Tess Rafferty's Blog, page 4

To Love, Cherish & Judge All Others

We’ve just celebrated an anniversary, or as it’s become known in the 21st century, “Bask in the glow of our perfect and loving relationship via social media” day. My heart still goes all aflutter every time The Husband writes something nice about me on Facebook and while I don’t think that’s bad necessarily, countless pieces have been written about how trumpeting the success of our relationships on social media have a proven backlash. Quite often the celebration of all that is wonderful in our own lives depresses others as if their own lives are less than.

And yet conversely, while we are looking at social media thinking our own lives will never measure up, we are also busy looking at these same seemingly perfect couples and judging them for all of their imperfections, too. Wait – what!? I know, fucking people, right?

It was a little over a year ago that a friend had a dinner party and posed the question, “Doesn’t it bother you that they were having all of these problems and now they’re acting all in love?” The question would have been in poor form even if it hadn’t beeen A. about me and B. made in my absence. Those two facts just made it even worse. And it may have been more understandable had it come from someone who hadn’t been in a long term relationship; perhaps there’s some dynamics you can only understand if you’ve been there awhile, just like I can’t profess to know what it’s like to have to online date. But the fact that it was posed by someone who was married was even more incredulous to me. Why would another married person and allegedly caring friend find it easier or more preferable to be bothered that suddenly we’re acting all in love after a rough patch, than to just be fucking happy for us? And why would this fellow married person have such a complete ignorance that having problems and then being all in love is often the very definition of marriage?

I don’t know why The Husband can just turn his head sometimes while he’s backing out of a parking spot and I’m full of love for him like it’s the first week we met. Makes no sense to me. Just like I don’t understand why, despite the fact that he has like 5 toothbrushes of his own, he still gets mixed up and starts using mine and I also don’t understand why this behavior then drives me batshit crazy. There will be things I will always need from him and probably not get and things that I will never ask him for that he will give freely. But that’s life. And someone else is just their own set of problems. There’s not something better, there’s just something different.

I’m sorry. Was that not the fair tale ending you were hoping for? Me either, some days. Enjoy this photo of us getting married in Rome to make yourself feel better.

Is this enough of a fairy tale for you?

Feel better now? Some days you get the fairy tale but you never get the happily ever after. You know why? Because “ever after” is a very long time and the only way it ends is in death or divorce and neither of those are happy endings, though there are days I would dispute that.

My point is that marriage is complicated. The people in it sure as shit don’t understand it, so why are you trying to? And why, when you can’t wrap your head around it, do you then feel the need to pass judgment, as if that ever helped anybody?

We all do it! We all don’t understand why the fuck this couple is still together. The Always Angry Man… The Woman Who Likes To Complain… The Husband Who is Never There… The Wife Who Lives to Emasculate…. And so we dissect it from every angle, trying to find that answer so that we know that we’re different: that our shit show of a marriage isn’t as bad as their shit show of a marriage. Why is he still with her? What does she see in him? Who cares? Maybe he just has a big dick. Wouldn’t that be hilarious dinner party conversation?

“I don’t see what she sees in him.”

“Oh, you don’t know, Darling? He has a big dick. Pass the coq au vin, please.”

It’s not just conservatives who need to get out of our bedrooms. It’s our friends, too.

When did gossip become a substitute for ideas? When did schadenfreude become easier to experience than joy? Why, when so many of us know first hand just how hard relationships are, do we feel we can look down on those in one who are having a hard time? It’s not enough to smugly think, “There, but for the grace of god, go I.” I’ve got news for you: if you’re in a relationship, you’ve gone there. Or you will. Soon. How would you like others to talk about you when you’re there? Because if it’s a free for all where we get to say every negative thing one of you has ever said or thought about the other or done to them, let me know and I’ll start getting my notes together.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, unless they’re married to each other in which case, THAT’S THEIR BUSINESS. So let’s all just try to kind to each other, OK? Life is tough enough.

 

 

 

Open

 

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

…Is how a bullshit meme on Facebook goes. You’ve probably seen it over a picture of a sunset or a lotus or a Native American.

 

I’m just kidding about the Native American part. You would never see that meme. You know why? Because the life waiting for them wasn’t so damn great. It was small pox and alcoholism and casinos and casinos and small pox suck.

As the Native American knows, being open to the life waiting for you doesn’t always work out so well.

Whenever I have adopted a Facebook meme as a guiding life principle it has worked out poorly. Whenever my inner monologue has said one of those horseshit phrases like “What have you got to lose?” or “Get out of your comfort zone” or “Live without limits” (I think that’s actually a Red Bull ad,) I have almost always regretted it.

A picture of a lotus is supposed to trick you into doing things you hate.

You know what you have to lose? Your time. Your patience. Your shit. All of these are very valuable commodities especially as for me, they are in very short supply. I only have so much time on this Earth which makes me lose my patience when it gets wasted and lose my shit on the people who are wasting it. And I spend a good deal of my life trying to keep my shit together. It’s a Herculean task and I don’t need to invite more obstacles into this battle.

Once, a member of a comedy message board I was on was looking for people to join some holiday chorus. You didn’t have to be a good singer to join. And you only showed up for one rehearsal and then you sang at 4 different places during the holiday season. This didn’t seem like my thing, but I like holiday songs and some industry acquaintances talked about how much fun it was and I was unemployed and it was Christmas and I was thinking “Let’s have some new experiences. Who knows where this might lead?” and that something mystical would happen in my life if I said “yes” to things.

Here’s what happened instead. I showed up at some house in the hills where I had to hike from my parking space to get there. I stood around for an hour, very much not singing, while everyone else arrived and got coffee and greeted each other from last year, none of the people I knew who talked about how much fun it was actually being there that day. It was overcast and cold, but the house wasn’t big enough to accommodate everyone so we were expected to hang outside, including when we sang, which couldn’t be good for our voices. One man who looked like Santa actually did talk to me, I’m pretty sure he was the only one, and he told me the woman who founded this event did it because the holidays always depressed her and I had a hard time believing that this made it any better. As for not having to be a great singer, once we finally got started they immediately asked where their sopranos and altos were and while technically I do know that I’m a mezzo soprano, that in no way qualifies me to be participating in this as they start giving out solos and handing out harmonies.

I did learn the actual words to Feliz Navidad. “Prospero ano y felicidad” And if you go, “See, but you got something out of it,” I will tell you to go fuck yourself. I would have happily lived the rest of my life not knowing that. Happily.

I never went back. I never participated in the aforementioned 4 shows. In fact I think I got sick for Christmas that year just to avoid it.

Come on! Don’t you feel like wasting your time now?

You can say, but what about that makes you think it would be fun for you? And to that I will say, “Exactly.” I didn’t think it would be fun. I was just open to the possibility that it might have been. And then I will also tell you about the time last summer, when I ran into a friend of mine teaching at the Krav Maga school by my house. I was walking to my neighborhood Starbucks and in these days I often did so while sobbing uncontrollably. I was going through a rough time and when he said I should come by some morning for his strengthening and conditioning class this seemed like a good idea. I needed some shape to my day and my life. No martial arts. Just weights and toning. I like weights and toning. I could use an exercise class I can walk to. And maybe the activity would lift my mood. So I texted him and told him I’d be there the next day and he told me to show up 20 minutes early so he could go through the exercises with me before class.

I showed up 20 minutes early. He showed up right as the class was starting.

The class began with rapid jumping jacks while we held a five pound free weight in each hand.

Now, I don’t know what your shoulders are like, but mine don’t like lifting heavy objects above my head, repeatedly, in rapid succession. Not without a warm up or a stretch, none of which we had. We then started doing a relay of ridiculous activities where we would jump into a squat, then down to the floor for push ups, then jumping jacks from a squat (great on the knees and back!) and then up to a fighting position where we would punch, still with the free weights in our hands. And then again. And again. It was like fucking Full Metal Jacket. This was fucking boot camp, not toning and conditioning. This is what they make you do when you’re a prisoner and they want you to talk. An option I would have taken immediately had it been made available.

And I was only 5 minutes into this bullshit.

That’s when he told everyone to grab a partner and get near a bag and grab their gloves.

Everyone partners up leaving me with no partner, and no bag.

“Tess, do you have gloves?” my “friend” asks me.

No, because no one told me I needed gloves. Because I’ve never been here before. And you didn’t show up 20 minutes early like you promised.

He hands me a pair of gloves that some other dude has left behind. I know this because when I put them on they’re too big for my lady hands, and full of sweat. Someone else’s sweat.

And that’s when my “friend” says, oh don’t put them on right now. First we’re going to stretch.

Oh, now we’re going to stretch!? What’s the point? I’m already injured.

I knew I had to get out of there. If I left now I could go back to the morning I had already planned. The one where I just went to Starbucks and grabbed my latte and came home to write or cry. Or cry and write.

But I was conflicted. I don’t like to not see things through. And I didn’t want him to say something if I left. He was a comic and one of those guys who called out jokingly to everyone in the class. “Hey, Mimsy, if you keep that up you won’t need that shlub you’re married to anymore.”  I didn’t need him calling out to me, “Come on, Tess, don’t be a quitter. Come back and put on those gloves filled with someone else’s sweat and do some more of these exercises I never showed you!”

