Category: Traveling

From Golden Gates to Golden Gates

We’ve finally arrived! whew. A couple weeks ago we were at the temporary Golden Gates of Christo in NYC and now the real Golden Gate is just outside our hotel window. Palm trees waving in the breeze below us. We had coffee outside in the sun, all is right with the world. This is another world by the way.

We’ve finally arrived! whew. A couple weeks ago we were at the temporary Golden Gates of Christo in NYC and now the real Golden Gate is just outside our hotel window. Palm trees waving in the breeze below us. We had coffee outside in the sun, all is right with the world. This is another world by the way. I certainly hope these nice people truly appreciate what they have here. Wow. Balmy weather, flowers in bloom, heck trees in flower. Wicked nice. Friends are ditching jobs and coming to entertain us shortly. Non vedo l’ora. Thanks to techspert Jeff at our office for getting me broadcasting live from Frisco this morning.

california here we come . . . or not. stuck in the snow

Well that certainly did not work. We slogged our way to town, parked our car, took taxi to the airport, drank our four dollar Starbucks, watched the monster snowflakes fall, watched the plows attempt to plow accumulated monster snowflakes off the runways. And watched one flight after another cancell out. And then ours too.

Well that certainly did not work. We slogged our way to town, parked our car, took taxi to the airport, drank our four dollar Starbucks, watched the monster snowflakes fall, watched the plows attempt to plow accumulated monster snowflakes off the runways. And watched one flight after another cancell out. And then ours too. By then the taxis had quit running and we had to rent a car to escape the gravitational pull of Portland “International” Airport. That Hertz. Sigh. So. Here we are. Home again. Have new tomorrow tickets out of Boston this time. Yes, it is still snowing here in Maine. Wish us luck! We will so appreciate San Francisco when we get there!

Snow Shoveling, but California Dreaming

Now we are really counting the days (3) til we fly West to Party Italian-Style at the Spannocchia Fund Raiser. More news as it becomes available.

I was having this conversation with myself this morning: what would be more fun right now, Stew? Maine in March or California in March? On the one hand, I thought, gee you know Maine can offer these brisk and refreshing 10 degree temperatures, howling winds and 10 inches of new snow. On the other hand, I remembered that Steve of San Francisco had emailed me just yesterday that it was 72 degrees and sunny out there. Hmmm. OK, I have made my decision.

Now we are really counting the days (3) til we fly West to Party Italian-Style at the Spannocchia Fund Raiser. More news as it becomes available.

See you in Italy, or San Francisco!

Stew

So what is the Italy – California Connection?

Spannocchia was written up in two full-color pages of the LA Times in the last year and their phone has been ringing off the hook ever since. So that begins to explain their attraction a bit. But what is the big hook that draws so many Californians to Italy?

We’re off to California in a week. Our pro-bono client Spannocchia is having a series of fun raisers on the west coast. Spannocchia is the fine big non profit estate outside Siena you may have noticed here on these blog pages.

If you are going to be in LA on Sunday, March 13th or San Francisco on Tuesday, March 15th and would like to go to a party all about Italy, check out the details in the full invitation here.

Spannocchia was written up in two full-color pages of the LA Times in the last year and their phone has been ringing off the hook ever since. So that begins to explain their attraction a bit. But what is the big hook that draws so many Californians to Italy? Weather’s the same isn’t it? And the food very Mediterranean, olive oil based, right? For us New Englanders a trip to Italy has obvious benefits, we want in out of the darn cold. And it is just a short-ish plane ride from one side of the pond to the other. California is twice as far away and yet so many nice Californians wash up on Tuscany and Umbria’s shores we have to be hyper curious.

We’ll let you know what we find out and report back.

Little Piggies of Siena

Four ravenous foodies nibble their way across ancient Tuscan town

SIENA, TUSCANY, Italy— If we were not actually putting food in our mouths yesterday we were looking at ceramics to put food on or in. We did leave for Siena to be pretending to be cultured types heading for some of the many art shows in town. It turns out one of the best shows in town was after in Miccoli’s deli on your way to Il Campo or the Duomo as you come in to town from the Porto San Marco. This fine deli on Via di Citta is right near the Palazzo della Chigiana. It has a strange old 60’s bicycle outside all made of cane and bamboo. And a boar’s head wearing bifocals. Ok, Ok, that all sounds sufficiently corny when I write it down, but relax and enjoy the show. We did. We must have come at a slow time but we spent over an hour of high spirited fun here on a cold winter day. Never unintentionally eaten so much fine food in any one place. My travel companions were three serious cooks and food fanatics and this place just rocked them back on their heels.

