Nancy, Author at Itch.world - Page 11 of 20
A three-minute escape to Italy.
Tuscany, travel, medieval village, Italy, festivals, celebrations, customs, cooking, recipes, living in Italy, moving to Italy, visiting, visit, restaurants, language
1
archive,paged,author,author-nan-cy7,author-1,paged-11,author-paged-11,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,select-theme-ver-4.4.1,paspartu_enabled,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-7.9,vc_responsive
September 13, 2019 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

The new man in my life

He may be a bit old for me, but everyone says he has the perfect body. He’s the mysterious, quiet type and never leaves my side. John doesn’t wholeheartedly embrace this new relationship but tries to understand my passion. My new love’s name is Apollo and he comes from around 90 BC.

I’ve been on an eight-year quest to find the perfect ring made with an antique coin. Nearly every window of any jeweler I’ve passed by for years has been scanned for “my ring” and always come up short. This quest hasn’t stopped with me—friends and family have also been on the lookout and will occasionally send a text photo asking “Could this be it?”

John, meanwhile, has been all sang froid and thought he had the perfect hand to play. We live on nine acres of land that is listed as archaeologically significant for possible Etruscan and Roman artifacts. Whenever I whined about wanting this kind of ring he’d tell me to go out in the yard and find the coin myself. Unfortunately all of our restoration, trenching for putting power lines underground, and gardening has turned up nothing more significant than broken bits of recent crockery.

So I meet my lovely niece, Christine Sarkis, in Rome as she started her Italian vacation. She’s a travel editor and had recently done a story about unusual stores in Rome, including a small store noted for its jewelry created from coins, called Serra. Mysteriously we found time in our crowded morning to go to the shop. And I met Apollo.

Alessandro Serra, the third-generation of the family to have the shop, became fascinated by Roman history, and through it, by coins, which helped to make the abstract tangible. The coins find their way into our modern world mainly as a result of having been buried for safety, particularly at the fall of the Roman Empire. When troves of a few hundred coins are found they find their way to experts who verify them, and then sell at auction (with the guarantee of taking them back if found to be inauthentic.) Alessandro started buying at auction and assembled an interesting collection from which he makes jewelry. Part of the reason that Roman coins are relatively plentiful is that the empire was so widespread, and controlled by soldiers, all of whom needed to be paid every month. Silver coinage was a way to do that and made its way to all corners of Europe.

In addition to being built Apollo is also the god of sun, light, music, truth, healing, knowledge, and the arts, all things I like. And archery, which I don’t know much about but am open to. On the back of the coin is Minerva in her chariot pulled by four horses. In Rome she was best known for arts, trade, and strategy.

I find meaning wearing something that was created by another human so long ago. That was carried around in so many pockets and traded for countless glasses of wine, meals, horses, bread, and God knows what else by people who were so different, yet exactly the same, as me. I was hiking recently on an Etruscan trail (next week’s Itch) that was stunning. I realized that it was more beautiful to me because the natural beauty had been shaped by humans living thousands of years ago. (Somehow more compelling than our more recent interventions. I wonder if a Target parking lot will every give a future generation a rush.)

My coin was widely used in 90BC and was similar to a nickle today. It’s called a denarius, from which many of the current words for money, like dinero, comes. It was the backbone of Roman coinage throughout the empire from about 200 BC to the middle of the  3rd century AD.

0
0
September 9, 2019 In Best Of, Chow By Nancy

Aglione: my garlic is bigger than yours

It’s the time of year when I start to see giant garlic in the stores and pici all’aglione (which means pici and “big garlic”) on the local menus. As you can see in the picture above it towers over lesser garlic. Aglione is a special type of garlic that is only grown between Siena, Arezzo, and Perugia in the Val di Chiana. It’s a relative of the garlic everyone is familiar with, without some of the drawbacks, and has a much milder flavor. The plant was nearly extinct but has been brought back in recent years by around twenty devoted farmers who have been growing it.

According to the Aglione Association it comes in the following sizes:

Super-Giant (bigger than 90 mm.)
Giant (80 – 90 mm.)
Extra (70 – 80 mm.)
Big (60 – 70 mm.)
Small (smaller than 60 mm.)

