Author: Stew

THE FERARRI OF ITALIAN LESSONS

Red Ferarri teaches me a thing or two about Italian.

UMBRIA, Italy–In the right circumstances any one can learn anything. Expensive math software and games to make math “fun” for kids? Be serious. Get the a deck of cards and teach them to play Blackjack. As a kid growing up in the heart of the Bible Belt we daily rode the big yellow buses down country roads, hogs lots and amber waves of grain as far as you could see any direction. And we never looked up. We were slapping cards on those hard green seats as fast as we could. What did you think was going on in those buses? No, we were not studying or reading back issues of Amish Living.

Every year, it would surprise and amaze me to watch the tiny innocent kendy-garters timidly mount those steps to Vegas on Wheels. Clueless Day One. Cold-eyed and world-wise Day Two. Knowing their numbers and doing addition and subtraction at warp speed so they could Get in The Game. Sad, really looking back on it.
Ferraris and school buses
And yet, I’m like that with studying and/or learning Italian. If the subject, noun, predicate, has a car or food-like connotation attached to it, I will go to any length to understand it. Case in point is a note I just found scribbled to myself on my computer sticky notes. About the red Ferarri in the previous blog. We’ve got one very spiffy friend who lives in a boffo, art-filled penthouse and dresses better when he’s slumming than I do when I’m say getting married. He’s funny as a crutch and yet his Italian is so hyper educated, eloquent and refined. I always feel I understand every word his says. So, I was thrown when he bopped out of a car as I was gawking at the Ferarri and without slowing down, pointed at it and said “una figata, pure” – wagging his eyebrows like Grocho as he delivered his line.

Well, I thought. And thought about it some more. And when I got done looking through my limited mental banks and dictionaries I wrote our friend Steve. He knows everything. And for a guy of non-italian persuasion he’s an aberrant freak of nature. He claims he’s from California – but I’ve had Italians tell me HIS Italian is so good they assume he is a native born Italian. And then they give me The Look. (Implying of course, “If HE can speak Italian without murdering it, what IS wrong with you, Stew?”) Steve could care less about cars but he hadn’t heard this particular word used this way. But he dug in. And here, courtesy of Steve, is your mini Italian language lesson for the day.

Hey Styoo

So, figo/figa is slang for “cool” – so una figata is a cool thing. Attenzione, pero, because figa is ALSO SLANG FOR A FEMALE PART!! The opposite, sfigato is also a useful word, meaning pathetic, loser-ly. Che sfiga, means what bad luck or how pathetic. Quello sfigato di tuo fratello = that loser brother of yours.

Don’t quote me on this, (oops, sorry Steve, too late) but I think the original word was fico – same as the word for a fig tree, and the slang word meaning cool grew out of the southern pronunciation of fico – you know how they “vocalize” consonants, like p turns to b, c turns to g, etc.

Just looked up “figata” online, and it turns out, per several sites, that it also means “it’s a deal.”
That must have been what our friend meant by “è una figata pure.” “And it was a great deal, too.” Meaning he got the Ferarri cheap?

Ciao, ragazzi,

Steve

Thanks, Steve. So, the next time you hear someone say figata it could be they are talking about something cool or a cool deal.

OK, there’s the bell. That’s all for today. Class dismissed

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Red Ferarris, Pink Wines & Flying Apes

There was a buzz going around town. And it wasn’t just apes (bees) around the flowers. But I did hear it first in the garden and ran up to the kitchen for the camera. And just was able to snap the last of a gaggle of classic bikes with side cars on tour through our street. Always something fun and unplanned. And ho-hum (yawn, stretch) is that another Ferrari?

In “the interest of full disclosure” as they say, you know I’m not in Italy this very second, right? I write there as fast as I can between events and then sort everything out when I get back to the states. I know, I know, a blog should probably be of the very moment. I get busy having fun as fast as we can, one adventure linking seamlessly to the next and somehow no time there to do the technology dance required to put it together. Sorry if there is any confusion on that. All stories are from mid April to mid May. If I were really current I’d put in something about the Azzuri going down in shootout against the evil empire of Spain. Sigh. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

apes in italy, ferarris at the gates
CAR SPOTTING. AGAIN.

