Category Archives: Italian men

Fabulous Italian Footwear

31 Sunday Oct 2010

Posted by in Italian men, Italian style, Italian women

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Recently we took a friend over to see Portofino, and were well rewarded for the effort when we came upon a young bride and groom having a photo-shoot at Chiesa San Giorgio, above the port.

Aren’t they adorable?  That’s Castello Brown in the background.  And no, we have no idea who this happy couple is.  At first we just thought, ‘aw shucks, how sweet…’  Then we got a closer look at the groom and noticed his unusual footwear:

Hey!  Those are blue high tops!  What an improvement over tight shiny leather when you have to be on your feet and feeling your best for the afternoon and evening.  But best of all was when we realized that the bride went to the same shoemaker:

I don’t know which I like better, the blue or the yellow.  I think maybe the yellow.  The bigger question, though, is this: is this the new Wedding Style for the year ahead?  Will all brides and grooms be cantering down the aisle in athletic footwear?  Not a bad idea, now that I think of it, very handy when they try to escape from all those people who are throwing things at them after the ceremony.  And oh!  how comfortable!

Marcus of Umbria

26 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by in Animals in Italy, Dogs, Italian men, Italian women, Italy, Uncategorized

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Book Jacket by Andre Mora

Seldom do I receive an offer to review a book; this was certainly a title I couldn’t resist accepting.  If you love Italy, dogs or both, you won’t want to resist reading it yourself.

Justine van der Leun is a young woman who knows what she wants, whether it’s walking on two feet or four.  Sometimes when she gets what she wants it turns out that she doesn’t want it after all (handsome Italian lover, horse), but sometimes when she gets what she wants it turns out to be life-altering (Marcus).

Justine moves to Italy to live with a man she’s known all of three weeks in the small Umbrian town of Collelungo, population hovering around 200.  There she quickly learns that she has not taken on just the man, but his entire family as well, and they have taken her on, too.  Without a strong extended family background of her own, the realities of an Italian family are a shock to our heroine, and one to which she can never entirely adapt. (There’s a lot here about the strength of the matriarch in the Italian family.)  Also shocking is for Justine to see Italy as it really is, not as we imagine it from movies and other move-to-Italian-paradise books.  Justine may have come to Italy, but it was no paradise.

She remains in Collelungo a year, during which time she adopts a darling but challenging canine whom she christens Marcus. (You’ll learn quite a bit about the rather unfortunate circumstances of Italy’s hunting dogs.)  Despite the doggy title, Justine ends up learning a terrific amount, not just about love but about life, from the family and from the town.  Even more, she learns to know herself a lot better.  That journey is the heart of book, and it is a delight.  Strong-willed, intelligent and, perhaps, a bit privileged and naive, Justine is thrown into a situation where people still kill their own food, where self-sufficiency is a way of life and a point of honor.  She has the grit , humor and humility to absorb the lessons that are offered by the experience.  She’s a modern, witty young woman, and she’s a terrific writer.

What I enjoyed most about the book is that it shows Italy as it truly is in a great many places.  She lived in the ‘real’ Italy, not the Italy of the touristic centers of  Venice, Rome, Florence, not the Italy of ‘Chiantishire’ in Tuscany, or the sun-drenched Riviera.  People in Collelungo are patient, they are sometimes slow, they work incredibly hard, they probably know how to hold a grudge.  Because they live in a town of only 200,  there is nothing they do not know about their neighbors, whom they are very likely to accept just as they are, and they have no secrets of their own. They are not sophisticated, traveled, particularly well-schooled (though some of the young now are); they remember what it was like to be impoverished.  But they know how to laugh, cook, eat, fight, and laugh some more.  As Justine says, they have tailored their expectations to what they have; they are happy.

Photo by ?

And what about Marcus?  She (yes, she) is the agent of Justine’s greatest lesson: responsibility for our actions.  As she herself says, “I had willfully shifted another being’s course, and that meant that I was technically morally bounded to ensure her well-being for a lifetime”.  That doesn’t stop her from making a few more blunders, but one of the most refreshing aspects of this book is the humor with which Justine is able to admit her own shortcomings.

