3 Wise Kings arrive in the medieval village of Farfa on January 6th

January 6th is celebrated in the monastic village of Farfa with a live re-enactment of the arrival of the 3 Wise Kings. Everyone is in traditional costume, complete with Joseph, Mary, and a mini stable where the baby Jesus has just been born, with sheep, a donkey and calf. Shop keepers, locals and musicians (plus centurions) all dress up to complete the scene and the local village of Farfa comes alive! The Epithany is celebrated with this amazing scene, every year.

This is why I love living in the Rome countryside. This is the real Italy.

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THE BEST OF ITALY: AMALFI COAST, CAPRI AND ROME, published in Escape travel magazine

Published in 'Escape*', an Australian wide travel magazine: 

Find out what Jane Armitstead,  an Australian freelance travel writer, wrote about her experience with Chef Guido and Convivio Rome. 

A guided tour of the medieval village of Farfa, is part of your Convivio Rome cooking day and culinary vacation

We hope Jane's article will inspire you to come along and visit us in this beautiful and unspoilt Italian countryside, just north of Rome.

Here is an extract from her article: 

"Among Italy’s most humble charms is how it’s ancient world bares such influence on the current lifestyle. This isn’t just seen through legends and landscapes but through the country’s next greatest obsession, food.

Even though the food culture is ever-changing, centuries-old recipes are still being used. There’s no better way to get to the heart of this tradition than to make it yourself.

An hour north by train from Rome is the little-known Sabine Hills, a place blissfully lost in time in the Italian countryside, dotted with medieval villages.

I’m in the family kitchen of husband and wife team, Sally and Guido, an Australian expat from Sydney and an eighth-generation Roman, who call this region home.

They’ve been letting people in on their secret hideout by hosting cooking classes for the past 16 years.

Out their kitchen window, I lose myself in the rolling mountains and the fields of endless olive groves....."

To read the full article,  called: "THE BEST OF ITALY: AMALFI COAST, CAPRI AND ROME " Just scroll down the article to find out about Jane's first visit to this area and her cooking-touring experience with us.

http://www.escape.com.au/world/europe/the-best-of-italy-amalfi-coast-capri-and-rome/news-story/f86900ff91c1095d81ea2a217c2706aa

P.S. We welcome freelance journalists to join us and write about their Convivio Rome experience in hope that it will inspire others to join in the fun. We did not know that Jane Armitstead intended to write this article at all. This article was a wonderful surprise. Thank you, Jane.
*Escape  (as described by their website) "appears as a Sunday lift-out in News Corp newspapers across Australia and, along with our website, will help you plan your next dream holiday."

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My Italian permaculture garden is wild

For all of you who have visited us for an Italian cooking class, cooking holiday or wine tour or olive tour,  you know that I have a passion for foraging and for my permaculture garden. Over the years, I have had to battle snails, slugs, porcupines, wild boar and badgers, a broken drip irrigation system, plus soil that is filled with rocks and clay.....but finally, talking to the local farmers and getting everyone's advice on how to 'conquer' and work in harmony nature.....this year my permaculture garden  is going wild! It is producing more tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini than I know what to do with.

What a great sense of satisfaction, to have my permaculture garden producing so much that I can share my produce with neighbours and friends.

We use our own produce and source our ingredients locally for our Italian cooking classes. So you could not get more local and fresh than this. As I say to our guests "my permaculture garden does not look pretty...but it sure produces the BEST tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis, plus zucchini flowers ( or whatever is in season at the time) I have ever tasted!"

We also offer a selection of local produce: including meats, pecorino cheeses, local breads, olives and salad made of our own tomatoes and cucumbers straight from our garden, during the last stop of our Rome Olive Tours and Rome Wine Tours.  Just to give you an idea that it is not just us appreciating the quality of my organic homegrown produce.....I want to tell you a story of 'J'.. I hope 'J', one of our guests on a recent Rome Olive Tour, does not mind me telling you, ....but he said that he hated tomatoes, all tomatoes......that is until he tried some of my tomatoes, fresh from our garden..... and guess what, he LOVED them so much that he said he did not want to leave Italy, and if he had to leave to return home....that he would be back to visit us! Wonderful, we look forward to his return!