PANICALE, Umbria, Italy–There was a buzz going around town. And it wasn’t just apes (bees) around the flowers. But I did hear it first in the garden and ran up to the kitchen for the camera. And just was able to snap the last of a gaggle of classic bikes with side cars on tour through our street. Always something fun and unplanned. And ho-hum (yawn, stretch) is that another Ferrari? I’m sitting on a bench in the sun leaning back against the warm stone wall swapping lies with Orfeo when a red Ferrari whooshes into the piazza, and parks a few feet from us under the tower of the castle. From Pisa it appears. Orfeo has an old yellow Fiat. I’ve got nothing. Well, a rentacar. But he doesn’t raise an eyebrow. Will I ever learn to be cool, and not impressed by shallow things like excessive displays of wealth? Ignoring the specific car he says the newly redone Boldrino restaurant is pulling in big crowds from all around. And he’d heard good things about it as well. Ok, add it to the list. So MANY things to see and do. HEY! Where’s MY Ferrari?
cantina turina wines from lago di garda
Midge had gone to Siena for a few days but I wasn’t moping around all by my lonesome very long as the Ape man, Paul Turina showed up soon after Midge left with his son David. They are from Maine and were staying with us after his wine importing visit to his wine growing cousins from Turina Cantine outside Lago di Guarda. Up past Verona. Oooooh, look what he’s brought us. He knows we’re suckers for his rose wines and here he comes bringing us a case of all things pink. And a couple of the pinks are bubbly. Pink Spumante Brut a Rose’ from the Cantina Turina. And a Gropello no less. Chiantis? Vino Nobile di Montepulchiano? That’s yesterday news. We’ve got a table full of Gropello and fizzy roses.

In a fun turn of events, the very day Paul was here, his tiny 1982 Piaggio Ape was being fitted with our graphics for his Due Fratelli Importsdelivery vehicle, back in the states. Come carina questa Ape Turina. Is that The Best Italian Wine Delivery Vehicle? All the Ape excitement in the air (you can feel it, admit it) gave us a theme to their short visit. Plus Midge wasn’t there to stop the madness. We about half think an Ape might just fit in our cantina’s double doors. Wouldn’t that look good blocking the clothes washing machine AND the bathroom door? So we were measuring our doors here, and surely confusing any observer as we measured the alley leading to the cantina door to see if we could make the corner and force our way inside.

measuring italian apes in umbria

WE COME IN PEACE. WE JUST WANT YOUR MEASUREMENTS

Armed with metric measurements of our cantina’s door way and a folding wooden metric “yardstick” we attacked Panicale and the surrounding villages like Vikings looking for plunder. We measured every Ape we came across. And there were many. Excuse us signora can we measure your tail gate? They do come in various styles, sizes and shapes, but all of them seem to be at least several cms too wide. The barn in Maine? Allora, we keep measuring. There was one full race screaming red Ape buzzing around town that we could never get to land long enough to shoot, let alone measure. You’d hear it coming, see it and gone before you could get your camera out. That Ape can really fly. The smile on that teenager’s face? Priceless.
spannocchia and their cinta sienese belted pigs
Enough fun for one day. We ate dinner out at Masolino’s and the next day I rode up to Spannocchia with the Turinas. We checked out the Cinta Sienese prosciutto in training and had fun with a big group eating out that night in Siena, just ten or twelve of us. Then the next day, Paul headed north to catch his Milano flights and we headed south back to Panicale with Stephanie. She’s another Mainer, the chef that owns the Sea Grass Bistro in Yarmouth. And she’s been staying at Spannocchia and recharging her highly tuned chef batteries sampling all the fine taste treats they have there. When you go to Spannocchia, ask to take the pig tour, the one that ends with plates being passed around the table is the best one.

More fascinating details to come, stay tuned

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

High on Siena

Looking over the menu there in Siena I saw something that stopped me for a moment. Flash back. Ever notice that “l’etto” notation on the menu when you are in Italy? In the price column?

siena from the duomo to the tower in the Campo
SIENA, Tuscany, Italy–Always something new to discover. Even in a place like Siena where we’ve been a hundred times. How do I miss these things that are so in my face when I finally notice them? Point in case, the bird’s-eye view available to you right at the cathedral in Siena. The piazza-size, open-air section of the cathedral? What was their lame excuse for leaving this unfinished for the last 800 years? Something about the Black Plague? Walls are there, but they forgot the roof. Coming from il Campo (home of the famous Palio, that wild annual barebacked horse race) you walk right through this part to get to the Duomo. This time, Midge noticed a perfectly obvious door over to the side, posters and signs all around it. Step inside and there is a museum of marble sculptures taken from the exterior of the church and then, for another fee you can take stairs up and up and up until you are almost looking down on the bell tower in the center of il Campo. I never knew this kind of panorama was available without being up in a plane. Look up, Stew!
still high in siena, getting there is half the fun
Back on the ground, we hung out, we shopped, we soaked up the spring sun and people-watched all the other Happy Campers in the Campo. And then ducked into a trattoria for some lunchtime treats.

