Found while walking along the beach, apparent image of alien burned into trunk of palm tree by rising sun, red path in background is a bike path.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Abruzzo Alien
Found while walking along the beach, apparent image of alien burned into trunk of palm tree by rising sun, red path in background is a bike path.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Country Home; What you do on a weekend
We have friends who have a country home about five miles away from the beach and in the beginnings of the foothills. We spent Saturday there eating and socializing with them, their five year old daughter and some other guests. The house is in the beginning of the foothills so it remains cool even when the beach is getting warm. We grilled out fresh sausage, arrosticini (tiny bits of meat on skewers, grilled to very crispy), pork chops and veal burgers; along with that we had fried breaded zucchini and eggplant, tiny cubes of a fresh soft white cheese with spicy oil, salad, crostini, fresh fruit (featuring great fresh cherries), prosciutto and melon, a unique cream filled yellow cake with lots of icing and fruit on top, water, wine and caffe.
On the property, in addition to the new house, there is an old house and also a number of wild flowers including wild poppies. Posted somewhere on here are some photos of some of those things. (I seem to have little control on where photos appear and am not sufficiently motivated to learn how to control them.) Click for full size, click again for even larger, these images are greatly reduced in quality from the originals due to file size limitations of the blogsite. My favorite is the last, that being the crinkled, dying poppies.
On the property, in addition to the new house, there is an old house and also a number of wild flowers including wild poppies. Posted somewhere on here are some photos of some of those things. (I seem to have little control on where photos appear and am not sufficiently motivated to learn how to control them.) Click for full size, click again for even larger, these images are greatly reduced in quality from the originals due to file size limitations of the blogsite. My favorite is the last, that being the crinkled, dying poppies.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Flowers and an Ant
Above are a couple of local weed flowers. If you look closely on the thistle flower you can see an ant who got in the photo. A detail of the ant is at the top. Weeds, or flowers, are the same here as anywhere. These photos were done as I was looking for some color block images and saw these flowers. If you double click on an image it should go to a larger size. The original images were shot in RAW format with files too large to download online so the images here are somewhat degraded from the originals.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Pizza & Wine
We usually walk to a local caffe about 10 each morning and on our way back yesterday we ran into a friend who invited us to his house for pizza that evening, actually pizza at 7:00 P. M., which is a bit early but he explained that it was because two of his grand children would be there and they like to eat earlier. So yesterday we had pizza at 7 P.M. Not in any way a remarkable event, though the pizza was quite good, except that after having just written about Italians, pizza and beer, I saaw everything I wrote refuted.
We started the meal with fresh local cheese, bread and home made white wine from my friend's brother's vineyard. The rest of the meal consisted of three different types of pizza, semi-freddo (a sort of ice cream and cake combination that is a personal favorite of mine), fresh strawberries, caffe and a home made bay leaf flavored liquor. The interesting thing to me is that white wine continued to be the drink of adults throughout the meal. The children drank cola and orange. Red wine from the same vineyard was available and at the table but no one drank it.
While I believe my prior reporting regarding drinking beer with pizza is substantially and overwhelming correct as to what occurs usually, what this dinner proved is that Italy is as diverse and mixed in individual approaches to what is drunk with what as any other place. I cannot recall drinking white wine with pizza any other time, I can recall red wine and pizza on many occasions, particularly many years ago, but never white. The point of all this: never take too seriously any observation that usually this or usually that is done; on any given occasion anything may happen.
We started the meal with fresh local cheese, bread and home made white wine from my friend's brother's vineyard. The rest of the meal consisted of three different types of pizza, semi-freddo (a sort of ice cream and cake combination that is a personal favorite of mine), fresh strawberries, caffe and a home made bay leaf flavored liquor. The interesting thing to me is that white wine continued to be the drink of adults throughout the meal. The children drank cola and orange. Red wine from the same vineyard was available and at the table but no one drank it.
