Lots to see and do in Bevagna. There are a series of small craft museums, and one of the best biscotti bakeries in Umbria. For a full report, visit my blog.

A fun place to stop in Bevagna, to pick up some hand made baskets and rustic ceramics. For a full report, visit my blog.

My favorite place to eat in Bevagna. For a full review of Antiche Sere visit my blog.

One of my favorite places to eat in Todi. For the full story, visit my blog.

Enoteca Oberdan
Via Augusto Ciuffelili 22
075.894.5409

Some pretty blossoms from this Easter at Pergolaccio.

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I’ve admitted by shortcomings when it comes to foraging. I want to be a better forager. I intend to be a better forager. And one day I will be a better forager.

But in the meantime, when I have a springtime craving for dandelion green salad I have a very nifty trick. I invite my friend Carol over, and she is bound to arrive with a bag of freshly gathered dandelion greens. You see, Carol is very good at foraging (at least for dandelion greens). And she’s even better at being a dinner guest. Not only did she arrive with a bag-o-greens, she brought me a thick slice of pancetta and a nice red onion.

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Going to the markets in Rome in the spring is intoxicating. While I like cavolo nero, broccoletti and cicoria as much as the next girl, come April I am so over cruciferous anything. But spring brings artichokes, peas, fave and asparagus. And the season is so short for this spring bounty, that I buy and cook as much of them as possible.
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Even though I stopped on the way up to Todi, at a truck stop, and bought not one but two pastieras, along with a kilo of biscotti; and even though I loaded up on WAY too many chocolate eggs the other day in Rome at Valzani; today I found myself baking a cake. Which I needed like a hole in my head.

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We’ve had our house in Todi for 20 years. So, you’d think I would know every square inch of country side around our home. The butcher, the baker…there’s even a candle stick maker (well, he makes honey and sells the wax). But the other day, on our way up to the house, we took a back road – a sort of short cut – since I was hoping the little super market in Collelungo would be open.
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Usually the words supermarket wine means jugs of horrid plonk with screw on tops. Even in Italy, where you can get pretty great wines at affordable prices, the choices of high end wines – or even interesting wines –  in supermarkets is usually pretty limited. Unless you head over the mall at Collestrada and hit the IperCoop.

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