sapori-saperi
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Resources
  • Tours
    • Small Group Tours >
      • Celebrating Sardinia
      • Tuscan Heritage
      • Giants of Sardinia
      • Autumn in Tuscany
      • Tastes & Textiles: Woad & Wool
      • Tastes & Textiles: Hanging by a Thread
      • Tastes & Textiles: Wine to Dye For
      • Tastes & Textiles: Sea Silk in Sardinia
    • Tastes and Textiles
    • Day Adventures
  • Courses
    • Advanced Salumi Course Tuscany
    • Advanced Salumi Course Bologna-Parma
    • Art & Science of Gelato
    • Artisan Bread Course Tuscany
    • Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese
    • Mozzarella & its Cousins
    • Mozzarella Consultancy
    • Olive Oil Tree to Table
    • Truffle Course
  • Booking
    • Enquiry
    • Booking Conditions
    • Covid-19
  • What people say
  • Blogs
  • Contact

Why You Should Travel to Tuscany with a Local Expert

19/3/2022

0 Comments

 
By Alison Goldberger

When I wanted to learn how to make salami I knew travelling to Italy was the only way to do it, so I booked onto the Advanced Salumi Course in Tuscany with Sapori & Saperi Adventures. The course was incredible, and I learned so much.
Picture
Me and my mondiola, a salami unique to the Garfagnana (photo: Roman Goldberger)
I was also so impressed by Erica and her company that I asked her if we could collaborate. I’m a Scottish journalist and organic pig farmer but have lived and worked in Austria since 2015. Now I assist Erica with social media and online marketing. I absolutely love telling people about my time on her course and now I am excited to share with you why I think travelling with a local expert in 2022 (and beyond) can only enhance your holiday experience!
Eat in incredible restaurants...and in private homes 
Picture
Andrea sliced prosciutto by hand as we sat around a long wooden table in his cellar-warehouse-restaurant (photo: Alison Goldberger)
One of the most wonderful experiences I had was to dine in restaurants uncovered by Erica after years of eating and living in Tuscany. You can be guaranteed you’re not just eating in the restaurant all the other tourists found online! We were treated to dinner at Il Vecchio Mulino, where Andrea brought out course after course of exquisite local food. Many of Erica’s courses and tours also include meals in private homes. In Capezzano I was welcomed into Gabriella’s home where I ate the best seafood I’ve ever had. The freshest seafood cooked to perfection and an extremely warm welcome – it was an unforgettable experience.
Learn how to make prosciutto as the artisans do
Picture
Simone crushes garlic to season his prosciutto (photo: Alison Goldberger)
Do you have a passion for prosciutto like I do? It’s unlikely you can just stroll up to any producer and they’ll tell you how it’s done. But when you travel with a local you certainly can, and they are happy to answer all your questions. When learning all about salumi in Tuscany I visited numerous artisans and gleaned the knowledge they’ve garnered over a lifetime. On these tours you’re also supporting these very small businesses, creating wonderful slow food with a passion you’re unlikely to find in large-scale producers. What’s more, you get to taste their incredible products! 
Savour products from small-scale producers
Picture
Wintery olive grove
You want to visit a local organic olive oil producer, or have always wondered how chestnut flour is produced, or perhaps gelato is more your thing? These were all requests during my course and every one was fulfilled! I took home a bag of chestnut flour after seeing how chestnuts are dried and milled. I sampled the best pistachio gelato at Cremeria Opera in Lucca and bought the tastiest new-season olive oil from Claudio Orsi of Alle Camelie. Erica has built up so many contacts across the region and she is happy to help visitors find what they’re looking for.
Learn what it’s like to be a local
Picture
Ermanna, now in her 90s, shows us how to tie a complicated fringe (her handloom in the background).
Erica drove us during our course so she was always on hand to answer questions and give us explanations about what we were seeing as we travelled. It was information born from a passion for Tuscany and gave us a wonderful insight into the history of the region as well as what it’s really like to live there. This is a feature of all tours and courses from Sapori & Saperi. For instance, on the Tastes & Textiles tours participants learn all about Lucca’s rich tradition of producing textiles. Meeting local craftspeople provides a wealth of knowledge you couldn’t get elsewhere!
Did someone mention gelato
Picture
Gelato can’t fail to make you smile!
I know one of my first thoughts when I think of Italy is gelato. We were taken for a quick pit-stop to sample some delicious gelato. It was actually in the Cremeria used for the Art & Science of Gelato course run by Sapori & Saperi. During that course participants immerse themselves in the icy world of Mirko Tognetti of Cremeria Opera Naturali per Gusto, Lucca. They learn his secrets and the science behind gelato and how to create their own flavours. Sounds like an absolute dream to me!