While I believe my prior reporting regarding drinking beer with pizza is substantially and overwhelming correct as to what occurs usually, what this dinner proved is that Italy is as diverse and mixed in individual approaches to what is drunk with what as any other place. I cannot recall drinking white wine with pizza any other time, I can recall red wine and pizza on many occasions, particularly many years ago, but never white. The point of all this: never take too seriously any observation that usually this or usually that is done; on any given occasion anything may happen.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Birra
Most people associate Italy with wine but in fact a lot of beer is consumed here. Years ago Italians consumed wine with their pizza, today most have pizza and a beer. Wine remains a staple of most home meals and of food in restaurants but there has always been a mix of beverages available. There have always been Italians who drink no alcohol and some who prefer soft drinks to wine or beer.
A typical Italian grocery will devote as much shelf space to beer product as to wine. In both cases that is very ample space. Most Italian beers resemble most popular American or European beers, being very mild flavored lagers. A brand popular here, and also available in the US, is Nastro Azzuro or literally Blue Ribbon. A few American brews are available here, most commonly Budweiser (American brewed and imported) and a few micro brewery types. Not surprisingly, Northern European beers are popular the largest selling being Heineken, Beck's and Stella Artois.
What is also available here are Europeans ales and other more full bodied and higher alcohol content beers. My favorites, and very popular here, but never as popular as the Heineken type, are: Trappistes Rochefort 8 and Duvel. The Trappistes beer is brewed in a Belgian monastery and also available with the numbers 6 or 10. The number are not directly related to their alcohol content but do correspond to rising alcohol contents of 7.5%, 9.2% and 11.3%. These are beers that start to have wine like alcohol contents. I usually drink 8 because 10 is not always available and 6 has a similar but more watery taste than 8. I understand that 6 is hard to find in the US but here it seems to be always available and 10 is difficult to find. Rochefort 8 is a full flavored beer that is a joy to drink. Because of its full body I never seem to want to drink as much of it as I would a more watery beer which is probably a good thing considering the 9.2% alcohol content. If you have never tried it, I highly recommend trying one.
When I want a change or when we are having pizza, I drink some Duvel beer, another Belgian ale but this one more like a typical mainline beer. It has an alcohol content of 8.5% and a taste much more like an American beer than the Trappistes Rochefort. It is not a light beer but resembles American beer before light beer became the dominant type. Duvel is a great pizza beer where the Trappistes beers are, in my opinion, too flavorful to accompany pizza. Duvel is stocked pretty much everywhere in Italy, and Europe, but is outside of the popular beer base of the like of Heineken. Duvel's lighter taste makes it easy to drink in large quantity, so you have to beware of its alcohol content.
While these are my favorites, the good news is that most grocery stores stock a pretty full range of Northern European Ales, mostly from small specialty producers. The Belgian, Dutch and Flemish breweries produce some remarkable ales that always surprise me. If you come to Europe on vacation you should not miss the opportunity to try a few.
A typical Italian grocery will devote as much shelf space to beer product as to wine. In both cases that is very ample space. Most Italian beers resemble most popular American or European beers, being very mild flavored lagers. A brand popular here, and also available in the US, is Nastro Azzuro or literally Blue Ribbon. A few American brews are available here, most commonly Budweiser (American brewed and imported) and a few micro brewery types. Not surprisingly, Northern European beers are popular the largest selling being Heineken, Beck's and Stella Artois.
What is also available here are Europeans ales and other more full bodied and higher alcohol content beers. My favorites, and very popular here, but never as popular as the Heineken type, are: Trappistes Rochefort 8 and Duvel. The Trappistes beer is brewed in a Belgian monastery and also available with the numbers 6 or 10. The number are not directly related to their alcohol content but do correspond to rising alcohol contents of 7.5%, 9.2% and 11.3%. These are beers that start to have wine like alcohol contents. I usually drink 8 because 10 is not always available and 6 has a similar but more watery taste than 8. I understand that 6 is hard to find in the US but here it seems to be always available and 10 is difficult to find. Rochefort 8 is a full flavored beer that is a joy to drink. Because of its full body I never seem to want to drink as much of it as I would a more watery beer which is probably a good thing considering the 9.2% alcohol content. If you have never tried it, I highly recommend trying one.
