Author Archives: farfalle1

Tenth Tee Apricot Bars

18 Friday Mar 2011

Posted by in American recipes, Animals in the U.S., Golf, Uncategorized

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I took up golf this winter.  I’m not proud of it, but I did it.  It seemed like a good way to spend time with the Captain who engages in this foolish and impossibly difficult sport five or six times a week.  I’ve always scoffed at all things golf, from the size of the ball to the costumes of the participants.  But it has turned out to be far more challenging than I ever imagined.  And irritating. And, sometimes, exhilarating.

We joined a club not too far from here, one of a mere 250 such in the greater Phoenix area.  It has two stand-out characteristics.  One is the view of Red Mountain that one gets from various angles at different parts of the course.

The Captain with Red Mountain in the distance

The other is the population of Peach-Faced Love Birds.

Peach-faced lovebirds at a course-side feeder

The birds are native to two places on earth: West Africa and East Mesa, Arizona.  They look like parakeets and make a constant twittery racket.  They have the adorable habit of sitting next to each other and leaning in, very lovey-dovey.  There are hundreds of them twittering and tweeting all through the golf course.  No, not THAT kind of twitter and tweet…

Part of our golf routine is the Snack that takes place on the tenth tee (for me and others) and the eleventh fairway (for the Captain).  This is always something home baked, and recently it has been these delicious oatmeal bars.  I found the recipe at   allrecipes.com, but have made some alterations.  Our stalwart 2:00 p.m. Canadian golf pal (he’s got the same kind of membership we have that allows for afternoon play) is quite fond of them, I think.  So Bob, this recipe’s for you.

Scorpio Rising

05 Saturday Mar 2011

Posted by in Animals in the U.S., Arizona, Desert, Italy, Liguria, Rapallo

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Up my pant leg, that is…

Mother scorpion and babies, courtesy of phoenix.about.com

I went out to the garage to get something, and after a few minutes back in the house I felt a sharp sting – the unmistakable feeling of something small defending its territory in my trousers.  Ouch!

Pants quickly off and shaken, a teeny sandy, orangey scorpion trembled, terrified in the pile of the carpet.  It was literally a half inch long, or less.  Which is lucky for me.  There are many varieties of scorpion inhabiting the southwestern desert.  The Arizona Bark Scorpion, seen above, is venomous and can, in certain individuals, cause seizures.  My little guy was either a baby or an altogether different species; we didn’t keep him around long enough to ask him.  My heroic Captain whisked him away on a paper towel and set him free outside, where he belongs.  The sting site got a little red, a little puffy, and was off and on sore for the rest of the night, but by the next morning I had forgotten I’d been stung.

photo courtesy of dimackey.com

There are scorpions in Italy as well.  We frequently find small black ones in various parts of the house.  Sometimes they are dead and dessicated, sometimes they are quite lively.  For well over a year a little fellow lived under the baseboard next to Luciano‘s supper dish; we assume he came out at night to scarf down kitty scraps.  During the day he hid in the safety of his baseboard with only his larger claw partly visible, like a child who thinks he’s hiding because he can’t see you.  We got pretty fond of Blackie, especially after we checked with the vet and learned that in the off chance that he stung Luciano, there would not be any major trouble.  Little Blackie stayed with us even after Luciano was gone, and in memory of our funny cat I sometimes put down a crumb of something for his baseboard buddy to eat.  Then we had an infestation of ants, as sometimes happens in spring.  Without thinking we spread poison along the ant trail which happened to lead along Blackie’s baseboard.  That was the end of him.  We felt pretty bad about that.

So, are scorpions dangerous?  Clearly the Arizona Bark Scorpion can be, though Dr. Trisha McNair reports that of the 1,400 scorpion species worldwide, only about 25 have venom that can kill a person.  European scorpions in general are a nuisance at worst, their sting being like that of a bee or wasp.  There’s more on scorpions here from Dr. McNair.  But toxic or not, I can tell you from experience you don’t really want them crawling around in your pants!

Uppity Up Up

25 Friday Feb 2011

Posted by in Arizona, Sports, Travel, Uncategorized

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Hot air ballooning is a big attraction in the Southwest. Probably the best known balloon event is the Albuquerque (New Mexico) International Balloon Fiesta, held in October each year. Among the zillions of scheduled events is a ‘mass ascension’ of hundreds of balloons, which must be quite something to see.

