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I Love You—now hush~

Yesterday Richard sent a book title to me that perfectly captured a lunch experience with a French couple that we had in Venice. But before that, let me tell you about one of our first lunch experiences in Venice—a very popular inn and restaurant that was ours alone one day.

Before we take any trip to Italy we always chat amongst friends to see who has been where and where they ate while they were there. Facebook had enabled this line of questioning to go far and wide. A friend of mine in New York mentioned that he had an incredible meal in Venice at Antica Locanda Montin. Best known for their outdoor garden dining area, covered by a huge wisteria arbor, this inn and restaurant is packed during the warmer months of the year.

We weren’t exactly sure of where the restaurant was, which ended up being par for the course for us in Venice. It is on the island of Giudecca, the island just across the lagoon, which has a more open-air feeling to it than the rabbit run atmosphere of Venice. Trust me, we twisted and turned, took the wrong footbridges, and doubled back before we arrived at the doors of Antica Locanda.

When restaurants are not open in Italy they appear to be much more than closed. They look as if they are out of business. Shutters are closed, curtains drawn, and sometimes, as in Rome, the protective garage door, which covers the entire restaurant front, is down and locked. Outside there are no tables or railing enclosures, no potted plants, and no appearance of any recent activity. The complete flipside of this is when an Italian restaurant is open. Magically, the non-existent seating tables with their chairs, potted plants, railings, and menu placards appear from nowhere crowding the front of the restaurant with life. The shutters and curtains are opened wide, and in warmer weather, the front door is propped open allowing the hustling waiters to efficiently serve their hungry clientele.

The front of the Antica Loncanda was neither fish nor fowl. The outside was void of warmer season dining and, although the shutters and curtains were open, there seemed to be a “we’re not open” atmosphere about it. We paused for a moment outside the door wondering what to do. We were starving and had no other options in mind. Suddenly a white-coated waiter opened the door and invited us in. In Italy, waiters, in addition to their table duties, are also street hawkers, who lure and entice passing pedestrians into becoming patrons.

In America, if you walk into a restaurant and there is no one there, I bet your immediate reaction is the same as mine—“Uh-oh, this place must suck.” We paused again, looking at each other trying to quickly assess if we wanted to eat here. We had been walking all morning and it was almost 2:00 p.m., so we decided we’d suffer through this restaurant and remind our friend that his recommendation was way off the mark.

There was one other customer, a round little man with a large lens camera sitting at a table with an Italian man who seemed to be the owner of this inn. The table was strewn with the remnants of a large, multi-course meal and several opened, but not emptied, bottles of wine. I wondered if the camera man was a photo journalist or a food writer for a travel magazine.

The menu was full of wonderful sounding dishes, mostly seafood, and our expectations for this meal started to change for the better. We ordered our antipasti: smoked tuna carpaccio, thinly sliced, served on a bed of celery greens with olive oil, lemon juice, and pomegranate seeds; polipetti (small baby octopus), grilled and served with the same oil and lemon vinaigrette and pomegranate seeds. WOW! The tuna was the most amazing thing. My grilled octopus were great, but the tuna was the star of the show. (Check out my guest video on dishKarma where I talk about this meal.)         

 We only ordered a primo (the first course, usually pasta), opting to keep lunch light by skipping a secondo (the second course, usually meat). Two plates of handmade tortelloni with arugula, tomato, and basil were brought to the table. Buonissimi! (*see the photo above)

After our meal, I poked my head out the back door, which revealed the famous garden arbor. There was something beautiful about its early winter desolation. I can only imagine what a wonderful place it must be to dine in the summer—under lush green leafed vines dripping with purple, grape-looking wisteria blossoms. We will definitely have to suffer the summer crowds to come back here and find out.

The biggest lesson I learned here was “Don’t judge a restaurant by the amount of filled tables.” Our lunch was so good and had we given in to our initial misgivings and left, we would have missed one of the best meals of our trip. Our friend in New York was spot on. Thanks David!

Now on to our next day’s lunch with the French couple:

We don’t always look for 4-star restaurants to dine at while we are on vacation. Many times we look for what is around us when we decide that we have seen enough sights and NEED to eat. Sometimes we stumble upon an amazing meal and if not, we always come away with a fun story.

We spent the morning wandering our way through the streets of San Marco, stopping to photograph a really cool building, and ending up at the Fortuny museum. A morning of modern art can make you hungry, so we decided to walk back to our hotel and stop for lunch when we passed something that looked interesting.

