by Maureen | Jan 1, 2010 | Featured Articles, Incredible Locations, Journal, Paris, People, Photos
New Year’s Eve. “Capodanno” they call it here. Fireworks are going off in the distance.
Having just come back from the energy of Paris, I don’t feel compelled to go downtown tonight, but will follow my tradition of spending the evening writing. Part of that act is the reflection on the past year, and for 2009 the novelty is in the last 6 months, since I moved here to Milano in June.
When I decided to move here, I very consciously wanted to have relationships. I wanted to form friendships and know people. I didn’t want to remain on the outside surface, as tourists do, but rather touch hearts and have mine touched. I left behind my treasured communities in Seattle, and came here where I had none.
Reaching this 6-month mark, I started to think about all the people I’ve gotten to know in big ways and small. I see people at school. At some of the stores I frequent. I’ve met some while traveling. And now, even see familiar faces while just out walking in the neighborhood. I’m creating what I wanted!
Allow me to introduce you to some of the many people I’ve either enjoyed a single, rich conversation with, or have had the pleasure to create a friendship with:
JUSTINE – Kenyan. I met Justine soon after I arrived and now I shop at that store a mile away just so I can say “hello” to her. Here she is cutting prosciutto for me.
EVELINA, BRUNELLO & GLENDA – Italian. These are the three I work most closely with at NABA.
PIOTR & EWA – Polish-German and Polish. We met in the summer when our tables were an inch apart and I was eating octopus. We’ve been getting together once a week or so ever since! Eva is a Pharmacist and Piotr is a retired conductor from Teatro alla Scala.
NARIN – Thai. Architectural faculty member from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
PETE & ERIN – Australian. We met on the bike trail in the morning, and they slept on my fold-out bed that night! They were biking around Europe for 6 months and relying on the kindness of strangers.
ORIETTA – Italian. Concept researcher and trend forecaster in fashion and accessories. An instructor at NABA.
LYDIA – Swedish. Lydia makes the way smooth for NABA’s agents.
DOMENICA & PAOLO – Italian. They have the Spezia Pasticceria that creates those incredible pastries I’ve shown. They’re two blocks away from me, and we met when he did a search on the pastry shop and found my blog. They make the best pastries in town.
ANASTASIA, EMANUELE & ENCARNA – Greek and Spanish. Emanuale is the Consulate General of Greece. We shared a table and the dance floor at the Thanksgiving Dinner.
ENZA – Italian. Born in Sicily, raised back-and-forth between there and Australia. She and her husband own the corner grocery where I buy my water, and we chat.
TOMA – French, but has lived in Italy for years. He’s established in fashion and teaches at NABA.
BARBARA – President of the Benvenuto Club.
BRUNELLO – Italian. Vice President of NABA.
LILY & TOM – Irish. My cousins from my family’s historic homeland in Fermanagh County, Northern Ireland.
LEE – British, but she’s been in Italy a long time. Lee’s been working in fashion for about 30 years. She was my Fashion Design instructor in 2008 at NABA.
CIRO – Italian. A One-man Chamber of Commerce for the town of Casamicciola on the Island of Ischia.
SAM, PATRICK & MOMO – French and ? These three are fishmongers down the street from my hotel in Paris. Patrick, in the middle, speaks some Spanish, so between that and sign-language, we all had some laughs.
DAN – American. From Ohio University, working with NABA. Executive Director and Professor of Geography.
EVELINA & GLENDA – Italian, though Glenda lived in the U.S. for 8 years. These two coordinate the myriad details of the NABA summer and semester programs.
LUCA – Italian. We’ve discussed “Italian Design Methodology” and the differences in teaching methods between Italian schools and U.S. schools. Luca is NABA’s Design Program Coordinator.
DIMITRI & VERA – Russian. Architects, instructors at NABA.
ENIEL – Cuban. Moved to Paris 5 years ago and speaks some of 5 or 6 languages. Loves history and was my personal tour guide in Paris.
MADALENA & EMILY – Italian and Australian. Madalena lives in the mountains near Milano, and teaches Italian language courses. Emily is a student in my class.
AHMAD – Pakistani. Living in Venice and assisting his brother with his restaurant, “Noemi”.
FRANCESCO – Italian. Architect and instructor at NABA. He’s engaging and involved with the students.
GISELLA – Italian from Sicily. She has a Siciliano bakery just down the street. Sometimes I’ll buy little regional specialties from her.
HASSAN & SEBASTIAN – Iranian and German. We’ve been in Italian language classes together.
IDA – Italian. We met at the Benvenuto Club Christmas Bazaar, which is a fund-raiser for several local charities.
JAMES – British. He’s opened up a shop here selling textiles and is taking Italian language classes, too.