If you landed here by chance and would like to be notified of future posts, you can sign up here. 

​If you’d like periodic news about our tours and courses, sign up here.

This blog was originally published on Slow Travel Tours on 20 January, 2019.
0 Comments

Carnival Masks and Floats at Viareggio

19/2/2022

2 Comments

 
Italians exploit every opportunity to celebrate as a community and right now it’s Carnival, time to have fun before the penitential period of Lent. The Carnival at Viareggio is strong competition for the one at Venice, and it’s so little known outside Italy that you rarely hear a foreign language being spoken.
Picture
The performers
Picture
The audience
Everything is focused on the festive parade of magnificent papier mâché floats that sally forth every Sunday for a month or so and on Shrove Tuesday (the schedule changes each year). You need to arrive early to get a parking space, but you won’t get bored while waiting. The setting is the passegiata or boardwalk with its backdrop of ‘stile liberty’ buildings and beach establishments.
Picture
Picture
People of all ages come to enjoy the spectacle, many showing off their costumes.
Picture
Old
Picture
Young
Picture
In between
Picture
Aspiring teenagers
Animals are there too.
Picture
Rare species
Picture
Only known case of a ladybird (bug) being born to giraffes
Picture
Exotic
Picture
Common
Picture
Dead
If you’re alert, you’ll see some amusing vignettes.
Picture
Ciao tutti!
Picture
Which storybook are you from?
Picture
He-man
Picture
She wasn’t impressed?
There’s fast food…
Picture
Fast food
…and slow food.
Picture
Cacciucco (fish stew) at a bagno
At 3 pm three canon shots announce the start of the parade of floats.
Picture
Puffs of smoke from the canon
Some are several storeys tall…
Picture
Obama above the bankers
…and others are people on the ground wearing elaborate headdresses.
Picture
Berlusconi beneath the babes
Some satirise politicians…
Picture
Superman to the rescue
Picture
Cradle snatcher
Picture
Who’s she?
…and some feature films and pop stars.
Picture
Nearly his last appearance
Some are monuments to the skill and ingenuity of the people who design and build the floats, now full-time jobs.
Picture
Flying and breathing fire as the band plays and choir sings
As the sun sets, the floats go round for the last time and spectators drift happily homewards.
Picture
I’d like to thank Klaus Falbe-Hansen for his keen eye, excellent photos and unfailing sense of humour at Carnival 2010.

You still have time to catch one of the Carnival parades at Viareggio this year (2022):

Sunday 20 February - 3 pm
Fat Thursday 24 February - 6 pm
Sunday 27 February - 3 pm
Fat Tuesday 1 March - 3 pm
Saturday 5 March  - 5 pm
Saturday 12 March - 5 pm

​If you landed here by chance and would like to be notified of future posts, you can sign up here. 

​If you’d like periodic news about our tours and courses, sign up here.

This blog was originally published on Slow Travel Tours on 12 February 2012.


