Pasta

You know you're not in America anymore when you don't buy your pasta packed in boxes off of supermarket shelves. I've been all over Italy so many times, this is the first time I've seen a pasta shop. This is in Bologna. Throughout Italy, the pasta shapes varies a little. In the South, in the Puglia and Basilicata areas they eat a lot of Orrechiette, a little pasta shaped in the form of an ear, usually served with Rapini, very nice, I loved it. In Sicily, especially in Catania, we eat a lot of Spaghetti alla Norma, a pasta dish named for the opera 'Norma' written by native son, Bellini, it is really just pasta with eggplant. I've made it at home. I've made Orrechiette con rapini at home too, it is very easy. In Bologna, their dish is pasta Bolognese, the dish shown was the worse I've ever eaten, I make a better one, I should open a restaurant in Bologna.

Morning reading

Every year I face the dilemma, to renew or not to renew my Wall Street Journal subscription. The stories are so pithy, I just take 5 minutes to read the whole paper 6 days a week. The habit I've fostered of going out to the front drive way to pick up the paper is more important than the actual contents of the paper. Sad, but true. So every morning, I still flip through the pages of the Journal, read my bible with the help of a commentary, usually one written by my favorite author, William Barclay. Definitely there's more substance in the bible. So just as we eat breakfast, I feast on words of encouragement, faith and hope and I'm ready to face the day. I still have to make the decision of whether to renew or not to renew the Journal.......

New experiences

a mixture of salad greens, you never know what you're going to get with each bite, as I chewed it sends out a different taste and therefor a different sensation, wow, what was that, then again, wow, what was that.... It's an incredible salad mix, 'mesclun' they call it in French.

'Mulberries' they told me, a variety of mulberries, they look like silk worms, I couldn't really see if I actually chomped on worms. The taste is very different, intense and sweet.

Yesterday's breakfast, a slice of Almond pound cake, mulberries and a bowl of very strong coffee. This is the sweet life.

I was peeling purple carrots last week to put into a soup. It stained my hand this beautiful purple color. I could probably use the peel to stain fabric, that's an idea for another time.

They say, variety is the spice of life. Certainly these new food experiences spice up life, just looking at them gives so much pleasure, just when I thought I've seen and tasted everything, they came along. I'm not that jaded, I still get thrilled by little things like little salad greens, strange berries and purple carrots.

The Jewish Ghetto, Rome

a little sustenance for the grueling feat of sight seeing, maybe I'll take a cruise the next time or lie on the beach in Cancun..... NOT!

I, only went, because the kids are Jewish but its a small area with nothing much to see now. In the 16th century, Pope Paul IV ordered the confinement of the Jewish people to this area, marking the beginning of a time of intolerance that continued well into the 19th century.

I've been to the Jewish Ghetto in Seville, Spain. It has been converted into a touristy area and is very pretty, clean and pedestrian friendly, balconies filled with flowers cascading down the walls. That is one thing I remember about Seville besides the Orange trees planted throughout the city and the smell of orange blossoms that Spring day is forever etched in my mind.

Time flies

My new favorite thing to eat, a piece of Almond Pound cake from Le Pain Quotidien in Santa Monica.

Vintage French linens

It's May already and I'm looking forward to Memorial day. Time flies, whether or not you're having fun. I watch the news on BBC just now, they showed pictures of the trash problem in Naples. The trash is still not being picked up. We were in Naples 2 years ago and they didn't have the trash problem when we were there. We had a great time, it very much like Palermo or Catania, unruly and haphazard. The food was great, I prefer the food in Southern Italy and Sicily. There are mom and pop restaurants every where that served great food. I miss it already. I have to contend with just working the next 4 months, it's been really busy, in fact, we won a sales contest, my staff got their bonus check. I have to wait 2 more weeks for mine. I wonder if it's enough to buy a new camera, a DSLR. Maybe not. I'm just musing and dreaming.....

The Spanish steps, Rome

Via Del Corso is a long street and one of its side street is the very fashionable Via Condotti. Via Condotti is a short side street full of designer shops and at the end of it is the Spanish steps or Piazza di Spagna where tourists and locals gather and hang out. Its just a huge staircase but frequented by famous people like Keats and Shelley and seen in movies. It is usually very crowded but we were there early in the morning.

The Pantheon, Rome

Built in 27 BC, the Pantheon was altered in the 2ND century BC and its appearance has changed over subsequent centuries. The colonnaded facade originally stood higher so the the dome (at more than 130 feet in diameter, the widest every vaulted with stonework) was practically invisible from the approach. Once inside the church, this added an element of surprise to the effect of the first view of the dome, stunning in the simplicity of its proportions: it is a perfect sphere, held in a cylinder of equal height and radius. In 1878 it was declared a tomb for Italy's kings and Vittorio Emanuele I and Umberto I are buried here.

Quoted from Knopf Guides.

Practically the oldest intact building in Italy, it was built as a pagan temple. Over the centuries a host of religions worshipped here and today Christian services are being held on a regular basis. It is a gorgeous building, very awe inspiring, a favorite of most visitors. This was my 3rd visit and I don't think I'll ever get tired of visiting the Pantheon.

Two books

I've just finished reading Ann Barry's 'A home in France' and is in the middle of reading Maurice Hertzog's 'Annapurna'. The two books cannot be more different from each other. Both books epitomizes the question, 'Why not'. We ask too many 'Why?'. The poignancy of Ann Barry's book is that it was published posthumously by her estate, in 1996, the year she passed away. Often times we want to know what happened to the authors of the great books we read, a kind of 'where are they now?' For some, they are no longer with us anymore. Where is Maurice Hertzog now? I don't know. His book was published in 1952, some 56 years ago.
'A home in France' by Ann Barry is really just another book about an American who bought a house abroad. A single woman who lived and worked in New York who bought a house in a little village in the Dordogne area. It records her many trips there in the 12 years she owned the house. Even with just 2 weeks vacation each year, she formed a yearly routine where she goes and lives in France for that 2 weeks. She used the place also as a base in which to explore the area of France, many of the places I've also visited. She and an old friend went to visit Rocamadour, a monastery perched high against a cliff. Four years ago, Sophie and I were there, the train station was an hour's hike away and we walked because there was no buses on a Sunday. She wrote about Brive la Gallarde, in fact, rather warmly. It's an nondescript town, we used it as our base because the hotels were dirt cheap, we paid 25 euros a night for a rinky dink room and that was the first time I was so cheap and got to like it and has been desperately looking for cheap lodgings ever since. We stayed 3 nights, I gave the landlady 100 euros and she gave me change back. I said to myself, wow, I can get used to this!
'Annapurna' is a book about the expedition put together by Frenchman, Maurice Hertzog, to climb Annapurna in 1950. They spent months trying to find Annapurna in the Himalayas and reconnoitering the area trying to find it and a way to climb it. Why, I don't know. Why do people go to such lengths, I don't know. They finally made an assault on Annapurna, coming down was the challenge. They stayed too long on the summit, enjoying the joys of that glorious moment. It was too cloudy on the descent, it took forever and many in their party, including Hertzog, were severely frostbitten. He had to have a few amputations, it wasn't just the descent, it was the getting out that very remote area of the Himalayas for medical attention, the consequence of that delay was a huge factor in his recovery. It was exciting when they finally decide they will ascend to the top. I shared their excitement through the pages. Wow! What courage, what raw physical strength, what grit! These days you climb Mt Everest with oxygen tanks but they climbed Annapurna with no special equipment. Amazing! For what, I don't know, who cares, they didn't! For the sheer joy of the challenge.
The last few lines of the book reads.....
'Annapurna, to which we had gone empty handed, was a treasure on which we should live the rest of our days. With this realization we turn the page, a new life begins.
There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men.'

Flea market

I went to the Santa Monica flea market this morning and went over board on some vintage French linens. This is for my summer project, to redecorate the house and 'frenchify' it.

Giacomo Serpotta

It's been a year since our first trip to Sicily. We went, for the first time, March 2007, with no expectations, just the knowledge that on this little island called Sicily, are secrets, experienced by few Americans. Sophie and I flew on separate airlines, arriving at different times in Catania. We, almost missed each other. I went to bed at 11pm, with no sign of her, she showed up at 1 pm. I'm even surprised the owner of the hostel opened the door, it's a mom and pop hostel, really cheap, so cheap that we stayed there again during our second trip to Sicily. At 45 euros a night for both of us, it couldn't be beat. It rained the whole time we were there (2 weeks) but there were brief periods of dry weather.

It was a trip to remember forever, it was so thrilling that we took a second trip in October 2007 to see the rest of the island. The second trip was as good as the first.

In Palermo, we happened upon the work of a sculptor by the name of Giacomo Serpotta. I had seen pictures of his work, especially his work at the Oratory of S. Zita where his 'whimsical' scenes from the bible and of the battle of Lepanto, decorated the walls. For most sculptors, their pieces are mostly of single person or a small scene but the work of Serpotta in the Oratory of S.Zita is an interplay of scenes from the bible, in 3-d, decorating all the 4 walls of this small chapel. It seems 'whimsical' but it is actually a serious work of art. His work is scattered in a lot of the major churches all over Palermo and in some churches in the other cities in Sicily.

A check of his work on the internet will lead us to a program called 'the Serpotta itinerary' which gives a detailed road map of all his work in Palermo. Our first visit was to the Oratory of S.Zita which is the most delightful. One led to another and before we knew it, we've seen so much of his prolific work and were simply enthralled. While he might have been influenced by artists on the mainland, Serpotta's genius was all his own.

He came from a family of sculptors, his father, his brother and even his brothers in law has their work shown in the major churches in Palermo

It brings home the fact that each one of us has something unique to offer the world. Giacomo Serpotta was not a sculptor like Leonardo da Vinci but if he thought that, we would not be enjoying his genius today. He is different but not diminished in importance.

I have dreams of returning to Palermo and following the Serpotta itinerary again.

Poppies

Remembrance day, November 11, the date chosen is the date that marked the end of WWI, a day to remember armed forces of the British Empire, it is called Veteran's day in the USA. One of my first memories of poppies. I never saw a poppy in my life till I moved here. Every year on Nov 11, the English would go out on the streets to sell paper poppies. I grew up in a British colony, North Borneo. The slogan is 'a poppy is to remember' or 'lest we forget'.

I get excited seeing red poppies growing in fields in Italy. Pictures and drawings of red poppies evoke in a lot of people fond memories of Europe. The last trip, in March to Rome, it was too early for those poppy fields but I did see a small patch behind fences at the Teatro Massimo.

Why poppies? It is the time of poppies in Southern California, the ubiquitous orange colored California poppies are every where. Every garden seem to feature Icelandic poppies. I was walking around my neighborhood one day and found these poppies growing openly. These are opium poppies, you can see the seed pods, I don't think they are legal in California but the home owners are just using them as an ornamental plant. Wow, opium poppies up close and personal. I am familiar with the resin of these poppies. My grandfather was for the major part of his life an opium addict. I know first hand the ravages of drug addiction on families. My father at the age of 13 when the Japanese invaded had to be head of household. My grandfather lived with us till he died at 84 or till the day he killed himself. There was never a day of peace, when he needed money for his fix, he didn't stop nagging. We cut our teeth on confrontation. He used to take me to the opium den, I'd wait outside while he went in for a smoke.

Yesterday I went to Youtube to do some research on poppies, found some disturbing videos on poppy growing and opium addiction. The growers of opium are themselves and their families addicted to the resin of the beautiful poppy plant. I watched Afghan women smoking opium pipes and blowing the smoke into the mouths of their toddlers. I saw Asian women smoking with their toddlers with them. I'm not surprised because while growing up, we had neighbors who processed opium resin and had their kids involved. Even today, the many mini 'Meth' labs that operate at home involve their children.

I watched videos of junkies. One thing that struck me was they are so boring, they don't do anything, they just sit there or lie there. They just space out. What's the fun in that. As Julia Child said, 'life's the perfect binge.' Life is the perfect binge.

I had wanted to write about my love for the poppy flower because it is a reminder of Europe and I digressed into a whole different topic.

Poppy fields in Afghanistan

Rome, de rigueur for the cultured

the Tiber

the ruins

Spanish steps

the Pantheon

the Trevi fountain

the old and the new, the ancient Roman wall, the modern building on Via Marsala, picture taken in front of Roma termini.

I heard on the radio some time back that a guy (any guy) before the age of 40, to be more attractive to girls, must be some what cultured. He must have been to at least one major museum and know a little about art history, architecture and food. It is not about liking escargot (what is that- snails) or truffles as much as knowing what they are and maybe to have tasted them. One should have at least heard of Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci and maybe has seen some of their work. They can be forgiven if they don't know who Caravaggio is.

What better place to start being cultured than in Rome.

Rome, more than any other city has squashed in it centuries of civilizations. Art- centuries of art- ancient Roman, Medieval times, Renaissance and Baroque to the modern. Baroque is a product of the counter reformation movement, a time of learning by the Jesuits, a time of Rococo design to bring back the masses to the church after leaving because of the reformation. The same with architecture- from the ancient Roman ruins, the Colosseum to St Peter Basilica, to the Victor Emanuele memorial.

Italian food, from pasta to gelato to great coffee, it's la dolce vita in Rome and in Italy.

Italy was de rigueur for the young Englishmen on 'the Grand tour". They were sent on extended trips to Italy to learn about art, architecture, food and people in order to be a cultured Englishman.

Rome is also a place of pilgrimage especially for the Catholics. St Peter Basilica is always packed with people, Catholics and non Catholics. It is a most beautiful place. I brought my 2 Jewish nieces, even they were impressed. It is more like a museum.

Rome can be daunting the first time but it can be easily managed and enjoyed. Read my posting, 'Rome made easy' on how to get around. Once you have mastered Rome, the rest of Italy is easy. You can come in and out of Rome, go to the rest of Italy and even Sicily and enjoy the whole of Italy. If you've never been , make Rome your next vacation destination.

Sunday dinner

While I'm on the 'Ramen' diet, sometimes I do splurge. How about BBQ spare ribs? Mmmmm.. It is extremely simple. I copied the recipe from a recent Women's magazine. I coined the word, 'Ramen' diet meaning, not so much to lose weight but rather to save money. It's not even about eating 'Ramen' or instant noodles. It means eating more simple and economical meals. It means eating tuna casserole, simple stir fry, tofu and other fast, money saving meals. I have a few staple recipes like beef stir fry with tomatoes of which I make a huge batch and eat it with rice for dinners and also as a sack lunch at work. Right now I'm still working through a big pot of tuna with noodles. I usually cook twice a week, eating leftovers most of the week. It's always fun on the days that I cook. The days that I don't are more perfunctory- I just go to the fridge and eat whatever is there. It's working for me, I've done this for years.

While I'm doing this, I'm dreaming of the great bread found in Sicily, Panini con Porchetta, duck confit, escargot, Cornish Pasties, English cream teas with scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream, fromage blanc.....

When's my next trip....?