February 2012
5 posts
On not waking up in a ditch.
On my hurried bike ride to school this morning, which was the first ride I’ve been on in weeks due to the snow, I was speeding around a turn and as I hit a humongous surprise pot hole I heard my water bottle flying out of my basket and bouncing on the road behind me. I was running late to class because I’d spend most of the night at a winery singing “carols” (in Latin, Italian,...
From Campania, with pizza. Part Uno.
Twenty-seven students who’ve been steeped in the relative tranquility of Northern Italy arrive in Naples. A fight breaks out. Over pizza dough.
And so our second study trip to Campania began. The fight took place at Pizzaria La Notizia, a pizza joint famous for its traditional Neapolitan crust, between a group of pizzaiolos, or pizza masters. They were discussing, in different Southern...
“This is a robust food, to go with a corresponding appetite and plenty of rough...”
– -Elizabeth David on Neapolitan Pizza
Three Haikus for Wednesday
Snow began to fall
But we had ingredients
Ah, hot chocolate
.
.
.
Bowl full of cherries
But I’m not hungry, she said.
Came back, empty bowl
.
.
.
After the meatballs
There was: bread, sauce, wine, napkins.
Yummy scarpetta*
*Scarpetta is a perfectly Italian word which loosely translates to: the act of using a piece of bread to sop up the remaining sauce on a dish. Oh how I...
New Years and Beyond
In the month surrounding New Years I traveled between four different countries, but that doesn’t include the miriade of different countries whose food I’ve eaten. In the past two weeks, I’ve had traditional beef soup cooked by a japanese classmate; Pad Thai from my lovely Thai roommate, Sai; pork and cabbage dumplings for chinese new year made by my Taiwanese pal, Kelly; both...
January 2012
5 posts
Natale in Italia.
The Peidmont has been unusually lovely this winter. No snow, mild weather, lots of clear days for running and taking pseudo-artistic photos of strange, luminous flora. And although I owe this climactic trend to global warming and have visions of apocalypse dancing in my head, I must admit, it’s been rather pleasurable. So it was on the day that my family arrived for a week and a half of...
“…If we cooperate with Nature, if we follow instead of trying to lead, the...”
– from Auberge of the Flowering Hearth
Some New Year's Intentions
More writing, more nature
Less Facebook, more reading
More sun, more sunscreen
More stretching, less worrying
More creativity, less internet
More pictures, less blogs
More kindness, less judgement
More gratefulness, more flowers
More heart, less stuff
More postcards, less emails
Less noise, more music
Less screens, more windows
Less sarcasm, more sincerity
Less crackers, more celery
...
Finally, some whey. Or my week of pork fat and...
After all that pork fat, it was time for some milk fat. We went to a small parmesan producer the next day.
And when I say small, I mean they produce, at max, 14 wheels of parm per day. This producer uses milk only from special Vacche Rosse cows, an endangered breed with extra creamy milk that was used to make the first Parmigiano by Benedictine monks in the 13th century.
We learned about the...
December 2011
2 posts
Yeah Whey! Or, My week of pork fat and parmesan....
After a late night out in Parma (which intailed, can you believe it, more salumi, Parmigiano Reggiano, wine, grappa in a hidden bar, and, accordingly, me and my pals Lorenzo and Daniel missing the train back to the hotel not one but THREE times), we woke up bleary-eyed and headed to an early morning pig butchering.
Every December, the little town of Camagnola Emilia holds a festival...
No Whey! Or, My Week of Pork Fat and Parmesan....
The most unique and wonderful element of my masters program is the study trips, or “stages” that we do through the year. These are week long learning trips to various regions in Italy and Europe that are jam-packed with “sensory evaluations” aka “tastings” aka “please pass the mortadella back this way” aka “whoa that 24 month parm is off the...
November 2011
5 posts
Hey yo, Bra.
I’ll admit it. Lately, I haven’t been giving much love to Bra, my current home base. Actually, I’ve kind of been hating on it. After trips this past week to Torino and Alba, it was hard for Bra to compare.
Last Saturday, a group of pals and I took the train to Torino, a beautiful city with grand Parisian-style boulevards and promenades, blocks and blocks of covered arcades...
Pots and Pans
Scraping the burned bits off toast,
and I thought of you, my darling,
my love.
Remember burning things all winter
and there was you,
fanning smoke, smiling.
One time I made pasta for you, honey,
Undercooked, you said.
And I was in our bedroom all night
sulking, pouting.
Riding down dark streets at night,
through blue shadows to you, my sweetheart,
my dear.
And I thought of you last night,...
“It’s great when your ethics and your hedonism converge.”
– David Shields
International Transit, or Biking to School Though...
“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and can coast down them….Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motorcar only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of the country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”
- Earnest Hemingway
I...
And Here I Am
With a nod to the great, invaluable, narcissistic tradition that is blogging, I start my very own with this: Enough about you, let’s talk about me. And because Faulkner says that the past is not even past, I’ll give you some of my own history here and now.
And so it began. This is me, around three or four, my pops, and a big ol’ bottle...