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Cortona, Feb 12, 2013 : Martedi’ Grasso (Mardigras) – The Last Day of Carneval

photo: www.carnevaldifoiano.it

For 474 years the little Tuscan hilltown of Foiano della Chiana, just 20 minutes drive from Cortona, has been celebrating Carneval time along its narrow streets with magnificant multicolored parades, creatively costumed dancers, giant mobile effigies of immaginary creatures and famous celebrities, with masks and singing. Today – February 12th – is of course Mardigras – in Italian MARTEDI’ GRASSO – and the weather is beautiful – so local residents from Cortona, and the outlying towns and villages of the Valdichiana, all flock to Foiano to take part in the celebrations and eat as much Tuscan ‘fastfood’ as possible !

A day at the olive mill (Frantoio) in Cortona…

The olive oil mills are working full steam ahead in the Cortona area, but the yield is down by 30% this year due to very low rainfall and unusally hot weather for months on end. The price of freshly milled virgin olive oil, purchased directly at the mill, is consequently higher than in recent years, but you need to get lucky to find a ‘Frantoio’ that has any spare oil to sell this year !

Local producer delivers his olives on a foggy Sunday morning

Cortona produces some pretty good wines now, but it is most of all reknowned for one of the highest quality olive oils of Tuscany. These are some new pictures of the FRANTOIO LANDI mill, which is the sole remaining olive oil mill in the Cortona area that continues to operate a traditional, cold stone milling process, run by the current generation of the Landi family, father and his two sons (the Landi family mill was founded in 1875).

The stone mill and cold pressing room

Pressing oil from the olive pulp laid onto circular mattes

Removing the dry olive pulp from the mattes after pressing

Mr. Landi and one of his sons watch proudly as the warm, pungent virgin oil flows into the delivery room collection tanks ready for the client to take home (after paying the milling fee of course !)

The original 19th century oil sales room with its antique 100-litre terracotta storage vessels and solid flagstone floors.

View of the back end of the millhouse

And here is a link to a video showing the great stone wheels rotating in their cradle as they crush the olives to a pulp ready for delivery to the pressing mattes….

www.frantoiolandi.it/frantoi-cortona-landi-video.asp

It’s Olive Picking time !

2012 has been a very hot and extremely dry year with little rain so the olive trees have suffered and the fruit is smaller than usual. This means a low yield, though still a very good quality product. The cost of newly pressed, ‘extra’ virgin olive oil, purchased directly from the local mills of Cortona, will be higher than in past years as a result. Watch this space for an update on the going price as the first batch of oil comes on the market at the end of November.

Beautiful designer apartment for sale in Cortona

Here’s the link to the page with photos and full description of the apartment:

http://www.classictuscanhomes.com/home-for-sale/

Heavy snow hit Cortona in February

On February 21st this is how the kilometer-long Parterre avenue looked after trucks dumped tons of snow cleared out of the center of Cortona

And this is what a nearby Cortonese farmhouse looked like after the first snow blizzard hit !

Frances Mayes’ new book!

Spring is finally on its way..

After being covered by inches and inches of snow, Cortona is now finally flooded by nothing but warm sunlight.

So, while getting ready for springtime, and maybe thinking of a holiday in Cortona, why not practice some Tuscan sun recipes?!

Frances and Edward Mayes are releasing a new cookbook which will be published on March 13th.
“The Tuscan sun cookbook” is a collection of Frances and Ed’s favorite recipes from twenty-one years of feasting in Italy!

Check out Frances’ blog for more information.

“Vino bruciato”

Still a lot of sunshine in Cortona, but it’s finally getting colder..
So let’s warm up with some delicious mulled wine,
here’s a simple recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

1 untreated Orange
1 untreated Lemon
2 cinnamon sticks
8 cloves
½ nutmeg
1 litre of full-bodied red wine (some good Chianti if you can!)
200 gr caster sugar

Grate the nutmeg and thinly cut wide sections of the orange and the lemon’s peel, being careful not to get the white part as well.
Put the sugar, the peel and all the spices in a large steel saucepan and pour the red wine.
Set the pan over a medium heat and slowly bring to the boil.

Let it boil for about 5 minutes until the sugar has dissolved ;
now (carefully!) set fire to the top of the syrup so that the alcohol contained in the wine burns out, let it burn until it extinguishes on its own.

Filter the wine with a very fine knit colander and serve warm.

Tasty vin brulè to everyone!

Chestnuts, wine and olive oil.

It’s Saint Martin’s day today,
and one of the most great Italian poets from the 19th century, Giosuè Carducci,
wrote a poem dedicated to this day, called “San Martino” which begins:

La nebbia agli irti colli piovigginando sale…

“Drizzling, the fog the steep hills climbs…”

Fog?????
Not this year, for sure, in Cortona!
We are enjoying a very unusual weather for this time of year: warm and sunny.
It’s like September but with yellow leafs on trees!

I know it’s not good, but I’m secretly glad the bad weather’s been put off for a while..

Castagne alla brace.

Also, without fog, you can fully enjoy the beautiful autumn colours of our hills, and nobody says you can’t bake those amazing chestnuts you find in the woods and eat them along with some delicious mulled wine…

Plus, with the good weather our people have already been able to pick their olives and make the long-awaited,
new,
incredibly green,
prickly
olive oil.

Bruschetta all'olio nuovo.

I’M HUNGRY.

For cat lovers.

Cortona is crowded with cats!

I’ve seen
cats on rooftops,
cats on top of cars ,
cats underneath cars (sleeping),
cats in shops,
cats in churches,
cats in my garden,
cats in the park,
cats on window ledges,
cats at the kindergarten,
cats in restaurants,
cats in bathrooms,
cats on kitchen tops,
cats on office desks
and
I think I saw a cat wandering around in the local museum,
I’m also pretty sure I saw the ghost of Emily, my ex cat.
I once caught a cat giving me the evil eye,

but the best ever
was the faithful one:

Jesus, Mary and the cat..

Tourists and Locals.

Lately I keep noticing the difference between tourists and locals:
the first walk with their heads up, the second heads down.

But we should always look up!
There’s always something new to discover, even if we’ve been in that place a thousand times.

Curiosity is life.

Cortona...up above.