R. and I were in Italy a few weeks ago, visiting family andfriends and we just had the best time and ate the most wonderful food while we were there. We spent a month traveling across Italy; we visited Trento, Venice, Verona, Bevagna, Assisi, and Rome, as well as a handful of smaller towns and villages along the way.

It was so great and we just ate so well we didn’t want to leave. It happens every time we go.

One of the places we visited was our friends’ Pecorino farm in Umbria. They have a flock of 500 sheep, and they make the most wonderful pecorino cheese you can image. It’s all natural and hand made and tastes unbelievable. On this visit we were lucky enough that they let us have a peek inside the ‘pecorino room’, which is where the cheese is made and stored and left to age.

The smell in there is incredible—earthy and sweet, it makes you so hungry!

They make their own ricotta too, at the farm, and it’s better than any store-bought ricotta I’ve ever had. (I had a similar experience in France a few years ago with some goats’ cheese; I’d bought it straight from a goat farmer and it was to die for. I must have eaten a ton of it on my trip.)

When we finished touring the farm, Giuseppina, the family matriarch, invited us to stay for lunch and made us the lightest, moistest, most perfect torta di zucchine I have ever had in my life. She was kind enough to let us have the recipe, and here it is for all of you to enjoy: