New Wanderings in Italy · 2 days ago by James Martin
I’m twiddling with the site. In the meantime, here’s a picture from this fall’s trip through Tuscany. The setting is Fiesole, the Abbey of San Francesco, an easy walk from the center of town, although uphill.
It’s not easy figuring out the best balance of color when you do a redesign of a site. With the picture, I’m not sure if the people in the lower left stand out enough to make it compelling. In the site, I’m not sure if the left navigation sticks out too much. Let me know what you think via email. If you want.
(SeeTuscany has good coverage of Fiesole and the Abbey)
La passeggiata in San Remo, Italy · 6 days ago by James Martin
On our last trip, we stopped in San Remo, on the Italian Riviera.
I’ve always thought of San Remo as a glitzy place where middle class folks in plain clothing would feel out of place. Well, it’s lost some of that glitz, evidently, because I didn’t feel overwhelmed by wealth. The famed casino was being remodeled. Scaffolding had taken it over.
But there was a nice passeggiata, and an extremely interesting medieval core to the city. The harbor was nice, and since it was November the clouds made the landscapes quite interesting. I’ll probably post more pictures of San Remo as the jet lag wears off, so this will have to do for now.
One Last Dinner in the Lunigiana · 12 days ago by James Martin
Last night we ate at Francesca and Armando’s. That’s their trophy you’re looking at. Pretty slick, eh? I particularly like the shining, naked babes intertwined sinuously to become the central support for the cup while the little plastic porker waits below to alert you to the fact they’ve won it for their pig products, in this case salami. And the color of the house, as you can see, pretty much mimics the healthy pink of the pig.
We had a traditional Lunigiana repast. Farro soup was followed by sausage and beans (the Borlotti beans to be added to our list of local foods grown and eaten in little Piano di Colleccia which so far includes: olive oil, polenta, honey, chestnuts, wine of all colors and flavors, after dinner drinks including mirto and centerbe, as well as various pig products including the much-trophied salami and the wonderful culatello we had after the sausage and beans).
Then there was a cheese course including Pecorino with honey and a Calabrian cheese which was very piccante.
This, of course, was followed by some dolce we had brought in Aulla.
And it was all washed down with homemade wine (and a bottle of wine from Monte Argentario we’d bought).
It is our last night in the Lunigiana. Tomorrow we’re off to San Remo, then home to California via Nice, Strasbourg, and Frankfurt.
I’m quite sad to have to leave.
Sweet Vanity and the Hitmen · 13 days ago by James Martin
I love the story of the ‘Ndrangheta boss getting captured while having the fat sucked out of him in a liposuction operation at a private clinic in Calabria.
When he finds out it’s the police standing over the new, slender him, he’s relieved because he thought they might be hitmen.
Imagine. It’s just like on the tee vee. Take out the bullets to the head and the cocaine and you’d have a real human comedy on your hands. It’s not just government that’s powered by vain nitwits.
Late October in a Gondola · 14 days ago by James Martin
Sure, you avoid Venice in the colder months. Venice has that fog thing going. Better in summer, when it’s hot. You can wear your tee shirt with the slogan on it.
But you can bundle up and be cozy in the fall. You can pretend that the warmth pouring from her doesn’t matter. Or you can give in to the moment:
Cooking for Poverty · 15 days ago by James Martin
No, I’m not sure what the title means either, but I’ve just read chef Jamie Oliver’s declaration We can’t cook for a downturn and find myself nodding in agreement with it so hard it seems to have rattled my brain.
For all the attention placed on fine food, we seem to have lost our way with our everyday chow. Cucina Povera might be alive and well here in the soggy hill country of the Lunigiana, but elsewhere it seems a lost art.
The point is, a whole lot of people have given their souls to industrial food producers. We don’t know how to be happy in poverty any more. We’ve lost the ability to eat low off the hog.
You see, low off the hog is where the tastiest meat is found, which also requires the most skill to cook properly. In America there has been no need to pass cooking traditions down through the generations. You just got a minimum wage job and ate at McDonalds like everyone else.
So Jamie Oliver has put out the clarion call for more attention to the culinary arts.
It is a poverty of being able to nourish their family, in any class (of society),” he said.
“It directly runs with the outrageous obesity that is actually happening now.”
You’re telling me. Watching the lines at the polls during the recent election and the interviews with American voters on BBC were painful. After two months of living in rural Italy, I thought the television in the cottage I was staying at was way out of adjustment. Those people waddling to the polls looked uniformly enormous. I mean it’s not like I’m skinny as a rail either, but sheesh.
