favorite spot at the castle

fav spot
Originally uploaded by jstark

Marcia took this picture of me working at one of my favorite spots at the castle in the archway leading out of the spice garden. There is a close up too, showing all you that yes, while the pictures may look like I just lounged all week, I did in fact work very hard on some water colors.

Here is my latest work for an assignment to produce a trifecta (a mini series of three works). I chose the flowers of Chianti and used diagonal lines to dramatize the composition.
It was a splendid week, especially the food (did I mention the barbeques we enjoyed? There were two weddings at the castle while we were there so we enjoyed the free wine and meats (Will you have a bit to learn on the BBQ…chicken, steak, ribs, sausages with hardly any seasoning but the natural ones from the grill…). I also loved the sliced tomatoes with olive oil over a piece of bread with a little red pepper spice that left your lips a bit warm. We had four-cheese pasta, but I must say I am very partial to my mom’s version of the dish. On our last night we had a typical Italian summer dinner of white wine and pesto pasta followed by red wine and proscuitto and melon as well as this meat similar to proscuitto but from the cow with melted parmesan cheese and arrugala (the bitter lettuce). Wow. I’m going to make that again at home or here in Frieze. The wine was fabulous as I’ve said…and amazingly cheap. We tried grappa one night (it is Marcia’s favorite). We joked that we could use it remove our nail polish (yes it was that bad…and you’re expected to SIP it!). I feel in love with their after dinner wine that tasted like brown sugar. One night we had a chocolate come for a tasting. If you didn’t know chocolate and wine are difficult to impossible to pair. We tried 99% coca chocolate (like baker’s chocolate…sorry mom, it was gross!).

I also had an incident with a scorpion at the pool. It was about two inches in length and scared me half to death when I picked up my shorts to put them back on to discover it hiding in the cuff. A Belgium family and Marcia helped calm me down and reassured me that the scorpion had "left the building". The Belgium family had two girls who were 13 and 8 who were so enamored by our class and hung on our every word. They even tried drawing. It was pretty adorable. Kristen and Geland help teach them to do handstands in the pool one afternoon.

The same night as the chocolate and the wine tasting we enjoyed a tour of the castle. I wish I took pictures that night, but you can check it out online. All the “marble” is faux since the “trick of the eye” technique was so popular in the Baroque ages when the castle was expanded. We ate in the grand dinning room and felt like royalty. The staff is exceptionally close to Marcia, so not only did we get a series of perks but also everything was cheap or we were told not to pay for it. Marchia, Marcia’s closest friend at the castle, makes jewelry and I picked up a bracelet with purple shells to remember my visit. Speaking of shopping, when we returned to Firenze we found all the shops to be having their sales (typical Italian tradition since stores want to clear their inventory before all the Italians leave for the coast in August)….with that said, I’m off to the market to stock up the house and reunite some friends.

Hope all is well where ever you are.

Ciao
Jacqueline