#toomuchdog/street food at Eataly

Yesterday was a bright bright sunshiny day, which inspired me to make an exception to my normal Saturday morning practice of lying on the couch and napping while watching the news. Instead, I headed across the street to the park rather earlier than usual. It was lunchtime and the place was packed to the gills with picnickers.

This is my favorite tree in Villa Pamphili. I can see it from my window.

I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but there is somewhat of a design flaw in the area cani in Villa Pamphili: it is only place in the park where there are picnic tables. So naturally the picnickers all flock there. But it is also one of the few places that dogs can be off-leash. You may be able to imagine the rest. Here’s the scenario that I have seen play out about 100 million times: picnickers organize a nice spread in the area cani at one of the tables or perhaps on a blanket on the ground. They may not even know it’s the dog zone because the signs denoting it as such are only up for a few days about every three months since they get knocked down by vandals almost immediately. Idiots. So, the picnickers are happily eating their pasta and whatever and all of the dogs in the zone (and because it’s a nice day for picnicking, there are plenty of dogs) come over and start nosing around. It’s more of an issue for the on-the-ground picnics than for the ones on the table although there is one dog who shall be nameless (his name rhymes with Gorgan) who believes that the picnic tables are his own personal domain — he likes to jump on them the better to observe his kingdom — and he has no qualms about jumping onto a picnic table full of food (and once, smack dab in the middle of a birthday cake). Then the picnickers yell at the dog owners, “Get your dog out of here!!!” and the dog owners yell at the picnickers, “This is the dog area. If you don’t want to deal with dogs, go somewhere else!” And they continue to yell at each other until everyone’s day is ruined. Ball-throwers and kite-flyers face the same degree of canine interest in the dog zone and the results are usually the same.

This is MY table!

Lately I’ve noticed that Morgan has a new routine. He runs over to a blanket where a picnic is occurring and sticks his head directly into the first purse, backpack or bag he can find. If the purse or backpack is zipped, he starts pulling on the zipper with his teeth. He’s not succeeded with that yet but it’s just a matter of time.

Let’s just see what they have brought for me, shall we?

The picnickers — for the most part teenagers — are usually distracted by how awesome and cool they are (and are frequently, shall we say, entwined) so they don’t see him at first. When they do, he immediately launches a major charm offensive, rolling on his back with his legs up in the air, rubbing against them like a cat and just generally being adorable (which he is).

They’re hooked. Now what’s in it for me?

After a few minutes of this, the picnickers are oohing and ahhing at Morgan’s cuteness and he generally scores a bit of pizza crust out of the deal. And then he immediately runs to the next picnic blanket and starts all over again. Genius. He hit six picnics yesterday and got a little snack at every one of them! BTW, there is a subset of the Italian teen — female persuasion — who thinks she’ll be more attractive to boys if she’s afraid of dogs so when Morgan approaches this idiot she’ll go, “Oooh help! I am so afraid! Protect me!” I’m like, “Moron. This dog is the size of your average kitty cat.  Get a life.”

This weekend, Eataly held its second annual street food festival and my friend Daniela and I went along to check it out. It was splendid.

Eataly — which occupies a beautifully redesigned train station — is a combination farmer’s market, supermarket, food court and learning centre.

The deal was that you bought chips (known as gettone, which are also the name of the things you used to use to make phone calls back in ye olde days of phone booths) and exchanged them for different street foods available around the food court. In addition to Italian street food (think pizza, focaccia and gelato), there were plates dedicated to Germany (currywurst), China (porky dumplings), Greece (gyros), Morocco (cous-cous), Vietnam (bahn mi), Thailand (pad thai), Mexico (chicken tacos), Spain (paella), Argentine (empanadas) and the USA (cupcakes — snore). As usual, my eyes were way bigger than my stomach and I bought four gettone. But after a chicken taco and a trapizzino filled with picchiapò, (peek-ee-ya-poe), which is a spiced boiled beef stew and one of my favorite words ever (it means ‘a little beat up’), I was done. That may have also had something to do with all of the free cheese on offer, of which I partook heavily. I used my leftover chips on take-home dumplings from the Chinese vender. Dinner!

