Author: Stew

Oh, Boy, we’re all gonna be famous, now.

When I say we, I mean in the Panicale we, sense. Panicale is in a big national travel magazine here in Italy that just came out.


PANICALE, UMBRIA—When I say we, I mean in the Panicale we, sense. Panicale is in a big national travel magazine here in Italy that just came out. Early this morning at Masolino’s, Andrea showed us the new October issue of ”DOVE” magazine with a big spread on our little town. That is DOVE as in WHERE, not as in Turtle Dove. Flashy, glossy, full color ”WHERE” magazine you see all over Italy. Che shock. And it is talking about real estate and what a good deal it is in this part of Italy and how they are going to tell their readers all the secrets of Umbrian Real Estate. We’ve been in some of the properties they mention but it is still fun to see Panicale with its name in lights so to speak.

AND IN THIS CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT . . .
This is the one where Tigre, the cat, explains life to the Great Danes. And their little dog, too.

ALDO’S CAFFE, PANICALE—The brightly red-haired Danish lady is standing by the bar. Is her name AnneMarie? She is there with some other fun Danish friends. Wiley waves Hi to her and we get introduced to the new people. I could not feel more ignorant, than when I think how casual Scandinavians all seem to make learning that second or third or twelfth language look. Anyway, with enough therapy maybe I can get over that. In the meantime, the cute young blonde between AnneMarie and myself has made a circle motion that encompassed all of them while being introduced and said, without any, repeat, any accent, ”Actually, we are all Danish” All this time, AnneMarie has been holding her black and tan pixie-ish terrier in her arms and drinking her coffee, sort of around the dog. So, in a smart-aleck way I said ”Oh, a bunch of Great Danes”! Note to self: attempts at intercultural humor before caffine on my part should be held to an absolute minimum. No matter. Without a nano second of time passing, The Cute Dane ducked down so she was way shorter than her already Very Tall Dane Dad and said pointing up at him, ”HE is the Great Dane. I am just a regular sized one.” Cute and Quick.

Introductions over, I ordered a cappuccino and sat down with some English people we had just met the night before. The Danes finished their coffee and let the terrier on his leash propel them towards the door, waving back at us over their shoulders. When All Animal Hell broke loose in Georgia. Tigre the massive, uncontested, king of the jungle here must have been dozing in the sun under a chair by the door. And the new puppy must have thought, Hey what is this? And that is when POW! BANG! YIPE! YIIIIIIPE! HELP! Cat, Dog, Danes, and multiple Baristas all blew out through the glass doors, into the piazza. In an unreal scrambled, screaming mass. It was really very like the Popeye Blutto fight scenes where you would see this big ball of blur and an arm poking out here and a head there.

I was kind of trapped behind our corner table but through the window we could see AnneMarie yank the terrified terrier straight up in the air by his collar and strangle dangle him there as high over her head as she can reach. I’m sure Mr. Terrier wasn’t complaining. Hung by the neck like a cattle rustler? Or cut to ribbons by a silver and black buzz saw? That is a tough one. And so is Tigre. Even caught cat napping, he’s dangerous. He weighs in several kilos, surely twice the terrier’s soaking wet weight. Eventually, the animal and people din died down and I could see the Danes wiping the blood off poor puppy’s nose. Ok. Now. Whose piazza is this? That’s right. Sweet, innocent purp, he had no idea what hit him. Other than it was fast, furry, and furious.

Later that day, after everything sort of calmed down and we knew that all the combatants were going to be all right, I said to Aldo, ”Boy, I wish I had had my camera on for that melee”. He just said ”La prossima”. Wait for the next time.

AUTUMN IN UMBRIA. LOOK OUT NEW ENGLAND!

Why, it is almost like being in New England. This October in Umbria has had color everywhere. You just have to know when and where to look, as you can see from these photos around Lake Trasimeno.

