say it with light

This year Milan decided to say Happy Holidays with lights.

Well, not really "Happy Holidays" because what Italians actually say is "Merry Christmas." They've not been the quickest to embrace the idea of a generic holiday greeting and you'll get a hearty "Buon Natale" thrown at you no matter what you celebrate.

So Milan said its Merry Christmas with a big mess o' lights. The streets were full of them. And in addition to making this city seem something like 10,000 times more welcoming, the extra light from the extra lights didn't hurt either. The holidays in Milan were like Las Vegas's shy little sister - if she were Catholic and her focus was more on Christmas cheer than gambling.

Some new friends arrived in Italy after the lights had already gone up and were surprised to find out that Milan isn't always like this. Alas, no. But it should be.



Our Christmas was a good one and replete with the three P's: panettone, pancetta and presents. Although, truth be told one of the presents didn't make it here until December 31. But that was Italian UPS's fault.

As I've taken to saying, in Italy "must" is what's left after the grapes are pressed. The fact that it was made clear to UPS that the package "must" be delivered for Christmas didn't really translate into the Italian business model. Instead, Stefano received the gift of Italian customer service which at its high point during the 10-day holding pattern offered the reason for the package's delay as: "there are a lot of packages out there this time of year."

We'd be shocked that this was the official excuse provided by an international delivery company that delivers packages for its living, but that kind of thinking only gets you heartache in Italy.



Anyway, the presents (all of them) were eventually opened, the panettone was eaten, and the pancetta was fried. Hot cocoa was present - with marshmallows - and we made a meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and broccoli for dinner.

It was a wonderful Christmas and we're lucky. Lucky to have spent it together. Lucky to have spent it here. And lucky to have loving family and friends around the world to share our seasons greetings with us.



Just don't send those greetings by Italian UPS.

snow for a day

We've finally seen snow in Milan. But like a certain someone who headed home yesterday, the snow has already said its sad goodbyes.

Our Italian friends had warned us that snow in Milan isn't a good thing but rather a messy, slushy, grey disaster. We didn't want to believe them.

And when the snow came it was beautiful, little white flakes dancing in the air, landing on our scarves, giving us the winter we'd hoped for but never had in Milan.



But after a day+ of snow came the rain. And that's when the city went from winter wonderland to that messy, slushy stuff our friends had described.

As far as I know, the city of Milan has never compared itself to Chicago in the snow-cleanup department, and maybe we shouldn't either, but let's just say that Milan could learn a thing or two from Chicago about what to do to its sidewalks and park paths after it snows.

Milan's current standard operating procedure after a snowfall is: do nothing. The procedure after the rain comes is: see above.

So the snow and the following rains gave any area that was not attended to by a shop-owner or a building custodian the consistency of a Slurpie. Make that two inches of Slurpie that want so very, very much to become one with your socks and shoes.



If we were true Milanese, we'd put on our pink slacks ("Punch Pants!"), pick up an umbrella, and head to work. Or we'd take a broom and start brushing snow into the street sideways.

But we're not Milanese. So instead of begrudging the snow or wearing pink pants to show winter who's really boss, we took out our camera and made sure that the only snow we've ever seen in Milan lasts longer than 24 hours somewhere - even if that's just in our photos.

si mangia bene

The way an Italian indicates that you have a good place in mind for your weekend getaway is short and sweet. You tell them the name of the town, and they say: si mangia bene. (The food is good.) If you tell an Italian where you're going and you don't hear that response... you might want to change your plans.

Si mangia bene will always be the first thing out of their mouth. Which means, of course, that it's the first thing that comes to mind. And we love this idea, that food either makes or breaks a place. It's such a delightful way to rate a city, to judge a region. Forget the chit-chat about architecture. Stop wasting time talking about the art. Let's get straight to the point and discuss whether or not we like the food.

And I think we've made it clear... we like the food.

The last weekend of the year we took an early 3+ hour train ride past dark and frosty fields, past Lake Garda and the snow-covered mountains deep in the distance... to Treviso, in the Veneto. Despite train delays that caused us to miss our connection, and crisp temps that kept us both wadded up in more layers of clothing than I appreciate, my response to anyone considering a visit to Treviso would be a stomach-busting "si mangia bene!"



As soon as you enter the city walls, you're buffeted through street upon street of chocolate and sweet shops. Within our first fifteen minutes in town, we were lured by the siren call of three different chocolate shops. I won't go into the gory details of our inability to resist chocolate because - as everyone knows - resisting chocolate is an overrated and useless skill. Especially in Italy.

A far more commendable skill is Stefano's spot-on restaurant research. Based on his Treviso advance planning, our first item of business was swinging by the restaurant where we would later eat lunch in order to make a reservation. Second item of business: hot chocolate in the chocolate shop across the street.