Moeche and other Venetian treats

I was in Venice for the weekend recently with the Upstairs Vegetarian and her friend from Canada, Erin the Anglican Priest. We also met up with Annie, the UV’s former colleague, who was in Venice studying beads for her PhD. It’s more interesting than it sounds. Venice is a magical wonderful city. It’s the kind of place — as my brother once observed — where you keep expecting men in masks and capes and brandishing rapiers to pop out of alleyways and start with the stabbing. That may be because it’s often foggy and because the scariest movie in the history of the world took place in Venice. At any rate, the atmosphere is very — as the Italians would say — suggestive.

Suggestive Venice. The be-cloaked stabby guys hide inside until nightfall.

What can I say about Venice? The Biennale is still on and I could tell you about that. But who wants to hear about a bunch of bad art? Empty bleach bottles tied together with bits of string? What’s that all about? Me, I went to Venice mostly for the moeche.

Moeche are tiny soft shell crabs from the Venetian lagoon. They are only available for a few months every year (March-April and September-October) and I’ve been dying to try them ever since I heard about the Italian system for preparing them. They put the live crabs into a bowl filled with a batter made from egg and corn meal. The crabs eat up the mixture, effectively battering themselves from the inside. Isn’t that clever? I love soft shell crabs. And these ones are tiny so you can eat lots.

Self-battered soft shell crabs. My friend Jane used to work in a grocery store in the UK and she and her colleagues loved to make announcements over the PA system about the sale on “battered cod pieces.” Hee.

The baby artichokes from the lagoon island of Sant’ Erasmo are super tasty.

This fish is called San Pietro (John Dory in English) and it is very moist and tender. I do not understand the name change but the Italian name is due to the fact that St Peter caught the fish with his hands to prove he could do miracles. It also may have had something to do with the loaves and fishes, depending on whom you ask.

A big Venetian deal  are cicheti, which are basically fancy bar snacks. While there are many different kinds of cicheti available, you will nearly always find the big three on offer: sarde in saor (fried sardines covered in sweet and sour marinated carmelized onions), baccalà mantecato (pureed dried codfish whipped with olive oil) and insalata di polpo (marinated octopus salad with lemon, parsley and celery).

Cicheti come in all shapes and colors.

Venetian cicheti. That white stuff on the right is the baccalà mantecato.

These random guys just got on stage in the middle of lunch and started playing. Accordions don’t get enough respect in my view. Did you know that the epicenter of accordion-making is in Italy? The Upstairs Vegetarian once wrote about it in her  newspaper.

This guy totally photo bombed my friends coming out of the restaurant.

We visited the Venetian Ghetto, which dates back to 1516, making it the oldest one in Europe. In fact, the word ghetto comes from the Venetian word ghèto, which means slag, because a foundry was located near the area of Jewish confinement. There is a small museum and five synagogues in the Ghetto and you can take a nice tour of the ones not currently in use. There was a very prominent (and somewhat snippy) sign hanging in the synagogues we visited announcing that the ‘so-called’ kosher restaurant on the main square was a fraud and not officially kosher at all. Methinks therein lies a tale. As elsewhere, the Venetian Jews were rounded up when the Nazis occupied Italy in 1943. The President of the Jewish Community at the time — a doctor and professor named Giuseppe Jona — killed himself rather than hand over a list of the names of Venetian Jews. Figures differ, but probably about 200 Jews were taken and (mostly) sent to Dachau. There’s a stark and somewhat gruesome memorial in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, which is topped with barbed wire.

The Holocaust Memorial, Venice

Hmmm. I somehow feel that this post needs to end on a lighter note.

Here’s a dog in a suitcase.

Osteria Osticcio, Montalcino

My college BFF, Joanne, was here recently and we did a lot of eating. A LOT. I am currently trying to erase the memory of her trip from my waistline, with little to no success. Most of the places we went to were old favourites, like Le Coq, Scarps and the Greedy She-cat, about which I have written at length. But there were a few lovely new finds as well, one of which was Osteria Osticcio. The restaurant is in Montalcino, a medieval Tuscan town that has been inhabited since Etruscan times (probably). During the Medieval period, the town was known for its high quality leather goods. Now it’s best known for its famous Brunello di Montalcino wine.

Joanne chills on a pretty bench in Montalcino’s main piazza.

Three things immediately predisposed me to give Osteria Osticcio two thumbs up before we had even ordered. First, they welcomed the dog, graciously and without complaint. That doesn’t happen very often here, at least not when the seating is inside. Second, the waitress immediately brought said dog a bowl of iced water — iced water! That was much very appreciated by the Morgster since it was about a million degrees outside.

