by Maureen | Apr 13, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Introspection, Journal, People, Photos
Running parallel to the Naviglio Pavese canal, between the bike path and the highway, is a drainage ditch overgrown by a tangle of brush and trees in every state of growth or death. Luigi knows this. The 82-year-old man rides his 70-year-old bike along the canal and stops to cut deadwood.
Today he worked on one particularly good dead tree, much like an alder, with plenty of big wood. Knuckles bloodied from hard work in the brush, Luigi spent his time gathering the arm-sized and smaller sticks. With his bow saw, he made half cuts in the wood, then cracked the branches across his knee to break them.
His bike is what stopped me. I don’t think I’ve seen a bike so uniformly coated with such a mist of rust from end-to-end. Think about it. He’s been riding this same bike since he was 12. It has only one speed: however fast his legs are capable of that day.
Luigi and I chatted for a little while, and he allowed me to take a few photos as we talked and he worked. I didn’t understand everything he said, but we enjoyed the meeting. I said goodbye, then walked back to my bike 20 feet away while Luigi finished loading his bike. Then I heard the bike fall and the wood tumble. It had all been out of balance and spilled.
I walked back, and held the bike for Luigi while he reloaded the wood. He excused himself, wanting me to be out of the way as he swiftly raised his curved machete, and thrust the tip down into one of the larger logs for the ride home. He bound it all with heavy string that stretched across the bow saw blade laying flat on top of the woodpile. (In my mind, I questioned that, but who am I to tell him how to tie down his firewood!?) He pushed his bike to the other side of the trail where there’s a canalside railing. I didn’t quite understand what he was explaining, but I soon understood by watching him.
Luigi’s legs are bad. He propped himself and his bike against the railing. I then held the bike while he used his hands to lift his right leg up and over the top bar. He asked me if anyone was approaching from behind, and I steadied him on his bike as he propelled himself into motion. I ran ahead to make sure that my own bike was well out of his way.
As I followed along behind him, I wondered how in the world he was going to stop where the path meets the road up ahead. And how was he going to get started again?! I too stopped at the path end, and Luigi was stalled there, half-straddling his bike. Another cyclist stopped to offer help. I finally realized that Luigi wanted me to hold the bike still while he manually lifted his leg off. He walked the bike to the crosswalk, and declined any further assistance. I watched him as he walked his dear old bike and his load of wood across the street and down a narrow alley toward home.
He’ll be back tomorrow for the logs.
– – –
It doesn’t matter what kind of day I’m having, or what I’m preoccupied with, but a brief, chance encounter like this with Luigi leaves me smiling and bright. These are the moments they don’t advertise in the travel brochures, but they are the highlights of my time here.
by Maureen | Apr 10, 2010 | Discoveries, Food!, Introspection, Journal, Shopping & Markets
THIS is the time to be in Milano. The temperature is warm enough (75 degrees) to be comfortable in light linen and cotton, and enjoyable having the windows open to fresh air, but not so warm that there’s any thought yet of air conditioning.
I had a wandering, leisurely ride through the farmland exploring roads I hadn’t tried before. Then I showered, changed and took off walking up along Corso San Gottardo. When I need a variety of miscellanea, this is the local area I frequent.
Last September, my local Bartell’s hadn’t given me enough of a thyroid medication. It’s a pretty simple and standard thing, but necessary. I needed to buy a month’s supply and expected the process to be complicated. (International prescription refill?!) I took the bottles into a local Farmacia, they looked up the chemical component of my prescription online and walked over to a drawer for a braille-embossed box of 50 pills for 2.90 euro, about $3.90. (Hmm. At that price, maybe I should stock up before I return to Seattle? Isn’t it about $33 for a month’s supply back at home?)
There’s also this notion in my head about buying some “cool” eyeglasses to take home as my “souvenir”…Glasses that you’d never find in the U.S.…Glasses that say “somewhere else”. On San Gottardo, I stepped into a centro ottico – optic center – that I had been in before. After looking around for a while, the man that owns the shop said that he remembered me. He wasn’t just flirting. He recalled the glasses I brought in two years ago when the little screw had fallen out of the hinge. In the summer of 2008 he had replaced that little screw at no charge, and simply gave me the glasses back with a smile. (To be here in a foreign country, a big city, and be remembered from two years previous…Remarkable and touching!)