For more information about our Italian Cooking Holidays, Italian Cooking Classes, Rome Olive Tours and Rome Wine Tours, please contact me on info@conviviorome.com

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Italian Springtime Salad with Fennel, Orange and Olives : 'Insalatina di finocchi, arancia e olive'

Here is a simple Italian salad recipe that I make at this time of the year.  This salad is so easy to make, full of fresh flavours, and will only take you 5 minutes to prepare.

In Italian it is called 'Insalatina di finocchi, arancia e olive' meaning 'Italian Fennel, Orange and Olive Salad'. It combines some wonderful flavours: fresh and crispy fennel, juicy sweetness of the orange, and the salty full flavour of local olives (black olives are best to use).

My own 'Insalatina di finocchi, arancia e olive'
using blood and local oranges, our own cured olives, plus locally grown fennel

Ingredients:
½ - 1 fennel
2 oranges peeled (blood orange and / or navel oranges)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (Sabina D.O.P.)
1 large handful of black olives, (gaeta, leccino, carboncella, suggested varieties)
Pinch of fine sea salt, to taste

Instructions:
Chop your fennel in long thin strips, along the grain of the fennel. Cut your juicy ripe peeled oranges into cubes. Add both the fennel and the orange pieces along with a handful of black olives into a bowl.  Drizzle over a healthy amount of olive oil ( please only use extra virgin olive oil, as it is the best!) and sprinkle over some salt, to taste. Mix all the ingredients together and serve chilled.

Please tell me what you think.
Sally

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Carbonara Pasta - fast, tasty Roman cuisine

Carbonara is a symbol of Rome’s cuisine and one of my favourite fast pasta dishes to make.

'Spaghetti alla carbonara' served with ground black pepper and topped with extra Guanciale

Ingredients: (serves 6)
50g of guanciale (cured pork cheek), 50 g of pecorino romano cheese, black pepper, 4 eggs, extra virgin olive oil.
Dried Pasta: 80-100g per serving

Method: Cut the guanciale into short sticks. Put a little olive oil in a pan and fry guanciale until crispy. Whisk the eggs in a bowl with pecorino cheese, black pepper and a pinch of salt. When pasta is cooked, drain the pasta, put it back in the hot pot and mix all the ingredients until the eggs acquire a creamy consistency, without scrambling. Serve immediately and with extra pepper on top.

Pasta shapes traditionally used for Carbonara are spaghetti or  rigatoni.

Chef Guido's Tips:
Tip 1: This sauce is very quick, and when ready needs to be stirred into the cooked 'aldente' spaghetti and served immediately.
Tip 2: If guanciale is not available you can use pancetta instead

If you like this recipe, please download Guido's FREE 5 minute Roman Pasta Recipe Booklet

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How to cure olives, the Italian way

I've just finished the process of curing our own olives using the simplest local recipe from the Sabine Hills. It is so easy, that I wanted to share the local secrets on how to cure olives.

The olives (a 'carboncella' native Italian variety) collected from one of our trees back in December, were put inside a bowl, under layers of sea salt for 60 days.

Covered with large sea salt for 60 days

After rinsing off all the sea salt I left the olives to dry for 2 days on a cotton towel 

Then, I simply rinsed the olives and left them to dry on several cotton towels. I turned them every now and then to ensure they dried well.

I then chopped some orange peel and some garlic until I had a small handful of this mixture.

Finally, I put the cured olives in jars, mixing them with the orange peel and garlic and  finally covered them with our own olive oil. Fatto (done)!

Making sure all the olives are covered with extra virgin olive oil

PS: Nothing is ever wasted: for once all the olives are eaten, the olive oil from the jars can be re-used for dressing or cooking, with its wonderful flavour of orange and garlic.

Every Italian region have their own local recipes and methods on how to cure olives.