Which reminds me . . .

TO EAT vs ETTO

Looking over the menu there in Siena I saw something that stopped me for a moment. Flash back. Ever notice that “l’etto” notation on the menu when you are in Italy? In the price column? Or subtly just before the price? I skim menus like I skim most things, but should I? Signs point to “no”. Is it obvious what “l’etto” means to everyone else? Well, it wasn’t to me the first time I saw it many years ago. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was in Florence and having a fine weekend on no money per day, I was in the Navy at that time and no money a day was exactly what they paid me. So I was going thru the menu looking for the dead cheapest thing and there was Bistecca Fiorentina. Waaay cheaper than anything else on there. Why not try that? I only spoke a couple words of Italian at the time and bistecca fiorentina was not one of them.
eating with l'etto on the menu
Yes, even I could figure out the “bistecca/beef steak” part of that. But “fiorentina?” that could mean ground chuck for all I knew at the time. As it turned out my “florentine steak” was a massive steak that tasted great and had to be the deal of the century. Until the bill came. And it was ten or fifteen times what I expected. What the heck?! Slowly, ever so slowly, that little, back-of-the-frig sized light bulb came on in the back of my head and I mouthed the words “Ohhh, I get it”. L’etto must mean so much an ounce or a tiny metric version of same. What is wrong with grams. Not metric enough? Sigh. So, fellow travelers, learn from my mistake and know that the smallest number on your menu’s price list doesn’t always equate to the smallest number on your bill.

ROSES IN OUR ROOM

One of the reasons we were spending the day in Siena was because Midge is on the board of the nearby Spannocchia foundation (that is the grand agricultural estate and) and their three day meeting was starting at nine the next morning. And going straight through till evening with breaks for lunch and hikes. There was even a pre-breakfast hike penciled in for the die-hards but she passed on that, wise girl. With a Sunday schedule this full, we decided I should drop her off Saturday evening and see if I could wrangle spending the night in one of Spannocchia’s many lovely accommodations. What a welcome. The white, “Lady Banks” climbing roses covering the villa had even started to spill into our room. I don’t know about you but I wish I could figure out how Italians in this area get away without having screens. It just puts you so in the moment inside or out, not having every view strained through a wire mesh. Be that as it may, the villa is so elegant anyway and then when you frame the window with white flowers, it made us feel like we were spending the night in a Renaissance Painting.
italian roses covering a tuscan villa outside siena
And, it just got better. After a stellar dinner with Randall and Francesca and the other guests, we’d said our goodnights, and sogni d’oro’s and gone back to our room. At some point, the room seemed hot and I got up to open the solid wooden shutters. And the moon just bowled us over as if someone had thrown a switch on a spotlight right outside our rose-covered window. We could see details of the landscape, out to infinity. Miles of moonlit vistas. It seemed like a black and white photo of what we had seen during the day. Truly tried and truly failed to get those late night photos. We could see so well but the poor little camera could not. Probably operator trouble. Next time!

Much more to come. Stay tuned to this channel, where it is all Italy all the time.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Springing around and around. In Italy

Has it really been several months since we’ve been to our Italian home away from home? I know, I’d like to think this video we live in here goes on “pause” while we are gone. One look at our garden shows that is not true. there will be some (note plural) wild weddings, air shows, festivals with kites as big as locomotives, ostrich shopping, flag throwing in medieval costumes, and we’ll be spending the day at a spa.

Hear that whirring sound? That is my mental hard drive spinning about trying to land on one memory at a time. Hard to extract a single one from the swirling, swirling masses of them running through my mind. Work? Can’t you see I’m daydreaming over here? We’re back and ready to start downloading Italian stories and pictures. On the one hand, it is touchingly sad because, well, we’re not still on the continent, partying like it was 1986 every day. On the other hand, going through our notes and pictures brings all of Italy roaring back.

