Bitter Honey: the recipes and stories of the women and men of the Italian diaspora carried across the water
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The way to experience the Italy I love is in your body — with all your senses. By sharing a meal with the woman who chose to stay on the slopes of this volcano to make the glass of wine in your hand. By shaving the truffles you find in the oak woods onto the pasta you make with your own hands. By pressing your thumbs into the dough of Pane di Matera bread beside the man whose family has worked the ovens for four generations.
My work is finding these people — the ones who choose to make a region their home. numenvia builds week-long tours around those makers — check out our tours to Chianti, Val d’Orcia, and Basilicata at numenvia tours.
This website is where I tell the stories. It also houses the Bitter Honey Project, collecting the recipes and stories of the Italian diaspora.
If you want to keep up with my work, please subscribe to my newsletter, The Spirit of a Place. — G.
The Spirit of a Place
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I.Basilicata
Over the last two centuries, hundreds of thousands of Lucani left for the Americas, Australia, and Northern Europe, creating one of the largest diasporas in the world. Now, people are choosing to stay, to come back. Elena Fucci chose to stay on the slopes of Monte Vulture, an extinct volcano, to save her grandfather's vineyard. People like her are what draw us to Basilicata.
Explore Basilicata →
II.Val d’Orcia
Everyone knows the landscapes of Val d’Orcia, from The English Patient to Russell Crowe running his hand through fields of golden wheat. But what draws us to Val d’Orcia is people like Pamela Sheldon Johns, who moved here from California over forty years ago and has been cooking at her stone farmhouse above Montepulciano ever since.
Explore Val d’Orcia →
III.Chianti
Valentina Gadotti gave up an academic career in political science to raise goats and teach herself how to make cheese in the French raw-milk tradition. I grew up not far from here, and it was a place to live, and work — the tourists stayed in Florence.
Explore Chianti →
IV.Sicily
Coming in 2027
numen via
Every place has a spirit—a layer of meaning, history, and practices—that imbues the landscape and its people. The ancient Romans had a word for this, numen. Numen was a quality of a specific place—of a grove of trees, or a hillside.
Numen is not of the mind—it is something you feel in your body.
It is the creators and makers of a place who guard its numen. The way to that spirit is not to watch, or to study—it is by doing. And your guides must be the creators who work the land with their own hands—Andrea who drives his olives to the mill at 3 am to ensure that they are processed first. Elena Fucci who chose to stay in Basilicata, on the black earth of the volcano, because she could not bear for her grandfather to lose his vineyard.
Podere le Fornaci — Goat Cheese Farm
Valentina left academia to make goat cheese in Chianti. She learned everything the hard way. "Milk talks," she says. "I just had to learn to listen."
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Puscina Flower Farm
Nobody expects the flower farm to be one of the most moving experiences of the week. Three sisters, 200 species of organic flowers, and a morning in the fields with clippers picking whatever speaks to you. Then lunch under the olive tree. Unexpected, magical joy.
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Poggio a Campoli — Truffle Hunting
As a teenager, I hated truffles. It took Daniele, his truffle dogs, and the lunch we cooked together to change my mind.
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Poggio Etrusco
Pamela Sheldon Johns moved here from California over forty years ago. She chose to make this place her home. You'll pick produce from her organic garden, then cook a full Tuscan meal with a woman who has published 17 cookbooks.
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Azienda Agricola Elena Fucci
Her family was about to sell the vineyard. Elena said no — and turned six hectares on an extinct volcano into one of Italy's great wines.
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Gelateria Caruso
Pina Caruso is the most genuine and generous gelato-maker I know. Her family has made gelato since 1926, and her award-winning Acheruntino—milk cream with vin cotto, toasted almonds, and toasted Matera bread—is the taste of Basilicata.
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Erta di Radda Winery
Diego was twenty-four when he bought 5 hectares on the steep slopes above Radda. He's married to my sister's best friend, and his Chianti Classico has won Tre Bicchieri twice.
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Il Forno di Gennaro
A family bakery in Matera since 1890. You knead, shape, and bake your own Pane di Matera with Patrizia, Sabrina, and master baker Enzo. In the Sassi, women made five-kilo loaves and stamped them with their family's initials before carrying them to the communal ovens.
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Azienda Agricola Mantenera
Andrea was riding his motorbike across Italy looking for a place to start over. A country road led him to an ancient olive grove with a Vendesi sign. Some of the trees are 380 years old. He stayed.
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2026
2026
2026
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A welcome email should arrive within the next minute or so. If you don’t receive the email, please check your spam folder.
Can I ask you to do me a favor? Please click the “confirm” button in the email. That way, I’ll know it reached you.
Feel free to reach out to me with any questions.
Thank you!
— Giuditta ()
PS: Add my email () to your contacts and you’re guaranteed to receive my newsletter.
Unsubscribe anytime; I’ll never spam you or share your address.