by Maureen | May 20, 2010 | Discoveries, Introspection, Journal, Quips, Seattle
It’s a lovely day here in Seattle. The sun was shining first thing this morning while I scurried around to get the irrigation system up and running. Now it’s pouring rain and my dry yard is thankful. I stepped outside, heard the birds singing and enjoyed the cool, fresh, clean air and smell of salt water.
These last 2 weeks here have been sunny and warm. Wow! No, I did not bring the sunshine from Milano. They had forecast a week of rain the day I left. There was no sunshine to bring!
Flowers are blooming, my yard is at its most beautiful and the days have been comfortable.
I leave this afternoon to return to Italy and my last 2 and a half months there. They predict temperatures in the mid-80s for the end of this week, so I’m dressed in layers, able to peel them one-by-one as I approach Europe.
The sense of things for me is SO different as I prepare for this flight than when I was preparing to fly to Italy last June. The unknown doesn’t loom so large. The timidity has been eased. I’m returning to Milano with familiarity and surety now and that changes the whole picture.
In this last dab of time, I will have visitors, I will travel, I will gobble up as much as I can before I pack my last bag and come home again to this fresh air.
by Maureen | May 1, 2010 | Discoveries, Introspection, Journal, Quips
This has been crystallizing for a while and I finally honed it to this kernel:
“If you have to use a shoehorn,
maybe it’s not the right shoe.”
Think about it. This applies to much of life.
No. I’m not saying that “right things” are effortless. I’m simply noting that sometimes we want so much for something to be “the right thing” that we try to shoehorn it into a place it isn’t mean to be.
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by Maureen | Apr 26, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos, Shopping & Markets
The original plan was to head to Firenze for the day (!), but I caught a short, quick cold Friday night and couldn’t dare think of hopping on the train this morning. (I could hardly get out of bed!) After eventually getting up-and-at-em, I dragged myself up to the Naviglio Grande, knowing they were having their monthly Antiques Market. “OK, fine. I’ll go there instead.”
Glad I did! I found some wonderful things. I’m enthralled with old penmanship and typography, fabric and sewing notions, curious boxes and just plain cool things. Here’s my day’s assortment:
Old post cards, religious medals and pen nibs.
I selected a pencil drawing from 1888, an old travel journal from 1961, report cards from 1907+, a cheese sign, decorative cloth tape, “money substitute papers” from the Comune di Varese from 1926 and some hat forms from Genova.
A bundle of 100-year-old postcards and a Superman school journal from 1980 were included in my day’s treasures. (1980 was 30 years ago! Wow.)
by Maureen | Apr 26, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, People, Photo of the Day, Photos, Shopping & Markets
On the last Sunday of the month, one can browse Antiques and Flea-Market-Finds for as far as the eye can see (2 kilometers), on both sides of the Naviglio Grande, the Grand Canal. (This canal intersects with the Naviglio Pavese, the one I ride my bike along.)
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There is still some limited boat traffic along the canal when they’ve let the water in.
The antique sellers’ stalls also stretch far out into the side streets that branch off of the canal.
Linens? Oh yes. I find plenty. And they’re gorgeous. And the sellers know what they have and charge prices accordingly. There are few, if any, “steals” here. But the high quality linen and cotton, with the embroidery and open-work stitching, are superb examples of the old European linens. (I would love to buy them all up… but for what?)
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Beautiful, finely-crafted instruments of all sorts! The asking price of this Astrolabe was 700 Euro. (Cough, cough. Roughly $1000 right now.) But it was lovely.
I don’t even know what this Parisian instrument is.
These look like porcelain portraits of Mao and his family.
An interesting assortment of portraits.
It is startling to me how often I see the American flag, or some representation of it.
Isn’t this luggage out of the stereotypical “Italian Holiday Travel Movie”?
The dog matches the upholstery. I missed him at first.
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Smile. I’m on Candid Camera (for my Seester.)
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This guy sold horse figures of every sort.
I had been walking around for hours and stumbled upon some finds. “How much for this group of papers and books?” “50 Euro.” “How about 40?” How about 45 and you let me buy you a drink.” I laughed. It caught me completely by surprise. I bought the papers and books for 45 Euro and Graziano and I stepped 10 feet across the cobblestone and had a glass of cold white wine at a Sushi Bar on a hot afternoon and talked for a little while. So funny. But it was a pleasant and charming break.
Cool hat box. (Cool typography.)
As the warm afternoon waned, the cafés started to fill with people enjoying the Milanese aperitivo. The musicians showed up in the old Vicolo dei Lavandai, the washing station of the 19th century where women gathered to scour their clothes against washboard stones as their wash water flowed off into the canal.
Who’da thought I’d see this?! Wait! I should have bought the one a few issues back: Settembre 1957!
Packing up to go home, this man still wore hat, bow tie and white coat as he packed his lamps into a salami box.