No, she’s not perfect; and neither is Italy or Umbria or her boyfriend and his family, or Marcus (bit of a chicken issue there).  But they all have something wonderful to offer and Justine is smart enough to take it all in.  Her boyfriend’s family, the Crucianis, are as warmly and honestly drawn as is Italy.   And always there’s the sense of humor.

There’s nothing pretentious about Justine van der Leun or her book.  I don’t know her, but having read the book I feel like she’s a friend.  I think you’ll like her too.

Mobster Caught by a Plate of Spaghetti

18 Wednesday Aug 2010

Posted by in Crime, Customs, Italian men, Italian women, Uncategorized

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Mobster undone by love of mamma’s cooking

Fugitive Camorra clan suspect captured while tucking in

17 August, 17:10

Mobster undone by love of mamma's cooking

(ANSA) – Naples, August 17 – A suspected member of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, has been arrested by Italian police after being unable to resist his mother’s culinary delights.

Rosario Scognamillo, a 39-year-old suspected of being a high-ranking member of the Grimaldi Camorra clan, was captured by agents Monday while having lunch at his mother’s home.The man, who is accused of criminal association related to drugs trafficking, had been on the run since May. He may have thought his return home would not be noticed with many Italians relaxing on their summer holidays at the moment.

The above was in the English section of the morning’s ANSA web-site. Could there be anything that speaks more clearly of the Italian male’s love of his mother and her cooking?  I imagine she was doing his laundry while he ate, before heading over to the hideout to give it a good clean.

We have frequently been struck by the way Italian parents serve their children.  It is sweet and loving, but we’re not sure it’s doing Italian boys any favors.  According to an NBC report, more than half of Italian men between 25 and 35 years old still live with their parents.  The young women I know tell me they do not want Italian husbands – they are too spoiled.  I wonder if the same thing is going on in the US?

In any case, it certainly makes the job easier for the police, doesn’t it?

Unexpected Animal Sightings in Portofino!

17 Monday May 2010

Posted by in Italian men, Italy, Uncategorized

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There’s nothing like having a guest to get you out and about. Portofino is generally not on our list of go-to places (think Disneyland Makes an Italian Fishing Village), but it is on the list of pretty much everyone who comes to visit. And in fact, it is well worth visiting because, touristy as it is, it still looks like a charming little fishing village.

Guest and I wanted particularly to take the ferry from Rapallo to Portofino, because it is such a pretty way to see that stretch of coast. But the weather has been cruel the past two weeks; as soon as the rain stops, which has been infrequently, the wind picks up and the ferry suspends operations. Finally, in desperation, we gave up the ferry notion and just drove the scooters out – which is also a pleasure because the coast road is deliciously windy, and is one of the most famous short stretches of road in Italy. And we learned something worth knowing.  The reason it always looks like Portofino is sunnier and warmer than our hillside home is because it is!

If you haven’t been to Portofino in as a long a time as it’s been for me, you too might be surprised to see the several amusing additions to the sculpture garden above the port. I’m not quite sure what they mean, but they are very funny.

Why a rhino? Beats me. And why is he hanging from straps? Maybe he just dropped in? Or… well, I was going to suggest something slightly off-color, so excuse me if I don’t finish that sentence.

Meerkats. Not only is this mob much larger than life, they are also, obviously, much pinker, and very, very far from their usual home.

Having pooh-poohed Portofino for years as nothing more than a tourist trap I got my comeuppance on this recent visit.  Turns out it still is a quaint little fishing village.  We saw a group of four men working with ropes (couldn’t resist skipping over them, men not amused) as well as this fisherman mending his nets.  He resignedly agreed to my request to take his picture and admitted that yes, it’s a request he receives pretty often.  But he couldn’t have been nicer about it.  He uses his mouth to stiffen the string which runs along a sort of large wooden needle.  Looks like very fussy work to me, but he made nice even stitches.  He said he was a native of Portofino, born and raised.  When he was a lad the town had a full time population of about 1,200.  Now it is somewhere between 300-500, the rest of the property having been purchased by ‘Milanese’ (which is northern Italian for anyone from outside who comes to your town to buy property.  It is most usually used with the adjective ‘ricco.’)

