Monthly Archives: August 2008

Privacy query – guidance needed!

30 Saturday Aug 2008

Posted by in Blogging, Customs, Law and order, Photographs

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The question, in broad terms, is this: a ) is it illegal, unethical, or in poor taste to take photos of people in public places and b) to then use them in one’s blog?

The background: The Captain and I were in our local paneficio this morning, and there was an awfully cute little girl there… so of course I took her picture.  Then I got to thinking it would be fun to take some pictures of the crowded shop, because one of these days I want to start writing about some of the Best Places to Buy in Rapallo.  So I wandered around looking for a good shot, which in any event I couldn’t find.

Just about then I realized there was a lot of loud talking going on – it’s still an effort for me to concentrate and understand Italian, so I tend to tune out a lot of it.  Anyway, it turned out a woman in the shop took exception to my taking photos of anyone or anything in the shop on the grounds that it was a violation of privacy.  The Captain weighed in on my behalf (my hero!) as did another patron, an elderly woman; everyone else just shuffled around and smiled.

I hastily assured the woman that she was not in any of my photos and if she had been I would erase them, but she opined it was a violation of everyone’s privacy.  I couldn’t tell where the padrona fell in the discourse; she mentioned ‘publiccita’ – I’ll apologize to her at a quieter time and ask if I can photograph the shop for this blog.

Usually when I’m taking a ‘portrait’ of anyone I ask first (but not always), and I’ve never been turned down. So this was rather a surprise, but it got me thinking. (I’ve begun a long-term project, working title ‘Beauty in Italy’ – a lot of it depends on anonymous shooting.)  Are there guidelines out there somewhere?

A quick noodle via Google has not been overly helpful with this issue.  I would really value hearing your comments, counsel or just your reactions.  Thanks!

Whose beach is it, anyway??

28 Thursday Aug 2008

Posted by in Italy, Liguria, Rapallo, Uncategorized

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“A man may stand there and put all America behind him.” Henry David Thoreau

He was speaking about the great Outer Beach on Cape Cod, which is now a  national park which includes forty miles of sandy beaches.  That’s right – forty miles.  There is lots of beach access, and if you’re willing to walk for a while you can have a stretch of beach all to yourself.  Even the ‘crowded’ parts of the beach are spacious by Italian standards – if you don’t believe it, check out the Coast Guard Beach webcam here.

If Thoreau were to visit my favorite beach in Paraggi, he might well have written, “A man may stand there and have all of Italy beside him.”  Public beaches in Italy are crowded.  With 5,310 miles of shoreline you might well wonder why. One reason could be that for every Italian there is only .47 feet of shore, whereas each American has 1.58 feet of his shore.  But the real reason is simple: most beaches are not public.

Let me correct that last sentence.  The State owns all the shoreline, and grants access to the public for 3 meters from the water’s edge (tides are not a huge issue here).  But the State also leases most of its beach property past the 3 meter mark to concessionaires who put up hundreds of gaily painted cabanas in which clients may change clothes.  They also cover every square inch of ‘their’ beach with beach beds fitted out with umbrellas.  It’s a wonderful way to go to the beach, if you like lying next to who knows whom and don’t mind paying for the privilege (in Paraggi it’s E30 for one day).  On the other hand, the amount of space given to public beaches is, in many areas, very small, so you will be lying on your own beach towel next to who knows whom anyway, but you’ll be lying on the sand (or stones) without an umbrella, unless you’ve cleverly remembered to bring your own. (It was only recently that a law was passed decreeing that there must be any free public beaches at all.)

In the photo above the public part of the beach is hard to see – it’s between the aqua umbrellas on the right and the almost invisible furled up white umbrellas.  This photo was taken about 8:45 a.m., early by Italian beach standards – but one must go early if one wants a patch of sand.  Here’s the beach an hour later:

Kind of narrow, isn’t it? It’s still early.  In another hour people will be leaving disappointed because there literally won’t be a square inch of space left in which to put one’s fanny.  Meanwhile, the private beaches surrounding this postage stamp are three quarters empty.

We’ve been told that we can put our towels down anywhere in the 3 meter ‘safe zone,’ but we have also been assured that we’ll get some very bad looks.  Anyone who’s received an Italian ‘malocchio‘ knows it’s a good thing to avoid.  Being a feisty American, though, I’m tempted to test the system.

