Category Archives: Uncategorized

Rice!

30 Sunday May 2010

Posted by in Italy, Piemonte, Rice, Uncategorized

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You’ve got to love any food that can be served for every course of a meal.  Rice is just such a one.  You can have your cheese ‘befores’ on rice crackers, eat risotto for a first course, serve rice with the main course, and enjoy rice pudding for dessert.  And of course it is all washed down with delicious sake (rice wine).

Unless you live in a rice-growing region you may think, as I used to, that rice grows in grocery stores in bags labeled “Carolina”.  But of course it doesn’t; it grows in rice fields which, in this season in Italy, are exquisitely flooded with water.  Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I’m a huge fan of Piemonte, not least because the scenery around the rice fields is so exotic.

The land, flat as a rice cake, suddenly rears up into snow-capped Alps.  Add the acres of flooded fields reflecting the surrounding trees and mountains and, well, it’s just something that can’t be done justice with a photo.

Illustration courtesy of Botanical.com

But how does the rice get from lake to table?  Ha.  That’s where Tomasoni Brothers Riseria (and countless other small  processors) come in.  The rice, which is a tall slim grain, is harvested and when dried looks like the brown bouquet in the center of the photo at the top of this post.  The illustration on the left shows all the bits and pieces of the plant. The rice kernels are the seeds, which are produced at the top of the grassy stalks.

When ripe, the rice kernels are threshed from the chaff (and I’m not exactly sure where or how this happens) and the resulting ‘seeds’ are brought to Tomasoni to be turned into salable product.

Here are some of the machines that accomplish this miracle:

The rice is carried into the riseria in huge sacks – we’ve seen this happen in the late summer.  Then it is fed into the wonderful old  machine above from another room.

This is the inside of the machine – it engages in some kind of swishy motion evidently.  As you can see, the rice is still brown, that is, it still has its husk.  After it has been swished around a good bit, the kernels fly through some other machines and lose that husk, becoming the white rice we are accustomed to buying to make risotto.

This is the most amazing machine of all and, I suspect, one of the newest.  Each and every grain of rice is scanned by this gleaming device, and if a black speck is detected, that kernel is shot off to another place to become animal food.  Only the unblemished best for us humans!


Then all that remains is to package and label the rice. That happens in another room, seen above.  I have no idea where the fabric for the bags comes from, but it is all cheerful and silly.


After all the cleaning and packaging is done, one needs only customers to buy the rice.  As is so often and so charmingly the case in Italy, selling has more to do with socializing than with actually taking money and handing over goods in exchange.

And finally, here are the cheerful and helpful brothers Tomasoni, Virgilio and Luigi.  They are always willing to discuss rice, to tell you which is the best variety for Risotto (Carnaroli) or to find a particularly happy print bag of whatever it is you want.  You can find them at their Riseria, which is in Rovasenda, just past Arborio.

Polizia Stradale

21 Friday May 2010

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

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While we’re on the subject of police, which we were very briefly in April, it seems the Italian police are making a huge public relations effort just now.  Our guest and I made a day trip to Genova last week, and among the many delights that city offers we stumbled upon a Road Safety Exhibition at the seaside near the Palazzo San Giorgio.  The Carabinieri and the Polizia  Stradale were there in numbers, including this gentlemen entertaining a group of youngsters.  Behind the auto’s open hatch is a radar speed gun which can be used either from a stationary position or from a moving police car.  Bah!  The autostradas now have a nasty thing called Tutor, which is a fixed speed gun mounted to various bridges, etc.  But this little item below is really mean – it can get you coming or going.

Part of road safety, alas, is the ambulance service.  Finally the young fellow on the right below was able to answer our confusion about all the different colored Crosses – Croce Rossa, Croce Bianca, Croce Verde (Red, White, Green)- all of which seem to operate ambulance services in and around Rapallo.  The Red Cross is affiliated with the International Red Cross and is a professional outfit; some of the participants are paid.  The Croce Verde and Croce Biancha instead are all-volunteer organizations.  Just to make things more complicated, there is also a Croce Rosa (Pink Cross), also volunteer; I don’t believe they operate in our area (please tell me if you know otherwise!).  A few years back I needed a quick trip to a hospital.  I can’t tell you which color cross came to cart me off, but whoever they were, they were fantastic.

Just a cotton-pickin’ minute…  Why are the Carabiniere on BMW’s?  Can’t Ducati or Bimota or Cagiva or Moto Guzzi make a good enough cycle for our national police??

