by Maureen | Mar 12, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos
Milano is a fabulous place to do a “design intensive” exploration, and I’ve stepped up my voracious visual consumption of the rich details around me. What a place to study typography, graphics, signage and advertising! Everything captures my mind.
Even a toothpaste ad.
“The green has all our respect, the red is the passion we put into it,
but it’s the white of your smile that’s our true mission.”
No, not all Italian packaging has such a retro, stereotype look. One finds the usual Crest, Colgate and Sensodyne on the grocery shelves, but with Italian swapped for English. That must be why “Pasta del Capitano” seemed like such a throwback, and stopped me while rushing for the subway car.
by Maureen | Mar 8, 2010 | Discoveries, Food!, Journal, Shopping & Markets
“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 milk and cookies.
Hmm. Curious. And they’re packaged in twos, fours and sixes. Also curious. Who needs to learn what from whom in this regard?
by Maureen | Mar 8, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Graphics, Journal, Photos
When I rounded the corner and saw the wall of red and cream damask patterns, I skipped both a breath and a heart beat. These are the textiles I came for. These are the fabrics I prowl and lurk for at the antique fairs.
“The Thread of Dreams – Il Filo dei Sogni” is a show at the Palazzo Morando Costume Moda Immagine here in Milano. The show marks the 150 years of the Frette Linens company, 1860-2010. Absolutely gorgeous damask/jacquard patterns from the time of Frette’s beginning were gathered on a heart-stopping wall. I swooned. And then turned and strolled to look at them all.
Having been a seamstress for as long as I can remember, my heart rate really does pick up a few beats when in the presence of beautiful fabric. And, owning a red-on-cream embroidered piece from my great, great grandmother that she stitched at age 12 in 1861, I have a tremendous soft spot for that color combination. Combine those two joys and of course it was dreamlike for me to see this show!
Original hand-painted and hand-drawn designs were shown side-by-side with the final woven fabric. A pleasure to see “the hand” of the designer. (And impossible to avoid glare and reflection in the exhibit space!)
They showed overall patterns, borders, coats-of-arms, hotel emblems, nautical, floral and heraldic designs. If I were to bring home any “souvenir” from Italy, I would love to get my hands on one of these Frette fabrics, either vintage or modern day!
Why fight the reflection? Here’s a Frette self-portrait. (My sister is always saying “I want to see pictures of YOU over there,” so this is my way of complying with her request.)
Currently, Frette is known for their very sumptuous bed linens. Ooo lah lah. A damask top sheet alone can be $250 or more and the fabric is supple and luxurious to the touch.
Part of the exhibit was a “mood wall” showing ideas, sketches, fabric samples and inspirations for a contemporary collection. I appreciate that they show original pencil drawings and a variety of renditions of a given motif all the way to the final fabric.
Another part of the show was an amusing, playful sculptural installation in an homage to Frette. I delighted in it as I walked into the room and circled.
by Maureen | Mar 5, 2010 | Food!, Introspection, Journal, Meals
I harkened back to my German roots today and cooked sausage in a kraut of red cabbage, beets and onions. I could post a photo, but it really is just a mass of purple-brown and doesn’t look like much. But it tasted good. It shouldn’t seem odd for me to cook such a thing. Half of me is German, and Germany is just up and over the hill. And I always cook a wild-and-crazy blend of who-knows-what kind of food origin. Just because I’m in Italy, you think I’m going to cook “Italian” all the time? (What is that, anyway?)
I have enough leftovers for two more meals, sigh. Need to have my appreciative brother close by to eat what I make.
by Maureen | Feb 28, 2010 | Food!, Incredible Locations, Journal, Meals, People, Photos, Sanremo
It’s a natural for friends to gather for food and conversation. This is worldwide, but I find that the Italians do it well and do it often.
Last weekend, in Sanremo, seven of us got together for dinner around the table: my landlady, Sandra, and her husband, Mauro, and their friend, Sandro (all of whom I had spent the weekend with two weeks earlier), plus two friends of theirs, Renata and Angelo, and another friend of Sandro’s, Livio. Everyone came with food in hand, and we had a lively time.
Below, left to right: Livio, Angelo, Mauro, Renata, Sandra, Sandro.
We started with some salame that Livio had made. (Yes. Those are chunks of fat.) I had made a loaf of mixed-grain Irish Soda Bread that we ate with it.
Sandro had cooked a fabulous mix of seafood, including mussels, shrimp, squid, pescatrice (that funny, deep-water fish with the “lure” hanging off the front of its head), and tiny 3 inch fillets of a local, sand-versus-mud fish. There was just a tad of hot pepper oil in this dish which added a touch of zing.