I guess it’s good to get your assumptions shaken up a bit now and then…  guess I’ll have to visit Portofino more often.  I got to see animals way out of context, and I learned that sometimes things are what they seem.

Bersalgieri Visit Rapallo

23 Friday Oct 2009

Posted by in Italian men, Italy, Law and order, Photographs, Rapallo, Uncategorized

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For a couple of weeks the main streets of Rapallo have been criss-crossed with hundreds of little Italian flags.  Why? we wondered.  This weekend we found out: the Bersaglieri visted Rapallo and some neighboring towns for a gathering of the Corps from central and northern Italy.  There were many events around their visit, including a concert on Saturday evening and a parade on Sunday morning.  We were able to go to the parade for a few hours, which made us  swell with pride, if not for being Italian, at least for living here.

pre-parade (10)

There’s something about a uniform – or at least there always has been for me – and the signature feathers of the Bersaglieri hat are so over the top (oh excuse the pun) that they are divine.  Where did that idea ever come from?  Was it a type of ill-thought-out camouflage?  Perhaps it was to suggest the speed of flight (though wood grouse, the source of the feathers, have never been noted for speed)?  Me?  I think it was simply a Style Statement, and a very fine one, too.

The Bersaglieri were founded in 1836 to serve as high-speed infantry in the Piemontese Army (this was before Italy was unified). Piemonte could not afford a large, expensive horse-mounted cavalry, so instead developed a superb corps of sharp-shooters that featured quick movement, either on foot or bicycles, and later on motorcycles.  The Bersaglieri never walk – they run everywhere, whether in training, in the field, or in a parade. Their demanding physical training made them useful as mountain troops, too; the Alpini, the elite mountain troops, were founded in 1872, and there is still a friendly rivalry between the two groups (there were several groups of Alpini in the parade and some proud veterans watching).  While there have been as many as 12 regiments of Bersaglieri in the past, today there are six, and they are all now mechanized.

pre-parade (15)

In addition to unique headgear and running everywhere, the Bersaglieri are famous for their fanfara, the brass bands that accompany every regiment.  The musicians must be adept not only at playing, but at playing as they run, because they, too, are obliged to run everywhere they go.  The Fanfara from northern and central Italy formed the major part of Sunday’s parade, and they certainly impressed with their musical skill and physical stamina!

parade (18)

During World War II there were both bicycle and motorized troops:

parade (41)

parade (59)-1

There was a huge ovation for the oldest gent on a bicycle – 92 years old and still going strong:

parade (40)-1

And how about the fellow who has to ride a bike AND play the trumpet??

parade (55)-1

I find it very moving to see old Vets watching a parade, and Sunday was no exception.  There were scores of former Bersaglieri watching the parade; it wasn’t always easy to read their expressions.

veteran

veteran (2)

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veteran (5)

And of course there was a viewing stand full of dignitaries:

dignitaries (2)b

A parade is always fun, and a military parade particularly stirring.  But only in Italy, I think, will you find a military parade that showcases such stamina, showmanship and style in one package: The Bersaglieri.

If you’re interested in some more photos of the parade, you may see them at a web album here.  I recommend a slide show, F11 for full screen.

The Best Thing We Ate Last Week – Baked Stuffed Peaches

15 Thursday Oct 2009

Posted by in Desserts, Food, Italian men, Italian recipes, Piemonte

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pesche ripiene - stuffed peaches

Our friend Leo made Pesche Ripiene (stuffed peaches) for dessert when we visited in Piemonte last week.  They are amongst the best things I’ve eaten, ever, in my whole life.  And they are easy to make.  In fact, they are so easy I will give you the recipe here rather than send you off to another page for it.

Here’s what you’ll need:  peaches, amaretto (or amaretti) cookies (about 3 per peach half, depending on size of cookies and size of peaches), marsalla, sugar, butter

Cut firm but ripe free-stone yellow peaches in half – Leo recommends Elberta. (They are widely available here but nowadays are not as common in the U.S. as they once were).  Chop up the cookies, add some sugar (+/-  1/2 tsp per peach half), and add enough marsala wine to make the cookie stuffing hold its shape.  Overfill each peach half with the cookie mixture and top with a dab of butter.  Put in a preheated (350) oven and bake until done.  The peaches are delicious with this stuffing, and somehow there is a by-product of excellent caramel sauce that can be drizzled over the top (Leo says it comes from the moisture the peaches throw off mixing with the sugar).