Only by the sea will you find fast floating rescue vehicles like the jet ski below, this one under the auspices of the Fire Department. Personally I never think of boats catching fire, but evidently they do.  There were 42 serious fires/explosions on boats in 2006, just in the U.K!

This was my favorite exhibit, though.  It’s another fire department truck that is also a boat!  Wouldn’t that be fun?  (I want one, after I get my car that turns into an airplane…).  When the baby below blew her horn we jumped out of our skins – think of standing inside a foghorn and you’ll have the general idea.

We arrived at the Expo at about 12:30 p.m., which by sacred decree is part of Italy’s lunch hours, so there were not many people visiting the Expo.  That was good for us, because we got to speak with the people in the booths.  It’s great to see the Police of all stripes making an effort to educate and to be friendly and helpful.  Even if they do have those @#$! speed guns.

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.

Such a good idea…

13 Thursday May 2010

Posted by in Italian habits and customs, Italy, Uncategorized

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Do you cringe every time you toss a huge plastic soap container into the trash or the recycle bin? I do, a bit, because I think how much plastic is discarded every day and what a problem it is to dispose of it all, even with good recycling in place. (According to the Clean Air Council, 2.5 million plastic bottles are thrown away every hour… just in America! One-third of American waste is packaging.)

What a pleasure it was to walk into the local IperSoap store (where you can find the elusive dusting wands I crave) and see a new display for something called Neutral:

What a great idea! You buy the plastic bottle one time, and then take it back to the store to be refilled with your cleaning product. I bought the hand dish-washing soap, and while it’s not the best I ever used, it’s better than the inexpensive stuff I usually settle for. So far they seem to sell just dish and clothes washing products, but that’s a great start, since those products usually come in really big plastic bottles.  As you can see, the product itself is not very expensive.

I hope there will be more of this in the future. There are so many things that could be sold without fresh packaging every time.  Here in Italy we use about a thousand different cleaning products (and spend a lot of time cleaning)… so it would be great to see more products sold this way.  We’d be doing old Mother Earth a great big favor.

Adriana’s Amazing Pineapple Dessert

09 Sunday May 2010

Posted by in Desserts, Italian recipes, Uncategorized

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Wait!   Before you say, “I don’t much care for pineapple,” (and I’d have to agree with you), take a look at this:

Ha! Did you think it was a big plate of prosciutto? That’s what we thought when our friend Adriana presented it at the end of a lavish luncheon last week. Imagine our surprise when we learned it was pineapple. I approached it with some caution, but it was so delicious I went back for seconds twice (I’m on a diet; there are no thirds).

The recipe is so simple you don’t have to go to a separate recipe page; I’m just going to tell you how to do it right now.  Note: you’ll want to either have candied orange peel on hand or make it ahead of time.

First, squeeze a bunch of blood oranges (2, 3…) and reserve a few skins to make candied peel (below).

Second, peel and cut a pineapple into impossibly thin slices (Adriana used a meat slicer; I think a mandolin would work well, or any tool for shaving food).

Third, pour the blood orange juice over the pineapple and garnish with the candied orange peel.

I really don’t see how it could be any easier. Or tastier. The bitterness of the candied peel cuts the cloying pineapple sweetness, and the juice gives just the right amount of acidity.

Here’s how to candy the peel.  Use a vegetable peeler to peel strips of the orange part of the skin (or yellow, if you’re doing lemon). Cut the peel into very thin slices.  Briefly boil in three changes of water to take out the bitter oils.  Then make a heavy sugar syrup – I used about 1/4 cup sugar in about 3/4 cup water.  Toss in the peels and boil them til the water has evaporated.  Remove the somewhat sticky peels and roll them around in granulated sugar.  Set out on waxed paper to dry.  It keeps very well for quite a while, better in the refrigerator.

Passo Carrabile

05 Wednesday May 2010

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

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photo courtesy of areablog.net

It’s silly season for Italian taxes.  In the last couple of weeks we’ve received the Rifiuti tax and the Passo Carrabile tax.  I don’t know why paying for garbage removal is a tax and not a service fee, but that’s what it is. (There’s been a nice lawsuit on this subject; it has resulted in eligibility for an IVA refund for rifiuti tax payers.  Read more about that here or in Elaborations on the right). The rifiuti tax costs about the same here as it used to cost us for a year of garbage pick-up at our home in Connecticut, roughly E350.  The difference, of course, is that in Connecticut the garbage man came to us; here we walk to the Cassonetto di Spazzatura (which, by the way, the Captain thinks is the most sonorous of Italian phrases).  This one we have no problem with because we are getting good service for our money (and yes, we do get good garbage pick-up service).

