When Nutmeg Met Basil

On my last day in Paris, I waited in line for an hour freezing to see Saintes-Chappelles, one of the touristy sights I missed the last time around.  The hold-up was the bag scanner at the front of the line.  The French policeman checking the bags was extremely meticulous (he made TSA agents look juvenile.)

When I finally got in, it was worth the wait!

Inside Saintes Chappelles

Versailles Outdoor Market

I’ve always wanted to see Versailles, ever since I read about the Hall of Mirrors and the French Revolution in High School history class.  I didn’t realize how far away it was from Paris (about a 45 minute subway ride), so the last time I was there, I missed it.

I’m definitely coming back, though, because Versailles is like Disneyland.  You need at least a day to see and do everything!  We saw the whole palace and took our time exploring the town of Versailles, which was very sweet and sleepy on a Sunday, except for the open-air market.  But we didn’t walk much in the gardens, which I’m sure are nicer in the summer anyway.  And I would have loved to see the play-farm that Marie Antoinette constructed, but it was a mile’s walk through the gardens, and we didn’t have time.

my breakfast at the outdoor market

Here’s a few shots from inside Versailles:

Marie Antoinette's Bedroom

sunday afternoon in the town of versailles

I’ve wanted to see Shakespeare & Co. since I read A Moveable Feast in high school.  The legendary bookstore served the likes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce. and Pound from 1919 until World War II, when it shut down.  The store I visited was founded in the fifties in honor of the original, and served as a focal point of Beat literature.  Apparently it also has a hostel/commune, although I didn’t see that.  I did see a bunch of interesting reads.  The store was incredibly cramped in a charming way, with a narrow, one-direction-only type staircase leading to the second level.

inside the bookstore

Quite a lot, I suppose.  And I feel really bad that I haven’t written about it on my blog.  But I have been taking lots of photos and preparing a bunch of posts.  So, to atone for my long silence, I am promising myself that I will update When Nutmeg Met Basil every single day until I return to America!  Can I do it?  I hope so.  Some of the posts will be short, but there will be activity.

Part One: Adventures at Home & Away!

Let me look back through my photos so that I can remember…

In Paris!

I had a really great weekend in Paris with my fantastic friend Gaelle, who lives on the Ile St Louis, right in the center of Paris.  Since I had already seen most of the touristy sights last time I visited, we spent our time shopping, people-watching, and partaking whole-heartedly in the culinary delights of France.

Plus, there was the added benefit that I forced her to tell me words in French, and then embarrassed her by trying to speak French to the Parisian waiters who of course all spoke English.  And then I embarrassed her more by taking pictures of my food in restaurants.  During the course of the weekend I realized that French is awesome and I need to learn it, and I also learned that French food is awesome and I need to eat it again….and I realized that Paris is incredible and I’m coming back to stay with Gaelle again before she leaves.

a sundrenched salad topped with chevre on toast

to be continued….

I’m back in Sant’Ilario now, and happily reunited with kids and dogs.  Yes, some days it feels like I have four charges: the two Italian kids, their Parisian dog Lola, and her one-month-old puppy, Lucy.

I like to think that Lucy and I have a special bond.  She was born a few days after I arrived, and I thought she was the ugliest thing I had ever seen.  She looked like a palm-sized brown blind rat.  But then I touched her–and I had never touched anything softer than her fur.

None of the kids could decide what to name her.  Claire, Vittoria, Fufu, Spike?  I came up with the name Lucy.  For some reason I had been thinking about the name for a while.  Maybe because it derives from the Latin root for light.  Maybe because I am nostalgic for Nick At Night reruns.

Everyone liked that name, so Lucy she was.  I was so proud to have named her.

For the first few weeks she did nothing but drink milk and sleep.  As my time here in Italy progressed, I saw her get bigger and bigger.  Sometimes I thought she was growing so fast that it felt like watching one of those fast-forwarded videos of how a flower blooms.  Every day when I came to work she was a little bigger.  And if I didn’t see her for a few days, I couldn’t believe the change when I came back!

