Some of my clearest memories surround food. Others are connected to the warm display of affection. D might remember the date and year that we were in a certain country but I will remember the same circumstances differently-with tastes and aromas and specific ingredients or that love was present in the room or emanating from the kitchen.

Case in point, when D and I traveled to the Amalfi coast in Italy to celebrate our 25^th wedding anniversary, one meal sticks out more clearly than any other. It was a lunch that we shared at a place called Cumpa Cosimo, way up high on the mountainside in Ravello. The restaurant had been run by the same family for decades. All the dishes served were Netta Bottone’s family recipes and she still supervised the cooking, greeted all of the guests herself and then collected everyone’s Euros before they departed.

More recently I have had the opportunity to dine at Restaurant Da Emma in Old Montreal. Emma Risa is a Montreal restaurateur that I was equally fascinated in meeting and knew that my memories of the evening would similarly stay with me for years. We were hosted by Ocean Properties associated with the Marriott Chateau Champlain which had been our home base for the weekend and the evening was the piece de résistance of our remarkable Montreal itinerary.

Housed in Montreal’s first prison for women, the walls were impossibly thick but contrary to what you might first expect,

the ambiance was warm and inviting.

But to the food…we started with bruschetta where I confirmed anew how much I love fresh garlic and tomatoes and crunchy baguette.

Next up was eggplant which featured thin layers of my favourite vegetable and a delicate tomato sauce.

For my main, I chose “Piglet” even though I felt awkward about ordering something with such a cute name. The skin was crunchy, the silky fat melted away and the meat was perfectly seasoned and prepared.

The highlight of the evening though was the invite to meet Ella.

Perhaps you can see why I remembered my meeting with Netta in Ravello, now?

Netta had hosted the likes of Jacqueline Onassis, Humphrey Bogart and Mariah Carey.

Ella had hosted George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonny Depp.

In both cases, I was in good company.

Kath’s quote: Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” – Sophia Loren

Live simply, laugh often, love deeply.

If you have had the good fortune to travel to Italy, as I am blessed to have, your love of authentic Italian cooking has likely stayed with over the years. My first sojourn was when I was fresh out of university. I distinctly remember the evening that I tasted pigeon for the first time. More recently my husband and I returned to celebrate a special anniversary and the memories of the pizza, sauces, pasta and salads have prompted us to make travel arrangements to return to Italy again this fall.

An authentic pasta sauce recipe literally bursts with spritely tomato flavours, enhanced by herbs, onion and garlic. The pasta itself is firm and yet tender to the tooth and salads offer up vinegary goodness with every bite. This describes my recent lunch at the Calabria Market  (139 Scurfield Blvd ) perfectly. I was teaching in the area (restaurant food and beverage service to be exact) and had forgotten to take my lunch. Since I was solo, I wanted to quickly run in and fetch something, but I was hoping to avoid fast food. Remembering that the Calabria Market serves a couple of daily lunch specials, I decided to give them a try.

The pasta special on this particular day was ravioli in a hearty meat sauce with a crisp salad and plenty of buttery garlic toast to lap up the abundant sauce. Calabria’s recipes all originate from the Momma of the family owners ( Cathy & Vicky and their father Frank Fodera). The Italian region that they are from is, not surprisingly, “Calabria” which makes up the toe of the Italian boot.

I plunked down at one of the provided tables, noting that most people ordering from the kitchen window were taking their lunch to go. I ate as much as I could possibly manage. The taste were so divine, I didn’t want to stop. But finally, with restraint, I was able to lay down my fork and take half away for my lunch the next day.

With a quick glance at the market shelves I grabbed a box of truffle mac and cheese, with a little bottle of truffle oil for extra measure and paid for these along with my $8.50 lunch special.

Kath’s quote: “My handshake is as firm as cooked spaghetti. So, do you prefer your introductions with Alfredo or marinara sauce?” ― Jarod Kintz

Live simply, laugh often, love deeply.