What really seems too bad is that the public’s view of the beach is completely obliterated from the street.  Here is the view from Paragi’s seaside passagiata:

Nice cabana color – but I’d rather see the water!

The sea here is incomparably beautiful, a color somewhere between aqua and emerald, and it is full of little fish that like to show off for snorkelers.  Everything about a visit to the sea is a joy, except for the sitting around on your towel part.  And in fact, even that isn’t so awful once you’re used to it.  In general other beach-goers are respectful of your property and careful not to kick sand on your towel.  And it’s a great way to meet people. Just as everyone shares the narrow roads, they also share the narrow beaches, with a minimum of complaint or pigginess.

Disclaimer:  Paraggi is very beautiful and many people like to go there; other beaches may not be as crowded or be as encumbered with cabanas… but many are.  There are also half-way beaches – they have beds but no cabanas.  We’ve been told one is welcome to sit on the sand at these places, but we haven’t tested the hypothesis yet. We have been guests three or four times at private beaches, and it is wonderfully comfortable to lie on the beds and fun to chat with the neighboring sunbathers.

The Best Thing We Ate This Week – Tagliarini with Porcini Mushrooms

24 Sunday Aug 2008

Posted by in Italian recipes, Italy, Piemonte, Uncategorized

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We think our cousins want to kill us.  No kidding!  They are lovely people, but look at what they made us eat on Thursday.

We started with hot little red peppers, some stuffed with anchovies, others with tuna or cheese; these are among my favorite things to eat in the world.  They also served olives with the same variety of stuffings.  In the picture you can see the salami and the lardo they forced us to eat. Lardo‘s name tells you exactly what it is. It sounds disgusting, but it is one of the most sublime things you will ever put in your mouth – rich, creamy, salty – it is sinful (and also deadly, I suspect).  It’s an interesting food with a long history and is so good it is impossible to resist.

In case we were feeling cholesterol-deprivation we were also given three kinds of cheese, two goat and one cow, all Piemontese, that were to be eaten on little crackers and topped with mostarda, either grape and wine, or pear and pinoli (these mostarde  were just like jam).  I had to keep trying them as I couldn’t decide which was better. Cousin Gino served the Cortese wine that the Captain and I had just picked up at the Rinaldi winery – about which more soon (stay tuned).

Following this group of light antipasti we moved on to this week’s Best Thing That We Ate: Tagliarini ai Porcini.  The mushrooms are beginning to appear in the woods to the north now, and this is a dish that wants fresh funghi.  You can find the recipe over on the right under Recipes; it is starred as a Best. This dish is also served frequently in Liguria, but according to Fred Plotkin it is made with olive oil instead of butter, and there are neither tomatoes nor pinoli in it.  We loved the Piemontese version.

Thank goodness there was no meat course; we would have croaked for sure.  We had offered to bring a clafoutis of peaches which we did.  But perhaps Cousin Giovanni was afraid her family wouldn’t care for our dessert, so just in case she served Stuffed Peaches (pesche ripiene) and Gino popped the cork on a crisp prosecco.  Both desserts are pictured on the left.  Giovanna’s dessert was almost selected as this week’s best – it had a very surprising ingredient.

As a quick bonus, here’s how she made it:  Take most of the pulp out of the peaches, leaving sturdy little peach boats with skins still on.  Chop up the pulp with amaretto cookies and add some unsweetened cocoa powder.  Stuff the peach halves with the filling and bake in a moderate oven for a while.  Couldn’t be easier or more delicious.  The mixture of chocolate and peaches was both startling and pleasing.

By the way… this was lunch.

Buon appetito!

Parking

22 Friday Aug 2008

Posted by in Italy, Liguria, Rapallo, Uncategorized

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Have I mentioned that we live on a narrow road? Here’s a photo of the road above our house. This is not some little back road; it is a main road connecting the Via Aurelia to the entroterra, the interior on the other side of the mountain. This road is important enough to be depicted on a map of all of Italy (scale 1/1,000,000)! It is narrow and very well traveled. And most of the houses built along it were built before car ownership was common; driveways and parking areas were not part of the original designs.

These days the State smiles on those who wish to park their cars off-road. Building permits, which are impossible to get for other reasons, materialize for projects which remove cars from the streets. Constructing these projects is easier said than done in the hills.