2 Comments

Living History at the Village Shop

18/6/2021

0 Comments

 
Did history lessons make you feel that a cloud in the sky outside the classroom window was absolutely riveting? They did me. If only I could have gone to the village shop for my lessons. The shop is only 30 seconds walk from my front door. You can get almost anything there from meat to dry goods to paintbrushes, and I go every morning to buy at least some bread that comes from a village 5 km away up the valley.
Picture
Renato and everything you could want at the village shop
Picture
Eugenia sometimes prepares ready meals you can buy in the shop
One morning about a month ago I commiserated with Eugenia about her ankle which she sprained while getting water at the spring up at the cemetery to wash the grave stones of her ancestors buried there. She commented that we’d had too much rain and the stones were slippery with moss.
Picture
The guilty spring and its treacherous paving stones
Picture
Centuries of history in the Casabasciana cemetery
Yes, I agreed, but it was beautiful yesterday and I went for a walk down to the river, across the foot bridge and up the valley along the road to the little dam that is part of a micro-hydroelectric plant.
Picture
A tiny madonna guards the micro-hydro dam.
Picture
A river both beautiful to behold and useful for electricity
Renato explained that it furnishes the water for the main plant at the foot bridge, which used to be a silk spinning factory. I knew that silk was one of the main sources of wealth for the Republic of Lucca in mediaeval and Renaissance times and the silk industry had only completely died out in the 1970s, but I hadn’t realised that even at Casabasciana people reared silkworms. I take my guests to visit Stefania Maffei who rears silkworms like her grandmother did and runs workshops for school children to reacquaint them with their own history.
Picture
Ravenous silkworms at lunch
Picture
It’s worth the effort serving mulberry leaves to silkworms several times a day
I asked where the mulberry trees were, since I hadn’t seen any. They’re mostly gone now, but Renato knew of one in a field near the little church below Crasciana (the village 3 km above Casabasciana). I mentally add that to my list of things to find.
Talking about old industries, I remembered to tell them that I had just noticed the old kiln Eugenia had told me about last year, where they used to make terracotta bricks and roof and floor tiles. It’s only 5 minutes’ walk down the old cobbled mulattiera (mule track), just below where the modern road cuts through the track and above the madonnina (a wayside shrine). I’d never noticed it before, but this time I was looking from side to side for wildflowers and there were the ruins covered by brambles.
Picture
Beautifully constructed cobbled mule track getting covered by falling trees
Picture
The kiln becoming an archaeological remain — no wonder I’d missed it
Picture
Never-to-be-sold terracotta bricks produced at the kiln
Picture
Air vent beneath kiln
​Piqued by my apparent interest in building materials, Renato volunteered that there used to be a lime kiln at Crasciana which produced the lime for mortar and lime-wash used for centuries in buildings here. Actually, although I’m interested in architecture and the aesthetics of buildings, the mechanics of building have never gripped me. But now, the fact that these things used to be made right here around me, caught my imagination and when I got home, I looked up lime extraction and processing on the internet.
Picture
I wonder if the Crasciana lime kiln looked like this
I’m going to find out where our kiln was and and try to locate the ruins.
Two days later I learned from my landlord that one of the cellar rooms of the house was the calcinaia, where they used to slake the lime when whitewashing the walls of what was formerly one of the grandest houses in the village.
Picture
Basin for slaking lime to make whitewash for the walls of my house
Everything begins to come together. Maybe that was what was wrong with history before. It was the equivalent of ‘fast travel’ — too many isolated facts without any connection to anything.

If you landed here by chance and would like to be notified of future posts, you can sign up here. 
If you’d like periodic news about our tours and courses, sign up here.

This blog was originally published on Slow Travel Tours on 3 June 2012.
0 Comments

Olive Juice

10/4/2021

0 Comments

 
This blog was originally published on Slow Travel Tours on 28 January 2017.

Did you know that olive oil is the only common cooking oil that is the juice of a fruit? All the other oils we use in our kitchen come from seeds: sunflower, rapeseed (canola), peanut and grapeseed. This realisation leads directly to another question. Would you cut an orange, leave it on the counter for a week and then squeeze and drink the juice? Would you step on an apple, leave it on the table for three days and then eat it? Yet that’s what happens to many olives before they’re pressed to extract olive juice.

I’ve tasted and written a lot about olive oil, but this idea had completely escaped me until I met Elisabetta Sebastio last year. She’s a professional olive oil taster both for Italian Chambers of Commerce and international olive oil competitions. We ran our first full-day olive oil class during my Autumn in Tuscany tour in November 2016 (now we run a full course on the subject of olive oil: Olive Oil: Tree to Table in Tuscany). It was a revelation for all of us.