When winter sets in, I day dream about warm weather travel to places I have never been and others I have already been. Today I am remembering our trek to Positano.  On this particular day we were travelling from Sicily up half of the leg of the Italian boot to the Amalfi Coast.  The day started at 5 am with a van ride from the cozy home of our friends in Castellammare Del Golfo to the Palermo train station.  Driving in Palermo is so stressful that I was thinking about a big glass of Chianti by about 6:30 am.

We had a reservation in a first class car and thought we were set.  Unfortunately another family thought the same and we spent most of the day with people who virtually ignored our existence.  Of course there was the language barrier which was our inadequacy not theirs.  But they held boisterous conversations while we tried to sleep, stretched their legs and leaned on us when they wanted to sleep and passed their shared lunch passed our faces when they wanted to eat.  And they were more accustomed to the heat than we were and thought it was just fine in the confined space without the AC.  But D and I always try to make the best of everything and so we spent the hours staring out the window at the Mediterranean, going for walks up and down the train cars and going up on deck when the train was boarded onto a ferry for the crossing from Messina, Sicily to mainland Italy.

By 4 in the afternoon we had reached our transfer destination in Salerno- a hectic/crazy seaside town and boarded a bus destined for Amalfi. I mistakenly took a window seat and although the vista is “to die for”, I didn’t particularly want to do so in the middle of our second honeymoon.  The hour long leg was extended because now it was almost the dinner hour and we found ourselves in the midst of Italian rush hour.  Amalfi was even more frenetic and we managed to just barely get onto a jammed bus before departure.  Someone offered me a seat at the back of the bus and D was stuck standing next to the bus driving.  “No worries, it’s only a 20 minute trip” our eyes said to each other.  Minutes later a tremendous thunderstorm rolled in and the bus literally parked on the mountainside.  Once the torrential rain passed we would surely be on our way-but no.

I had done my research and knew that it was feast day to celebrate the saint of Prairiano’s (10 minutes from Positano) home church.  What we didn’t know though was that there is only one road in and out of town and that the road that we were planted on was temporarily closed so that the townspeople could enjoy their procession to the church carrying their saint and the ensuing fireworks.  D tried to converse with the bus driver to determine how far from the town we were because now that 20 minute bus ride had taken and hour and a half.  When we finally arrived in town we determined that we had been one mountain curve away and could have walked it in five minutes.  Ah well, when in Rome…..

By this time we were so frazzled that we glugged the champagne that D had arranged would be chilling in our room and set out to find some supper.  Our first choice was a famous place that was very busy and I was so overheated by the humidity and champagne that I insisted that I would have to sit at one of the tables by an open window.  Because they were set for four and we were only two, we were refused and so we declined.  The owner was exasperated with us and made his frustration quite known to the rest of this diners. We had created quite the scene. Our second choice was close and we knew by our research that they served on their rooftop terrace.  But of course, it was closed due to the storm that had just passed but the lovely owner of La Strada could totally see my distress so she pulled a table next to an open window and brought me my own fan!

We shared a Quarto Pizza and Fusilli with langostino and asparagus.  The taste of the food was amplified by our day’s events, so to describe it as delicious and satisfying is such a gross understatement.  By the time we wandered back to our hotel for a Limonciello our whole psyche had been transformed.  We were in an ancient town with views of Positano from our window.  The rain had stopped and stars were making their appearance. We booked this perfect hotel here on this website. We highly recommend its use. Easy to navigate and perfectly trustworthy.

Kath’s quote: “One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.” ~Luciano Pavarotti

Love-that is all.

Perhaps like you, I read non-fiction about residing in Europe and traveling there, to live vicariously through the lives of the authors and to anticipate sojourns that I may (or may not) ever get the chance to take.  Rarely do I come across a story about a little known destination that I have visited and loved tremendously, but this is one.  Here is an excerpt in writer Chris  Harrison’s words, illustrated by my photographs of an area in Sicily.