Earlier in the day, Morgan cooled off in the shower at Locanda Toscanini, the lovely little hotel where we stayed outside of Cetona. The conductor Toscanini used to hang out here in the 1930s.

Finally, this was the view from our table.

Yes, that was our view.

My lunch was extraordinarily porky. The starter was raw sausage and Lardo di Cinta Senese. A couple of things before you all start yelling. I realize that the concept of raw sausage is a bit alarming but I figured they wouldn’t put it on the menu if it wasn’t safe. As it turned out, the dog ate most of it. The thing is I can never turn down Lardo. Ever. For the poor, sad uninitiated, lardo is fatback cured with various spices and it is sooo goooood. Cinta Senese is an ancient pig breed — there are depictions of them in art going back to the 1300s.  The breed was nearly extinct in the 1990s but, thanks to a few enterprising farmers (and the foodies), it’s off the danger list now. BTW, the name comes from the fact that the pig has a white stripe around its chest (cinta means belt); Senese has to do with Siena, which is nearby and was the head town back in ye olde times.

Do you like my belt? It’s vintage Porcio Armani. Photo by M. Simoncini. 

Joanne had chicken liver pate, which was also very fine.

  Next (for me) was roast pork loin with beans and crispy pancetta. At this point, not only was I eating like a pig, my body was about 80% pork products.

Oink!

Jo had thick spaghetti with little tomatoes and big chunks of guanciale (pork jowl to its friends, which are legion) and a big bowl of chickpeas with rosemary on the side.  Morgs relaxed on the floor and gave us baleful glares.

More piggy stuff please!

It was a lovely lunch — I highly recommend the restaurant. And mamma mia, that view!

ENOTECA OSTERIA OSTICCIO
Via Matteotti, 23  53024 Montalcino (SI) 
Tel.+39 0577 848271 Fax +390577846907

Bau Beach!

Yesterday was lovely — sunny and breezy — so the Upstairs Vegetarian and I took ourselves to the beach. But not just any beach. Bau Beach is a beach for dogs, so named because Italian dogs say bau-bau instead of bow-wow. And that’s not all: Italian roosters say chicchirichí instead of cocka-doodle-doo; sheep say beee instead of baaa; frogs say cra-cra instead of croak-croak; donkeys say i-oo, i-oo rather than heehaw; and mice don’t squeak, they go squitt squitt. Interesting eh?

It was the Morgster’s first trip to the seaside, although he’s been to the dog beach at Lago di Martignano several times. He loved it. There were tons of dogs on the beach, all racing around, digging holes in the ground and surfing the waves. Very chaotic but great fun. Bau Beach is in Maccarese, a short drive from Rome. An annual pass costs 10 Euros.

Welcome to Bau Beach!

Each pup gets a water bowl and a dog-sized umbrella.

First trip to the beach!

Is this not the cutest thing you have ever seen?

I love this photo. He looks like a hairy baby giraffe!

Tired but happy

Morgan and Hugo

My dog Morgan loves to be the centre of attention. He adores having people make a fuss of him. At the dog park, he is certain to greet all of the people and to give each of them ample time to admire and pet him while he rubs against their legs like a cat (one of his many nicknames is ‘Morgan the kitty-cat.’). Or if there are people sitting at one of the picnic tables in the dog zone, he jumps onto the table and starts licking their faces or poking them with his paw if they are not sufficiently awestruck by his cuteness. When I have friends over, he basically goes from lap to lap. After his big sister Lula died a few months ago, I was afraid that he would be distraught, as Lula had been when her brother Shipy ran away several years ago.

Morgan and his big sis

And he was distraught (and for several weeks he did this thing of sitting in front of the bookcase where I put her ashes and staring at the urn for moments at a time). But it didn’t last long. To be honest, I think he was actually pretty happy not to have to share the spotlight with Lula anymore. The problem is that he no longer has her to play and hang out with 24-7 (which is precisely the number of hours of the day and days of the week that he needs to be entertained). Which leaves me to be chief playmate.

If I happen to be sitting at my computer — as I usually am — he sits next to me and looks at me with intense doggie concentration until I react.

Play with me now!

If I don’t react fast enough he starts to whine. If I’m on the couch he goes to his toy box and pulls out the toys, one by one. He also spends a lot of time staring out the window at his friends playing in the park. And whining.