There’s ballooning activity here in Arizona as well, though it appears from the web sites I could find to be centered more around Phoenix proper , Scottsdale and Sedona rather than out to the east where we are.

I suspect the balloon we saw the other day belongs to an individual rather than one of the several tour companies that run balloon flights in the area.  We don’t often see balloons here, though part of the reason might be that flights generally take off at dawn and at dusk when the air is at its stillest.  We’re not usually looking out the window at dawn (ahem).

Our first glimpse, off to the east:

Getting closer and losing altitude:


About to land in the parking lot of a nearby shopping center:

It’s such a pretty sight, a hot air balloon; it gets one thinking adventurous thoughts.

The Captain and I went on a hot air balloon ride a number of years ago with the dashing Captain Bollard who dressed the part and served champagne.  I was terrified; the wicker basket you ride in comes up only to about your waist.  I spent the entire flight kneeling on the floor of the basket and peeking over the edge.  If I’d had a rosary you would’ve heard clicking beads a mile away.

Most of a balloon flight is calm, slow, gentle, graceful and still.  Until the captain decides it is time to gain some altitude.  Then he ignites a flame under the bottom hole of the balloon that makes a huge whooshing sound (the hot air fills the balloon above which is what makes it rise).  What a shock it was to hear that for the first time, and to be so close to a rather large open flame.  In a wicker basket.  Still, you see things from a completely new perspective when you look down from a balloon.  And since you’re not as high or moving as fast as you are in an airplane, you have time to look carefully at the scene slowly passing beneath you.  Sometimes you see a lot of faces staring up with their mouths open, which is quite satisfying.

One day about 15 years ago The Captain (not of balloons, by the way) and I were sitting on our terrace at our New England home having sundown drinks with friends.  We lived far out in the woods, and there were not many clear areas nearby other than the space in front of our house.  We watched a balloon in the distance grow larger and larger; in fact pretty soon it seemed immense – to the point that our 130-pound guard dog started quivering and soiled himself.  Yes, the same dog that kept delivery men rooted to their van seats in our driveway.  The balloon filled our sky and suddenly we realized that the pilot was looking for a place to land.  We also realized that he really had few options.  We knew who it was because there was only one balloonist for miles around (not Captain Bollard).  Sure enough, before long the balloon bounced along the field in front of our house, knocked over two sections of garden fence, took out a row of tomatoes and came to rest in our lettuce.  The sprightly 70+ year old pilot was all apologies, his comely companion, ever so much younger, was charming.  Drinks were offered, toasts drunk, the chase car appeared, and before we knew it balloon and balloonists were gone, as if it had all been something we imagined.

And that’s the thing about balloons, I think – they get the imagination going.  They’re romantic and slightly exotic; surely if you’re in a balloon, adventure cannot be far away!  So if you ever have a chance to have a balloon ride, I hope you’ll do it.  Even if you’re afraid – you can always kneel on the floor of the basket.


Sunnies

19 Saturday Feb 2011

Posted by in Food, Uncategorized

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Today I met a Canadian man who grows sunflowers, flax and other grains and vegetables on quite a large scale.  He and his family also have a business that cleans the seeds and hulls them.  Then they ship them off all around the world.

I never thought about how a sunflower might get hulled – I just know that sometimes I buy them salted with the shells on for nibbling, and sometimes with the shells off for bread-making.  That turns out to be two different varieties of sunflower.

My new acquaintance described the hulling procedure this way:  The seeds are fired against the side of a round ceramic receptacle – not too hard, because you don’t want to damage the kernel.  The hull cracks and everything is sent on its merry way on a vibrating belt (to help seed separate from hull) to another part of the machine where the hull is blown away.  Then there’s a weighing and color sorting part of the machine that the seeds pass through.  Any seed retaining its hull is routed back to the ceramic chamber for another percussive meeting with the sides and another shuddering journey on the conveyor belt.

I don’t know if my friend’s hulling machine looks anything like the one above; it’s probably something similar.  Who would ever have imagined when noshing on the humble sunflower that it had had such an adventure?

