Italian Property Prices · Jul 21, 12:36 PM by James Martin
After looking at one bedroom condos in San Francisco and finding the prices more absurdly inflated than ever ($700,000 for one bedroom in a crime-ridden neighborhood! Such a deal!), we are no longer in the market for a bit of the city life. Yes, prices are falling precipitously, yet not enough to bring prices towards anything resembling reality. There was a day not too long ago where you couldn’t spend more than 25% of your gross earnings on housing. Recently, greedy investors have erased the limits—and it shows in inflated housing cost.
It turns out that Italian prices aren’t exactly falling like a rock. Italy has evidently kept a tight rein on mortgages, not letting the rich make gambling instruments out of them like the US so graciously has. So house prices haven’t really decreased except in the biggest cities, they’re just not going up any more.
“We foresee nominal prices will remain stable in 2008, and therefore real prices will decline by the same amount as the inflation rate,” states the report. ~ Italian property prices grind to a (soft) halt
Maybe it’s time to buy in Italy. Who can know?
The Pasta alla Norma Tree · Jul 12, 10:43 AM by James Martin
What do you get when you graft together a tomato plant, and eggplant plant, and the devil’s fig (tree)? A 5 foot tall tree that grows both huge eggplants and tomatoes, a “creation” of Sicilian amateur botanist Giuseppe Marinoin.
Imagine, you no longer have to bend down to pick the stuff for your Pasta alla Norma.
Can this plant take over the world? Should you mess with God’s work, especially using the devil’s fig?
Marino said the shrub is resistant to disease and thrives in difficult conditions with little water, adding that his invention could be ‘‘an answer for the G8 to the problem of world hunger’‘.
Hold on to your hats! Food for everyone!
The problem now, of course, is that we’ll have to teach Namibians how to make a proper pasta alla Norma, which, I’ve just discovered, was named after Sicilian composer Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini’s opera “Norma”.
There’s always a hitch when you’re trying to end world hunger, although usually that hitch is Monsanto.
Read: Italian grows tomato-eggplant tree
Ice Cream - A Focal Point for Our Indulgence · Jul 3, 11:08 AM by James Martin
I used to think that vacationing for a living was the coolest thing a guy could do.
Now I’m not sure any more. You see, I’ve just met Bruce Weinstein, who happened to be in California for the kick-off of National Ice Cream Month for the California Milk Advisory Board. Bruce is the smiling food guy over there on the right. He’s the author of “The Ultimate Ice Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks, And More”
Yes, Bruce makes, tastes, and practically lives ice cream for a living. How cool izat?
Bruce has written lots of “Ultimate” cook books, but “The Ultimate Ice Cream Book” tops the list. A quarter of a million folks have it on their shelves.
“Ice cream is the one big indulgence we won’t give up,” Bruce told me.
And how. Even though cooking “lite” is all the rage—and Bruce has filled hundreds of magazine pages with recipes that wring the calories out of both common and fancy food—all that sacrifice gets negated by our penchant for desiring fancy ice cream dishes. Americans eat 25 pints of the stuff annually. California produced 130 million gallons of ice cream in 2007 to meet the demand. Yup, we’re number one.
Personally, I’m all for indulgence. It’s even better when an expert on ice cream makes you something to indulge in. In this case, it was a Cable “Car”-a-mel Sundae. Bruce scooped some vanilla and some dulce de leche ice cream into a dish, then let a generous stream of caramel sauce find its to a soft landing on the ice cream and finally topped the whole thing off with handful of salted peanuts and a maraschino cherry.
Yeah, not bad.
Ok, so you’re thinking, “what’s this got to do with Italy and Gelato?”
Well, here’s the thing: Bruce did write a book that focused on such topics as ice milk concoctions—which is what Italian gelato is, really. That book carries the unweildy title of “The Ultimate Frozen Dessert Book” and doesn’t sell as well as the ice cream book.
Bruce sees a couple of reasons for this. One is the title, which doesn’t really mention concoctions like gelato except in the longer title. The other is that he found he had to add just a little cream to the gelato to make it taste like gelato.
Turns out that Italian cows produce milk with more fat content naturally.
But when you think about it, the difference between Italian Gelato and American Ice Cream—both symbols of the democratic pursuit of happiness in their respective countries—is the same difference you see in the pizza. Italians love a few, distinct flavors, with every element contributing to the whole. Americans like that pile-it-on thing. The more stuff on the pizza (enough so that you have to bolster the dough) the better. Who cares if you need a fork lift to get the sucker outta the oven!
You know what? I’ll let you in on a little secret. I like it all.