We were on the floor, leaning over one leg, head bent down while we stretched our hamstrings. No one was looking up. This was my chance. With everyone else’s head touching their knee, I got up, grabbed my stuff and ran out. I don’t think I stopped running until I got to Starbucks, my friend being known to actually come out to the sidewalk while teaching a class and yell at me as I went by.

Couple of weeks ago I went to an improv show. I didn’t mean to. I thought I was going to a puppet show, which some of you may say was bad enough. See? Open. I thought it would be like Avenue Q. At intermission my husband left his jacket on his seat and I just looked at it and said, “You might want to grab that. Cause I’m not coming back.”

I know what I like. I know what I like to wear. I know what I like to drink. I know what I like in bed. Someone might say, but isn’t that boring? No, it’s nice. I can get dressed, get drunk, and get off quickly. Sometimes within the same five minutes.

I wasn’t open to moving to LA. I planned to come to LA. I wasn’t open to becoming a writer. I planned to become a writer. It’s not called “Open Parenthood.” It’s called Planned Parenthood. “Open Parenthood” is what hillbillies and 16 year old girls do and we all think that’s ill advised.

“Just be open to it,” is what a network exec says right before they ruin your idea. When someone says, “Just be open to it” close yourself right the fuck up. What’s coming isn’t good and you’re not going to get extra points in this lifetime for trying to pretend that it is because a meme told you to.

So why do we think being open is better?

I want to be open because I’m always looking for that experience that’s going to change my life. That anecdote for a party or – dare I say? – a second memoir: and then this totally unexpected thing happened and I never looked back and the rest of my life was free shoes and orgasms and lunch with Tina Fey. But why do I want my life to change? I mean I can already get dressed, get drunk, and get off. What more is there? I don’t know! That’s the problem, isn’t it? We always think we could be happier or more successful or having more orgasms. And we’re always open to the chance that it might be true…That behind the next door is the life we’re really supposed to be living.

Guilt Free Eating

The Husband and I dine out too much.

The proof is there every year in the Amex statement, right under the section marked “restaurants,” usually prominently displayed near the top, somewhere around “grocery stores” and “wine.”

We like to eat. We like good food. We like good wine.

Now to some, this may sound like what I would say right after “Hello my name is Tess,” at a local 12 step meeting (take your pick) but I don’t have a drinking or eating problem. What I do have is a drinking and eating things that taste delicious problem. But I’ve never dug birthday cake out of the trash or drank wine that has been opened for more than a day, which to me must show some amount of restraint.

Every year when I see that statement I do feel a certain amount of guilt. But to be fair to us, there are plenty of things we don’t splurge on. I don’t care much about jewelry. The Husband drives a car that’s over 10 years old. I insist on buying cheap toilet paper. But when it comes to food and wine, we just can’t help ourselves, even when we’re dining at home.

Life is just too short to eat shitty food. I don’t want anything out of a packet, anything that has to be microwaved. For one thing, I refuse to believe that stuff is good for you. When I look at the ingredients in something I’m about to eat, I tend to want it to be just one thing, that thing being the thing I’m about to eat. When I see the list of chemicals in some foods, it’s hard for me to believe that those things haven’t caused a golf ball sized tumor on a rat in lab somewhere. Also, I rather prefer we not test anything on animals at all. Sorry for the radical thinking, but it seems to me the best way to avoid having to test chemicals in our food on animals is to not put chemicals in our food to begin with.

But ultimately food that’s better for you tastes better, too. (Now I know one of you is going to say something about Pringles, which – in addition to being a potato chip – doesn’t even look like it was a potato once putting it on a whole new level of being processed junk. But I will stipulate that yes, Pringles are delicious.) So many times I’ve decided to splurge on the burrata rather than just buy mozzarella, which is also delicious but just not as delicious. So many times The Husband runs out to grab something to just “throw on the grill” and comes home with a bone in rib eye, because they were on sale and looked great. So many trips to the Italian market only to come home with 3 types of olive oils, because I need one for cooking, one for dipping, and one infused with truffles.

Now you may be asking why, when clearly we have good food at home, do we still spend so much money eating out, especially when we have no control over what’s in the food we’re consuming there?

There’s an intimacy to sharing a meal with someone. And it’s much harder to get in your own home.

For starters, when you’re sitting in a restaurant, you sit across from someone else. You look at them directly. You’re not staring at the lawn that needs watering or wondering what that noise from the refrigerator is. Now it’s not like at home we eat like Lord and Lady Grantham, sitting on opposite sides of a Citizen Kane sized conference table. We have an average size table, and unlike many people, we actually do eat our meals there. But there’s still too many distractions. There’s laptops open to Facebook and Twitter…The cats I have to chase from napping on a placemat…The knowledge that there’s bills waiting to be paid in the other room. 

Plus at home you’re doing it all yourself. It’s hard to maintain a conversation, to focus on the person with you, when you’re getting up because you need more water, or the steak needs to be put back on the grill, or you forgot the salt. Eating in a restaurant versus at home is the difference between flying on a plane and driving a car. On the plane you can have some cocktails, watch a movie and read a good book. You can take a nap and feel refreshed when you land. If you’re driving a car, you’re doing all the work. You have to remain alert and there’s no warm cookies for you when you get there. Is it cheaper to drive yourself? Sure. But then you may never see Creed or enjoy The Girls.

This is our conundrum: do we save money for retirement or do we enjoy each others’ company on a regular basis? Whenever the question is, “What do you want to do about lunch?” or “What are we doing for dinner?” I know that choosing to stay at home will be fiscally responsible. I also know that if we go out, we’ll both be more relaxed. We’ll have a conversation. We’ll talk about things we’ve been meaning to tell each other and things we hadn’t yet thought to share. We may even make each other laugh. And I know you can’t put a price tag on that. Just as life is too short for shitty food, it’s also too short not to spend it with those you love in a way that allows you to experience what you loved about them to begin with.

The other day I woke up with a stomachache brought on by a nightcap that turned into two. The Husband and I were at a bar enjoying a glass of wine and having a delicious chat. Life is hard and these moments can be too rare not only between partners, but friends, as well. People are busy; they’re distracted. They sit down wanting to see you, but too caught up in the emails they’re getting from the office or the latest trouble at home. You have to do what you can to create them and hold onto them when you do. So when he said, “One more?” even though it was late and I was already tired and this was far from our first glass of the night, “I said, let’s split a glass” because I know these moments are important and I don’t want it to end. And because The Husband knows these moments are important and he doesn’t want it to end, he brought back two glasses. But even though I cursed his name most of the following day, it was such a nice night, I’m not sure I wouldn’t do the same thing all over again.

But don’t take my functional alcoholism’s word for it. One day I was talking to a financial advisor, no doubt about how I could somehow have an IRA and eat it, too. This is a man who has seen all manner of money being spent – and in Los Angeles -where people can be obscene with money. He has seen more people make mistakes with money than an accountant who only handles rappers. His sole purpose is to help people save money. And he told me not to worry about spending money on restaurants. He said he’d rather see clients do that than just buy stuff. When you do that you just have things, he said. But when you dine out you have experiences to share and look back on.

One of my favorite things in the world is to share a meal with people whether it’s at home or in a restaurant and whether it’s burrata or grilled cheese. Culturally it’s in my genes, I think, being half Italian. But it’s never been better summed up for me than this quote by Sergio Esposito from one of my favorite books about food, wine and Italy, Passion on the Vine – 

“The meals…were designed to prolong our time together; the food was of course meant to nourish us, but it was also meant to satisfy, in some deeper way, our endless hunger for one another.”

Whatever you do, let’s never stop hungering for one another.

 

 

 

 

 

How Are You?

“How are you?” 

The simple and polite inquiry should not fill me with the dread it does. It’s a basic social grace that we work hard to instill in children and awkward adults. Yet despite how much I know people mean well and need to be taught to say it lest we create a society of over-bearing narcissists or soulless automatons, I really wish they wouldn’t.

And that goes for “How are things?” “What’s new?” and “What’s going on?” too.

The spiral this question sends me into is bad enough on a good day. Never mind that all people want to hear is “good” or even “fine.” Never mind that they probably aren’t listening to the answer, which they assume is going to be “good” or even “fine.” Never mind, that I should just lie and say “good” or even “fine,” because that’s what everyone does.

I have a difficult relationship with lying. That isn’t to say that I don’t or can’t do it; I just have a harder time lying about certain things than others. I’m selective in a way that even I don’t understand. I’d say that I have a hard time lying about emotions, but plenty of times I’ve told a boss that I loved a job I hated because I wanted to keep the job. So maybe I just need stakes when I lie and your comfort level as I vomit everything I’m thinking and feeling all over you is not enough of one.

And yet that’s not true either. Often I hesitate to answer exactly because I’m thinking of someone else’s feelings. If things are great when you get the “How are you?” there’s a fear that too much detail will sound braggy. Who wants to hear about your raise and your fabulous vacation when they hate their job and their car broke down?

Sure, you can just say, “Great, how are you?” and then they can answer, “Great!” but where does that leave the conversation: two people staring at each other wondering what to talk about next. “Read any good books lately?” People don’t read anymore! I mean I read. I read all the time. I read so much it’s like there’s something wrong with me. (NOTE: There is.) But I also read a lot of stuff that I’m hesitant to cop to. (Not like Harlequin romances, but like mysteries. A lot of mysteries.) “Seen any movies?” That’s such a divisive question these days you might as well ask, “Which god do you believe in?”

