From Classic Cars 2 Ancient Weaving on a Rainy Saturday in Lucca

The weather continues to disappoint everyone here. Saturday was particularly nasty with cold rain, even a little hail, and wind. I braved the elements not wanting to waste a day indoors and happened upon a Belgian classic car rally in the ancient Roman amphitheatre. The Belgians came to Lucca to begin their motorcade of exotics and were waiting for a break in the weather to journey to San Remo (Italy) and finally Saint Tropez in France.

This Lagonda (never heard of it before) was my favorite. I was vaguely wandering towards the cinema to see The Great Gatsby (in Italian of course) and the Lagonda looked as though it would have been at home in Gatsby's garage, although I have no idea what year it was built.

Another favorite was this little Alfa Romeo whose owner proudly proclaimed that why would you come to an Italian rally in a German or English car when you could zoom over the mountains and down to Lucca in this 1957 beauty.

Check out this Bentley, then the red Alfa Romeo. What else do you see? A Corvette! Mamma Mia!!

My next great discovery was a weaver working in her shop in the warren of streets surrounding the amphitheatre (www.antichetessiturelucchesi.it). Lucca built its wealth and independence on trade, especially in silk. The art of weaving has never died out. There are several old looms in the city art museum and weaving is taught there, which is where this woman learned to weave.

We had quite a spiritual conversation. She trained to be a musician (see the harp in the first picture), and loved it, but when she discovered weaving, she became addicted to its meditative quality. She said sometimes she had no idea what she would make when she began a new piece, but that the loom guided her hands. What is in her heart is "read" by the loom, which is around 200 years old, and she says it sings to her. She showed me a pattern for the piece she was working on and it was written like music as she tried to transcribe it from heart/head to paper.  She worked so fast that I couldn't capture her passing the "threaded needle" from right to left (forgive my ignorance of weaving and its terminology). But I'm including one of those photos anyway to give an impression of her actions.

I finally did make it to the cinema to see Gatsby. I'll critique the movie in a following post, but let me just say that Leonardo speaks a mean Italiano. He lives up to his name.

Ciao!

Learning 2 Speak & Cook in Italiano

Thank you, everyone, for your birthday wishes. I love birthdays, and last week I got to celebrate all week long in my "Speak and Cook" class at Lucca Italian School, which culminated in a degustazione of wine and olive oil 15 km east of Lucca at Fattoria del Teso and a robust round of "Happy Birthday" in Italian. We were surrounded by old French oak barrels that were used to age the fattoria's Vin Santo (a delicious dessert wine in which you dip cantucinni -- see the second menu below). Now they use stainless steel to produce consistent results, but the Vin Santo is still aged for 10 years! I am now a big fan of Vin Santo -- molto excellente.

But before the degustazione which fell on my birthday, we prepared two menus in our "Parla e Cucina Italiano" class (Speak and Cook) on two separate days in a fattoria 30 minutes north of Lucca in beautiful country.

Each menu required about three hours of cooking time (about 11 people participated including our chef, Eva, and her mother-in-law who stirred the pots and tidied up). Each class began by lifting our glasses to each other and crying, "Salute!" Then we went to work!

Menu I: Zucchini in carpaccio di limone e menta con scaglie di parmigiano/ zucchini carpaccio

             Ravioli ricotta e spinaci in salsa di burro e salvia/ ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach

             Pollo con limone e erbe aromatiche/ chicken with lemon and aromatic herbs

             Peperonata/ cooked peppers in tomato sauce

             Panna cotta con salsa di fragole/ cooked cream with strawberries sauce

Watching Eva demonstrate as we commenced each dish was incredibly fun. She compared herself to a pulpo (octopus) because her hands and arms are everywhere. I'm happy to report that I can now make homemade ravioli and tagliatelle (with the right Italian equipment and flour of course), although I cannot claim to be a pulpo (yet).

Eva in Action! Getting us started. Chicken and peppers simmering in their pots. Making raviolli. Finishing the panna cotta just before boiling the ravioli.

 

      

Two days after our first cooking spree, we prepared another delicious dinner.

Menu 2: Bruschetta di pomodoro e basilico/ bruschetta with tomato and basil

              Tagliatelle con zucchini, porro e zafferano/ tagliatelle with zucchini, leek and saffron

               Rotolo di tacchino ripieno con salsa di rosmarino, salvia e olive/ stuffed meat (pork) roll with           

                    rosemary and sage

               Insalata mista/ mixed salad greens

               Cantuccini col vin santo/ cantuccini (biscotti) with Vin Santo

I feel compelled to share a little secret of Eva's that we were shocked to discover. She added a little or alot (?) of butter to various dishes "when we weren't looking" and you certainly don't see butter listed in her recipes. Somewhere, a French chef is shaking her head, "Mon Dieu!"

Buon Appetito!