We walked for a while, window-shopping, before finally crossing over a footbridge, deciding we were starving, and passed a restaurant where the people seated at outside tables, along a canal, were mostly eating pizza. Pizza and a couple of glasses of wine sounded like a great way to spend lunch so we stopped at this trattoria/pizzeria and were tightly seated at a table next to a middle-aged French couple.

Richard ordered a pizza Napolitano—a simple red-sauced pizza with anchovies and capers. I had the pizza Diavolo…Devil’s pizza…a simple red-sauced pizza with spicy salami. Any time you see the word diavolo be prepared for spicy. The Devil likes it HOT!

We were enjoying our pizza, watching the gondolas pass by our outside table, using our Italian with the waiter—he was very patient—when the French gentleman, who might as well have been our dining companion we were packed that tight, leaned over and asked if he could borrow the olive oil bottle on our table. To say he “asked” really means that he leaned over and said, “Excusez-moi” pointing at the olive oil bottle and then to himself. Hand gestures truly are the one language we commonly share, regardless of our country of origin. “Certo, certo,” I said, answering in Italian since we had just been speaking to our waiter and my brain hadn’t made the switch to English yet. (I have to admit that when I meet someone speaking a foreign language I always want to answer them in Italian, since it is the only foreign language I know. If someone Asian were to ask me a question in their native tongue on the streets of Chicago my knee-jerk reaction would be to answer them in Italian. It makes no sense—I am just silly like that.) “Of course, of course,” Richard said to the Frenchman at the same time, his response was colored with a little Southern flavor.

This little exchange opened the floodgates of conversation with the Frenchman. He asked if we were Americans…that was an easy enough question to decipher from his French. We asked if he spoke English or Italian and his answer was “No.” His wife, a beautiful dark-haired woman, smartly dressed with a pashmina expertly draped about her shoulders said that she spoke a little English. She instantly became her husband’s translator. He started asking us questions, which at times we could get the gist of because the French was similar enough to Italian and English words. When we were utterly at a loss for what he was asking, we three men turned our gaze upon his wife who would pause, put her fork down on her plate, and translate.

Having lived with Italians for a month, I have learned that when speaking to someone who understands only a little English it is best to keep one’s responses simple and to the point—save the 3+ syllable words for someone who gets it. She was being a very good sport, but at one point her husband asked her to translate something into English for us and she paused, still holding her fork this time, considered his request, and answered, “Mon chér, il est trop difficile à traduire.” We all laughed. Even we could figure out that she was at a loss on how to translate his complex French question using her very simple knowledge of English. Slowly we all figured out that he was asking us how life had changed in America given the financial crisis. We answered and again he asked another complex question. We all gazed at his beautiful wife, who put down her fork this time, reaching across the table to kindly touch his forearm, and said,“Mon chér…” We all knew her difficulty and understood her touch—“I love you…now hush!”

The conversation continued on through dessert and caffè and continued to be peppered with her “Mon chér…” when he exceeded her translating capabilities. We said goodbye to our luncheon companions and headed off toward our next adventure, pleased with the fact that we had been good ambassadors between America and France. For the rest of our trip we used “Mon chér…” between ourselves any time we asked the other something beyond our knowledge.

“Richard, how low did the water used to be in Venice?”

“Mon chér…” he would answer, grabbing my arm and shaking his head, as if he had been there 500 years ago.

“Mark, what is this incredible taste in my dish?”

“Mon chér…” I said shaking my head, as if I had the ability to identify some of the complex flavors in his simple pasta dish.

When Richard sent the book title to me yesterday and I discovered that the subject of the book was about the different natures of men and women. “I Love You—Now Hush” was the perfect translation of our lovely French translator’s care for and exacerbation with her husband.

 What a lovely way to tell someone to be quiet—“Mon chér…” “I love you…now hush.”

 Ciao e a presto~

-Mark

(* the photos above are of the outside dining garden at Antica Locanda, our tortelloni, the building on the way to the Fortuny museum, and the restaurant where we encountered the French couple--if you look close enough through the bridge railing, they are the couple seated at the first table. His back is toward the camera in the black sweater, and you can just see her beige pashmina.).

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Awaiting Spring~

It has been a colder than usual winter here in the South. Yes, I know those of you north of the Mason-Dixon line have certainly had your fill of it, too.