And if things are bad, the question gives me a panic attack. “How am I? Well I’m terrible. Where would you like me to start?” This leads me down a path of both revisiting everything that I’m already upset about while my brain does a contortionist act trying to figure out exactly how to answer you. Do I say, “I’ve been better,” knowing that you’re going to feel obligated to ask further questions? And knowing that I will only feel guilty that I’ve made you feel obligated? And how much information do I give then? Do I commence the vomiting up of feelings on you now? Or do I pick and choose details and if so, which ones, and isn’t this also another form of lying?

I’ve talked to more and more people recently who dislike the “How are you?” question and that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The more time you spend hanging out on Earth, the more life has its way with you and the trickier it gets to figure out how you are. People are divorced; they’re separated. They’ve lost jobs, homes, parents, children. Sometimes they’re just lost. Their life is good but it no longer fills them with the same sense of joy that it used to and they’re looking for the reason why and the solution. They’re depressed, they’re angry, they’re grief-stricken.

These are all answers to the question “How are you?” and yet to say so seems inappropriate. It’s TMI. It’s a downer. It’s the beginning of conversation they didn’t ask to have. It’s the beginning of a conversation they might want to have too much and for the wrong reasons. And it’s the beginning of a conversation you might not be able to have without sobbing snot down your face and angrily cursing the gods for forsaking you all while standing in the G-free aisle at Whole Foods.

Again lying is an option. And one that you would think I would fall back on given the anxiety spiral truth-telling sends me into. The problem is that lying feels empty. And maybe that’s why I really hate the question, “How are you?” It sounds like it’s supposed to encourage connection, but it does just the opposite. A more honest interaction would be, “It’s nice to see you.” “Thank you, it’s nice to see you, too.” And then both parties could go on their way knowing that they were being polite and fulfilling a social contract without being disingenuous.

That still leaves the lack of connection, however. And anyone who can’t just answer “good” or even “fine” probably really needs that connection right now. So maybe we don’t need to find the right answer. Maybe we need to find the right question. Maybe we need to say, “I’m not “good” or even “fine” right now. Are you?”

 

 

 

 

The Boot Camp: Part 11 – Emilia-Romagna

Recently I convinced The Husband to spend 3 days in the middle of nowhere, in an Italian town we had never heard of, all because of a restaurant that had appeared on a list of the Top 15 “off the beaten path” restaurants a car rental company had emailed us.

 

(I want to say here that I’ve gotten two restaurant recommendations now from gimmicky viral lists and neither one of them have disappointed. One was even in a sea cave! So be open to things you find on the internet. But definitely do your research.)

 

I looked at the list already knowing that our plan for this trip was to go back to Emilia Romagna, a region just north of Tuscany that is already known as the “food region” of Italy. Yes, in a country known for its food, this is the region that is really known for its food. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t had some of the best meals of my life in Tuscany or Piedmont or Rome, but Emilia Romagna is home to parmigiano cheese, aged balsamic, tortellini, and culatello, a specially prepared prosciutto.

 

Amerigo 1934 is a cozy trattoria with a Michelin star and a stunning vintage glass collection. Located in the town of Savigno, about 30 minutes south of Bologna, they

Parmesan gelato at Amerigo 1934

also own a small inn a few blocks from the restaurant, which makes stumbling home after a 4 course wine and food pairing easy.

 

The plan was to eat there the first night and then play the next two by ear, as we wanted to see what else the area had to offer. But the food was so amazing we could not resist and we ate there all 3 nights. The food was so amazing, I think it ruined me for restaurants for the next leg of the trip and it wasn’t until we got back to Bologna at the end that I ate anything that really compared.

 

Fiori di latte gelato with balsamic for dessert at Amerigo 1934.

The first night we did the four course wine and food pairing. We started with parmesan gelato, a rich and creamy spread of dense parmesan flavor with aged balsamic on top, and chicken pate. For our pasta course we had a tortellini in brodo and a tortellone with parmesan cream and speck and then for the main course The Husband had braised beef cheeks that he still cannot stop talking about and I had pork. I have to say I’m not a huge pork eater. But it was so perfectly cooked and amazing that I ordered it on another night. Plus the wine pairings were perfect and made up of all local wines which was a great way to learn more about the Colli Bolognesi region, which isn’t nearly as talked about as Sangiovese di Romagna.

 

The restaurant has been in the family some 80 years now and that is apparent in every interaction. Marina was always ready with an answer for our many questions when we booked the room and was absolutely patient when our plans changed at the last minute and we had to reschedule everything. When the restaurant closed at night, the chef and owner, Alberto, would draw us maps of places to go the next day, and personally made us appointments at local wineries and emailed us the details.

 

Photographing the Savigno countryside

We had decided to spend two full days there because in addition to food and lodging, they can arrange wine tastings, food tours, truffle hunts and cooking classes. Plus, Savigno is located near Modena and several smaller towns that offer hikes, as well as castles and abbeys to tool around. Unfortunately we were still somewhat jetlagged and getting out of bed around 10 the days we were there, which meant that by the time we got it together and got out into the world, we were arriving places just in time for lunch… Which isn’t the worst problem to have.

 

But a word about lunch: always have a plan and always call ahead. Our first day in Savigno we drove to Modena with a plan to check out a church or visit an acetaia and then maybe grab lunch at Fantino, where we had had a meal a few years ago that I still think about.  If you haven’t guessed by previous posts, The Husband and I are pretty OCD about doing research and calling ahead and for some reason, maybe it was that we had gotten our first decent night’s sleep since landing two days before, we hadn’t done much of either. We got to Modena, the sun was shining, we found parking easily and we were off to check out the charming town. We stopped at the Duomo and then decided to walk to Fantino where we were promptly told they were full and couldn’t seat us for lunch.

 

Now it’s getting late and as I’ve mentioned numerous times, if you want a good lunch you have to get to where you’re going by 2:00 maybe 2:30. We finally end up at a trattoria specializing in Roman food, which was good but not what either one of us were looking for. We were in Modena; we wanted Modenese food.

 

Our acetaia plans were similarly flawed. We saw places on the side of the road we thought we could stop at, but when we got there they were either closed or not doing tastings or the tour wasn’t starting for another hour and we had to get back to Savigno to watch a man argue with his dog.

 

We were going on a truffle hunt. It was April and if you know anything about truffles, you’ll know that’s not exactly truffle season. But we did get to go into the woods and watch as the dog chased down tiny truffles that he would try to eat before the hunter could wrestle it out of his mouth or yell at the dog to come back and stop chasing whatever it is that dogs chase in the woods. We also learned a lot about what happens when the truffles are actually in season and it was nice to walk in the woods for 30 minutes.

 

Afterwards we went to a local winery for a tasting, which is always in season. In

Deceptively lovely weather in Savigno.

addition to being a winemaker, the owner made his own prosciutto, built his house and his own wood fired oven where he made pizza, making all American men look like useless pussies.

 

Our second day was supposed to be rainy so we dressed for the weather in boots and sweaters and then got to the next town over where it was sunny and beautiful and we could have hiked, but now we weren’t dressed for it. So then we went to lunch after which it actually did rain which was too bad because we really could have used a walk then. Fortunately, Alberto had set up appointments at two vineyards for wine tastings, which is the perfect rainy day activity.

 

Teatro Farnese

After bidding a reluctant farewell to Savigno, we headed towards Parma to check out the Teatro Farnese, a theater made almost entirely out of wood which made it both stunning, as well as incredibly fragile as they would learn during World War II when it was bombed and pretty much destroyed by Allied forces. Fortunately, the theater has been rebuilt. If you’re not churched out, there’s also a Duomo there with some stunning frescoes.

 

 

 

 

We spent the next two nights in Castell’Arquato,  a charming Medieval town not unlike King’s Landing from Game of Thrones, or at least what I remember of it. I haven’t watched it since it’s first season since I have boobs, so seeing them on TV

Castell’Arquato

every week isn’t really exciting for me. We stayed in the exquisitely decorated Casa llica, right in the center of the hill town. In addition to providing a breakfast that featured the best yogurt I’ve ever had, Michelle at Casa Illica also arranged an amazing wine tasting for us at Tollara which featured some of the best wines we had tasted of the Colli Piacentini and two of the most gracious hosts we’ve had at a winery ever. In addition to being incredibly informative about their wines and winemaking, they laid out a spread of meats and cheeses the likes of which I’ve never seen nor will probably see again, and the winemaker even made us tortellini!

 

 

This part of Parma is castle country and you can spend all day every day driving from one castle town to the next which sounds exciting and is – but after a few you get the general idea. Plus, there’s not a lot to see inside so most of the castles fall back on exhibits featuring weapons and methods of torture which were as grotesque as they were imaginative, and we quickly had had enough of that. Also, we were there

The square in Vigoleno before the Liberation Day mass

on a National holiday, and every town was pretty crowded with Italian families looking for something to do on their day off.  The holiday being Liberation Day, marking the end of the Nazi occupation of Italy, however meant that there were many memorial services, too, and we were fortunate to catch one which was incredibly moving. There are people here who still remember the awfulness of living through the occupation and those are the ones fortunate enough to survive. So many more didn’t. It’s an unimaginable situation and I think so important to not forget what all of those people went through, how they fought to overcome it, and that it can happen anywhere.

