“Excuse me. Where are the eggs?” On my first grocery shopping trip last June, I searched all over the refrigerator section of the store to find the eggs. Where were they?! I finally asked, and was directed to the shelf across from the cereal, below the scotch tape and coffee maker parts, next to the [...]

Saturday. Clear blue skies. About 50 degrees. Yes! I headed down the canal on my bike, but decided on a change of scenery and followed the path I learned about from Angelo, my surprise tour guide in mid-January. The one lane road wound though small towns and rice fields. I found my way back to [...]

Years ago, a girlfriend of mine from Seattle traveled and stayed with Marcello and Raffaella Tori of BluOne Cooking Tours in Bologna. When my girlfriend, Carri, returned home to Seattle, she kept talking with great fondness about the couple, their big hearts, and the wonderful time spent with them. For 15 years, Marcello and Raffaella [...]

As a designer and artist, being here in Italy is a pilgrimage to the home of all the motifs, patterns and visual elements I’ve studied and heard of all my life. At times I’m overwhelmed, excited by the visually lush surroundings. The storefronts and shop windows are delicious with their old-world signage and embellishments. This [...]

For 4 Euro and 20 cents – about $6.00 – each way, I was able to hop on the train and take a 45 minute ride to Bergamo, east-north-east of Milan. Amazing amazingness. I’m still picking my chin up off the floor. I’m in awe that I can spend just a few dollars and in [...]

I guess this blog site might be a turn-off to vegetarians. Sorry about that. I’m living in Italy. Not just meat, but RAW meat on the menu… and I eat it all. Shavings of raw lard. Ground up who-knows-what. Slices right off the moldy leg bone. Bring it on.

Mmm. It’s 10:00 p.m. and I just cut into a big chunk of Cinghiale Bresaola – uncooked, aged, wild boar meat. (Cinghiale: ching-GHYA-lay) Yum. So good. Peppered on the outside. Dense/firm. Deep red. I bought it at the artisanal fair the beginning of last December when I sampled foods from every region in Italy. It’s been waiting [...]

Have you ever wondered about the first ones to eat something new that they hadn’t encountered before? IS it edible? What PART is edible? Should it be eaten RAW or COOKED? What part do you DISCARD? What part is most DELICIOUS? How is it best PREPARED? What should it be eaten WITH? Traveling to and [...]

Hungry in Paris? Good food is never far away. I like that the stores are specialized and are clustered near each other. Hop from one to the next and gather enough for a very good meal. Here’s the selection of food stores at my metro stop, Maubert-Mutualité, on St. Germain. The boucherie (butcher) and charcuterie (cooked [...]

What was for dinner on Christmas Eve in Paris? Fast food, Parisian-style! From my journal yesterday: 5:30 P.M. Christmas Eve, Paris. I’m eating in my hotel room, after spending all afternoon at Musée D’Orsay absorbing the impressionists and Art Nouveau and before heading to Notre Dame for Midnight Mass. At the Maubert-Mutualité exit for the [...]

I have truffle breath. I’ve just “eaten my way across the country” without leaving Milano, and I sampled so many incredible foods, who needs dinner?! It wasn’t enough to spend half a day at the Artisanal Fair last weekend, I had to go back and spend more time (and money) today. In 3 and a [...]

It’s the holiday season, and it starts with a rush here in early December. Today, December 7, is the Feast Day of Milan’s Patron Saint, Sant’Ambrogio; it’s a citywide holiday. This day is followed with a national holiday tomorrow, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and all the Italian world is shut down for a [...]

After a little afternoon nap, I booted myself out the door for a stroll. It was just after 3:00, the quiet time of the day in the city. A mostly gray sky with a little chill in the air. Nice to head out and wander. Just two blocks from home, I saw my Fashion Design [...]

At almost  4 months’ time here (with a few side trips away) I have now gone through a one liter bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and I just bought my second bottle. And by the way, even though I’ve eaten more meat (bresaola and prosciutto! Mmm) and cheese in the last 4 months than [...]

What a street market! I rose up out of the subway this evening at 6:00 and immediately stepped into a one block section of tented stalls hosting vendors from the many regions of Italy. Wow. Cheeses, meats, spices, pastries, dried fruit. As they say “over the top”! One stall in particular had what I can [...]

Nope. It’s not a Vespa-type scooter or a little car. It’s a little fish. A couple of months ago, while at the Saturday market, I was overwhelmed by the seafood choices I had no familiarity with. No halibut, salmon or rock cod here. There was fish I knew nothing about except for a couple I [...]

I’m not joking when I say that one of my consistent sources of stress here is in grocery shopping. It’s easy to take for granted the comfort of knowing WHAT I’m shopping for and HOW to shop for it. And when I don’t know those two things there’s an absolute and certain anxiety aroused. That [...]

A big rule in exploration: don’t settle on a “favorite” too soon! (A favorite route. A favorite menu item. A favorite way of doing things. A favorite cheese!) Favorites provide the comfort of familiarity, but run the risk of becoming routine and squelching the exploration of new things. I have “favorite streets” that I do [...]

BREAD: I went 3 metro subway stops north and took off walking east trying to find a bakery that Viola Restaurant had told me about. I don’t think I found it, but I did find a small loaf of dark, multi-grain bread and some green-olive-bread-sticks. HEALTH FOOD STORE:  Continuing my quest for bread, I asked [...]

Sweet or Savory? Based on appearances, these little cracker/cookies could have gone either way. Unfortunately, I was in the mood for a little, sweet cookie, so my stomach overruled my mind.  Wandering around the grocery store, of course all the labels and packages are in Italian. How do I know what I’m looking at and [...]

Last night while messing with my camera, I set it down on the kitchen counter and this image popped into the viewfinder. Hmm. I like that. I like the big, round pear butt and the diminishing line of oils and vinegar bottles. I keep a bowl in the kitchen with garlic, tomatoes, fruit of the moment [...]

Took my long walk to the grocery store today, up along Corso San Gottardo, where the little specialty shops are, as well as a few “bigger” stores. The grocery store has a good variety and good quality. In my shopping bag today was: a big red pepper, a half dozen on-the-vine tomatoes, green beans, garlic, [...]

There’s nothing like buying a new cell phone, in Italy. Just shopping for one was hard enough without a language in common with the sales person. Now I’ve bought one and the manual is in Italian and the phone is in Italian! Setting it up is a trick. My reading comprehension is pretty good, but [...]

The most complicated thing I’ve (tried to) shop for is an Italian cell phone. It’d be easy to simply get any old cheap phone, just something that’ll make and take calls, and do SMS… But I’m a tech junkie. I want a nice interface and good design. I want bluetooth. If it’s going to have [...]

There’s a really great grocery store that I walk to about a mile away. It’s a good thing that it’s two miles there and back and that I walk because I keep finding really delicious cheeses to try out! (Uh oh! I’m much more of a sucker for the cheeses than the photogenic pastries here. [...]