Ghetto

I haven't had a comment or a note in a while so I guess my fifteen minutes is about over. I'll be home for Passover tomorrow which seems a fitting closure to my journey over here. The whole joyous meal with family to celebreate freedom thing, not the buckets of lamb's blood to keep the Angel of Death from wacking your first born thing.

Rome and Italy in general, not Sicily, seems to be pretty colgged with the gelato licking, map folding, totally lost looking, loud drunk American girls in their stilettos on the cobblestones wobbling, flash photographing, public urinating type of tourist that usually draws unwanted attention. My hostel in particular has been full of very young looking University kids on spring break from elsewhere in Europe. They move in herds and it's been especially difficult to make a friend for this week. I'm actually getting a little lonely, and unserendipidiously, my lovely roomate Helen, is arriving in Rome for a week, three hours before I get on my plane home. aw shucks on that one.

Rome has been city incredibly dense with art and history. Luckly i had a great professor in Architecture History so I can spot a Leonardo Di Caprio , or a Benini when I see one.

The hills and streets of Rome had me intersecting with the four small blocks of the Jewish Ghetto more than a few times. There's a Synagogue and a few restaurants that specialize in the famous Artichoke Ghetto Style (whole fried that blooms like a crispy delicious flower). I learned that the Jews in Rome were here before the Diaspora so they're not refugees from anywhere, but they were herded around the city into ever smaller neighborhoods by Pope after Pope. I may have forgotten to mention that people have been asking me questions in Italian all month. I look Italian I guess with my beard and my (ahem) ethnic nose. And in the Ghetto when I would talk to someone they would offer me a wish for a happy Passover not even asking if I was a Jew! Dang! One very friendly shop keeper in a pretty hip chothes store called "McQueen, all clothes and sneakers from 1972" offered me a happy Passover saying, "I say to you Pasach because you are Jewish and there is a speciala feelinga between us!" And if I were searching for a way to sum things up which I would never do because summaries leave out all that was wonderful and awful, but if I was I would say that a "speciala feelinga between us," is how I would describe my time in Italy. The pleasure was all mine. Traveling in Italy was like sinking your teeth in to a perfectly ripe peach; it just gets all over you and satisfies you only like something sweet, simple, and perfect can.

I'm a big fan of the Stats so lets go to the big board and ring it all up:

8. # of countries traveled. (Czech Rep, Slovacia, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzgovenia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy.
21 # of cities
7 # of items lost (2 umbrellas, favorite wool hat, camera case, camera lens filter, DL, flashlight)
17 # of Gelatos
70 # of coffees
22 # of rolls of film
8 # of train rides
14 # of bottels of wine
113 # of bowling score in Krumlov, Czech
4 # of pizzas in Naples
1 # of times I overpaid a taxi driver
0 # of thefts
4 # laundry loads
59 # days abroad

I hope that anyone readind this has had half as much fun as I did writing it. Get to Italy before too long! And in the words of the late Pope Giovani Paulo II, "Don't let the door knob hit ya' where the Good Lord split ya'!"

Amen

La Dolce Vita

I'm in Roma but in two days I have to go homa. That's rich.

I was at the Vatican today. It was really amazing. What was so amazing is that I had to wait in line for two hours and then pay €4 to the wealthiest city-state on Earth, to go into a Basicilica for 45 minutes. St. Pete's Church is the largest in the world, and full of the greatest works of art on the planet, but c'mon. I was pressed up against other people's dandruff, gelled hair, pimples, bad teeth, bad hair cuts, bad clothes for too long. When I got out of there it was the real treat of the day!

I was admiring the Pope Mobile in the parking lot when an old guy with a ceareal bowl hat came up to me, made the sign of the cross, and said with a smile, "you toucha my car, I breaka you face." true story.

Then I stopped a nun to ask where the men's room was and she said, "sorry I don't work here."

Some of the best in Roman dishes, in English for my non-gastronomicly inclined friends and fam.

Spaghetti alla Carbonarra (bacon eggs and cheese)
Spaghetti alla Vongole (clams and parsley)
Artichoke and ricotta fritatta (best artichoke dish I've ever had!)
Gnocci with mushrooms, tomato, parsley, and pecorino
Gnocci al Ragù
Roman pizza which is different than Naples but delicious in its own way.
Pistachio Gelato

That's all I can remember at the moment Oh.. I had this Bruchetta with tomatoes and garlic and olive oil. Amazing. They know how to do tomatoes over here.