Next time you need an easy dessert and peaches are in season, try making stuffed peaches, and then when everyone tells you how fantastic they are, send a silent thank-you to Leo.

leo

In the Old Way

27 Thursday Aug 2009

Posted by in Italian habits and customs, Italian men, Italian women, People, Uncategorized

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Our neighbors down the street still cook with wood, and, we suspect, heat their home with it as well. Their chimney tells the tale, no matter how warm the day.  Even this week, with temperatures at 37 C,  brushing 100 F, the mid-day smoke has appeared.

cooking with wood-1

We don’t know these neighbors, but every now and then we see them. She is elderly and plump and wears long skirts and a wary expression. He motors ever so slowly up and down the hill in his aged ape, frequently carrying  precariously balanced  fruit boxes with him, fuel for the stove. Where does he get them? I wish I could ask him, but they seem wary of strangers, and to them I suspect we are the strangest of the strange.

Other neighbors farther down the street seem to be laying in a good store of wood for the winter ahead. At least we are unable to think of any other reason for this massive collection of wooden pallets.

wood pallettes-2

I can’t imagine having to struggle up the narrow stone stairs on the left to carry fuel to my home (if, in fact, the collector lives up there). In fact, I can’t imagine cooking and heating using fruit boxes and wooden pallets for fuel. But our neighbors do it, and I admire them for it – no doubt it’s the way people cooked for years, using whatever fuel was readily at hand.  What a great way to recycle what otherwise might end up in the dump.

Chivalry – still alive and well in Rapallo

13 Thursday Aug 2009

Posted by in Italian men, Rapallo

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On Tuesday Flavio restored my flagging faith in mankind:

Flavio

I had just done a great big shopping at one of the local supermarkets.  It seemed like the day to buy everything heavy: 20 lbs of kitty litter, 6 liters of water, a dozen cans of beer, plus the usual foodstuffs.  Having gotten it all stowed in my trusty scooter, I started her up and motored about 50 feet.  Cough, cough, splutter, ominous silence.  Poor old scooter just flat out quit.  Flavio and one of his friends were across the street and watched as I fruitlessly tried to get the darn thing started again.  An old gent in a stylish fedora sporting bermuda shorts and an ace-bandaged ankle walked by and advised in passing, “spegna le luce, signora” – turn off the lights, which I did.

In frustration I parked the scoots and began weighing my options.  The Captain was engaged and I didn’t want to disrupt what he was doing.  It was, by this time, almost 1 p.m., and our scooter guy, Simone, would have gone home for lunch.  I was just about to head off to my friend Madelena’s paneficio to throw myself on her mercy when Flavio and his friend crossed the street and started tinkering.  They spent half an hour working on the scooter, to no avail.  They opined, and were later proved right, that I needed a new spark plug (‘candele’ in Italian – lovely word).

I was feverishly re-weighing options (by now Madelena would’ve gone home for mid-day) when Flavio asked where I lived.  I told him San Maurizio di Monti, and without a moment’s hesitation he offered to take me home.  “Oh no,” I replied, “It’s too far – 8 or 10 kilometers.”  He answered with a shrug and some words which I took to mean, “No problem.”

So he stowed all the groceries under his seat, and I hopped on the back of the big Burgman 400 and enjoyed a smooth and stately ride home.  It was such a nice thing to do!   How to say thanks?  I offered lunch at Rosa’s across the street, but he declined, got on his scooter and drove back down the mountain.

I don’t know anything about this man except that he’s one of Rapallo’s gentlemen, and he did me a truly nice turn that day.  I hope I can find him – we’ve got a bottle of wine with his name on it.  Thank you, Flavio!

Q8 Rip-Off

07 Tuesday Jul 2009

Posted by in Crime, Driving in Italy, Italian bureaucracy, Italian habits and customs, Italian men, Rapallo, Uncategorized

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Q-8 receipt

You get what you pay for, right?  Well, sometimes when you buy your gas at Q8 you don’t get anything at all!