The petite and cosmopolitan woman whose chocolate shop we visited was the perfect person with whom to discuss hot chocolate texture. In Italy hot chocolate always falls somewhere between pudding and syrup on the viscosity scale. The woman agreed with us that hot chocolate should not be a pudding, because only pudding should be pudding. She also was diplomatic enough to state that the American version, which we described as powder + water, could probably be attributed to cultural norms rather than defective chocolate technology. Her hot chocolate, which had the ideal consistency of a thick drink, happens to be made by melting dark chocolate in milk. It's not too sweet, not too thick, and is perfectly accepting of a little extra sugar swirled in for good measure. It's quite good.

After our hot chocolate we still had a cappuccino and brioche on the brain. We've indulged in this perfect morning combination nearly every Saturday morning that we've lived in Italy and by now it's become something of a staple. In our hunt for a good cafe we went in the direction of what, from a distance, could have been a pastry shop. When we got closer we found something that changed our plans.

It was a cichetti bar - the sort of enoteca we're used to seeing in Venice - and it was full of men working their way through small cups of wine and savory snacks well before noon. Each chunk of bread was covered with slabs of cheese; thin piles of cured meats; pickled and briny vegetables. And for us there was no turning back.



The very idea of cappuccino and brioche flew out the bar room door and all that remained before us was a petite tumbler of red wine and a plate of savory delicacies. And we've never made a better breakfast decision. The next time someone tries to tell me that the breakfast of champions can be found in an orange cardboard box, I'll have to insist that it's actually sitting in a cichetti bar, down a small street in Treviso.

The similarities of this city to Venice don't end at snacking styles. Like Venice, Treviso is also threaded by a fair amount of canals, one of which is crossed by a bridge mentioned by Dante in Il Paradiso. While the canals here are nowhere near as mysterious and complex as Venice's, they do add a nice disturbance to the normalcy of the city and seem to host a fair number of swans and ducks. There's also a wonderful fish and vegetable market found along one of these canals.



Wandering the market is what brought us to one of the most incredible gastronomias that we've had the good luck to visit. After passing stalls piled high with curling magenta radicchio we found "Fermi" at the end of the market road. It might as well have been bathed in a heavenly glow from above...

Suddenly the lady rolling her motorino halfway up the back of my leg faded into the distance and all that mattered was this beautiful vision of food loveliness. In fact, our New Years Eve meal has Fermi to thank for its ingredients. There was a blended squash with garlic - so perfect on ricotta. A creamy and mild baccala. Delicate anchovies in oil with herbs.



Our lunch at the trattoria was nearly as fantastic. We started with an artichoke soup heavy with tender leaves and topped with two hunks of garlic toast. We moved on to fresh pastas enrobed with thick sauces and ended with cake, café and grappa. In truth only one of us had the grappa but we tend to share everything else.

We spent the remainder of our afternoon shopping under porticos, enjoying what seems like a very prosperous city by the looks of its high end shops. When we stopped in an optics boutique to buy a certain someone a gorgeous pair of Persol sunglasses, we received our final mission for the day: we were to visit the first pair of eyeglasses ever painted.

The owner of the optics shop sent us high-tailing it over to the Sala del Capitolo dei Domenicani, to see the frescos painted by Tomaso da Modena in 1353. While "Tomaso da Modena" (Tom from Modena) doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "Leonardo da Vinci" (Leo from Vinci) we ditched the idea of buying fresh pasta to take back to Milan for dinner and ran over to see the frescos instead. A ringing endorsement, no?



We had to rush because our train was scheduled to depart exactly one half hour from the moment we learned of the frescos' existence. So we ran to the church where we thought the frescos were. And then we ran to the place where the frescos actually were. And there was no one there so we stood alone in the room and looked hard for the man with the glasses. After we found him we bought some postcards and then made it to our train on time.

I should also mention that there was a cheddar cheese sighting earlier in the day. While you'd never confuse this country with Wisconsin we thought maybe we'd see the stuff sooner. But this was the first time we'd ever seen cheddar cheese in Italy. So for all of those people touring the bel paese with a hankering for the good old orange stuff, Treviso is the place for you.

It's also the place for us. Si mangia bene... and then some.

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Hot chocolate: DolceAMARO cioccolato, 31100 Treviso - Via Inferiore 14 tel. 0422-542815

Cichetti: Hostaria dai Naneti, Vicolo Broli 2, Treviso

Gastronomia: Fermi, Via S. Parisio 15/17 - 31100 Treviso, tel. 0422.540818

Trattoria: TONI del SPIN di Alfredo Sturlese & C., 31100 Treviso, Via Inferiore, 7, Tel. 0422 543 829, www.ristorantetonidelspin.com

Cheddar Cheese sighting: Eredi di Danesin Luigi di Danesin Ferruccio, Corso del Popolo, 28 - 31100 Treviso, tel. 0422.540625, www.danesin.it

topinambour and chocolate

Varese is about an hour away from Milan and, luckily for us, was hosting a chocolate festival the weekend before Christmas. The festival had actually been re-scheduled from its original date after a transport strike immobilized Italy the week before and stopped most everything from moving around the country. This included staples such as gas and groceries, and apparently chocolate as well.