 

 

We went back to Bologna for two nights, where Tamburini wasn’t as good as we remembered it, MAMBO was, and we discovered 3 new restaurants that lived up to the high standards set the first couple of nights by Amerigo 1934. Two friends had separately recommended La Traviata, and yet I still didn’t think it was possible to be blown away by one more pasta dish and I certainly didn’t think I would be impressed

Another new discovery that did not disappoint was Rossi Selected Vintage where I found these earrings.

by a steak or dessert. I was wrong. I was SO wrong. The pasta cooked in red wine was stunningly great and we were blow away by how melt in your mouth tender the tagliata in balsamico was. Ordering dessert felt like a ridiculously needless indulgence at that point, but I am so glad we did. It was the moistest chocolate cake I’ve ever had with a rich, zabaione custard.

 

Likewise, Osteria Bottega was on every insider’s list, a charming place off a narrow alley, in the seeming middle of nowhere. I didn’t have the Bolognese, but I heard from someone in the food industry that it brought them to tears.

 

Dessert at La Traviata

After La Traviata the night before I couldn’t imagine being impressed by anything else, until that is we sat down at Vicolo Columbina.

 

We started with a sformatina, a light soufflé infused with parmesan and mortadella, which I have never been a fan of, but was perfect in this as it was mostly just for flavor. I then had a perfectly roasted guinea fowl and The Husband had a filet coated in some otherworldly parmesan-herb-lardo-bread crumb mixture that was one of the best things I have ever put in mouth and I would coat myself in it and lick it off like a cat if I could.

 

 

Some of the faces of the Resistance.

New in Bologna since our last time there was a memorial to the members of the Resistance who died during the Nazi occupation. Apparently, the Piazza Maggiore was where those who were caught were shot and after their executions, their loved ones would return to the square and tack pictures of the murdered on the wall. The memorial was made up of many tiles, each one printed with a name and photo of one of those brave men and women, a touching and lasting memorial to their sacrifice that won’t blow away as the winds change.

The Boot Camp: Part 10 – Ciao, Venezia!

 

 

Feeling like a Million Dollar Bond Girl!

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I have a love/hate relationship with Venice. It’s like the pet that keeps peeing on the floor. It’s just far enough from almost everywhere else I want to go in Italy to make it inconvenient and the food is mediocre while also terribly expensive. With every bite I take of a meal in Venice I think, “I wish you were just a little bit better or a little less expensive.” But it’s not going to be any better or cheaper any more than my cat is going to stop peeing where it shouldn’t.

And yet Venice, like my cat, is magical. It looks like no other place on Earth and you have to see it at least once, and probably the sooner the better, as it’s falling into the very water that surrounds it and makes it so magical.

 

When dealing with Venice – or my cat – it’s best to adjust your expectations. You will not eat great. You will see a large amount of Americans, so many that you will wonder why you even bothered leaving the states. And the closer you get to Piazza San Marco, the greater the likelihood that you will be crushed in a sea of humanity somewhere between a Prada and a Chanel store. If I wanted that I could have stayed home and just yelled, “Free boob jobs!” on Rodeo Drive. And if you are lucky enough to make it through that scrum alive, you will pay at least ten dollars for a cappuccino while you watch tourists get bird flu because they think it’s cool to get attacked by pigeons.

 

But you will get to ride everywhere on boats! And you will always feel like a million dollar Bond girl every time you get off of one and step onto the dock. You will see some amazing art, whether it’s modern at the Guggenheim or much older at the Accademia. You will see some grand old buildings and some charming not so grand, old ones, too. And you will ride in a gondola despite your cynicism and you will love it. The fact that they let you bring a bottle of wine helps.

 

Lodging might be challenging. In fact, while at dinner there just a few weeks ago, I overheard some statistic that only half of the tourists you see in Venice are actually spending the night there.  The reason being (and again I was eavesdropping and drinking so make of it what you will) is that it’s much cheaper to just come in for the day off either one of those ghastly cruise ships or from a much more reasonably priced town a mere train ride away. Indeed the last two times I’ve been to Venice I’ve gotten a “good deal” and splurged at one of the Bauer’s hotels, after giving up on finding anything reasonably priced and figuring I would save money elsewhere in the itinerary.

 

View of the Grand Canal from the Bauer

The Bauer Il Palazzo gave us an incredible view of the Grand Canal and we enjoyed watching all of the activity from our room almost as much as we enjoyed being part of it down below. Plus, the staff was unbelievably attentive and helpful with whatever we needed.

 

Our experience wasn’t as good at the Bauer Palladio on the Giudecca. A remodeled convent, the hotel and grounds itself were lovely and the island was much quieter than being in the heart of Venice. (For example, we didn’t hear the gondoliers sing “Ciao, Venezia” twice an hour as they floated by.) But the staff were at times cranky and unhelpful plus our door didn’t properly lock the entire 3 days we were there and little was done to address that situation.

 

I’m not going to lie, most of our restaurant recommendations on this last trip were straight out of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations: Venice. We’d had a disastrous time the last time we were there, having gotten lost coming back from a thoroughly average meal the first night and then getting conned into Harry’s the second. By the way, here’s probably a good place to say this:

 

DON’T GO TO HARRY’S

 

Not wanting to repeat the same mistakes, we did some research and by that I mean, we watched an hour of TV while drinking wine.  Best research ever.

 

Fresh bread at Al Covo

Al Covo was on the fancier side, and a little bit more nouvelle than I like to eat when I’m in Italy. For example, when we ordered the baccala mantecato with polenta, we expected it to come with more than a square of polenta about half the size of a ring box and some artistically arranged and burnt slices of what I think was once bread. (The bit of polenta we did get, as well as the baccala, were both very good, however.) And to be fair, one of the toasts wasn’t burnt, although it was sliced so thin most of it was holes and I was perplexed as to how one would spread any of the mantecato on it without it falling through. However, the actual bread plate was one of the highlights of Venice cuisine, all of it being homemade, including these smaller breadsticks that I think were their spin on taralli and tasted like Christmas. (If I had to guess, I would say butter. Lots of it.) And my monkfish in a potato leek fondue with Cosaruciaro beans (8 of them, I counted) was really delicious and the perfect antidote to the heavy tortelloni I spent 5 days in Emilia Romagna eating. (The pancetta wrapped around the fish probably helped.)

Still life of Monkfish with 8 beans

 

We also really enjoyed Da Romano on the island of Burano. The famous risotto Romano wasn’t quite as flavorful as I had hoped, but I was really excited to try my first Sarde in Saor which was sardines cooked with onions and vinegar and a larger than ring box size square of polenta. Plus we washed the whole thing down with a Greco di Tufo that I still dream about and the waiters in their white dinner jackets were thoroughly old school and charming.

Sarde in Saor with that Greco!

 

We also stopped by Locanda Montin in the Dorsiduro, one of the few places that felt really authentic in that everyone who was in there was Italian. Not a fanny pack in site! I had more baccala mantecato, and a mixed fish grill that was very, very fresh.

 

But my favorite dish – and also the least expensive – was at Trattoria Altonella  on the Giudecca. It was a simple spaghetti, cooked perfectly, with a sauce of anchovies and onions. I realize that’s a very specific flavor profile for some people, but if it’s your thing, it doesn’t get any better and that’s even drinking it with red wine as I was, because I had had it with white wine. The one drawback of all that fish is that you have to drink white wine with all of it and while I love a good one as much as the next person, I’m a red wine gal at heart. And it seems criminal to be in Italy where the wine feels practically free after paying all of the tariffs and import fees in the States, and only drinking white wine.

 

But whatever wine you’re drinking, you’ll be fine as long as you –

 

DON’T GO TO HARRY’S.

 

Peggy’s Calder at her Palazzo

 

The one American you will be glad to see is Peggy Guggenheim, whose face adorns the tickets to her palazzo which is now the Guggenheim museum. In addition to her unparalleled collection of modern art, the museum also features a temporary exhibit, and the last two times I was there it was showcasing Italian art from the 60’s. Plus, where else in the world are you going to bask in the sun on her boat launch, taking in both a Calder and the other Palazzi of the Grand Canal. There’s also a statue of a man riding a horse with a rather large penis (the man, not the horse) that our gondolier told us was supposedly detachable and that Peggy used to use as a dildo. (I’m just repeating what I was told so please don’t sue me Guggenheim Foundation.)

 

This last trip we went to the Gallerie Accademia which had an exhibit on the man who basically invented fonts in the 16th century, but which they advertised with a painting of a woman whose boob was hanging out, because nothing about fonts is sexy.

 

Sex sells. Even in the 16th century.

 

I’m being glib, but there is nothing quite like a thoughtfully curated exhibit and both the Accademia and Guggenheim never disappoint. It’s one thing to be able to walk into a museum and see some famous work of art that you appreciate because it’s famous and now you’ve see it. It’s another thing to learn something about the age and culture in which it was created: why it’s famous and how it was influenced by what came before it and influenced what came after. It’s what always pushes a museum over the top for me and leaves me feeling like I’m bringing something home with me: an experience, knowledge or just a new way of thinking about things.

 

In addition to fonts, Aldo Manuzio invented the paperback. It was seen as a status symbol for rich people because it meant that a. they could read and b. they could afford books. It was like a Louis Vuitton bag of its day, accept not ugly and made of plastic, and it would be nice if books were once again status symbols. As footage of any Trump rally will show you we’re already headed towards a culture where we can’t take it for granted that everyone can read.