We have several potted citrus trees, which usually spend their winter outside; however, on the rare occasions where the temperature dips into the 20s and below, we bring the pots into the house turning our kitchen into an orangery.

Within a week of being brought in, they will bloom and perfume the entire house with their heady citrus scent—something that normally announces the coming of spring. But soon the blooms fade and drop, followed by leaves that are yearning for more than four hours of sunlight. They look rather anemic at the moment and it is always a race between their health and stable overnight outdoor temperatures above 30 degrees. Winter has lingered here longer than usual and I hope the trees can survive another week in our orangery.

Almost every villa or palazzo in Italy has an orangery. Long, narrow, terracotta-roofed, multi-windowed structures can be found toward the back of the properties. Here terracotta pot after terracotta pot of citrus tree varieties—orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, and pomegranate—can be found geometrically placed around the garden, covered in blooms in the spring and heavily laden with fruit in the fall. When the temperature drops, the pots are moved inside the orangery where the warm winter sun pours through the glass, drenching the plants with much needed light, and warming the terracotta pots and terracotta floor tiles. When scurvy and other diseases caused by malnutrition were all the rage, an orangery would provide fresh fruit, a much needed source of vitamins and minerals, well into the winter.

The orangery at the Villa Pisani, just outside of Padova, was beautiful this past November when we visited. The enormous garden outside the structure was full of potted, fruited trees. The building did have some plants in it, but the vast majority of them were still outside enjoying the pleasant weather.

Sometimes people ask how our trips to Italy influence us. At times the influences are subconscious and are never consciously realized, but there are many times when sights in Italy are put into practical application. The orangery in our kitchen is one of those literal and obvious applications.

If your fruit trees are still buried with a blanket of white, I hope the photos will remind you that soon the trees will be flowering, the birds will be singing, and the bees will be buzzing.

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

(**The first three photos are from the Villa Pisani and the last photo is our make-shift orangery in the kitchen.)

Click here to see another photo of the Villa Pisani.

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Nonna cooks Pollo con Limone~

Recently, I received an e-mail from Alessandra filling me in on all the happenings back in Viterbo. I mailed the Feb House Beautiful with the article on our house (http://www.mark-leslie.net/2010-starts-with-a-bang) to them back in early January and, when I hadn’t heard from them, I sent an e-mail making sure that they had received the magazine.

Of course, they received it and loved the house and article. Alessandra had to translate the interview for Nonna and Lillo, who don’t speak English. Alessandra also reminded me that I hadn’t spoken to them since our visit in November… “Marco, sei un molto cattivo ragazzo—Mark, you are a naughty, naughty boy.” That is how Alessandra scolds me when I fall short of expectations. We both laugh and laugh when she says this, as if I have been caught sneaking a cookie out of the jar.

There are times when I miss being with the Stefanis—their humor, laughter, and good-nature. The video shows how much fun we have together. The first lesson I posted (http://www.mark-leslie.net/lesson-number-1) showed Nonna making the cabbage risotto that was served as the first course before she served the Chicken with Lemon.

In this video clip, she is telling me how she prepared the chicken:

            -Roast the chicken pieces in oil (sunflower oil). Nonna cuts her chicken into small pieces (2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 wings, and each breast half into 2 pieces— for a grand total of 10 pieces).

            -Add salt.

            -Add white wine and cook until it is almost evaporated.

            -Add water and cook until it evaporates.

            -Add fresh sage.

            -Finish the dish with the juice of 1 lemon, a teaspoon of raw sugar, pinch of salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

Nonna reminds me that she did not teach me this recipe when I lived with them in 2005, which is true. This was a new one for me. She said it is a recipe from her old house and the name of the dish is “Pollo con salsa piconnoti.” Now, I will admit that I did not understand the last name she said. It sounds like “piconnoti” but it could have been “biconnoti” as well—or some other variation. When I was living with them, I always had Nonna spell out every recipe title for me. I should have done that here, too. She and Lillo got into a discussion of what the name means and, sadly, I can’t understand what they were talking about. Remember, I only speak like a 2-year-old, so plenty still escapes me in everyday conversation.

Lillo and I go on to have a laugh about me having a restaurant with Nonna’s recipes and then we joke about me making a film of her cooking.