They also state on their beautiful website that it can cure abscesses, is used to help diseases of the circulatory system, malaria, infestations of worms and parasites, pulmonary disorders, as a disinfectant or purgative, for animal bites and for convulsions, for exhaustion, migraine, insomnia. It protects against toxins and infections, has a diuretic effect, reduces blood pressure … and more.

So eat up.

Over the past few years I’ve tried it several times and was a bit underwhelmed, but this year I have seen the light and can’t get enough. It is incredibly easy to make if you can get your hands on the goods. If not I thing you could give it a go with elephant garlic.

INGREDIENTS

400 grams pici (best if made by hand with only flour and water, or purchased fresh)

4-6 cloves aglione (You won’t believe how much garlic it feels like you are cutting up, but just trust. It should feel a bit like you have cut up an apple in size and texture.)

1 kg small, sweet fresh tomatoes or I’ve also used a jar or two of chopped tomatoes

Olive oil for cooking

Vegetable broth

Pinch of sugar

Chili pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese, for serving

METHOD

Peel the cloves and chop roughly. It doesn’t have to be nearly as small as one would chop up regular garlic. If using fresh tomatoes down the middle lengthwise. Remove the seeds and chop into cubes.

In a skillet, heat the olive oil, a bit of the broth, the cloves of garlic, and the fresh, chopped, seeded tomatoes, or the chopped tomatoes from the jar. Let the mixture simmer for 30–45 minutes, adding more broth if necessary for consistency.

At the end of cooking, you can mash the garlic and tomatoes together with a fork for a smooth sauce, or leave it a rougher texture if you prefer. Add a pinch of sugar and season with chili pepper to taste.

Cook the pici in boiling, salted water. Drain well. Pour the pici into the sauce — this dish is much less sauced than what one might be used to — the pasta should just be barely covered. Heat through over the fire before serving with Parmesan on the side.

 

 

0
0
August 30, 2019 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

Seven ways to beach like an Italian

After taking a brief break from Itch to spend time doing August-y things with visiting family and friends — which I decided is truly Italian — it’s time to get back to writing. While doing vacation activities, like hanging at the beach on Elba Island and our neighborhood pool, I’ve noticed a few ways in which Italians relax differently.

1. The more crowded the better. Why would it be any fun to go to the beach or pool when it is not packed? The reason to be there is to see and be seen, hear the latest gossip (le chiacchiera), and know you are in the right place because everyone else is too. Any civilized beach will offer chairs and umbrellas to rent in rows as closely packed together as possible — beach to beach these range widely in price and luxury level. Having a chair is really important as it provides a base of operations and a place where you can leave your things when you go to a long lunch.

As I’ve already told you in my Venice post, when we first moved to Italy and were living in Venice for six weeks we went to the Lido to go to the beach late one afternoon. After picking our way through a field of bodies to get to the water we went out swimming, facing the horizon. After less than an hour we turned back to shore very surprised to discover the beach was totally empty. It was, after all, time to leave and get ready for dinner. That was one of our first hints that Italians love to travel in packs.

A friend just told me that there is no exact translation for “privacy” in Italian because it is considered a sad, lonely, irrelevant, and undesirable thing.

2. Don’t forget lunch. We are not talking about a sandwich and soda. The Italian love of lunch — in smaller towns everything still shuts down between 1 and 3:30 — extends to the beach. Make sure to reserve first thing in the morning in one of the many seaside restaurants and plan to take at least an hour and a half. You will want to make sure to have several courses, a bottle or so of wine, dessert, and coffee afterwards. The star ingredients will be all sorts of fresh seafood, especially shellfish. My mouth is watering right now thinking about the black squid ink risotto with mussels I got a bite of. And don’t forget that you will also be having a large and leisurely dinner. (This may have something to do with #6.)

3. The flock migrates. Every year Italians often have their summer vacation with the same friends and family at the same beach, staying in the same hotel or house, and even renting the same cabana or beach chairs. On the Lido there’s a long waiting list for these little huts and chairs as they are rented year after year by the same family, and they are expensive, several thousand euros for a season. One family will rent and then split the cost between numerous relatives and friends who come to share their small plot of beach.

4. Bring toys. It’s vital to have the two paddles and ball that are batted back and forth in the small open territory between the chairs and the water’s edge making walking along the shore impossible. Rafts and floaties are also important. Unicorn rafts seemed to be especially popular this year.