But, where to start, where to start? The beginning? That has so been done. Buckle up buckaroos, we’re going to do the ricochet ride through central Italy. Where we stop nobody knows. But, along the way there will be some (note plural) wild weddings, air shows, festivals with kites as big as locomotives, ostrich shopping, flag throwing in medieval costumes, and we’ll be spending the day at a spa. And even going to an outlet village, Italian style.
gardening in italy, umbria edition spring 2008
GETTING OUR FEET WET IN ITALY

PANICALE, Umbria, Italy–Have we even been gone? Has it really been several months since we’ve been to our Italian home away from home? I know, I’d like to think this video we live in here goes on “pause” while we are gone. One look at our garden shows that is not true. I’d like to sit around trick myself into thinking I haven’t missed a beat but what I really think I’ll do is just not waste a moment of it. We got here yesterday and within an hour of touchdown I’d been given my Italian summer clip at the boys’ barber, Biano. This morning Midge is off like a shot to cue up at the girls’ barbershop, Mara’s. She’s the hairdresser in the piazza. Boy, I’m glad I don’t have to rush around like that. Got mine. Now, I can just sit back and no, not sit back but GARDEN. But first, like Nero, i need to fiddle a bit.

So, I fiddled, I strolled, I poked my nose in places and sang out hi’s to anyone who would make eye contact with me. A coffee here, a coffee there, hi fiddle dee dee, a tourist’s life for me. Yes, that is me humming as I buzz around town. An hour later I poked my head into Mara’s to check on Midge and found her sitting on the low plastic couch surrounded by 50 back issues of Italian Vogue and hairdresser trade mags. She was still in line. Maybe second in line. But, decidedly starved.
the view from bar gallo, panicale in umbria, italy
You know how she is when she’s hungry. So I thought “Make yourself useful, Stew” and backed out over Alice The Dog (who names their dog “anchovy”? oh, well, not my dog) And then I ambled across the piazza to Aldo’s and asked if I could take two cappucchinos and oh, two of those cornettis to Mara’s. I was thinking I’d just run those over. And, moments later, there I am along side ever dapper, and surprisingly fast Aldo with a tray on his shoulder, as we make a formal “Permesso” entry to “oohs” and “aahs” and what a grand fellow I was and how very lucky Midge was to get such service. Yes, yes. All true.

Before I could get the cornetto crumbs off me and or get a swell head, Midge was broadly hinting that I should finish that coffee and do something about the laundry. I knew that one. What I don’t know is how we just get off the plane and need to do laundry. Be that as it may, laundry in Italy is a new and different beast than the one lurking in your basement back in Connecticut.

GETTING OUR CLOTHES WET UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN. OK, UMBRIAN.

We like to plan our whole day around coffee and gardening. But sometimes it ends up being planned around coffee/gardening/laundry. Several reasons why, but the first is that our washing machine is in our cantina which is right next to our garden. And “As long as you are down there” is pretty high on the list as well. Another factor is the two hours the machine takes to do even the smallest load. And, is it just me or does our machine always seems to be giving me the old fish eye as a I siddle up to it? I hear they are like dogs. And bears. They sense fear and of course that gives them the total upper hand. Get this going wrong with one of the many obscurely labeled knobs and buttons and drawers (a drawer for soap?) and you’ll be looking at a bunch of wet soapy clothes on into the next day. Only if you do it right the first time will you get it done today. We don’t get a lot of drying sun in our yard in the morning so we dedicate that whole time period to the start and stop, “Is it done yet?” washing cycle. It torments you by going dead silent for long periods. But fight as you might, its gaping mouth stays grrr locked tight. But, then, about noon, when the sun comes to join us, the wash is maybe done and maybe by evening you will be bringing in those sun-dried, on-a-line, slightly stiff, slightly scratchy, but ever so heavenly smelling, clothes.

If a pigeon hasn’t used your holiday duds for target practice. If it does, rinse, repeat, and just think, you’ve got a project all lined up for the next day.

OK, see you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Che Festa! An Umbrian Wedding Feast

Simone and Lorena are married. if you have ever been to Panicale you would remember Simone. He’s our buddy at the bar, Aldo and Daniela’s only child and heir apparent of Café Bar Gallo. That is the institution that is the lifeblood of the town. 500. as in dinner for 500.
che festa.

italian wedding day in Umbria

PANICALE, Umbria, Italy–Simone and Lorena are married. You saw their engagement announcement right here. And, if you have ever been to Panicale you would remember Simone. He’s our buddy at the bar, Aldo and Daniela’s only child and heir apparent of Café Bar Gallo. That is the institution that is the lifeblood of the town. They serve good coffee and good cheer and spread caffeinated sunshine all over all of us who wash up on these shores, local or foreign.