A couple of years ago we sold our first-born and our first-round draft picks for the next twelve years in order to build a parking platform. It was a huge project, what with the many linear feet of new walls (which these days are made of poured concrete faced with stone) and all the paperwork. The file we accumulated relating the project is 3 inches thick. We needed permits from the town, from the region, from the highway department, I think we even had to get one from God himself. Because the project was built adjacent to a state road there were a lot of engineering requirements and frequent checks by the Certified Engineer that everything was being built according to plan (Giovanni, the Human Backhoe, did the work with his merry band of Romanians). The paperwork and resultant file for the parking platform is half again larger than all the paperwork for the original restoration of the house.  And according to Giovanni, it seemed to the builders that the actual work would never end. It was a really big project. Here is the captain, dwarfed by two of the new walls we had to build (he’s running water up so he can wash his beloved Mini).  And here is the platform itself, really rather small, especially when you consider the tons of material it took to construct it.

Turns out that in the universe of possible parking patooties, our project was pretty small. Take a look at these other four projects, also on our road (Via San Maurizio di Monti):

This is the simplest project, after ours. It’s a lovely new drive with not too many new stone walls, paving, tons of new dirt, and some new trees. They had to jackhammer out a lot of rock where the drive now is; that all used to be hill. We are puzzled about the stone arch over the drive – it’s very pretty but will prevent a truck from ever approaching the house.

This one, too, is a very simple project as well, though I’ve rated it slightly more complex than the preceding because not only did they jackhammer out part of the hill, they are also building a small addition up above (new baby).

This house, a pre-fab built in the 1960’s, is actually on a rather wide part of the road. Their project has been in process for two years now and is nowhere near completion. There is a small new guest cottage that will eventually be under part of the new driveway that is being constructed. Before they could begin this phase, the actual road-building, they had to strengthen (read re-build) stone walls down below. There is a tiny figure in this photo – well actually, he’s a full-sized man, but he looks tiny because he is standing by the enormous walls.  Click on the photo to see it full size and see if you can find him.

This one is the prize-winner. This project is not only cutting a huge swath through the forested hill for a new driveway, but is also inconveniencing everyone who uses the highway as the road has been made one-lane around the work. You would think that something of this scale would provide access to a small community, but the guys doing the work told me it was leading to one house, a rustico that will be knocked down and rebuilt. This explanation was accompanied by the gesture of thumb rubbing against fingers, and the opinion that money was no object, and that ‘what they want, they have.’ This is the first of at least three switch-backs that go up the hill.  They’re using an amazing amount of concrete simply to reinforce the rocky hillside they are excavating.

So I guess there are any number of ways to get your car off the road, depending on your timetable and your wallet. Our car was scraped twice during the years we were on-street-parkers. No matter how you do it, the best place to park on this narrow, busy highway is definitely off-road.

Foraging, or The Yin and Yang of Via San Maurizio di Monti

19 Tuesday Aug 2008

Posted by in gardening, Italy, Liguria, Rapallo, Uncategorized

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Just last week I was carping about the litter along the roads.  But look at what bounty the same stretch of road provided today:

These items are all growing wild in untended patches of hillside, so I guess they are free for the taking.

I’ve been watching the blackberries for the last weeks as they went from flowers to gnarly little green berries – finally they are ripe and as sweet as can be.

The grapes are very small, as you can see, but they explode with flavor in the mouth.  They have climbed up a nespolo (medlar tree).  The nespolos around here are all afflicted with some disease that turns the fruit black and wizzened, so we never get to harvest that.

The fig is also miniature, but the tree it’s from is enormous and uncared for and sprawling.  The fruits are just beginning to ripen.  I don’t happen to care for figs, but the captain does, so this one will not go to waste.

Behind it all is a sprig of bay, the kind that we used to buy in New England to flavor our stews and soups.  We have a bay tree beside our house, but it’s nice to know that anyone along the road can have as much bay as they need from the large stand that grows there.  The road crew hacks it back each year as it encroaches on the highway sight-lines (yes, the same wide highway that you will read about soon in “Parking”… stay tuned); the annual pruning keeps it low, thick and extremely productive.