5. A tan proves you were on vacation. Apparently the darker the better is still the thing.

6. Strut in a tiny bikini (no matter your body type or sex.) I love this part so much. I’ve been swimming at the local pool this summer and consistently notice that all shapes and sizes of bodies are showing it off with equal confidence and enthusiasm, often in suits that are so tiny that they are virtually naked. I’ve been so used to the vibe in the States where those who have great bodies strut, and those of us who don’t wish for an invisibility shield, but settle by trying to shrink into the background in swimsuits that cover as much as possible. This equal-opportunity freedom to strut totally changes my relationship to the pool and beach.

7. Do not confuse swimming with exercise. I am always the only person doing laps at the pool and am looked at with concern and alarm as if an intervention might be needed. This was equally true in the sea in Elba. It all came to a head that time I decided that I had to get some exercise at the local pool only to discover that it was Pool Toy Day. I am still American enough that I did my laps anyway. And counted laps on an Apple watch. Oh well.

0
0
August 3, 2019 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

Is skateboarding a crime?

One morning the bell on the front gate rings and one of neighbors, a policewoman, is standing there in full uniform. She hands me this piece of paper and tells me that I must call to speak with the police in the next village over about Sebastian and skateboarding.

Sebastian has been really into skateboarding this summer and spending hours every day at a local skatepark with friends. What could possibly go wrong?

I couldn’t make the call until the afternoon as I wanted all of us to do it together, having no idea what we were in for. It seemed to be a good idea to have Donella for her Italian, John for father-figure moral support, and Sebastian, so he could atone for his clearly numerous, although not yet disclosed, sins. I had a significant knot in my stomach all morning.

The moment to make the call comes and we all stand around the kitchen table with the phone on speaker. You can feel the tension. We make the call and it rings. This perfectly nice woman answers and says she’s so glad we called. That she’s a mom and a friend of our neighbor and just wanted to say that our son and his friends have been seen a couple of times skating outside the park—on roads and the main corso, or pedestrian street of the medieval town—which is dangerous and not allowed. She also thought that one of the group was a bit too old to be hanging out with them and just wanted me to know all of this. As one mom to another. Then she wished us a great day.

 

0
0
July 21, 2019 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Pinocchio at the Relais & Châteaux resort

Several years ago I guessed that Il Borro, the restored hamlet owned by the Ferragamo family and part of the Relais & Chateaux group of luxury hotels, might be a really nice place during my then 93-year old mother’s heart valve replacement. I returned to California for her procedure and in the preliminary meeting, when the team of surgeons and cardiologists learned that I lived in Tuscany, everything stopped while they told me in great detail about their various family vacations in this far-away paradise called Il Borro. Excuse me, but don’t you have work to do, like on my mother?

Now that I live about 45-minutes away I’ve visited a couple of times to eat and wander around but somehow had missed the whole point of the place. It’s not the ancient hamlet, perched on a rock outcropping, which has been restored to within an inch of its life, or the infinity pool, or the spa treatments, or winery, or olive groves, but the most interesting thing is a tucked-away collection of animatronic Pinocchios created by the parish priest who lived there years before it was purchased by the Ferragamos. Father Pasquale Mencattini first built a mechanized nativity scene in the 1950s, followed by small tableaus of traditional Tuscany—this one is in a tavern.

But I think his masterpieces are the Pinocchio scenes.

Built within TV sets they are stashed in a small cellar. The general public can see them, you just have to ask reception.

While writing this I also discovered that The Adventures of Pinocchio, written by the Italian Carlo Collodi, was first published as a serialized story in a newspaper of children’s stories in 1881 and became instantly popular. The collected stories were put into book form in 1883 and it’s reputed to be the most translated book in the world, after the Bible, and is one of the best-selling books of all time.

But back to Il Borro. Would I suggest staying there? I am a complete sucker for any Relais & Chateaux experience, but I’d have to say no. Not if you want to actually visit Italy. The resort is all about the curated and imagined Italian experience as opposed to the real one—the hamlet even comes complete with a collection of artisans at work—but give me a coffee at a not-too-clean bar filled with cinghiale hunters any day.

0
0
July 21, 2019 In Roam By Nancy

Mona Lisa’s bridge

I sometimes drive over the Buriano Bridge, just outside of Arezzo. It’s a seven-arched, one-lane wonder built in 1277 spanning the Arno. If that isn’t cool enough, the bridge is the one off the Mona Lisa’s shoulder, at least according to Carlo Starnazzi, a University of Florence paleontologist, who published a paper with his research in 1995.