​We gathered around her kitchen table. She taught us how the professionals taste and rate oil. We tasted eight olive oils.

Picture
Our game for the morning (Photo: Sally & Wilfrid Mennell)
The first was a surprise and I don’t want to ruin the impact by telling you what it was. Then there were four new-season oils: one from Sicily, two from Tuscany and one from the Abruzzo. Some people liked the tomato scent of the Sicilian one, others the bitter piquancy of the Tuscans.
Picture
Can you smell tomato?
Lots preferred the less in-your-face qualities of the Abruzzese. Under Elisabetta’s guidance it was so easy and we were proudly feeling like experts when we started on the three defective oils. Wow! It was so clear that they didn’t measure up, and we could describe what was wrong with them: rancid, vinegary and fusty. We didn’t want to put them in our mouths. You’ll taste lots of mildly rancid oils in restaurants due to poor storage in clear bottles in the warmth.

There were more revelations. Contrary to popular belief, true extra-virgin olive oil has the highest smoke point of any vegetable cooking oil. Another fact some people don’t realise is that it deteriorates with every passing day, even in a sealed bottle. If you’ve got some excellent oil, carpe diem. It will be worse tomorrow.
​

But olive juice isn’t just for cooking. In Italy it’s mainly used as a condiment, like salt and pepper. This got us thinking about which olive oil goes best with which foods. Elisabetta had devised a lunch to demonstrate the classic pairing of regional dishes with an oil of the same region.
Picture
Tuscan pappa al pomodoro with Tuscan extra-virgin olive oil (Photo: Sally & Wilfrid Mennell)
We got to help prepare orecchiette (an ear-shaped pasta from Puglia) with an artichoke sauce seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil from Puglia.
Picture
We learned how to remove the outer leaves to reveal the tender artichoke hearts. (Photo: Sally & Wilfrid Mennell)
Picture
Artichoke heart sauce with extra-virgin olive oil from Puglia (Photo: Sally & Wilfrid Mennell)
Sadly, we ran out of space in our stomachs before we could taste all the different dishes Elisabetta had prepared.
​

I took another group to her home in December. One of them loved chocolate and Elisabetta assured me she could source some olive-oil flavoured chocolate. The platter of chocolates was beguiling and they tasted fantastic. She had made them herself!
Picture
Elisabetta’s chocolates and castagnaccio with olive oil
Join me on the course Olive Oil: Tree to Table in Tuscany from 18–23 November 2021 and meet the amazing Elisabetta and have fun with olive juice.

If you landed here by chance and would like to be notified of future posts, you can sign up here. 
If you’d like periodic news about our tours and courses, sign up here.
Picture
The multi-talented Elisabetta (Photo: Sally & Wilfrid Mennell)
0 Comments

The Happy Goatherd

13/11/2017

2 Comments

 
Enea is one of the cheesemakers to whom I take my guests.
Picture
Enea
He lives on a farm at the end of a dirt road that runs along the top of a ridge. At the point where the tarmac runs out, there’s a vineyard. Bumping slowly along the rutted road you pass a house, then nothing for 10 minutes. As the nose of the ridge begins to dip toward the valley, you spy a ramshackle house with solar panels on the roof. If you come in July, you’ll think you’ve arrived at a farm machine museum until you see Enea putting his heritage wheat through the vintage thresher.
Picture
Antique threshing machine
Enea and his wife Valeria are nearly self-sufficient. They have a herd of goats, two cows, a few chickens, a couple of horses, a vegetable garden, an olive grove and fields of cereals and hay. They’re hoping for another cow.
Picture
The goats
Picture
The first cow
During the spring and summer Enea milks the goats every morning, makes cheese with their milk and then, with the help of his working dogs, takes them out to graze. The dogs are tri-lingual. I don’t think the goats are. On days when we’re there and he doesn’t go out with them in the morning, their complaints are perfectly comprehensible nonetheless.
Picture
Enea milks while sitting on a one-legged stool.
Picture
Enea forms his goat’s milk cheese by hand.
Picture
Fresh goat’s milk cheese
On Wednesdays he makes sourdough bread. His bread shed contains a wood-fired oven and a tiny mill where he grinds enough of his heritage wheat for the week’s batch of bread. On Wednesday evenings he goes to town to deliver his produce to a group of friends who buy collectively
Picture
The dough
Picture
Stretching and folding the dough
Picture
The mini flour mill
Picture
The wood-fired oven
They’re self-sufficient for art and music too. Valeria paints and Enea plays the guitar. The solar panels and batteries keep them in touch with the outside world via their cell phones, computer and internet connection.
Picture
Valeria also prepares our lunch.
One of the guests in the last group I took there asked Enea why he chose to make cheese. He told us this story:

​‘When I finished school, I knew I didn’t want to go to university, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I enjoyed helping a friend pick his olives. Then I rented an apartment from a cheesemaker with goats. He was French and made French-style soft goat cheese. I watched him and began to help him. I saw he was always smiling, and I decided that was the life I wanted.’
Picture
The happy goatherd
Enea is one of the cheesemakers who teaches our course Theory and Practice of Italian Cheese. Click here for all the details.
2 Comments

Relax!

20/8/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Life is a joy
‘Relax!’ is a command to me as a tour organiser and to you as a traveller. There’s no way you can see everything, so we may as well leave time to rest, absorb and enjoy. My favourite way to wind down is to go to a village festival, called a sagra. It’s impossible not to relax, while at the same time soaking in the local culture.

​
The village of Cascio is top of my list for an experience without deadlines. I’ve already written about its wood-fired oven sagra in spring (http://slowtraveltours.com/blog/a-feast-from-wood-fired-ovens/). At the end of July and early August the village puts on its equally relaxing Sagra delle Crisciolette. See below for a note about the criscioletta. Right now, we’re going to the sagra.
​

Just click here to take you to the Slow Travel Tours website for your anti-stress therapy (and to find out what a criscioletta is): http://slowtraveltours.com/blog/relax/
0 Comments

Cross-dressing in Sardinia

2/4/2017

0 Comments

 
It was martedì grasso, Fat Tuesday, the last day of Carnival before Lent, and I was in Oristano in Sardinia. Oristano has celebrated this day for a long time, 552 years to be precise, as the festival Sa Sartiglia. You can imagine that in over more than half a millennium it has accumulated many meanings and observances.
Picture
Cavaliere galloping toward his star
At its most basic and obvious it’s a giostra, a joust like the one at Arezzo with a feat to perform at the end of a charge on horseback. At Sa Sartiglia the horseman (with one or two exceptions they are all men) attempts to insert his lance in a small hole in a star dangling by a thread while galloping at full speed.

At a more fundamental level is the idea of trasvestire. Although our noun ‘transvestite’ derives ultimately from the same Latin root as this Italian verb, don’t be fooled. In Italian the word means simply ‘to disguise’ or ‘to dress up as’ anyone or anything. For Sa Sartiglia, farmers and craftsmen dress up as knights and joust with fate. In the past it was their day of glory in which to display their horsemanship and affirm their equality with the nobility. Wearing their eerie, expressionless white masks, they disguise their wrinkled, bronzed peasant faces.

Still curious about dressing up? Read the rest of the blog at: http://slowtraveltours.com/blog/cross-dressing-in-sardinia/

Even more curious and want to see for yourself? Come with me to Sardinia on my Celebrating Sardinia tour: http://www.sapori-e-saperi.com/small_group_tours/celebrating-sardinia/(click on the tabs below the introduction to see all the details). There’s one place left on this year’s tour from 28 April to 7 May, and in case you like to plan further ahead, dates for 2018 are already there too.
0 Comments