So now, do you have an idea of what’s for sale at an Italian Antique/Flea Market?
by Maureen | Apr 10, 2010 | Discoveries, Introspection, Journal
The first order of business this morning was to usher the flock* of ants OUT. As soon as the weather warmed, the ants returned. When I first shared my apartment with them last summer and mentioned it to a friend here, he said “It’s summer.” As in, “Ants? And your point is?” (A corollary response:”Welcome to Italy.”)
For the most part, they’re really no bother. They stay in their nice, little two-lane highway from a break in the exterior wall, along the baseboard of my kitchen cabinets all the way to my little garbage bin. They don’t stray much, except for the occasional wanderer up on the kitchen counter.
With a wet tissue, I wiped and crushed the ant-stream, hurrying before word made it down the line and prevented me from getting them. When I got to the garbage bin, I carefully lifted it up, along with its external and internal crowds of ants, and carried it off to the basement garbage-sorting center… which is right underneath my apartment and probably doesn’t help at all!
There’s a new sticker on the garbage room door, noting treatments against rats and cockroaches. Tiny ants are one thing. Rats and cockroaches are quite another.
*They don’t seem very “army”-like.
by Maureen | Apr 2, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Graffiti & Street Art, Graphics, Journal, People, Photo of the Day, Photos
They put the temporary, scaffold-and-tin poster walls back up in my neighborhood just in time to feature advertising for the regional elections. Three inch holes are bored into the sidewalk, with rubber plugs for the off-season. Overnight, they can pop the plugs and throw up the walls clean and ready to be weighted with soon-flaking layers of advertising.
The other day, I was amused that as time, rains and passersby have swept past, the portraits on the political posters have been “enhanced”.
Isn’t this one “Art with a capital A”, all on its own!? It’s my favorite.
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Somehow, “bellezza” – beauty – seems an appropriate headline for this dandy.
And, side-by-side, this man was fortunate to have two renditions of his portrait.
The word showing through the peeled section below – “vincere” – means “to win”. Hmm. Subtle.
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by Maureen | Mar 30, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Firenze, Food!, Incredible Locations, Journal, Meals, Photos, Shopping & Markets
If you haven’t been to Firenze (Florence), put it on your “life list” of must-see places in the world. Really.
Two years ago I spent a couple of afternoons exploring Firenze, but I hadn’t been back since I returned to Italy last June. So I hopped on the train late last Friday morning, and less than two hours later, at 1:00, I arrived in Firenze and smiled. I walked from the train station to my hotel shooting photos along the way because I couldn’t wait until I put my bags down. I checked in, changed my clothes for the bit of humidity under the partly sunny skies, then left and took off walking for the next five hours.
If I were to move to Italy NOW, or want to relocate to another spot, I would pick Firenze.
Excerpts from my journal Friday night, 26 March 2010 , while resting my feet and having a delicious dinner:
“I love Firenze! At this point, with what I know and with my familiarity and my language, I’d move to Firenze. Milan was a great place to land and gave me anchors. I find much to interest me there. My camera is always at my side and I can stay as busy as I wish, but in just an afternoon, Firenze has thrilled me with its visuals, much the way that Venezia does.
“It’s very definitely a tourist town! I think that Spring/Easter vacations have begun because the clustering tour groups are everywhere and unavoidable. (I thought that, late March, I’d still be missing them all.)
“Firenze – Florence – is ‘tighter’. Narrower streets close into the center of town around the Duomo, and many ‘pedestrian-only’. the selection of little shops, restaurants and curious places gives much to explore without going far. The antiquity is a saturated wash over the town and gives it a texture that is lush across-the-board. Like Venezia, I could photograph here forever.
“I’m sitting at a table for two at Zá-Zá, a lovely, dar, funky, delicious trattoria just blocks from my Hotel Caravaggio. There’s been a table of four sitting near me having their meal, their drinks and their desserts. I smiled at them once… As they were leaving, the woman that had been nearest to me said goodbye – ‘Arrivederci‘. That tickles me.” (I highly recommend both the restaurant and the hotel.)
Excerpts from my journal Sunday afternoon, 28 March 2010 , on the train heading home to Milano:
“I had an incredible, full time in Firenze. So glad to have gone back, and with only an hour and 45-minute train ride, I could come for a day if I wanted to, or just an overnight.
“The city of Firenze, though packed with tourists, seems to have a quite comfortable parallel world of locals that go about their days and their work. With transportation and services so readily available, Firenze seems quite livable and pleasant.
“I very quickly got the-lay-of-the-land and covered much of the “Centro Storico” – the historic center of town – in my two days there, walking close to 20 hours overall.”
