Living la dolce vita on a hillside in Italy

The fantasy many indulge in became reality for Belfast-born Betty Stuart and her husband Al when they found a home on a hillside in Umbria. Miranda Innes tastes their home-grown food and wine as they tell her their story

It was Naples that did it for Betty and Al Stuart. They shrugged off the dents to their car (known as "Naples kisses"), they kept to the dress code (no visible jewellery or fancy watches), and for four years they had a whale of a time, working for NATO and living in a close-knit Italian community perched on an extinct volcano with a view of the bay.

"The traffic is like fairground bumper cars, and more often than not the traffic lights don't work. Pickpockets ply their trade with Dickensian skill and you won't hang on to your Rolex for long. Naples deserves its bad press but we loved the place."

Sitting, gin-and-tonic in hand, watching the sun set over the water and listening to the music of a thousand television sets and the shrieking brakes of a thousand battered cars, they decided - when their stint was done - that they just could not bear to return for 12 years of office-bound labour in the UK.

"We fell for the lifestyle, the quality of life with all its family traditions and family respect. There's a warmth among Italians that we have never experienced elsewhere - if you make the slightest effort they come halfway to meet you, they're so welcoming."

Something about the way of life just proved irresistible: "Italians have different priorities - they clock on and emphatically clock off, unlike Americans and most other Europeans. Any excuse for dancing and eating."

A contagious passion, as enthusiastic Scottish dancing at the Stuart's St Andrew's day party, and Betty's Italian cookery weeks would indicate. "Italians are still taught dancing at school - they can do latino, rumbas, even polkas.

"They're great at the Gay Gordons. Teenagers dance with their grandmothers - it's like going back in a time warp, which is lovely. Anything that turns back the years is wonderful," Betty laughs.

Al came from Glasgow via the Mull of Galloway, and has all the glamour that you might associate with a sometime RAF navigator particularly when he is besporraned and kilted.

Betty grew up in Belfast, is slender, blonde and energetic, with sparkling blue eyes that are much given to saucy winks. As a girl she fancied catering, but was persuaded to do a degree in economics instead, "before being sidetracked by the Royal Air Force for 20 years. I loved my job."

She has a rare and precious ability to turn anything into fun, and one feels that if she had been seconded into chimney sweepery, she would have found a way to enjoy that too.

In January 1999, having decided that Italy was where they were happiest, and that Naples was exciting but bandit country, they set about finding their perfect home.

The plan was to run a B&B that would restore the city-battered soul, far from crowds madding or otherwise, with ample space and quiet to ruminate, facilities to learn la cucina Italiana, surrounded by untamed woodland to explore or simply to sit surrounded by bird-filled tranquillity contemplating a wide, airy, gorgeous view, possibly while sipping the Stuart's own Panfili wine.

"We wanted to find a place where people could chill out, with plenty to do and see. We settled on the general area of the Niccone Valley, but it took five reconnoitring trips, trawling the internet and visiting estate agents, to find the perfect location, with no hint of smoking chimneys, autostradas, or industrial estates, but within striking distance of good places to visit.

"Internet pictures can be very misleading - we were taken to complete ruins and places that were totally isolated. They found their Umbrian house, Panfili, in March that year, 600 metres up in the sheltering hills that protect them from the cold north weather, with a swooping view south from the sloping garden with its sprinkling of old olive trees, across the Niccone Valley, of ever changing deciduous woodland. It was within an easy drive of Cortona, Perugia and Citta di Castello.

All the boring structural things had been thoroughly attended to already, all that was needed was a spot of finishing. Perfect. They paid a hefty deposit right then and there and moved in with a bed and two garden chairs.

But the best things in life tend not to be free or easy. Panfili turned out not to belong to the supposed vendor but to the previous owner, and it was not until May 2000 that the Stuarts were told to sharpen their quills and be present at the notaio's office for the final signing.

It was a false dawn - someone along the line had not signed something, and they were forced to return disconsolate to their provisional life and two plastic chairs. However a month later they were recalled for the completion, and this time they really could celebrate.

"Right from the start it was so different from anything in the UK. We had such friendly neighbours. Simple but really warm-hearted. The second night we were here, we saw a farmer tramping about the place, and wondered nervously what he had in mind: "Dine with us tomorrow night." More of a command than an invitation.

"It was Ottavio, the local padrone. His wife, Maria, was in the kitchen creating a welcome to San Lorenzo. She is key holder and treasurer for the local church to which we were invited, thereby expanding the congregation by 20 per cent. No problem that we are not Catholic. Donaldo Don Aldo, the priest, turned out to have been brought up in our house."

Betty did a month at a residential cookery school in Frome and a course in Naples, but producing feasts for San Lorenzo's day in August with Maria was probably the most valuable culinary education she could have had.

She has a nicely relaxed attitude: "Food is very local here, it can be quite conservative. What I do is let people know what the theory is, and then tweak the recipes to suit - I don't bother with obscure ingredients that can only be obtained on the third Tuesday of May. I try to take the mystique out of Italian cooking. We tackle bread and pasta making - ravioli with crab and spring onions in saffron butter sauce is a delicious variant on the standard ricotta with spinach." She designates three weeks a year to cookery courses.

Meanwhile Al is busy coaxing his grapes to outdo Ottavio's. This is not difficult. "His wine is as rough as old socks. Italians don't care what they drink. Local Italians don't seem to care what the wine is like as long as there's lots of it.

"The question here is, what will survive at 600 metres? San Giovesi Sangiovese is the main grape, but you need a Cabernet or a Merlot to give it a bit of body.

"The locals laughed when I planted them, but they've never planted a vine themselves - they inherited."

The vines are grown on raised wires to bamboozle the wild boar (exotic predators are a problem - porcupines raid the tomatoes and lettuce).

All in all, it's not a bad life - people with an energising whiff of the city come and stay all summer, cooking, walking and generally having a good time. They are followed by the grape and olive harvests, and then Betty and Al travel, visiting friends and family.

The motto which adorns their wine labels valere la pena - worth the effort - is well justified.

For an almost effortless way to conjure warm, jasmine scented evenings in a grey, rain-sodden summer, this is Betty's recipe for pesche ripiene (stuffed peaches) for four:

4 ripe but firm peaches
75g amaretti biscuits
2-4 tblsp amaretto liqueur
2 tblsp soft butter
2 tblsp caster sugar
1 egg yolk

Method: preheat the oven to 180F. Cut the peaches in half and enlarge the hole slightly. Crush amaretti and soak for 15 minutes in the liqueur. Cream butter and sugar until smooth, add peach bits from the centre, egg yolk and biscuit crumbs. Stuff the peach halves and arrange in a single layer in a baking dish. Bake for 25-30 minutes until tender. Serve warm or cold.

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