As I said earlier, they are great fun and I miss them. I hope you enjoy hearing what life is like when you are a student in a full emersion program (*). At times, it can be daunting, but being served wine with every meal certainly helps take the edge off!

Buon appetito!

Mark

(*) Here is the link to the full immersion program that I enrolled in: http://www.dantealighieri.com/italian_language_school_viterbo.html

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It’s all a ride~

My father was in the Navy when I was very young and for a couple of years he was stationed in San Diego, CA. While my father was away in the Pacific for months at a time, my mother was at home with my sister and me. I am sure that was a daunting task to have been 23 and home alone raising two children under three. 

When my aunt would come out to visit us, keeping my mother company, we would go to Disneyland. I can vividly recall riding the teacups, or sitting in Dumbo as he rose up and down as we twirled in a circle, or pulling down the brim of my Donald Duck hat and making it squeak as we plummeted down the rushing water of the Pirates of the Caribbean. But the ride that seemed to ground us back in reality and return us to our sugarcoated, picture perfect lives was “It’s a Small World.”

Why that ride and this blog entry, which is about Venice, are connected in my head at the moment is beyond me. I think it might be the vibrantly bright colors that I associate with those singing peoples of the world and the colors bursting from the shop windows in Venice. It could also be that, like the ride where everything seems so small and compressed together, the streets of Venice feel more like sidewalks bordered in shops than actual thoroughfares where traffic blurs the window displays. In Venice, if you are not in a boat, then you are on foot walking everywhere. There are no bicycles, motorcycles, or mopeds. You either float along, like the Disney ride, past the brightly colored buildings and people, or you are walking through tight and narrow streets crowded full of people who “float” you by the displays of masks, trinkets, and restaurants.

Displaying how fresh and beautiful your food is happens to be what the Venetians do. Window after window, restaurant after restaurant, bar countertop after bar countertop had food displayed on it. Sometimes raw, sometimes cooked, it is always there for your viewing.

It is midnight, as I sit here finally eating my first meal since lunch earlier today—after a very long day at the theatre where I listened to beautiful singing, in a foreign tongue, by 80 people dressed in a wide array of clothes. Now if I was just sitting in a boat and wearing my Donald Duck hat…

I am looking down at my blandly cooked chicken over romaine lettuce that I quickly threw together and thinking of all the beautiful food I saw and ate in Venice. How I would kill for some calamari, prawns, sea bass, or cooked octopus right about now. I need some vibrant color--that is what I really need.

It might be a small world, but tonight my dinner plate and the plates I experienced in Venice are worlds apart.

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

**Enjoy the photos of some of the food sights of Venice.

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“Venezia, Venezia…Chi non ti vede non ti prezia”~

What can I say about Venice that hasn’t already been said over the centuries by people more brilliant than I? Nothing.

The above quote is from Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labour’s Lost and translated in the play it means, “Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.” Shakespeare obviously loved Italy and Venice. He set many of his plays in Italy’s Veneto region…Verona, Venice, Padova (Padua as it is called in The Taming of the Shrew).

I was excited about finally traveling to Venice—Venezia. It had been on our list of cities to visit in Italy for years, but we held off until this past November. Part of the decision had to do with economics. Venezia è una molto cara città—Venice is a very expensive city, which is why we decided to travel there off-season. Hotels are a lot more affordable—not necessarily cheap—during the off-season. We stayed at the Hotel Paganelli (http://www.hotelpaganelli.com/hotel-venice/chisiamo.php?szLang=en) and had a room overlooking the lagoon—where the Grand Canal connects to the Lagoon. It was a perfect location.

Several Italians friends in Montgomery were thrilled to know that we were going to Venice in November. “The light on the city is so beautiful that time of year. The light is more gray and does wonderful things with the marble. It is much more magical in November than in summer.” I believed them. Venice is notoriously hot, crowded, and displeasingly aromatic during Summer’s high tourist season. I am glad that we were able to avoid the sweltering throngs and go in November.

When we arrived on that Friday morning, it was chilly and rainy in Venice. Gray light, indeed! Arriving into Venice is like no other place in Italy…the train pulls into the station and you are almost immediately at the water’s edge waiting for a valporetto—a water taxi—to take you to your destination along Venice’s canals of “streets.” There is nothing glamorous about the valporetto. It is an inexpensive way for the masses in Venice to get from point A to point B. In a sense, it is Venice’s “on water” subway system. There are private taxis for hire, but those boats can be expensive and, sometimes, just as unglamorous.