Yesterday evening, a friend asked by e-mail, “Should Florence be on my to-do list? What did you especially like about it?” I responded with an off-the-cuff, spontaneous list:
Everyone’s on foot or bike! The whole historic center, large radius, is almost all pedestrian-only with very few cars and some half-size, mini-buses. Walk everywhere. (I don’t think there IS a subway, but lots of public transportation.) Streets are narrow and closer in for easy strolling. NO traffic to even have to think about.
Absolutely fascinating art, history, culture, architecture at EVERY turn!
Historic sites. Historic art: Michelangelo’s David. Botticelli. Caravaggio. Dürer. Giotto. Leonardo. Lippi. Raphael. Rembrandt. Rubens. Titian. And so many more!
Visually lush. Vital, Small-city-energy.
VERY tourist-oriented (which I didn’t like having the vacation tours already swarming) but it felt like there was a parallel universe happening of people just going about their lives.
Florence doesn’t have the crazed-busy-frenzy of business-minded Milan.
Cool stuff for curious kids and adults alike. Sundials and crenulated towers.
Good gelato.
Neat bridges.
Street markets selling you-name-it.
Good cow-stomach sandwiches. (Lampredotto.)
The heartland of the Renaissance.
Oh. And they have curb-cuts designed for uninterrupted walking.
by Maureen | Mar 24, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos
They call it “Cavolfiore” or Cauliflower here, but Americans call it “Romanesco Broccoli”. Either way, it tastes great, it’s absolutely beautiful, and it’s math on your plate.
The Romanesco is a clear example of fractals and the fibonacci number sequence.
See how the whole head of Romanesco is made of smaller heads that mimic the shape of the bigger head, and each of those smaller heads is made of even smaller, duplicate heads? Fractals!
FRACTALS: “A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole… Because they appear similar at all levels of magnification, fractals are often considered to be infinitely complex (in informal terms).” (Check Wikipedia for cool examples and further explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal)
And you see the ever-expanding spiral emanating from the center point along which all the smaller heads are arranged? The Fibonacci sequence and the Fibonacci spiral!
FIBONACCI: “In the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers, starting with 0 and 1. Thus the sequence begins 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610 etc.” (Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci)
Click HERE for a beautiful video by Cristóbal Vila about numbers as they establish patterns in nature.
*TWO words are Italian!
by Maureen | Mar 21, 2010 | Cheese, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Introspection, Journal, Meals, People, Photo of the Day, Photos
Would you let 30 random strangers eat off your plate? Would you, in turn, eat off the plates of those 30 strangers?
The Uovo Performing Arts Festival included one “performance” yesterday of 30 individuals, by reservation only. “Mangia che ti fa bene”, “Eat that you will feel well.” For 10 euro, or about $13.50, I walked into the room to a very long table with 30 place settings, and a variety of ingredients:
- bread
- water
- eggs
- grana cheese
- cabbage
- parsley
- apples
- beets
- sesame seeds
- pumpkin seeds
- fennel
- olive oil
- garlic
- spices
- cooked peas
- oats
- radicchio
- spinach
- fresh ginger
- lemon
- leeks
- carrots
- walnuts
- fresh herbs
We were given limited, very loose guidelines.
We each grabbed a plastic apron from the group taped to the window.
Our project was to gather whatever combination of ingredients we desired, blend them and put the mix into a paper-lined, 3″ x 5″ foil pan. The 30 of us were elbow-to-elbow at the table and we were being filmed. We had graters, sieves, knives, bowls, half-moons and cutting boards at our disposal. Notes were provided about the health-inducing properties of each food item.
We asked for ingredients to be passed. We reached across the table. We laughed and chatted and mixed with our hands until our concoctions looked just right to us. Some pressed the ingredients through sieves for a uniform consistency. Others left chunks for spikes of flavor. Some formed loaf-like logs, while others patted their mix into flat casseroles. We bound up our creations in oven paper, scrawled our names on the wrap and sent the little tins off to be baked for 30-45 minutes.
While our dinners were baking, we were served lemon-slice salad, celery sticks with honey, and braised celeriac root. For our 10 euro, we also got a glass of red wine and some herb tea.
Trays of foil tins emerged from the oven, and the hostess called out names. One-by-one, the “performers”, the dinner guests, opened and tasted their creations. There were 30 recipes at the table. Like a groundswell, the sampling started. People reached over with their forks and sampled their neighbors’ meals, and everyone started passing their dish around for others to taste. It was remarkable the range of culinary directions we had each taken. I realized later that I could have gone in the sweet direction and combined bread, egg, apple, ginger, lemon and arrived at a dessert to contrast with all the savory gratins at the table.
I looked around, tickled, chuckling and amazed. Would this happen in the U.S.? Could it? How could I bring this experience to Seattle? To Burien? I easily tallied that the 30 people at 10 euros each only brought in 300 euros. And I looked at all the food, and the utensils, and the wine and thought that surely this was not a money-making proposition. In the U.S., liability insurance alone for a one-day event of this nature would probably be prohibitive.