Lots more to say on Rome so stay tuned.

Pecse

So much things to say!

This is the second draft of a piece that I wrote two days ago but lost it in the technical vortex of the internet.

But to bring it all back...I was in Sicily up untill a two days ago. I'm in Rome for the moment but more on that in a minute. Sicily is an island. Not just geographically but metaphorically as well. It's about 30 years behind the rest of Italy in terms of its modernization and it seems to live life on its own warped sense of time. It was lovely to be there to say the least. Palermo was a place of extreme contrasts in its feel as a town. Sweet and sour, old and new, light and dark, rich and poor. I spent two pretty rainy days there but still managed to get a few hours of sun here and there. The buildings in Palermo are like the town; layered and layered with wave after wave of styles of each succssive occupier. There is a distinct feeling of Muslim presence there, with the spices in the markets that are unique to the Sicily (cinnamon, cumin, fennel, corriander), there are Moorish domes that cluster the skyline behind rows of palm trees, and there is a contagious energy in the markets where the men chant the product and price down the alleys to attract business. I may have mentioned that I was buying bags of strawberries from a guy that was yelling, " Fragola...Fragola..Fragola...Un Kilo, Due Euro....," I spent alot of time walking up and down the street markets checking out all the piles of olives, oranges, fennel, cheeses, and salumi. No discussion of the Sicilian markets would be complete without the fish. The tables of ice were packed with the local daily catches which were always sword fish with the severed head displayed so that the blue-grey beak sticks three feet up in the air. Baby octopus, shrimp, bream, spiny lobster, all kinds of fresh sardeen and anchovy. They were all kept slick and fresh looking by the men wearing full length yellow rubber aprons who watered down the catch with garden buckets. The pastties are some of the nicest I've seen in italy so far. Everything seems to be made out of almond or pistachio paste and dusted with sugar.

Palermo's favorite street side snack is the boiled spleen sandwich. There are carts on most corners with steaming tubs of this most pungent meat simmering away in its juices. The sandwich itself is a sesame bun (they love their sesame seeds here too) with some meat piled on, and then some ricotta all wrapped in a paper napkin. It tastes like a liver sandwich with a few rubber bands thrown in for texture. As the song goes, when you're in Palermo huddled under a statue of Neptune, standing in a puddle in the rain, with your lips wrapped around a steaming spleen sandwich...that's amore.

Italy is the South of Europe, and Sicily is the South of Italy, and the South like anywhere has a different attitude toward life than their elsewhere. There is a strange accent, balms breezes, soulfull cooking, gentler people, and an absence of hurry in the daily pace of things. The cliche of the Italian grandmother stirring a pot of sauce probably started there. Just off the busy streets, you can hear and smell people living their lives in a way that's hidden in NYC. There's laundry hanging everywhere, and road side shrines to the Big Man upstairs that look more like a Vegas advert for an Elvis Prestly Museum. (lots of Christmas lights, silk flowers and religious action figures.)

I was in a little island paradice to the south called Syracusa that is the sunny perfect, forgotten plot that songs are written about. Blue waters, fishing boats, almont cookies that melt in your mouth..There was a plesent lack ouf tourists in Sicily and even more so in Syracusa. Lodgings were not as easy to come by but I made a good deal with grey haired B and B keeper for a night in a nice room to myself. We made our deal tracing the price into the bed spread with our index finger. She wrote "40" and I wrote "35" and it was done. Not a word of English spoken thank you very much! The other discount hotels were just not an option in the off-island spots. There is a point when you cross over from campy backpacker discount hostels to one-day's-rent-away-from-homeless-wino-hotel. You go from, "I hope the beds are comfy," to "Are those cigarette burns in the mattress? I wonder if someone ever died in here?" From, "I hope they're good coffee in the morning," to ,"I hope I wake up with both my kidneys!" So I chose to pay the extra few bucks.

I had some plates of pasta in Syracusa that I had to stop myself from eating too fast. Like when the plate gets to the table and you realize that you have'nt looked up or broken your concentration on the food for five minutes. One dish was Spagetti da Ricci (with baby shrimp and fresh wild sea urchin.) And the other was someting that translated into "Eat Fest" that was a spagetti with baby shrimp, cherry tomatoes, smoked sword fish, parsley, and crushed almonds. I wish I had more time to hang in Sicily! I got that recomendation from a guy named Enzo who had an anti-Bush poster in his wine shop. I stopped in, slagged off on Bush for a drink or two and he sent me to this amazing restaurant. Sicily.