Olive Juice

29/1/2017

0 Comments

 
Did you know that olive oil is the only common cooking oil that is the juice of a fruit? All the other oils we use in our kitchen come from seeds: sunflower, rapeseed (canola), peanut and grapeseed. This realisation leads directly to another question. Would you cut an orange, leave it on the counter for a week and then squeeze and drink the juice? Would you step on an apple, leave it on the table for three days and then eat it? Yet that’s what happens to many olives before they’re pressed to extract olive juice.
Picture
Can you taste tomatoes?
I’ve tasted and written a lot about olive oil, but this idea had completely escaped me until I met Elisabetta Sebastio last year. She’s a professional olive oil taster both for Italian Chambers of Commerce and international olive oil competitions. We ran our first full-day olive oil class during my Autumn in Tuscany tour in November. It was a revelation for all of us.
Learn more on the Slow Travel Tours website: http://slowtraveltours.com/blog/olive-juice/
0 Comments

Travel, Textiles & Tradition

21/5/2016

0 Comments

 
Guest blog by Susan Stover, artist and educator
On the eve of the Tastes & Textiles tour, I’m posting Susan Stover’s insights about the power of travel to invigorate one’s creativity. (All photos by Susan Stover.)

Travel can greatly impact an artist’s work. It can influence, be a catalyst for change, or further catapult the journey already started. In the absence of familiar surroundings, it can magnify what captures the eye and the emotions. All is new, exciting, and exhilarating.
Picture
Susan Stover Where is My Allegiance?, indigo-dyed silk, encaustic, mixed media on panel, 47″ x 54″ x3″, 2015
​Both making art and traveling have opened up new experiences and challenged me in unique ways. There is so much to be inspired by—the atmosphere in the landscape, hues and textures of a traditional market, shrines and temples, and environments of living and creating. I recently returned from my second trip to Indonesia in the last 15 months. As the experiences and inspirations linger in my subconscious, they continue to influence my artwork. My love of textiles was rekindled as a result of these travels. Fabrics abundantly adorn shrines and temples, are used as offerings, typify ceremonial dress, and are displayed as consumer goods. I am inspired not only by the beauty of the fabrics, but also how they function in a society where art, life, and spirituality are all connected. Nowhere is this more evident than in Bali. Concepts of duality, animism, and the desire for harmony between the natural and supernatural worlds are the foundation of Balinese beliefs. My fascination with the connection of art and spirit lies in the mystery, the unanswered questions, the quest for balance and purpose, the desire for connectedness with others and with the sacred, however they choose to define it. Textiles embody these concerns, which are more evident in cultures other than my own.
Picture
Fabric at a textile market in Bali, 2015
When traveling, I am conscious of how closely tradition and technology are related. Weaving and dyeing cloth are technologies that have existed for millennia. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the western world is more removed from these technologies, as most cloth is made in factories. Our direct relationship to the production of fabric and items for survival does not exist. In countries like Indonesia, these traditions are part of cultural identity and there is a sense of pride in the hand making of them. Some of the places in Java and Bali that I visited still produce cloth exactly as it has been done for hundreds of years. The tools and settings of these shops look like they have not changed over the ages, and it was like stepping back in time. It was always surprising to see cell phones in these environments—the juxtaposition of ancient and modern. This is what I am after in my own work—taking something from one arena, bridging the gaps of time and place, and situating it in a new venue.
Picture
Row of canting tools for applying wax to fabric to create batik designs, Java, 2015
There is an inherent beauty to the handmade, purposed item that looks old and worn. Often I think of history, what or who came before me, what was left behind, and how we are joined to others by the same activities that keep our hands busy. The rhythmic beating of a loom and the repetitive movements of stitching and stamping can be meditative and calming. There is a satisfaction to this type of labor. Textiles imply an association with human touch and human interaction and I am curious how the maker’s role functions individually and collectively in a community. What interests me is the information that textiles contain, as patterns and techniques encode knowledge from ancestors and tell us much about a culture’s cosmology and development. Perhaps it is my own desire for connection to the larger world that drives me to seek out authentic artisans working in methods that have been handed down from one generation to another.
Picture
Man stamping wax onto fabric in Java, 2015
Picture
Dyeing batik fabric in indigo in Java, 2015
