It is HOT today. Maybe not Houston hot, but for the first time in my adventure in Umbria I understand what some seasoned Italian travelers meant when they said it might be a little “uncomfortable” at the end of August in landlocked central Italy. 

I feel like Italians have an almost pride in their pain the same way they do their regional pastas, so I wasn’t about to believe their doom and gloom scenario, either. After three weeks of mild, lovely weather with a few rain showers in between, I was convinced they were all just prone to this exaggeration in the same way they’ll pooh-pooh any shape of pasta other than the ones they were weaned on. I had no evidence to believe them when they said this loveliness was just a fluke and that soon I would roast under the Umbrian sun.

Roast we did today. Like beets at 450 degrees under tinfoil. 

We were too steamy or “Panica-LAZY”, as Bossy proudly said, to make a third trip (a full fifty yards!) back into town to pick up arugula and vegetables for a lunch time salad. Our only other option: the sad tatters in our fridge, which seemed at the time like we were completely giving up, but turned out to be one of my favorite meals of my trip so far.