On this, the day of my daughter's wedding..

Palermo, Sicily

"That's what Pauli did, he offered protection to guys that couldn't go to the cops"

"I swear on the souls of my children that I will not be the one to break the peace we've made here today."

"I know it was you Fredo."

"sicilians are the best liars, a man's got 17 pantamimes..."

"Consiglietti..."

"You take care of that thing? No not that thing, the other thing?"

All joking aside, in the short time I've been in Palermo, I've become a made guy! So if you need a favor and I can help there may come a day when I will ask a favor in return.

Sicily seems to be the last stop on the Italian geographical reach south because it is incrediblty ancient and beautiful. The last place you should see before leaving the country and the continent for that matter. The coast is dotted with quaint little fishing villages and jagged volcanos that rake the clouds. Palmero itself has what I like to see in a town, a little third-world dodginess, lots of markets, an absence of tourists, great food, and palm trees. The markets here are filled with the freshest of everything: fish still curled on the ice from rigermortis, olives of every shade and variety, lots of spices, pine nuts, raisins, strawberries. They have lemons the size of a small child that if dropped from a tree would kill you dead. True story. I've been eating lots of pasta with sardines, pine nuts, and raisins. Lots lots thick little pizzettas, many many espressos (you'd have to peal me off the ceiling by 10AM on any given morning!)

I've been busy taking loads of photos and I have something in the neighborhood of 30 rolls to have developed when I get back. I really hope they come out nice.

I wish I had more time to explore Sicily but I have only two or three more days befor I have to get to Rome and see the Pope about some things.

I'll have heaps more to say about the food and architecture her that was both influenced heavily by the Moors, hence the heady spice markets and sweet and sour flavors in everything. The cannoli and Marsala here are the best anywhere, as they are both of this place. I'm doing my best to grab a few cook books in the local cuisine as well.

Till then

La Cosa Nostra

I'm off on the night ferry to Sicily this evening. Should be a 10.5 hour steam over to the old country where my Jewish mafia ancestors used to run the bagel rackets. There's said to be some mean cannoli and Marsala there to name a few good bites. It was hailing and thundering last night in Napoli and the gentleman who runs the desk at the hostel in the morning, a student named Luca, came in with his helmet beaded with water and soaked to the skin said, "It's uh snowinga on the Vesuvius uh!" True story because when it weather cleared today you could see the white peaks of the Volcano right across the palm trees on the bay.

I've eaten a pizza a day since I've been here and my associates and me agree that this little Pizzeria da Michele was the best. There were no tourists at this one and the pizza with a soda cost all of €5. The other two shops were equally excellent: Pizzaria di Matteo and Pizza del Presidente, but Michele has a little more sauce and their crust was perfectly blistered and chewey. Only one or two basil leaves per pie though.

There's a great book called "The Dark Heart of Italy" that I spied on the shelves of the bookstore in town that has lot's of great chapters on all that's weird or wrong with Italy. Everything from Gov't corruption to the shadiness of the football leagues. I read it for a while and it made a great contrast to the picturesque authenticity of the old world that people have loved about this place for centuries. I recommend it to all who would travel through here.

Naploi has been a slightly chaotic, horn-honking, traffic clogged, trash strewn, graffiti splattered joy ride to be sure. I've been warned by every Italian north of the Volcano to keep my jewelry hidden and my wallet in my front pocket. Luckily I'm not much for pearls and my wallet looks more like something you'd throw away than something you'd steal, but I've got my NY eyes sharpened to the scene and pulled the change off the stylus.

Pompei, by the way, was one impressive ruin. This was no little town, but a thriving city the size of a university campus with a highly evolved infrastructure of roads ans sewers, theaters, basilica, prisons, and taverns. Most of the buildings are perfectly in tact save for the roofs, and you can still see ancient political adverts written in red on the city walls. The marble in the theaters was as it was two thousand years ago, I'm sure. The museum in Naploi where they hold all the bronze and pottery recovered from the site was a vast and boggling catalogue of artifacts made by artisans practing at the height of their craft. One of the nicest places to stoll around in Pompei is on the out skirts of the ruin near the unexcavated areas where you're out of the way of the herds of classes and tourist inspecting the area. The old roads around the perimeter were wet and green from the moss and shade trees where a few homeless dogs would wait for someone to walk by and keep them company. Someone like me. I threw this one yellow Sheppard a pine cone and he ended up following me around with his tail wagging for almost two hours. If I didn't feel like throwing the stick he would just drop it at my feet and bark until I changed my mind. It was lots of fun to have a pet for the afternoon. The good company of a dog is hard to beat.