Throughout the years, my work has incorporated the combination of textiles and painting. I have worked in many ways using dye, paint, thread, fabric, and fiber. Prior to traveling to Indonesia, I had been using surface design techniques on silk and embedding them into encaustic to develop my own visual language of unique mark-making and patterning. A shift happened in the work as a result of traveling—the fabric itself became the subject matter and a springboard for new content. I wanted to make work that looked like old cloths that were worn in a way that would suggest some sort of use or purpose. They could be fragments or relics and could incorporate techniques typically found in ritual textiles and costumes.
Picture
Susan Stover Artesian Wall, indigo-dyed silk, encaustic, horsehair, wood mixed media on panel, 36″ x 36″ x 3″, 2015
Recently, I have been combining surface design techniques (such as discharge, silk painting, and indigo dyeing) on silk with encaustic on panel. There is marvelous allure of adding color to cloth and a magical alchemy of dyeing with indigo. When layering the silk into encaustic, the wax is beautifully absorbed by the silk. The silk then becomes semi-transparent, revealing rich subtleties of colored wax underneath. Murky layers of wax on top of the silk can add depth, mystery, and freeze the fabric in the moment. Working with encaustic in many ways is like working with fiber. There is a tactile quality to the wax that makes one want to touch it. The translucent layers of wax are similar to working with layers of dye. Wax can reflect and absorb light like various fibers. There are the textural and sculptural capabilities of wax as there are with fibers.
Picture
Bound fabric dyed in indigo in Susan Stover’s studio
When I started thinking of my “paintings” as “objects,” it stimulated ideas of working sculpturally and freed me from thinking within the confines of the panel. It opened up the possibilities of working with other fibers, materials, and techniques. Incorporating these materials and working in this way, my intention is to create artwork that evokes a sense of transcendent mystery and purpose. The goal is to imbue the work with a vulnerability and vitality that reflects the presence of the maker. Each piece is a personal meditation on what connects the past and present, the beauty of imperfection and age. The challenge is how to make the things that inspire me and at the same time place them in a contemporary context. How do I celebrate these inspirations, use these traditions, and express it in a way that is relative to my own culture?
Picture
Piece in progress in Susan Stover’s studio
As I travel and seek inspiration, I am aware of how tourism and commercialism affect these places. Traditional weaving patterns can be found printed cheaply on cotton fabric. ”Fake” batiks are abundant. Natural dyes and materials are often replaced by cheaper synthetic ones. Symbolic meanings are in danger of being lost as techniques and knowledge may not be handed down to future generations. I believe that it is important to recognize the value and conservation of traditions and cultures with awareness and mindfulness of our impact on them. Threads of Life and the Bebali Foundation in Ubud, Bali, seek to preserve and restore indigenous textile cultures in Indonesia. They work with women’s weaving cooperatives to help manage their resources sustainably and relieve poverty in remote areas. The Bebali Foundation does botanical research of natural dyes and mordants. I spent a wonderful afternoon in the Bebali Natural Dye Garden dyeing with the indigo that is grown there. The garden beds are filled with different varieties of indigo and plants for other colors and mordants.
Picture
Woman using batik canting tools to design on fabric, Java, 2015
My consciousness and respect has grown for the beauty existing in other parts of the world as a result of my travels. I am grateful for the rich heritages that endure and am optimistic of how they might evolve. I am looking forward to future art inspiring journeys in Italy, India and a return to Java with others who share a similar interest in appreciating the artistry of cultural traditions.

Susan Stover teaches and shows her work nationally and internationally and maintains a full time studio practice in Graton, CA: www.susanstover.com.
This article first appeared in the Surface Design Journal Winter 2015/2016 “Wax & Fiber” issue, Volume 39, Number 4. The Journal is available in single print issues for purchase at: www.surfacedesign.org/marketplace .
A subscription to the quarterly Surface Design Journal is just one of many enriching textile-arts and education benefits enjoyed by members of Surface Design Association, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year. Members receive the beautiful print publication 4 times a year along with access to all of our digital editions (published since the Spring 2015 “Warp Speed” issue, Volume 39, Number 2). www.surfacedesign.org/subpage/digital-edition-now-available
Picture
Susan Stover Portal, indigo-dyed silk, indigo, encaustic, metal, tar, mixed media on panel, 16″ x 8″ x 1.5″, 2015
0 Comments

