I'm in a tearing hurry this morning but I am establishing a new blog on blogspot for food reporting. It will be called waa-ourislandplate.blogspot.com
Some see me soon.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The trip of a second lifetime
Leaving Venice today.
Last couple of days swept by like aqua alta flowing swiftly into a canale.
We ate, of course: a couple of mediocre meals, an exceptional spread at formal, pricy, worth visiting Veccia Cabana in Ca' d'Oro, an aborted attempt to try out Harry's Dolci (sister to Harry's Bar, but cheaper, more casual) on La Giudecca across the water (closed despite guidebook assurances).
Best last-minute things:
• Chocolate shop Vizio Virtu Ciacolatteria (www.viziovirtu.com), which smells like God's antechamber. A tres chic cocoa-and-caramel-colored place just off the Sao Toma' vaporetto stop. Purchased a dozen tiny, perfect handmade chocolates — tiramisu, which a cocoa-caffe filling and a plain chocolate truffle sprinkled with shaved sea salt. Only got to eat one as we ended up taking them as a hostess gift to our landlady when she invited us up for farewell drinks last night. She and our fellow guests enjoyed them. Had a sip of Bonnie's cold chocolate (like hot chocolate, only..well..cold), very intense, not too sweet — nectar!
• Visiting some neighborhoods where we hadn't venture before, including the aforementioned island of La Giudecca, very non-touristy, a bedroom community of Venice, down-class a bit, where many large, brick former factory buildings have been turned into condominiums, often quite charming with courtyards and the odd small canal. Quiet, populated mainly by residents going about their daily lives and as uninterested in tourists as a fisherman on a Windward side reef.
Other neighborhoods worth checking out for nifty shops, pretty campi include San Polo where the University is. I really meant to get to Burano, the one-time lace island (the local hand-made lace industry is mostly gone; much of what you find here is manufactured in Asia) with its brightly colored homes, beloved of photographers. And we talked about going out to a fishing camp on one of the islands where the owner serves multi-course meals from his catch to select groups of visitors, but we never quite got the nerve up to try making the arrangements, fearful that our Italian would be inadequate. (Actually, KNOWING that our Italian would be inadequate.)
• Saw a couple of Biennale installations.
Q. How do you know it's a modern art installation? A. When you can't tell a) if anything lying around is part of the exhibit or just happens to be something a workman forgot, b) (in the case of performance art or video or music work) you don't know when it's over. We sat through a film of a man huffing and puffing his way up a Welsh hillside, the shale crackling under his feet, and I left mightily perplexed. In another place, they were exhibiting abstract works made by a horse. Yes, horse. Paintbrush in mouth. Even Bonnie drew the line there. I rather liked the colorful splashes myself. But I'm a cretin. On the whole, Bonnie has found the work at this Biennale safe, uninteresting and disappointing. On the whole, I've found it, as I said, mightily perplexing.
Today, we leave La Serenissima who, I'm sure will miss us not at all. But we will miss her!
Last couple of days swept by like aqua alta flowing swiftly into a canale.
We ate, of course: a couple of mediocre meals, an exceptional spread at formal, pricy, worth visiting Veccia Cabana in Ca' d'Oro, an aborted attempt to try out Harry's Dolci (sister to Harry's Bar, but cheaper, more casual) on La Giudecca across the water (closed despite guidebook assurances).
Best last-minute things:
• Chocolate shop Vizio Virtu Ciacolatteria (www.viziovirtu.com), which smells like God's antechamber. A tres chic cocoa-and-caramel-colored place just off the Sao Toma' vaporetto stop. Purchased a dozen tiny, perfect handmade chocolates — tiramisu, which a cocoa-caffe filling and a plain chocolate truffle sprinkled with shaved sea salt. Only got to eat one as we ended up taking them as a hostess gift to our landlady when she invited us up for farewell drinks last night. She and our fellow guests enjoyed them. Had a sip of Bonnie's cold chocolate (like hot chocolate, only..well..cold), very intense, not too sweet — nectar!
• Visiting some neighborhoods where we hadn't venture before, including the aforementioned island of La Giudecca, very non-touristy, a bedroom community of Venice, down-class a bit, where many large, brick former factory buildings have been turned into condominiums, often quite charming with courtyards and the odd small canal. Quiet, populated mainly by residents going about their daily lives and as uninterested in tourists as a fisherman on a Windward side reef.