There’s something about the Italians and lingerie and hosiery. They do them well. With the warmer weather, I wanted some lightweight, little socks, just enough to provide a lining, but also interesting enough with lace and fishnet and other fun patterns. I’ve scoured shops in the Seattle area and just don’t find the selection there. (Yeah. In Seattle we’re usually bundling up, not going lightweight.) I bought several pairs of socks and hose (and will have to consider stocking up on those, too, before returning to Seattle!)
The whole street was filled with people walking their kids, their dogs and their lovers. People were seated and sipping caffé, vino or Campari. It was the time of the passeggiata, the evening stroll, and the weather had offered up a time so conducive to the ritual.
As I walked back home, I stopped at the little corner bakery that has my favorite trancio pizza – pizza that is cut to the size you want and charged by weight – and bought a piece with prosciutto, mushrooms and artichokes.
Across the street, at the corner flower vendor, I selected one fragrant lily stem and carried it toward home.
(What can’t I find along San Gottardo?!)
Veering off of Gottardo, and just blocks away from home, I saw my favorite, local bartender, Robbie, in the window of the Mayflower Pub and stopped to say “hello” and give him that European two-cheek kiss. We chatted for a moment. (“Favorite Bartender”? It sounds like I’m at the bar all the time. Actually, very rarely. But both NABA and Scuola Leonardo Language School have their student social nights there so I’ve seen Robbie enough to stop and say hello. He’s a sweet guy.)
I floated the rest of the way home. At almost ten months, I actually know people here, and am recognized by people here. I can wave at people as I walk past their shop windows or they stop me on the sidewalk to talk.
This is an indescribable and stunning time… I marvel at it all.
by Maureen | Apr 7, 2010 | Canals, Cheese, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos, Shopping & Markets
Wednesday is “ricotta day”, the day they make fresh ricotta at the Cascina Femegro.
Even though I had just been there yesterday, a sunny afternoon and the thought of hours-fresh ricotta on some nice bread easily convinced me to hop on my bike. I headed south along the canal, and turned west into the farmland.
There are old, stone troughs spanning the drainage ditches that wind through the farmland.
The one-lane road is cyclists’ heaven. Add sunshine overhead on a spring day, and it’s perfection.
I bought 4 tubs of cheese: 1 for me, and 3 to give away to friends. I had no idea at the time that “friends” would include 9 cats in a lazy-but-playful huddle at another farm along the way home. They very cautiously came over to me as I crouched at the road side, did the “kitty squeak” and rubbed my fingers together trying to entice them. I’ve seen them there before, either on or under the roof of the small outbuilding at this historic building. The most affectionate was the tabby mamma cat that wallowed in the attention.
“OK”, I thought, “The ricotta was cheap. These kitties would enjoy it so much.” Yes. I unwrapped a domed mound of ricotta and split it up into several locations, allowing the timid cats to have a bite to eat away from the more dominant cats. After eating ’til their bellies were full, each found a spot in the sun and did their contented cat preening.
It was nice to get my “kitty fix” since I’m catless here in Milano (and since my kitty, Laddie, has died back in Seattle during my absence).
I wonder what the farmer will think when he finds the empty ricotta tub, and some remnants of cheese…
by Maureen | Apr 6, 2010 | Canals, Cheese, Food!, Introspection, Journal, Meals
The windows are open to the day’s remaining warmth while trout and green beans grill and steam for dinner.
I had awakened this morning to bright sun direct into my bedroom, and the day held promise. After some tasks around the house and a light lunch, I went for a bike ride along the canal, past magnolias, cherry trees and forsythia, and then west into the farm land. I rode to the dairy and bought grana padano and fresh scamorza cheeses. Tomorrow, Wednesday, is fresh ricotta day. That’s worth riding back to the farm for! They will have just finished making it by afternoon and it’s so light and fresh it should be eaten by the spoonful out of its tub.
The rice paddies are green with the first new growth, and I dreamily followed the curled road back through them, returning to the canalside path. The temperature and sunny, blue sky were so delicious, and I felt warm and easy.
by Maureen | Mar 24, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos
Winter has been long and gray and holding tight, unwilling to give way. But it’s late March now, and winter goes grudgingly, allowing spring to tip toe in.