Jamie has actually given up on Americans as far as fast food goes.
“If we leave it, it will be like America, where it is almost not worth it, because it’s so ingrained.”
It’s a pretty sad truth. But I’m grateful to be in a place at the moment that holds good, basic food and nutrition high on the list of priorities. Last night we dined at our neighbor’s house. We had testaroli with homemade pesto made with homemade olive oil. I had a big spoonful of homemade balsamic vinegar that had taken 17 years to age. If you want to taste something different than the crap they sell in the supermarket consisting of caramel and cheap wine vinegar and label wrongly as Aceto Balsamico di Modena, then try to get your hands on some real balsamic vinegar from Modena.
Then tell me it’s not worth it to work toward excellence in everything you do—including what you put in your mouth.
Driving on an Italian Autostrada · 18 days ago by James Martin
Quaking in anticipation of piloting your rental or leased car on Italian toll roads?
Piece of cake if you’re prepared. I’ve just finished a video that gives you an idea of what it takes to get a ticket to ride, and what your payment options are as a tourist. See: Driving on an Italian Autostrada
Just remember to keep the shiny side up…
Need a host for your blog or website? JaguarPC is the best host I've ever had, since 1999 even. Great Value.
It's a Merlot from the Veneto · 19 days ago by James Martin
We’ve finally had some rain. Tons of rain. That means the mushrooms have finally poked their little dome-like heads out of the forest duff. My neighbors left this evening with baskets.
Another neighbor has slices of porcini drying in the sun. He puts them on screens, then tilts the screens toward the sun. They are like art, these screens.
Unfortunately it’s hunting season here in northern Tuscany. Shots ring out mornings and evenings. The weapons are sophisticated. Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam they go in quick succession, as if the furtive bunny was a tank to be feared. There must be a lot of lead buried in this soil. Enough to line a bomb shelter at least.
Europeans like Obama 4 to one over McCain.
Will the mushroom hunters encounter the rabbit hunters?
Tomorrow we shall head south to an island which is no longer an island.
When we return, we shall drink the wine.
Italian Sex Symbols Just Keep on Ticking · 19 days ago by James Martin
I am always amazed at my neighbors and their energy. Maybe it’s the wine. Nobody I know here in the Lunigiana is a couch potato. After working eight hours, you tend the garden, harvest your olives or, this time of year, fatten your pigs with acorns.
Even if you happen to be a sex symbol, you never stop working or striving for something better. Get this, Gina Lollobrigida has had a sculpture workshop in Pietrasanta for ten years. She’s currently having an exhibition that ends November 16th:
On show marbles, bronzes, lithographs and photos, as her most famous films will be shown at the Town Cinema. Two bronzes, more than 5 meters tall, introduce the wide anthological exhibition that features 11 sculptures in marble and bronze (on show inside the Church of Sant’Agostino), 12 plastic works, on show in the halls of Putti and Capitolo together with some lithographs. In the hall of Grasce will be shown an autobiographic film, directed by Gina Lollobrigida, which narrates her artistic life.
Gina Lollobridgida is 81. If you’re too young to remember her, here is a short clip from the movie Fast and Sexy. Ah, those were the days.
Presidents and Pineapple on Your Pizza · 20 days ago by James Martin
I suppose by now you’ve heard that John McCain won the “presidential pizza poll” in New York and Las Vegas.
Folks voted by which pizza they chose to eat. Evidently, some wise-ass decided that the Obama pizza would be one of those abominations of the pizza world, a ham and pineapple pizza, while McCain got the pepperoni and onion. I don’t think the two opponents got a say in this. So, one can only conclude the poll was rigged. Folks who ordered the pepperoni and onion pizza were submitting a vote for McCain. If you had a stainless steel stomach, you could vote for Obama—a supreme court nomination was yours if you threw away the pineapple.
Sheesh, of course pepperoni and onion beats pineapple on a pizza. Shoot, jackass vomit beats pineapple on a pizza.
Instead, the pizza boys of Naples have proposed an Obama pizza consisting of a rectangular pizza, half of which is covered in 50 little dollops of ricotta cheese to represent the United States, and the other half with the stuff that represents the traditions the US has in common with Italy. I’m not sure this stuff’s a whole lot better than pineapple: wurstel, patatine e mozzarella. That is: hot dogs, potato chips (or fries) and mozzerella.
Democracy. It’s a circus out there. But at least you can eat it.