Other neighborhoods worth checking out for nifty shops, pretty campi include San Polo where the University is. I really meant to get to Burano, the one-time lace island (the local hand-made lace industry is mostly gone; much of what you find here is manufactured in Asia) with its brightly colored homes, beloved of photographers. And we talked about going out to a fishing camp on one of the islands where the owner serves multi-course meals from his catch to select groups of visitors, but we never quite got the nerve up to try making the arrangements, fearful that our Italian would be inadequate. (Actually, KNOWING that our Italian would be inadequate.)
• Saw a couple of Biennale installations.
Q. How do you know it's a modern art installation? A. When you can't tell a) if anything lying around is part of the exhibit or just happens to be something a workman forgot, b) (in the case of performance art or video or music work) you don't know when it's over. We sat through a film of a man huffing and puffing his way up a Welsh hillside, the shale crackling under his feet, and I left mightily perplexed. In another place, they were exhibiting abstract works made by a horse. Yes, horse. Paintbrush in mouth. Even Bonnie drew the line there. I rather liked the colorful splashes myself. But I'm a cretin. On the whole, Bonnie has found the work at this Biennale safe, uninteresting and disappointing. On the whole, I've found it, as I said, mightily perplexing.
Today, we leave La Serenissima who, I'm sure will miss us not at all. But we will miss her!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sounds of a Venice night...
Slap, slap, slap ... SLAP! as of a hand on a cheek...wavelets in the canal...
A caw, a cry, a sudden cacaphony of gulls on a nearby roof, disputing territory...
The deep thrumming of a vaporetto engine, water pushed before the hull, building, building, hmmmmmmmmmm, then passing...
Voices, disconcertingly sudden, at the window, the tall narrow window framed in sound-dampening wooden shutters so that you cannot hear anyone until they're right outside and then a blast of liquid Italian vowels, the up-and-down rhythm of a sentence and then gone...
Breathing, like a steam vent at the volcano, like bear or a dog, something with a big, deep chest...
A sound like a baby crying, cats mewling, catterwauling, then nothing...
slap, slap, slap... SLAP!
I will miss this and I will remember it.
A caw, a cry, a sudden cacaphony of gulls on a nearby roof, disputing territory...
The deep thrumming of a vaporetto engine, water pushed before the hull, building, building, hmmmmmmmmmm, then passing...
Voices, disconcertingly sudden, at the window, the tall narrow window framed in sound-dampening wooden shutters so that you cannot hear anyone until they're right outside and then a blast of liquid Italian vowels, the up-and-down rhythm of a sentence and then gone...
Breathing, like a steam vent at the volcano, like bear or a dog, something with a big, deep chest...
A sound like a baby crying, cats mewling, catterwauling, then nothing...
slap, slap, slap... SLAP!
I will miss this and I will remember it.
I hate this. Knowing I'm leaving. Listening to the church bells, the splash of the water in the canal, watching the play of light on the ceiling of my room, knowing that, in a few days, I'll be back in Hawaii, in a different light, with different sounds. And who knows if I'll ever be here again?
Today, we did an art morning, Ca' Pesaro, a modern art museum where there is a Biennale exhibition interspersed with the standing collection, which appears to be primarily from the early years of the 20the century, and the movement that went from representational to cubist and moderne (as if I knew what the hell I was talking about). I liked the way the Biennale artist, Braco Dimitijevic of Sarajevo, wove his extremely life-like figures, made of resin and other materials, into the overall exhibit. One in particular, a hefty man, sitting, his legs sprawled out, seemed to me to speak to a large conventional marble, also a man, also legs outstretched, but not sprawled, not relaxed or in control, but very much posed. And not, like the modern figure, dressed, but nude.
It has been a revelation, seeing modern art with Bonnie, something I would never, ever have done on my own. The galleries after galleries after galleries of older works have pleased but not provoked me as the modern art has done.
We were in a cramped warren of pathways, canals and campi off the St. Stae vaparetto stop and had lunch at a little place, a pizzeria, Il Refelo. The pizza was amazing. I don't like pizza. Never order it. Cadged a piece from Bonnie, cheese and thin-sliced mellanzane (eggplant) and knew that, if pizza were like this in America, I would crave it. Had penne pasta, infused with the flavor of smoked pancetta; I think, based on what I read on the menu, that the name Il Refelo might refer to a wood-burning oven, which lends its style to the menu. I don't know. Tangential Italian. Uncommunicative waiter.