It’s rained much of this last week, and I haven’t been out on two wheels for too long. So in spite of forecast rain and the questionable sky, I suited up and headed canalside.
It was a thrill to see signs of spring at last. Cherry blossoms. Forsythia. Wildflowers in the grass. I heard the birds singing in the trees and saw a highly-colored cock pheasant in the grass along the feeder creek. The willow catkins have burst and hang long. Trees and shrubs are leafing out. And I caught a whiff of something fragrant.
At long last. We have all certainly earned our springtime here.
by Maureen | Mar 24, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos
There’s an ingenious citizen taking action along the frontage road that borders the canal and leads to the bike path. Why wait until the city gets around to patching chuckholes on this minor road? Fill them with ceramic tile scraps! It may not be a perfect solution, but it’s an improvement.
by Maureen | Mar 17, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Graphics, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos
When here in Milano in the summer of 2008, I stumbled upon a Zucchi Store just a half block north of the Duomo. They sell lovely household linens (sheets and towels) and they had a curious display in the window. I didn’t understand what I was seeing, so I had to go in.
Emerging up through a very large, circular hole in the first floor was a towering stack of flat wooden blocks. What were the blocks? It was then that I found out about the Zucchi Collection of wood-and-pewter blocks for printing fabric.
From the Zucchi Website: “The Collection’s 12,000 designs bear witness, over a period which spans three centuries from 1785 to 1935, to a fashion that was both varied and popular. Such tastes were apparent during one of the most energetic and fertile periods of European culture, which ended with the first stylistic experiments of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements.
“The Collection houses 56,000 printing blocks, an extraordinary number by any reckoning and one which presents concrete problems not only of space but also of storage in structures able to support the weight of many tonnes. The Collection is housed in three different storage locations: the Zucchi office in Casorezzo, the Via Foscolo location in Milan and a warehouse in Ossona.
“To make the Collection accessible not only to scholars but also to the fashion people, it was necessary to choose criteria by which the artefacts could be subdivided. The Zucchi Collection has been divided into six categories, which are identified in terms of iconographic forms: abstract, cashmere, floral, geometric, ornamental and pictorial. The Collection has been further subdivided according to the specific uses not only for the borders of the materials but also for foulards, bandanas, various ties, scarves and cravats, etc. A special data card, in computerised and paper formats, has been assigned to every series of blocks. Each of these contains various items of information about the handblock concerned, including the number of pieces which make up the structure, the design style it is capable of reproducing, its historical period and its origins. Attention has also been given to the question of conserving these structures and rightly so because the wood is sensitive material. The humidity and temperature levels require strict control and beeswax and turpentine must be applied to maintain the elasticity of the wood.”
A mere fraction of the collection has been on display on the lower floor of the Zucchi Store, including floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelves holding the numbered wood blocks. (They are now in the process of moving these blocks to another location.) Note that some designs have 3-5 different blocks to create the full design. (They are all numbered alike.) Being a lover of textiles I was immediately enamored of the collection.
Fast-forward almost 2 years and now I’m living in Milano. Last Fall I found a curious and creative textile studio not far away named “L’Hub” on the Naviglio Grande, the “big” canal. One, they were selling vintage Zucchi linen and cotton dishtowels from the mid- and late-1900s. (Yes. I bought a bunch.) Two, they offer all sorts of creative textile classes including dyeing, sewing, construction, AND printing fabric with the centuries-old Zucchi blocks! Can you say “Sign me up!”?
I enrolled in the 3-hour class held last Saturday afternoon, taught by artist Franco Duranti (at the very far left in the next photo). Among other things, Franco is a painter, engraver, and video artist AND since 2007, he’s been creating original works with the Zucchi wood blocks! Below is a photo of the working studio at L’Hub. Some women were taking a sewing class, while two other women were also taking the fabric stamping class.
I wanted “classic”. I had just seen the Frette Textile Exhibit a week ago. I’m enthralled by the traditional fabric handwork of generations past and am especially inspired by my Great Great Grandmother’s work, done at age 12 in 1861. She crafted a cross-stitch sampler in “Turkey Red” on cream-colored cloth, and that color combination has launched me ever since my Grandmother gave me the sampler in 1975.