December 23rd was unfortunately a cold and wet day. Just cold enough to freeze your hands and just wet enough to worry that a downpour might be on its way. But far be it for moisture and a gray day to wring all the joy out of a chocolate festival.

We went with a handful of friends and fanned out, exploring the booths and snagging samples of the chocolates they had on offer. I've said it before but it's worth repeating: Italy has fabulous chocolate. There's a place in this world for Hershey's but it's not at an Italian chocolate fest. These are chocolates that melt warmly and delicately on the tongue, that are layered with flavors, with textures, and that reflect unique tastes -- think salt, anice, fennel... It's easy to taste too much, to get too excited, to buy far too many tiny parcels filled with chocolates.



But we weren't alone in our quest. Varese was filled with a fair amount of guests indulging their chocolate fantasies and there was also a giant penguin in attendance. Some sort of mascot, or just a random weirdo -- we're still not sure. But you'd better believe that the ladies in our group got a photo with the giant penguin. I mean, you kind of have to.

The character we should have sidled up to was the hearty soul we'll call Santa Magro, aka the world's skinniest Santa. I don't think anyone has ever seen a Santa that thin, a Santa so unconcerned with the conventional characteristics of Santa. I mean, this guy didn't even put a pillow in his shirt. But there he was on Main Street in Varese handing out balloons and the like. I guess living with Mrs. Claus up at the North Pole has cut down on this Italian Santa's opportunities to eat Mom's cooking.



We found a great drogheria while moving from piazza to piazza. Italian drogherias are usually fun places to wander -- they're filled with a little bit of everything. Wine, chocolate, pasta, topinambour. Topinambour? Yah, topinambour! Everybody knows what that is, right?

No, not really. I found a jar labeled "Topinambour e acciughe" in the back room of the drogheria and appreciated the fact that I had never, ever, heard of such a thing. I turned to an Italian man who was standing nearby and asked him what this Topinambour stuff was. He said he had no idea. He even pulled off the price tag so he could read the entire label and got no further than I had.

The lady at the cash register - one of the owners - explained that a topinambour is, in fact, a topinambour. The more useful portion of her explanation was when - in response, I'm sure, to the perplexed look on my face - she described the mystery ingredient as a vegetable, a tuber. So at least we know that the jar we now have in our cabinet features not only anchovies, but some sort of tuber.



Tubers weren't the only intriguing items in Varese food shops. There were more than a few windows featuring creepy food combinations under aspic. Based on what I can tell from window displays at this time of the year, Italians seem to like most anything when it's coated with a generous blanket of clear gelatin.

Hmmmm, carrots, peas and tuna... Is it under aspic? Ok, I'll buy it! Shrimp, egg and red pepper... Is there aspic involved? Give me three! Nothing says Merry Christmas and Happy New Year like a thick covering of quivering goo.



Far more appealing is the pizza at Fabbrica Pizza. There were five of us, we each ordered a pizza, and no one was disappointed. In fact, most of us gave a sigh or two throughout the meal. My pizza was an amazing and authentic rendition of a pizza napolitana. Doughy, puffy edges with a saucy center. And the buffalo mozzarella dripped that subtle taste of fields and earth that makes it so special.

The restaurant also was indoor and had heat which made it a pleasant alternative to the cold wintry outside. (Although you'd be surprised how far a cup of Italian hot chocolate will go to improve your mood.)

When we left Varese we had a backpack bursting with chocolate and a small jar filled with a mystery tuber. If I didn't know better I'd say we're ready to combine the two and boil up some aspic.

Buon Anno da Milano! (and Varese)

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Fabbrica pizza Via G. Ferrari, 5 (C.so Matteotti) Tel. 0332.232.939 www.fabbricapizza.com

the natale recital

"Buon natale... tutti voi!" I will never be able to describe the energetic cacaphony that accompanied these lyrics. Belted-out by a teeming mass of seven-year-olds during their school Christmas recital, it was as if we were all engulfed in a swirling jumble of sugar & spice and... caffeine. And all other stimulants known to man. At one point the singing became screaming - pure and simple - and I don't know if they ever went back.

What's truly amazing about this experience is the universality of "The Christmas Recital." Our Italian friends took us to their Italian son's recital in an Italian school in Italy and it was still held in an auditorium that doubled as a gymnasium. Fathers still stood in every available space pointing their cameras at the stage. And the directors of the production - in this case a group of energetic nuns and one very harried lay person - still seemed far more concerned about the specifics of the performance than the children. We might as well have been in middle America.

As for the children... the distracted and/or slow-footed among them missed their cues and ran onstage several beats behind, and the invisible wall between the stage and the audience gave way as kids vigorously waved to family members in the crowd. And the singing itself was deliciously, if not always, off-key.

While the biggest difference was the language, the excellent thing about the kids' off-key holiday warbling is that we understood everything they said. Italian children, in general, are much easier to understand than their adult brethren. Maybe it's the high voices that annunciate each and every syllable. Or it could be the outrageously simple sentence construction. No matter - when children are talking (or singing) we feel like masters of the Italian language.