The kids LOVE Lucy.  They run to her basked and cuddle with her the second they get home from school.  But who am I kidding?  I run and cuddle her the second that I get to work.

For a while, D and I and Lola and Lucy took afternoon walks together.  Seven-year-old D on her pink roller blades (i roller), holding my hand and cradling Lucy in her other arm.  I had Lola’s leash in my other arm.  “Run, Beth!”  D shouted.  Lola and I would take off, dragging D and Lucy behind us.

Lola was supposed to have four puppies, but according to the vet, two were reabsorbed.  (?)  One was stillborn.  So Lucy is an only child, which means that she got fat.  No other puppies to play with, and all of mama’s milk to herself. If you put her on the floor, she swam along it rather than walk.

One day I decided to teach her to walk.  So I straightened out her spindly legs and supported her giant tummy with my hand.  I was shocked to see that she got it!  From that day forward she loved walking.  But she hasn’t quite mastered turning yet–she can only go forward or backwards.

After 7 weeks in Italy (just over halfway through my 90-day tourist visa), it is a great feeling to be back in Tuscany, seeing familiar sights and familiar faces.

Emilia Romagna is an awesome region with fantastic food and great people, but it can never win over the space in my heart dedicated to Florence.

Florence was where I learned Italian, so the Florentine accent is the one I prefer.  Florence was where I discovered the joys of la cucina italiana–so I’ll always feel at home with its food.

And most of all, Florence was where I immersed myself in the family culture of the Italian table.  One of the major things I realized in the process of writing this blog and returning to Italy is that above and beyond the quality of Italian food, the element of Italy I held closest to my heart was the family food culture.

Italy Travel Tip: Always climb the towers.

No matter what city you are in, if there’s a tower (or a comparable element, like the Duomo in Florence) pay the two or three euro and climb it!  There’s no elevator, so forget your claustrophobia and fear of heights, and make sure you empty your bladder right before you enter the narrow, twisting staircase to the top.

Inside the tower

After what might seem like a treacherous climb (and it’s definitely enough of a workout to burn off whatever you ate for lunch), you will emerge from the gloom of the tower’s inside onto a breathtakingly gorgeous view of the city (and a chance to catch your breath after all the stairs.)

Here are three things I love about Italy:

1. Sundays.
2. Sunny Days.
3. Establishments that are cafe/bar/coffeeshop/bakery.

Given the above information, there was no way that I couldn’t love Zanarini Pasticceria (Piazza Galvani 1, Bologna.)

We visited on a beautiful sunny Sunday, our second day in Bologna, for a late, relaxed breakfast, which we took standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the bar with Bolognese families showing off with equal pride their children and their dogs.  As a serious, focused barista poured champagne, spritz, and espresso in front of us, we enjoyed croissants, cakes, and cappuccini.

Piazza Galvani, view from Zanarini

My friends ate the croissants.  I had to sample one of the fabulous-looking cakes.  It was a nearly impossible decision but I finally selected a crostata di mascarpone e mandorle (almonds.)  It was creamy, not too sweet, with a dry, crumbly, crust, like most Italian cakes.

torta di mascarpone e noci

Let me clarify, though–the quality of the food was not the reason I loved Zanarini.  It was the scene.

1. It was Sunday, a day that Italians believe God created purely for pleasurable rest and recovery involving food, coffee, mid-day alcohol, long walks in the city or the country with your family and your dogs, encountering your neighbors for chit-chat, gossip, and general aggiornamenti (updates), and soccer.
2. It was sunny, the first sunny morning I had experienced in Italy since arriving.  The Italian sun is legendary for a reason, and you have to feel it and see it to completely understand (if that’s not an option, try listening to O’ Sole Mio.)
3. Almost every bar has outstanding coffee, good food, and a relaxed vibe, but Zanarini had a great selection of pastries, a big, comfortable area for eating at the bar or at tables, plus an upstairs sitting area, and a fun, happy, family vibe.

For other perspectives on Zanarini, check out World Foodie Guide and Greedy Diva.

Is good pizza worth surly service?  Only you can make the call.