The landscape was widely thought to be Leonardo da Vinci’s fictional creation, but Starnazzi argues that Leonardo had mapped this area extensively when he hired by Cesare Borgia to study how the river might be diverted by water works to starve nearby cities during a siege. On the map he created he’d drawn the Buriano bridge. (A little side note, Borgia was the inspiration for Machiavelli’s The Prince. If the assignment paid well, and used his engineering skills, da Vinci was up for the job, no matter how nasty the employer …)

Starnazzi even found a vantage point—a now abandoned castle—which in Leonardo’s time would have aligned with the geographical features exactly the way they appear in the painting. And Leonardo was a native of Tuscany and knew the area well.

There’s a bit of competition for claiming bits of Italian geography as the inspiration for what’s behind the Mona Lisa. Several other theories place the background in the Italian Alps, in Bobbio, located south of Piacenza, and in Montefeltro in the Marche.

But I am going to believe it it the Buriano Bridge as I pass over it not infrequently and the “evidence” seems pretty good to me. There’s also a sign making the bridge put up by the village … so it must be true. (The bridge is very near Il Borro resort, home of the Pinocchio collection.)

0
0
July 14, 2019 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Three years after the earthquakes

I was in need of a little exploration so I decided to head out to see Norcia and Castelluccio, two villages high on Mouni Sibillini hit hard by the Italian earthquakes of August (6.2 magnitude) and October (6.5), 2016.

Norcia is still charming, although the signs of devastation are everywhere. It was part of the Papal States and after a large earthquake in 1859 the church imposed a strict building code that limited housing structures to under three stories, and thanks to that most of the houses survived. The larger buildings, like the 13th-century basilica of St. Benedict, were completely destroyed. The facade is the only thing left standing. The basilica is on top of an earlier structure, and is believed to be where St. Benedict and his twin sister were born in 480. The basilica is in the process of restoration, although when I was there I only saw two men working and a crane lifting a wheelbarrow over the rubble that was the inside of the church.

The same side of the church, before the quakes:

Norcia is also the homeland of the norcini, or traveling butchers, who were in charge of the family spezzatura (cutting up of the pig) that John and I were lucky enough to go to. The area is renowned for its salumi, prosciutto, and other various prepared pig parts.The town still has its share of stores selling norcineria, although many are outside the town gate and in temporary structures.

Hanging around town are signs protesting the slowness of aid from the earthquake. This one, in the main square with the ruined church behind, says “Three governments and three commissions, only promises.”

After a coffee in Norcia I drove deeper into the mountains to the tiny village of Castelluccio, home to “nearly” 150 people. Sixty percent of it was leveled in the earthquake, the town was evacuated, and all road access closed off for over a year. The road is open again, as is the village, with a few shops and restaurants largely operating from temporary buildings. Not all villages have recovered as well—on the way I spotted this road leading to other small villages, still closed. The words “infinite shame” are written on the do not enter sign.

The valley that Castelluccio is in is one of the most beautiful, and unusual, places I’ve ever seen. It’s an immense valley, located high in the mountains, with a very flat and wide bottom. There’s only one road running through. If you zoom into the main image above you can see Castelluccio on a small hill to the left of the valley—a glorious site for a town. It’s famous in the spring for flowers blooming on the plain, which I’d just missed, but the hay had just been rolled into bales and the valley was stunning. It is also where some of the most famous lentils in the world come from—as loved by foodies as their more famous cousins the de Puy lentils from France. I hope you can see how beautiful this place is, especially with the hay bales. If you are viewing on a phone. Perhaps zoom in?

My restaurant radar was thrown off by all the identical temporary buildings, but I followed my nose all the way up the hill to the last restaurant, where all the workmen were headed, always my best clue to local food. I had the best handmade pasta with cinghiale sauce that I’ve had yet in Italy, where sauces with wild boar are common. (You can see some of the destruction to the left of the temporary building.)