When I want a change or when we are having pizza, I drink some Duvel beer, another Belgian ale but this one more like a typical mainline beer. It has an alcohol content of 8.5% and a taste much more like an American beer than the Trappistes Rochefort. It is not a light beer but resembles American beer before light beer became the dominant type. Duvel is a great pizza beer where the Trappistes beers are, in my opinion, too flavorful to accompany pizza. Duvel is stocked pretty much everywhere in Italy, and Europe, but is outside of the popular beer base of the like of Heineken. Duvel's lighter taste makes it easy to drink in large quantity, so you have to beware of its alcohol content.
While these are my favorites, the good news is that most grocery stores stock a pretty full range of Northern European Ales, mostly from small specialty producers. The Belgian, Dutch and Flemish breweries produce some remarkable ales that always surprise me. If you come to Europe on vacation you should not miss the opportunity to try a few.
Monday, May 30, 2011
To Rome and Back
On May 15 we drove to Rome and back. We went to see some old friends who were on part of a Rome-Greece-Turkey-Egypt-Rome tour. It was fun to see them and to be in Rome again. It is easy to forget how shocking it is for new visitors to see ancient Roman ruins on every turn. Our friends were staying at a hotel a couple of blocks from the Colosseum and we wandered around in the area for a short time. I think they had been to Rome before but not for a long time and their prior visit was very short. In any event, it was fun to see how interesting they found the "stuff" everyone in Rome just lives with. We had a nice lunch, talked about old friends and poker and returned in a light rain.
I was interested in the driving statistics. It was a total of 121 miles from our door to their hotel and took exactly 2 hours 15 minutes. That's not too impressive until you consider that it includes driving in Rome. It took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to the end of the autostrada inside Rome and another 30 minutes from there to the Colosseum area. The good news about the Roman drive was that it was on a Sunday so the traffic was, by Roman standards, light. Maybe not as bad as many American cities during rush hour but close. We also managed to average 42 mpg which includes some city driving, going through the mountains (while there is a tunnel a little longer than 10,000 meters that everyone refers to as "under Gran Sasso," in fact there is a substantial climb to get to the tunnel) and long stretches at 140 kph (about 85 mph).
Our friends gave us a DVD made and edited by one of them of a get together of a group of former public defenders. We enjoyed watching it when we returned. It's quasi-surrealistic, but very enjoyable, to sit on the Adriatic coast and watch video of the gathering of a group of former colleagues in a park in Ohio. Probably like coming from Ohio to see old Roman stuff, aka ORC, that just sticks out everywhere.
I was interested in the driving statistics. It was a total of 121 miles from our door to their hotel and took exactly 2 hours 15 minutes. That's not too impressive until you consider that it includes driving in Rome. It took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to the end of the autostrada inside Rome and another 30 minutes from there to the Colosseum area. The good news about the Roman drive was that it was on a Sunday so the traffic was, by Roman standards, light. Maybe not as bad as many American cities during rush hour but close. We also managed to average 42 mpg which includes some city driving, going through the mountains (while there is a tunnel a little longer than 10,000 meters that everyone refers to as "under Gran Sasso," in fact there is a substantial climb to get to the tunnel) and long stretches at 140 kph (about 85 mph).
Our friends gave us a DVD made and edited by one of them of a get together of a group of former public defenders. We enjoyed watching it when we returned. It's quasi-surrealistic, but very enjoyable, to sit on the Adriatic coast and watch video of the gathering of a group of former colleagues in a park in Ohio. Probably like coming from Ohio to see old Roman stuff, aka ORC, that just sticks out everywhere.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Chocolate
When I think of chocolate, I think of Switzerland. And our recent visit to Switzerland confirmed that they make some of the best artisan quality chocolate available. However, I have never seen a people more obsessed with the making of and eating of chocolate than the Italians.
