The day water was found to drill a well...

On the day that we had our land tested to see if water could be found, we drove to Emila Romania to see a friend, Monia, who we met in Las Vegas. She was working for Mario Batali's Enoteca San Marco in the Venetian Hotel. She's from a small town called Poretta Terme and we had a fabulous lunch there!

After our visit we drove back home and met with Dario, the contractor, who organized all the work that was to be done on our house. It was a special day and here's some video and pictures from that day lasy summer.

More pictures of November 2008 construction

The foto of the stake with the rocks around it was the spot where (Acqua Dio!) The Water God, the man who came to our property with divining rods and found water on our land, told me was the best spot in which to drill for water. Our neighbor, Piero, trimmed our trees so the macchina ( the drilling machine), could get thru the trees and be able to come onto our property. Dario, the contractor, organized the muratore, the masons, to work on the chimney while the well was being drilled. Like I said in the earlier post, we were extremely happy with the work done on our house and actually became good friends with several of the workers. I'll post some videos in the next post!

Pictures of Work Done on Our Tuscan Home!

These are photos taken by our contractor, Dario, as the work was being done on our house in Tuscany. We had to drill a new well as the existing one just wasn't producing enough water. We shared the old well with 3 other families and it just didn't replentish our holding tanks and we're very fortunate that we had water beneath our property. The 2nd job we had done was putting in a new chimney with a fan system to heat the house with the fireplace. We were extremely blessed that both jobs were done exceptionally well. I'll post again with more of the pics along with some of the videos. Ciao!

A few videos of Siena

Our Tuscan day trip last summer

Linda's Homemade Pasta

While David is golfing, there's nothing I like better than to spend time in the kitchen. Last weekend, I expanded my fatto a casa (home-made) pasta ... to spinach tonnarelli. It's a recipe from the incomparable Marcella Hazan ... with a variation on the tomatoes used in the condimento (sauce) since it's not tomato season here. I decided to take pictures along the way. Like a true nonna (grandmother), I used the well method to mix the flour, eggs and chopped spinach ... then needed by hand for 10 minutes or more. Tonnarelli is a pasta shape from Lazio, and is square ... the pasta is rolled thicker than tagliatelle, but cut the same width as tagliatelle. Equal sides = square. As the pasta rested/dried, I made the sauce ... quickly and freshly with orange sweet peppers and canned tomators (that we brought back from our last trip). The last photo is the finished dish ... delicioso!!! (Yes, David was out this afternoon ... and since a friend brought over lemons from a neighbor's tree, I made torte limone ... lemon cake. And a double batch of semolina pasta dough ... that I shaped as orrechiette and cavatelli. Next weekend ... pizza!