Photo courtesy of infinitetrends.in

Photo courtesy of vt-fiddle.com

Win, Win, Win

13 Sunday Feb 2011

Posted by in American habits and customs, Food, Uncategorized

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My last post was hard to write because it was about a very disturbing subject.  What better antidote than to tell you about something really positive?

Are you sick of hearing me say, “We’re in Arizona?”  (Will it make you feel any better if I tell you the temperature was 27 F a few mornings ago (-2 C)?)  One of the things the Phoenix valley is famous for is its citrus orchards.  There are far fewer now than there once were, as many have been ripped out to make room for housing developments, but some of the developments saved as many trees as possible and built the houses among them.

Such is the case in a lovely development in Mesa where I was recently fortunate enough to join a bunch of volunteers who were picking citrus for the United Food Bank, which acquires, stores and distributes food through partner social service agencies.  Many of the houses in this development have ten or more fruit trees in their yards.  I guess there’s only so much grapefruit a family can eat. And yes – it’s mostly grapefruit.  Why?  Grapefruit is faster-growing and more productive than the other citruses, so more grapefruit trees were planted than orange or lemon (or tangerine, or tangelo, or…)

Here’s how it works.  The United Food Bank coordinator has teams of people who gather at a staging area and then carpool to wherever we’re picking.  Our team leader is the indefatigable Terry Parsons, who happens to be a neighbor.

On this particular day we began picking at the home of Lori Wegner (seen below with a couple of hardy pickers).  That was a good thing, because she puts out great goodies.  It turns out that most of the homeowners put out great goodies; at a subsequent house we were invited to take whatever we wanted from an outdoor fridge, which included soft drinks, water and beer.

Picking is not especially easy work.  In fact I can’t imagine doing it all day long; I’m pooped after two and a half or three hours.  There are three basic jobs in the picking operation.  The first is just to hand-pick whatever is easily accessible, and that is what I try to do because it is the least back-breaking approach.  But one must be sly and quick to be successful, because others also want to do this work, and most of the fruit is not low-hanging.

The higher-up fruit is reached with long poles with a curved prong at the end.  You put the prong around the stem of the fruit and drag or jerk down; then you duck because the fruit may well land on your head.  In any event it will eventually land on the ground  where the third kind of work is required: stooping down to pick the fruit up and put it in pails.  The pails fill up pretty fast, and they are heavy.

Someone who is not me (my aching back!) then carries the pails and dumps the fruit into huge cardboard bins that other volunteers have assembled on palettes.

At the end of the morning the Food Bank truck miraculously appears and a man with a small fork lift picks up the bins and puts them into the truck.

Once they arrive at the food bank there are other volunteers who sort the fruit; that which is not suitable for consumption is sent to the squeezing station where it is turned into juice.

Terry told me that there is an even larger food bank in the area that sends semi-trucks of citrus up to Oregon where they have no citrus, and comes back full of surplus Oregon apples.  How clever that is!  (It got me thinking about all the untended olive trees in Liguria – could volunteers pick the olives for oil which could be sold to benefit the food banks?  Or the oil given to hospitals or to the food banks themselves?)

So – who wins the citrus lottery?  First the homeowner.  She has more fruit than she knows what to do with and has to pay someone to come and remove it from her trees if the volunteers don’t do it.  She also will get a small tax write-off for the value of the fruit, if she wants one.  The second winner is the Food Bank and by extension the hungry people whom it feeds.  (I  wonder if some of them say, “Oh no, not more grapefruit!”)  The third, and biggest, winners are the volunteers.  They get to be outdoors in the lovely weather with a group of jolly others, to see parts of town and lovely homes they otherwise might not see,  to eat delicious snacks, and they get to feel really good about doing something helpful for others.  And no one at all loses.

Death in America

06 Sunday Feb 2011

Posted by in American habits and customs, Crime, Law and order, Uncategorized

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Here we are in Arizona, now famous around the world for its violence and death, and I have to tell you that in early January I felt a bit like an  angel of death myself.  Friends visiting from Italy very much wanted to go to San Francisco, so that is what we did for three days in the early days of the new year.  One of our goals?  Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.  We met our goal on a crisp, breezy (read ‘cold, windy’) afternoon, and it could not have been lovelier.