Here’s the story.  Way back in May I filled my scooter, which has a small tank, and paid with a E 10 note.  There was a credit remaining of E 4.11.   I wasn’t sure how to use the credit slip, though, even though a thorough explanation is given at the bottom.  My Italian just doesn’t always measure up to the fine print.  I know!  It’s my fault, I should be better at my second language.  But I’m not.  Yet.

Wanting help with this credit receipt, I kept waiting for there to be an attendant at the Q8 station, which is, it seems, a rare event.  Finally about a month ago there was a man there who explained to me that because my credit was less than E 5 I wouldn’t be able to use it without putting in more money.  Huh??  When is a credit not a credit??  When it’s for less than E 5 at Q8, that’s when.

It seemed mighty peculiar to me, but I said ok – and as it happened I already had plenty of gas that day, so I didn’t take advantage of the attendant’s presence and actual willingness to help.  I figured I’d catch him another day.

Fast forward to last week (can you believe how much effort is going into a credit for E 4.11??!).  The door to the attendant’s box was open, so I whizzed in to buy some gas.  There was a young woman there, and I asked her, is it true that I can’t use this credit without adding more money?  “I don’t know,” she said, “Can you come back on Monday when the regular guy will be here?”

“Well, okay,” I replied, but can you give me change for this E 50 so I can pump some gas?  I don’t want to put E 50 in the machine.”

“No,” she answered.  Sooo, I went to the grocery store just behind the Q8, bought a few necessities and returned to the gas station with a crisp E 5 note.  The attendant had fled.

I began the automated process to get gas, and one of the choices indeed was for a receipt number, so I punched in the number on my credit.  Immediately what came up was the original screen suggesting, ‘Go ahead, put some money in here and see if you get lucky.’  At least that’s what I think it said. I really just wanted the credit’s worth, so I tried again.  No luck.  Then I stared around in agony and asked the Gas Goddess to come to my assistance.  Then I punched in the credit code again and got a message that it was invalid.  So I just put in E 5 and got my gas, puzzled as could be.

Today my tank was low again and guess what!  There’s a GAS STRIKE in Italy over the next two days so it will be difficult to buy gas (amusingly, one of the strike issues is ‘long working hours’).  It seemed prudent to fill up, and, to my amazement, the door to the attendant’s box at the Q8 was open again, and sure enough there was a man seated at a desk within.  I went right to him and said I wanted to use my credit to buy gas.  He looked at it and said, “There’s not enough credit on here, you need at least E 5, so you will have to put more money in.” (Can you tell me what difference it makes to an automated system if your credit is for E 4.99 or E 5.01?  It shouldn’t matter one whit.)

I explained that I had tried to do that but that it hadn’t worked.  “Can you help me with this?” I asked – and I was still being extremely polite.  Can you guess what he said?  He said, “No.”  Then he said, “The instructions are written down here.”

“I know,” I said, “but when I put my credit number in it doesn’t work.  Can’t you help?”  Rolling his eyes to the heavens and heaving a mighty sigh he… you think I’m going to say he got up, aren’t you?  No, he didn’t budge his skinny ass.  He punched a few buttons on the computer in front of him and said, “This number is invalid.  Didn’t you take a new receipt when you tried before?”

“No,” I explained (and I was getting a little irritated by now), “I didn’t because there wasn’t one to take.”

“There was,” he assured me, “and you should have taken it.”

“So what you’re telling me is that Q8 has my E 4.11 and I’m not going to get any gas for it?”

“This receipt is invalid.”

“But I didn’t get anything for it.  I’m just giving Q8 my money and not getting any gas in return.”

He gave the final, infuriating, ‘tough shit’ shrug and turned away.  That’s when I crumpled up the receipt (but didn’t throw it at him – I’m so glad because now I can show it to you!) and informed him tartly that I wouldn’t be buying any gas from Q8 ever, ever again.  You know, I don’t think he cared.

As a side note, during the long wait for this story to unwind I received another credit slip from the Shell station in the middle of town, this one for E .94.  The attendant (who is there morning and afternoon, daily) took my slip and applied it to my next gas purchase.  So easy!

May I tell you what would have happened if this had occurred in the U.S.?  1) the attendant would have been there more than ten minutes a week.  2) he would have made at least a cursory effort to help  and 3) he would have believed me and would have made good on the credit.