Lorena is from Sicily and they were really married a week ago there in 80 degree temps. People in the wedding party were swimming in the Mediterranean! But now everyone is back and taking the celebration local. So they had a dinner for a few friends.
wedding food in Umbria, Italy porchetta etc
A FEW HUNDRED OF THEIR CLOSEST FRIENDS

Imagine having five hundred friends over for dinner. It happened at La Lupaia outside Panicale for this “wedding of the century”. Food and wine flowed in great waves. Nine piece band with a singer and a brass section. The party started at seven pm and by 7:20 when we got there, there were already tons of cars and people. And food. What starts at seven in Italy? And on time? Now we know. Big old wedding feasts. Aldo met us at the gate and told us to get eating and get drinking. Several entire hogs were raised for and met their demise in service of this event. Aldo introduced us to a big, cheerful mustachioed guy named Mario who raised those pigs specifically for this. And so, without further ado, we literally stepped into hog heaven. Multiple porchettas, sausages at the grill sending smoke column up into the sky. Cooking staff in matching shirts, red aprons and traditional straw hats were carving up a storm and trying to stack up as many panninis as they could in advance of the rush.
table talk at an italian wedding in Umbria
Oh man, look what we have here: fagioli. Beans with bacon! Wow. At the bar this morning (yes, back at work already) Bella Siciliana Lorena was saying “Beans? Everyone was so excited they were on the wedding menu and I thought why ARE people going on about them. Beans, at a wedding? OK, fine. THEN I tasted them. I GET IT NOW.” Killer beans. Sausages were really something too. Made locally for the occasion. Mai ho mangiato altre piu buono. And the pasta, and plates of meat of every stripe. Huge tables full of everything being served by staff of La Lupaia, but they ran steaming plates of it around until you couldn’t see straight. Yes, Lupaia means wolf’s house named for the nature preserve the restaurant is set in. And wolf was almost the only thing not on the menu for this feast. Four foot long loaves of bread or three foot wide round ones, were hollowed out and filled with panzanella that rang Midge’s Panzanella Meter.

OMG. Just shoot me! You would have to probably shoot me to keep me from going back for more or saying yes to the servers forcing their wares steaming hot upon us. The prosecco servers were doing a fine job distributing their wares as well. Plus red wine, plus white wine, plus water plus stop stop stop, ok, one more. More food than truly imaginable and it was stellar.
wedding cake at an italian wedding in umbria, italy
And the cake. So good it caused a fine feeding frenzy. The same bakery that makes Bar Gallo’s daily pastries made this snow white mountain of a cake. Now, Italians have always seemed to me, to be passively disinterested in dessert as a food category in general. I’ve always thought they could take it or leave it. Not last night. No leaving anything during this special night. It was like a lifetime of cake deprivation had set in, prisoners rushing the gates at liberation. A cake stampede you had to throw yourself into at great risk of life and limb. Huge wedding cake stripped to nothing in moments. Other cakes without number being cut and carved as fast as the servers could fling them. Oh, the plates of cake were flying. Everyone came away smiling. All good. The happy couple beaming, their friends and family excited for them, the party a massive success and an inspirational way to start a married life.

——————
THE. NEXT. DAY.

Hmmm. What is that ringing noise? What time IS it? Where’s my sunglasses? Going out for coffee this morning I’m like what the heck. Lost in the confusion of the evening. Sunny out when we arrived more like midnight when we got home. Slept till ten when door bell rang. Sorry. Maybe later.

Went back to the location of the party (scene of the crime and all that) and one person who seemed to be the boss of the place knew exactly where my glasses were. Favorite glasses. Office present. Found them and found a new baby lake with walking paths by the party place.

Wandered home (a mere five minutes) and the town around our gate was choked solid with every kind of motorcycle or ATV ever made. Wonderful show. Does the party ever stop here?!
motorcycles, planes and flags oh my, an umbrian, italy weekend
WHERE DID THAT 24 HOURS GO?

And we haven’t even talked about the Santa Margherita festivities yesterday in Cortona with hundreds in costumes and pomp and splendor. Nor the airshow in Castiglione del Lago. What a 24 hours. We’ll serve up other photos and stories later. Simone gets his story first. He was up till who knows when last night and was slinging coffee by early light and when we came in said “when will we see the pictures on the blog?” Since he is the purveyor of the life-giving nectar around here I’m thinking he has the lowest number and is being served right now. Complimenti a tutti!

A presto,

See you in Italy!

Stew