Author Archives: farfalle1

Another fun way to find wine

13 Saturday Sep 2008

Posted by in Italy, Piemonte, Travel, Uncategorized

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In an earlier post I mentioned the filling-station style of wine procurement.

An even more satisfying way to get your wine is to go to the vineyard where the grapes are grown and the wine produced.  This is a popular pastime in Tuscany, which is famous for its red wines, especially Chianti and Brunello, and where many of the vineyards are large and have impressive tasting rooms.

It’s no less a pleasure in Piemonte, which in fact boasts more grape varieties and wines than our neighbors to the south in Tuscany. (As the Italianmade website says,  “For craftsmenship, respect for tradition and devotion to native vines in their historical habitats, the Piedmontese have no rivals in Italy.”)

I don’t want you to think I’m working for the Region of Piemonte… it’s just that because of family and friends it is a frequent destination when we travel.  It is, in my opinion, every bit as beautiful a landscape as La Toscana; however it is much less touristic.  Here is a photo of some rolling hills of vines.

I also really don’t want you to think I’m in the employ of the Rinaldi family. They are one of many Piemontese wine producers; it’s just that we’ve happened to visit their vineyard twice now,

The Rinaldis are a small producer of wine.  They live, grow grapes and make wine in Ricaldone, a tiny town (population +/- 750) famous in Piemonte for the high quality of its wine.

We first discovered them  a year ago, on the Monday after Easter, which is a holiday here.  We were driving through the countryside after a visit with our cousins near Aqui Terme, and their sign looked welcoming.  The gate was open, so holiday or not, we drove in and threw ourselves on their mercy.  We had providently brought our 20-liter plastic jug.  The young Signor Rinaldi, who is both knowledgeable and extremely enthusiastic, was nice enough to interrupt his holiday, give us a tour and a private tasting, and fill our container with his delicious dolcetto.

We arrived unannounced again this year with our jug (never travel without your camera, your trowel and your wine jug!), on a Saturday afternoon not too long ago.  To our amazement Andrea Rinaldi and his mother both remembered us and gave us a very warm welcome.  After giving us a tour of all her pretty gardens, La Signora dug a bunch of her portulaca for us to bring home and put in our own garden. Her son was, once again, as lively and enthusiastic as could be.  Carrying a wine glass, he took us right down to the cellar where he pulled tastes for us from the spigots at the bottom of the huge stainless tanks in which the grape juice becomes wine.

The wine stays in the big tanks for a while, and later is put in casks if required.  This year we fell in love with his moscato, a sweet wine that is perfect with dessert.  It turns out that 55% of his production is moscato, something we didn’t realize last year.  A small producer, he makes 1,200 quintale a year.  A quintale is 100 kilograms and one Kilogram = 1 liter, so that’s 120,000 liters of wine.  Sounds like a lot to me, but as wine production goes it’s on the small side.

The Rinaldi wine is prize-winning; near the office there is a wall of plaques and certificates to prove it.  Can you get the wine in the U.S.?  As a matter of fact, you can; at least you can get the moscato.  It is marketed there under the somewhat dubious name of Bug Juice.  Did we fill our containers with Moscato?  We did not.  It is not sold in bulk.  We bought a half case and for the princely sum of E 1.55 per liter filled our 20-liter jug with Rinaldi’s wonderful cortese, a crisp, light white wine.

There are some photographs of Ricaldone and the Rinaldi Winery in Photographs on the right.  If you have the chance, visit a winery some day.  You don’t have to be in Tuscany or California to do so; there are wineries all over the US as well as Italy.  It is great fun, and an economical way to buy your wine.

License to… drive

09 Tuesday Sep 2008

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Italian habits and customs, Italy, Uncategorized

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Many years ago I passed both written and practical exams for a driver’s license in the US.  It was easy.  Of course I was only 16 years old, and things that went in my brain actually took root there rather than drifting away on the air currents like a dandelion seed puff, which seems to be what happens now.  As I recall the written exam had a lot to do with the safe distance to be behind the car in front of you (1 car length for every 10 mph you are traveling – see??  I still remember!) and how far away from a fire engine you could park (75 feet? Well, okay, I don’t remember everything).  The driving test was also easy.  Obey the speed limit, signal before a turn, parallel park and there you go.

