Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

After roe, women are no longer free.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republicans in disarray!

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You can’t love your country only when you win.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On the Road and In Your Backyard

On the Road and In Your Backyard

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

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Good Morning All,

On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some photos and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words. We’re so lucky each and every day to see and appreciate the world around us!

Submissions from commenters are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com

 

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

Today, pictures from valued commenter Peter.

These are shots from a culinary tour of Umbria that I led back in November. We stayed at a 15th century castle in Umbertide and mixed day trips to vineyards, orchards, markets, and more (like truffle hunting!) with hands-on cooking demonstrations in the kitchen. The weather was perfect, the group was smart and engaged, and by the end of it everyone had a pretty comprehensive understanding of Umbrian cuisine.

I’m doing another one in March if anyone is interested. There are a few spots left. Email me at [email protected] for more info.

There’s no room here for any more process shots, but I wanted to conclude with the finished product: organic extra virgin olive oil fresh out of the centrifuge. The people at the frantoio grilled some bruschetta out back and drizzled it with this so we could taste the results of our handiwork. Our hosts fed us lunch and sent us home with a bottle each for our labor.

Taken on November 2018

Umbertide

This is the castle, currently occupied by the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, which offers artists, writers, and composers six-week residencies here from May-October. In the off-season they do other programming, like my food tours.

Umbertide

We visited a nearby farm to help with the olive harvest. After spreading nets under the trees, we raked all the fruit off the branches.

Umbertide

We used the nets to consolidate the olives into piles.

Umbertide

Next we picked through the piles to remove and branches or large bunches of leaves, then dumped the olives into plastic crates for transport to the frantoio, or mill.

 

Thank you so much Peter, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

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Reader Interactions

11Comments

  4. 4.

    Elizabelle

    The birthing of olive oil. Who knew? Great photos.

    Living in that castle would motivate me to be an artist or writer. Probably dreadfully cold in winter. But atmospheric, for sure.

  7. 7.

    J R in WV

    Fabulous series… The castle is great, Italy is covered with walled towns, fortified farms, hilltops with forts and castles, to keep the food from being stolen by people too lazy to grow their own, and hungry enough to steal other people’s food in midwinter.

    I wish I could have seen the machine actually doing the squeezing/crushing of the olives.

    We spent a week in rural Tuscany and saw both new and old (very antique) olive crushing machinery, but none of it actually doing the thing it was built to do, we were there in late spring and no harvesting was going on, just cooking and eating and looking at the old castles and walled towns.

    No complaining, it was wonderful, but I’m a curious guy and wondered then what the olive oil squeezing process looked like.

    Wine grape crushing too. Amazing machinery, nothing ripe to crushing. But the wine was superb. So was the olive oil!!

  9. 9.

    Peter

    @J R in WV: I shot some video of the crushing equipment, but I’m not sure I can post that here. After crushing, the mash goes into a centrifuge that separates out the oil.

  11. 11.

    Peter

    @arrieve: Isn’t it great? Even more remarkable is the number of varieties of olive trees, even in a small region. Each type has its own flavor profile and unique combination of fruity/peppery/bitter/acidic characteristics.

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