Pizzeria da Nicolo was heralded as “supposedly” Bologna’s best pizza on the World Foodie Guide‘s Where To Eat In Bologna.  I used Helen’s recommendations on that site to find a bunch of other good places, but she never actually ate at Nicolo, so I can’t fault her.

The restaurant had fantastic and patriotic décor, with the walls painted in bright red and green hues and plastered with paintings of boats off of Sorrento and poppies in the fields of Campagna.  We each ordered a pizza (A quattro stagioni with mushrooms, prosciutto cotto, artichokes, and sausage was 6.50;  A cappricciosa with mushrooms, prosciutto cotto, and artichokes was 5.50).  At those prices, we thought, the pizzas must be individual size.  But no, they were enormous, their extra edges drooping off of the plates we were given like dogs’ ears.

Quattro Stagioni

The pizza was good, but certainly not the best I’ve had in Italy.  It can’t compare to Pizza Man in Florence or a little pizza place I went to in Parma the other day.

What stands out in my memory more than the food was the service.  It was surly at best and downright belligerent at worst.  Our waiter was sweaty, bitter, and overworked, and he begrudged us even the measly bottle of water and 3 pizzas he brought us.  We had to remind him that we existed several times during the meal, and when we asked to take a few slices of the enormous pizza home, he acted like he personally went to the cardboard factory to make the box for us.  And we could only have one.

I know that Italians don’t take home leftovers, but I think he could have spared the extra box.

Anyway, the box he did give us was so large (the size of a regular pizza) that I carried it around the city in front of my like a toy dog for the rest of the day.  And in Sorbetteria Castiglione I accidentally left it next to the cash register and walked away, at which point the cashier called out, “Ragazze!  Avete dimenticato la pizza!”  (You forgot the pizza.)

Anyway, the sour service just threw a shadow over this meal, especially when contrasted with the warm welcome we received at every other establishment we visited.  And I’m not sure I’d want to use a mealtime eating a non-emilian cuisine the next time I’m in Bologna, thought I do feel that it helped to break things up between the affettati and the primi.  Total bill for 3 was 26 euro.

This is the first post in my travel review series.  Let’s call it “Italy is the best country ever and I absolutely love living here.”   Or some abbreviation thereof.

I thought it appropriate to start the series with Sorbetteria Castiglione, even though it was actually the last stop on the Bologna trip.  It was my first gelato experience in Italy (excluding my first Italy life in Florence) and one of the highlights of the trip.

The gelateria is really sweet inside, with lavender walls and orchids, and they have benches against the wall where you can sit and enjoy your cone and people-watch.

I chose a grande cone (3.20 euro) which granted me the privilege of three flavor choices.  But three was definitely not enough at Sorbetteria Castiglione, which offers a long list of choices above and beyond their traditional flavors menu (which looked solid, with pistachio, yogurt, caffe, cioccolato fondente, and stracciatella).

Their Creme Speciali menu captured my fantasy, and we all selected from it.  It was nearly impossible to decide—Dolce Karin (white chocolate gelato with caramelized hazelnuts)? Crema Michelangelo (almond gelato with whole pralines)?  Crema Guglielmo (espresso gelato with flakes of dark chocolate)?  Dolce Emma (egg custard and ricotta gelato with honey, lemon, and figs)?

I chose the Crema Michelangelo and Crema Guglielmo, which were ridiculously good.  Intensely rich, decadent, luxurious, but somehow still light on the tongue.  I also got Dolce Emma, which intrigued me because of all the different flavors (egg, ricotta, honey, lemon, fig.)  I’ve had fig gelato before and been impressed.  I was a little put off when I first tasted Emma because they didn’t use real figs but fig jam (basically it tasted like what’s in the center of a fig newton.)  And it just didn’t seem to meld very well with the lemon-honey-ricotta-egg combo.  Once I got past the fig issue, though, the taste really grew on me–but I don’t think it would be for everyone.

We discovered Sorbetteria Castiglione thanks to Mario Batali’s recommendations for Bologna, his favorite city, where he lived for 3 years.  After this trip, I understand why it’s his favorite city–and I’m dreaming about living there too!