Just arrived this morning after complex travel prep due to Covid-19, two days of almost no sleep, and 24 hours of travel. Door-to-door.
But so content as I sit here in my canal-side appartamento, hearing the apperitivo hub-bub along the Naviglio Grande (Grand Canal) through the double-pane windows. The Christmas light decorations illuminate my apartment.
I’m on the third floor, as Americans would call it. “Secondo Piano” as Italians would say. What we call the first floor is the “terra piano“, the ground floor. The “first floor” is the floor up from that.
“Ho messo tutto a posto. Tutto in ordine. Sistemato. Organizzato.” I put everything just right. Everything in order. Systematized. Organized.
A great flat with a quite ample kitchen, dining table (desk), living room, and non-scary stairs that go up to the loft bedroom and bathroom. (Going up the stairs during the day to use the bathroom is better than having to navigate the stairs down…and back up…in the dark middle of the night.)
I’m on the north side of the canal, so I will get morning and daylight sun streaming in from the canal-side, tall, balcony doors. That thrills me.
And I’m in my traditional neighborhood: “Zona Navigli“. The Canal Zone. I’ve always been in this area and it feels like home. Only a couple of times smack ON the canal, but this has become my default spot. I have friends, favorite restaurants, grocery stores, little shops that I frequent.
Two years have passed since I was last here. It feels like ages, but also like no time at all. Feels like almost yesterday as I move through town to get “home” to my apartment.
But also, the world has changed. Milano has changed. I’ve changed. Italy… and the whole world, bore horrible onslaught from the Covid pandemic… and we still bear it, and likely will for who knows how long.
Italy has “strict regulations” in place, not wanting to endure the loss they bore when the pandemic began. But I do see caution being set aside more than I imagined. So I have to navigate and create my own personal safety as I am comfortable.
I am so glad to be here. This place…Milano…Italia…has been feeding my heart, my brain, my soul, since 2008, every year adding to the bank of inspiration, reference and memory.
I just couldn’t imagine staying away another year. My time here feeds me. Feeds my being.
My Apartment Along the Grand Canal
My “block” along the canal
My apartment along the canal, with it’s bedroom dormer
Entering my apartment, into the kitchen
My living room with high doors that open to a balcony with the canal view
My loft bedroom
My bathroom, with a big shower
Classic “ringhiera” courtyard, outside my apartment
The stairway up to my apartment
My Neighborhood in the “Zona Navigli”, Canal Zone
The view from my balcony, looking out along the “Naviglio Grande”, the Grand Canal.
Looking west along the canal, past my apartment
Auguri and Vativision
“Auguri”. Best Wishes
Piazza 24 Maggio
San Gottardo
Market stalls at La Darsena.
Looking south down the Naviglio Pavese.
I know how to eat!
Linguine with teeny, tiny “seppiolini”, little squid
Bread platter at Al Pont de Ferr
Cauliflower. Foamy, and neither soup
Gnocchi with black truffle
Warm “salad” of octopus, potato and taggiasche olives. My favorite
Mussels
Shrimp, tomatoes, pane carasau
“Alici”, fresh anchovies with lemon juice and EVOO
Smoked tuna
Pane carasau, octopus and potato, smoked tuna, scallop
Stormy, wild wind and rain last night here in Milano. End of summer, early fall. But I arrived four days ago to a day that was fresh and bright and comfortable. The kind of day that makes one relax into the perfection of the moment. I had returned to my home-away-from-home.
This is the eighth year that I’ve made this “pilgrimage”, here to fill myself up with inspiration through a life so very much unlike that which I lead the rest of the year. Everything is different: my pace, my friends, my menu choices. Milano’s very urban surroundings yield proximity to everything, both an historic and contemporary built environment, the contrast of chaos and beauty. As a visual person, artist and designer, my eyes just can’t get enough of this place, this Italy. Details at every turn spark me. My time here in Italy, making Milano my home, adds to my perspective, shapes me and gives me something to take back to my Burien. I am so well-fed here, in all ways.
Eating Well
“Un caffè normale” – This is what you get if you order coffee. It’s the beginning of each day and the end of every meal.
Un caffè in an 1850’s cup.