ROLANDO – Italian. We met on the train to the airport. I was on my way to Seattle. He was on his way to an EU gathering of parachutists from 10 different countries. He was in the Army in the mid-60s. He pulled B&W photos of his father out of his suitcase to show me.
MARZIA & FRIENDS – Italian (Sicily), Russian and ? Marzia’s on the right and after we had gone out for “apperitivi”, we met up with her friends at another restaurant. Marzia is also with NABA.
REMO – Italian (from the south). A Materials Engineer. We’ve had some good conversations and I sat in on some of his design classes at NABA and accompanied them on field trips.
OZDAN, SEBASTIAN & EMILY – Turkish, German & Australian. In this photo, they were doing a skit in our Italian language class.
NORM & JOE – Irish. My Guinness drinkin’ buddies in the far northern reaches of Ireland.
JAN – Norwegian. He got talked into wearing a “Babbo Natale” hat at the Scuola Leonardo language school’s Christmas party.
by Maureen | Nov 9, 2009 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos
Always pack along tools when moving to another country!
Point One: This is the land of calcium deposits from the water. After boiling water just once in my stainless steel pan, the bottom and sides are covered with a white calcium film. The sinks and shower build up deposits from any standing water. The cleanser aisle at the grocery store is full of acids for “anticalcare”. Once a week I have to clean out the shower head and remove the rock-salt sized grains of coarse grit.
Point Two: I had just a slow trickle of water in the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and an even slower trickle, of cold water only, at the bidet.
Point Three: My hot water heater is an “on-demand” water heater, (only heating the water when I need it).
It occurred to me that all three points are related! Calcium and grit had likely built up in the faucet aerators and caused the slow trickle of water. The slow trickle wasn’t enough to cue the water heater to kick on, so I only had a dribble of cold water. If I could just get the aerators off and replace them, I’d have water flow AND hot water! But they were so crusted on, that I needed tools.
I shot photos of my crusted faucet aerators and went on Google Images and found photos of pipe wrenches and crescent wrenches. I printed them out and wandered off for the nearest Ferramenta Hardware Store. I bought a cheap pipe wrench for 4 euro and a nicer metric crescent wrench for 10 euro, plus 3 aerators for 1,60 euro each. I couldn’t wait to get home and test my theory!
The first aerator came off and with it a teaspoon of very coarse grit. Wow! No wonder there was only a trickle! I took the others off and flushed all the faucets. Incredible! With freshly flushed lines and new aerators, I had free flowing water for the first time in 5 months, AND hot water at the bidet! (It was such a simple fix!)
In the 5 months that I’ve been here, I have fixed or done maintenance on the following:
- replaced all the faucet aerators
- enlarged the holes on the shower head (they blocked up so regularly that the o-ring blew out once a week)
- tightened all the hinges on the kitchen cabinets (they lift UP and would fall on my head if I left them open)
- remounted a stray kitchen cabinet door whose hinge screws had “disappeared”
- taken the shower enclosure apart and scraped the whole thing down with a single edge razor blade
- oiled a drawer slide on an otherwise unusable bathroom drawer
- defrosted the unusable freezer
These are all little things, but they make a difference in the quality of daily life.
My minor little tool collection now includes:
- magnetic screwdriver with interchangeable bits of different sizes and types (from Seattle)
- single edge razor blades (unheard of here) and a scraper (from Seattle)
- leatherman multi-purpose tool with pliers and you-name-it (from Seattle)
- fine, jeweler’s needle nose pliers (from Seattle)
- steel wool (from Seattle)
- a shiny new crescent wrench
- an inexpensive pipe wrench
- a 3 euro hammer
I can fix and/or adjust a lot of things with this assortment! (Thankfully, I was well-trained at an early age.) By the time I leave this place, it’ll be in tip-top shape.
by Maureen | Oct 11, 2009 | Canals, Featured Articles, Journal, Meals, Shopping & Markets
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 had ordered from menus: orata and branzino. “But what do I do with it?” Besides. I had neither a filet knife nor knife sharpener, so I was ill-prepared.
Having just returned from a visit to Seattle this week, (filet knife and EZE-Lap sharpener in hand), hankerin’ for fish*, and doing a “fast stroll” near the Naviglio Grande (the big canal) I found a street-side fish market in my path. “Uno branzino”, I said to the guy. He wrapped it up. I paid 4 Euro, 6 bucks. I threw it in my bag and went on to shop for fabric. (Fabric and fish in the same bag? Hmm.)
(*By the way, can one ” have a hankerin’ ” in Italy. I’m not sure the translation works.)