Why, it is almost like being in New England. This October in Umbria has had color everywhere. You just have to know when and where to look, as you can see from these photos around Lake Trasimeno. The big ones above are on a house in the main piazza in Panicale. The reds are from what we call Virginia Creeper and they call Vite Americane. The photo with the statue is in a park you see just as you are leaving Cortona. The road drops down and to the right, this is the lovely park straight ahead for those of you that have been there. And for those of you that haven’t? Put it on your list. Cortona is very special. Amazing walking around town. I’ve eaten a million places there and they have never done me wrong. Of course. This is Italy, after all, but still, even for Italy, Cortona is very high on my list.

Meanwhile. Back in Canada. . .

We go right into high gear on quarterly garden maintenance today. Communing with nature. I haven’t been here for three months so we’re talking about a garden of a rather overgrown nature, but I look forward to digging right in. Weeding? Sign me up. Pruning? Good for me and the roses. Cleaning up the goop that fell out of the fig tree? Arruhgh. What a mess. We seem to have like the Exxon Valdeze of fig trees.

CASTIGLIONE DEL LAGO, UMBRIA— We go right into high gear on quarterly garden maintenance today. Communing with nature. I haven’t been here for three months so we’re talking about a garden of a rather overgrown nature, but I look forward to digging right in. Weeding? Sign me up. Pruning? Good for me and the roses. Cleaning up the goop that fell out of the fig tree? Arruhgh. What a mess. We seem to have like the Exxon Valdeze of fig trees. It is making black and greasy goo all over my paving stones at that end of the garden. And, it is disgusting to attempt to un-pollute the area, but we are rolling up our sleeves and jumping in.

Now, I like a fig now and again. Ma questa non vale la pena – certainly the not at all worth the hassle this year. Figs were awful. Mostly due to excess rain washing over them day after day when they were supposed to be up sunning in the branches. This year they just got waterlogged, swelled up, split into three angry pieces and kurplop. Thank heavens we only have the one tree. Wonder if Mr. Fig Tree knows we have a new woodstove?

As usual with any good project, within no time at all we have used every tool we own doing the job but soon have a need for yet something else from the hardware store. Today, that something else is black plastic bags. Body bags for the fig goop and fig branches I’m whacking back wildly. Road trip? Hardware is the one thing Panicale has very little of. I bet if someone would open one in town, before you know it we’d have three, but right now we are hardware-challenged and this looks like as good an excuse as any to drop down to Castiglione del Lago and its famous Edil Feramente CANADA hardware store.

The storeowners are Italian, but lived in Canada for decades. When a project gets over my head often the vocabulary fails me in English, let alone Italian. How often would you need to say thingamajiggy in Italian? That is what I thought too, so I never buckled down and learned that word or a million other manly tool words. Drill bits. When would that come up in conversation? One of those scraper things that holds double-edged razor blades. What the heck DO you call that? Whatever you call whatever it is, when I have no earthly idea what I’m doing, I get lazy and treat myself to a bit of Canadian English. In times of stress, it is fun to have someone who speaks your language, plus this is a big, clean hardware store with darn near everything.

We’re off for simple things today so it doesn’t matter if the Canadians are on duty or not. They aren’t as it turns out. Ah, good. We got the nice guy with the big mustache for our clerk today. Bags for garden trimming? Biiigg ones? Strong? Sure, we got’em. How many kilos do you want? Kilos? That is like pounds of bags? So, THAT is what the problem has been. I have had a heck of a time finding bags. I’d ask in a grocery and they would say, Here, you can have this one. I’ll get another one. But then they wouldn’t sell me one. And I’d leave with the one bag, scratching me head and wondering. So, ok, I need two KILOS of plastic bags. And now we’ve got scrub brushes of three sizes to work on the fig poop on our garden walk and decide to ask if there is anything stronger than the dish soap we’ve been using? Has chemical research come up with anything that will clean fig off stone? And maybe, if we are lucky, accidently kill the fig tree in the process. And yes, yes it appears there is. And her comes a lovely, unmarked, gallon bottle of it. With a handle. And you’ll be wanting gloves with that, he says ominously. Yike. Careful what you wish for I guess. And he adds, I wouldn’t be opening this indoors either. What the heck is in that bottle? Ok, I’m buying it. But I’m not anxious to be using it.