Our room at the hotel had tasteful, golden fabric-covered walls, rich woodwork, and a nice marble bathroom. The room wasn’t terribly spacious, but we could fling our window wide open and, standing side-by-side, lean on the sill and gaze out over the lagoon. Directly across from us sat Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore and gondolas bounced with the waves in their moorings directly in front of our hotel.

There is something magical about this city and, as the title of this entry points out, there seems to be two views, two perceptions, two atmospheres of Venice. Even in the mist of the afternoon’s overcast sky there was a richness about Venice. It was a friendly elegance. Sophisticated, but elegant. At night, walking through the narrow, twisting, rat-maze-like streets one could imagine the masked and cloaked figures of the Carnevale turning the corner and making you gasp, only to disappear into the misty, yellowed streetlight night. Here, Venice was mysterious, ominous, and disorienting.

I will write more about Venice, its people, and its food over the next several posts. Enjoy the photos and maybe put on some opera—Don Giovanni—to get into the masked and cloaked mood!

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

(**The photos: Statue is in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace, view from the Hotel Paganelli, and San Giorgio Maggiore at night.)

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 Le presento Nonna~

The New Year has started and we are all in a deep freeze. It is time to warm up with a little video of Nonna.

To bring everyone up to speed: Nonna is the grandmother of the family that I lived with in Viterbo, Italy, in 2005 through a university program in Siena (http://www.dantealighieri.com/italian_language_school_viterbo.html). She is the reason why I have written my book (BEYOND THE PASTA: 28 Days of Recipes, Language, and Life with an Italian Family) and I hope it will be published so, at the very least, I can give her a copy. I really do enjoy cooking with her and I am crazy about the entire family.

The video is not very long, nor is it a full cooking lesson. It is a brief clip of Nonna explaining how she was preparing Riso con Cavolo—Rice with Cabbage. Both of us were a little preoccupied while I was shooting this. Nonna’s great-granddaughter was sitting in her highchair at the table, which had been set for lunch. Lillo, Nonna’s son-in-law, had pushed the highchair into the table because he thought we were about to sit down, but then he went upstairs to get something, and I started shooting the video. During the clip you will hear Thais, the baby, in the background and then you will see why we should always keep an eye on her.

Yikes! Thais waving around a steak knive—MAMMA MIA! We had no clue that Lillo had pushed her close enough to the table to be able to lean forward and grab a knive. Luckily, she didn’t hurt herself and Nonna noticed her quickly.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse of what my life was like with the Stefanis for the month of August in 2005. It should be easy to understand what Nonna was saying, even if you don’t understand Italian. There was nothing pretentious about my lessons and I really got to live a truly Italian life. Bellissimo!

 Two more videos of Nonna are coming soon and I will intersperse them with the days of our most recent trip to Italy. Venice is the next city we visited and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Buon Appetito!

Mark

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 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Last week I ran into a friend from Mississippi and asked him how he was doing. In true Southern form he replied, “Blessed and encouraged.” I laughed because only in the South would you hear that response.

Surprisingly, “blessed and encouraged” has been running around in my Yankee head ever since. It is such a simple saying, but it is having a profound affect on me—it speaks to me in a way that I find difficult to explain. Maybe it is because as I look back over this past year and set my sights on the coming year, I find myself in the same place as my friend from Mississippi.

My wish for all of you this holiday season and 2010 is that you find yourself in a Mississippi “blessed and encouraged” moment of your own. Whatever you choose to call it, however it dawns on you, whenever it reveals itself—I hope it happens and, in that moment, brings you joy.

Con affetto,

Mark

***In 2010, videos of Nonna in the kitchen are coming to the site and some recipes, too!

-The photo is from a wood panel in the Vatican Museums, Rome.

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Ciao ciao tutti!

We arrived last night in Vitero and caught Nonna leaving the house to go to Boy Scouts (which in Italian is "masi"--I need to double check that spelling when I have more time). It is interesting to be staying in the house and writing on the same computer that I used 4 years ago to send home my daily emails from that trip. I am having a rush of emotions being here again...and this time, sharing it with Richard,

After a rather unfortunate mishap with Lillo's new car last night, we made our way to a little pizza joint out in the countryside, just outside of Viterbo. Lillo, Alessandra, Richard, and I started with a crostini "sampler" platter that consisted of 6 different crostini (bread baked in the oven with a topping on it). Some were with beans, another was with mushrooms, there was one with olive paste, one with huge chunks of tomatoes...all very, very good. Our pizzas arrived with the edges slightly charred from the wood-burning oven. We ended dinner with dolci--desserts: panna cotte with berries (Lillo), panna cotta with Nutella (me), gelato affucato (ice cream with espresso poured over it) (Richard), while Alessandra had lemon sorbert served in a frozen huge half of lemon from Sorrento--Heaven!