The restaurant is composed of a small room of perhaps a half-dozen tables (which looks as though it would be very nice in the evening), a kitchen and a stone-paved campo, where they set up tables under umbrellas, overlooking a narrow canal used by both "real people" and gondoliers. This is a very lovely, quite and not much visited part of town. A large gull glided in and we watched as he (she?) swallowed a piece of bread twice the width of his neck and performed an elaborate swallowing dance until it had gone down. Then it posed for its closeup on top of a mooring post. Families glided by in their small boats. A professional tour guide brought her party to lunch; a boon for us since she was speaking Italian very clearly and somewhat slowly, so our evesdropping was much more fruitful than usual.
Long dark night of the waiting for the conto (check), as usual.
Invested in a trio of Donna Leon books for the trip home (and I do mean invested; a paperback costs E10, around $15!), had a lovely afternoon reading and lolling in bed, visited our landlady the Contessa who will host us to drinks the night before we leave, played with her little dog Webby and cadged a suitcase from her attic for Bonnie's overflow), got the address of a music shop so I can try and find my favorite Italian pop artist.
Business business.
Can I get a do-over?
Today, we did an art morning, Ca' Pesaro, a modern art museum where there is a Biennale exhibition interspersed with the standing collection, which appears to be primarily from the early years of the 20the century, and the movement that went from representational to cubist and moderne (as if I knew what the hell I was talking about). I liked the way the Biennale artist, Braco Dimitijevic of Sarajevo, wove his extremely life-like figures, made of resin and other materials, into the overall exhibit. One in particular, a hefty man, sitting, his legs sprawled out, seemed to me to speak to a large conventional marble, also a man, also legs outstretched, but not sprawled, not relaxed or in control, but very much posed. And not, like the modern figure, dressed, but nude.
It has been a revelation, seeing modern art with Bonnie, something I would never, ever have done on my own. The galleries after galleries after galleries of older works have pleased but not provoked me as the modern art has done.
We were in a cramped warren of pathways, canals and campi off the St. Stae vaparetto stop and had lunch at a little place, a pizzeria, Il Refelo. The pizza was amazing. I don't like pizza. Never order it. Cadged a piece from Bonnie, cheese and thin-sliced mellanzane (eggplant) and knew that, if pizza were like this in America, I would crave it. Had penne pasta, infused with the flavor of smoked pancetta; I think, based on what I read on the menu, that the name Il Refelo might refer to a wood-burning oven, which lends its style to the menu. I don't know. Tangential Italian. Uncommunicative waiter.
The restaurant is composed of a small room of perhaps a half-dozen tables (which looks as though it would be very nice in the evening), a kitchen and a stone-paved campo, where they set up tables under umbrellas, overlooking a narrow canal used by both "real people" and gondoliers. This is a very lovely, quite and not much visited part of town. A large gull glided in and we watched as he (she?) swallowed a piece of bread twice the width of his neck and performed an elaborate swallowing dance until it had gone down. Then it posed for its closeup on top of a mooring post. Families glided by in their small boats. A professional tour guide brought her party to lunch; a boon for us since she was speaking Italian very clearly and somewhat slowly, so our evesdropping was much more fruitful than usual.
Long dark night of the waiting for the conto (check), as usual.
Invested in a trio of Donna Leon books for the trip home (and I do mean invested; a paperback costs E10, around $15!), had a lovely afternoon reading and lolling in bed, visited our landlady the Contessa who will host us to drinks the night before we leave, played with her little dog Webby and cadged a suitcase from her attic for Bonnie's overflow), got the address of a music shop so I can try and find my favorite Italian pop artist.
Business business.
Can I get a do-over?
Saturday, June 27, 2009
How did it get to be three days?
From a seemingly uncountable number of days, we are now down to three in Venice.
I want only to absorb, pull in, experience, experience, experience. Today, we will go to Ca' Pesaro, a modern art museum, and at least one other cultural site, and then a pizza place Bonnie showed me last night that seemed most intriguing.
We found a new campo. Well, she found it. It's off the St. Stae vaporetto stop. She calls it Our Lady of the Eternal Chic Restaurants or something like that. It's exactly where my folding Italy Auto Club map is centered and torn. But we had not been there together.