 

The Basilica di San Marco  is a gold leaf and mosaic assault on the senses whose exterior looks more like the Small World exhibit at Disneyland and for all of these reasons is definitely worth seeing. I recommend getting a ticket that allows you to skip the line. And The Husband’s new favorite building is the Doges’ Palace,  also in Piazza San Marco, which looks amazing but I skipped that day because the English speaking tour started at 8:45.

Houses on Burano.

 

This time around we also got out to the island of Burano. Burano is famous for having the delightfully painted houses that you see in photos all the time and say, “Where is that?” It’s Burano, an island of mostly fishermen who painted their houses like that so that they could see them through the fog. And now hordes of people make their way to the island to stare at their homes, take photos and walk the gauntlet of tourist shops offering Burano lace which apparently isn’t real Burano lace anymore, as real Burano lace is prohibitively expensive. But it is very pretty and also

What breed IS this?

has a large collection of cats that looks as if they came from the Island of Dr. Moreau as they are the strangest mix of breeds I’ve ever seen. As I said, we had a lovely lunch at Da Romano and the boat ride was fun and relaxing, with a triple rainbow over the Burano on our way back.

 

While I find Venice lacking in food, it does not disappoint when it comes to bars. In fact, once we realized that Venice was more of a bar hopping city, we liked it a lot better. Some of the pours aren’t big, but at as little as 3 Euros a glass, who cares? We hit three places this trip that we found fun and charming and were delighted with the wine. (A big thing in bar culture. I’m wary of any place where the only option is some house wine that may have been made from prunes in a toilet and opened 3 weeks ago.) And the convenient thing about the bars is that they will usually have cicchetti, a selection of small bites sitting in a glass container that may have been made that day or may have been made last year, but either way is a cheaper alternative to the other food and in most cases probably just as good. Regardless, at least you’re NOT AT HARRY’S.

 

Bacarando was a wine bar and restaurant we hit before we went to dinner at Al Covo. Small and charming, it seemed populated by only Italians and the staff was friendly and really knew their wine which I thought was amazing.

 

The bar at La Caravella was a bit more upscale being part of a hotel and in close proximity to Le Fenice and Piazzo San Marco. But they offered a full menu of mixed drinks and spirits and each round came with snacks and small bites like white fish on a crostini or ricotta with olive. Plus, it’s where we saw a number of gondoliers drinking before presumably going back out to drag tourists around the laguna, so that was fun.

 

But probably what felt the most authentic was Osteria Stella Polare, a small place that we stumbed into walking back from the Fondamenta Nuove vaporetto stop after returning from Burano. It wasn’t quite 5:00 yet and we sat outside watching people try to avoid the rain while next to us sat and older Veneziano. He had two glasses as people approached him and talked to him before moving on. He and I spoke in Italian about how pretty the rain was before he said something cynical like, “It’s every day. It’s not that pretty.”

 

No, but at least IT’S NOT HARRY’S.

 

And now, the Harry’s story.

 

I’m telling you this so you don’t beat yourself up when you’re traveling. Because we all make mistakes and I made two big ones. Our first night in Venice last time, we sought out a small restaurant off the beaten path that had been recommended to us by an Italian, thinking that we were saving money and not being tourists. Unfortunately, not only was the dinner just OK, but on the way back we got lost, and then got into a fight about it. It was mostly my fault; I have a tremendous sense of direction, even in a place like Venice, and when it fails me it’s a crushing blow to my ego. And I had been doing very well that night, orienting myself with the laguna and remembering places we had passed until it all went to hell, and there we were, two lost Americans fighting in a piazza. Not my finest moment.

 

But I share this because if you’re traveling with a significant other you’re bound to have your share of fights. You’re someplace unknown, you’re jetlagged, you’re drinking….You are not alone. These things happen. The important thing is to have make up sex as soon as possible.

 

So the next night we were determined to avoid any drama, even if that meant sacrificing our desire for off the beaten track authenticity. We were having tea with an older English gentlemen at our hotel who was denouncing the hotel and everywhere in its vicinity as being so expensive when he asked us, “Have you been to Harry’s Bar?”

 

“No,” I said, having heard of it, “Should we go?”

 

“Well, everyone should go once,” he replied nonchalantly. He did not add that it was RIDICULOUSLY expensive, and since he had just been complaining about everywhere that was, it never occurred to us that this may also be the case here. What I knew was that it was so close to the hotel that we couldn’t get lost and that greatly appealed to me, even if it was a bit touristy. I had already accepted that I wasn’t going to get the best meal. I just wanted to avoid a fight.

 

So that night around 9 we walked to Harry’s Bar and I’m happy to say we didn’t get lost. We stopped outside of it and tried to find a menu to look at, only they didn’t have one posted. Instead, a man in a dapper white dinner jacket whisked us inside, took our jackets and sat us at a table. That should have been our first clue. They don’t want you to look at a menu or have time to think. In fact, you don’t even leave through the same side you enter so you can’t meet anyone on their way out who might tell you to turn back.

 

Once we were seated and realized how expensive it was I realized we had two choices: we could go back into Venice at 9:30 at night and try to find some alternative, without a reservation, and hope that we didn’t get lost or get into a fight or we could make the best of things and enjoy each other’s company over a ridiculously priced meal and try to turn it into a story that some day we might laugh over. We did the latter, although The Husband will never laugh over it. But I was the one who eventually paid the bill when the statement came, and I don’t remember it as being this awful experience I never got over. Sometimes when you travel things happen. People fight. And not every experience is a home run. That’s life. Don’t beat yourself up. Enough other amazing things will happen that it will be the last thing you remember about your trip.

 

The Boot Camp: Part 9 – Verona

The view of Verona from Il Teatro Romano

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Verona is a smaller city that often gets overlooked as it’s really only famous for being the fictional home of Romeo’s Juliet. But if you happen to be up north, it’s a really convenient destination for a few days, a mere hour train ride away from Venice.

 

Verona Arena

We bought the Verona card for 15 Euros which really structured our days. The card is good for 48 hours and gets you into a variety of sites for free. This forced us out into the city in a way that we never would have gone on our own. (OK, I never would have gone on my own. My husband needs no excuse to look at several hundred year old structures. But for me, the combination of having a checklist and “free” made it almost an exercise in how much I could game the system. Plus, once you’re getting in for free, you don’t mind leaving a church once you’ve had enough and moving on to the next place.) This does make it a very historical trip, although there is a lot of shopping to be done in Verona, too, and if you go in April, you’ll be there in time for Vinitaly.

 

Verona has the largest collection of ancient Roman artifacts outside of Rome, with it’s own Coliseum and an old Roman theatre across the river. The Teatro Romano  offers wonderful views of the city as well as houses an archaeological museum. The

Sets for Aida at the Arena

Coliseum is known as the Verona Arena and dates back to the 1st century. It’s still in use today having a full schedule of opera and other performances. It was too early in the season to catch it when we went, but I recommend checking into tickets if you know you’re going to be in the area. It would be a stunning place to take in a show.

 

Museo di Castelvecchio  is a 14th century fortress, whose bridge was destroyed by the Germans and then rebuilt to fit the period it was originally made in. They’ve also built onto it a modern sort of wing that is now a museum with old frescoes and statues. In addition to the ancient architecture, it’s fascinating to see how they’ve incorporated the new construction, bringing together the old and the modern in a way that isn’t garish and tries to honor the old without doing some soulless copy.

 

Likewise, Centro Internazionale di Fotagrafia Scavi Scaligeri  combines modern art with the ancient. The photo gallery is actually housed inside the underground excavation of the old Roman street. I was there for a Giorgio Casali exhibit and it was a treat to see his iconic images of 50’s and 60’s Italian style set against ancient Roman cobblestones and aqueducts.

 

The big cuisine of the region is horse, donkey and red wine risotto. I couldn’t bring myself to order the horse or donkey, even though both smelled quite good, and I realized that makes me a gigantic hypocrite, especially as I had just spent 3 days in Emilia Romagna where you could often see dinner wandering around out of your bedroom window. But the good news is the risotto is delicious as is many of the other things I ordered while there.

Don’t let the word get out about Enoteca Segreta.

 

I really enjoyed La Enoteca Segreta for dinner, especially when it came to dessert which was a shortbread cookie with grappa and powdered sugar on it that I still think about on the reg.

 

Another place that people talk about is Antica Bottega del Vino. This place was good, too, but big and packed and the front is also a bar with a small plates menu. As the name might indicate, they have an insane wine list.

 

Lastly, there was a place we went for lunch in Dante’s house. It was on the expensive side for lunch, but we just liked the guy. I don’t know. He had an 80′s playlist and was friendly. There was a fried egg with truffles that we enjoyed as well as the red wine risotto. And he had wines by the half bottle which is sometimes handy. Many places in Europe don’t really do wines by the glass and the ones they have aren’t that great. (Contrary to what you hear, I don’t think the “house wine” is all that great.) Ristorante Milio e Santa Anastasia.

 

Piazza delle’erbe at night

And definitely stop into one of the cafes at Piazza Erbe for an aperitivo before or a drink after dinner. It’s also where I bought one of my favorite pairs of shoes ever.