What am I missing out there? Everybody’s having fun but me!

So you can imagine my delight when he started to bond with one of the stray cats who hang around our building. There are about five of them — brothers and sisters whose mother was hit by a car. They are about a year old. One of them is particularly friendly and handsome and this fellow has taken a shine to the Morgster. He runs out whenever we come by, often accompanying us on our walks. The dog and cat sniff each other’s bums and sometimes engage in a bit of good natured wrestling.

Morgan and his cat friend check each other out.

I’m not quite ready to get another dog and, even though I’m not much of a cat person, I was pretty happy about the idea of bringing home a buddy for my pup. Woohoo (I thought)! The whining ends here.

I got in all the gear — hot pink cat carrier, bowls, food, a very cute kitty litter box (I know that sounds weird but this one has cat drawings all over it) — and set off to bring Hugo (which is what I named him) home with the assistance of the Upstairs Vegetarian.

The Rolls Royce of kitty litter boxes

Hugo did not like this plan AT ALL! After several attempts, which featured lots of banshee-like crying and scratching, we got him into the carrier and then into the apartment. Thus ensued ten minutes of pure bedlam: more banshee shrieks; Morgan chasing the cat and jumping all over him. Hugo was terrified and Morgan was protecting his territory like the little alpha dog drama queen he is. We finally opened the window and the cat jumped out to freedom (I’m on the first floor; it’s an easy jump). I guess it was not to be. The interesting thing is that by the next day all was back to normal. The two still play together and Hugo still comes with us on walks. I’ve been advised to put some cat food on the window sill and see if he comes inside to check it out but I fear that once an outdoor cat, always an outdoor cat.

Hugo!

Ostia Antica

Spring has finally sprung in the Caput Mundi and, to celebrate, the Upstairs Vegetarian, the Morgster and I headed out to Ostia Antica. Ostia was Ancient Rome’s seaport and is about 20 miles northeast of the city. This is one of my favourite day trips out of Rome. It’s a huge and sprawling site, covering 80 acres and because it’s not as well known as, say, Pompeii, it often feels like you have the place to yourself, at least once you get off the main thoroughfare.

Welcome to Ostia Antica!

Yesterday, for some reason, most of the visitors seemed to be French, including several groups of French schoolchildren who toured the site waving flags and singing. Most odd. Ostia Antica is a great place for a picnic and they welcome dogs.

Back in the day, Ostia lay at the mouth of the Tiber. Now, due to silting, the sea is a mile and a bit away. Legend has it that Ostia was originally founded by Ancus Marcius, the 4th King of Rome in the 7th century BCE, although the oldest archeological remains on the site date to the 4th century BCE. The town was sacked by pirates in 68 BCE. The pirates set the port on fire, destroyed the consular fleet and kidnapped two senators. The sacking prompted a law granting 39 year old Pompey the Great tremendous power: he was placed in charge of a naval task force to solve the pirate issue, which he did inside of three months. I just love a good pirate yarn, don’t you? Here’s some other things about pirates you may not know:

• When he was 25, Julius Caesar was captured by Sicilian pirates, who wanted to ransom him for 20 talents of silver (about $600 000 nowadays). This was before he got into politics. He laughed at them and demanded they ask for 50 talents, which they did. Caesar hung out with the pirates for about a month, while his buddies were rounding up the money. He bossed them around, read them poetry and played games with them. It was all very buddy-buddy. After he was released, he came back and had them all crucified. He also got all the money back.  
• 19 September is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Aaarrrr!
• One of the language options available on Facebook is Pirate English.
• One of Morgan’s nicknames in the dog park is the Little Pirate (Il Piccolo Pirata). That’s because of his swashbuckling manner and also because of Captain Morgan’s rum, named after the 17th century Welsh privateer.
  

  Shiver me timbers!

Now where were we? Ostia was further developed by Tiberius, Claudius (who rebuilt the harbour) and Trajan in the 1st century CE. At its height in the 3rd century, Ostia had about 50 000 inhabitants.

Eventually, Ostia was eclipsed in importance by a newer port (quite reasonably known as Portus). For awhile, the city became the place for rich Romans to build their summer houses but it declined after the fall of the Empire, got sacked some more and was finally abandoned in the 9th century. Abandoned but not forgotten: for centuries, the marble facades of Ostia Antican buildings were stripped, the marble used in Roman palazzi and various cathedrals around Italy. After that, foreign visitors came searching for statues and inscriptions to grace their private collections. The first excavations started in the 19th century and picked up pace in the 1930s under Mussolini (of course), who wanted to showcase Ostia Antica in the 1942 World’s Fair. The Fair never occurred, Mussolini being otherwise occupied.