Carlotta Cafè
The Carlotta Cafè has been a favorite of mine for the last 8 years.
They are dear people that I rush to see when I arrive.
Son, Erik, has learned the family recipes at the Carlotta Cafè, (named after his sister), and carves a whole, roasted pig for a large dinner party. Ninni, Erik’s father, stands in the background.
Insalata Tiepida di Piovra e Patate – Warm Salad of Octopus and Potatoes. My favorite! Fresh, marinated anchovies in the background.
Al Coniglio Bianco – The White Rabbit
A favorite, wonderful place along the Grand Canal – Naviglio Grande – owned by friend, Giampiero, and serving great food and wine: Al Coniglio Bianco.
Al Coniglio Bianco offers seating outside, along the canal, as well as within its intimate, cozy interior.
Foodstuffs gathered at Al Coniglio Bianco.
A large skillet of mussels, clams and scampi on paccheri pasta with a simple, fresh tomato sauce. (Frankie’s, in Burien, should take a lesson…)
After plucking shellfish and crustaceans in their lovely sauce, the napkin was rather soiled.
Al Pont de Ferr – “At the Iron Bridge”
A wonderful, and unusual, selection of breads on the table at Pont de Ferr.
Appetizers of a slider, stuff olive and patè morsel.
Risotto with pesto and green beans.
Tortelli with zabaglione and fresh peas.
Part of a mid-day snack: “Nervetti”, a pressed loaf of beef tendons, nerves and cartilage, prepared with onions. (I think it’d be good on pizza.)
Time with Friends
Painter friends along the canal: Luigi Marchesi, Loredano Rizzotti and Renato Giananti.
For the record, “Italian Food” is SO much more than pizza, spaghetti, ravioli and fettucine alfredo. In fact, “fettucine alfredo” doesn’t exist except in the restaurants catering to tourists away from home looking for their favorite edible myth.
Hold your hand up in front of you with your thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. That measures the typical range Americans imagine of the variety of food in Italy. Now, stick your arms straight out to your sides. That’s the REAL measure of the bountiful range of edible deliciousness you’ll encounter in Italy. And that bounty is not at all spread uniformly throughout “the boot”. You can go 50 kilometers and find a completely different food culture. There are some foods you’ll find in one town only.
I urge you. When you answer that call to go explore Italy, please don’t fall back on ordering pizza, spaghetti and ravioli. Sure, they will be good, and not like what you’ve had in America. Rather, find out what the local specialty is and eat it with gusto. And please, whatever you do, don’t seek out that well-known, international hamburger chain. You’ll be in the land of good food! Eat well! You might just find your next, new favorite dish.
In the last month, I stayed in the north of Italy: Milano, Sanremo, Genova, Pavia and small towns scattered in the hills south of Milan. The following photos show a selection of the dishes I ate with great pleasure.
(For contrast, check out “Eating the South” to see some of the foods I enjoyed when I traveled in Sicily, the southern coast and “heel of the boot” in 2011.)
(Click on the first photo to view the images “plate-size” and click through the slide show.)
Sardenara
Sardenara, freshly made by my friend, Sandra. Foccacia dough base with a simple tomato sauce, anchovies, taggiasche olives, capers and a few garlic cloves. Sanremo
Tortelli di Verdura
Tortelli di Verdura. Trattoria da Pasquale. Parasacco (south of Milano)
Salumi and caprese
Salumi and cheese plate with caprese. Sanremo
Octopus and potato salad. My favorite!