THE FLYING EAR OF CORN COMES TO UMBRIA?

Paying up, I see the man next to me has a Dekalb Seed Company vest on. My parents from Iowa wouldn’t be surprised to see that in middle America but I am. Here. OK, I have to ask. No, no the wearer says. Regular brand. See it everywhere here. Especially around Perugia. Really? It’s a clothing line?

I looked Dekalb up on the web when I got back and this is not a fashion forward thing. The site was full of earnest boilerplate copy about Rootworm Soybean Variant, Conservation Tilage, Agricultural Scholarship and, personal favorite, The Monsanto Pledge. I can see the AG Chemistry Geeks with their short sleeve dress shirts and brown ties and hand over heart reciting that beauty. I couldn’t even figure out how to get a corny ball hat out of them and this guy IN ITALY has an actual vest. He was nice enough, but he was clearly surprised – that I was surprised. It was just too banal to him. He couldn’t imagine my interest. Ma, si! Seed corn! Iowa. Italy?

If I live to be a hundred . . . You know, I bet, there’s some wild-eyed marketing/branding guys involved in this somewhere.

Listen to the sounds of Italy. And beer.

Oh dear Heavens, it is Oktoberfest time in Umbria. And you know what that means! Actually, considering, you know, WW2 and all, I guess I’m surprised Oktoberfest gets much of a celebration but, yes, Pellicano’s Restaurant has a month of fun planned for you here in Pineta.

CHIESA MADONNA DELLA SBARRA, PANICALE, Umbria—ok, work with me and know that I Am The Low Tech Guy – in a high tech world. But, I like to get right in over my head and get fun digi toys and I have a new one here in Italy with me now. It is a tiny, thumb sized recorder that records, plays MP3s and like a regular thumb drive it can transfer files up to 500 megs! What Ever a meg is. Anyway, after a dinner at the Burnt Goose in Paciano, Wiley and I arrived at a concert, late, slipped into a side pew just inside the door, waved furtively at Steve and Jules in the back row. They must have come in almost as late as we did. We snapped a couple photos, don’t worry, no flash and then started this test recording of the concert. It starts out a bit scratchy, but I tried to edit it for hours and said, you know, that will be another day. It gets fairly nice if you advance it just a bit.

The concert was in the baroque church at the end of our street and this bit of of the concert is a piece of the ever popular ”Le Sonate di J.S. Bach per cembalo e violino” I did not know the word cembalo but it sounds quite a lot like a harpsicord to me. See what you think.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PIZZA?

PINETA, UMBRIA—Oh dear Heavens, it is Oktoberfest time in Umbria. And you know what that means! Actually, considering, you know, WW2 and all, I guess I’m surprised Oktoberfest gets much of a celebration but, yes, Pellicano’s Restaurant has a month of fun planned for you here in Pineta, just outside Castiglione del Lago.

Pellicano’s is where we first fell to the gastronomic low of having French fries for a starter course ahead of the pizza course. We keep saying Oh we’re on vacation. Lets live a little. Ok. Declasse. But these are seriously good fries. So good we don’t ask how they make them but surely they can’t be this good tasting and still good for you. And they come to the table so fast its like mental telepathy. Think the thought, barely verbalize it, and in seconds you are eating your words, in what feels like one fell swoop.

I really can’t think what first got us in the door the first time here. Other than we do drive by it going back and forth to Castiglione del Lago. Its right on the edge of the road in full sight with throngs of people eating outdoors at covered picnic (peek-neek) tables in the summer, and a full rigged, actual ship in front of the door all year round. On the weekends the road itself becomes an extension of their parking lot as it is packed with young revelers in the upstairs music lounge. Not quite crazy enough, brave enough, young enough to aspire to going up to The Jackel on a Saturday night.