Today, walking along Ostia Antica’s narrow stone streets gives you a real sense of what it must have been like to live way back when.

The theatre at Ostia Antica. Concerts are often held here in the summertime.

People lived in multistory apartment buildings, transacted business, shopped and worshipped in various fora (Ostia has 20), hung out at the public baths (and in communal latrines), drank in wine bars, where pictures of the offerings were posted on the walls for the benefit of the illiterate.

An Ostian bar, where a mosaic message on the floor reads (roughly) “Fortunatus’s Place. You know you’re thirsty — come on in and have a drink.”

Menu for the benefit of the illiterate

You can see the remains of restaurants, shops, bakeries and the oldest synagogue in Europe. The site has a decent cafeteria, nice little museum and souvenir shop featuring a very grumpy non-dog friendly cat.

The sign identifies the shop as a seller of fish.

Did this shop sell elephants?

Gang latrine at Ostia, where it appears that ablutions were a sort of social event. Kinda reminds me of college.

Helpful signage explaining that the mosaic of Neptune is closed for maintenance and expressing regret there for the uneasiness.

The synagogue dates from the reign of Claudius (41-54 CE). There are little carvings of menorahs on top of the columns.

It’s easy to get here by taking from the Ostiense station to Ostia Lido. Here’s a great website and a reconstruction of what Ostia Antica would have looked like in ye olde times. And just for fun, some footage of the 1938 excavations, complete with a visit by Mussolini.

Zoc!

The Upstairs Vegetarian is a very fine journalist who works for an esteemed publication and, as you might have heard, Rome has been awash with newsworthy goings on as of late. So she’s been working hugely long days for weeks. To celebrate the whole Pope thing getting more or less sorted out and the fact that it was a glorious spring day after what has seemed like months of torrential rains, we treated ourselves to a nice long walk with the reward of brunch at the end (of course, rain was threatening again by the end of the day). The Morgster was delighted to be invited along.

Springtime in Villa Pamphili

We ended up at Zoc, the restaurant that fed the U.V. and her journalist colleagues over the past month while they rushed around doorstepping cardinals and searching the horizon for white smoke. She has been raving about Zoc and it was very good indeed. Zoc is very much into the whole kilometer zero business as is its trendy sister in Monti, Urbana 47. Kilometer zero normally refers to the particular location (usually in a capital city) from which distances are measured. The Milliarum Aureum (Golden Milestone) was a marble column (possibly) that was covered by gilded bronze. It was erected by the Emperor Caesar Augustus in 20 AD near the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum. All roads in the Empire were declared to begin at this monument and all distances measured from there; whence cometh ‘All roads lead to Rome.’ In Italian foodie language, kilometer zero (or ‘km 0’ for the hipster foodies) has become the battle cry of Italy’s growing locavore movement, which is based on the principles of direct supply chain and locally foraged ingredients. Locavore means, not to put too fine a point on it, ‘eater of local food.’ Zoc espouses all of this but they also rely heavily on a lot of foreign spices. Not sure I get the logic there but anyway.

The restaurant is cute and filled with lots of funky vintage furniture. Because of the dog, we opted for the garden, which looked a bit like Honey Boo Boo’s backyard, to be honest. Do you know about this person? Honey Boo Boo is the star of a massively popular reality show (Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Child); she’s a seven year old beauty pageant participant from Georgia. Honey Boo Boo is somewhat of a foodie herself. She loves ‘ sketti,’ an old family recipe (ketchup+melted butter poured over cooked noodles). Here’s how it’s done. I could watch this video forever.

Because they made us wait a bit before taking our order, the restaurant offered a little starter, which was creamy scrambled eggs over crispy shredded carrot, artichoke and onion.

Next, the Upstairs Vegetarian had a plate of grilled aged stracchino cheese atop a little mound of steamed greens and spicy jam.

Melted cheese is never a bad idea.

I, ever true to my  carnivorous nature, had a succulent barbecued pork rib and patatas bravas, a Spanish tapas dish featuring fried potatoes with a peppery sauce.

Nor for that matter is barbecued pork.