Slow Cake

26/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Feasting is a way of celebrating special events, and many festivals have acquired a constellation of typical dishes. Often these are elaborations of everyday food, tarted up for the occasion. In many parts of Italy (maybe all, but I haven’t been everywhere) no meal is complete without bread, so what better food to make a fuss of.
The Garfagnana has its own special Easter bread called pasimata.
Picture
The sell-by date is August, but I bet it doesn’t last that long!
Paolo Magazzini, the village baker at Petrognola to whom I take my guests for bread lessons, recounted his procedure, the lengthy traditional way.
Picture
Paolo turns a recipe into a thriller (photo: Alex Entzinger)
You take flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk and lievito madre (starter dough).
Day 1 morning: mix all ingredients.
12 hours later: add more of the same ingredients except the starter dough.
Day 2 morning: add more of the same ingredients except the starter dough.
12 hours later: add sultanas, aniseed, vin santo (sweet Tuscan dessert wine), chestnut-flavoured liqueur.
Day 3 morning: light wood-fired oven.
Bake a batch of bread.
Put pasimata dough in round tins.
After one hour, take bread out. Oven will be exactly the right temperature for pasimata.
Bake pasimata for 40 minutes.
Remove from oven and eat enthusiastically.
Picture
Bread dressed up like cake
The long rise over 48 hours allows time for the development of exceptional flavours and aromas.  Today many people make a ‘fast cake’ version in an hour by substituting baking powder for sourdough starter. Next Easter I’m going to organise a blind tasting of the slow and fast versions.
I didn’t ask Paolo for the quantity of each ingredient, since I can get my fix from him. For those not so lucky, here’s a similar recipe from Castiglione in Garfagnana, a walled town which during the Renaissance was batted back and forth like a ping-pong ball between Lucca and Modena. Perhaps they consoled themselves between battles by eating pasimata.
0 Comments
<<Previous
    Email Subscription
    Click to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    RSS Feed

    Subscribe

    Author

    Erica Jarman

    Categories

    All
    Advanced Salumi Course
    Agriculture
    Artisans
    Baking
    Beer
    Boat Tour
    Celebrating Sardinia
    Cheese
    Cheesemaking
    Chestnuts
    Cooking
    Courses
    Festival
    Food
    Gelato
    Giants Of Sardinia
    History
    Italy
    Italy Vacation
    Life
    Lucca
    Makers
    Milk
    Mozzarella
    Music
    Olive Oil
    Olives
    Prosciutto
    Salumi
    Sardinia
    Seafood
    Slow Travel
    Small Group Tours
    Textiles
    Tours
    Tradition
    Travel
    Tuscany
    Wine

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    January 2019
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    September 2011
    May 2011
    March 2011
    September 2010
    April 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009

Subscribe to Newsletter
Enquire about Tours
Picture
We acccept
Picture
Read about us
Picture
International passenger Protection
Picture
contact us | terms & conditions | privacy policy 
copyright 2017 sapori-e-saperi.com | all rights reserved
Website by Reata Strickland Design
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Resources
  • Tours
    • Small Group Tours >
      • Celebrating Sardinia
      • Tuscan Heritage
      • Giants of Sardinia
      • Autumn in Tuscany
      • Tastes & Textiles: Woad & Wool
      • Tastes & Textiles: Hanging by a Thread
      • Tastes & Textiles: Wine to Dye For
      • Tastes & Textiles: Sea Silk in Sardinia
    • Tastes and Textiles
    • Day Adventures
  • Courses
    • Advanced Salumi Course Tuscany
    • Advanced Salumi Course Bologna-Parma
    • Art & Science of Gelato
    • Artisan Bread Course Tuscany
    • Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese
    • Mozzarella & its Cousins
    • Mozzarella Consultancy
    • Olive Oil Tree to Table
    • Truffle Course
  • Booking
    • Enquiry
    • Booking Conditions
    • Covid-19
  • What people say
  • Blogs
  • Contact