A group of us were in the class of a man who was either very stupid, very brave, or both; he not only ushered us through the theoretical aspects of driving, he also took us out on the road to learn how to move an actual vehicle in actual traffic.  I don’t remember his name – I guess we could call him Mr. Silly.  He instructed us to ‘hug the center line’, the theory being that this would give us the greatest amount of space to maneuver should we have a problem.  Of course it also scared the bejesus out of anyone coming in the opposite direction.  Mr. Silly had two verbal quirks.  One was that in his lexicon ‘curb’ became ‘curban,’ as in “Watch out for the curban!!” usually delivered at full voice just moments before he snatched the wheel from one of us.  He also had a great deal to say about “historical women drivers,” by whom I think he did not mean Betsy Ross and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eventually the Big Day came; we all passed our written exams, we all passed our practical exams and we were given Driving Licenses and set loose.  It was huge.  Freedom!  The open road and our parents’ car!  And gas that cost less than .50 a gallon.  A lot less.  Then came the part when we really learned how to drive – which was harder on some of us than others, unfortunately.  My own lessons were relatively gentle, the worst being the Driving on Ice Lesson which fortunately resulted in only minor damage to car, tree and girl.  I got to go to court (‘driving too fast for existing conditions’) and if memory serves my license was suspended for two weeks.

Quick forward about 30 years.  The Captain became an avid amateur race driver after a three day school at the Skip Barber Racing School.  Being a kind soul he decided to give me the one-day Better Driving class so I could share the fun.  And it was loads of fun, sashaying around cones, skidding on the pad, learning that you don’t gain anything by lane-shifts in slow highway traffic.  It was an excellent day and I recommend it to anyone who is within shouting distance of one of Skip’s schools (no, it’s not cheap exactly, but costs way less than an accident). The climax was zooming around the Limerock Race Track at what felt like, but wasn’t, break-neck speeds in a Dodge Viper, which is way too much car for me.  I left feeling I had become a modestly better driver, and that I hadn’t been a terrible driver to begin with.

All this is lengthy preamble.  After all this time I’m back to square one: studying to take a written exam for a driver’s license.  Citizens from other EU countries can trade their country’s drivers’ licenses for an Italian one.  Not so the hapless American.  We can drive on our US licenses for one year after taking residency in Italy; then we are obliged to get an Italian Patenta.

So last Monday I went to the Gilberto Scuola di Guida and signed up.  I received a 258-page book detailing rules and regulations of the road.  In Italian. *

There are lots of pictures, but the print is small.  This is not easy!  I was also given  a larger book with 301 pages of practice quizzes.  Also in Italian, of course; this is Italy.  Here’s the thing about the questions though: they’re sneaky!  They try to trick you by using a negative where you would expect a positive, by changing one word just a little bit to change the meaning (‘al meno’ vs. ‘a meno’).  This book was not written by the helpful, considerate Italians I’ve come to know and love over the past few years.  It was written by insane people sitting in cramped offices who want to torment others.

The Captain went through this process about five years ago.  He says two things worth repeating.  One is that in his whole life he’s never encountered a greater chasm between theory and practice than with Italian driving.  The other is that he thinks that after you pass the driving exam they take out your brain and give you a license.  It’s true.  The best way to describe Italian drivers is Wild and Crazy.  But when you read the book you realize that the actual rules are precise, logical and designed to make for safe highways.  Ha.

Over in elaborations on the right you can find a weekly recap of the Great Driving School Adventure.  (Not the one under ‘pages,’ the one up above.) I am far and away the oldest person in class, most of the others seem to be in their 20’s, with one teen-ager and one woman who is perhaps 40.  Here’s the thing that cracks me up.  I assume we’re all there because we need driving licenses.  After class we all go out, hop on our scooters, and disappear in clouds of dust.

*Disclaimer ~ the text is available in an English translation, and one may take the written test in English.  I was told the School would not take responsibility for the accuracy of the translation, however. hmmmm.

The Best Thing We Ate This Week – Stuffed Rolled Pork Roast

07 Sunday Sep 2008

Posted by in Italian recipes, Uncategorized

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A couple of years ago the Captain and one of his buddies added a rotisserie to our bbq using inexpensive and readily available parts. He uses it almost weekly in the summer and the results are always stupendous.  If you don’t have room for a rotisserie, check out the Ron Popeil counter-top appliance, or one of its cousins from Ronco – Just Set It and Forget It!  Our friends H & J have one and have successfully cooked legs of lamb amongst many other things. A rotisserie chicken that you cook yourself is 1,000 times better than the salt- and water-filled birds from the supermarket.

This week’s Best Thing was the rolled stuffed loin of pork that the Captain cooked on the rotisserie. It is a simple dish, but the flavors of the prosciutto and the marjoram make the happiest of marriages with the pork. He cooked it for about an hour and a half, but of course cooking time is always dependent on the size of the roast, the temperature of the fire, and the distance of the meat from the fire. You will have to be the judge of when it is done.