Let me know what way you cure olives as I would love to hear from you.

Convivio Rome conducts Rome Olive Tours, Italian Cooking Classes, 3 and 5 night Italian Culinary Vacations and Wine tours, all in the Sabine Hills, just north of Rome in Italy.

www.conviviorome.com

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Guido's Seasonal Recipe: Filetto di maiale marinato (marinated Pork fillet)

This is a great Winter dish. Although you need to marinate the pork the night before, it is a very fast and delicious dish to make.

Chef Guido's recipe: Filetto di maiale marinato (Marinated pork fillet) Serves 1 to 20+

Ingredients: 1 pork fillet, 1 bottle of red wine, black peppercorns, bay leaves, sage, oregano, olive oil, sea rock salt, rocket to garnish, balsamic glaze, a clove of garlic.

Method: Marinate the pork fillet for 24 hours with a bottle of red wine, black peppercorns, bay leaves, sage, oregano, olive oil and a pinch of rock sea salt. Discard the wine, herbs and pepper.
Slice the fillet into thick slices and fry in a very hot pan with olive oil and a bruised clove of garlic until the meat is golden brown on both sides.
Serve with a drizzle of olive oil, a few drops of balsamic vinegar and some rocket to garnish
Buon appetito!

Chef Guido conducts Italian cooking classes, olive tours and wine tours, all year round, in the heart of the very beautiful and unspoilt Sabine Hills countryside, just north of Rome.

Contact : info@conviviorome.com
Culinary Vacations and Day Italian Cooking Classes, plus Olive Tours: www.conviviorome.com
Half Day Rome Wine Tours: www.winetoursrome.com

Visiting Toffia, seems like you are on a film set... Well now you are!

"It is just like a film set, I feel like we are in the movies " : Many of our 3 and 5 night cooking holiday guests, comment when visiting and staying in Toffia, our medieval hilltop village in the Sabine Hills. They are right, it's simply magical here.

Well now, they are using Toffia as the setting for an American 10-part drama series about the kidnapping of J.Paul Getty III, called 'Trust' with Hilary Swank and Donald Sutherland*. Danny Boyle is the director and it will be first screened in January, 2018. So look out for the scenes, shot in our own little medieval hilltop village of Toffia!

(Photos by Maura F. and Antonella R.)

Filming in the main piazza of Toffia, at sunset, photo by Maura F.

Fake snow and vintage cars to set the scene, in Toffia.

Film set in main piazza, Toffia. 

Night light and fake snow, Toffia's main archway into the historic centre

Also, take a look at these photos, in the local newspaper: Toffia in the snow!

http://rietinvetrina.it/toffia-innevata-per-le-riprese-di-trust-con-hilary-swank/

As the film is set in 1973, so the film crew have also converted a building, within the historic centre, into a Bar of that era.

External view of Bar

Internal view of 1960's bar, used for film set

Convivio Rome's 3 and 5 night cooking holidays are now taking bookings for 2018. 

Just ask for our new dates.

www.conviviorome.com

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*A little more about Trust "In the series, set in 1973, a young Getty is kidnapped in Rome and his mafia captors are banking on a multimillion-dollar ransom. Trust looks at his ordeal at the hands of kidnappers who don't understand why nobody seems to want their captive back. The Italian police think it's a prank and decline to investigate. Paul's father is lost in a heroin daze in London and refuses to answer the phone. Paul's grandfather — possibly the richest man in the world — is marooned in a Tudor mansion in the English countryside, surrounded by five mistresses and a pet lion. Only Paul’s mother is left to negotiate with increasingly desperate kidnappers. The problem? She’s broke." quoted from article in www.thehollywoodreporter.com,  May 15, 2017,  by Kate Stanhope

Cooking Guest video, made for fun, after Charles' 3rd visit to Convivio Rome

Charles started attending our 3 and 5 night Cooking Holidays back in 2013. Coming from England makes it a little closer to just 'pop over' for a visit....
This is the 3rd time, over the last 6 years, and it is always a pleasure to see him return and to catch up. It's like seeing an 'old' friend again, when it feels like no time has passed between visit!