No matter the season, it seems there’s something to be harvested in the wild.  Now it’s grapes, blackberries and figs; soon it will be mushrooms and chestnuts; in the spring it’s the wild herbs and greens to make preboggion.  Probably a lot of these roadside plants have sprung up from seeds the birds have dropped or from discarded plant material. It’s the kind of litter I like.

The Best Thing We Ate This Week – Spezzatino di Vitello

17 Sunday Aug 2008

Posted by in Italian recipes, Piemonte, Uncategorized

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Do I have a picture of it?  Of course not!  But I do have a lovely shot of the pot in which it was cooked:

The pot belongs to our friends Leo and Isa who spend some of their time in the little Piemontese village of Sostegno.  Evidently the pot is picking up some good vibrations, as Leo likes to listen to Rock and Roll while he cooks and cleans up.

The Captain, who cooked the Veal Spezzatini for Friday evening’s dinner, had harvested some fresh bay leaves and one very hot pepper for his recipe.  It looks rather Christmasy, no?

We joined Leo and other friends for a celebration of Ferragosto in Sostegno, as we do every year.  This year we had the Big Meal on Thursday evening.  It was an enormous fish, called in Italian a ‘lucio’ (pike) more than four pounds, that son Silvio had caught the day before.  In fact, it is one of the ugliest fish I’ve ever seen – how about you?  Ever seen one uglier?    But I must say, it was quite delicious once it was filleted and cooked on the grill. In this picture it is soaking in its pre-cooking bath of lemon juice and herbs.

But back to the matter at hand, the Spezzatino di Vitello…

This is something the Captain frequently whips up, and it is always a little different.  The starred recipe, under recipes over on the right, is the way he made it on Saturday, and in spite of the remarkable fish, it wins the nod for the best thing we ate this week. (Sorry, Leo and Silvio – the fish was good, but…)

There were two other Very Good things we ate over the weekend, and they get honorable mention this week: Leo’s mother’s stuffed eggs and Leo’s Polenta Cuncia.  I wish I had a photo of the eggs because they are lovely, and quite different from what we think of when we think ‘deviled eggs.’ For starters, they are green (Get back, Dr. Seuss!).  I do have a photo of the polenta:

Basically polenta cuncia is polenta into which you have stirred massive amounts of cheese and a bit of butter.  It is heavenly, though it makes your arteries scream.  Usually it is served during the cold weather, because it is rich; we had it on Friday because it was pouring rain all day and was rather chilly – it’s a wonderful dish for the upcoming days of autumn and winter.

Recipes are over on the right under the heading Recipes.

Buon Appetito!

Sporca!

13 Wednesday Aug 2008

Posted by in Italy, Liguria, Photographs, Rapallo, Uncategorized

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Recently Saretta has blogged about the large amount of litter and garbage on the streets near her home on the Adriatic in southern Italy (Aug. 2 & 10). I was feeling pretty smug, thinking to myself, ‘Well, at least here in the north there is not nearly so much littering.’

Ha.

It is true,things are not as bad as they once were. The complete kitchen, including cabinets and appliances, that was dumped over the side of our road in one of the ravines has been removed (by whom? when?) and nothing of its ilk has taken its place.

Along the road near our house

A lot of other rubbish has been along the roadside as long as we’ve lived here; I guess I hardly see it any more. But there is plenty of new garbage every day, as I was unhappily reminded when I took my walk this morning.

Not that things are much better in the States. We saw this enchanting sight outside a roadside stop in New Mexico last year.

What I love about the States, though, is the teams of eager do-gooders that get out there and clean up after others. There is no Adopt-a-Highway program here in Italy that I know of, but wouldn’t it be great if there were? I’ve decided to adopt the little stretch of road I walk along almost every day. I’m sure the neighbors will think I’m a raving lunatic, especially as I wear one of those yellow kitchen gloves while doing it (you can be too careful, but this isn’t).  ‘Look!’ they’ll say, ‘l’Americana thinks she’s a duck!!’

I don’t care. I’ll enjoy my walk more without looking at all the plastic along the verge. It would be nice if people would stop littering; it would also be a miracle.  Here’s a picture of the fruits (ha ha) of my first day’s labor as a do-gooder.  I walked less than .25 mile because my bag was filled.

The best thing we ate this week – Tzatziki

10 Sunday Aug 2008

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Friends Bob and Celeste invited us to share a meal cooked by their dear friend and houseguest Julia; it was, she said, a Balkan dinner. I don’t know if it was Balkan or not, but it was was really delicious.