There were a few cultural differences including several characters that don't usually show up in American holiday recitals. One was Beffana, the witch who brings good children presents on January 6. And another was the giant dancing panettone - the traditional Milan Christmas cake - portrayed by a kid wearing a large painted cardboard box and tights.

Not surprisingly, after the show everyone headed downstairs to a giant open space overrun by screaming kids. Adults stood around eating giant slabs of panettone and pan d'oro while children gulped down platefuls of potato chips and giant glasses of Coca Cola. The nuns flitted around the room, calmly greeting children who by now were absolutely overrun by sugar and caffeine.

Each child, though, did pause at some point to give their family a large golden angel made of spray-painted pasta. We were ecstatic to see that in the country that has elevated pasta to an art form, the beloved shells, tubes and wheels are still used by elementary school kids to make stuff for their moms.

As we left the school that evening the hallways were quiet. Ballerina costumes hung outside empty classrooms, their tutus deflated and limp. A large and lonely panettone box sat on the floor, its child actor long gone. And the nuns busied themselves with sweeping up.

But now we know. A Christmas recital is a Christmas recital the world over. There will always be a basketball net visible from the stage. And a child waving when she should be singing. And a bunch of pasta glued together and spray-painted gold.

Even in Milan.

Buon natale e buone feste.

willkommen to bolzano

We don't speak German but the people of Bolzano think we do. They ask us questions we can't answer. They say things we don't understand. And all the while they serve strange and wonderful foods that don't belong in Italy at all.

But accepted principles of geography say Bolzano sits squarely in Italy. So when people speak to us in German, and we go ahead and respond in Italian, we feel only half bad about our brutta figura. We don't intend an affront to the language of our hosts, it's just that the only phrase we know in German is that unfortunate combination of words in which a US president identified himself as a doughnut.



Bolzano is in the very north of Italy, surrounded by mountains and saturated with the flavors and traditions of neighboring Austria. The buildings, people, and foods of Bolzano are distant relatives of the cities that we've visited in southern Italy. In fact, describing the north and south of Italy as "distant relatives" could be stretching it. Bolzano is the nephew of Bari in the way your Dad's good friend from work can be your Uncle. Those kinds of relatives.

This unique mix of Italian traditions with those of its neighbors to the north render Bolzano a very festive place for a Christmas market. Who doesn't find drinking mulled wine and eating plates of steaming polenta with gorgonzola - surrounded by a dramatic crown of mountains - an incredibly festive experience? You might as well start singing "On the First Day of Christmas..." as soon as you step off the train.



When every bakery is filled with heaping mounds of sugar-glazed gingerbread and the streets are teeming with giant pretzels you feel like you've been transported to another place. A place where hearty people eat sauerkraut and giant dumplings and don't put on stilettos to swing by the grocery store.

But the secret of Christmas time in Bolzano is no secret: our train from Milan was packed solid and people had resorted to sitting in the corridors. After three+ hours on the train we all streamed off and invaded the city with our holiday joy, not stopping until we'd personally amassed several new Christmas ornaments, at least one mug of hot chocolate, and a paper bag full of cookies that - meno male - taste the way cookies are supposed to taste.



Saturday was crisp & cold, and Bolzano - with its twinkling Christmas lights and decorations - was the perfect fairytale town. It was almost as if Santa was going to come zooming over the mountains on his sleigh and make a grand entrance smack in the middle of the Christmas market. At least it seemed that way to me. Then again, a little mulled wine in the afternoon makes anything seem possible...

since we're in the neighborhood

Venice has spoiled us. It has taken us into its thin crooked pathways and dumped us out into its cramped piazzas. It has then shoved us - stumbling - back into tiny paths and towards the next open space.

We've been the rat squeezing through the python and have always used a fluttering gut sense to navigate the tight corridors of this city. And it's been incredible. Our one true secret to Venice is staying, for the most part, away from everybody else.

It's impossible to escape tourism and tourists in Venice - and who are we kidding, we're tourists with a capital "T." And the Venice of postcards and guidebooks, the Venice that captures the imagination of popular touristic culture, might be found out front of St. Mark's. That's certainly the place where you can find yourself covered in pigeons, and easily pay €25 for a bellini - but that's not the Venice we've come to see.



Our sights, rather, are set on other places. Like Campo Santa Margherita and its central tree casting veins of shadow on the cobblestones. It's there that we follow poodles chasing poodles: a brown one chasing a black one chasing a grey one. You've never seen poodles so happy to be alive.

Olivia, too, was molto felice. Not only did she have the chance to chase a pigeon out of a café but the 4 month old cocker spaniel also had a pretty good vantage for the morning's brioche crumbs sprinkled on the floor. We had our cappucci next to Olivia's owner (who we'd already met outside) and then walked out to the Christmas market to drink mulled wine. Surrounded by all that water you can't help but keep drinking.