We went to experience Osteria la Zuccha (the "pumpkin" restaurant, San Croce 1762 on San Giocomo dell ' Orio) a semi-vegetarian spot that has been highly praised in the media and for which reservations are a must.
Oh, thank God: Rice instead of pasta (okay, it was long-grain jasmine and not short-grain white but it was the first rice we'd had in a long time). A savory and rich pumpkin flan as a first course, so delicious I recommended it to the next party; I was moaning, actually. Rabbit in a kind of marengo (tomato, vegetable) sauce. A rabbit warren of small rooms paneled in strips of wood with views of a canal. We skipped dessert.
One campo after another, each more charming that the last, full of Italians. Find this place!
I must, I'm sorry, but no one's listening so why not indulge myself?, speak about the Long Night of the Italian Table.
Again.
What is it that Italian serving staff have against bringing THE (here insert preferred profanity) CHECK???? When I'm done, I'm done. I wanna go. I wanna give you my money and get the heck outta Dodge or Canareggio or wherever. Did you get the 'give you my money' part?? Moses, let my people go!!!
Even AFTER you ask for "il conto" (the bill) — and it takes a miracle from God to catch a waiter's eye to do that much — an eternity goes by. Michaelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel. Tintoretto does half a dozen commissioned portraits. Popes come and go. And then the bill appears. And then there's a negotiation about whether they take credit cards ("Carta?"), whether you can take your leftovers home ("?????") and then you dither about the tip because, by then, what I want to do is rise like Prometheus, burst my chains and run from the place.
And this is with restaurants I like.
I will never again kvetch when Sally "drops the check" early at a diner. I will pay it with a smile.
Next year in Alohaland.
I want only to absorb, pull in, experience, experience, experience. Today, we will go to Ca' Pesaro, a modern art museum, and at least one other cultural site, and then a pizza place Bonnie showed me last night that seemed most intriguing.
We found a new campo. Well, she found it. It's off the St. Stae vaporetto stop. She calls it Our Lady of the Eternal Chic Restaurants or something like that. It's exactly where my folding Italy Auto Club map is centered and torn. But we had not been there together.
We went to experience Osteria la Zuccha (the "pumpkin" restaurant, San Croce 1762 on San Giocomo dell ' Orio) a semi-vegetarian spot that has been highly praised in the media and for which reservations are a must.
Oh, thank God: Rice instead of pasta (okay, it was long-grain jasmine and not short-grain white but it was the first rice we'd had in a long time). A savory and rich pumpkin flan as a first course, so delicious I recommended it to the next party; I was moaning, actually. Rabbit in a kind of marengo (tomato, vegetable) sauce. A rabbit warren of small rooms paneled in strips of wood with views of a canal. We skipped dessert.
One campo after another, each more charming that the last, full of Italians. Find this place!
I must, I'm sorry, but no one's listening so why not indulge myself?, speak about the Long Night of the Italian Table.
Again.
What is it that Italian serving staff have against bringing THE (here insert preferred profanity) CHECK???? When I'm done, I'm done. I wanna go. I wanna give you my money and get the heck outta Dodge or Canareggio or wherever. Did you get the 'give you my money' part?? Moses, let my people go!!!
Even AFTER you ask for "il conto" (the bill) — and it takes a miracle from God to catch a waiter's eye to do that much — an eternity goes by. Michaelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel. Tintoretto does half a dozen commissioned portraits. Popes come and go. And then the bill appears. And then there's a negotiation about whether they take credit cards ("Carta?"), whether you can take your leftovers home ("?????") and then you dither about the tip because, by then, what I want to do is rise like Prometheus, burst my chains and run from the place.
And this is with restaurants I like.
I will never again kvetch when Sally "drops the check" early at a diner. I will pay it with a smile.
Next year in Alohaland.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Io sto Venexiana!
It means "I am (a) Venetian (woman)!"
However, I have purposely used the wrong form of the verb "to be," the one that indicates a temporary state. If I were, in fact, from or of Venice, I would say "Io sono"...but my state of Venecianity is quite passing, I'm afraid.
And I have used the spelling of Venetian as it is given in the dialect of this city — like Hawaiian, a once endangered language; unlike Hawaiian, still forbidden to be taught in schools, but used in homes. This is in homage to my beloved Commissario Guido Brunetti, the thoughtful and often troubled protaganist in Donna Leon's very readable series of detective novels set in Venezia.