Any respectable town has a chocolate shop; not just a shop that sells chocolate but a shop that makes chocolate and makes it own molds and candies. Often the chocolate shop is in conjunction with a caffe but often they are free standing.
Chocolate is in everything: breakfast food, cakes, cookies, ice cream and then just pure chocolate bars. Every supermarket has a large section devoted to chocolate; not chocolate candy but pure chocolate bars of every quality, kind and description. Italians think eating chocolate for breakfast is healthy so the sort of breakfast cereal that Americans see as unhealthy is seen as a good breakfast for children.
Perugia has probably the most prominent annual chocolate festival though many other cities also have chocolate festivals. When the Perugia festival is in full swing every local tour agency schedules day long bus trips often with specific tour schedules.
Ferrero SpA is one of the largest corporations in Italy and the family that owns it has recently become identified as the richest family in Italy (though they now live in Monaco). It not only makes Ferrero Rocher chocolates, the little round hazelnut and chocolate balls but also makes Nutella (a national obsession), Tic Tac mints and the whole line of Kinder branded products (while little known in the US, Kinder is a very prominent and wide ranging brand of snacks in all of Europe). Ferrero SpA is privately held, has annual revenues in excess of 6 billion euros, about 9 billion dollars US, employees 21,500 people, produces all of its products on machines engineered and built by its own engineering department, is famous for is obsession regarding the secrecy of is formulas and has never held a press conference.
The prominence of chocolate in Italy is not readily apparent because it is so seamlessly integrated in all aspects of food that it is easily overlooked; however, when one becomes conscious of it and looks for it, its presence is very obvious. I have fallen victim to its overwhelming presence. I always liked chocolate but did not eat it every day. It's difficult to avoid it when a piece or two of extremely good chocolate is frequently placed on your saucer when you have a caffe. That, coupled with its prominent display in every store, has done me in.
Any respectable town has a chocolate shop; not just a shop that sells chocolate but a shop that makes chocolate and makes it own molds and candies. Often the chocolate shop is in conjunction with a caffe but often they are free standing.
Chocolate is in everything: breakfast food, cakes, cookies, ice cream and then just pure chocolate bars. Every supermarket has a large section devoted to chocolate; not chocolate candy but pure chocolate bars of every quality, kind and description. Italians think eating chocolate for breakfast is healthy so the sort of breakfast cereal that Americans see as unhealthy is seen as a good breakfast for children.
Perugia has probably the most prominent annual chocolate festival though many other cities also have chocolate festivals. When the Perugia festival is in full swing every local tour agency schedules day long bus trips often with specific tour schedules.
Ferrero SpA is one of the largest corporations in Italy and the family that owns it has recently become identified as the richest family in Italy (though they now live in Monaco). It not only makes Ferrero Rocher chocolates, the little round hazelnut and chocolate balls but also makes Nutella (a national obsession), Tic Tac mints and the whole line of Kinder branded products (while little known in the US, Kinder is a very prominent and wide ranging brand of snacks in all of Europe). Ferrero SpA is privately held, has annual revenues in excess of 6 billion euros, about 9 billion dollars US, employees 21,500 people, produces all of its products on machines engineered and built by its own engineering department, is famous for is obsession regarding the secrecy of is formulas and has never held a press conference.
The prominence of chocolate in Italy is not readily apparent because it is so seamlessly integrated in all aspects of food that it is easily overlooked; however, when one becomes conscious of it and looks for it, its presence is very obvious. I have fallen victim to its overwhelming presence. I always liked chocolate but did not eat it every day. It's difficult to avoid it when a piece or two of extremely good chocolate is frequently placed on your saucer when you have a caffe. That, coupled with its prominent display in every store, has done me in.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)