On almost every bridge support we were somewhat surprised to see one of these signs:

The blue sign says, “Crisis Counseling – There is Hope – Make the Call.  The consequences of jumping from this bridge are fatal and tragic.”  Also, the bridge railings are surprisingly low, making it very easy for would-be suicides to clambor over and make the leap.

On our walk back across the bridge, with the wind mercifully behind us, we noticed a small commotion at rail side.  Indeed, someone had just jumped to his or her death moments before we arrived.  The people responding to the tragedy were extremely low-key and very, very professional.  I doubt many bridge-walkers that day knew that anything untoward had happened.  There’s a reason why they were so good – they get a lot of practice.  Someone jumps off the bridge about once every ten days.  No one survives.

Flash forward a few days to January 8 – what a good day for our visit to Tucson to look for a church my friends particularly wanted to see.  There was a fair amount of traffic in the outskirts of the city, and as we waited in an accident-caused traffic jam the Captain called to tell us there had been some kind of assassination attempt somewhere nearby and we might want to head home.  We didn’t want to head home, so we pushed ahead and eventually arrived downtown.  Downtown Tucson on a Saturday is a very sleepy place – most of the shops were closed and there were very few people about.  I don’t think it had anything to do with the terrible events that had unfolded at the suburban Safeway Market a few hours previous.

These two experiences with our friends, one right after the other, made me feel extremely uneasy – is America really and truly such a violent place?  More violent that the rest of the world?  I’ve waited a long time to write about what happened because it’s taken a while to sort out my thoughts on this question.

Here is a picture of Jared Lee Loughren, the unrepentent man who shot and killed six people and injured twelve others (including the now famously and miraculously recovering Representative Gabrielle Giffords)  in Tucson the day we were there:

This is what insanity looks like, at least in one of its iterations.  And my point, I guess, is that insanity is all around us, not only in the United States, but on every continent in the world, even in our beloved Italy.  It is a difficult to find hard figures, but according to Wikipedia there were 5.7 murders per 100,000 population  in the U.S. in 2006 and in Italy there were 1.06 per 100,000.   The difference between the U.S. and Italy, I suspect, is the ease with which one can get guns and the number of guns that are in private hands.  Here in Arizona, which is one of the gun-totingest states, it is legal to carry licensed guns both openly and concealed.  I can’t tell you how disconcerting it is to be in a store and see a fellow swagger in with a pistol on his belt.

The NRA will tell you that it is not guns that kill, but people who kill.  They will also tell you that it is our Constitutional right to arm ourselves.  The first is a nonsense.  People cannot kill nearly as effectively without guns – it is guns in the hands of people like Mr. Loughren  that kill, and kill often and very effectively.  The second assertion is open to frequent debate.  The second amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, ” A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  Some say that it means anyone and everyone has the right to own and carry guns.  Others say that the framers intended that guns be owned privately but used in a militia setting to protect the country.

It doesn’t matter who’s right – what matters is that as things stand now there are a lot of guns in the hands of a lot of people.  Most people are responsible and careful.  But there is a small percentage who are not, and they are the ones who are deadly.

So why the description of the suicide at the beginning of this screed?  Only this.  It is disturbed people who kill – either themselves or others.  Some take their own lives, some decide to take the lives of others.  It all adds up to the tragedy of senseless death.  These deaths, all of them, are tragic to the close circle of family and friends around the dead and the killers; but they are also tragic and harmful to the fabric of society as a whole.

So… what to do?  One of the men taking care of the suicide on the bridge told me that if only the authorities would put up a wire fence high enough to make it difficult for people to jump the number of jumpers would decrease.  And it seems logical that if only we could keep guns out of the hands of those who are not stable enough to have them we would all be a lot safer.  The first isn’t happening because the bridge authorities do not want to ruin the view from the bridge.  The second is not happening because no one knows how to do it.

Parli Italiano?