Being a person willing to look below the surface, Brunetti, I hope, would forgive my fractured Italian, my pathetic would-be-ism and understand that my delight — when I felt briefly Venetian this morning — came from an honest heart. Not all Venetians would, I fear.
This short period of which I speak came when I was sent, all on my own, proudly and a bit nervously, like a child allowed to venture to the corner for the first time, to do the last grocery shopping of our stay in Venice.
Our list was simple: bread, milk, eggs, butter, a little fruit (I know most of the major food words, so no troubles there, I thought, not considering the complications involved in deciphering the terms for "skim" milk, which turns out to be, "partialmente scremato" — or does that mean half screaming?) and then — potential for failure here — water softener for doing laundry.
My friend, never one to leave anything to chance, gave me minute directions about how to handle the produce end of things, though I'd observed the process myself just a few days before: find the disposable glove dispenser, touch no fruit without a glove on, find the computerized pricing machine, place the fruit on the machine and touch the picture that relates to it, affix the price tag that spits out of the machine, hey pronto!
This all went swimmingly, as did asking for bread at the hot bakery counter ("Buon giorno! Per favore, une ciabatta. Si, una" — they can't even understand me when I'm saying the simplest word in the vocabulary, sigh. "Grazie, signora."), searching out the butter, milk and laundry stuff. Then, a few purchases of my own: superfine cornmeal for baking, fine polenta for boiling — both to be carried home — and, my favorite new munchy, grissini, bread sticks. They had a half-dozen brands, each offering a half-dozen flavors — rosemary, cheese, salt — and shapes (thin as a pencil to stubby and short as a man's thumb) but I couldn't find my favorite sesame. Settled for salted. And a few slices of mortadella, because I like it better than prosciutto or salami.
It was while I was puzzling over the grissini that a Venetian paid me the ultimate compliment of assuming that a) I might be from here, and b) I might speak Italian. Rolling her cart alongside mine, a well-dressed middle-aged woman rattled off an incomprehensible (to me) paragraph, gesturing about her (Italians gesture even when they're on the phone). Being a jaded supermarket veteran, I felt sure she was saying one of two things: "Can you believe these prices? My mother would turn over in her grave!" or "They move things all the time and you can't find a thing!"
My choices of response were slim. I know how to say "I'm sorry. I'm an American. I don't understand." But I wasn't about to say that. I wanted to say, "What can you do?," which would have covered either base. But I wasn't sure how to phrase that (something like "Che lei puoi fa?", I think, but that's probably wrong, the result of dictionary diving).
So I used universal language, smiled, shrugged, laughed, wheeled on. She seemed satisfied, smiling at me later as we both packed up our rolling carts for the walk back home over the bumpy cobbles and bumpy arched bridges. Could she have any idea how happy she'd made me? Probably not.
And now we come to lunch. Is there no end to Serenissima's culinary bounty? Ever since Bonnie and I peeked at the menu and were charmingly greeted by a waiter who popped out his head to say hello (she'd been there before), I'd been dying to get back to tiny Vini da Arturo in an anonymous alley not far from Campo S. Angelo (Calle degli Asssassini, S. Marco 3656A). I'll tell you who I'd assissinate — anyone who got in the way of my going back here.
We had but four dishes: Saor al' Melanzane (eggplant in onion-vinegar marinade), Tagliatelli alla Rucola (housemade pasta strips with arugula sauce), a simple pear salad fresh prepared for us and their off-the-charts and one-of-a-kind tira mi su. Came to more than 80 bucks. I'd pay my share again. Smiling.
The saor — grilled eggplant slices, raisins plumped in something, pine nuts, fruity olive oil, red wine vinegar— achieved the mandatory razor-thin balance of sweet to sour, meltingly oily to cuttingly sharp to make this dish a success. The pasta, snaking around and colored by the gray-green vegetable, reminded us both of luau leaf in the best possible way. (Bonnie said she had tried to replicate this seemingly simple dish at home and failed miserably.)