No, the one we have trouble with is the tax for our Passo Carrabile. It’s an Italian concept, handled as only the Italians would handle it.  ‘Passo Carrabile’, according to the Oxford web translator means ‘driveway,’ but it actually means any alley, drive or portal that must left accessible for the owners.  In other words, don’t park here, buster.

In the U.S. it seems common sense applies more often than not – if there’s a driveway, one knows not to park across its access to the road.  If there’s a store that needs access to get goods in and out, a simple ‘No Parking’ sign, available for not much money at any hardware store will do the trick.  Easy!

Well, you won’t be surprised to learn it’s a little more complicated here.

About three years ago we built, at no small expense, a small parcheggio on the side of the road above our house.  It was a complex project involving many permits, an engineered plan, checks by various officials during construction, new walls, etc.  In fact, the file I have for “Parcheggio” is three times thicker than the file called “House Reconstruction.”  Why the added fuss?  Because we were building something attached to a public road.  In our innocence we thought that The State would be thrilled with one less car parked on a narrow, crowded road.  And insofar as permits were forthcoming without much delay, evidently they were.

But, as the saying goes, No good deed goes unpunished; and we are punished every year for our parcheggio.  Because it opens directly on the road we are obliged to post Passo Carribile signs so that no one will park in the middle of the road.  Seems obvious to us that no one would, especially since cars park on the other side of the street, making it impossible for more than one vehicle to pass through at a time.  A car parked adjacent to our parcheggio might completely block the road.  However, we have access to the street, so we must pay the tax.  Apparently it is based on how many feet of opening you have on the street.  Because of the steep terrain here, our parcheggio runs horizontally along the road, not perpendicular to it.  We have a lot of street frontage, and we pay accordingly.  Last year the Captain went to the appropriate office and said, “We don’t want a Passo Carrabile,” but he was told that because we’re on a public way we are required to have one.  And what does it cost, you may ask?  About the same as it costs to have garbage service.

So every year we pay for making the street we live on incrementally safer and easier to transit.  Oh well.  Italy is a taxing kind of country, and this is the season of silly taxes; probably the tax collector is laughing all the way to the bank.

May Day! May Day!

01 Saturday May 2010

Posted by in Holidays, Italian festas, Italian holidays, Uncategorized

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As an American, I’m accustomed to viewing Labor Day as the bitter sweet end to a not-nearly-long-enough summer; it’s the day we put away our white pants and shoes, put on our sweaters and plaid skirts and start thinking about returning to school, even if the temperature is still in the high 70’s.

Italy has a better idea. May 1st is Labor Day here, a red-letter day for celebrating workers, unions and, if you’re of such a mind, the good old Communist party.  How nice to have it at the beginning of summer rather than at the end.

According to Wikipedia: “The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman Goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane.”  More recently, especially in Europe, one tends to associate May 1 with the Communist party, Workers Unite!, Military might and so forth.  I’m thinking of pictures like these:

photo courtesy of libcom.org

and

photo courtesy of rferl.org

But while some in Italy may give a tip of the hat to labor, like almost every holiday in Italy (and this is a holiday, nation-wide, shops closed, the works) May Day is above all an excuse for a party.  This year it has fallen on a Saturday, which makes it double trouble.  Up the street from us there’s a party complete with amplified music (oh, thank you).  At Trattoria Rosa across the street there is a wedding reception, with a unique vehicle for the matrimonial couple:

And what did we do?  Probably what at least 50% of the Italian population did: we spent the whole afternoon eating with friends – a delightful cook-out which started with grilled vegetables (endive (!), eggplant, peppers and zucchini) and grilled cheese (little tomas), and moved on to grilled chops, veal and pork.  Then, in case we hadn’t had enough meat, there were sausages to accompany the Captain’s famous baked beans.  After a brief constitutional we returned for tiramisu.  Sadly we never did get around to the ice cream.

Grilled toma

May 1 – a great way to start the summer, no matter what your political affiliation.  Happy May Day, everyone!

