DIY

Di Matteo to go

Fixated on the idea of the perfect tomato, Kim and I planned our trip to the Amalfi Coast to coincide with the harvest. We stopped in Naples for a couple of nights where the mission was simple - good pizza. Was it really all that? (Yes.) Could we eat enough of it to lose interest? (No.) We did a fair amount of '10-best' research then pared down to a walking-distance radius (our hotel Bellini was fantastic - great location, peaceful courtyard, good aperitivo). It was shades of gray in terms of quality, but other factors led to clear favorites. Di Matteo was a damn good first pie but we made the mistake of taking it to go. By the time we got back to our courtyard it was tepid and as we hadn't yet learned that Neapolitan pizza comes uncut, it turned into a bit of a shredded mess. Pizzeria Brandi lost out because the service was downright shitty (it took half an hour, four reminders and a bit of a tantrum to
get the beer never mind the food); additionally, the crowd was infested with cringe-worthy visitors from our very own homeland.  Sorbillo was almost perfect; great atmosphere, great pizza, but nothing else on offer - no beer, no greens (and by then I needed some). The surprise was Pizzeria Vesi. It's got two locations so my inner pompous ass wants to call it a chain, but the pizza was just as good as the others, and they serve enormous fresh salads (in pyrex baking dishes) loaded with olives and artichoke hearts and tomatoes. Plus, the branch on Via dei Tribunali has an outdoor seating area in the evenings. It was so good that we returned for lunch on the day we flew back to London.

View from the coast road

The journey from Naples to our spot on the coast was exciting and terrifying. We drove fast along the coast road and slow on the hillside lanes (dear thrill seekers; driving the Italian coast is fun but do not listen to your GPS device - it'll take you for a ride that can only end in paint damage). Generally, this trip leaned toward adventurous; we rented a boat, motored to Capri and swam in the Grotta Verde. We hiked from Ravello to Amalfi and consequently visited the alarmingly unsanitary emergency room in Sorrento (x-rays for a sprained ankle).  P.S. you've got to be diligent when exchanging cash for goods in this part of Italy. We definitely got ripped off once or twice. 

Grotta Verde

Lately we've gone with apartment rentals on longer holidays; the price is right, there's more room, you often land in interesting situations, and you've got a kitchen. This time we ended up in a family villa in Torca (just down the road from Sant'agata sui de golfi, about 10 miles up the hill from Sorrento) with Alfredo and his brother, their wives, their kids, their kids' kids, and their gardens. I'm old enough to get emotional about a good garden, and instead of being mortified by that I'm just going to own it. Alfredo's garden made me weepy. I'd been so into the idea of a good tomato that I'd forgotten to get anticipatory about all the other stuff harvest brings - grapes, figs, plums, aubergines and olives. Alfredo's hillside was loaded.

Another thing I'm old enough to do is be really particular about what is and is not good food. I'm over the Michelin Guide. When Kim and I moved to Amsterdam four years ago we were all about it, but by now we've burned way out. Foam and sand and €350 lunches, go suck an egg. I'm on to simple preparation, good ingredients, and hearty portions. On this trip we did find a good sandwich shop and a nice spot for afternoon espresso and sfogliatella Santa Rosa, but we were having no luck finding our 'this is it' meal. There was research followed by sometimes good but mostly 'meh' food that was never quite worth the sweaty-palms drive to reach it. In the 'plus' column, the pasta was always perfectly cooked; in the 'minus', the aforementioned swarms of visitors (often bussed in), too much oil and/or sog, and a lot of smarm (generally I prefer Parisian 'tolerance' to Italian 'hospitality').

But we had a furnished kitchen and it was Campania's harvest season. So we drove into Sant'agata, where there's a small produce market, a cheese shop, a butcher, and a couple of stores that do a bit of everything. A lot of the fruit and veg come from close by enough to be delivered each morning by Ape. If you stop in before riposino (siesta), you've got some exciting choices to make.