Renata had baked a fresh tart, beautiful with apple wedges emerging from the deep gold, dense, pound cake. This was pretty darned good with some of the array of gelato that Sandra and Mauro had picked up at the town’s best Gelateria. We ate and talked for close to three hours. (Yes. All in Italian.)
by Maureen | Feb 28, 2010 | Featured Articles, Food!, Incredible Locations, Journal, Meals, Sanremo
It’s an old time, secret family recipe and I took an oath not to reveal the ingredients, but I can show a couple of photos and give just a sketchy description.
Essentially, you cut up a rabbit, brown the chunks, simmer them in all the right liquids* with all the right seasonings* ’til the meat is tender*.
In the meantime, you take a big fistful of raw rabbit livers and pureé them with all the appropriate Italian ingredients* until you’ve got a smooth, pink slurry.
When the meat chunks are done just right*, and with the heat OFF, pour the rabbit liver slurry into the pan with the meat and stir it all around. The remaining heat in the pan and in the meat will “cook” the liver “enough”. The liver will actually coagulate rather than remain saucy.
Scoop up some of the thickened “sauce” and serve it over fresh tagliatelle pasta. It’s appropriate to eat the chunks of rabbit with your hands.
If you’re a fan of liver, this is fabulous! If not, well…
I’m grateful to chef Sandro, in Sanremo, for preparing this for me and letting me watch and take notes!
*If you’ve had enough experience in the kitchen, you can use your imagination to figure out what these things MIGHT be.
by Maureen | Feb 28, 2010 | Cheese, Food!, Introspection, Journal
In reading my blog posts about what I’m eating here, I hope that you’ll realize how much broader the Italian culinary range is than the stereotypical American concept of “Italian Food”. There is SO much more than pizza, spaghetti, lasagna and ravioli. “Fettucine Alfredo” is a figment of the American imagination, and I’ve been told emphatically, “NEVER serve tomato sauce on spaghetti!” Italians have laughed at that idea.
You can travel a mere 100 kilometers and encounter regional, traditional foods you couldn’t have found at your last stop. There are foods unique to specific communities!
As an example, depending on the region, the starch base will be different. You may encounter polenta, pasta (of a shape specific to that region), rice (risotto), focaccia or other bread. Wines, meats, cheeses and seasonings all vary by region.
For instance, in my last visits to Sanremo, I was treated to:
- Sardenara – a focaccia bread with tomato sauce, anchovies, garlic and olives (no cheese), specific to Liguria.
- “Branda Cugnon” – A delicious mash of salted, dried white fish (cod?), potato, parsley, olive oil and garlic. (Don’t ask about the bawdy origin of the name.)
- Rabbit with Sauce of Pureéd Rabbit Livers – A secret, family recipe in which the rabbit livers are pureéd with other ingredients (I’m not supposed to tell) until they become a thick, pink slurry. The sauce is then stirred onto the hot, stewed rabbit parts, and is “cooked” only from the residual heat.
- Polenta Taragna Concia – Yellow, coarse polenta (cornmeal) with ground buckwheat and a kilo of cheese stirred and cooked into it over the stove for an hour.
The next time you want to go out for “Italian Food”, stretch beyond what you’re familiar with and either go to a restaurant that offers more authentically prepared foods, or pick something off the menu other than your tried-and-true favorite. Order something you can’t identify. I do it all the time!
Below is a map that I saw on the wall at Ristorante Re Enzo in Bologna. It mentions just a few of the noted food and wine specialties for each region.
by Maureen | Feb 26, 2010 | Featured Articles, Incredible Locations, Journal, People, Photos, Sanremo
One thing about being invited into people’s homes is the chance to have them bring things out to show me, such as old photos. In my recent visit to Sanremo, I got to see a few photos from “Young Life in Italy” from the mid-60s to mid-70s.
Old photos are always informative and amusing. (And I like the character provided by the deterioration.)
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 15, 2010 | Cheese, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Meals, People, Photos
We got together to celebrate Anaïs’s 24th birthday with traditional Milanese apperitivi at an “art bar” in town. Several of us women from Italian classes get together outside of class for chats, bike rides and travel. Anaïs is one of them.
She’s from Cannes, France, and 3 of her friends drove over, (bringing her kitty with them) to spend her birthday weekend. There were 10 of us together around the table, representing 5 countries: 4 French, 1 Portuguese, 1 Turkish, 2 Italian, 2 American, ranging in age from 24 to 40-ish… and me. The language changed depending on the speaker and the listener.
The Milanese apperitivi tradition allows you to go to just about any restaurant in town, buy one drink for 7 – 9 euro and eat as much as you want from the buffet of appetizers: pizza and foccacia squares, bruschetta, pasta, french fries (!), sliced meats, cheeses, risotto, mini-tarts. A better apperitivi offering will include such things as steamed mussels, veggie sticks, interesting salads, and other foods that are lower carb and more artfully prepared.
After our apperitivi, several of us went out for dinner at 11:30 p.m. to a Mexican restaurant, while the others went to the disco.