 Charles refining his fresh pasta making technique.

He came along with his friend Dave and we all had a lot of fun.

Here is the video  Charles put together, of photos taken during his latest 3 night/ 4 day cooking holiday with us, in September, 2017.  We think it is great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkn6aBa9OYE

Thanks so much for the video Charles and we hope that you will return again, soon. :-)

www.conviviorome.com

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Guido's Italian Sourdough Bread

Fresh out of the oven

The secret to making good bread is found in the quality of culture and the flour. I make my bread using a sourdough culture kindly donated to me by Signora Giacomina, a lady in the village. This culture is over 35 years old. They say the older the culture, the better the bread.

I always prefer using organic stoneground flour from an ancient water mill here in the Sabine hills. It's the same flour I use for all our Italian cooking classes.

Italian Sourdough bread
Ingredients:1 kg of stoneground flour, 400g of fresh sourdough culture, 650 to 700 mls of water, salt to own taste.
Start mixing some of the flour and some water and salt in a bowl. Add sourdough. Transfer all ingredients on to a worktop or wooden board. Start needing, stretching and folding the dough all the time. Make the dough into two loaves and place  them into two bread tins or on an oven tray. Let the dough raise overnight for at least 8 hours. Bake at 170 C in a convection oven (otherwise 200C) for about 40-45 minutes.

Olive oil, nuts, seeds can be added to the mixture.

Tips on fresh sourdough: The sourdough needs to be kept in the refrigerator and to be fed or 'refreshed' once a week. This means getting rid of half it (in weight), (which will be used in the new lot of bread you are making) and replace it with the same amount of flour and water. Sourdough can also be frozen for long periods. Once defrosted you can add half a spoonful of honey to help it to get 'active' again and be ready to use.

Pecorino Cheese: Fresh from the local shepherd in the Sabine Hills, near Rome

Just visited the local shepherd to get a 'wheel' or 2 of #pecorino (sheep) #cheese. It is a tradition in the #SabineHills, near #Rome, for the shepherds to make their own cheese from the milk their sheep produce. Sheep's milk is even sweeter and creamier in the #Winter and cooler months of the year.

So January and February are great excuse to eat even more of this delicious cheese. We can buy it fresh 'primo sale' or more mature. When we visit, Irena, our local shepherdess, she will ask how mature we would like our pecorino, and then select a wheel of cheese from her wooden shelves in her storage area 'cantina', where all cheese matures. You could not get more local 'zero kms' and fresher than this!

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The Sabina olive harvest has begun and the farmers are almost crying

We are now in the midst of this year's olive harvest and the organic farmers in the Sabine Hills are almost crying. They are picking earlier than usual, this year to salvage what olives they can. Some have been destroyed by the pest the olive farmers most fear: La mosca dell'olivo, the olive fly and other olives are not yet ready or already drying out on the tree.

Harvesting Olives using nets to capture the olives racked from the trees.

An olive farmer in Canetto, yesterday, told me "They need to harvest all olive varieties now, and get them to the olive press as soon as possible" He showed me some of the olives he had already harvested, gathered in the nets. Opening the olive you could see the damage the fly had already done.

Sabina Olives from an olive oil farm near Castelnuovo di Farfa

Not all olive trees in the Sabine Hills have been effected. The olive harvest in now in full swing.

Last year, the 2015 olive harvest was abundant, and the yield was high. However,  due to a mild winter plus hot and wet conditions in late Summer, the olive fly has once again, destroyed a lot of the olives organically grown in the Sabine Hills. near Rome. 

Gathering the olives in nets is hard work. Olive harvest happens just once a year.

Last year, the 2015 olive harvest was abundant, and the yield was high. However,  due to the last winter not being cold enough plus hot and wet conditions in late Summer, the olive fly has once again, destroyed a lot of the olives grown organically in the Sabine Hills.  They will produce what they can this year and hope for a better yield in 2017.