No complaints about the food; it was really good. Sadly they were out of the codfish hotdog, which I was dying to try. Doesn’t that sound awesome? But I do have a rant to rave. It being Sunday and early afternoon and brunch being on the rise in these here parts, they brought us the following menu.

Don’t get me wrong; this all looks delicious: crisp rösti potatoes with scrambled eggs on top (Okay, so that’s a bit brunch-y); ravioli stuffed with curried chicken; lamb chops; orange sorbet. A good price for four courses. I would eat it all happily. But Italy, a word? I have been lobbying very hard against the overwhelming urge of Americans to order a panini (plural) when what they want is a panino (singular). Likewise with biscotti/biscotto.  The least you can do in return is to get this brunch thing right. Brunch is a neologism (relatively speaking) that combines the words (and, importantly, the concepts of) breakfast and lunch. That means eggs (preferably of the Benedict variety), bacon, lox and bagels, mimosas, tons of coffee and jazz. The Sunday New York Times would not be amiss. Call me a snob who spent too much time in NYC, but brunch is not simply lunch that happens to take place on the weekend.

Via delle Zoccolette 22 (Ponte Sisto).Tel: +39 06 68192515. Open for breakfast from 9.00 to 12.00; lunch (Saturday and Sunday brunch – HA!) from 12.30 to 15.30; dinner from 19:00 to 24:00.

For Lula

Here in Italy, it is fairly unusual to see an obituary in the newspaper unless the deceased is someone famous. Instead, people hang small posters on public notice boards with a photo, basic information about the person and the time and place of the funeral. I’ve never actually noticed this in Rome but you see it in small towns all the time. I took a bunch of photos of these manefesti funebri when I was in Puglia last summer. After the funeral, mourners are usually given a ricordino, a wallet-sized laminated card with a photo of the dear departed, birth and death dates and usually a prayer.

104!

Dogs don’t generally rate newspaper obituaries or manifesti funebri but I guess if you’ve got a blog you can do what you want. My dog Lula died just over a week ago. This is for her.

Tallulah Bankhead Raymond died on 5 February 2013 at 4:00 in the afternoon. She was 15 years old. I found Lula in a cardboard box in Campo di Fiori when she was just a few months old. She had been dumped outside a dog shelter along with her sisters and the shelter people brought the puppies into town and were offering them to anyone who could give them a good home. I had lost my dog Badger just a few months before and although I enjoyed the freedom from responsibility and the spontaneous life of the non-dog owner, that really paled by comparison to how great it is to be one.

Lula was never an easy dog. I imagine she’d had some serious traumas before she found her way to that box in Campo di Fiori. She was scared of so many things — long-haired German Shepherds, thunder, the handsome vet, bald headed men, blue eyed dogs. For the first few years, she hid under the bed when anyone came over that she didn’t know. I put her through two years of doggie therapy — yes, I am serious — and that helped a lot. She never lost her initial fear of strangers but she’d usually loosen up with them after a bit of time.

About 8 years ago, Lula was diagnosed with Addison’s Disease, which occurs  when the adrenal glands don’t produce sufficient steroid hormones. President Kennedy had Addison’s. Lula took pills and had injections every day for the rest of her life.

Lula was not an easy dog nor did she have an easy life. But she was incredibly loving and loyal and sweet. She loved Morgan and she loved me. She loved her Aunties. She loved to swim. It’s very quiet around here these days — Lula was a barker — and we miss her so much. I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eyes and expecting her to greet me at the door.

Now here’s a thing. I had Lula cremated and they brought me her ashes in a little box earlier this week. I put the box on the top of a bookshelf in the hall. The first time Morgan passed by the bookcase he did this.

At first I thought it was some crazy coincidence. Maybe there was a ball or cookie on the bookcase that had caught his eye? But now I’m not so sure. Since Tuesday, literally every time I have brought Morgan in from a walk and he’s passed by the bookcase, he sits for a minute and stares at Lula’s ashes. It’s creepy. But it’s also pretty wonderful.

The Morgster has a rare moment of silence for his big sister.

Beautiful Lulabelle

Eataly!

It’s about three million degrees here and we’re all suffering. The Morgster is in a particularly bad way, sporting, as he does, a thick coat of curly hair. He’s booked for a haircut on Tuesday, thankfully, but in the meantime there is much puffing and panting and jumping into the bathtub for quick cool downs. He’s also started licking the marble floors, perhaps because it feels cool on his tongue. Has anyone else ever had that happen? Drives me nuts.