Unfortunately, eating in Venice is sometimes less ideal. The restaurants are not known as the finest in Italy, as they usually rely on a more tolerant touristic palate rather than the demands of local clientele. While this may or may not have influenced our decision not to eat dinner the night we arrived (we, instead, stayed in our room and enjoying the glories of a rare splurge on a rather nice hotel located on a rather grand canal) we do know of a place where the food is indeed fit for the locals that fill the bar.



It's the same place we go every time. We stand along the water, our plate of stuzzichetti set on the canal wall and our bright orange spritzes - with hunks of fragrant lemon hide - giving us yet another drink in this town threaded with liquid. We eat hunks of bread topped with miraculous things. Cloud-light ricotta with gobs of squash puree; tuna crisscrossed by thin wisps of leek. There are far too many combinations to choose from.

Another love of ours are 50 cent traghetto rides across the grand canal. For less than the cost of a caffe you get a gondola ride replete with drama and boat rocking. Not only does your gondola have to cross Venice's main throughway and its many threads of nautical traffic but you also have to enter and exit the gondola without falling out. The gondoliers make it look easy but I've never felt more uncoordinated than when trying to gracefully extricate myself from an undulating gondola.



We took care in the mirror shop, too, having a pretty good idea of what a shop full of mirrors can do to your luck if you're not careful. And these were special mirrors - convex and able to capture the entire room with their fish eye optics. We were surrounded by tens of images of ourselves, and of the mirrors, and of the couple who arrived there before us and wouldn't stop chatting with the owner. But we'd had an eye on these mirrors since several visits past and weren't to be easily dissuaded. We waited our turn, no mirrors were broken, and we made it out with one new mirror and only the bad luck with which we'd entered.

Weaving through Venice on our way back to the train station we walked into a one-man marionette performance that had quickly captured the attention of a piazza's worth of kids and adults. We also happened to find a very fine cup of hot chocolate. Not only was the hot chocolate capped with a decadent mass of whipped cream but we had a small pastry filled with zabaglione on the side. Cold weather warrants such things.



Some people want something else from Venice. They want pigeons instead of poodles. Gondola rides for thirty minutes instead of three. Guided tours instead of hypnotic wanderings. But for us, Venice will always be that strange combination of random elements along random paths. And if it wasn't, then we wouldn't love Venice the way we do.

padova knows how to eat

Before last Friday, Padova still sat on our Northern Italy to-do list. So to take advantage of the long weekend (Friday, December 7th was a holiday in Milan), and to cross one more great place off our list, we took the train to Padova.

A day trip for us generally consists of arriving in a city and then spending most of the morning and afternoon wandering around eating. We'll occasionally poke our heads into churches and wander through museums, but after a year and a half of churches and museums and eating, we've found that one of the three activities most consistently holds our attention: the eating.

In addition to many other positive attributes, Padova is an excellent place to eat. Our day started with the standard brioche and cappuccino but quickly escalated into something far grander when we entered a miraculous 120-year old bakery piled high with the most delicious creations. We left with several chocolate and raisin buns but also a generous slice of marron glaces cheesecake. The cheesecake didn't make it but a few steps away from its former home before we stopped in our tracks and ate it all. The ricotta was light and the marron glaces (candied chestnuts) created a syrupy top that was rich, sugary, and wonderful.



The bakery is only one shop in an excellent covered market that boasts nearly a square block of fine food vendors. There are traditional stalls that run down the center of the market, and bricks & mortar shops along the edges. The never-ending supply of cheese, meat, seafood, sweets, bread and wine is beyond luxurious and warrants at least an hour to explore. And that's only if you're riding your bicycle past the shops at high speeds -- which, as is the norm in Italy, some people were actually doing.



In this covered market we found what we would now nominate as the best salami shop in Italy and on different occasions throughout the day purchased thinly sliced sheets of goose salami (aka heaven), wild boar prosciutto, and deer prosciutto. We ate every single slice, but not before stopping in a bar/café in the market for a glass of lightly fizzy moscato.



We had our lunch (cured meats, bread, various sweets) in the courtyard of the basilica that holds the relics of Saint Anthony. Not only did that mean we were within a stone's throw of Saint Anthony's miraculously preserved tongue but we also shared the courtyard with a storm of ravenous pigeons and a group of young nuns. Half of the nuns hated pigeons and shooed them away while the other half loved pigeons and kept luring them back with food, resulting in a consistent ebb and flow of pigeon activity. Lunch was a bizarre pleasure thanks to the Sisters.

In addition to the relics of Saint Anthony, Padova is also host to one of the most famous sets of frescos in the world. Completed by Giotto in 1303 these frescoes pre-date the work of Michelangelo and Da Vinci and initiated the soft style and perspective for which both of these artists are known. The frescoes fill the Scrovegni Chapel and not only feature seductive depictions of the vices but also a giant blue devil eating humans as they pass down into the opposite of heaven.

And not to be outdone by the hermetically-sealed entry system of the Last Supper in Milan, the Scrovegni Chapel has also installed a "state of the art" entry system to preserve the frescoes. While it feels more like an "automatic door" than "space age technology," if its installation means that people can continue to see the frescos I'm all for it.