 

Verona is in Valpolichella and Amarone country and if you can get out of the city and do a wine tour, I would recommend it. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t recommend the tour we used. I thought it was overpriced for only taking us to two wineries, and the guides were a little stiff. In an industry already known for being pretentious, I find the people of Amarone country to be even more arrogant. The first place we went was Quintarelli which poured us thimble sized tastes with the seriousness of a surgeon opening a child’s heart. It didn’t put us in a moode to buy, nor did the price which had little to nothing under 3 figures and quickly moved into the 4 figured. We did however, have them take us to Valentina Cubi on a friend of ours recommendation and the family who ran this place was down to Earth and lovely.

 

The Boot Camp: Part 8 – Puglia

 

The coast of the Gargano.

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If Bologna is the Boston of Italy, Puglia is the Cape Cod. I first heard about Puglia as a destination about 5 years ago when my friend told me that she heard it was great. “Italians are just starting to discover it,” she explained. Indeed when you go there, it has the feel, not of an International tourist destination, but as some place that local families have been going to in the summer for generations. I think we saw one other American couple there the whole time and our question when we met them was, “How did you hear about this place?”

 

Turns out they were students on an exchange program: he was in Rome and she was in Florence, or vice versa. They had been in Italy for about 6 months and were now traveling at the end of their school year. When the waiter, who spoke no English, brought them their check, the guy handed him a bill and asked for “twenty three” in change.

 

I looked at The Husband. “He’s been here six months and he doesn’t know how to say ‘twenty three?’”

 

The Husband shrugged, “I’ve been here a bunch and I don’t know that I know how to say ‘twenty three.’”

 

“What’s the largest size coffee at Starbucks?”

 

“Venti?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

My judgment aside, the couple was on their way to Croatia. Puglia is the “heel” of the boot, in southeast Italy, across the Adriatic from Croatia and Albania. It may be too far south to conveniently fit into another itinerary, unless you’re doing a swing of Calabria and Basilicata, too. We broke up the drive down from Rome with a stop overnight in Campagnia to go to a winery but there is an airport in Bari, too, that you can fly into.

 

If you’re in the mood for a beach vacation, Puglia has some of the most dramatic

The beach in Polignano a Mare

coastline I’ve ever seen: sheer cliffs bleached white with sea caves and clear blue water.

 

We stayed in two places while in Puglia. Polignano a Mare, had all of that Cape feel that I was talking about. Your waiter from the night before would be getting drunk in the bar across the street. The beaches were populated with vacationers who would bring a chair and a sandwich in the morning and then hang there all day. Kids would snorkel and catch shrimp to cook later. After dinner one evening, we walked towards the main square. As we got closer we could hear a band playing “Volare” like we were in a movie about Italy forty years ago. The band was made up of people of all ages and in front of them was a quartet of baton twirlers ranging in age from about 5 to 16, too. (As we would later find out, it’s where the man who wrote “Volare” is from and in fact there’s a statue to him on the other side of town.)

Our hotel room was right on the street facing another smaller square, and we would go out at night with a glass of wine and sit on the steps and watch people walking around with gelato or also sneaking a beverage: groups of teenagers, twentysomethings on dates, older married couples, families. Everyone was out enjoying the night; no one was in a hurry.

 

The view of the restaurant from our room.

Speaking of our room, we stayed at the Grotta Palazzese,  and which I found through a list that circulated on Facebook. Yes, reader, it’s true! We already knew we were going to Puglia when I read a list of the most spectacular restaurants that you can’t believe are real or something and one of them was the cave restaurant at the Grotta Palazzese. We booked both dinner at the restaurant and 3 nights in the hotel. Note: not all the rooms are as amazing as ours. You have to be sure to ask for a room with a view and there aren’t many.

 

The restaurant itself is such a surreal location of breathtaking beauty that the meal is never going to live up to it, which is really too bad because you’re paying 37 Euros a dish. Which isn’t to say the food isn’t good: the seafood is very fresh and the tuna I had for my secondi was cooked perfectly. It’s just not going to blow you away. But that’s OK because the cave you’re eating in will.

 

Polignano a Mare is made up of belached white buildings that create a maze of side streets and cafes and stores. A word about the beaches: they are rocky. Fortunately, you can get a pair of beach booties for 12 Euro in town and you’re going to need them. But once I had them, I was unstoppable. Also, rather than try to make camp with our towels on the rock beach, we rented two chairs at a restaurant called Fly for 20 Euros for the day. Both the booties and the chairs were solid investments.

 

We had gelato every day, sometimes twice, and I highly recommend both Millennium  and Caruso. We also had dinner one night at Pizzeria e Fichi which was cute and casual. And we also went to Villa d’Arancia. Eat outside overlooking the grove and gardens that you can also walk around. The grounds are beautiful and while the meal itself didn’t stand out, at the time I did think the octopus tasted fresh and was well cooked.

 

The trulli of Alberbello

One of the reasons The Husband had been wanting to go to Puglia for years was that he had been reading about and seeing pictures of the town of Alberobello, a Unesco world heritage site famous for 1,000’s of 700 year old Hobbit house-like huts known as trulli. They are remarkable and many places will offer you the experience to stay in a trulli. Here’s my advice: visit the trulli, stay someplace else. We pulled into Alberobello around lunchtime and had a fantastic meal at Il Poeta Contadino  . The food was the great kind of simple that was wonderful. We emerged from our meal with a carafe of the local white in us, only to find ourselves in the middle of downtown Disney. Up every street in the town were people trying to sell us tea towels and spoon rests and salt and pepper shakers, all with trulli on them. It was…overwhelming. Then I may have hit my head on one of Frodo’s low ceilings, with a crack so loud a stranger inquired as to my well being, while The Husband kept right on snapping photos of fucking trulli, and a spat may have ensued. Then some woman tried to charge me 50 cents to pee in a public restroom, which didn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that I only had a 20 Euro note on me and she refused to both change it or let me pee which made me want to just pee right there. I should also mention that we were there in July so it was extra hot and extra crowded. An average day in April might be a little less fraught. If you’re looking for something a bit quieter, a friend says the drive from Alberobello to Martina Franca has the best trulli scenery and is truly idyllic. Plus once you’re there you can get some of the capicolla they’re famous for.

 

We also went to the town of Lecce, which is supposed to be a cool baroque city, but the day we went it was 100 degrees and we ended up not having the best of experiences and a fight instead. I don’t remember what we fought about, but do you need a reason when it’s 100 degrees and humid? The weirdest thing about the day we spent in Lecce was that we got off the train and it was a ghost town, so much so that the two men who were on the street behind us made us nervous, and neither one of us are prone to get like that when we travel. We wandered through side streets, consulting the map for main streets, the whole time still seeing no one. It was 11, 11:30 on a Sunday morning, certainly late enough that you would see people at a café, or walking home from church or something. But we saw no one, save the two men who were going to rob us, for something insane like 20, 25 minutes. We saw empty wine bars, empty restaurants. It looked like a fun town. When we finally did see people it was on a particularly tourist friendly street, lined with shops that sold Pinocchios or whatever on the sidewalk. Admittedly, the desolation followed by the sudden and intense wave of tourists did little to encourage a feeling of excitement about where we were. We finally sat down in a small rustic café, wanting to get a little snack before lunch. The Husband had researched a restaurant that served amazing fried vegetables (and if you’ve read previous posts you know that he is a fanatic about his Italian fried vegetables) so he wanted to eat lunch there. But as I said, it was 100 degrees and we kind of needed to sit and put something in our stomachs and hydrate.

 

We sat down in the bar, where a friendly woman spoke to me in Italian while I ordered a bottle of sparkling water, a plate of local cheeses, and she helped me to select two glasses of local white wine for us. She then offered us capacolla from Martina Franca, which I declined because this was just supposed to be a snack and she was never nice to us again. I had no idea what we did wrong. I was speaking to her in Italian, she seemed to understand me fine and I her. She was absolutely lovely. Then I noticed the other tables who sat down after us were getting their food before us and she was a lot less lovely.

 

My Roman friend later told me that so much of the South had been poor for so long, if they have something and they offer to share it with you it’s considered an insult to refuse. “Sharing” seems like a strong word for something I was paying for, but I will assume he’s correct since he was born there and I wasn’t. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly encouraging me to stay in a town I was already having a bizarre time in, especially when I had a room in a beach town and a bikini waiting for me.  We never even made it to the place we wanted to go for lunch. I don’t remember why. It may have been closed…? Honestly, I just remember heat.

 

But I’ve heard so many great things about it from friends who have been there that I would be willing to go again and give it a second try. And where else are you going to start fixing a toilet in a Trattoria and end up unearthing a tomb dating before Christ?

The beach at Baia die Faraglioni

 

After three nights in Polignano a Mare, we drove up the coast to the more remoteGargano, which is an area of Puglia that I believe is some sort of protected National park. We stayed at the Baia dei Faraglioni, named for the rock formations sticking out of the water on the private beach where you will be swimming.

 

The grounds are beautiful and the hotel even has a spa that we never got a chance to try. As I said, this is more remote than Poligano a Mare: there’s no town to walk around and if you want to leave the resort, you have to get in your car to go someplace. However, the good news is that there’s plenty to do both on the grounds and off.

 

The hotel can arrange different tours for you. We did a tour of the sea caves in a boat that was spectacular, despite the surly Italian captain who brought his girlfriend along. (What is it with these Italian sea captains and their mistresses!?) There’s also hiking that we never had the time for, but would definitely do if we went again.

