Please contact me (or any of these instructors) for the details. Contact me via email at schoolinfo@laromita.org, or call me toll-free at 855-476-6482. If you are nearby, we’d love to see you, whether you are planning to attend one of the workshops or not.

My talk and slide presentation will be about the La Romita experience and about ways of looking at the art of Umbria. Being on the ancient roads connecting Rome to points north, Umbria was a hotbed of the arts in the early renaissance. Though known for its religious themes, Umbria was also one of the centers of a humanistic flowering, and the art that decorates the churches and civic buildings can be read and experienced in many different ways.  Thanks to the durability of the common medium…true fresco…the use of color and design still inspire awe today.

– Edmund

Cima di Rapa - literally, turnip tops – translates to turnip greens: at  La Romita either turnip greens or broccoli rabe are used interchangeably for this recipe, depending on what’s in season. I used broccoli rabe, since in the winter that’s readily available in many stores across the United States in the winter. Egizia informs us that you can also use frozen cima di rapa, though that might not be easier to find if your grocery store doesn’t carry it fresh. Orecchiette pasta (“little ears”) is the traditional, and best shape, for this dish, although you can of course substitute another short pasta shape such as conchiegle (“shells”).

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds broccoli rabe, hard stems cut off and cut into large, 2 inch pieces
2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed with the back of a knife.
2-3 tsp anchovy paste
3 Tbs olive oil
1 pound orecchiette pasta
pepperoncino *
3-4 ounces freshly grated pecorino romano cheese, finely grated, to taste
Salt

Preparation:

Fill a 6 quart stock pot half full, bring the water to a boil and salt the water generously, about 1 tablespoon.  Meanwhile, prepare the broccoli rabe: Cut off and discard 4-6 inches of the tough ends and coarsely chop the remainder into 1 1/2 inch pieces. Wash the rabe, further discarding the larger, coarser stems without any leaves or flower-heads. Add the roughly chopped rabe to the boiling, salted water, bring back to a boil, and cook until the stems are fork-tender, 6-8 minutes. Using a fork and handheld sieve, scoop the rabe pieces from the water and place in a colander — do not drain the water away, as you will cook the pasta in the same water. Return the stock pot to the stove and keep the water on a gentle boil.
Using the back of a large spoon, press as much water as possible from the rabe pieces. Transfer the rabe to a large cutting board, and with a sharp chef’s knife chop the rabe very fine. In a large All-Clad or non-stick skillet, heat the 3 tablespoons of oil on low heat. Add the garlic and cook until the garlic is lightly colored. Remove the garlic pieces, and add the anchovy paste to the olive oil, mixing to dissolve the anchovy paste into the oil as much as possible (it will clump a little, which is OK). When incorporated, return the garlic to the mixture and add the finely chopped broccoli rabe. If desired, add 1-2 crushed pepperoncino peppers. Stir until the mixture is fully incorporated, then half-cover and keep on low heat.
Bring the salted water back to a roiling boil and add the orecchiette pasta. Return to a boil, stirring vigorously to keep from clumping, and cook for 10-11 minutes or until al dente, stirring as necessary to keep the pasta from sticking to the bottom of the pot and from clumping together.  Before draining the pasta, remove 1 cup of the starchy, salty water and set aside. Add the cooked, drained pasta to your serving bowl. Next, add the broccoli rabe mixture and mix thoroughly to incorporate, adding a few tablespoons of the reserved pasta water as the mixture gets dry. The water will be starchy from the pasta –  more so from having been cooked in a relatively small amount of water –  and the starch molecules will help the pasta and sauce mix together more easily. Add the grated pecorino cheese and stir: serve immediately. Buon appetito!

America’s Test Kitchen has a 5 minute video describing the preparation of  Spaghetti with Pecorino and Black Pepper – Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe – a classic Roman pasta dish. Reserving water the pasta has been cooked in and later adding it to the dish is a technique every Italian raised in Italy seems to know, and this video explains the scientific basis for why it works – fascinating.

Adabelle Hill, the artist responsible for the slide shows we use at La
Romita, passed away this past year, and though I never met her, I’m
reminded of how much I’ve learned from her and how beautiful is the
knowledge of introduction; introduction to the towns of Umbria and the
treasures they hold.  It is truly an expansive gift.  How many times have
we set out to see the glories she has cataloged and how much has that
influenced our understanding of history and culture.  But just as valuable
is the gift that each of you has brought to us…and to our Italian
neighbors.  Your appreciation does not go unnoticed.  Residents of our
towns—Stroncone and San Gemini and Todi and all the others—look
forward to the next La Romita group visit and always strive to make the
visits meaningful.  The mayor of Stroncone greets people personally and
has opened up his archives of ancient, illuminated manuscripts time and
again.  The cultural offices of San Gemini and Cesi call us repeatedly to
let us know of events that would be of interest to our participants.
There are countless other examples and I’m sure that each of you still
carries some warm memory within you.