Warm octopus and potato salad – Insalata di piovra e patate. Carlotta Cafè. Milano
Fresh cheese and bread
High in the hills and hungry near Pizzocorno, we stopped at a cheese maker’s farm and bought a few slices of cheese and bread, to be eaten on a slab of wood as our table. Pizzocorno, Oltrepò Pavese
Lemon sorbet with fresh strawberries
Lemon sorbet with fresh strawberries
Pizza and beer
Pizza and Birra Moretti along the Grand Canal – Naviglio Grande. Milano
An UN-Italian breakfast
Sauteed zucchini, onion, beets and a little cheese formed and baked. Old silver and linen. Milano
Cheese with potato crust and pickled vegetables
Cheese in a crust of potato threads, with pickled vegetables. – Formaggio salva in crosta di palate con giardiniera. Trattoria Il Postiglione, Rubbiano di Credera
Pasta with beet sauce and gorgonzola cheese
Paccheri pasta with pureed beet sauce and gorgonzola ‘piccante’, cooked by painter, Loredano Rizzotti. Milano
Pasta with snails
House-made tagliatelle pasta with nettles and garlic sweetened with vine snails and mascarpone. Tagliatelle alle ortiche e aglio addolcito con lumache di vigna e mascarpone. Trattoria Il Postiglione, Rubbiano di Credera
Guinea fowl and garden vegetables
Free-range guinea fowl cooked with black tea, served with garden vegetables. – Faraona ruspante al thè nero con verdure dell’ orto. Trattoria Il Postiglione, Rubbiano di Credera
Baked apple with fresh strawberries
Baked apple slices with fresh strawberries and cinnamon. Milano
UN-Italian Salad
Not a typical Italian ‘insalatone’ – big salad – with greens, fresh asparagus, tomato and basil. Milano
Mixed, fried foods
‘Frito Misto’, a mix of fried foods, including zucchini flowers, fish, arancine (deep fried rice balls). Milano
Pasta with meat ragú and asparagus
Egg pasta with white meat sauce and asparagus. – Stracci di pasta all’uova con ragù di carni bianche e asparagi. Trattoria Il Postiglione, Rubbiano di Credera
Lunch table setting
Lunch table setting with Ewa and Loredano. Milano
Lunch table setting
Lunch table setting
Cabbage, onion, carrot, egg
After going into ‘carb overload’, I craved some veggies with a little protein: cabbage, onion, carrot and egg. Milano
Italian breakfast
This is the typical Italian breakfast: a shot of caffè – ‘espresso’ – and a pastry, often filled with Nutella or some other horribly sweet concoction. (Just can’t do it, myself.) Pasticceria Cucchi. Milano
Appetizer bread and veggie tarts
Appetizers of bread and veggie tarts. Genova
Prosciutto, salame and lardo
Prosciutto, salame and lardo – yes, LARD. Mmm. Try it. Delicious. L’Ustaria di Giùgaton, Pavia
How to drink wine at the Gíügaton
How to drink wine at the Gíügaton. There’s even a way to hold it in your hands. L’Ustaria di Giùgaton, Pavia
Pisarè
Pisarè – A combination of thumbnail-sized ‘gnocchi’ pasta nubs, beans, tomato and hot pepper. L’Ustaria di Giùgaton, Pavia
Strawberry macedonia
A very typical Italian dessert is ‘macedonia’, mixed, cut-up fruit. This is fresh strawberries with shaved chocolate and mint flowers, prepared by Loredano. Milano
Russian salad with chicken
Russian salad – insalata russa – with a sort of pickled chicken – pollo in carbine. L’Ustaria di Giùgaton, Pavia
Farinata
Farina – Garbanzo bean flour batter which is spiked with olive oil and salt and baked in a very hot oven. Here served plain and with two different cheeses. Genova
Coffee creme brûlée with cinnamon gelato
Coffee creme brûlée with cinnamon gelato – Creme brulé al caffè con gelato alla canella. Triennale Design Museum. Milano
Marmalade and chocolate tarts
Marmalade and chocolate tarts – Trattoria da Pasquale. Parasacco (south of Milano)
Dolce con zabaglione
Dessert of crunchy, fried, sweet nuggets surrounded by a ‘zabaglione’ sauce. L’Ustaria di Giùgaton, Pavia
Foccacia di recco
Foccacia di recco – Stracchino cheese trapped in between two, super-thin layers of dough. Genova
Panna cotta with chocolate
Panna cotta with chocolate sauce. Genova
Fruit tart
Fruit tart. Milano
Pickled, fried fish
Pickled fish – Pesce sottaceto. Trattoria da Pasquale. Parasacco (south of Milano
Rabbit with geranium
Rabbit with geranium – Coniglio con geranio. Trattoria da Pasquale. Parasacco (south of Milano)
Fennel and ‘bottarga’
Fennel and shaved fish roe – finocchio con bottarga. Carlotta Cafè. Milano
Tuna with tomatoes and taggiasche olives
Tuna with tomatoes and olives – Tonno al’isolana. Carlotta Cafè. Milano
Baked orata with taggiasche olives
Baked orata with taggiasche olives – Orata al forno con olive taggiasche. Carlotta Cafè. Milano
Tagliolino pasta with shaved asparagus
Tagliolino pasta with shaved asparagus – Tagliolino alla vecchia Milano, ‘la version primaverile’. Triennale Design Museum. Milano
Lime pudding with mint sauce
Lime pudding with mint sauce – Morbida di lime con salsa alla menta. Triennale Design Museum. Milano
It’s been a pause, a respite from one endeavor so I could shift energies and surge headlong into others. I took a break from documentation so that participation could be intense and entire. And it has been.