A very very hot dog

I went to the supermarket this morning (This is what happens when your brain melts: yesterday I went to the store with just one item on my list — puffed rice for the dogs — and I came home with everything but) and I had to stop into every bar I passed for granita, iced coffee and bottles of water. Last night it seemed like a good idea to get to an air conditioned space and that’s how I ended up at Eataly.

The largest Italian artisanal food and wine chain in the world, Eataly is a combo farmer’s market, supermarket, food court and learning centre.

Welcome to Eataly!

Oscar Farinetti opened the first one in an old vermouth factory in Turin in 2007. Farinetti hails from a long line of pasta makers (his name comes from the Italian word for flour: farina. Isn’t that interesting?). Since then, Eatalys have been launched in Milan, Genova, Bologna, Pinerolo, Monticello, Tokyo, New York and, as of about ten days ago, Rome. Having only ever been to the NYC Eataly, I can’t speak for the rest but I can say this: the Rome space is genius. It’s housed in the old Ostiense Air Terminal, a train station built at the time of the 1990 soccer World Cup and largely abandoned thereafter. It’s huge and beautiful with enormous windows and filled with light. I’ll let my friend Elizabeth tell you about the design.

This is the section where the chocolate lives.

The space is divided into sections, each devoted to a particular type of food: ice cream, pastry, coffee, sandwiches, pasta, pizza, fish, meat, fried stuff, roasted stuff.

A fine display of cheese

And some more

You can eat in or take out. The menus per section are brief and change daily. We ended up in the fish department where we enjoyed some seriously moist and meaty swordfish, some oysters and a plate filled with raw bits of fish.

Super fresh and delicious pesce crudo

Tasty pesce spada

And pistachio gelato for dessert!

There’s a huge bookstore for foodie types (which has some titles in English as well as Italian) and a vast assortment of kitchen toys (I finally found the cherry pitter I’ve been coveting). Do you know you can get a special tool for cleaning sea urchins? And another for taking the tops off of soft boiled eggs? That’s some serious specialization right there.

I love this poster, which shows when all the local fruits and vegetables are in season.

Up top is a fancy restaurant, Italia, which showcases dishes from each of Italy’s 20 regions. And a gorgeous teaching kitchen where they will offer cooking classes with famous chefs, including for kids and pensioners (who get to participate free of charge).

The only negative was that Eataly was absolutely jam packed with people. It took forever to find parking and nearly as long to snag a table. So I’d recommend staying away on a Saturday night, at least until the novelty wears off. Eataly is open every day from 10 am until midnight.

Eataly Roma
Piazzale XII Ottobre 1492
Tel. +39 06 90279201

Pallanza and still more war stuff

I spent last weekend in Pallanza on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northwest Italy, where the family of my friend Betta (alias the Upstairs Vegetarian) has a house. Loyal readers may remember my visit there last summer, complete with big dumb orthopedic shoe. This time we were meeting some friends from Milan who brought along their Bearded Collie, Dino. So I invited Morgan to come as well. It was his first long train ride (3 hours from Rome to Milan and another 90 minutes to Pallanza) and I was anxious to see how that would go. In principle, animals are supposed to ride in pet carriers on major train routes. All I had was a busted up cat carrier but I brought it along as a sign of good faith, hoping that the conductor would be so impressed with Morgan’s excellent train-riding deportment that he wouldn’t make me load the dog into the carrier which was 1. way too small for him; and 2. where he would definitely cry and bark. To my amazement, Morgan was an absolute angel and the conductor didn’t give him a second glance.

Morgan's first major train ride was a big success.

Once in Pallanza, the angel flew the coop. Morgan was highly intimidated by Dino, who, in fairness, is about ten times his size. Dino also enjoyed giving Morgs the stink eye, which freaked him out even further. My little pup spent the first 24 hours hiding behind my skirts, yapping nervously at Dino, who could not have cared less.

Then came Night Two. I had just turned off the light when Morgan jumped off the bed and went and sat by the door. Crying. One does not want to take any chances with regard to possibly full dog bladders in a friend’s house and so even though he had been out an hour before, I put on my clothes and got ready to take him out again. Everyone was asleep and the house was quiet and dark. Morgan ran right to the door of the room where Dino was staying and started crying and scratching at the door. Apparently a full bladder was not the issue. It was the knowledge that a — for some reason no longer scary — new friend was within playing range. I hauled him off to bed and the next day they were thick as thieves.