The salad — no greens, just fruit, fennel, walnuts, couldn't even identify any oil or vinegar, perhaps some citrus? — esquisito! And that tira mi su. As though Italian meringue (egg white whipped to satiny softness with fine sugar) and custard sauce (cream, egg yolk, vanilla) ascended into heaven, sat at the right hand of the father the mother and the holy ghost and on the third day came down to Arturo's and took on just a hint of powdered coffee and chocolate. This frothy, creamy bowl of stuff (not a ladyfinger in sight) is hardly the conventional dish but two spoonsful sent me back to the apartment after lunch in a dreamy, drunken, dangerous state. (I say dangerous because, when I'm sated, I tend to spend money. And if there'd been a light, frothy little silken dress between the Dorsoduro and Campo S. Angelo, I'd be wearing it now.)
As for Bonnie, as she scraped industriously at the bowl, the waiter walked by and laconically remarked, in that seductive accent that adds a syllable to every syllable, "Don'a wash'a da dishes. We do it after."
If, right now, this very second, the Pope granted me this indulgence — that I could choose to return to any restaurants experienced on this trip — I would fly to Arturo's for whatever that gracious waiter suggested; I would be in Bologna again for tortellini with cream and tomato sauces; I would have a strudel from Venice's Jewish gheto bakery in one hand and any flavor of torti di torrone in the other, and I would be ordering rabbit (either the nonna's rabbit stew of La Bitta or the tagliatelli with rabbit and mint ragout from Osteria all' Antica Adelaide) and maybe mussels and, oh, yeah, the whole branzini with the olive oil essence ....and the Panna Cotta of Life from Bitta.
And, you know what? We've got five days and at least a dozen restaurants left to do. May God, and the Pope, have mercy on our souls.
PS no new photos with this post, my camera battery died
It means "I am (a) Venetian (woman)!"
However, I have purposely used the wrong form of the verb "to be," the one that indicates a temporary state. If I were, in fact, from or of Venice, I would say "Io sono"...but my state of Venecianity is quite passing, I'm afraid.
And I have used the spelling of Venetian as it is given in the dialect of this city — like Hawaiian, a once endangered language; unlike Hawaiian, still forbidden to be taught in schools, but used in homes. This is in homage to my beloved Commissario Guido Brunetti, the thoughtful and often troubled protaganist in Donna Leon's very readable series of detective novels set in Venezia.
Being a person willing to look below the surface, Brunetti, I hope, would forgive my fractured Italian, my pathetic would-be-ism and understand that my delight — when I felt briefly Venetian this morning — came from an honest heart. Not all Venetians would, I fear.
This short period of which I speak came when I was sent, all on my own, proudly and a bit nervously, like a child allowed to venture to the corner for the first time, to do the last grocery shopping of our stay in Venice.
Our list was simple: bread, milk, eggs, butter, a little fruit (I know most of the major food words, so no troubles there, I thought, not considering the complications involved in deciphering the terms for "skim" milk, which turns out to be, "partialmente scremato" — or does that mean half screaming?) and then — potential for failure here — water softener for doing laundry.
My friend, never one to leave anything to chance, gave me minute directions about how to handle the produce end of things, though I'd observed the process myself just a few days before: find the disposable glove dispenser, touch no fruit without a glove on, find the computerized pricing machine, place the fruit on the machine and touch the picture that relates to it, affix the price tag that spits out of the machine, hey pronto!
This all went swimmingly, as did asking for bread at the hot bakery counter ("Buon giorno! Per favore, une ciabatta. Si, una" — they can't even understand me when I'm saying the simplest word in the vocabulary, sigh. "Grazie, signora."), searching out the butter, milk and laundry stuff. Then, a few purchases of my own: superfine cornmeal for baking, fine polenta for boiling — both to be carried home — and, my favorite new munchy, grissini, bread sticks. They had a half-dozen brands, each offering a half-dozen flavors — rosemary, cheese, salt — and shapes (thin as a pencil to stubby and short as a man's thumb) but I couldn't find my favorite sesame. Settled for salted. And a few slices of mortadella, because I like it better than prosciutto or salami.
It was while I was puzzling over the grissini that a Venetian paid me the ultimate compliment of assuming that a) I might be from here, and b) I might speak Italian. Rolling her cart alongside mine, a well-dressed middle-aged woman rattled off an incomprehensible (to me) paragraph, gesturing about her (Italians gesture even when they're on the phone). Being a jaded supermarket veteran, I felt sure she was saying one of two things: "Can you believe these prices? My mother would turn over in her grave!" or "They move things all the time and you can't find a thing!"
