter’s. The Jubilee is scheduled every 25 years and the next one was supposed to be in 2025, but Pope Francis has called a Year of Mercy Jubilee which started today. When the Jubilee door was closed in 2001, it was sealed with bricks and plaster. That was removed last week.Today, I started at 7:30 to join a huge crowd going to Piazza San Pietro. The bells started pealing at 7. Normal routes were blocked off with barricades and we had to all enter from one Main Street. Besides the barricades, the streets were blocked with either city police or military. All heavily armed. We went thru one screening blocks from St. Peter’s and then another when we got there. I got a seat and waited for the ceremony to start. It was a grey, almost rainy day. The singing started about 8am and then there was the recitation of the Rosary. I now have the ‘Hail Mary’ down in Italian. At 9:30 on the dot, Pope Francesco arrived to say the Mass. Up by the beautiful altar to the left were the cardinals and bishops all in white robes. The orchestra and choirs were on the left also. On the right were priests and dignitaries. Hundreds of them on both sides. Il Papa said the mass and hundreds of people carrying yellow and white umbrellas paraded across the front near the altar. Even though we had been given a lovely book that outlined all the words of the service and all the music, I had no idea what the umbrella people were for. Now, for those of you who might not know, the Mass is the celebration of the Communion…the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ. Every Mass’s purpose is the sharing of the Communion. I’m thinking, there is no way 50,000 people can have communion here. Well, yes they did! All of the umbrella people were the designated communion givers. People went to the sides of the aisles, took communion and returned to their seats. All 50,000 were served in less than 30 minutes. The choir was singing beautiful music the whole time, the sun came out, the birds were flying around…as well as a helicopter that circled the square the entire time. After Mass was over, all the cardinals and bishops filed into the portico of St. Peter’s. Then Pope Francesco went in and shoved open the massive doors. Then Pope Emeritus Benedict went in and greeted Francesco. He looked very frail. One Cardinal held one arm and he carried a cane. Then Pope Francesco led all the cardinals and bishops to the main altar inside…a long walk. We could see this all on the huge TV’s set up around the square. Prayers and blessings and it was over and the bells started ringing again.  We caught the bus to go meet a friend for lunch and it was very apparent that huge measures had been taken for security. At the very end of the street in front of St. Peter’s were ambulances, police vans, two Hummers that looked well fortified and there were police and military everywhere. All the huge trash bins all around the Vatican have been removed. Excellent crowd control and security. The ceremony was beautiful and very moving…probably the only opening of the Jubilee Doors I will ever see. Another amazing experience I’ve had this amazing year.  

December 2Last week, we were guests of Massimo, our storyteller from the Courtesan Tour. This tour was at night and was billed as a Torture Tour…I thought it was called a Ghost Tour but I was wrong.  Our first stop was in Campo di Fiori…Field of Flowers is the translation. In the middle of the square is a statue in memory of a man named Bruno. He was a contemporary of Galileo and was charged with heresy for saying the Sun didn’t revolve around Earth and Earth was not the center of the universe. He also debunked the Virgin birth and said Jesus wasn’t God on Earth. So, the church threw him in prison, tortured him and then burned him alive at the stake right on the very spot of his statue. The church used the ‘rack’ to stretch you, a device to stretch your arms, had people dig their own graves and put them in and covered them up, beheadings etc. We learned about a woman from Sicily who learned the art of poisoning from her mother. This witch would mix up the poison and bottle it for sale, or for a lower price she would just sell you the written recipe. One woman didn’t get the recipe quite right and her husband figured out he was being poisoned and she was arrested and tried as a witch. But not before she had dispatched many husbands to their just reward. We learned that there are over 500 madonnelas around town. These are little altars or pictures of the Madonna that were lighted with candles or torches in the evenings and were the forerunners of street lights. The lights helped to keep the streets safer as well as having Mother Mary keeping an eye on things. I had always thought that they were little devotional altars and wondered why they needed two or three every block,when there were four churches on every corner..but they were more for safety than devotion. We learned about a woman who was the mistress of a Pope and when he died she stole everything she could get her hands on…and she and her coaches still travel across one of the bridges every night…and she is a ghost now. We then heard the story of Beatrice Cinci. She caused the biggest scandal in all of Europe at the time. She had an older brother and a younger brother, a mother and father. Her father was a good friend of the Pope. He was, however, not a good father. He molested Beatrice for years. She wrote letters asking people to help her and finally word got to the Pope of this situation and he told Mr. Cinci that he had to stop molesting his daughter…in Rome!! So the family moved to the villa in the countryside. One night, Beatrice killed her father, wrapped him in a sheet and threw him over a balcony to the rocks below. She failed to burn the bloody sheet. She was thrown in prison, tried and sentenced to be executed. The Pope knew if the entire family died off, the church would inherit their wealth, so he had Beatrice, her mother and older brother beheaded on the Angel Bridge in front of Castel SanAngelo. He spared the 14 year old brother’s life, but had him castrated. So no more Cinci family and the church inherited. It is said that 20,000 people witnessed the beheadings with the heads impaled on stakes across the bridge. Google Beatrice Cinci…there are hundreds of paintings, books, stories and even modern day movies made about her.  Different spots around town were the sites for various tortures and depending on your favorite form of torture entertainment, you could go to the sites and see hangings, or burning at the stake, or live burials or beheadings. Just a typical,Saturday night in Rome in the Middle Ages and even up until 1870. A great tour!