Padova is also home to one of the oldest universities in the world. Established in 1221, Padova University gives the city a youthful kick in the pants and tries to keep the townspeople guessing. Last weekend the trees near several University buildings were papered-over with comic drawings of recent grads depicting both the highest - and lowest - moments of their teenage existences. There was also a lot of fanfare as graduating students were pelted with paint, eggs, and all manners of liquids by friends and relatives.



After zooming through the art museum connected to the Scrovegni Chapel we headed back to the city center to give one last go at food consumption. Luckily, we ran into one of the Padovan traditions that we'd read about but hadn't yet seen. A seafood vendor in the piazza was selling boiled fresh octopus. They were disgusting and gorgeous - slippery tentacled lumps of purple that came out of the pot steaming hot and were promptly sliced up by the vendor, then covered in green sauce and oil.

We might not have dug in so heartily had a couple already standing at the vendor not been eating a plate full of the stuff with big smiles on their faces. We couldn't resist. They hung around as we dug into our own plate of octopus and were very happy to see us enjoy it. The woman of the couple insisted that we eat every last bite (including the inner workings) while the man admitted that he was from Milan and had never tried this dish before today. In the end we "Milanese" agreed it was most excellent.



After eating every last tentacle we headed to the train station where we actually delayed a train from leaving the station by hitting the "Open Door" button at the very last second - we were that close to missing the train entirely. Once on the train, we settled in for our half hour ride to Venice. Because when you're that close to a city you love you can't go home without first swinging by.

a milano thanksgiving

It happened over dinner at our friends' house last month. They were asking us about Thanksgiving - they're Italian - and we were gushing about how it's just like you see in the movies. A giant turkey. Pumpkin pie. All the family around. And that's when we decided we had to have a "finta" Thanksgiving, a fake Thanksgiving, to show them what it's like.

We were lucky that we had the chance to do some American shopping on our trip home for Thanksgiving. On the return flight to Milan we must have dragged back an entire suitcase devoted to Thanksgiving mandatories: a can of jellied cranberries, two boxes of Stove Top, Durkee onions, jars of gravy, canned pumpkin... There's nothing like a suitcase full of food unavailable in Italy to remind you that Thanksgiving only happens in America.

The turkey, however, wasn't something we could bring back from the States. And so Stefano had to find one here.

You can find truffles and panettone and Parmagiano Reggiano and a million kinds of wine, but Italy is not the place you want to be when it's time to find a turkey. Why? Because they don't come easy and they don't come cheap.

Stefano special-ordered a fresh turkey from the butcher (there's no such thing as Butterball here) and when we picked it up at the butcher shop the guy basically held it up by one leg, random feathers fluttering onto the counter, and asked if it was ok. It was heavier than we'd ordered and at 7.90 euro/kilo that makes a difference. But it was also the only one they had. Which meant that it was fine.



As we walked home with this giant, soft bird body it looked like Stefano was carrying around a swaddled child. At 14 pounds it was a respectable Thanksgiving turkey by American standards. But apparently, by Italian standards, a 14-lb-anything is gigantic. So large and hulking, in fact, that there was no hope of fitting it in our oven.

So on the day of fake Thanksgiving, Stefano spent a fair amount of time shuttling between the kitchen of our friend (and neighbor) with her gloriously gigantic American oven and our apartment with its petite Easy Bake version. Big thanks to our friend and her oven because without them our dramatic golden bird would have been more McNugget sized.

Our oven focused on the green bean casserole and the mac and cheese. But before you get the idea that our oven was configured to bake both of these at the same time I should say that we had to jerry-rig an additional oven shelf with a cooling rack. As in, we laid a cooling rack across the baking pan of mac and cheese, and balanced the green bean casserole on top of it. Because our oven only comes with one shelf. That's why Stefano had to bake each of his two homemade pumpkin pies one at a time.



Everyone enjoyed the meal and we were happy to see the Italians and Americans alike going back for seconds. We kept our Stove Top secret when complimented on the deliciousness of our stuffing, and Stefano was pleased when one of the guests said the pumpkin pie was one of the best he'd ever had. In fact, the entire meal was beyond excellent, and thanks go to Stefano for a great meal and for the patience to make it in an Italian kitchen.

And let me add one more thanks - for the mounds of leftovers that kept us fed for a week. There's nothing like a fridge full of leftover turkey and stuffing to make a house feel like home.

giving grazie

Thanksgiving is best spent at home. Preferably in your parents' completely redecorated living room that is so ben fatto (well done) that when you walk through the door you don't know where you are. It's best spent with new babies and your sister's new boyfriend, and twenty-pound turkeys that went into the oven hours before a single guest even thought of arriving.

Thanksgiving is a time for green bean casserole. And Jell-o molds. And stuffing that your cousin left at home because now they're traveling with a baby and it's hard to remember everything.

And it goes without saying that thanks are given for our families and our friends. For health, for happiness, and certainly for all managing to get together in one place at the same time.

It's also time to give thanks for all of the little things that we miss about home. Those silly simple things that haunt you when you're far away.