The menu: tzatziki; baba ghannouj ; hummus, without tahina; grilled zucchini; ground beef kebabs; tomatoes with basil; chick peas with lemon, oil and parsley. These were served with couscous, harissa and chopped red peppers on the side. Dessert was perfect, dark red slices

My plate of Balkan food!

My plate of Balkan food!

of cold watermelon, sweet and very juicy. Now how could we possibly single out one dish from so much that was yummy?

By default I’ll give you a recipe for tzatziki (over on the right), which hails from Greece. It is easy to make and perhaps less frequently seen than the ubiquitous baba ghannouj and hummus. It’s a wonderful, cooling summer dish, either as a ‘before’ with pita bread bits or crackers, or served as we had it last night as a condiment with the dinner itself. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

You want a purse, lady?

09 Saturday Aug 2008

Posted by in Italy, Liguria, People, Uncategorized

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Haven’t you always wondered about the African guys selling purses, dark glasses and CD’s in every town in Italy? Me too! I always imagined there was some kind of Organization of African Vendors, with a capo who brought young men into the country (legally? illegally?) and then directed them where to go to set up shop. This evil capo, of course, would take all the profits, thereby effectively enslaving the fellows doing all the work. And he was probably running all the prostitutes as well.

Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. A couple of weeks ago we were on a morning train from Rapallo to Celle. At one of the stops on the outskirts of Genova a whole bunch of Africans with bags of merchandise got on our car. The most picturesque arrival was a woman in a printed African dress, the kind with a long skirt and a top, with matching turban. She had a huge hand-rolled cigarette dangling from her mouth and an I-dare-you expression on her face – wish I’d gotten a photo (I didn’t dare). I did sneak an in-back-of-me shot of a couple of the gents.

After a pleasant day we boarded our train to return to Rapallo, and I ended up sitting next to a young man, clearly of the African vendor fraternity; let’s call him Franco. He turned out to be about the pleasantest person you could imagine, and didn’t mind my pumping him for information.

So here’s what I learned: Almost all the vendors come from Senegal, on Africa’s west coast (formerly a French colony, so French is the official language of the country and the language used in school). Wolof is the official Senegalese African language, and is the native language of about 40% of the population, though there are many other languages. Franco said it was like the different dialects in Italy – someone from the north of Senegal wouldn’t necessarily understand the language of someone from the south. All these languages are based on a different sound system than western languages – which is obvious when you hear it spoken. Franco had to get off before the language lesson got very far, but we both learned ‘man’ = I, and ‘moom’ = he, she, it. That last raises some gender questions.

There is no empire of vendors under the evil thumb of a capo. All the vendors come over independently, usually joining friends or family members who are already here. Franco chose his selling locale because a friend who had been here for 20 years said he did well there. He commutes daily from Busalla, north of Genova, to Pietra Ligure, west of Savona, for his day of work. In the winter he works in Viareggio, well to the south. Unlike sleepy, beachy little Pietra Ligure, Viareggio is still moderately active in the winter. The things he sells are almost all made in Italy, he said. (I did doubt that.)

What surprised me most was that Franco and his friends are legal entrants to the country. He said that he went to the Italian Consulate in Dakar and got a visa to come to Italy. I believed him, in spite of the fact that some studies suggest that up to 50% of immigrants in Italy enter illegally (Senegal accounts for only about 2.5% of immigrants to Italy).  (There are a lot of Pakistani vendors in Italy, too; they seem to specialize in silver jewelry, fabric items and pinwheels, leaving the dark glasses and purses to the Senegalese.)

Another thing that really surprised me is that Franco buys his merchandise from a wholesaler – actually another Senegalese whose ‘warehouse’ is his apartment in Genova. Far from being told what to sell by someone else, it turns out Franco is an entrepreneur!

He’s been here working for two years, but he does get home to visit occasionally. He would like to work and save for another few years and then return home for good.

How brave to leave your homeland, move to a distant country (though not that distant really – 2500 miles or so, about the same as New York to San Fran), hastily learn enough of the language to harangue passers-by, invest your savings (or money borrowed from family and friends) in a stock of dark glasses, and then go stand under the beating sun to sell your goods. Phew. It’s no wonder Franco has such a winning personality – he has to in order to succeed in his line of work.