P122@

Buon Giorno and Bon Jovi

Just got off the train from Bologna where things were beautiful and collegate. Its home to the oldest university in Europe maybe the world if you dont count the school of redundancy school up there in Lipshitz, Germany.

Bologna (pronounced Bol-on-eey) was as old school of a university town as it gets. Many tightly radiating streets that whose sidewalks are all covered by arching and vaulting porticos. There was a youthfull buzz there that reverberated loudly off the clay toned brick and stone walls of the place.

I ate some great food there and some not so great food. To begin, I had as my first meal a plate of torelloni alla bolongese. About as good as it gets in that department. Later that night I was at a gelato shop (dessert before dinner) that used all natural seasonal stuff in their ice cream where I got a recommendation for a spot for dinner. I should have listened to my bro Andy on where to eat that night but I was led astray and I wish I could do it over agian. I was introduced to the chef who was a man of genuine friendliness and hospitality, and he invited me back later that night for a tasting meal. When I had finished the lovely dinner of five courses, I just thought to myself that I was underwhealmed. A classic out-to-dinner pitfall where you can't see the merchandice before you sign for it. Anywho it reminded me of getting a meal in SoHo where you pay for the privelage of being seen in a flashy modern restaurant in the heart of coolsville. I kept thinking to myself that the ingredients were the best part of the whole thing, and I could have done just as well at the stove. To make up for gouging my wallet I had a plastic container or this fresh pasta called Strozzapretti (wring the neck of the priest in Italian seriously) and some pesto and parm. It was better than my dinner and cost me €3. I dont want to jab the chef too hard because he was so cool to me but I just wish I hadn't had to pay so much. It stung a bit.

One of the coolest things I've done in Italy so far though was visit the Ducati Motorcycle factory in Bologna. There was a city bus that ran out there that only cost a €1. The museum was amazing! They had every Ducati racing motorcycle ever made from 1941 to the present day Superbikes. The old models were georgeous Pee-wee Herman style bicycles with little motors mounted over the crank with hand painted racing numbers on the plates over the headlight. They were one of a kind and looked it as well. I was drooling all over the floor at these 20 odd bikes. I took pictures of all of them but they were lit by an illumiated runway on the floor so I hope I got mu exposures right! The modern super bikes were basically red, white, and green missiles with handlebars. 250hp monsters that hit over 275mph!!! The factory was just as cool because all the bikes are made by hand so they can only produce about 200 a day as oppposed to a Japaneese factory that hits the 1000 mark on a day. The factory was still and quiet on the Saturday I visited. Pneumatic tools of every kind were hanging from coiled air cords above the assembly lines that ran back into the darkened ends of the shop. The factory was clean, well lit from natural sky light, and smelled like new car, or new bike. THere was a soundproof dynamo chamber where each motorcycle is boldted down to a treadmill of rollers and wound up to its highest rpms to make sure everything is running perfectly. A new bike starts at something like €17,000. I bought a Ducati coffee cup and a few post cards with a classic graphic of a little white dog with his toungue out running next to a little shinny enginge. The text says " cucculo" which means puppy.

I'm in Naples at the moment which deserves its own essay so I'll retire for evening. I did have my first Neopolitan Pizza tonight though. Definitly better than the Olive Garden. They also have a classic pastry here called sfogliatella which is a piece of paper thin dough rolled into a short little cone and filled with the most delicious sweet ricotta and orange zest. It looks like a crispy golden clam shell. I'm going to stop right here as I'm afraid I'm starting to sound like Racheal Ray or, some other TV clown.

On a related thought. I can't explain how glad I am to have not heard a word about any American celebrity, TV show, or politician in the last few weeks. I haven't missed digesting that useless information for a minute. I hope I have the dicipline to tune out the shit end of the media when I get home. The fact that I can't understand Italian even helps shield me from this whole world of advertising which is also not lost on me.