 

There’s also two towns to visit: Peschichi and Vieste, although we only went to Vieste

Oysters at Capriccio

and all we did there was eat an amazingly fresh seafood meal with the most amazing fresh baked bread ever. I know all we did. Vieste is known for it’s old town, but by the time we got going that morning, the drive there was so beautiful so we stopped a lot along the way, then we had to park in town and find the centro storico, well, by then we were getting both hot and hungry which we realized after Lecce wasn’t a great combination. One of the managers at our hotel had recommended Il Capriccio for lunch and so we made our way there.

 

The drive to Vieste.

What’s funny is that it was a bit of a hike from where we were, then we got there only to find that men were doing construction right outside the restaurant, complete with a jackhammer and the smell of fresh tar, and when they could close the windows in the restaurant which didn’t help the heat even with the AC and didn’t do much to cut out the noise although we did smell less tar. However, it remains one of the best meals that we still talk about to this day. We lost our minds so much over the bread alone, that they brought the chef and owner out who told us that he had another restaurant, La Piana della Bataglia, where he let the pizza dough rise without yeast for 72 hours and we decided to go there for dinner, to the somewhat shock of the manager of the hotel who couldn’t understand why we wanted to drive 45 minutes to go to a “pizza place.” The “pizza place” was in the hills, in the middle of vines and an olive grove but still with a view of the water. The owner’s wife came out and met us, having already heard about us from her husband. (I’m guessing it’s quite shocking to Italians to have people so into your bread.)   And we had an amazing wine, an Uva di troia that wasn’t even on the menu, but that the waiter recommended anyway and was sure to decant.

From Volare in the town square to finding a restaurant hidden in the hills, Puglia was kind of magical. Except for when I hit my head. And the fight in Lecce.

 

 

 

 

 

Girl Comic Interrupted

Somewhere in Boston there exists footage of me being interviewed about what it’s like to be a female comic. I was brand new and sharing the spotlight with two veteran female comics. Inevitably the question came up about how we were being treated by male comics. Me and my ponytail and signature plaid skirt sunnily said, “Some of my biggest support has come from male comics. They’ve been really helpful.”

I’d like to thank those other two women for not strangling me with my ponytail.

It’s not that male comics weren’t helpful to me; some did help me get gigs including the man I would later marry. And I never felt like sex was their motivation, even, sadly, with the man I would later marry. But thinking back on it I want to strangle myself with my own ponytail because I just didn’t get it. I didn’t know.

Of course male comics were very helpful to me. I was young, I was cute and most importantly, I wasn’t threatening.

Unlike the veteran women I was sharing the camera with, I wasn’t going to steal their weekend headlining spots, or their week night hosting gig. I was happy to do five minutes and I was sweating it if I had to stretch to ten. I wasn’t considered a pain in the ass yet, asking uncomfortable questions like why I wasn’t getting ahead as fast as my male peers or being paid as much or why there was always only one woman on the show, if we were lucky. All experiences these other women, who politely sat there and smiled at me, I’m sure shared; experiences that I would have my own versions of in the years to come.

What remained unspoken in my answer, the counterpoint to my “male comics have been really helpful” was of course, “female comics have not.” Again, I didn’t get it. And PS, I considered myself a HUGE feminist.

The truth is it is easier for a man to help a woman, than it is for a woman to help another. Again, I am not threatening to a man. I am not in competition with him. The spot I was going to be taking wasn’t his; it was the one allotted female spot. You know who that is threatening to? Every other female who was trying to get it.

Those women didn’t help me before and they didn’t help me after. Few women did. But I don’t begrudge any of them that. I am not bitter towards them. They worked too hard for that spot to risk losing it. I’m bitter towards the system that made it one spot.

If a man recommends a woman and someone doesn’t find her funny, it won’t be seen as a referendum on his entire career. However, if a woman recommends another woman who doesn’t do as well, it will be seen as a reflection of what she finds funny. Women are on thin ice in the funny department anyway. They don’t need another reason for someone to call her work, “Just all right” or “Cute;” for someone to question her judgment.  Often a women’s recommendation doesn’t carry as much weight as a man’s to begin with. Men know what’s funny. But women can’t always back another woman who’s just as funny as the guys. You have to back a woman who’s funnier than the guys. Because just as funny as the guys isn’t good enough. She has to be undeniable. Otherwise you are wasting your cred. You might be looked at as unfunny. And women in general might be looked at as not funny. When a white man isn’t good enough, he’s not representing his entire sex or race. It’s just one guy who’s not funny. When a woman isn’t funny, it only adds fuel to the “women aren’t funny fire.”

 

I love having male allies and I have had some great ones. I just wish a male ally wasn’t more valid than having a woman saying the exact same thing. Especially when it comes to things that we have first hand experience of.  I wish it didn’t take Hannibal Burress for people to start talking about the allegations about Cosby just as much as I’m glad that he did it. I wish people could have believed the women who came forward about him originally. And I wish more men could understand this conundrum. Because sometimes what the good guys who are helping women don’t see is all the ones who don’t. They think because they don’t see sex that their peers – guys they like and are friends with – don’t either.

It’s the same way I don’t always understand how insidious racism and homophobia can be because it’s not part of my worldview. During the 2004 election, I was so tired of hearing, “You just like Hillary Clinton just because she’s a woman.” My mantra became, “You would never say to a person of color, ‘You just like Obama because he’s black.’” What I meant was, “I would never say.” The truth is, what the fuck do I know about what people of color are being accused of when it comes to supporting Obama? Had I ever asked? Nope. I just assumed because I wouldn’t say it, that these people wouldn’t either. The truth is that if they were comfortable accusing me of being some idiot who didn’t vote on issues but on gender, then they were probably very comfortable accusing others of something similar.

My heart was in the right place. Just like the hearts of many men I know are in the right place. Just like my heart was in the right place all those years ago in Boston. Our hearts our open; it’s our heads that need expanding. If the men had treated me badly I would have said something when I was asked. But I naively assumed my experience was somehow universal; that sexism was over or maybe even worse, that I was somehow special. I didn’t think there was a problem. I hadn’t had their struggles. (And by the way, I would see the ugly side soon enough. Date one male comic and you get to see all sorts of biases and double standards.)

Is it any better today? No. Like everything else it’s not linear. There are always good experiences and bad. Some of the worst sexism I’ve experienced has been in the last few years. I’ve met some women far more willing to put themselves out there for each other and I’ve also met some women who are very publicly “up with women” who, unprovoked, have behaved like total twats to me. If you believe social media there seems to be a rift – in my opinion manufactured largely by men and the media – between older and younger women and feminism is the battleground. While I prefer to not put myself in either category, I do know what I wish I could say to my younger self. “You don’t know what’s come before you. And you don’t know what’s going to come in your future either.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boot Camp: Part 7 – Bologna

The Husband and I like to call Bologna “the Boston of Italy” which really sends the wrong message if you’ve ever met a drunk Red Sox fan, lived through the bus riots, or were the victim of a mass cover up by the Catholic Church. When I say Bologna is like Boston, I don’t mean the belligerent racist part that looks the other way at child molestation. I mean the part that has good museums and people who buy you shots at 2 am.

 

Like Boston, Bologna is a “second city,” one that is often skipped travelers’ first time around. I get it. It’s no Rome or Manhattan. But just a few hours away, it will sit there quietly for centuries, with its Universities and history and good food and good times. Known as “the red, the fed, and the learned” or (“La Rossa, La Grassa e La Dotta”) it’s home to the first university in the world and known for their food and left leaning politics. It’s also home to old churches, great architecture and majestic piazzas; a great place to sit outside with a glass of wine and plate of cheese and watch the people go by – most of whom when we went were Italian and therefore helped us to feel less like a tourist.

 

Our first night in Bologna we were returning to our hotel after dinner. It was probably close to midnight. We turned down the small street our hotel was on, and across the street was a small café that people were spilling out of, drinking and laughing on the street. We went to open the door to the hotel only it was locked. And that’s when one of the guys from the bar appeared. He was short and stocky, with red hair that had a flower barrette in it. I probably wondered at that moment if I’d had too much to drink. Clearly one of us had. He pointed out to us that we were at the wrong door; the main entrance was further down. We thanked him and went inside.

 

Once in our room, we realized we just weren’t tired. We were still jetlagged having only landed a few days before. We both looked at each other and were thinking the same thing, so much so that I can’t remember who said it. “You want to go to that bar across the street?”

 

We returned and drank for the next couple of hours. The man with the barrette got us our drinks and asked us where we were from. When we told him Los Angeles, he dragged us outside to meet a friend of his who frequently had business out in LA and couldn’t stop talking about medical marijuana while he openly smoked a joint

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on the street and bitched about Bologna. Someone played Diana Ross. It was magical. It was the type of place where I felt comfortable doing something you should never feel comfortable doing: leaving my purse with both my passport and cash on a table while I drank and talked outside and drank and danced inside. (Author’s note: it was totally fine and all there when I left.)

 

While we’ve been to Italy a lot, we’ve never made friends before, but on this particular trip we would make a lot. I feel like the first night in Bologna set the tone. When we finally went to pay our tab, I don’t recall ever being given one. What I do remember instead is that when we asked for our check, we were given shots of vodka. We don’t drink vodka. But we just looked at each other again like, “Are we going to do this?” And so that night, after a day of drinking wine since lunch, we finished it with vodka.