I leave you with one of those only-in-America stories that will warm the cockles of your heart. QVC (one of America’s shopping channels) once offered The Ultimate Ice Cream Book on its network. The book started selling slowly, until a couple folks called in and asked, “Does the book have any low fat recipes?”
Bruce mimics flipping the pages. “Yeah, there are a couple.”
After that question was answered the book took off. They sold 7500 copies in four minutes.
Ok, so promise you won’t blame me for your indulgent hunger. Remember: there are low fat recipes in The Ultimate Ice Cream Book. Just like the copy of War and Peace you have on your shelf that you haven’t read yet, it’ll make you feel good that you own such an object with such valorous recipes in it, even as you make yourself a creamy, gooey, sundae…
The California Milk Advisory Board has free recipes from Bruce Weinstein and others. Search for Ice Cream over at: Real California Milk
Bruce Weinstein’s Books
How Wine Should Be Served · Jul 1, 08:51 AM by James Martin
Those of you who read this blog more than once in a blue moon know that I am not a fan of formal wine service. I like the cork popped and the bottle plunked down on the table and left for me to handle.
But what if I find myself in a restaurant with a Sommelier? What if the restaurant insists I order the wine through the Sommelier?
I still don’t like it. But sometimes I want to get the most value out of the meal and the wine, and if I’m reviewing the restaurant I want to know how good the staff really is. So, I test them. I tell the Sommelier exactly the kind of wine I’m thinking of, or exactly the place I want it to come from.
Believe me, I’ve been quite disappointed at times. In Ragusa the sommelier was tardy on several occasions, so folks didn’t get wine until after the first course was at the table. When I mentioned local wines, the Sommelier simply pointed to a section of the list, shrugged, and walked away, leaving us to fend for ourselves.
Of course, there are good Sommeliers and bad. But what of the best? What kind of competition do they have to endure to get a reputation as someone who knows every little thing about a bottle of any wine?
Here’s a very interesting article on the Best World Sommelier Competition of the WSA
Interesting. But I wonder, is the detail a master Sommelier is expected to know going to make you really enjoy the wine picked for you?
I dunno. I’m still way too much of a heathen. Get me some local stuff. Put it on the table. Back away slowly….
Italy in Trouble for Pure Chocolate · Jun 26, 06:42 PM by James Martin
Is the EC the new Monsanto?
The ‘pure chocolate’ label provided by italian laws for cocoa butter based products makes consumers perceive chocolate made with ingredients other than cocoa butter as inferior.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of governmental agencies or big corporations telling me how I might perceive the notion of a product I’m putting in my mouth being devoid of crap put there for the express purpose of increasing profits at the expense of flavor.
I like the fact that Italian laws don’t allow just any kind of sludge to be put into chocolate. Besides, I’ve heard there aren’t enough vegetables in the world to be squeezing the oil out of them in order to water down my afternoon treat.
Read ‘em and weep:
AGI News: Italy Deferred for Chocolate Label
Guido Veloce: Hurray for (Monsanto) Steroids!
Fun With Friars · Jun 26, 09:14 AM by James Martin
When you’re from America’s Midwest, you tend to think of the religious devout as dour Puritans who’ve given up everything fun and exciting and are so bitter about it they want everyone else to jump in the same boat or die a slow, lingering death after writhing in pain in a pit filled with vipers.
That’s why I like the story of Brother Cesare Bonizzi and his band, Fratello Metallo.
An Italian Capuchin friar is gearing up to take the stage at the most important festival on the country’s heavy metal calendar in Bologna this weekend.
So, I’ll say what I always say when I’m looking at something in a market window in Italy: “Why don’t we have this?”
I can say it about lardo, of course, and also about a religious man who “twirls the end of the rope around his waist as he belts out heavy metal numbers.”
Ah, to be in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore sipping prosecco in the cool of an evening while listening to the ethereal voice of a holy man belting out odes to Bacchus and to Mary and to all the other touchstones that would unite us if we’d let them.
Read: Friar to open heavy metal concert
Bedtime for Unicorns · Jun 11, 05:11 PM by James Martin
What little I remember from childhood can probably be written on the head of a pin.
There are two things I remember succinctly:
1. Hating “bedtime.” All little boys males hate it. You argue with your mom, “But I’m not tired!”
Mom always replied, “tired has nothing to do with it. Look at the clock.”
(Then you get married. Lather, rinse, and most of all repeat the above. Ad nauseum. “Honey, it’s bedtime! Look at the clock!”)
One wonders how The Creator could have gotten the signals so wrong. And how could Adam and Eve lived without the mechanical ticking monster?
Finally:
2. Little girls universally like unicorns, a mythical creature at best.
So the news. There’s been a unicorn not only seen by reasonably lucid people in Italy, but photographed.
