Month: January 2015

Ouch!!

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Do not mess with Perseus.

He doesn’t play.

And he is not only out for blood, but he’ll take your head right along with it.

Who:  Benvenuto Cellini

What: Perseus with the Head of Medusa

When: c. 1545

Where: Loggia dei Lanzi, Piazza della Signoria, Florence

Why: Because he wanted to.  Ha ha.  Kidding.  His patron commissioned it.

Wickedly, hatefully, mercilessly and brutally expressed. Undeniably gorgeous.

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Some people (too many, alas; there, I said it!) come to Florence for the gelato.

Not me.

I come for the wicked beauty.   The wickeder, the better.  The more beautiful, even beyond wicked. And unquestionably better.

Daily life in January 2015 Florence

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No explanation needed for the above.

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I swear I am not obsessed with weddings!  This shop is on my way home.  I pass it several times a day and I love the fur hat!

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Elegant evidence of yesteryear from Florence.

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These artists who dress like sculptures are all over the city.  I found this one checking his phone and it was just such a funny sight, I whipped out my camera phone.

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The Paperback Exchange wins my award for most creative Christmas tree.  You can’t really see it clearly, but this tree is made out of books.

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Luca della Robbia invented this polychromed terracotta medallion style during the High Renaissance.  You can find the medallions all over Florence.  This one could use a bath.

Surreptitiously shooting shoes

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Strolling through the streets of Florence, there is no end of fascinating things to look at.

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Yesterday, it was the colorful leather shoes of two men, two friends, who were lost in deep thought and conversation as their two wives strolled a bit ahead of them.  The men clearly both had on new shoes, because they were spotless and very handsome.

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And I thought to myself how perfect these men looked and how, in the United States, you would never find mature men wearing such great, colorful shoes, and it made me happy all over again just to be in Italy!

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All of Italy was in Florence today.

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Or, at least, that’s how it felt. 

Walking along any of the major streets in Florence can be like surfing.

You have to stay en pointe to ride the crest. If you don’t, you will likely get pulled down and out to sea by the undertow. Or, literally, pulled and pushed into the scrap heap.

Sometimes it feels a little bit dangerous.  Walking these streets is not for the faint of heart or the infirm.  A bicycle rider almost took me out when I dared to get out of my lane by a few inches.

Is isn’t always fun; if fact, sometimes it is a real pain in the neck or worse.  Then, other times, it can be exciting and rewarding.

But it is what it is and I know that complaining about the incoming flack of Florence’s turisti is a waste of ink.  No doubt it is unfolding just the way it is meant to unfold, but I can’t help feeling nostalgic for the Florence I remember from decades ago.

Back then, no store keeps spoke English. Now, no matter how try I hard to blend in and use my best Italian language skills, the storekeepers intuit immediately that I am American.  If I persist and converse in Italian, these kind souls invariably praise my good Italian, which is just one more indication that the Italians are by nature a convivial and kind people because I promise you that my language skills are rudimentary at the very best!

The main reason Florence was chaotic with tourists today is because this is a major holiday weekend in Italy. Tomorrow night, the night of January 5, is Epiphany Eve, an extremely important feast day on the calendario cattolico. Although nowadays the American devotion to Santa Claus has a firm foothold in the winter holidays in Italy, traditionally it is La Befana, an old woman who rides a broom, who delivers gifts to Italian children. Many Italians have tomorrow off from work for the holiday. It’s all about the children as you can see today in the Piazza della Repubblica.

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Of all the things I saw and felt on this beautiful day today in Florence, it was the vision of this nonna tying balloons to sell to the holiday makers that most captivated me.

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IMG_2866Buona befana, ragazzi!  I hope you get just what you wanted!

I honestly believe:

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that you would have to try really, really hard…to eat a bad meal in Italy.

To wit:  At my wit’s end just before New Year’s Eve, I knew I had to make a run to my local supermercato to buy something for my pantry, just in case.  I whipped a few items down from the shelves, up from their cases, in the market and wound up with some fresh fruit, some fresh veg, and these items.  Store brand.  I’ve found I can trust the Coop store brand in everything.

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So, sure enough, on the first day of the new year, I wasn’t feeling so hot.  Not from too much partying (although I can’t say the same for the rest of my building: somebody thought the interior courtyard would make the perfect backdrop of a long and loud fireworks display followed by a game of drunken soccer) but from the cold and flu that I was lucky enough to meet up with just before Christmas.

So I heated up some of the creme of asparagus soup, pictured above, and for a brief moment I thought I must have reached Nirvana.  This lovely soup got me through several mealtimes in excellent shape (except for the coughing and sneezing and fever part).