After the visual lushness of Prague last July, I returned to Milano for just a few days before heading back out for a 12-day whirlwind typographic tour with Legacy of Letters. Our days started early, ended late and were filled in between with letterforms and conversation. These months later, many of us still keep in touch. The lasting connection is a surprise gift.
The tour ended and I returned to Milano to gather my things and my wits, suntanned, thinking in Italian and in the dreamy end-days of goodbye. I had no plan to return to Italy 10 months later and didn’t know when I would.
I’m a veteran of re-entry now, but it still plunges me deep and solo and quiet. It takes a while to get my head together after returning from life off-and-away. It’s as if I’ve been to the moon and back. I hunker down and get private, and very selective.
Really, it takes a couple months to get back in my groove here, not feeling jarred and jolted by contrasts and absences.
In time, I got my momentum back up and strong. I’ve explored snow crystals and cloudscapes. HTML and CSS. Intimate, heartfelt time and public, community time. I have enjoyed satisfying work and creative, personal expression. I took a big bite, savoring flavors both sweet and sour, and filled my belly in these last 10 months.
Yet still I felt a pang at the idea of not tasting Italy, not setting foot along the Naviglio Grande – the Grand Canal. Not sharing meals with friends I cherish there. Italia… Milano… has become a second home for me. My heart and mind have been pierced with a barbed and complex arrow which cannot be removed.
And so I find myself on the eve of departure. I look forward to a “going home”. It’s not the external excitement of a first visit I feel. It’s deep and fundamental; it’s in my gut and my core.
I have crafted a life which twines two places half a world apart. I marvel at it, find it jaw-dropping and am humbled and grateful more than I could ever communicate. It is a “well-wrought life”, as a friend once said.
Just days from now, I will make my pilgrimage to my beloved Duomo of Milano. I will take very late night strolls along the canals. I will ride a bike into the farmland for fresh ricotta, share meals with dear friends, switch to Italian 98% of the time and fill myself with inspiration. My time in Italy is deeply challenging, deeply nourishing, deeply invigorating.
It is an incredible gift to live so full-on, to be so vital, so stimulated.
Fresh figs are in at the Saturday street market just a couple of blocks away, and they share the display with the magenta-splashed Borlotti bean pods! I bought some of both green figs and black, and enough borlottis to make a pot of something. (I also bought some picadilli tomatoes, slender green beans, pickled onions, dolce “sweet” green olives and cherries.)
As a kid, my only exposure to this fruit was in the form of highly-sugared “Fig Newtons”. Little did I know that the cookie’s core comes from a soft, sweet fruit, that needs no sugar (wonderful when wrapped with prosciutto). I wanted to do a side-by-side taste test of both green and black figs, so I strolled the market to find the best prices, best fruit and best fruit-handler! (Good fruit and pricing is easy to find. A gentle handler is not.) I ended up with enough figs, ultra-ripe and needing to be eaten promptly, that I’ll be eating several a day hoping to keep ahead of their ripeness.
Borlotti beans caught my eye when I was living here a couple of years ago. Now, during each time in Italy, I’ve got to buy at least enough of the pretty beans to sit myself in a chair for half an hour and shuck the soft shells for a meal. I’ll cook up a pot of the speckled beans, with some fresh sage, garlic, fresh tomatoes, red pepper, zucchini and maybe some pancetta.