Saturday evening. Canal-side. The place was lively with people strolling at a slow pace. Here I was, trying to keep my usual 4.5 mile-per-hour Indian Trail pace. (Fat chance, Maureen. Take it easy! Relax for once.) Maybe that’s something Italy will teach me: how to stroll properly, without being “on a mission”.
At 7:00, I stepped into the little fabric store NOT like those in the U.S.! Dark, jammed floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, and much of it had probably been there a long time. I was looking for, and found, fabric for a baby quilt. (Just try buying quilting supplies in Italian!) I left moments before they closed at 7:30.
It was the first time in 4 months I had gone out in public wearing blue jeans (!) and tennis shoes (not quite blinding white). I had been cleaning all day and felt like being comfy. At 8:00 in the evening, sleeveless, it was muggy enough that I was working up a sticky sweat. (All the more reason to slow down.) Most everyone else was either paired up or on-the-make, so blue jeans and tennis shoes never entered their minds, I’m sure!
Meanwhile, I had a scantily-wrapped branzino in my bag with baby quilt fabric, so I figured I’d better hustle to the grocery store, buy whatever else I needed, and get home and cook!
I hadn’t noticed at the fish stall that the fish had not been gutted. No problem. I’ve gutted many a fish in my day. And I found out that branzino, (which is actually a European Seabass), has a pretty wicked, spiny dorsal fin! A pair of scissors made short work of those half dozen thorns.
Based on it’s size, roughly 11″ stem-to-stern, I figured I could cook a branzino much like a nice-sized rainbow trout. Flour, salt, pepper, mixed herbs…and since I had just been in Seattle, I threw in some of Chef Tom Douglas’ Salmon Rub (Brown Sugar, Paprika and thyme). A little extra virgin in my new grill pan, crank up the heat and throw on the fish. Veggies searing in the pan next door promised a lovely dinner.
(By the way, note the pan in the upper left. I’ve boiled water for coffee twice and that’s the amount of white, calcium build-up that occurs! I have to scrub the pan hard every day.)
Ahh. The smell of fish cooking with oil. One would think it’s a good time to open the windows, especially on a muggy night! No way! I wouldn’t sleep all night; the mosquitos would eat me alive. I opted for the fishy smell and a good night’s sleep.
“Mr. Branzino” cooked for about 20 minutes or so. Perfection. A glass of Grillo from Sicilia, a couple slices of cornmeal bread and at 9:30 I was ready to eat. Note that the branzino is served up right alongside my Mac, my updated to-do list, the utility bill from the landlady, a job ticket, trip receipts and hardware warranty info.
Delicately flavored. White. Moist. Cooked perfectly. Mmm. In trout fashion, I lifted the tail and peeled the spine and upper half away from the lower. I didn’t eat the skin because trying to scale the fish earlier had been making more of a mess than necessary, so I simply lifted the fish flakes away from the skin and gobbled them. Then I flipped the other half, easily lifted the skeleton and enjoyed the rest of the fish. What a delicious meal!
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax, also known as Morone labrax, is a primarily ocean-going fish that sometimes enters brackish and fresh water. It is also known as the sea dace. As a food fish, it is often marketed as mediterranean seabass, bronzini or branzini(“branzino” is the name of the fish in Northern Italy; in other parts of the country it is called “spigola” or “ragno”). In Spain, it is called “lubina”. It has silver sides and a white belly. Juvenile fish maintain black spots on the back and sides, a feature that can create confusion with Dicentrarchus punctatus. This fish’s operculum is serrated and spined. It can grow to a total length of over 1 m (3.3 ft) and 15 kg of weight.
Its habitats include estuaries, lagoons, coastal waters and rivers. It is found in the waters in and around Europe, including the eastern Atlantic Ocean (from Norway to Senegal), the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.
It is mostly a night hunter, feeding on small fish, polychaetes, cephalopods and crustaceans.
The fish has come under increasing pressure from commercial fishing and has recently become the focus in the United Kingdom of a conservation effort by recreational anglers. In Italy the seabass is subject of intensive breeding in salt waters.
by Maureen | Oct 6, 2009 | Featured Articles, Journal
Heading back home to Milan, sitting at Sea-Tac awaiting the Seattle-London-Milan flights after a VERY crazy-busy, chuck-full two weeks here in Seattle. I had thought that some time here would be a break from the intensity of Milan. Ha! What was I thinking?! I need to go back to Italy to ease off a bit. First thing on the list: a bike ride!
On the flight coming out here, from Newark to Seattle, they served this snack, which seemed the perfect and laughable bridge between Italy and the U.S.: Milano Cookies and a Turkey Dog! So funny that I had to shoot it.
There was also an absolutely gorgeous skyscape out my window as we approached the west coast, no doubt enhanced by the fires in Oregon and California.