My choices of response were slim. I know how to say "I'm sorry. I'm an American. I don't understand." But I wasn't about to say that. I wanted to say, "What can you do?," which would have covered either base. But I wasn't sure how to phrase that (something like "Che lei puoi fa?", I think, but that's probably wrong, the result of dictionary diving).
So I used universal language, smiled, shrugged, laughed, wheeled on. She seemed satisfied, smiling at me later as we both packed up our rolling carts for the walk back home over the bumpy cobbles and bumpy arched bridges. Could she have any idea how happy she'd made me? Probably not.
And now we come to lunch. Is there no end to Serenissima's culinary bounty? Ever since Bonnie and I peeked at the menu and were charmingly greeted by a waiter who popped out his head to say hello (she'd been there before), I'd been dying to get back to tiny Vini da Arturo in an anonymous alley not far from Campo S. Angelo (Calle degli Asssassini, S. Marco 3656A). I'll tell you who I'd assissinate — anyone who got in the way of my going back here.
We had but four dishes: Saor al' Melanzane (eggplant in onion-vinegar marinade), Tagliatelli alla Rucola (housemade pasta strips with arugula sauce), a simple pear salad fresh prepared for us and their off-the-charts and one-of-a-kind tira mi su. Came to more than 80 bucks. I'd pay my share again. Smiling.
The saor — grilled eggplant slices, raisins plumped in something, pine nuts, fruity olive oil, red wine vinegar— achieved the mandatory razor-thin balance of sweet to sour, meltingly oily to cuttingly sharp to make this dish a success. The pasta, snaking around and colored by the gray-green vegetable, reminded us both of luau leaf in the best possible way. (Bonnie said she had tried to replicate this seemingly simple dish at home and failed miserably.)
The salad — no greens, just fruit, fennel, walnuts, couldn't even identify any oil or vinegar, perhaps some citrus? — esquisito! And that tira mi su. As though Italian meringue (egg white whipped to satiny softness with fine sugar) and custard sauce (cream, egg yolk, vanilla) ascended into heaven, sat at the right hand of the father the mother and the holy ghost and on the third day came down to Arturo's and took on just a hint of powdered coffee and chocolate. This frothy, creamy bowl of stuff (not a ladyfinger in sight) is hardly the conventional dish but two spoonsful sent me back to the apartment after lunch in a dreamy, drunken, dangerous state. (I say dangerous because, when I'm sated, I tend to spend money. And if there'd been a light, frothy little silken dress between the Dorsoduro and Campo S. Angelo, I'd be wearing it now.)
As for Bonnie, as she scraped industriously at the bowl, the waiter walked by and laconically remarked, in that seductive accent that adds a syllable to every syllable, "Don'a wash'a da dishes. We do it after."
If, right now, this very second, the Pope granted me this indulgence — that I could choose to return to any restaurants experienced on this trip — I would fly to Arturo's for whatever that gracious waiter suggested; I would be in Bologna again for tortellini with cream and tomato sauces; I would have a strudel from Venice's Jewish gheto bakery in one hand and any flavor of torti di torrone in the other, and I would be ordering rabbit (either the nonna's rabbit stew of La Bitta or the tagliatelli with rabbit and mint ragout from Osteria all' Antica Adelaide) and maybe mussels and, oh, yeah, the whole branzini with the olive oil essence ....and the Panna Cotta of Life from Bitta.
And, you know what? We've got five days and at least a dozen restaurants left to do. May God, and the Pope, have mercy on our souls.
PS no new photos with this post, my camera battery died
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Bologna — it's all about the tortellini
Just back in Venezia from Bologna.
For the Tale of the Tortelini, complete with growling waiter, see my Honolulu Advertiser blog (honoluluadvertiser.com, go to Taste and Island Plate links). It's not mounted as I write this, late Thursday night Venice time — having some technical difficulties — but keep checking.
In the case of la cucina Bolognesa, pictures do more justice...See new ones to right and below...
For the Tale of the Tortelini, complete with growling waiter, see my Honolulu Advertiser blog (honoluluadvertiser.com, go to Taste and Island Plate links). It's not mounted as I write this, late Thursday night Venice time — having some technical difficulties — but keep checking.
In the case of la cucina Bolognesa, pictures do more justice...See new ones to right and below...
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