But the best part was that I was seated at a table next to two brown robe-clad monks. The last thing I was expecting was for them to turn out to be American. One is the Prior of the Benedictine Monastery in Norcia. I started a fascinating conversation with them—about why most of the monks in this community are American, what it is like to build a new monastery with such a weight of history to live up to, the earthquake and its aftermath, making beer, and creating the #1 hit album on Billboard’s classical chart. All ahead in the next Itch.

And if you find yourself in Castelluccio, I’d highly recommend the Agriturismo Monte Veletta for lunch.

 

 

0
0
July 14, 2019 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

Why I like going to the dentist

One of the scary things about moving to a new country, culture, and language is doing things like finding a new dentist. There’s such a comfort level built up with trusted doctors and dentists and it’s unsettling to walk into the unknown when your body is involved. I was hoping to find competence, but was surprised to find incredible skill married to something else—that ability to relate on a human level in professional settings that it something I treasure about the Italians.

Our journey started when we had a dental “emergency”. One Saturday morning, the day of a big high school dance, Donella’s front tooth chipped. We got a referral and phoned the dentist, Marco, who we’d never met. Donella explained the situation, and although we were not his patients, he was sick with the flu and had a fever, and the office was closed, he immediately agreed to meet her and fix it before the dance, never for a moment questioning that this was a big deal.

So the whole family started going for the whole range of normal dental stuff. John and I had some quite elaborate crown-like work done with great success. Marco is a film and music buff and has an amazing collection of DVDs. He is equal parts artist and dentist so when you get work done it takes as long as it takes to make it perfect, which gets even longer when he stops for minutes at a time to analyze a scene from a movie that we are watching, or to search for an obscure piece of music that he is reminded of by the piece that’s playing.

But then we needed to have Donella’s wisdom teeth taken out. My American worldview is that there’s a line you cross with things like wisdom teeth and root canals where you need a specialist oral surgeon, so I was surprised when our dentist said he could do it. With great trepidation, but a foundation of trust we built about his skill, I agreed.

The Italian style of removing wisdom teeth is that you take one or two out in a session. We insisted that all four be removed the same day, which he was very reluctant to do, but said he’d try. We show up for the procedure and I ask about what beyond normal numbing is given for pain—I certainly needed every bit of the “twilight zone” I was in when I had mine removed. Donella is a bit odd about teeth—loved when she had loose teeth and she could wiggle them out. She was the go-to kid in elementary school for all the other kids with loose teeth cause she was so good (and fearless) about pulling them out. But that’s really different from having wisdom teeth pulled.

He said he nothing beyond numbing. I insisted that we at least had some Valium on hand in case she needed it during the procedure and he agreed and wrote a prescription. I went off to the nearby pharmacy to fill it, especially after seeing the array of tools on hand.

I return to the office just in time to hear Donella scream. I instantly morph into super-Mom calculating how far to the nearest airport, how quickly we can get her to a surgeon in the States, etc. etc. I go to the door, peek in, in my best confident voice assure Donella that I am back, standing by if she needs anything, and silently willing her to walk out if needed. Turns out that the shot for numbing was a bit more intense than she’d expected.

In the waiting room I am shaking and feeling a bit sick with nerves, really regretting this level of going local. About twenty minutes pass and then I hear laughing, cheering, and chatter. The dentist comes into the waiting room holding a tool with one tooth aloft. I go into the room to discover that he’d let Donella remove her own tooth, and she is saying this is the most fun she has ever had.

Hmmm. This was turning out a bit differently that I was thinking. The scene repeats itself three more times—she ends up removing two of the four herself. After all four are out the mood in the room is completely triumphant.

The dentist later admitted to Donella that he was so stressed about removing all four that immediately after the only thing he could do was drive to the sold-out Umbria Jazz festival, where he met a guy outside selling an extra ticket for a front-row seat. He stood there for hours, soaking in the music, and celebrating an excellent day in the office.

 

0
0
July 13, 2019 In Live By Nancy

Changing the air

It’s been hot this summer—not like it was in France—but still hot. In case you are curious about how Italians manage the heat, considering that there is almost no air conditioning, here’s how it’s done. Most buildings are made of stone with thick walls that serve as insulation. You air the house out in the early morning when it’s cool and then shut all the windows, keeping the cooler air inside. (The Italians call it changing the air.) Shutters are very handy because if you close them on the sides that get direct sun they provide a second layer of insulation.

This morning this is what greeted me in our bathroom during the morning airing, and I thought it was pretty.

 

0
0