28 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in Customs, Italian bureaucracy, Italian habits and customs, Italy, Law and order, Uncategorized

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Illustration courtesy of Tile Hill Wood School

Italy has passed a new law that requires immigrants to offer proof of proficiency in the Italian language and to have a basic understanding of Italian culture.  Wow!  Can you imagine that happening in the U.S.?  Here are the details as set out by Baker and McKenzie in their website:

On June 10, 2010, the Italian Government enacted a new decree… that introduces substantial new developments for what concerns immigration permits. Once fully enforced, these new provisions will apply to all non-EU citizens who enter Italy for the first time with a stay permit having a duration of at least 1 year or more. Purpose of the new law is to guarantee that foreigners, who will be living in Italy for a long period of time, integrate in the community where they live and conditions the renewal of the stay permit to a series of new obligations that must be fulfilled by the foreigner.

The main aspects of this new law may be summarized as follows:

a) upon presenting an application for a stay permit, for whatever reason this may be (work; study; humanitarian reasons, etc.), the foreigner will be required to execute an agreement according to which he/she undertakes, in the following 2 years, to acquire sufficient knowledge of the Italian language (lev. A2) as well as Italian civic culture and lifestyle.

b) in order to help the foreigner acquire the knowledge mentioned above, the Italian Republic will sponsor adequate projects and in any case will hold courses of civic culture free of charge.

c) upon execution of the agreement mentioned above in a, the foreigner will be granted 16 credits. If he/she does not participate in the courses of Italian civic culture, mentioned above in b, he/she automatically looses 15 credits.

d) credits may be increased (to a maximum of 30 credits) if the foreigner participates in courses or acquires certificates, diplomas or degrees. Instead, credits may be lost if the foreigner incurs in criminal sanctions or even serious breach of administrative and tax laws.

e) the Immigration Office (Sportello Unico per l’Immigrazione), via the documentation that must be provided by the foreigner him/herself, will verify if he/she has acquired the 30 credits necessary to sustain a test, organized by the Immigration Office, to ascertain knowledge of the Italian language and Italian culture.

f) if the foreigner acquires 30 credits and passes the test mentioned above, his/her stay permit is renewed. An extension of one year, for the fulfillment of obligations deriving from the agreement, may be granted in the event that the foreigner has not acquired 30 credits at the end of the first 2-year period. Instead, with 0 or less credits, the foreigner will not receive renewal of his/her stay permit and will be forced to leave the country.

Leave it to Italy to make the process incredibly complicated.  Credits?  Pluses and minuses?  Why not just give the exam and then issue a card proving successful completion?  I know why!  It would require only a testing room at the Questura, instead of numerous teachers, classes, etc.  I can’t help but think that Italy herself is in love with all the layers of bureaucracy that make the rest of us wring our hands.  Surely it could have been designed more simply.

Two things strike me particularly about this law:  The first is that it applies only to non-EU immigrants.  I suspect it had to be written that way to appease Brussels, but it does rather favor those immigrants coming from the new eastern members of the Union (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) over those from the Middle East and Africa, to say nothing of those coming from the U.S., Canada and South America.  Fair?  Not really, but then perhaps that isn’t the point.

The second is that while the government will sponsor courses in civic culture, it is up to the immigrant to keep track of all those pesky credits and present himself at the Immigration Office in a timely fashion – another example of people being given responsibility for their own record-keeping (as discussed in this old post). Come to think of it, maybe this is a good introduction for the new arrival to this do-it-yourself feature of Italian life.

What would happen if a similar law were passed in the U.S?  Well, first of all, such a law never would be passed because it would be deemed discriminatory.  But if through some strange course of events it were, what a hue and cry there would be!  There are whole pockets of immigrant populations scattered about the country who have maintained a strong ‘foreign’ cultural identity.  The Captain’s own grandmother lived in Illinois for 60 years and never learned to speak English.  No one came after her waving a language law.

What it boils down to for an immigrant is the conflict between assimilation into a new culture, and maintaining one’s own, often very different, cultural identity.  Personally I think it’s an excellent idea to learn the language, geography and history of the country to which one moves.  I’m just not sure passing a law to make it mandatory (for some) is the best way to go about getting it done.  And I’m quite unclear on what the actual motivation behind this particular Italian law might be, though I have some suspicions, based on no clear evidence at all.

For family and dog-lovers

24 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by in Desert, Dogs, People, Photographs, Uncategorized

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It’s been a busy few weeks here in Arizona, which accounts for the relative silence from your usually chatty scribe.  One of the reasons for our coming here is to have a chance to visit with family and friends who find it difficult to travel to Italy and we are lucky this year in having a chance to see so many who are near and dear to us.

