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Spring Green

What a fierce winter this has been.  The extremes between odd 60 degree days have not been enough to balance the fierce cold, snow and winds that have crept along the east coast.  We often joke about how frequently we shut down the government for the promise of snow—this year was an all time first for me when we shut down for the promise of wind.

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We departed a snow covered New York City for Umbria where we have been greeted by sunny skies and fields of green.  

We are often asked, “What is the best time to visit Italy?”  Of course our answer is always, “Whenever you can make it to Italy.”  There is always a good reason to visit Italy. For me, the best reason to visit Italy in the spring is the promise of what is to come.

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When we visit during the summer—the farmers discuss the heat and the wind—how they are affecting the fields.  When we visit during the fall—the farmers discuss the impact of the flies and the rains. When we visit during the spring the farmers discuss the possibilities of what is to come.  The promise of a perfect harvest. The potential of a particular grape. The buds on the trees. The gentle rain that just passed through. In spring—everything is possible.

Our tours always involve food and wine—in the spring we are drinking the most recent releases.  We are eating wild asparagus, artichokes and favas. As our friend Emiliano pointed out to us on day one, “The green has returned”—and we are here to enjoy it.

—Suzy

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What a fierce winter this has been.  The extremes between odd 60 degree days have not been enough to balance the fierce ...

Experience Italy, Food & Drink, Home and Abroad, Italy @ Home
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Chef Simone Reflections

Chef Simone Proietti-Pesci is a beloved and respected ambassador of Umbrian cuisine and lifestyle.  He is the Chef and Owner of the acclaimed Le Delizie del Borgo restaurant in Bevagna, Italy. Le Delizie del Borgo is nestled in a quaint corner of the medieval Bevagna’s main piazza, and serves as a magnet for gastronomes, attracting diners from afar with his menu of traditional and modern dishes and a wine list that draws from multiple Italian regions, including Umbria, Tuscany, and Piedmont. On top of this, Chef Simone and his restaurant are a featured host and attraction of our Umbrian Food & Wine Tours.

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We are sad to see Chef Simone leave but we know he will be back! Before he departed, we were able to sit down and hear his reflections about his time at Via Umbria:

What does it mean for you to be able to come to Via Umbria and cook?

It is an honor to be able to cook true “la vera cucina italiana” in the United States, and especially here at Via Umbria.

What are your thoughts on Italian food culture in the US?

I have found that there some restaurants that are gems like Via Umbria that create what I believe to be true Italian food, and they teach the American people how the should should really be and taste.  This is in comparison to traditional Italian-American cuisine which is a different thing and includes classics like Spaghetti and Meatballs, Chicken Parmesan and Chicken Alfredo.

What is your favorite aspect of Via Umbria?

My favorite aspects of Via Umbria are the true authenticity that is apparent throughout the store, restaurant and cafe. Also the people!

What is your favorite part of Washington DC?

Definitely 14th Street and Georgetown. I think those two are my favorites!

What do you miss most about Italy when you are in the US?

I miss the simplicity of getting around and of daily life, everything in Bevagna is 5 minutes away.  I also miss the overall quality of life in Umbria, it is just different there.

Do you miss anything about the US when you return to Italy?

When I am in Italy, I miss the city itself, Washington DC and also my American family, the Menards!

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Chef Simone Proietti-Pesci is a beloved and respected ambassador of Umbrian cuisine and lifestyle.  He is the Chef and Owner of the ...

Home and Abroad, Life in Italy
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Food for Thought

Was it too much food? Absolutely. Do I regret eating any of it? Not one bite.

We are here with our Food & Wine Tour group to Discover, Savor and Share – to explore the foods and wines of Umbria.  It’s not possible to shape the experience without enjoying a few extra bites.  We have six full days to discover hundreds of years of traditions.  To enjoy a meal around the table – not standing at the bar eating a sandwich.  For Americans, relaxing over a meal can be a challenge.  To linger over two meals a day can be excruciating.

In the states we multi-task our way through a meal.  Sitting at our desk with a phone in one hand and a sandwich in the other.  Grabbing a bite to eat and a cup of coffee or a bottle of water every time we get into the car.  Italians enjoy a small coffee at the bar and if they want more they make an additional stop.  The idea of eating in the car is foreign.  Their cars are not littered with fast food wrappers.  Their children don’t eat foods that are non-spillable so that they can eat on the go.  When I’m in Italy it all makes sense.  When I’m back in the states I’m the one biting into an egg sandwich as I speed down I-95 at 70+ miles per hour – only to have the perfectly cooked yolk explode all over me and over the windshield.  So much for multitasking and freeing up my time.  Should have spent 15 minutes sitting down and relishing my breakfast instead of half an hour detailing the car.