Guidaloca was shaped like a slice of melon and its water looked just as refreshing.  After dumping towels on the beach, Daniela and Francesco ran for the blue water

while I scaled the headland on my way to a World War II watchtower.  Built from the stone of the headland, it was perfectly camouflaged, the attraction, no doubt, for the teenage lovers I surprised inside.  Despite their vantage point they had failed to see me coming. It’s little wonder the allied invasion of Sicily was a cakewalk.  …

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Daniela and I swam in the caves while Francesco trapped crabs, ripped them apart and ate them raw.  Both in Sicily and in Puglia I enjoyed paddling in the placid sea, but have to admit I found unruffled water rather dull after a time.  Having grown up surfing the Bondy breakers, I associate going to the beach with wipe-outs rather than relaxation.  In Australia I took a surfboard.  In Italy I took a book.

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As in Andrano, the second half of the day began around five, when Daniela assumed the role of tour guide and whisked me off to places of interest near Alcamo.

First up was the ancient city of Erice.  Perched on a mountaintop overlooking the sea, according to legend it was founded over 3000 years ago by the son of Venus and Neptune.

I should have photographed the town’s eighth-century walls,

the twelfth-century castle

the twelfth-century castle and the cobblestone lanes so narrow they must be walked single-file.  But I didn’t.  I had intended to.  I had even bought a guidebook.

But next to the bookstore I found a pasticceria which sold fruit made from marzipan, a sugary Sicilian specialty.  So I sat on a bench scoffing miniature bananas, an orange, a mandarin and a peach, while watching the sun set on the seaport of Trapini over 700 meters below.

Next stop was the ancient treasures of Segesta.  Erected in 420 BC, the 36-column Doric temple was billed in my guidebook as “the best preserved Greek architecture site to be found anywhere”. Quite a claim, but one archeologists dispute less than whether or not the Greeks intended to put a roof on the building.

Another topless attraction was Segesta’s amphitheatre, a primitive arena carved from a rock atop Mount Barbarian,

venue for summer performances of Greek tragedies other than the Olympic Games.

Other excursions took in the monument to Garibaldi at Calatafimi, which commemorates a famous victory of his Red Shirts over the Bourbons, an as much of Palermo as the heat and our resultant late starts would allow.  We would return to the hill at sundown, to be greeted on the driveway by the scents of dinner, which I must confess, enticed me more than the treats in my guidebook.

Every evening Valeria laid a table in her garden for twenty, to which neighbours would bring food for forty.  A typical feats began with Zia Tina’s antipasti, which include prosciutto with sugar melon, pizza slices, burschette, fried eggplant, zucchini and peppers in olive oil. That alone would have done me.  But Luisa’s primo piatto as net, a daring but delicious mix of baked potato and mussels.  Then Nona Lina’s horsemeat pieces in tomato sauce.  ‘Eat quickly,’ said Antonio.  ‘It was a racehorse.’  The meat was springy, yet surprisingly tasty although I couldn’t heal thinking that I may have been eating something more intelligent than me.  Valeria usually prepared the terzo piatto: kebabs of liver and other animal sundries the origin of which I preferred not to ask.  Fruit followed for those whose arms could still reach further than their stomachs: watermelon, apricots, peaches and figs.  And then came the coup de grace, an onslaught of calories called cannoli siciliani-a sweet comprised of flour, sugar, chocolate and white wine, fried into a wafer in the shaped of a hollow bow tie filled with ricotta cheese and chocolate.  Stuffed, both dinner and desert.

Reading Chris Harrison’s account of this and his time in Puglia brought the agony and ecstasy of Italian ways to life, love it or leave it.  I would like to get a chance to love it please.

Kath’s quote: “They eat the dainty food of famous chefs with the same pleasure with which they devour gross peasant dishes, mostly composed of garlic and tomatoes, or fisherman’s octopus and shrimps, fried in heavily scented olive oil on a little deserted beach.” –Luigi Barzini, ‘The Italians’ (1964)

Stones collected on Guidaloca.