One of my favorite activities, which I inflict on all able-bodied guests, is hiking around in the Superstition Mountains.  On these hikes I try to photograph every hiking dog we meet.  There is an album here, to which a few new mutt shots have recently been added.

Writing about cabbage the other week was extremely evocative of my paternal grandmother – so much so that I’ve written a very brief profile of her here.  Most likely it will be of interest only to other family members – unless you enjoy looking at early-mid 20th century portrait photos. But please feel free to make the acquaintance of this unusual woman.

Meanwhile, thanks for visiting, and we’ll get back to more ordinary posting one of these days.  I think.  I hope.

The Best Thing We Ate This Week – Penne with Cabbage and Cream

14 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in Uncategorized

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Photo courtesy of thedailygreen.com

‘Tis the season to eat cabbage, a wonderful and woefully underused vegetable.  Cheap, too!  You get a whole lot of cabbage for your money; perhaps if your family is small it seems like you get way too much cabbage for your money.

We love homemade coleslaw and made a batch not long ago.  Shortly afterward some friends from Italy, came to visit us.  Their visit posed some interesting and difficult problems for Chef Captain; one of the women is a vegetarian, the other has an extremely restricted diet that excludes onions, garlic, tomato and soup.  In addition, the second woman is not very fond of fruit and likes only certain vegetables.  A knotty problem indeed.

On many of the evenings our guests were with us the only solution involved separate dishes, one with the offending ingredients (onions, garlic, principally), and one without.  Such was the case the day the Captain decided to take on the half a cabbage that was left over from our last coleslaw binge.

He fussed and muttered in front of the computer screen for quite a while, but in the end he came up with a recipe for Penne with Cabbage and Cream that is divine. While I credit him with its deliciousness, he insists it is but an adaptation of various recipes he found while researching food of the Alto Adige in Italy, a region that loves its cheese.  The dish is a great combination of the Virtuous (cabbage) and the Sublime (cream, cheese).  I hope you’ll try it… and don’t leave out the onions and garlic unless you absolutely have to.  You can find the recipe here.

Church!

03 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by in American habits and customs, Italian Churches, Italian women, Italy

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Here’s a switch.  usually I write about my experiences as an expatriate, either in Italy, where I truly am one, or in Arizona, where I mostly just feel like one.  Our friends Elena and Michela arrived from Italy yesterday, and now I get to see our country through their expatriated eyes.

Being practicing Catholics they went to mass this morning at the closest appropriate church, the Church of the Holy Cross in Mesa which is a half hour’s drive away.  Now if only they were Mormons, Methodists, Baptists or Lutherans I could have accommodated them in a matter of a few minutes.  Don’t let the photo above fool you – the place was mobbed for 10 a.m. mass.  I had to go to a nearby shopping center to find a parking place while I waited for my friends.  There are two churches, and there was standing room only.

How was it different? I asked.  In lots of ways, it turns out.  First, in Italy going to church is mostly women’s work.  If you see a solitary man in church he is very likely a recent widower, according to Elena.  Here you see many couples and families worshipping together; it is more the rule than the exception.  And it is beyond rare in Italy to see the church packed to the gills and overflowing for Sunday mass.

In Italy the congregants are offered only the host.  Here they are offered both host and wine, either for sipping or dipping.

The wafers are thinner and yellower than those in Italy, but Elena opined the caloric value was probably about the same.

Going to the altar for communion can be very disorderly in Italy with everyone getting as close as they can as fast as they can.  Likewise, people come and go at will, frequently not remaining for the whole mass.  At the service today Elena observed that everyone formed a line to take communion, and each person patiently awaited his turn.  No one left early.

She was enthusiastic about the music, which was almost like a concert.  Everyone sang!  In Italy only a few wurbley-voiced matrons participate, but here the singing was hearty and heart-felt.

So what were the impressions she came away with in general?  She was impressed by the number of people and the active and orderly participation in all parts of the service.  But she found herself wondering if there was the same spirit of joy in today’s mannerly congregation as she frequently sees in the smaller masses of her home church in Italy.  She couldn’t say yes, or no, but it was an interesting question for all of us.