Adabelle, in her History of La Romita presentation says, “If these walls
could talk…”, referring to the five-hundred years of contemplation and
intrigue and activity within these old stone buildings, but I’m always
reminded of the current incarnation of La Romita…of these ten years of my
life…of this recent half century…of the dreams of the Quargnali and Benson
and Linsley clan come magically to life.  I’m reminded daily of how La
Romita has changed my life and of how much each of you has played a part
in making La Romita what it is today.

(Please stay tuned to this blog for information about our winter plans.
Maybe we are coming somewhere close to you and we would love to see you.
Ben and Enza will be in California in January and I will be coming to
Texas and Oregon and will be making presentations here in California as
well.)

Picking and preparing fennel: The bulb should be firm and smooth, and heavy for its size (this indicates freshness, as the bulb has not lost water to storage and dehydration). To clean and trim a fennel bulb: cut the fleshy leafy stalks completely off at the top of the bulb. Cut a slice off the bottom of the bulb and discard the outermost segments, which are the toughest and usually bruised or somewhat discolored.

This dish goes exceptionally well with pork of any kind– try oven-baking boneless pork chops seasoned with olive oil, crushed garlic, and salt/pepper at the same time, as lean cuts cook quickly and remain tender if cooked at high heat. Serve warm with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon.

Last week in Austin, Texas when the Hunter’s Moon lit up my backyard, I was reminded of the previous full moon, twenty-eight days before, seen from the courtyard of La Romita, an artists’ retreat and school located near Terni, Italy in the heart of Umbria.  It was a glorious, Italian “Harvest Moon” and it kept me awake with its brightness lighting the olive grove around the quiet studio that night.

I was at La Romita teaching “Immersive Printmaking” to a group of artists from Austin and Dallas, Texas:  Lucy Flores, Mark Durbin, Chu Nui Pak, Jeff Smith, Camilla Cowan, Jena Shepherd, and Karla Barfield.  My husband, Mike Brimberry, volunteered to assist us. My intention was to teach a printmaking workshop at La Romita that would concentrate on how to use water-based ink with polymer etching plates, called Solarplates, which could be etched with water instead of chemicals and I also wanted to guide the participants into trying unique and expressive printing methods.  The Solarplate printmaking technique is a process that is a more non-toxic approach to printmaking and can be made even more so with the use of inks that do not require solvents.   My group of artists, who joined in this adventure to do the workshop in Italy at La Romita, was ambitious to get to work.  I launched into the first demonstrations of how to make and print the plates the second day we were there.   For those of you not familiar with the Solarplate printmaking methods, we needed some equipment not usually found in most printmaking studios.  La Romita had the glass and wooden exposure frames as well as a UV exposure box built for us.  La Romita’s Italian-made press worked well for the plates, and we brought magnetic inking and wiping pads to hold the plates.  It didn’t take long before the studio was buzzing with activity and creativity.  The workshop participants were full of ideas and took full advantage of all our studio time.  Our plan had been to spend most mornings visiting nearby Umbrian hill country towns and sites and to work in the afternoons.  We amended that schedule and decided to work mornings and “play” afternoons and play we did by going to over ten different sites in Umbria during our fifteen days there.

I could go on and on about how well we were treated at La Romita, the wonderful home-style meals we had, the work that we did, and the places that we saw.  I suspect that many who have been to La Romita have had this kind of experience as well.  The school has been operating for almost fifty yearsand features two week exclusive workshops at the school which is located in a refurbished four-hundred plus year old Capuchin Monastery. Perhaps the greatest joy I found at La Romita were the friendships and camaraderie we found there.  All this is orchestrated by founders Enza Quargnali and Harold Benson (known as Ben), and director, Edmund Zimmerman.  They set the standard for hospitality that gives direction and room to discover Umbria and perhaps yourself as well.  Enza , as an artist and also a printmaker, was greatly interested in the workshop, and her enthusiasm was contagious.  Her husband, Ben, is highly knowledgeable about the history and architectural details of La Romita. Since we shared our mid-day and evening meals with Ben and Enza, many interesting conversations were had about their forty-year history at La Romita and the many interesting architectural posts at which Ben has served.  Edmund is the school’s on site director.  He is also known as La Romita’s “artist in residence” as he is a writer and poet.  His dry sense of humor and nightly entertaining slide shows to help orient us to the towns and historical sites we were to visit the following day. Among the places we chose to visit were Tarquenia, an ancient Etruscan port/city, Perugia, Orvieto, Assisi, Spoleto, and Todi.