 

No surprise, we slept until 11:30 the next morning, missing the hotel’s breakfast, which I would find out the next day was really lovely.

Blanket Installation: Day 1

Speaking of: we were sleeping and missing breakfast at the Hotel Metropolitan which I can’t say anything bad about. The location was in the center of town, walking distance to everything. The hotel itself was decorated in a modern Italian elegance of all white. My favorite touch was what I came to call the blanket installation. It was a black blanket at the foot of our all white bed that every day would be artfully arranged in a different fashion.

 

Blanket Installation: Day 2

The hotel can also help you with parking should you be driving. The center of Bologna has restricted driving and you will need to leave you car in a garage a few blocks away and then walk to your hotel with your bags. You will also want to ask about a form that you need to fill out so that you don’t end up getting ticketed months later when someone looking at traffic cam footage sees that you drove you car through the restricted area. I don’t quite understand it all. I was lucky that I have a husband who does extensive research on banalities such as this, because the guy at the garage was zero help and we would have left without filling out the form.

 

You can also reach Bologna by train. That may be preferable.

 

Perhaps my favorite part of Bologna was the modern art museum, MAMBO,  which is such a treat because while Italy is home to so much great art, so little that you see was done in the last century. It’s a nice break from all the frescoes of the baby Jesus. There’s a lot of great pieces from when Bologna was a hot bed of political protests in the 60’s and 70’s, as well as more recent stuff. And also in the same structure is the Museo Morandi, housing the works of Giorgio Morandi, a 20th century painter from Bologna. My favorite part of this exhibit is the way they sometimes pair his works with more modern ones that have similar subjects or influences, including a piece called “Not Morandi.”

 

View of Bologna from the top of the tower.

There’s a gigantic tower that you can climb for fantastic vistas of the city, or that you can send your husband to climb if that’s his jam and you hate heights. The good news here is that Bologna is a great walking city, even in the rain, being home to porticos on almost every block. The way I understand it, when they were looking for places to house the students of the University, they built out onto the second story of existing structures, this additional level now providing a sheltered walkway for everyone on the street. You can go blocks and blocks while it’s raining which will be useful if you want to shop for shoes while your husband is climbing stairs like a mountain goat with an expensive camera.

 

Porticos provide cover from the rain.

You can plot out your destinations – we went to the museum and the Church of the Seven Churches and The Husband climbed the tower –  but we also had a lovely time when we just wandered around and discovered things, too. One day we made our way into part of the University that housed both one of the oldest autopsy rooms as well as a great exhibit of International illustrators. Afterwards we had a drink in a divey, rock bar called something about Infidels that was full of pornographic cartoons and the first of many somewhat indifferent and belligerent owners in Bologna.

 

Definitely research your restaurants beforehand. I say this because Bologna is known for having some of the best food in all of Italy (which is truly saying something) and I don’t think we gave it as much thought as we could have. Case in point: we had read about the popular Drogheria della Rosa, only when we went to eat there our first night, they were booked up. We made a reservation for the next night, but weren’t sure were to go after that. (NOTE: We did go back the next night and after a bumpy start we ended up sharing two bottles of excellent wine with owner! I don’t know what it is about that town, but again, Boston of Italy.)

 

We walked around until we came to Osteria de’ Poeti  which to this day we argue

Osteria de’Poeti

about how much we liked. Maybe because that was the night we drank vodka at 3 am. Looking back on my notes, the meal was lovely. The Husband got the passetelli in brodo and I had a tortellone stuffed with the most delicious, rich, creamy ricotta and then finished off with a truffle sauce. (Tortellini and the larger tortellone are the big pasta in Bologna.) They also asked if we wanted to sit in the “piano bar” which we said yes to without quite realizing it was actually more of a “synthesizer karaoke bar”, but it was fun anyway because it meant that actual Italians were eating there and that’s always a good sign.

 

Maybe the meal that blew me away the most was the cheese plate at Tamburini. We had already had lunch, but stopped at their outdoor café for a glass of wine, or maybe it was a bottle (we drank a LOT in Bologna, see Boston above) and we had to order a cheese plate because it looked so amazing and it was probably the best cheese I’ve had in all of Italy, and I was so mad that we’d had lunch and couldn’t finish it and I took what was left with us to our next destination the following day.

Pasta selection at Tamburini

 

Tamburini is also a great place to buy fresh pasta, cheeses and meats to take back to your place if you’re staying in some sort of rental with a kitchen. In addition to

Markets.

being a great way to save money, Bologna is one of the best places to do this, having a large outdoor market of fish, vegetables and other culinary treats.

 

Another great thing to do is to visit nearby Modena, where they make balsamic vinegar, including the balsamico extra vecchio, which is 25-30 years old and a real labor of love. We toured the Pedroni Acetaia  and got to eat lunch there, as well, which was a wonderful experience. Il padrone doesn’t just make you turn your phone off while you eat, he then locks up everyone’s phone, as well. And heaven help you if your phone goes off while locked up. He will know you ignored his instructions to turn it off, and on the day we were there he went around to every table looking for the corresponding key to the offending box.

 

Also, turns out Modena is a great town! It’s cute and stylish with a thriving café and bar scene. And it’s home to a 12th century Cathedral that is a UNESCO world heritage site.  But also, about 500 feet away, is San Francesco, a smaller church known for its terra cotta statues, that The Husband never would have seen if he hadn’t met a church nerd in the cathedral who told him he really had to check this one out.

We spent one night in Modena in a really charming place, Hotel Cervetta 5, that unfortunately seemed to suffer from a lot of street noise all night. And we ate dinner at Fantino, which is a meal we talk about to this day. The waiter who was probably also the owner said to me, “Sono la carta” “I am the menu” and gave us only two options for each course, which was perfect because we each chose one. There was a tortelloni in butter & sage and a tortellini in brodo. (I told you, it’s the big pasta there.) Our second courses were ribs braised in Lambrusco and a chicken cooked only in balsamic was amazing and perfectly glazed and I try to recreate at home to this day to varying results. And then potatoes! Always with those potatoes in Italy!

Bologna and Modena are in the province of Emilia Romana, which is also known for having some of the best food in Italy. (Again, how is this even possible?) If you want to get out of the city, we also stayed 3 nights at the Antica Corte Palla Vicina, an old castle turned hotel and Michelin starred restaurant, complete with a moat.

 

Peacocks roam free at Palla Vicina

This is a great place for foodies, not so much vegans. At Pallavicina you will see and smell ox and other animals walking around outside your room and they may be dinner that night. Likewise, the chef here is world renowned for his culatello, a premiere prosciutto that is cured right in the basement of where you’re staying. In addition to touring the basement the hotel can also set up tours of local cheese factories and wineries, too. The restaurant at Palla Vicina is the most perfect mix of the old architecture with the modern and as a result you dine in a light filled room with views of the surrounding scenery on the banks of the Po River. The wait staff is impeccable. And the food is outstanding. In addition to having plenty of the culatello that it’s known for, we couldn’t get enough of the delicate soffiti, a small, delicate cheese dumpling, in brodo.

 

Palla Vicina is outside of Zibello, near Parma, which in addition to being famous for the cheese, is reportedly where all the chefs train. There’s actually 2 Michelin star

Parmagiano aging

restaurants in the tiny town of Zibello, that’s how good the food is. We went to Stella D’oro in the off season and the chef himself waited on us. Yes, the Michelin starred one.

 

Our trip broke down a little bit here. After waking up early the first morning to a decadent breakfast so that we could tour the cheese factory and the winery by lunch (The cheese factory had to be done early because of the cows, the winery, well why not? We were already up.) We overslept the next day so egregiously that they had to wake us up after noon because the maid couldn’t get in to the room. (To be fair this was after our lost weekend in Bologna.) After that we were at a loss for what to do. We borrowed bikes to ride into the next town only when we got to the restaurant that we had researched and wanted to eat lunch at, it seems we had failed to research that they would actually be closed the day we went. So we rode back to the hotel. The chef himself (again – Michelin starred) had brought the bikes out for us with explicit instructions to not lose the lock or the key and so of course what did we do, we lost the key! I don’t know how it happened. The Husband and I suffer from a crippling amount of OCD so when someone tells us not to lose something, we really go out of our way to make sure we don’t. And yet, the key was gone. We road up and down the same stretch of road looking for it, thinking that perhaps it had bounced both out of the lock, out of the bag and then out of the basket we were carrying it in. No luck. We had to go back, hanging our heads in shame, and tell a Michelin starred chef we had lost his key, and missed lunch, (and we already slept through breakfast) so could his staff prepare us a plate of cold meats and cheese and, oh yeah, a bottle of wine wouldn’t go undrunk. Feeling like losers who had to do something useful we then drove into Busseto to go to the Verdi Museum.

 

There was a church across the street that we walked into and fairly quickly walkedback out of, being a little churched out at this point of the trip. Outside of the church was an older man, cutting herbs in the garden outside of it. He said to me in Italian that we hadn’t spent enough time in there, that we had missed the terracotta

Terra cotta statues

statues. I know, what is it with these terra cotta statues? Well, they’re amazing. It was the scene of Christ’s death, only two of the statues were modeled off of actual patrons and the realism is scary. They’re over 600 years old and look like a photo. It was a unique experience, not just the statues, but having the man who pointed out to us what we were missing.

Terra cotta statues