Love-that is all.

I have read many non-fiction books by Marlena de Blasi: “That Summer in Sicily”,  “A Thousand days in Venice”, “A Thousand Days in Tuscany”, and “The Lady in the Palazzo”.  I have been absolutely enthralled by them all.  De Blasi, a chef and food writer, is an ex-pat American who marries a Venetian and relocates to Italy.  Her food narratives make my mouth water.  I typically don`t create a post on a book until I am finished reading it but I came upon this yummy lunch description last evening and just had to share.

This excerpt is from Pages 163-166 of the Kindle edition

I step out of the terrace traffic into the greater choas of the kitchen.  At one of the five-burner stoves, Luce tosses plump pink chicken livers in butter and olive oil, sears them over a fast flame.  Her thumb over the mouth of a litre bottle of vin santo, she splashes the livers with dry-sweet wine, tosses the mass into a grand marble mortar. Cheeks flushed, laughing aloud at something Filipa recounts from half a hectre away, she is an alchemist grinding a wooden pestle into the steaming pluck of twenty chickens, keeping rhythm while pinching in sea salt and capers, lemon zest chopped fine as powder.  Never breaking stride, she drops in bits of cold, sweet butter and droplets of cognac, pounds it all to a rough paste.  A two-kilo round of charred-crusted bread she slices thinly, lays the pieces on a grate over white ash in a deep, flame-scorched hearth.  The bread grilled on one side only, she deftly drags the untoasted side through a bowl of rich warm chicken broth and lays the bread, broth side up, on a tray.  She smears the paste smoothly over the bread.  Right palm upraised, she balances the laden tray on it, ports it to an iron-legged, stone-topped table set outdoors on the flags.

I wander over to Filippa as she works through a small mountain of artichokes, trimming the leaves, scraping the dead chokes-barely formed on these beauties-and peeling the nearly foot-long stems.  Into each here she presses mint leaves, crushed unpeeled cloves of garlic, thin slices of lemon, piles them into a huge copper bacinella, pours in white wine, water, oil, heaves in more mint, sea salt, covers the pot and turns up the flame.

They won`t take long at all.  Let`s drink some wine, she says.

On the oak dressers placed here and there against the veranda wall there are tureens of thick faro soup with new potatoes, blue and white oval platters of red wine-vinegar braised chicken and Filippa’s borlotti mousse, its final decoration a great tangle of fried sage leaves.  A wheel of young, still creamy pecorino sits on a marble near a glass bowl of caramelised peaches and another of fresh ones, some still on their leafed branches.

A tavola, tutti a tavola, invites Antonia, though she still stands- a hand folded on her hip-in front of her place at the head of the table.

From the speckled green jugs of wine passed about, everyone pours for someone else.  Àlla nostra.  Alla nostra.  To us.

Giorgia arrives with a copper tray, the sausages, charred and crackling from the fire and laid on a bed of wild rosemary branches.  At the last it`s Filippa and Luce-each one holding a white cloth to a handle of the steaming bacinella of gorgeous purple-leafed artichokes.  They set it down in front of Antonia’s place.  A stack of shallow soup plates before her, she takes one, places as artichoke in it, spoons on some of the lemony, winey broth from the pot, pours thick green oil over it from a two-litre anfora, passes it down the table.

Buon appetito echoes like a prayer.

De Blasi has swept me to Tuscany even though I am alone here in my little house on the frozen prairie.  My evenings pass with pleasure as I imagine eating artichokes at a table with my sisters. I will keep you posted as my reading concludes (my next Italian adventure has already arrived to my Kindle).

Kath`s quote: “They eat the dainty food of famous chefs with the same pleasure with which they devour gross peasant dishes, mostly composed of garlic and tomatoes, or fisherman’s octopus and shrimps, fried in heavily scented olive oil on a little deserted beach.”-Luigi Barzini

Love-that is all.