Morgan checked out a tortoise.

Played a bit of soccer.

And made a new best friend.

Pallanza and its environs are interesting, and not just because of their proximity to the pretty Borromean Islands. Here’s some interesting war stuff. Luigi Cadorna was born in Pallanza to a famous general, Raffaelle Cadorna whose brother Carlo was a big political deal in the area. Luigi’s son was also a successful general in WWII and a famous resistance fighter after 1943 and there are statues and streets named after the Cadornas all over the place. L. Cadorna was chief of staff of the Italian army during the first part of WWI. He was a very nasty guy: he authorized the execution of over 750 soldiers and dismissed 217 officers for incompetence.

Luigi Cadorna

That brutality came around to bite him in the butt: Cadorna’s disastrous handling of the Battle at Caporetto got him fired. It also probably helped to inspire some of the the many jokes made at Italy’s expense thereafter (“Have you seen the new Italian battle flag? It’s white with a white cross.”). The Italian army, completely caught off guard at Caporetto and unprepared for the Austro-German army’s use of poison gas, fled in disarray and 275 000 soldiers surrendered. Despite a post-war report that was highly critical of Cadorna, he was made a Field Marshall when Mussolini came to power. Pietro Badoglio was another military leader implicated in the Caporetto disaster. He was the guy that became Italian Prime Minister (briefly) after Mussolini was sacked in 1943.

Memorial to Italian soldiers who died in the First World War, Pallanza.

Stresa, across the lake from Pallanza, was the scene of a 1935 conference between Italy, France and the UK where they reaffirmed their commitment to the division of Europe as determined in the Locarno Treaties and pledged to ensure the continued independence of Austria. Stresa figures in A Farewell to Arms, as does Caporetto, prominently. Stresa is also where the foundations of Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy were developed in 1958. Anyway, in 1935, Mussolini figured that if he hosted the meeting and pretended to be all let’s-protect-the-integrity-of-(Western)-Europe, the neighboring countries might turn a blind eye when he attacked Abyssinia. Wrong.

"Maybe no one will notice my ambitions for empire if I just stand quietly up here on this tank."

The Stresa Front was a total flop. The Brits were still trying to appease Hitler and started acting behind the partners’ back, giving Germany the go-ahead to build up its navy and what not. Then Mussolini invaded Abyssinia and the whole thing collapsed.

The next story is only sparsely recorded on the Interwebs and I’ve tried my best to piece it together. In 1944, the Allied forces had invaded Italy and were slowly heading north, where Mussolini’s puppet state held sway. This pushed the German occupiers north as well, into the mountainous district of the Alps and Appenines, which the Italian Resistance used as a major base for their guerrilla attacks. As they retreated up the Italian peninsula, the Germans staged many partisan roundups. This included the collection in June of a group of 43 partisans in the Alps at Valgrande, which may or may not have been a reprisal for 40-odd members of a German garrison that were captured (but not killed) at Fondotoce by the famous resistance fighter Mario Muneghina in late May. That seems likely because after two people died during interrogation at the German command post at Intra, two more were brought in to make up the numbers. This included Cleonice Tomasetti, the only woman in the group. She had been with the partisans about three days and only joined up because of a guy. On 20 June, the 43 partisans were forced to march along the lakeshore from Intra to Pallanza and Suna, up to Fondotoce. They carried a sign reading “Are these the liberators of Italy or are they bandits?”

The prisoners march to their death. That's Cleonice in front. She was supposedly the bravest of them all.

The partisans were executed in groups of three near the channel separating Lake Mergozzo from Lake Maggiore. Miraculously, one of the partisans — 18-year old Carlo Suzzi — survived. You can read his testimony here (in Italian). He continued to fight for the resistance under the nom de guerre Quarantatre (43). Today, the spot is occupied by the House of Resistance and Park of Memory and Peace, which honors the 1300 partisans from the area who were killed during the war.

Shortly after this, the partisan resistance staged an uprising behind German lines and, under the leadership of the Committee of National Liberation of Upper Italy, established a number of provisional partisan governments in the mountainous northern region. The most prominent of these was the Free Republic of Ossola, in the series of valleys just north of Lago Maggiore. The rebellion was crushed within a couple of months and that was the end of the Free Republic.