Look Who Recently Came To (And Made) Dinner At Our Beautiful Villa.
Giada de Laurentiis, Bobby Flay and a big film crew spent a week filming an episode for their new series in September of 2019 (before...
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Ed Riddell
- Jul 2, 2020
- 2 min
Yes, There Is Life In Italy. And Our Garden Is Living Proof Of That. Thanks To Matteo And Lisa Jane.
Yes, there is life in Italy.
Ed Riddell
- Mar 11, 2020
- 2 min
And Recently Voted One of the Ten Best Restaurants in Tuscany? Our neighbors at Locanda Demetra.
Our friends and neighbors at Locanda Demetra started their farm-to-table restaurant a few years back. It used to be easy to show up and...
Ed Riddell
- Jan 26, 2020
- 2 min
Truffle Hunt! As in White Truffle in Central Tuscany. And No, We Can't Tell You Exactly Where.
This all started innocently enough. Lisa Jane's mom and dad, Linda and Mario, invited us to dinner at their house in Siena. Mario, or...
Ed Riddell
- Dec 10, 2019
- 1 min
Our Hero. As in Chef Hiro.
Now we have two chefs to indulge our pleasures at Villa Palazzetta. First is our adopted nonna, Chef Paola, who makes traditional...
Ed Riddell
- Nov 19, 2019
- 2 min
In Search of the Elusive "Wild" Tortellini in La Grassa, Otherwise Known as Bologna.
If you've never eaten Bolognese tortellini in brodo you simply must add this experience to your culinary bucket list.
Ed Riddell
- Apr 23, 2019
- 2 min
A Birth In The Family
We bought Villa Palazzetta because of its incredible location only five minutes walk from the historic city center. We also bought it...
Ed Riddell
- Apr 8, 2019
- 1 min
Welcome Home!
We arrived this spring on April 7th after visiting Matera, an ancient town in southern Italy that was just named one of the Cultural...
Ed Riddell
- Apr 1, 2019
- 2 min
A Note From Our First Official Guests
In March our first official guests visited Villa Palazzetta. The note they left in our guestbook says it all. But Maryellen, one of the...
Ed Riddell
- Nov 14, 2018
- 1 min
Our Ape Calessino
If you been to an Italian hill town then you've seen Piaggios. After WWII Piaggio invented this small engine, three wheel vehicle as an...
Ed Riddell
- Oct 26, 2018
- 1 min
Olive Oil - Start to Finish
Another fall means another olive oil harvest. Matteo Turchi our fantastic groundskeeper did a fabulous job with this year's olive crop....
Ed Riddell
- Oct 18, 2018
- 1 min
To Elba Under Sail
In October several of took a lovely day trip on a 45 foot sailboat from Portiglioni to Elba. It was a perfect day. We left Montalcino at...
Ed Riddell
- Sep 18, 2018
- 1 min
Caprese!
Caprese is what the Italians call a mozzarella and tomato salad. Sounds so simple, right? Well, not exactly. Suffice it to say that there...
Ed Riddell
- Sep 16, 2018
- 3 min
Palio, August 2018 - Lupa wins! (And we were there.)
When Lee and I went to Montalcino this last August, we had a job to do. We had to photograph our newly finished Villa Palazzetta for the...
Ed Riddell
- Sep 16, 2018
- 1 min
Pizza Night at Villa Palazzetta
When we restored Villa Palazzetta one of the things that was on the top of our list was a real wood-burning pizza oven. Fortunately our...
Ed Riddell
- Feb 6, 2018
- 1 min
Our First Olive Harvest
Last October we had our first olive harvest as the new owners of Villa Palazzetta. The harvest took place in late October. We harvested...
Ed Riddell
- Apr 15, 2017
- 1 min
Risotto Milanese
Ever heard of Risotto Milanese? Well, here's the real thing from Milan along with a beautiful plate of ripe cherry tomatoes and burrata....
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