Now you might say I’m the victim of my own ignorance, and I guess that’s true, but  I think people who are selling things should try to be helpful to customers.  You might call my wish to have the gas credit honored the typical unreasonable American sense of entitlement.  I call it honesty.

Every Inch

10 Wednesday Jun 2009

Posted by in gardening, Italian habits and customs, Italian men, Liguria, People, Rapallo, Uncategorized

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It has always amazed me how every square inch of space in Italy seems to be put to some kind of good use.  There are 60 million people living in Italy, a population density of 515 people per square mile.  In the US the population density per square mile is 80.  No wonder roads, houses, cars and people there are large – there’s enough space for everything and everyone.  But here in Italy every square inch must give the most it can.  You realize this particularly if you’re out walking on a woodsy mountainside and suddenly notice overgrown stone walls: the land on those mountains was important enough that people put in hundreds of hours of labor to terrace and farm them.

Now agri-business has arrived in Italy, too, and some of the farming land on the really steep and inaccessible mountains has gone wild.  But individuals will squeeze an enormous amount of production from whatever land is available to them.  And they have devised some very clever inventions to make the job easier.  It’s not uncommon to see a small cable and carrier system stretching across a wooded valley from one hillside to another – a way to transport cut wood.  Or to see the same thing coming down the olive-studded hill to a road below – a way to get the harvested olives to a waiting Ape (the little three-wheeled workhorse truck named for bees, because that’s what the two-stroke engine sounds like).

cable system (2)

People practice intensive gardening here – a lot of the garden maintenance is done by hand, so rows to do not have to be widely spaced to accommodate a tiller.  Down the hill in Rapallo I have watched an elderly gentleman prepare and plant his garden this spring – he did it all by hand.  First he turned the dirt with a spade, then he put in mounds of fertilizer (probably cow manure from the farm up the road), then he forked it all in by hand, and finally he was ready to plant.

garden squares-1aIsn’t it tidy and pretty?  If you get out your magnifying lens you might just be able to spot the man himself in the midst of his tomato stakes behind the tree in the center.  Or you can just take my word for it that he’s there.

The prize for getting the most out of every inch, though, goes to this man’s neighbor a bit farther down the road, another American transplant by the name of Rick Gush.  Rick is the guy that if you give him a sow’s ear he’s going to give you a purse the next time you meet.  He’s the guy who’s never even heard of the box everyone else is trying to think outside of.  Every time we meet Rick we learn of some new  job he once had.  An incomplete list of his accomplishments includes adventure game designer (Kyrandia, Lands of Lore), psychic soil analyst (easier than it sounds, he says, if you live in Las Vegas, as he did at the time), intimacy counselor (“those that can’t do, teach,” he says), artist, uranium miner, gardener and garden writer.  He took all the disparate skills suggested by these activities and put them to work in building his hillside garden.

The steep, stony land, a cliff really, behind his and his wife Marisa’s apartment building had gone completely to seed.  Over the last few years Rick has terraced it and built walls of cement and old wine bottles laid on their sides with the bottoms facing out.  Sounds weird, but it’s really pretty and a very clever way to recycle hundreds of wine bottles.  And being a fanciful fellow he has put turrets on the walls.

Rick's garden

This is a view of the right side of the garden.  There are grapes on the right and a big fig tree on the left, with a smaller lemon between them.  There’s a set of steps, invisible in the photo, above the blue car roof.  Above you can see flowers, bean poles, tomato poles and satellite dishes. Just below the uppermost wall there is a very pretty curved arbor with a flowering vine  growing over it.

Rick's garden-1

This is the left, and more recently constructed part of the garden.  More turrets, the big fig, and more poles to support cukes, squash and pumpkins.

Rick's garden-3

This pictures shows the amount of wall building Rick has done, but it’s hard to see the details of the plants.  This is a garden in the true spirit of Italy – there’s not one centimeter wasted, and, best of all, it’s beautiful.  There’s been an addition since I took this photo – up on the top fascia now sits a small, gleaming white greenhouse – heated by manure.  (To read more about Rick and his cliff garden, click here.)

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