Rapallo Ha Ha

22 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Italian festas, Italian holidays, Italy, Pulcinella Awards, Uncategorized

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If you wanted to know where the 14th annual  Cartoons on the Bay Festival in Rapallo was last weekend, all you had to do was follow the sea of yellow balloons that bobbed along the Lungomare, firmly held by young hands.  When I hear the word ‘cartoon’ I think of newspapers, The New Yorker and Gary Larson.  But of course I live in the papery past.  Nowadays cartoons are all about TV shows, videos and animated films.  The Festival’s subtitle should have made it obvious: International Festival of Televised and Cross-Media Animation.

The festival is, perhaps, the Academy Awards of animated television here in Italy, with Pulcinella Awards given in various categories, including TV Series for Preschool, for Kids, for the Tween generation and Young Adults; Educational and Social Products; TV Series Pilot; and Interactive Animation.  To my absolute delight, though, the shows the children evidently found most appealing were the ones that featured real, living people, albeit some of them disguised as giant mice.

or Star Wars Characters

or chickens

or one of my favorites, Batman!

I want the job where you get to dress up in a silly outfit and play with children!

One end of the Lungomare was given over to the Cartoon Village, a series of cheerful white temporary buildings that housed various displays, including several by sponsors.  (RAI, the state-run television, was the main sponsor of the event.  Other sponsors included Kinder Sorpresa (my favorite because they were the only ones to give me something – a white chocolate egg with a prize inside) and Monwatch, a clever and inexpensive water-proof item that can be slipped in and out of plastic watchbands of many colors.)  Here’s a photo of a display of Kinder Sorpresa prizes from the 1970’s.

The largest tent held several hundred people, most of whom happened  to be screaming youngsters at the time I dropped in.  They were excited about the stars of a famous TV show:

The din was extraordinary.  And though I really enjoyed watching the dancing, the crush of people and the decibels chased me out after about five minutes.

After Music Gate, a visit with the Police, who were present in great numbers, was positively calming.  Behind the young lad trying out a fast cycle below is the large bus which is used for education – it houses a bunch of computers that teach highway safety.  In addition, in a neighboring kiosk a policeman was giving a PowerPoint display on safety to a rapt group of older people – probably the grandparents of all the kids screaming in the tent.

Without a doubt, though, my favorite part of the Cartoon festival had nothing to do with cartoons and everything to do with fast cars.  I have never seen a cruiser like this in the U.S. (or such a spiffy police uniform, for that matter).


It’s a Lamborghini Gallardo capable of speeds up to over 200 mph. It lives in Rome and is driven by either the handsome gent standing next to it, or his partner, who was nearby. They sometimes use it to apprehend speeders on the Autostrada, but frequently it is put to a far better use: transporting transplant organs – hearts, kidneys, corneas and so forth. I asked how much of that went on and the policeman said sometimes they do as many as four in a day, sometimes none.

It was a grand festival, and it tied Rapallo up in knots for days.  There was a big bike race on the Saturday, called Cartoons on the Bike.  My sources tell me that some of the most important ciclisti of Italy participated.  In the weeks leading up to the race some of the main streets around Rapallo were re-surfaced, which led to horrible traffic snags.  But as our friend G said, the race is over, but we get to keep the improved roads. The link above to the bike race includes a great many fun pictures of the event, which included children as well as adults and took place between Rapallo and Portofino, on one of the loveliest and most famous stretches of road in the country.

Now… can you guess which person in the photo below is me??!

Ha-Ha-Hahn

14 Wednesday Apr 2010

Posted by in Travel, Uncategorized

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We’re back in Italy now, and it is just wonderful to be here. Not that we don’t love our homeland, but we love our adopted land more every year. Each time we return it feels more familiar, and more like ‘home.’ Of course soon after our arrival the usual train of bureaucratic nonsense began, but that’s a story for another day; and truly, it is not enough to dampen our spirits (as long as the sun continues to shine).

This time we returned through Frankfurt, taking advantage of American Airlines nonstop from Dallas to Frankfurt, and then low-cost RyanAir‘s nonstop from “Frankfurt” to Pisa. RyanAir is a good bargain most of the time, but you have to be rather careful about exactly where you are going to find yourself. Several years ago the Captain and I went to “Glasgow” from Pisa via Ryan, and arranged to rent a car at the airport. Ha ha. Ryan’s “Glasgow” flight goes to Prestwick, which is 30-40 minutes distant by car. We arrived in Prestwick, and not surprisingly found no car waiting for us. The AutoEurope people were fantastic, though, and quickly figured out what had happened. In short order we had a car and were on our way, laughing at our own carelessness. (In fairness, I have to say that the RyanAir website now says “Glasgow/Prestwick” – I don’t think it did a few years ago.