We're thankful for the rediscovery of garlic - a spice Italian food (in America) is known for but which lays surprisingly low in Italian cuisine, at least that of the North. But in Chicago, you can coat sweet, giant shrimp in olive oil and garlic and find yourself in a small slice of savory heaven.



We're thankful for international cuisine. Hours after landing in Chicago, despite the lingering fatigue of a ten hour flight - and the onset of the resulting jet lag - we high-tailed it to the nearest Mexican restaurant. Chips and salsa we missed you! Another night was spent at the Polish restaurant where in addition to hearty potato pancakes and sauerkraut (previously found only in Krakow), we found the second best license plate in the world: BUNS. Could there be a more perfect companion to BTTR LV which we found on a ferry in 2005? (To jog your memory check out my October 2005 blog entries.)



And no matter how hard it's raining - and how many friends you run into by chance even though you didn't tell anyone you were coming home for Thanksgiving - don't forget Thai food. It's the food that we miss most and there's a restaurant on Chicago's north side whose dishes are second only to those served in Thailand. We ordered far more than we could eat but fearlessly ate it all. We know that our next pad thai is a long time coming.



We're thankful for Chicago - the city - with its skyscrapers and shopping and lakeside parks with giant metal beans dropped into the middle of them. With the bean and its smooth curves reflecting and distorting the city so that you just stare at the reflections of the buildings shooting sharply into the sky and think, "There are none of these in Milan." And it's true. There is never that vertical tug, that energy moving up, up, up. I came out of Union Station - the main train station in downtown Chicago - and I got tears in my eyes. Who knew I missed this place so much.



We're thankful for the cold. And not "Milano" cold, but real cold. The kind that comes with snow and bites at your skin and makes you wish you brought your gloves. That cold with a screaming wind that brings snow on Thanksgiving morning and lines the tree branches with thin white stripes. And what about a deer crowned with antlers running across the front yard, grunting out its steamy breath? In Chicago, it's winter and it's cold and that's how November is supposed to feel.



We're thankful for hot dogs and American coffee and breakfast. Those simple things that are so very American. I don't even eat hot dogs and I can appreciate the joy of a Chicago style hot dog with its sloppy piles of chilis and relish and pickle slices. And American coffee in giant cups that waitresses keep filling up whether you ask them to or not. And breakfast... Oh sweet breakfast. Omelets and waffles and pancakes. Everything with butter. And then just one more cup of coffee.



This year's Thanksgiving was special for many reasons. And sitting there together on Thursday, the group of us in one room until nearly midnight, I think we all knew it.

Maybe that's part of what made it so special - the knowledge that we're all so very lucky, and the luxury to enjoy that feeling together.

colazione a rovereto

We've achieved a small milestone, a first ever occurrence: the three brioche breakfast. Di solito, that is to say "usually", on Saturdays we look forward to stopping at a bar and indulging in a cappuccino and brioche each. It's just one of those things that makes Saturday in Italy special. We know that wherever we're going, and whenever we get off the train, our special breakfast awaits.

Before even arriving in Rovereto we knew we would have a cappuccino and brioche breakfast, and upon arriving the first thing we did was look around for a suitable locale. Eventually, we found a great bar with gorgeous pastries piled high on the counter and in their displays. It was very difficult to choose, but we did. And, as usual, we both enjoyed our brioche and coffee.

But then, as if in an action film from the 1980's, time slowed... Stefano and I both looked at the gorgeous untouched pastries still sitting on the counter. Then we looked at each other. Then we looked at the pastries again. There was no going back.... We locked eyes and nodded.

"Signore, we'd like another brioche."

And that was the moment our decadent Italian lifestyle hit a high note with the three brioche breakfast. But, trust me, you would have behaved the same. All of those delicious pastries, stuffed with cream and studded with nuts, swirled and curled and gorgeously baked...



Fully satiated we wandered our way to Rovereto's weekend market which, for once, resembled the markets we love to scour in the United States. It was a gathering of collectors of oddball items selling random objects of equivalently random value. In our experience it's far more delightful to explore buckets of old junk than delicately organized rows of precious antiques.

And in fact, we walked away with a gem of a find: a wooden shopping list pre-printed with the essential items an Italian household might need. Next to each of these items is a hole into which you place a small peg to indicate need. Now I'm not going to dispute the Italian version of what's important but just to give you an idea of priorities, I'll name a few: salame, pancetta, prosciutto, vino, formaggio, caffé. And such a gloriously utilitarian item cost us a mere 2 euro. Even with today's falling dollar, that's a steal.



Rovereto is also the perfect place to shop for the foods on your shopping list. We found not only the perfect salumeria but also two world class candy/chocolate shops. In fact, we were so involved in shopping for basic necessities (ie chocolate, vino and formaggio) that we nearly forgot to visit the musuem for which the town is famous.

Before heading to the MART (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) we stopped for lunch. Being in the Trentino region, close to Austria, does have it's gastronomic benefits and the food we had was tinged with glorious Austrian heartiness.