And today I was actually feeling hungry, which has to be a good sign on the road to recovery, no?  I opened this gorgeous package of fresh tagliatelle pasta made with eggs:

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And when it was cooked to absolute perfection in a matter of minutes, I doused it in this creamy truffle sauce made with butter, cream, shaved tartufo mushrooms (which comes ready made in the regular grocery store, not that special here in Italia, I swear to you!), added a little of the pasta cooking water (about 1/4 cup), fresh black pepper and shaved parmigiana Reginana:

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And then I meant to take a picture of the pasta with the sauce, but first I had to taste it to see if it tasted as good as it smelled and then, poof, before I knew what had happened, I had inhaled the entire bowl full of some of the best pasta I have ever eaten in my life and that is saying something because I am a pasta eater from way back. Only not always with truffles.  But from now on, with truffles because my oh my say hello to heaven in a bowl!

Whew, just writing that and reliving it in the telling, is exhausting to me.  And p.s., it turns out that these devilish little store-bought Coop brand cookies are a mighty fine accompaniement to a slice of gelato or even a nice cup of joe or tea.

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I may be buying stock in Coop very soon.

I have an announcement to make!

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In the past few months, I feel like I’ve had a lot of good luck. One of the very best things found in this good fortune has been making a virtual friendship with a real life all ’round good egg and fellow-blogger, Lia, author of the deliciously divine Lifestyleswithlia.com.

Lia and I share a love of all things Italian as well as all things New York. As if it were not enough that Lia is a faithful reader of my blog, her much-appreciated comments are always perceptive and creative in their own right.  But to top things off, Lia just nominated me for the  “Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award” for my humble and often random scribblings on this little-old blog of mine.

Wow!  Thanks Lia!  I am touched!

Here are the guidelines for the “Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award”:

Provide the link to the person who nominated you.

With pleasure!  http://lifestyleswithlia.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/award-winning-kindness/comment-page-1/#comment-660
Add the reward logo.

No problem, here ya go:

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Answer the questions your nominator has asked.

Okay, they are:

1. What is your “go-to” dinner when there isn’t time to cook?

PB on crackers

2. What is one item that you’ve gotten rid of that you wish you would’ve kept instead?

one of my husbands

3. If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you want to have with you to read (while waiting for the rescue helicopter to arrive)?

the entire Trixie Belden series, as that set of books is probably responsible for me being in this predicament in the first place

4. What is the spiciest thing you’ve ever eaten? Where were you when you ate it?

I recently drank a caffe correto here in Florence and it set my mouth and throat on fire. It was an espresso with a shot of grappa and it was awful!  I hated it!  It was like drinking gasoline.

5. You are given only 2 choices of career: either Professional Surfer or Professional Birdwatcher. Which would you choose?

Birdwatcher for sure.  For two reasons: there are lots of pretty birds to look at and I am afraid of the water.
Nominate 5 other bloggers, let them know via comments, and ask each nominee 5 questions.

OK, I’m gonna put my thinking cap on and nominate my bloggers and ask their questions tomorrow.

In the meantime, grazie mille a Lia! Sono molto felice!

What do you do when you have the flu?

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When the day is bright and sunny, but you can’t join it because you can’t stop coughing and sneezing and running a slight fever, what do you do?

Well, I cook a pot roast. Perche no?  The fragrance alone lifts my spirits.

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You have to operate like a girl scout, and always be prepared.  When you are at the supermarket and you see the following brilliant item of a prepackaged mix of 4 celery stalks, 2 carrots, 1 onion, parsley springs and cilantro springs  (why didn’t grocers in the US think of this??) you toss it in your cart just in case.

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And you locate some beef for roasting or a chicken for stewing.

Already you feel better even if you are still coughing and sneezing.

Then, when you walk by the frozen food section and see this:

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And you think to yourself, “Flowers of milk” umm, that sounds like a delicious flavor of gelato, so you bring it home.  And not only is it delicious, but you find all sorts of inventive ways to use it.  For one, you put a hunk in a glass of coca cola (another treat for the season) and enjoy a float like the good old days.  And, you discover that a slice of frozen gelato on the top of a crisp, Italian cookie makes a fabulous sandwich.

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Scanning the aisles of the supermercato is a fun way for me to spend an hour of any day of the week.  I couldn’t resist this seasonal butter, make from a holiday recipe, according to the packaging, which is complete with an image of holly.  I haven’t used the butter yet, but I’ll let you know how it is.

And, alas, the panettoni and pandori are now priced at a steep discount.  Before Xmas, pandoro was a little over 5 Euro.  Now, 1.5 Euro.  Sigh. Christmas is over :-((

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But you’ll have to excuse me now, because I have to cough and sneeze and wrap myself up in my electric blanket and possibly slice some gelato to fit this cookie I’m holding.

Happy New Year!!