Somehow the setting makes it easy to shed Whole Foods engendered aesthetic expectations and embrace picking through bins of imperfect (the odd smooshed, black spotted and/or moldy specimen) San Marzano tomatoes (it helped that I'd recently read bits of Tristram Stuart's Waste: Uncovering the Global Food
Scandal). This is real fruit grown in real gardens.

Gulf of Salerno from the Villa

So anyway, we got our San Marzanos, garlic, olive oil (locally grown and pressed), pasta, parmigiana, Fiordilatte (cow's milk mozzarella), basil (grown by the woman behind the counter), some cute little copper onions (Montoro Bronze), a Cuore di Toro tomato (similar to oxheart), a bottle of Lacryma Christi, some dry salami and a jar of green September olives. We took it all back to our Italian villa with the view of the Gulf of Salerno and the make-me-cry gardens. Kim sliced the salami, plated it with some olives and poured the wine. We grazed on that while she cut up the Cuore di Toro tomato and the Fiordilatte and ripped up some of the basil and drizzled all

AM left-overs with eggs and toast

that with olive oil, and I chopped the garlic and onions, sizzled them in olive oil, rough chopped and added the San Marzanos, simmered all that, stirred in salt and pepper and torn basil, spooned it over al dente spaghetti and topped it with shaved  parmigiana.  An aperitivo, caprese, and spaghetti al pomodoro - we had our "this is it" meal. Probably half because of how fun it was to procure the ingredients and cook them in an Italian villa.

Forty-Six: Better Late than Never

So this has been sitting in 'Drafts' for well over a year...

In May of 2011, Kim's brother Kevin (Kim calls him 'Didi') flew in from Hawaii. We spent a week seeing the sights and doing the things one does when visiting Amsterdam. Then we packed our tents (Didi purchased a $20 Walmart Junior - 'to be used under adult supervision only' - just for this trip) and drove to Italy. Germany was an autobahn blur, Switzerland overly Swiss - alpine lakes, blooming meadows, and perfectly groomed sheep grazing mountain slopes. The Swiss road was smooth, the curves minimal - they've punched sleek space-agey tunnels though mountain after mountain. Generally it left a Stepford Wife impression. But just as we were being lulled into submission - and with little warning - we bounced off that silky thoroughfare onto a swathe of cracked, patched, potholed tarmac and into the first of many leaking, peeling, unvented tunnels; "Italy!"

Our first stop was the Cinque Terre, Manarola our home base. Steep and narrow alleys, terraced vineyards, footpaths and overlooks. We bragged on the view from our room several times a day. We frequented tiny Trattoria Dal Billy, run by surly fishermen who make fresh pasta to go with their daily catch. We hiked the coastal path to Riomaggiore. We took the train to Montorosso, Vernazza and Corniglia. We ranked them.

#1. Manarola: Kind of sleepy, but with personality. It's probably #1 because we got to know it best.

#2. Vernazza: This is Rick Steve's favorite (every tourist in the Cinque Terra has his book tucked under an arm). A postcard harbor, a lively Piazza, and plenty of secret winding alleys.

#3. Riomaggiore: A lot like Manarola and Vernazza, but with less personality (though we were only there for a few hours; it could have more going on than we realize).

#4. Corniglia: Poor Corniglia. Because it takes no small effort to reach (382 stairs or a switchback road), there's not much going on. Also the layout's a bit claustrophobic. I love it because of a magical stay there 10 years ago during a backpacking trip with cousins (we were the only visitors in town, the weather was perfect, we ate well, got to know people who live there, etc.), but I was outvoted. 

#5: Montorosso. Resorty, with a typical boardwalk scene, a beach and an 'old town' that looks a lot like the other villages.