later skaters
dave

Grapes of Wrath

I'm getting over a cold at the moment, kinda crabby because of it, but still grinnin'. My last day in Florence was spent on a day trip to the little hill town of San Giminano. I spent the afternoon wandering around in a little piece of italian country side. It was most tranquil and the weather has been a perfect 65 degrees under cloudless skies and no humidity. The kind of day where you're plenty warm in the sun and chilly in the shadem you take your jacket on and off 17 times. I had two chilled glasses of Vernaccia di Sangiminano in the town itself. Its been pretty cool drinking the wine that comes from the ground underneith your feet. Each glass was only 2 or 3€ so its easy to get pretty loose on the stuff. There was some great photography yo be had at the bus station; two old gents just sitting out side with canes, hats, and coke bottle glasses. As usuall I was too chicken to just walk up and get a good photo. I usually just sneak one from the side, through a window, or if I can actually speak the language and Im feelin kind of bold, I'll ask. The photos I really like are pretty personal and lately its been tough to ask for the permission because I feel like a dumb american tourist. There are rivers of tourists here by the way. Not so much in Bologna where I am now, but there were so many Asians in Florence I was half expecting to see Godzilla poke his huge lizzard head around a church flushing a crowd of picture snapping tourists out of the brush. As far as the photo thing goes, its all in my head as I know but I like to moan...

In Bologna where I now write. Im actually late for a tasting meal at this restaurant called Ceasare. I was introduced to the chef by an awsome woman who owns this artisanal (sp?) gelato shop with her husband. She's actually an artist with work in museums around the world and he's a former carpenter. But I was sent there by my friend in Florence and from the gelato shop I asked for a good restaurant recommendation. After a cone of some serious pine nut gelato, she walked me around the corner and introduced me to the chef. He invited me into the little kitchen where he started filetting fish so I could smell the difference between two different breeds. He was amazingly friendly and in his broken english offered me a table to sit at so I could read through his cookbook and have a glass of Prosecco. More hospitable people I could not find. I'm due back there at the moment for a meal which he calles his "fantacy" which means he will make the choices for me I think.

Tomorrow I'm going to check out the Ducati Motorcycle Factory for a tour. Its supposed to be the biggest employer in the state.

The web sited for the two excellent places I've met the chefs so far are:

Cibreo's Teatro del sale in Florence: www.teatrodelsale.com or .it not sure on that.
and www.artefood.com for the place Ceasare in Bologna

I actually have'nt used either so bare with me.

ciao for now as they say, they don't say, but you get the idea..
dave

buon giorno

I met two great gals from the land of Aus. Megan suggested we take a bus down to the heart of Chianti and hire some scooters for a wine tasting tour. We set out early this morning to a town called Greve in between Sienna and Florence and arrived around noon. We went to the market and bought a tub of pesto, sliced salame, a soppresatta that made slices a big as 12 inch records, a big block of focciacia, and a wedge of pecorino fresco, and headed off for the rental shop. They told up upon arriving that the scooters weren't ready but we were free to rent mountain bikes instead. We did and saddled up for a day on tour in the legendary Tuscan wine country. We only made it to two different wineries as the terrain was very rugged and getting to the hilltops where the villas were located took a good half an hour of gear grinding and panting. When we did arrive though we were rewarded by genuinely kind people eager to tell us everything there is to know about the special wine of that region. Chianti classico it seems was one of the first wines in Italy to wear the DOCG label, certifying its authenticity and origin. We drank sips of reservas, grappa, olive oil, and then settled down for a picnic beside an old farm building whose roof had become dirt again hundreds of years ago leaving a crumbling white stone wall as evidence of a building. There were combed expanses of grape vine, wild rugged olive groves, stone walls and winding country roads all in view from our perch up on the the hill ridge. There was a smoky blue cast over the land that was illuminated by the amber afternoon sun. No sounds of traffic of commerce, just the welcoming bark of farm dogs, birds, and the occasional lizard flashing through the dry roadside grass. I slept like a rock on the bus ride home. Its funny where saying hello to a stranger will take you in your day.

Also I had the good fortune of finally meeting a food writer and oracle of all things Italian and edible, Faith Willanger. She is a wonderful woman who seems dead set on helping me meet some of the chefs in Italy that are doing some great food. She handed me one of her books called Eating in Italy and a list of phone numbers of chefs in Michelin Three Star restaurants as well as a few One Star spots out in the country in Pulia. She gave me the name of her driver in Naples where Im to meet up with him so that he can chauffeur me out to the country for a visit to some of these remarkable places. All this and a mean cup of Coffee to boot. I cant wait to see whats going on in these kitchens and the possibility of getting back here to spend a few months in one of these places seems great. I didn't expect to be hit over the head with inspiration in this place but I have even if it fades I'm glad for the time of temporary satori.

luca brazzi sleeps with the fishes