The restaurant where we ate filled-up fast with locals. In fact, the proprieters were turning away potential customers left and right because there was no more space. We knew we had come to the right place not only because we were surrounded by locals but because the food was so darn good.

My meal was like a head-on collision between dumplings and gnocchi with spinach, cheese and butter thrown in. Stefano had a pasta dish heaped with salami meat sauce. We also shared a polenta dish with mushrooms and cheese, and finished with the best apple strudel we've ever had.

After a shot of grappa to dull the pain of how much polenta with cheese costs, we went to the MART where we found minimal exhibits because we just happened to visit in that small crack of time between big exhibits. We were, however, very lucky to catch the exhibit on futurist artist Fortunato Depero and loved his unique vision.



The museum building itself is also fairly striking. A bit of a riff on the Pantheon, it's a tall circular structure with a hole in the center of the roof. The lines of its structure - white against the blue sky - were as much art as the collection we were unable to see. But despite the fact that most of the collection seemed to be in some form of transition we were happy to see what we did.

Before catching our train back to Milano we did some serious food shopping and then stopped for a drink. Happy to set down our shopping bags we each had a Spritz with Aperol and marveled over how much better potato chips taste around apertivo hour. Also, our setting was superb: we were smack-dab in front of a bounce house filled with italian children, sans shoes, hopping their way into early evening.

We left as the bounce houses were being put to rest, their bouncy-ness dissipating into the night at the hands of the maintenance men who had been waiting in the wings for just that moment... when their eyes could meet and they could agree that now was the time to shoo all the screaming kids away and deflate these giant abominations.

Kind of like when our eyes met and we agreed to indulge in the third brioche. Except there were no crying children at the café that morning. Only the cries of our cholesterol counts slowly inching towards the stratosphere...

Pasticceria: Pasticceria Andreotta, Via Roma 9, tel: 0464.421.291
Restaurant: Vecchia Trattoria Birrara Scala delle Torre, Via Scala delle Torre 7, tel: 0464.437.100

all saints

By coincidence, we spent All Saint's Day exactly where we were supposed to: the cemetery. Our timing was by chance; we were taking advantage of a day off to visit Milan's Cimetario Monumentale but most other visitors seemed to have come be pay their respects.

It was fairly crowded. There were husband's balancing large potted plants and cell phones, while wives gave directions and guided them along the paths. Grown sons scrubbed-down statues while their children watched and their elderly mothers gave never-ending streams of suggestions. And most all graves had fresh flowers or candles burning nearby.



The cemetery itself is a sprawling place with thousands of graves ornamented in a full spectrum of artistic styles. And fall has finally come in Milan so the leaves had turned, giving large swathes of the cemetery a blanket of yellow and orange. It's a beautiful place to wander, exploring the art and memories kept there.

But it doesn't take long to fixate on the inevitable... the nagging idea that everything, and everyone, comes to the same end. It's when you stop seeing the beauty of the place, and can only think of your eventual arrival, that it's best to speed away on your bicycle and rejoin the hum and buzz of the city. Hoping that on your way, the unruly Milano traffic doesn't send you right back from where you came.

f is for fumare

We can go ahead and cross "Go to Soccer Game" off of our Italy To-Do list. While we're at it we can also eliminate "Smoke a Pack of Cigarettes in Two Hours" and "Learn Italian Swear Words."

Soccer is a beautiful flow of athleticism and momentum and I envy the athletes' superhuman coordination; watching a ball get kicked around has never been so entrancing. And we were lucky enough to see a game in which the final score was 4-1 (forza Inter!) which meant five goals were scored. That brings a lot of excitement to the relatively short 90-minute competition.

Unfortunately, in those 90 minutes, I think we smoked at least a pack of cigarettes each. Because while smoking "inside" is prohibited in Italy, the stadium seems to be considered "outside" and every chain smoker in Milan was there. Honestly, the guys beside and behind us (and for the most part the stadium is filled with guys) were smoking the entire time. It reminded us of an over-crowded Chicago bar right before the concert starts.

Except that back in Chicago we wouldn't have had the opportunity to also indulge in an Italian profanities crash course. While starting out with the usual "Mamma mia!" and "Ma dai!" to show their irritation, the fans soon digressed into a colorful display of vulgarity that wasn't wasted on us. We know enough of the language to notice when conversation heard in polite company is completely thrown out the window. La Scala this was not.

Overall, though, it was a worthwhile experience. We even enjoyed the high-tech entry system designed to thwart soccer hooligans from ruining the game. What with the single-person mechanized entry gates and the metal detecting, we could have been visiting the Royal Jewels. But no, the only similarity to London was the dense fog filling the stadium, which had nothing to do with nature.

Maybe there's a reason why every female's soccer ticket is discounted by 10 euro. (They know your gender because your ticket has your name on it, and you must present I.D. to enter.) Although the women I saw at the game seemed to fit right in with the general mood of the place. Cheering, smoking and swearing. With the most time spent on - you guessed it - the smoking.

F is for fumare.