Having spent the morning walking all over old-town Nice, on the jewel-toned Riviera coast of France, it was time to eat a bite… or maybe a hundred.
Miriam and I passed many little cafés with people sitting in front of grand, black buckets of just-steamed mussels. It was an enticing choice that we didn’t resist.
When we started eating, I wasn’t paying attention. I’d pick up a mussel in one hand, take my fork in the other, and laboriously work the mussel out of its shell and into my mouth. Who knows how many mussels into the meal I was before I finally saw what Miriam was doing. Duh! She used an empty mussel shell as a sort of mini-tongs to easily pluck the meat out of another shell and pop it into her mouth. It made absolute sense. Clever. Simple. Mussel consumption pared to the essence!
For 12,50 euro per person, we were each served a hundred mussels… or maybe more… plus fries or a salad, and some bread. I could easily have stopped at half that quantity. I felt full for a day afterwards. The mussels were simply prepared, steamed with onion, carrot, red pepper and celery. A light broth remained in the bottom of my black pot, and it was soaked up nicely with crusty bread.
Lesson learned. Thank you, Miriam!
Curious about the nutritional content of 100 mussels, I looked it up and found the FitDay web site and its results. Gee, do you think I got enough protein? Or how about the sodium and potassium?! Or vitamin B12?! Wow. The calories were plentiful, but “only” a quarter of them were fat, and of those only a sixth were saturated fats.
This is real Italian food. They’re not over here just eating pizza and spaghetti. And they’re NOT eating “Fettucine Alfredo”! (If you see it on a menu, it’s only there for the tourists.) The range of Italian food is so vast. It truly does change every hundred kilometers. And most of it is nothing like seen in “Italian Restaurants” in the U.S.
When here, I eat everything that’s regional and typical to an area. I eat what I can’t get in Seattle. As I travel and seek out a meal, I always ask what the local specialties are and then expand my view of “Italian Food”. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve eaten in the last three weeks.
Soprassata Fiorentina • “Head Cheese” from Florence. I had this when living here a couple of years ago. Found it at a street market with no refrigeration, no running water. This is made of all the extra “head parts” that are cooked and congealed together with seasoning. Mmm. Yummy on a slice of bread. Must be 99% fat.
Fragolini • Little, wild strawberries found growing in the weeds in my courtyard. Actually, they had very little flavor, but I have seen them being sold at the market.
Lardo di Colonnata and Gorgonzola Dolce • Aged, seasoned lard (below, with a streak of meat), and creamy, mild “Sweet” Gorgonzola cheese (above). Both fantastic on a good hunk of bread. (Who needs butter?!)
Torta di Mele, con Gelato di Vaniglia • Apple Tart with Vanilla Gelato. A rare, sweet splurge for me.
Insalata di songino, pomodori e burratina con olio e aceto • Salad of “lamb’s lettuce”, cherry tomatoes and “burratina” cheese, drizzled with olive oil and a thick balsamic “cream”. Burratina is a small version of “Burrata”, a fist-sized ball with an outer layer like fresh mozzarella about 1/8″ thick, containing soft, creamy/runny, semi-solid cheese within. Heaven on a bed of greens!
Panzerotto Luini • Deep-fried bread pocket (filled with spinach and ricotta) from Luini’s by the Duomo. Inexpensive, hand-food that the locals all know about. Carry it around and eat it while walking.
Ribollita • Tuscan bread and vegetable soup, eaten in Firenze (Florence). The name means, literally “reboiled”.
Spiedina di carne mista • It WAS a skewer of mixed meats, in this case sausage and pork, eaten in Firenze.
Porcini • Two porcini mushrooms for 12 Euro at the street market (about $15!) All the time that I had lived here I never bought fresh porcini! I had to splurge at least once.
Porcini e Pomodori • Porcini and tomatoes (and brooms), cooking in my 35″ wide kitchen/broom closet. I brought the porcini home and cooked them up; also sauteéd some fresh cherry tomatoes.
Porcini with vegetable ravioli, and sauteéd fresh cherry tomatoes with meat ravioli, fresh from the street market.