On the neighboring streets (on that recent day when I was getting snowflakes in my eyes) I scouted fabric stores and came away with Italian, 100% Linen. I bought a meter of fabric and took it home to prewash.
In familiarizing myself with the printing process, I chose a simple fleur-de-lis pattern printed in “carminio” – carmine red – on the linen. Note how, in this case, the block carries an “island” of cast pewter attached to the wood,
The following is an intricate, cast-pewter, paisley design from the “Cashmere” group of blocks in the collection. THIS makes my heart melt! Unfortunately, I was not able to print with this block, but printed with one I found that was as close as possible.
In gathering fabric for printing, I had also gone BACK to the Zucchi store downtown and they just happened to be having a sale! I bought two sets of sheets. One set is 100% cotton, satin finish with a subtle, printed khaki/cream pattern. I printed right over the top of the pattern to create a set of sheets like no other in the world.
I also paid a visit to the second-hand store 2 blocks away. I found white, cotton button-end pillowcases and bought all six at 2 euro each (about $2.75) When I got them home to wash them, I looked inside and noticed a… Zucchi label! Of course.
My plan now is to return to the L’Hub studio for a solo 3-hour stint to embellish the pieces I began, and to print even more.
As I wallow in Art and Design during my time here in Italy, I can’t imagine a more exhilarating addition to my list of design experiences than printing with the Zucchi handblocks at L’Hub!
by Maureen | Mar 9, 2010 | Introspection, Quips
It’s March. It’s 3:00 in the afternoon and it’s snowing. Crap. I’m so ready for the Springtime that Seattle is having right now! Enough of this COLD!
My Seattle neighbors called the other day to tell me how much they’re enjoying looking out to the flowers blooming in my yard. Flowers? What flowers? It’s still winter here (except that the farmers and gardeners along the canal have been out preparing the soil for planting the last few, sunny days when I’ve been out for a ride.)
Basta!
I think I’ll got out for a walk…
by Maureen | Feb 25, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, People, Photos
Nicoletta rode over the overpass at the same time I did and then began to move ahead. I called out, “Excuse me. I have a question.” She slowed a bit, I pulled up alongside of her and we rode the rest of the way together, talking. “Why are there no other women cyclists?” I mentioned that I see only 1 woman per 200 or 300 cyclists.
(Just recently I wrote about this in the “Rolling Ciao” post.)
She said that they don’t like to get tired or sweaty, and that they don’t like to go out unless the weather is warmer.
It was such a surprise and a treat to see her, and we enjoyed the chat along the way. Nicoletta is also an independent consultant, and therefore, has a flexible time schedule. And she lives close by. I gave her my card and we may ride now and then in the afternoons together.
She just came back from a bike tour out of Rome in January and will forward the bike touring information to me. An Italian road tour is sounding very good to me these days.
It pleases me that I can just be riding along, and have such a wonderful encounter out-of-the-blue. Those moments are the real high points of my being here, and they’re the simplest.
by Maureen | Feb 13, 2010 | Canals, Cheese, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Photos, Shopping & Markets
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 the same old “cascina” (large, formerly-fortified farm) that Angelo had shown me. The farm store had been closed that time before, and though they were closed again, a young woman came out of the house and welcomed me into the shop.
“What do you recommend?”, I asked her. She pointed out all of their own farm-produced foods and I selected fresh ricotta, fresh mozzarella, brown rice and salami. What could be better?!
I found a way to secure the little bundle on my bike and continued my ride. There was a woman on a pink scooter. A lawn hosting 4 peacocks. An old tile roof warming 3 black cats. 1 Woman on a bike. Swelling buds on the trees. And a stop to say “hello” to Padre Pio at his shrine in Zibido San Giacomo. What a day!
Gauging the position of the sun and the remaining daylight and warmth, I went as far as Noviglio then turned around to head north back to home.
The very first thing upon coming in the door was to open the ricotta and mozzarella and have a taste. OH…MY! That fresh ricotta was better than most ice cream. I simply got myself a spoon and started eating it. Wow. Delicious. And the salami was good, too.
I’m really liking this. Go for a bike ride and, not far out of the city, pick up home grown rice and fresh ricotta cheese. (This is so unlike my previous life experience.)