Next was Tuscany. We drove to Buggiano de Colle, a teeny tiny walled hill town with one restaurant serving straightforward regional fare and cheap as hell home brewed wine. We stayed in Fulvia's Antica Casa le Rondini. Fulvia used to be a teacher... I want to say 'schoolmarm' but perhaps that's too harsh. She's friendly, just somewhat austere. We tiptoed and whispered and were always vaguely fearful of reprimand. We took a couple of day trips to Florence; visited David at Academia, climbed to the top of the Duomo, shopped San Lorenzo market and met up with our sometimes travel buddy Amanda for a note worthy dinner at La Congrega. Our Uffizi Gallery experience was hijacked by Kim's vanishing act during a restroom break. Over 40 minutes Didi (new to travel and a little on edge) and I (in the midst of reading serial killer fiction) spiraled into total panic. He was on the verge of asking the guards if we could review security tape footage when she finally texted, 'Where are you guys? I'm standing in front of The Birth of Venus!'

We spent a few rainy hours in Volterra, which I hear was semi-quiet before Twilight's New Moon.

We stopped in Lucca. The walled-city and the old Guinigi family tower are impressive, but none of us quite understood what all the fuss is about. Maybe you need to stay a few days to get it.

For his first camping experience ever, we took Didi to a lakeside site in Umbria. 'Lakeside Campsite in Umbria' sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, perhaps if you had a camper like 99.9% of the other (retired German) guests it would be. For us, it was three long nights of Invasion of the Overgrown and Horrendously Appendaged Insects and a daily pre-dawn cacophony of waterfowl. It was mud and rain and an inelegant strain of 'cabin fever'. A spider the size of my fist and carrying an equally large egg sac decided to lay up under our rain fly for the hatching (a very exciting relocation project ensued). Then either a vole or a mole tried to surface under our tent. By the third night, when a giant muskrat emerged to snack on the reeds outside Didi's toy Walmart tent, he was relatively unfazed. "Is that thing dangerous? No? Alright then."

We visited Gubbio on market day. We hadn't heard or read much about it, but it turned out to be a great stop. The Corsa dei Ceri had taken place only days before and there were remnants of it everywhere. And as hill towns do, it had the views.

One of the trip's best days was in Assisi. The weather was perfect, the crowds light, the views sweeping, the Basilica impressive, the meals stellar (lunch at Trattoria da Erminio and dinner at Locanda del Podesta).

By now we were about burned out on hill towns and gelato and pizza and art. Proof that you can eventually get sick of anything. Luckily we landed at Lavanda Blu in the southern Marches (Didi blowing through a toll road Telepass gate and incurring a 45 Euro fine en route).

Lavanda Blu - a B&B/mini-camping spot near Carassai - is run by hippie-leaning couple Hans (from Amsterdam) and Elizabeth (from New York via many years in Rome). They're generally likeable but they're also totally out of it. Example: The provided GPS coordinates failed to get us there. We called. "We seem to be lost" Kim said. "Oh yeah!" Elizabeth responded, " Those coordinates don't actually get you here. They just get you close. And since our sign isn't posted yet... I'll send Hans to get you! Don't move!" So we parked ourselves in front of a good landmark - an abandoned castle - and waited. And waited. And waited. A Carabinieri patrol car whizzed by. Screeched to a halt ("Shit"). Reversed at high speed and expertly blocked our 'escape route'. Three officers exited the vehicle and ominously lit up cigarettes as they strolled toward us. I squealed with delight. Kim took my squirming as a sign of imminent 'police encounter rage', and whispered, "NOT ONE WORD!!!" She calmly rolled down her window to explain our situation. Alas, none of the officers spoke English.  I quickly sat on my hands,which threatened to clap wildly of their own accord. The fellow in charge jabbered at us in Italian. Kim replied slowly and loudly in English. They confiscated our passports. They conferred over the hood of their car and gave us sidelong glances. Meanwhile Kim called Hans, who was waiting down the road in front of some other abandoned castle. When he finally showed, he exchanged a few words with the Carabinieri, then sauntered over and leaned down to explain, "they say that if you fail the test for post office employment, you become Carabinieri". See what I mean by 'generally likeable'? They harassed Hans for a while longer, then begrudgingly let us go.