Likewise the website refers to “Frankfurt/Hahn.” You might think from the linking that the airports are close to one another; in fact it takes about an hour and a half to drive the 116 kilometers that separate the two airports. Ryan didn’t fool us this time, though; we had cleverly done our homework. There is very good and reasonably priced (E 12) bus service between the two airports, but we wanted to spend the night near Hahn and enjoy some good German beer and wurst. Unfortunately we were unable to find convenient bus/train service, so we simply rented a car, which had the added advantage of giving us lots of freedom… a good thing since the little town in which we chose to stay, Raversbeuren, was not exactly stuffed with pubs or restaurants.  Click here for map of the area (The pin A is in Raversbeuren, Hahn doesn’t show on map, but is right there.)

As we approached Raversbeuren we passed right by one of the Hahn Airport taxiways; it seemed decidedly odd to be so close to this large transport which had just landed.

A few minutes later we found ourselves in the B&B run by the charming Berta and Helmut Kirst:

They could not have been nicer to us. Their hospitality extended to an elaborate mid-afternoon tea with four different kinds of sweeties made by Berta herself. Our overnight there cost only E 40, permitted us early check-in, and included this amazing breakfast:

In addition to the spread of meats and cheeses, jams and breads, there are boiled eggs under those cheerful little red hats.  Behind the tea pot (good tea) is a plate of more of Berta’s sweeties.  There was not room for everything, but it was a pleasure to do our best to eat it all.

Hahn Airport was, until the mid-90’s, a U.S. Air base (cool airplane pictures here), and that’s pretty much what it still looks like.  For starters, it’s in the middle of nowhere.  You will not find the usual big hotels that sprout like weeds around more urban air hubs.  But you will find lots of small charming villages, and endless expanses of fields.

The photo above is of farm fields just outside Raversbeuren.  Hahn and its airport are about 5 km to the left.  Many of the houses and barns in Raversbeuren are clad completely in slate, which gives them a rather dour, imposing look, and which is, I think, quite unusual.

After our usual post-arrival nap we hopped in our nifty little car and took off to tour of the neighboring towns.  Enkirch is very nearby and is where we returned for a delicious dinner.  The sister towns of Trarbach and Traben lie on opposite sides of the Mosel River; both are picturesque and rather touristy.  They are connected by a fancifully painted bridge.  (There is an album of photos of these towns and other parts of the trip here.)

We arrived in Germany the day after Easter.  I don’t know if any other country has more fun with Easter than Germany.  Shop windows are given over entirely to springtime displays featuring flowers, rabbits, eggs, and bales and bales of straw grass.  Both our room at the Kirst B&B and the pub where we stopped for some excellent German beer were decorated for the holiday.  It seems you can’t go anywhere around Easter time without tripping on a bunny or an egg.

Arriving at the airport the next morning was a bit surreal.  We came in through the back entrance, rather than the somewhat more polished main entrance.  After traveling about a mile on dreadful heaved up and bumpy pavement we arrived at the gate, which looks much more like a base entrance than an airport entrance… for the simple reason that for years that’s what it was.

Fortunately we didn’t have to stop and show military ID.  But the strangeness continued as we drove past one hard stand after another. (The Captain explained to me that the hard stands each housed one airplane and its crew, which were always at the ready for almost instantaneous deployment.  Hahn was important during the cold war.).  We must have driven by fifteen of them at least.  It certainly didn’t feel like the beginning of a commercial air trip.

But it was, and eventually we found the place to return our rental car and were driven back to the air terminal.  The flight to Pisa was gorgeous as the Alps were in plain view for a change, as were the Lakes (and Lecco… where I think I saw some Rubbah Slippahs); so often one sees just the peaks popping through a heavy cloud deck.  As we approached Pisa we had ample proof that there has been a ton of rain in Italy.  Here is the muddy Arno emptying into the sea:

A few minutes after the above photo was taken our feet were once again on Italian soil, and all the joys and inconveniences of Italy re-entered our lives: we ate a fabulous panino while we waited for the train, which was delayed one and three-quarters hours.