Pastries from Spezia Pasticceria. My favorites are the Babá in the upper right: sponge cakes absolutely drenched with sweetened rum, with sweet ricotta filling in the middle. One bite and the rum sauce runs down your arm.
My favorite meats (clockwise from the top): Prosciutto (Crudo, di Parma), Bresaola, Mortadella with pistachios. It’s an art ordering your prosciutto cut! The bresaola is 100% lean (also available in horse meat). Mortadella: think “baloney” from when you were a kid, then multiply by 100. This mortadella has pistachios and peppercorns in it, and yes those are chunks of (white) fat.
Here’s the receipt for the meats above: 50 grams of Bresaola for 1,50 euro; 100 grams (“un etto”) Mortadella for 1,29 euro; 50 grams of Prosciutto di Parma for 1,35 euro. I had also bought “Gorgonzola Dolce”, the gooey, creamy, mild gorgonzola for 1,88 euro, and “Vitello Tonnato”, thin-sliced, roasted veal with a pureed tuna mayonnaise sauce on top for 2,47 euro. This was several days’ food for a girlfriend and me for 8,49 euro, about $10.66. (Makes up for the cost of the porcini.)
Bresaola, my favorite. An air-dried, salted beef that has been aged 2-3 months. Almost completely lean, no fat. Sliced paper thin, and when it’s very good, it is moist and supple, not dry and leathery. Note how translucent it is! I can’t buy Italian Bresaola in the U.S. Too many fears of “mad cow disease”.
Insalata con mozzarella di bufala, pomodori e basilico. Vitello tonnato • A salad with fresh mozarella di bufala (yes, buffalo milk), tomatoes, basil, served with “vitello tonnato”, the thin-sliced veal with pureed tuna/mayonnaise sauce.
Salsiccia e fagioli • Sausage and beans, a very Tuscan meal eaten in Firenze.
Verdure al forno • Tuscan oven-roasted vegetables, in Firenze.
As it turned out just by chance, my dish of gelato was my nod to Italy.
Today is June 2, a holiday celebrating the formation of the Republic of Italy in 1946. The Italian flag is referred to as the “Tricolore”, three colors. Whereas, in the U.S. we say “red, white and blue”, in Italy, they do NOT say “red, white and green”! Their colors are always listed “green, white and red”.
So, here’s to the “pistacchio, limone e mirtilli di bosco”, the pistachio, lemon and blueberry!
Brrr! It’s been chilly in Milano much of the last week. For late May, temperatures in the low 50s are quite a surprise. I hadn’t expected it, so I didn’t even pack full length pants! Sitting here in my house trying to get my work done, my fingers were cold, my toes were cold, my ankles were cold. I had to run out and get some cheap, long leggings, and a t-shirt, and then I layered them all together under my calf-length pants and other tops. Brrr!
How does one get warm when it’s unseasonably cold in Milano? One cold day I made a pot of chicken soup, with veggies from the street market.
Better yet, another cold night I went to the nearby osteria along the Naviglio Pavese Canal and watched the soccer game with the locals. (Napoli vs. Torino Juventus) The wood-fired pizza oven warmed the room. Add to that the crowd of soccer fans and a glass of red wine and my fingers finally warmed up for the first time in days.
On Saturday, three blocks from my house, is the weekly street market selling fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, cheeses, olives, preserved foods, household sundries and clothing. It’s a hub-bub of people buying their provisions for the week.
You have to know “the system” for shopping there. Decide what you want, then go stand in line at the side, and wait your turn to request your purchase. You do NOT pick out your own produce! And you do not simply ask one of the stall vendors out front for what you want; you will be cutting in line in front of others. (I had to learn this a few years ago through observation.)
My big complaint is that although the produce is displayed so beautifully, and the quality is so high, the handling of it all is so rough! Ask for such tender things as tomatoes and apricots and they will arrive home bruised and punctured from having been roughly pitched into the bag.
It still feels like high-pressure shopping to me after several years. But whether I stock up for the week there or not, the Saturday street market is always an opportunity for gathering beautiful images. In addition to the gorgeous berries, lemons, olives and fish, I enjoy the “Street Market Script” used to write out the quick signs. (Some have begun to use computer-generated signs and they’ve lost all character.)