And would people in the U.S. be willing to pass their dish for their unknown neighbor to sample from, and then fork a bite from their neighbor’s plate and relish the combination of ingredients different from their own?
This does give me ideas for an uncommon Thanksgiving dinner… but many in my family would likely balk at the idea. (But they wouldn’t be random strangers.)
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Here’s the official, “as advertised” description of the event:
The aftermath was a mess of a table!
by Maureen | Mar 18, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, People, Photos
Last June, just a few days after I had arrived here in Milano, I went to the Cimitero Monumentale – the Monumental Cemetery – to look around. It is, indeed, “monumental” and every bit worth an afternoon of strolling and looking. As they say, it is WAY over the top! One can study architecture, sculpture, typography and history. The structural monuments are bigger than my apartment and of every possible architectural style. Every family grave plot features a noteworthy sculpture. That cemetery provides a very concentrated study location, like none other I know.
So, back to Mary. In June, after being awestruck by the cemetery grounds themselves and feeling saturated by it all, I started toward the exit, through the main “gallery” building. I heard chanting and the monotone of prayer, and it changed my course. Around back and in the lower level is a small chapel. I approached the doorway and simply stood outside, listening to the rhythm of women saying the rosary. At the doorway was a simple stand with a listing of the names of the recently deceased, for whom the women were praying.
The handwriting stopped me! SO unlike what we learned long ago in school in the U.S. So European. So distinctive!
Lately, as I have continued to intensively “mine” Milano for design references, that very particular handwriting has pulled at me. I went back to the cemetery on Monday, to shoot the day’s page of names, however, the cemetery was closed. I went back again today and made a bee-line for the chapel front. Yes! There it was. That lovely, lyrical, not-quite-cursive pen! I photographed each of the 3 sheets posted there, then turned north for a tour of the cemetery.
Mary’s capital letter “M”:
During my slow amble, one of the cemetery workers approached me and asked if I wanted to see the Campari tomb. (This cemetery holds the remains of all the “big-name families” of Milano: Campari – the drink, Ferrari, Pirelli, Zucchi and many others. The sources of all the street names in town!) Of course I said yes, and he, Salvatore, took me to the northwest area of the grounds and to the grand tomb capped by a sculptural “Last Supper”. At it’s backside was an open vault with a beautiful mosaic covering walls and ceiling.
While Salvatore and I chatted, I showed him the pictures I had shot of the wonderful handwriting. I asked if he knew who had done it and said that I would like to meet her. (It speaks of femininity, so I assumed it was a woman.) I didn’t understand everything he said, but it was something about 3 o’clock and come back another time. (It was then about 1:30.) I thanked him for his help, said goodbye and kept looking around.
Time flies in that incredible cemetery. It would be hard to tire of that place, impossible to cease seeing something new. I saw Salvatore again and it was after 3:00. He suggested that I might be able to meet the person that wrote the pages, so he took me to the brown-cloaked priest and I explained who I was looking for. Father signaled for me to follow him, and we wrapped through the crypt-filled hallways to a nondescript door which led into the back of the chapel. He took me through a few interior halls to a room with a western window and the afternoon light… and Mary.
I told her how beautiful her handwriting is and that I couldn’t stop thinking about it lately. It’s the most beautiful and distinctive I’ve seen here. Using all the “polite” Italian I could remember, I asked her if she would kindly write out an alphabet and number set for me, with upper and lower case letters. She seemed tickled and agreed, but asked if I would come back another day to pick it up. She wanted time to do it well.
Part of today’s list of names speaks of Don Giuseppe Gervasini, a priest that lived from 1867 to 1941 and is believed to have special healing powers. Mary – pronounced more like “Mah-ree” with a light trill to the “r” – carefully shuffled some papers in a deep drawer in her office and removed a wallet-sized photo of Father Gervasini. She gave it to me and instructed me to keep it with me always, saying that Don Gervasini would keep me protected. (A mass is being held in the chapel this Saturday at 10:00 in honor of Don Giuseppe Gervasini’s “name day” – onomastico. I guess I know what I’m doing Saturday morning.)
“Mary, Salvatore told me that you’re 84 years old.” “Yes. How old are YOU?” When I answered, she said, “I thought you were 30! You look like it!” I told her she’s sweet for saying so. She gave me a kiss on each cheek goodbye and I told her I’d be back tomorrow to come pick up the alphabet. (I’ll take her some flowers and some greeting cards that I made, as a little “thank you”.)
I absolutely beamed all afternoon as I left the cemetery! To have not only seen more of the handwriting I enjoyed so much, but to MEET the woman that does it, AND to have her agree to write out a full alphabet for me, AND to have her be so sweet to chat with… And I have such fondness for elder women. It is exactly these unexpected, unplanned, never-to-be-imagined meetings that charm my time here in Milano.
