Letters from a 300-year-old Italian farmhouse.

Letters from a 300-year-old Italian farmhouse.

Let a little Italian sunshine into your day…

It’s been almost ten years (including Covid, which is hardly worth remembering) since I moved to this enchanting part of Italy. Ages since my husband and I found this old barn in this little hill town, and turned it into our home, one ancient stone at a time. Yet still, every single day, I encounter something amazing, magical or delicious that I just need to share. So here I am again writing to you about life in this beautiful region of Piemonte, Italy.

Let me know what you think, how you feel, too!

Have your ever dreamt about packing up and leaving your home to try something completely new? Are you curious about what goes into restoring an old home? Or do you simply love travel, world class food, and life changing wine?? Share your own stories here, your own recipes. I want to hear. Let’s celebrate them all. Isn’t that what life is all about?

Look for my posts each week. I’ll be right here.

I will be writing letters once a week, with stories of Piemonte, recipes that I have fallen in love with, tales of people I meet, places I discover and anything else that I think you might find amusing, curious or worthwhile. It’s free. And it’s a way of looking at the world from a different window, one that just might brighten your day.

As for today,

…let me leave you with one of the small but powerful pleasures of this area. It is Vinoteca Centro Storico, a diminutive restaurant at the the foot of a medieval tower, with a larger than life proprietor, Alessio. He will not only slice you chunks of 60 month prosciutto as you watch, and serve up perfect “ravioli al plin” (made fresh by his mother in law), and boasts a mind bogglingly extensive wine list comprising of everything from Chambertin and Chateau Lafitte, to a humble but worthy Barbera, he does it all to the soundtrack of my youth. Every night, you can feast with Roy Orbison, the Yardbirds, and the Who gently serenading you. It is almost impossible not to sing along, but resist because most of the other guests are Italian and do not know every single word to every single song the way we still do. But Alessio knows them, and gets it. The slogan on the back of his tee shirt, “It’s only Nebbiolo, but I like it.”

A presto!

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