We spend our week in Italy enjoying many meals together with new friends.  Our most over the top, I-can-never-eat-another-bite-again day is at Ristorante Perbacco with our friend Ernesto.  He has designed a 14 course tasting menu (sometimes more but never less) for us to cook together and to enjoy together.  Starting with a main course and working backwards to dessert the fun never ends.  We spend our day making dough that can be transformed into fried bread, baked bread or even pasta.  Making pasta dough and turning it into five different shapes, each needing a separate sauce to showcase it.  And most of all we relax and we laugh together.  We are creating so many different foods that we don’t need to worry about precision and as a result everything turns out perfectly.  So we pour a prosecco, take off our aprons and toast to another successful adventure together before we sit down and eat.

If I had to take out a few bites – where would I begin?  I would begin at home – never in Italy.

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Was it too much food? Absolutely. Do I regret eating any of it? Not one bite. We are here with our Food & ...

Adventure, Casa, Experience Italy, Home and Abroad, Life in Italy, People
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Carriage and Feeding

The highlight of Day 1, on which eight of our group, including Suzy and me arrived in country, had to be the carriage ride with Roberto. It’s not easy picking just one favorite on a day that included lunch in Santa Maria degli Angeli, a walking tour of Assisi, a visit and winetasting at Roberto’s winery and a marathon welcome meal prepared by Chiara. But when you get to spend a half hour with Roberto DiFilippo, the inspirational owner of DiFilippo and Plani Arche wineries, being transported in a carriage drawn by the horses that work his fields, listening to his philosophy of organic and biodynamic farming while you clip clop through rolling fields that are home to his vines, licked by the cool, crisp, late afternoon autumn air, how could that not be the highlight?

It’s that sort of experience, making the acquaintance of one of the area’s top winemakers and immediately boarding his ten person carriage, entering his world at his invitation, becoming his guest and his friend, that makes these food and wine tours so special. Half an hour later, our group of eight guests find themselves sitting in Roberto’s tasting room enjoying his wine as he and his colleague Valeria introduce them to grechetto, trebbiano spoletino, sangiovese and sagrantino, not to mention Roberto’s special Vernaccia di Cannara.

Some of the couples on this tour arrived in our little corner of heaven knowing one another, but by the end of that first day, a day on which all shared and experienced so much together, everyone – those who had already been friends and those that became friends today – had become part of the same family. And so it goes here in the tiny village of Cannara, where Suzy and I have brought part of our family, our oldest son Austin to help manage the group, that we bid a late goodnight, bellies filled and souls sated, to our new family with whom we will share much this week.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

Horsing Around in Umbria Read more

The highlight of Day 1, on which eight of our group, including Suzy and me arrived in country, had to be the ...

Adventure, Casa, Culture, Experience Italy, Home and Abroad, Life in Italy, People
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Anticipation

“Anticipation Is keepin’ me waitin’”

I love a surprise as much as anyone (especially if its diamonds) but sometimes the best part of something is the anticipation.   For our Fall Harvest tour in Umbria I love the planning, the packing, the reading and rereading of the itinerary.  Imagining the sights, sounds and smells we will be enjoying.  Anticipating the highs and the lows.  Preparing for all types of weather – does packing an umbrella really give you a better chance of clear skies?  Better not take the risk – throw it in.

Talk about anticipation – we have been talking with this week’s group for 4 years trying to get a date on the calendar for their Fall Food & Wine Tour.  Bill and I have been working around the clock with Marco and Chiara putting together a week that captures all of our fall favorites.  We work with each other to create a schedule that gives a full day with a little bit of flexibility to find new adventures along the way. Our challenge isn’t what to do – it’s how to do everything.  So many people to meet, foods to eat and wines to discover.

This week is a reunion for us.  Catching up with Italian friends who are now part of our family.  Sharing stories of weeks past and planning for more adventures ahead.  Every stop this week includes friends who have shared experiences with us right here but also outside of their hometown, outside of Italy.  So stay tuned for new stories with old friends.

And stay right here ’cause these are the good old days.

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“Anticipation Is keepin' me waitin'” I love a surprise as much as anyone (especially if its diamonds) but sometimes the best part of ...

Experience Italy, First We Eat, Our Family Table, People
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Ernesto is the Besto

I know this might shock you, but I love food and I love to eat out. However, my least favorite trend at restaurants (aside from sharing plates that come in all shapes and sizes) is ordering my food to have it come out of the kitchen as it is ready.