The first time we went in Pellicanos I am quite sure we were all the way inside the doors before we realized it was a Scottish pub. Surely, we wouldn’t have knowingly gone into a Scottish pub in the heart of our beloved Umbria? But, yes. Yes, we did and yes, there really is Tennent’s Lager on tap. Which, strangely is beer. Which is not the national drink here. I think it is usually considered that stuff made out of the grapes we drive by all day long. But the beer is here and it is flowing out of the spigots at a prodigious rate.

So the whole thing seems totally wrong and out of context but it is a fun and guilty pleasure to go there and pagans that we are, no trip to Italy is complete without a Pellicano’s fix for us. And the woodburning oven pizza is thin and crisp and consistently great and creative choices. And Choices! Pages upon pages of Choices. One time I ordered the extra spicy sausage pizza named The Serpent and imagine my surprise when it came shaped like a snake with cunning olive eyes.

Tonight’s special was interesting, maybe not up there with the Serpent, but still fun. This American tourist found himself telling the black t-shirted Italian waitress that he wanted the German braut and French fry Okoberfest pizza special. And the beer special to go with it please. The pale, pale German ale: Paulaner Oktoberfest Bier. What a head it had on it. What a Magic Moment, overall. Ah yes, we are living “la dolce vita” now. Just made me want to climb up an Umbrian hilltop with a few hundred friend, hold hands and start singing ”I’d like to buy the world a Coke, and teach it how to sing”

And come to think of it, that is how we ended the night. By the time we got our stuffed selves back to Panicale we felt the need for a forced march around the town walls, twice, and then we made a stop at Aldo’s for a Coke to help ”digestivo un po” all this World Cuisine. One more lap and then it was home – to think about what we’ve just done. And promise never to do it again. Until the next time.

High over the Alps headed to Umbria

Andrea pointed to a table for two. And says I put you right by the heater on this cold night. Really? The little gold “Reserved” sign is for moi? Kind of choked me up. I feel the love. I feel the love, praise the Lord, we have made it to the Promised Land once more!

Leaving on a jet plane. Yeah. All systems Go. Going. Gone. We slipped the gravitational pull of Logan International in Boston and a couple random movies and rubbery raviolis later I was rushing through DeGaulle in Paris. Shortly after Paris I was up in the air over the Alps and the next thing I knew I was getting into a taxi in Chiusi, Italy and saying “Panicale, per piacere”. I found Wiley! She looks great, the house looks great, even in the cloudy rainy weather. I managed to stay up till real Italian dinnertime to get on myself sort of on Italian time and then we treated ourselves to dinner at Masolino’s, next door to our house.

They had a table reserved – in case I wanted to come – because they knew I was landing that day! Can you believe? Andrea pointed to a table for two. And says I put you right by the heater on this cold night. Really? The little gold “Reserved” sign is for moi? Kind of choked me up. I feel the love. I feel the love, praise the Lord, we have made it to the Promised Land once more! We ate the food, we drank the wine. I came home, fell into bed and slept the sleep of the seriously jetlagged. Except for a few minutes in the dead middle of the night. Where the heck am I? Did I say it was raining? It took some doing waking me from the coma-like state that I was in. But this was a wild and wooly midnight gully washer. Very freaky Friday weather this fall. We were here all last September and it was shorts and tee shirts in the garden till sunset everyday. Into each life.

But that was Friday. OK, that was yesterday too. But Today is another day. It is literally Sun Day in Sunny Italy. Sun on the rooftops, sun in the sparkling raindrops still hanging on the tip of every tree leaf. Sun in the Piazza. And, why there’s my daughter in the Piazza too. We had cappuccinos and watched the world go by and then had them all over again. And then, the bells began to ring and the village church at the top of the piazza poured a lava flow of wedding goers out and over the sun drenched piazza. We had to think All is Right with The World. I may even go home and garden for a while. I think I will.