Lavanda Blu. Now this is a campsite. Fireflies, not spiders. Grassy meadows, not mud. Twittering songbirds, not honking geese. Two parties of tent-campers, zero camper-campers. And Elizabeth and Hans feed you! Home-cooked (8-hour) lasagne, wine from their organic vineyard. We spent three mellow days there, played badminton, visited nearby towns, had some nice meals and generally loved on the quiet Marches before climbing back into the car and burning home to Amsterdam.  We demanded Didi tell us it was the best trip ever. Exhausted and beat down by all the walking, camping, eating and driving, he acquiesced.

Forty-Five: Ich bin ein Berliner

I'm not supposed to like Germany, but I do. There, I said it. I like Germany and I like the 3 or 4 Germans I've met. This time, we went to Berlin to visit cousin Phoebe and her scandalously young boyfriend Matt. They are living in Berlin and touring (oh musicians) around for a couple of months. We stayed near Checkpoint Charlie and spent most of our time in East Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie is a festive microcosm of capitalism (imagine saying that 25 years ago). Lots of souvenir shops, commemorative passport stamping stands, soldiers posing for pictures with tourists for a euro. Also, you can now rent a Trabant - formerly the most common car in East Germany - for a 'City Safari'. Times do change. We saw what's left of the wall, lots of new development in the former 'dead zone', the Holocaust Memorial (I don't think I ever need to see another of these), the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstadt. We strolled along Unter den Linden, walked through Prenzlauerberg and neighborhoods in Kruetzberg, counted Ampelmen, drank beers and saw some crazy art at a squat. We tested out several new playgrounds. We met some of Phoebe's German friends and attended an open mic night at Madam Claude's. We ate some schnitzel and bratwurst, hung around Gendarmenmarkt and several Platzes (Bebel, Potsdamer, Pariser), parks and monuments. The Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park is something; a huge entry portal (think The Neverending Story) flanked by statues of kneeling soldiers with submachine guns and bowed heads opens onto a park. Rows of sarcophagi and stone reliefs depicting the war from the Soviet point of view lead to a colossal soldier carrying an excalibur sword and a kid and crushing a swastika under his boot.



All in all it was a pretty fantastic weekend, and I want more. Berlin is like Paris in that it's just too huge to assess in one short visit.

Forty-Four: Paris Squared

In early March friends and neighbors Mark and Tanya flew in from Seattle. We saw Hot Chip at Paradiso, strolled around downtown Amsterdam, then caught the high speed (3.5 hours) train to Paris. We stayed in Paris' Red Light District, near the Moulin Rouge. It's vaguely seedy but with fewer tourists and, consequently, friendlier Parisians. I found a good neighborhood boulangerie (Saint Preux) for morning croissants and pain au chocolats. We walked a lot; up through Montmartre to Sacre Coeur. Along the Seine, through the embassies near Place de la Concorde (some interesting wardrobe choices in this neighborhood), through the Marais, along Champs Elysee and across Ile de la Cite. On our way to dinner at Cafe Constant we stopped in Parc du Champs de Mars - quiet and empty at night - to watch the Eiffel Tower's light show.We visited L'Opera Garnier (twice, because Stella McCartney was showing her spring collection in the main hall the first time we tried). We visited Galleries Lafayette and climbed to the top of Arc de Triomphe.

After 3 days in Paris I took the train back (sprinting through a maze of subway tunnels and stations and down the platform to barely slip through the closing gate) to Amsterdam. Mark and Tanya flew to Istanbul; they report it's worth a visit. They stopped back through Amsterdam for a few days - we visited The Hague and Kinderdijk, rode bikes to Ouderkerk, walked around downtown - before returning to Seattle.