Ernesto Simona No rhyme or reason, no order of preparation, just a random delivery of food. So depending on what is happening in the kitchen – if the pasta line is backed up and the fish station is slow you may get your main course before your pasta.  Roasted olives intended to be a starter show up right before dessert.  Who knows what will be served with my cocktail. With this convoluted method it’s not possible to pair a wine with each course.  As we know, one of the biggest challenges in any kitchen is timing; timing is everything, it takes a talented chef to prepare a variety of plates for each table that are ready to be served together. There is a constant distraction from what is being served when the food comes on a whim and the plates are meant to be shared. It is natural to focus more on the passing and making sure things are divided equally, but that interrupts the experience the dish is meant to give.  Randomly putting plates of food on a table is not a sign of creativity –  this should not continue as a trend and we should not be rewarding disorganization and laziness.

Cooking with Ernesto is a unique experience, like no other. chitarreAnd while for some a day spent cooking with him can be overwhelming and daunting – for me, it is an exciting and endearing adventure. Not one recipe at a time start to finish, rather many pots on the fire: pasta being rolled out, sauces simmering on the stove, meat roasting in the oven and cookies and cakes baking. Now this is the way I love to cook!

In this experience, Ernesto teaches us that multitasking is how to accomplish the full menu. To start you have to create a plan, nothing happens in his kitchen without a lot of thought going into it.  To execute your plan, you have to pace yourself and not over complicate what you are doing.  Think ahead and save time – dice the celery, carrots and onion (sofrito) at once and use it over and over again for different recipes.  Make the bread dough at the beginning so it has time to rise before being baked or fried.  Make one pasta dough but create different pasta shapes for different dishes.

Ernesto also teaches us that making pasta by hand is fun and easy. My advice is start out small – make pasta for one or two making chitarre– 100g of flour to 1 egg per person.  Mix it together and then stretch it out. You can’t overwork pasta dough – it’s not precious like a pastry dough – this is where you can really dig in and work the dough. Once it’s sliced, toss it with semolina and then make into two little nests.

For me the best part of spending a day cooking with Ernesto is the obvious joy of everyone cooking together.  With Ernesto, it’s all hands on deck, there’s so much to be done everyone always has something to do. And don’t worry there’s no mistake that can’t be recovered.  In this kitchen, there’s no screaming or yelling, pizza_nightno reason to be frantic; we have the whole day together to relax and try new techniques.  

At the end of this exhausting day we get to enjoy the foods of our labors. And no matter the order the components were created, because of our plan the dishes are finished in order – and served with a plan: Antipasti, Primo, Secondo with Dolce at the end.  Ernesto brings us no randomness, just organized chaos with a goal: enjoying an unbelievable meal together.

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I know this might shock you, but I love food and I love to eat out. However, my least favorite trend at ...

Casa, Experience Italy, Home and Abroad, Life in Italy
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Christmas is for Family

In Italy there is a saying, “Christmas is for family and Easter is for friends.” For the Menards it is not always easy to distinguish between the two. Everyday is Christmas and everyone is family.

Arriving to Perugia airport after a very uncomfortable (but friendly) RyanAir flight we were instantly on home ground. The sights, the sounds the smells – all very familiar and very comfortable. The beautiful, lush, green farmland, the birds singing overhead, the scent of spring mingling with freshly mowed grass.

It’s a short drive to the house and we are exhausted after a 4:30am wake up call. Peace and quiet and a comfortable bed are calling to us.

We pull up to the house and immediately Chiara pops out to welcome us home.IMG_1937

IMG_1177We unpack quickly and drive to Bevagna for our traditional welcome to Umbria lunch with Simone and Desiderio at le Delizie del Borgo. Spring has arrived – in the form of a bowl of tagliatelle with fresh artichokes.

After a long – much needed nap – we walk into town to have a glass of wine with Federico Bibi and his children Olivia and Gabrielle. We promise them that their mother is just days away from returning home after running our kitchen at Via Umbria in DC.

And finally we walk the Bibi family home and stop in Perbacco for a quick dinner with Ernesto and Simona – a quick dinner is soon forgotten as the evening turns into sharing story after story and grappa after grappa.

And day one is complete.

Everyone here shares our love and passion for Umbria. They have grown up here and choose to raise their families here. There is a magic in the air and they want everyone to know it. They have all joined us in Washington to share their love of Umbria. Coming to cook dinners for our guests, to teach us about wines, to explore the history of jacquard linens in Umbria and of cashmere. This is a community who works with their hands – at the end of the day it’s not about a stack of papers or an empty mailbox – it’s about plants growing in the garden, freshly baked bread, wine opened and served at just the right moment, scarves (did I say scarves?), tablecloths, sweaters and hats from the highest quality linen and cashmere. It’s the blending of the old and the new. We all have the same dream and work together to make sure that Umbria is preserved and shared. We couldn’t do what we do without the support of our friends (now family) in Umbria.