A roe deer with a single, pointy horn in the middle of its forehead was born in captivity over at the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, near Florence. ~ ‘Unicorn’ born in captivity
Well then.
Naples or Positano? · Jun 5, 10:09 AM by James Martin
Campania is an amazing place. It’s got some of the most desirable real estate in the world along the Amalfi coast. Mention Positano and normally erect people swoon drunkenly.
And then there’s Naples and its garbage. You see, Umberto I doesn’t swoon. He just stands there in his bronzeness, the symbol of Naples’ “problems” scattered at his back as he looks out to sea.
So which place would I prefer to spend some time? The answer may surprise you. It’s Naples, hands down.
You see, I’ve been to Positano. I’ve taken lots of Positano pictures.
But once the shutter had calmed down, it was time to go. Positano is pretty as a model in sandals, a symbol of modern style and grace and perfection. You kiss her on the powdered cheek and then go, feeling just a tad empty. Where are the hardware stores? Where do the old men get their coffee?
The picture of kids playing soccer on the marble floors of Galleria Umberto I screams “Naples” to me. It’s about people going about their daily lives, just stressed enough to get clever, just wary enough to be interesting.
Garbage? Garbage is the flaw, like Marilyn Monroe’s birthmark, that give us permission to peer closer, to be unafraid of the immense beauty that lies below the surface.
Naples is wealth and poverty side by side. It’s a city with problems times 2, which raises the bar for everything else. Pizza times 2, seafood times 2. Opera times 2. The elegance of an overpriced coffee (times 2) at Caffe Gambrinus, where the Lonely Planet tells us, “Mussolini had some of the rooms shut down to keep out left-wing intellectuals.”
(Damn those intellectuals. How you gonna have a totalitarian state with those bums, anyway? Everyone knows knowledge is dangerous.)
Take Naples’ tourist heart, Via San Gregorio Armeno. That’s where the nativity workshops are. It’s where you buy stuff for your presepe. Yes, at this time of year the streets are full of tourists. But go into some of the sunlit courtyards where all manner of little figures and miniature huts are displayed and if you aren’t transported back in time when craftsmanship was the norm and the little workshops were situated below the little apartments where the artisans lived, then your radar is off.
To me, that’s what a vacation is for. To be transported. To have life wash over you like tidal wave. To know that people live differently but not better or worse. To know that someone crafted a figurine out of sticks, or even an open-air shopping mall out of a marine power and fishing port.
Yes, even the curmudgeon in me knows that Positano has its place in the world.
Equi Terme in Winter · May 29, 05:14 PM by James Martin
I’ve always thought the Lunigiana spa town of Equi Terme was a bit dreary in a compelling sort of way. Once the rains brought out a few buds, the picture emerged that I had in my head, Equi Terme framed by emerging life.
Excess Baggage · May 27, 04:01 PM by James Martin
I’m telling you, it’s culture shock all over again.
I’ve only been back in California two days and already I’m pining away for Italy. No, it’s nothing romantic—it’s about bagging groceries.
You see, in Italy, when you go to a supermarket and load your stuff onto the moving belt, the scanner babe goes and scans things just like they do in the US. Ok, I shouldn’t have said “scanner babe.” How sexist. Better to call her “the checker.”
Then the “checker” pushes everything down into one or two holding areas, where you—yes, you the consumer—bag it yourself.
And you better have your own bag, or they’ll charge you.
Why do I like these subservient acts of baggage? Well, for one thing I don’t have to yell at the bagger boy for using 17 bags when I’ve only bought 15 items. No, the triple-plastic-wrapped soap that I will need a chain saw to open is not likely to poison the chicken. Well, not in my lifetime anyway.
Of course, the chicken is also poison and needs its own bag. But it’s a different kind of poison. So the bagger boy puts the chicken in a bag into another bag. Sure, chickens in the US have the toxicity of nuclear waste thanks to the government’s idea that regulating chicken processing is purest evil, but even two bags are unlikely to ward off the health problems we imagine we’re saving ourselves from, right? “Yes,” sayeth the government gleefully, “cook your 3 pound bird for 7 hours in a 450 degree oven, then remove and use for a doorstop—and you will have no health problems at all from your standard-issue industrial chicken.”
Anyway, I like just throwing everything in a big, old sack and walking away knowing that I’ve saved landfills from the scourge of excess baggage. And I’ve just come back from Naples and Campania, so I’m, you know, sensitive about that sorta thing.
But really, the thing is—I just hate having to carry those 15 bags to the car. It looks goofy. The figura isn’t bella, if you catch my drift.