The day they left I got back on the train to Paris. Julie, Chris, Amit and Nadia had rented an apartment near Centre Pompidou, which they'd stocked with wine and fruit and unpasteurized cheese.

We returned to Cafe Constant and stood in Champs de Mars park for the Eiffel Tower's light show. Julie and I almost managed a late night Velib Velo ride back to the apartment but were foiled (curses!) by the wrong credit card.

Some of us bought Museum Passes. I became a little obsessed with 'getting the value' out of them, which resulted in a lot of rushing around and just missing visiting hours. In fact just missing visiting hours might be considered a sub-theme of the trip, but the true theme was food. We ate at outdoor cafes, crepe and shawarma stands. We had a fancy three hour lunch at Taillevent and a two and a half hour lunch at Chez l'Ami Louis. 70 Euros for a roast chicken. Granted it's a very tasty, very large, and very special bird - bred and raised exclusively for Chez l'Ami - but still there was some debate. Most of us thought the potato galette was more impressive. We drank lots and lots and lots of wine.

We walked and walked and walked some more. The Marais, Champs Elysee, Rue de Rivoli. We visited Galleries Lafayette. Some of us visited George Pompidou. Some of us jogged along the Seine and around the grounds of the Louvre and Tuileries, stopping to see Monet's water lilies at Musee de l'Orangerie. The museum guards were not pleased with our shabby appearance, but the lilies were worth a little humiliation.

A few of us visited the top of Arc de Triomphe on a blustery, rainy night, worth it for the city view and mad traffic circle below.

Amit and Nadia took the train back to London on a Saturday. Julie, Chris, Kim and I drove back to Amsterdam on Sunday. Before we hit the road we decided to stop by L'As du Falafel and Mi-Va-Mi, reputed rival falafel stands in the Marais. We would get a couple from each place and decide for ourselves. We were hungry. Our brains were addled. And so we piled our luggage in the apartment building's tiny glass elevator and sent it down to the first floor, where the doors - jammed shut with luggage - were unable to fold open. We sent the elevator to various floors. We tried prying the doors. We enlisted the help of the cleaning crew and called the elevator company. It does not seem unfair to generalize that on a Sunday morning, the french are slow to respond in such situations. We waited. We took turns watching the elevator doors struggle to open. We continued to send it to various floors. We contemplated disabling the power source. We eyed the manual override keyhole we knew would solve our problem. We worried the motor would burn out, resulting in tremendous financial repercussions. Finally, a guy showed up with an allen wrench, turned it in the keyhole and pulled the doors open. He charged 60 euros. More proof one should never travel without a Swiss Army or Leatherman.

We were almost defeated but rallied for the falafel taste off. This was possibly the best decision of the trip, and it sent us out on a high note. There was no clear winner but we agreed this lowly street food ranked just behind Taillevent and Cafe Constant.

Forty-Three: Pastis de Nata

Lisbon is gritty. 'Lived in'. But there are lots of interesting things to see; Jeronimos Monastery, Belem Tower, St. George's Castle, the Alfama and Barrio Alto neighborhoods, the tiled buildings sidewalks and streets, the views (miradouros). There are fun things to do; ride the trams, elevators and funiculars, sit in cafes and squares with glasses of Ginja, walk the waterfront, visit the Museums. And there are great things to eat; seafood, stews, roasts, pasteis de natas, dinner at A Travessa.

Everyone says 'go to Sintra for the day', but we were foiled by time and weather. Next time...

Forty-Two: Best in Belgium

Ghent is more fun than Brussels, Antwerp or Brugges. It's in good shape, there aren't too many tourists (at least in the winter),  they've got plenty of medieval buildings, and lots of good food. I don't know why Belgian food doesn't get more attention; it's pretty much the perfect combination of French, German and Dutch. See waterzooi. Why aren't more people into waterzooi? It's one of the best things I've ever eaten. Granted, it's not easy to find outside of Belgium... but that's my point. It should be. Something needs to start a Belgian food revival... I nominate waterzooi.