When our children were young their school talked a lot about teachable moments. “An unplanned event during the day that adults can use as a learning opportunity for kids….parents and providers should capitalize on the moment, and provide the opportunity to extend or expand the child’s learning.”

For us, every moment is a teachable moment; an opportunity to learn about what we are seeing and doing; to meet new people and discover new ideas; a moment to stop and reflect on what is happening.

This week we will live every moment to the fullest.

Here in Cannara we will be introducing our group to our family in Italy. We will be drinking local wines, cooking traditional food, discovering the area and most of all learning together and laughing together. Enjoying every moment.

And in Washington at Via Umbria we will be introducing guests to our family in the states. We will be drinking Umbrian wines, cooking Umbrian food, discovering imported products from Umbria and most of all learning together and laughing together. Enjoying every moment.

Thank you to everyone who believes in our dream and works so hard to ensure that everyday is Christmas and everyone is family.

And Easter is for friends Read more

In Italy there is a saying, “Christmas is for family and Easter is for friends.” For the Menards it is not always ...

Adventure, Experience Italy, Food & Drink, Home and Abroad, Life in Italy, People, Tastes of Italy, Wine
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Bridging the Divide

stranger-things-finale-netflix-featureI recently started watching the Netflix series Stranger Things and I really like it. The show, which is set in rural Indiana in the 1980s follows a group of kids seeking to find their missing friend, and involves a secret government program that punches a hole through parallel universes in order to engage in some cold war spying, only to unexpectedly unleash an incredibly evil monster. Some great acting, especially from the kids, some creative writing and some compelling story lines. I would definitely say it is worth a watch.

I mention this because Via Umbria has been engaged in its own project to bridge parallel universes. And far from unleashing monsters, we have only spread deliciousness and joy.

Those two universes are, of course, Italy and America and we are engaged in an experiment to connect the two. We do that by creating an authentic Italian experience in Georgetown. And we do that by hosting American guests on semi annual food and wine tours at our farm house in Umbria, immersing them in the authentic Umbria that we have come to know and love.

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img_1787-1On Saturday, we arrived in Umbria with nine guests in tow to kick off our fall Food and Wine tours, and less than 36 hours later, I dare say that they have already begun to understand and share our love of Umbria. Yesterday we introduced them to the wines of Umbria, the same Grechettos and Montefalco rossos and Sagrantinos we import and sell at Via Umbria. They met Elena DiFilippo at her organic and biodynamic cantina and drank wine with her, and will welcome Elena’s husband Roberto when he visits Via Umbria this spring. They dined on a homecooked dinner by Chiara Cicogna and heard her speak of her family’s cashmere business, and will join Chiara and us in Washington on November 16 when Chiara exhibits a selection of cashmere treasures at a special holiday trunk show at Via Umbria. This morning they experienced truffle hunting under glorious blue skies near Citta di Castello with our dear friends Saverio and Gabriella Bianconi, who are readying to ship the day’s spoils back to Via Umbria to take center stage at a pair of special truffle dinners coming up next week.

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Nearly a year after reopening our doors as an Italian market, café, restaurant, enoteca and retail store, we are realizing our dream of truly connecting the worlds we inhabit in Washington and in Umbria. This week our food and wine tour group will dine at le Delizie del Borgo, a restaurant lovingly operated by our friends Simone Proietti-Pesci and Ombretta Ubaldi in Bevagna and next month Ombretta, a certified sommelier with an unmatched appreciation for Umbrian wines will return with us to Washington to host a series of special wine dinners at Via Umbria. Later in the month Simone will join us in Georgetown to cook alongside our outstanding executive chef Johanna Heilrigl. We can’t wait for these two to renew their acquaintance and to dazzle us with what they think up and cook up next. A tasting at the Tabarrini winery on Thursday will no doubt be a highlight for our guests, but a command performance in Washington is in the cards, with a special visit by the winery’s owners Giampaolo Tabarrini and his wife Federica Pietrolati for some memorable dinners and maybe a glass of wine or two.

Connecting our guests and our customers to the incredibly rich experiences that we have found in Umbria is what we do, regardless of place. Whether it takes place sotto il sole or under the sun, in Cannara or in Washington, these are the experiences that make up a life and we are proud to offer them to you.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

Incredibly rich experiences Read more

I recently started watching the Netflix series Stranger Things and I really like it. The show, which is set in rural Indiana ...