This morning when we came downstairs for breakfast...very late, around 10:30am, Nonna and Alessandra had the table set and were waiting on us for breakfast. I have to admit that we are spoiled here. Nonna brought out her homemade fig jam, while Alessandra made Richard a "caffè lungo"--a tall coffee. Our breakfast was simple, but we felt like Princes.

Nonna is making pork ribs in tomato sauce for lunch. The sauce will be served with Pici--a tube-like spaghetti--and the ribs will be eaten afteward as the meat course. I have to make a video of Nonna describing how she made the sauce and then post it when we return. This afternoon, we are going to check out a couple of local sights and then come back for dinner tonight. The family has begged us to stay with them until we leave on Sunday, but that is not possible because of our we booked the car and the apt in Rome. A pity actually, since we are truly family now.

I am looking forward to returning home and writing about every day of our vacation and including photos and, hopefully, some video of Nonna cooking.

Ciao e a presto--

Mark

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Home is where the heart is--but, is it?

Working out of town is never easy. In the past twelve months, I have been out of town—literally out of the state of Alabama—for eight of those twelve. Colorado, New York, Minnesota, and currently, South Carolina have all been “home” to me since last October.

Home has been on my mind a lot this past week. Our house in Alabama is soon to be published in a national magazine and that has had me on the phone for hours at a time discussing the house with the article’s writer.

“What do you like most about your house?” “What is the one thing you couldn’t live without?” “Describe your style.” “What inspires you?”

Some questions were easy to answer, while others involved considerable thought.

“What makes a home?” For some of us, it is the physical space—the sofa, the wide-screen TV, the seat in the bay window, or a comfy bed. Others would say it was the shared experiences of life under the same roof—for better, for worse—that define home. It could be the hometown or state that makes the idea of home special—Sweet Home Alabama might ring true here, even though I am a Yankee at heart.

Viterbo, Italy was my home for the month of August in 2005. And in two weeks I will be there again visiting the family that I lived with, ate with, learned, laughed, and cried with. That house has become my Italian home and I am honored to have had the chance to experience “a casa” in a completely different context—a foreign land in a foreign tongue with foreigners. In a very personal way, it has become my land, my native tongue (even if I only speak as a 2-year-old), and they are no longer foreigners, but my family.

Yes, this week has been and is a flood of emotions for me.

The photo above is of Blera, Italy, which is Lillo’s hometown. (http://www.latuscia.com/en_comune_blera.php ) Lillo is Alessandra’s husband—Nonna’s son-in-law. Lillo and I struck up a rather quick friendship while I was there. He is the only man in that Italian household: Lillo and Alessandra have two daughters, and including Nonna, he has to contend with four women. Usually, the foreign students they have are women—mostly middle-aged ladies taking a cooking vacation. (http://www.dantealighieri.com/italian_language_school_viterbo.html ) I was one of the few men to have ever taken the full-immersion course, and Lillo appreciated having another guy in the house.

Lillo is very proud of Blera, his boyhood-home. It is roughly 20 kilometers from Viterbo, so it a place he still goes through on his way from Viterbo out to the family’s small farm just beyond his hometown. I took the photo from a bridge, looking back toward Blera, late one afternoon when we went out to see the farm. It is a sweet little town and, as with any small town, everyone knows everybody—and everybody’s business. He still stops at his favorite bakery to buy pane di Blera—bread particular to Blera. It has no leavening agents in it and uses durum wheat flour (semolina), which results in a very dense loaf of bread. For Lillo, there is nothing better than the bread of Blera—the wine, the cheese, the roasted pork (porchetta), the list goes on and on.

We are all probably like Lillo. We cherish the things that connect us to and identify us with our childhood—or any happy time of life. Maybe that is why I am thinking so much about home in Alabama, home in Italy, home in northern Illinois where I was raised—and the home about to be published in a magazine.

Ciao e a presto,
Mark

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