A Walk Around Lucca in 2 Hours (give or take)

Lucca Italian School activities have kept me so busy that I didn't get a chance to walk around the entire medieval wall until today. Luckily, the threatening rain held off until tonight (unlike nearly every day this week when we had all-day downpours or afternoon squalls). Those big rain clouds you can see in the photos add a touch of grandeur to the landscape and convey Lucca's "big sky" which is similar to Montana's to my eye because of the clarity of the air and the uninterrupted views to the mountains. No wonder my grandfather didn't want to leave Montana for the Central Valley in California, although coal mining in Stockett may have been harder work than asparagus ranching in Stockton (which was what most of his emigre family did).

When I arrived in Lucca a week ago, I immediately noted the multitude of dogs, bicycles, runners, walkers, and cars, yes, cars. Although cars are strictly regulated inside Lucca's walls, they are omnipresent in the streets as you move further out from the center of town. Granted, one car on a medieval street shared by pedestrians and bicyclists (these are commuters not racers) may not equal traffic in downtown D.C., but they "whiz" by at a steady rate. This reminds me of the roads in China which are shared by all manner of moving people, animals, and machines. I have learned "back road" routes to my favorite haunts in order to avoid the dreaded car. On the other hand, I love seeing the garbage trucks and ambulances because they are so human-scale. Yesterday, I saw a female garbage truck driver in full pink lipstick throwing smallish garbage sacks overhand into her truck. You go girl!

All of these photos are taken with my recently acquired iPad mini and I've just discovered the editing features which may or may not enhance their appeal. I'm still learning how to wield this minipad (leave it to Steve Jobs to name it something his tin ear wouldn't recognize as a little bit already in use by a few million non-males) and wish I had a telephoto lens like my regular camera, but it's really easy to point, shoot, and send photos using the iPad camera.

Here, then, are photos from atop Lucca's wall (4 km, 2.5 miles).

Tre amici out for a stroll.

Bicycling

Picnicing

Dogs in the field behind the Duomo at play and the canal outside the wall

Torre Guinigi (oak trees planted on top), home of the rich and powerful Guinigi family

Outside the wall

Straddling the wall

Looking in from atop the wall

Ciao!

Happy Birthday 2 Me & May 17 Babes Everywhere

Happy Birthday to all of us who share May 17! Katresha at The Pearl in Laguna Beach, Marsha in Montana, and Tonya in D.C.

For me, this will be a typical school day in Lucca. Here I am at breakfast with my spritely hostess Signora Rossana and our lovely English "roommate" Helen who is leaving school after this week. I will miss her!

This afternoon, our "Speak and Cook" class is off to taste vino and olio di oliva.

Love and light to all, as Katresha would say.

Heart Flies 2 Throat When Brunelleschi's Dome Appears Over Firenze

How can it be that Brunelleschi's 13-14C architectural and engineering masterpiece still dominates the Florence skyline after centuries of wars, plagues, earthquakes, floods, countless governments, and modernization? But there she was, riding the horizon as I approached the city yesterday, and in a flash of memory at the Duomo's forgotten beauty, my heart flew into my throat at the sight. Somehow, seeing that dome, the world felt as steady and full of grace as it had on my last visit in 1982.

Of course, I was sleep deprived, and that state can always lead one to romanticizing in the oddest of ways. I was just glad to set myself down in a place that affirmed I was expected. What I didn't expect was the kindred spirit from Vancouver, BC who introduced herself, treated me to a cappuccino, and proceeded to relate her just-completed experiences of hiking in Tuscany, which sold me on her appropriateness as a companion in my jet-lagged state. She said that because of mud slides at one of the Cinque Terre villages, their group had walked inland around the town, adding kilometers to the trek. Tuscany has had unusually heavy rains this spring, which worries the tourist industry, but the landscape is as green as Ireland. Later, over dinner, a woman at an adjoining table, also traveling solo, joined in a spirited discussion of age, climate change, northern Italians' dismissal of southerners, and the beauty of the Amalfi coast vs. Big Sur. At the end, exchanging names, we discovered that there had been a confluence of the eddies of Murray, MacDonell, and McGowan. 

In the night, the huge piazza which my room overlooks (Santissima Annunziata) repeatedly ricocheted with laughter, singing, shouting, and cursing, all undoubtedly under the influence of the Tuscan sun and wine. I took a photo, shared here, of the piazza in the floodlights. What I didn't realize until this morning is that the loggia I look across to and captured in the photo is Brunelleschi's, the Ospedale degli Innocenti (Hospital of the Innocents) which was begun in 1419 to house orphans (and still does). Above the columns, faintly seen in the photograph, are glazed terra cotta medallions by Andrea della Robbia. The equestrian is Grand Duke Ferdinand I, a Medici who governed with some care for his subjects, designed by Giambologna.