In the studio magic started to happen.  The artists began to find their way to use the materials and techniques.  I had the technical tools and methods to offer, but each of the participants created works that were distinctly and inventively theirs. I’m looking forward to reuniting with the group in the spring when we plan to have an exhibition at Flatbed Press featuring of the work started at La Romita or inspired by the experience there.

I plan on coming back to La Romita in 2013, and am already imagining and planning the next workshop.  Flatbed is considering offering two workshops during that session at La Romita.  I look forward to being there once again and being with the good people there and other fellow artists.

Katherine Brimberry

Editor’s Note: Pictures from left to right: 2011 Brimberry Group; Karla Barfield and Katherine at the press; Karla pulls a proof; Mike Brimberry and Enza

Truffles are the “fruit” of a fungus that grows on the roots of forest trees, particularly oak and hazelnut.  Up the Valnerina (Valley of the Nera River) to the northeast of Terni,  three rivers pass through forests of these trees around the town of Norci and create the perfect environment for tartufi neri. The best ones are gathered starting in the fall, with the season peak marked by the Mostra Mercato del Tartufo Nero truffle festival in February. Even out of season, recipes “al tartufo” are so common in the area that one can easily forget the truffle’s luxury-item status in the rest of the world!

As is typical of Italian cuisine, preparations with tartufo are simple and highlight the ingredient. The recipe below is a simple chicken dish that offsets the earthiness of the truffle with the sweetness of tomatoes.

Note: Truffle can be both hard to find and expensive in the States. While not the same, some thinly sliced mushrooms,  well browned in a pan with a little olive oil, are an adequate replacement – as you can see in the featured picture!

Our Italian friends are busily preparing our olive groves for harvest in November…trimming the trees and the brush beneath them, sorting out the netting that will be strung up to stop the picked olives from rolling down the hillsides, and lining up the crates and hand-rakes to finish the job.We have more than 270 trees at La Romita, some hundreds of years old, and each one is heavy with the green fruit—turning purplish black before harvest—that furnish us with the delicious extra virgin olive oil we serve with our meals.

2011 was a beautiful season at La Romita some wonderful new programs lead by teachers from Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, and Kentucky, and some longtime favorites from California, Colorado, North Carolina, and Indiana.  There are too many special moments to name, but some of the high-points were the town festivals we visited.  Each of the towns has some history-based party or procession or event and it’s tough keeping track of them all, but we try and take each group on a couple of outings.  In October, we saw an amazing concert by a Tuscan marching band in nearby San Gemini.  They marched through the streets in their medieval era uniforms and played Italian parade music—much of it written by Verdi and Puccini—on elongated trumpets of ancient design called Chiarine.  In August we saw Swan Lake performed by the “Crown of Russian Ballet” at the Roman amphitheater in Terni.  There was also the concert in an ancient church by the Oxford Boys Choir and procession of knights on horseback in old Narnia…there were really too many to name.

We would love to hear from you in the off-season (the toll-free number — 1-855-476-6482 — will soon be ringing at my house in California), by email or phone…to reminisce or say hello…or to plan your next Italian adventure. A presto!

It is perhaps illuminating to explain what it is about our workshops that make people time and time again praise their experience here as a high point in their year, their travels, their lives.  Early on in their stay here people often ask me to go along on the trips to the hill towns…partially to take advantage of my familiarity with the places and the history, but also maybe to feel more secure in a foreign environment, with a foreign language and unusual customs.  A couple of years ago after hearing my descriptions of Terni, our host city and not usually a tourist destination, a group of twenty asked me to come along to show them the hidden jewels of our host town.  After the compulsory gelato stop, we lost a couple of people to an interesting textile shop, then a couple more to leather goods, others to interesting ancient chapels and ruins of a roman amphitheater.  By the time we arrived at the Cathedral of Terni, the beginning of our tour, Helen Dayton, of Greenwich CT, was my only listener…and it turned out that she’s something of an expert on iconography in renaissance painting, so I just listened to her.

Some variation of this has happened numerous times.  The point is that once your base of operations is taken care of, your needs are being met and your belongings are stowed, when you don’t have to choose restaurants and you don’t need train schedules or bus information, the explorer inside you is set free.  Once our bus hits town, you are free to go in any  direction—and find a painting spot or a café or a museum or climb to the top of a bell tower or hike the ramparts or find a quiet corner in the courtyard of a castle…or maybe just to shop. (Even with the exchange rate fluctuating, Umbria is still a shopper’s paradise.)  Whatever you wish, you know that at the assigned time our little air-conditioned bus will be waiting in the shade to take you home…to your home away from home at La Romita.  I know that phrase is a bit over-used, but we hear it time and again.  It has always been a major part of Enza’s and Paola’s dream and we will do everything we can to make it come true.