We laughed and ate and ate some more and every few minutes with high comic timing that we never saw coming the owner, Antonio, would deadpan “Hai Fame? Are you Hungry?” even though he was feeding us non stop like Christmas Geese. And there before us would be yet another sample of wine or sausage or cookies or oh my gosh stop the madness.

SHOT THE WRONG HAM FIRST
The store is packed to the rafters with delicacies and just prime photo ops every where glance. Not the least of which is Antonio with his awesome old world Van Dyke beard mustache combo that you rarely see outside Victorian tintypes. Anyway there are signs everywhere No Photos. So we didn’t. Our hands were too sticky with honey dripped over pecorino to really operate light machinery like a spy camera. And we saw why he says no. Dooofus older American tourist came in and bought next to nothing and said Photo Please. Antonio said no. And then relented and said OK. One. And picked up a big loaf of bread and posed with his arm around his plump happy Hai Fame amico and straight man. Meanwhile the tourist spends 10 minutes, I swear, posing one picture. Of the proscutti hanging from the ceiling. Moving customers out of the road. Telling us Americans he did not want any of us non-local people in his shot. THEN he asks to take a picture of the owner. No. Not now. He clearly shot the wrong ham first.

HAM HAM and more HAM
We then spent the rest of the post-deli portion of our day on a marvelous tour of our friends Tenuta Spannocchia just outside town. In fact from the time you leave the center of town headed towards San Marco to their farm you are constantly in Contrada Chiocciola. The Neighborhood of the Snail for all you Palio horserace fans.

At the farm we saw them raising their fine black and white belted Sienese pigs (an old native breed nearly extinct 20 years ago). Then we callously watched some of their recently departed brethren being stuffed into sausages and being salted down for next year’s prosciutto.

Then, under a stuffed and mounted wild boar head we had wine sitting literally in a huge fireplace snuggled up to the fire. And then we sat down and ate prosciutto. Followed by porcini soup to die for. Which we followed with a perfect hot creamy polenta and then SURPRISE, roast pork. This time in the form of some of Spannocchia’s cinghiale wild boar. The tenuta (Italian for estate) is a stupendous 1,200 hilltop acres. It is a non profit, self sustaining farm. They heat with their own wood in high tech wonder furnaces, they grow their own chestnut beams and rescue ancient breeds of farm animals and crops while preserving the old Mezzadria sharecropping lifestyle that was in place here for 800 or so years until after the last war. We have been coming here for 15 years and it just keeps getting better. It is an ocean of work and I could not respect them more for what they do. The fact that their organic food is all marvelous is just gravy!

By the way, it was actually fairly ok that we were “pigging out” on this particular day as it was the very last day, Tuesday, of Carnivale (carne va le meat go away get it?) Mardi Gras indeed.

UNDER RADAR UNDER WEATHER
Italy is still locked in a freak cold and now I have managed to get a bit of a cold too. I am presently using that excuse to stay low for the day, make soup and sit by the fire. By the fire in my new woodstove. Everyone who is tired sick and tired of hearing about it please raise your hand. Ok, only one more: it takes place upon arriving home last night at midnight after Our Day of Pork. I came home to an empty house but with a fire glowing in the stove. Bruno could not bring him self to trust me with the bigger wood until the stove was properly broken in but earlier that night he evidently brought in some of the big stuff and lit off a good one. A wonderful warm Welcome Home.

I know, after all the exotic food yesterday how how how could I stoop to a Bag O’Soup? Was it the catchy, ironic homage to Dean Martin: That’s Amore? Hmm. Maybe that factored in but the main thing is that this is a seriously good soup. Frozen soup in a bag. Yes, true. Just add water and in ten minutes you can serve this to company. Fair warning, I do.