Imagine. A Brunelleschi wonder right across the piazza from me. What a gift. No lines. No fees. Just a view from my window whenever I want to make sure it's there, that I haven't dreamed it. 

Here are three photos of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, one by floodlight and the other at dusk today at the close of a "European Federation" rally. I don't know about the politics, but I know Italian style when I see it; check out the uniforms of the carabinieri (and their relaxed presence at the rally vs. any garden variety demonstration in D.C.). The rake of the hats! 

The final photo is of the Duomo as I approached it this morning on the street leading from my hotel. Coy, isn't it, revealing so little of itself? It is huge! It's the third largest cathedral after the Vatican and St. Paul's in London.

2 Rossana's House I Go

Leaving Florence on the 16.10 train to Lucca on Sunday, with the rain pouring down and the train packed with refugees fleeing a sodden soccer match, I turned once again to imagining what my home stay hostess would be like. I had hoped that I would live with a family, maybe with young children who would be easy to engage. But the school sent word that my hostess was an "elderly but very active woman." More critically, she did not speak any English. I really was going to have to communicate in Italiano. Indeed, she greeted me with "Parlo solo in Italiano!" 

Initially I imagined my Signora as a small, aged woman dressed in black with her hair pulled into a bun, rather severe in manner and visage. Her house would be spotless and she would be exact about rules and expectations. But this, as my friend Neens pointed out over lunch before I left D.C., was probably outdated. She thought the Signora would be dressed conservatively but well (she's Italian!), sport short hair, and present a much more modern woman than my stereotype drawn mostly from old Italian movies. Just for the record, my eventual "roommate" at the home stay imagined Signora Rossana in much the same way as I did. As it turns out, Neens' mental picture of Rossana is closer to the real woman; she is small and elderly but with a spring in her step, has short, fashionably cut grey hair, and is engaging, sweet, neat as a pin, an inveterate TV watcher, and speaks the most wonderfully clear, slow Italian. You can tell she's taken in the likes of us before! And yes, her rules of the house are exact to the point that even I can understand them despite a woeful lack of language skills.

One aspect of the home stay that I most looked forward to was living in an Italian household. In this, I am not disappointed. Rossana was born and raised in Lucca and it's possible the apartment (flat, really, since it covers the whole floor in a three-story building) has been in her family for some time. The ground floor is communal and I counted 6 bikes parked there yesterday with room to spare. Rosanna lives on the second floor. The rooms are huge, the ceilings are high. There's a formal parlour where beautiful china dolls are given pride of place on a sofa that doesn't entertain anything/one else. In the immense kitchen in the morning, Rossana wields her enormous espresso machine like a professional barista. There are three bedrooms, one bathroom (large enough to double as a laundry room), and a foyer. The formal dining room is central to the apartment and it is dominated by the TV and an old easy chair from which Rossana receives frequent telephone calls; those on the other end are treated to her sonorous and upbeat Italian, none of which sounds like gossip, but what do I know? I went into a deep sleep last night feeling like I was in a home that synthesizes those of my grandmother (who married Giovanni  from Altopascio down the road from here) and my mother. Who knew that crocheted doilies would function so well as a sleeping potion?

With time, and more Italian, I hope to be able to ask Signora Rossana more questions about her life and family, and maybe I will be able to share a picture of this delightful Italian sprite.

In the meantime, here are a few more photos from Florence; the first 2 are of streets in the Oltrarno (the south side of the Arno River), the third is of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, and the fourth is of a few officials dressed in medieval costumes nonchalantly providing photo ops for tourists like me.

Detour 2 Italy

My plans for driving across the country on US Highway 2 went nowhere in 2011 as did my intended blog posts. The sabbatical I planned then got delayed until now, but my romantic daydreams of exploring my roots didn't wane. Instead, I headed deeper into my heritage and surfaced in Italy! In less than 24 hours, I will be on my way to Lucca Italy, provincial birthplace of my maternal grandfather who immigrated to Stockett, Montana in 1902. For me, the connection between yearning for Montana and making this detour to Italy seems a perfect way to celebrate a few months off from work (thank you, ACEEE!) and "go home."

I will be studying Italian for three weeks at Lucca Italian School and hope to chronicle the fascinating process of learning the difference between basta and pasta. I have arranged a homestay. I will be on my own. And way out of my comfort zone as I now perceive it.

To get started, here's a beautiful view of Lucca from above. It's a photo of a photo in "Above Italy" (sorry, haven't mastered italics on this Logitech keyboard). You can see the green ring around the city, the brick ramparts encircling Lucca, which were built in the 16C and 17C. The evening passeggiata (I define that as the "social stroll") takes place on top of the wall; sauntering the complete circle you would cover 2.5 miles (4km). Our dog Lucca (see the second photo) would love this walk. Too bad she can't join me at school!