And if a rotisserie is not available to you, this roast can be cooked very satisfactorily in a 375 oven.

The recipe is on the right, under ‘Recipes.’  Buon Appetito!

Easy Quiz

04 Thursday Sep 2008

Posted by in Italy, Photographs, Uncategorized

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What do the following have in common:

Zip,  Vitality,  Looxor, Phantom,  Liberty,  Vivacity,  Flipper,

Joy-max,  Movie,  Majesty,  Foresight,  Pantheon,  Heroism,

Cinderella,  Sportcity,  Duke,  Typhoon,  Cygnus,  Atlantic,

Skyliner,  Steed,  Forza,  Xciting,  @,  Nikita,  Elkon,  Password,

Joyride,  Phantom, People, Hornet, Runner, Beverly,  Agility,

Byte, Skipper,  Fiddle,  Carnaby,  Naked,  Squab, Stalker, Booster

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If you haven’t already guessed, here are some more:

Burgman,  Dink,  Silver Wing, Geopolis

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Still guessing?  Here are the giveaways:

Spasso, Scarabeo, Il Mio,  Vivio,  Vespa

That’s right!  They are ALL names of various models of motorini (scooters). If you doubt me, take a look at the logos of all of these over on the right in Moto Models under Photographs.  (Proof, if you needed it, that I have far too much time on my hands.)

We’ve always been entertained by the Italian fascination with English words.  A few years ago tee-shirts with nonsense English were all the rage; you still see quite a few.  They say things that make no sense, like “Princess University – at Top Scale.”  Huh?  When I’ve  translated for the wearers of such shirts, they are always amazed for a moment, then just shrug.

I digress.  Back to the Motos (about which there will be more posts – stay tuned).  I took pictures of every name I found (not counting letter-number combos, like X-150), and as you can see, they are

Photo by Alfredo J. Martiz J.

Photo by Alfredo J. Martiz J.

predominately English.  My favorite has always been Dink because it sounds so silly, and because of Stoker-Dink, cat extraordinaire.  Who would want to drive a ‘Dink’ when he could have a ‘Steed?’  Lots of people, it turns out.

What I wonder is this: are the names regional?  I’ve seen few Burgmans here in Rapallo, but zillions in Genova – here we seem to favor People, Dink and, of course, Vespa, the classic, classy and ubiquitous Piaggio model.  (Vespa so quintessentially says ‘motorscooter’ that it has become the generic name for a moto.  Even people who drive Dinks will say, “Now where did I park my Vespa.”)  Those of you who live in other parts of Italy, do you see other names on the scooters?  How about in the States?  Elsewhere?

The Best Thing We Ate This Week – Pompelmo Rosa Gelato

01 Monday Sep 2008

Posted by in Italy, Liguria, People, Rapallo

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Gelato!  Who doesn’t love it?  Why is it so much better than ice cream?  I don’t know, but I suspect the freshness and wholeness of the ingredients have a lot to do with it.

Ms. Adventures in Italy (Sara Rosso) writes a terrific blog which features the always entertaining writing of a young MBA who moved from Silicon Valley to Italy in 2003. She’s an excellent photographer as well; her photos of food will make you drool. Check out her blog here.

One of her fun projects is the Tour del Gelato in which various bloggers in Italy and elsewhere write about the Best Gelaterias they have found.

This week’s Best Thing That We Ate is the Pompelmo Rosa (pink grapefruit) Gelato from the Frigidarium on the Lungomare in Rapallo, which is our entry in the Tour del Gelato.

Chicco (Francesco) Barbetta and his wife Anna make and serve the best gelato I’ve ever eaten in my life. In the background of this photo of the Pompelmo Rosa cone you can see some of the fresh fruits that will soon be in Chicco’s confections. I adore the Pompelmo Rosa – it is both sweet and tart, an identity crisis that is very pleasant on the tongue. It is also not as rich as the creamy flavors. The Captain favors Malaga, which is basically rum-raisin. It’s pretty good, but to me not as good as the divine Pompelmo.

The flavors Chicco and Anna offer may vary, depending on the season, but by and large they have a stable menu.  They also have gelato cakes made on the premises, and other frozen delicacies.  Their little tables with gay blue tablecloths are likely to be filled on a hot, sunny afternoon.

Chicco does not just make gelato – he gives a lot of his time to the Croce Verde, driving patients to doctors’ appointments.  He’s also been known to visit the local golf course where he has earned a low handicap.

I wish I could give you a recipe for today’s Best Food, but I can’t.  You’ll just have to come to Rapallo and visit the Frigidarium and taste for yourself.  Let us know when you’re coming – we’ll meet you there.  There’s never a bad time to eat gelato.

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.