Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

But I Don’t Want a Jaguar

Posted by 6 Comments

A car with a view . . . .of the Alfa 147s that got away.

A car with a view . . . .of the Alfa Romeo 147 that got away.

By Walter Sanders

As far as I’m concerned, it’s been a good year for U.S. Airways. Sully landed safely in the Hudson, and we survived steerage on a flight to Rome.

Groggy, ragged and raw after landing 10 minutes early in Rome . . . things smoothed out after the first cappuccino at a bar in Fumicino. Lots of local color: A Miss Italy look-alike was strutting around and she twisted the necks of a bunch of Italian guys who were sipping their coffees.

Then it was upstairs (2 stories) to the well-hidden autonoleggio center. The couple ahead of me in line at Dollar/Thrifty were Brazilians. The gent seemed confused and spoke in halting Italian with a German/Portuguese accent.

It took awhile . . . but it was finally my turn . . . and I handed over the pre-paid web reservation for my carefully selected, long anticipated, sleek and speedy Alfa Romeo 147 . The signorina at the counter, who looked young enough to be playing hooky from 10th grade, reviewed my paperwork, and then looked at sheets on her desk. “We have a Jaguar for you.”

I thought she was joking. “That’s wonderful. But I want the Alfa Romeo,” I said.

“I’m so sorry, but we don’t have an Alfa Romeo available right now.”

“But I have a reservation.”

“Sorry.”

“Well how about something comparable-a BMW, a different model Alfa, a small Mercedes?”

“No, I’m sorry. In the same class as the Alfa you reserved, all we have is a Jaguar,” she said.

I called Sharon over, and reviewed the situation with her. “I don’t think the Jaguar will work for us. It’s big, it consumes a lot of expensive benzina, and it sends the wrong signal.” Sharon agreed.

“The Jaguar offer is very nice, but I don’t want a Jaguar. What other options do I have?” I asked.

The signorina looked at her sheets again. “Well, your Alfa and the Jaguar are a class F. All we have available now is class B. Sub-compacts like a Ford or a Lancia.”

A Ford? There’s no way I’m going to tool around in a Ford in Italy! A Lancia?

“Tell me about the Lancia, please.”

“It’s the Ypsilon. Nice car. Smaller than the Jaguar. Smaller than your Alfa.”

Yes, my Alfa, my lost Alfa. My Alfa that, throughout the trip I would continue to lust after as they sizzled past us on the Autostrada, ‘Hey, there’s my Alfa Romeo . . . .”

We ended up with the Lancia. Sporty, not very sexy, but more than adequate . . . .and about five-feet shorter than the damn Jaguar parked down the row in the class F section.

What experiences have you had with car rentals in Italy? Did you get your elusive Alfa? Share your stories with us.

Tuscany in Texas?

Posted by Leave a Comment

I sniffed to myself when I scanned this morning’s Wall Street Journal “Relative Values” real estate column. A 3,700-square-foot house resembling a casa colonica with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and one powder room on 60 acres-in a development called the Vineyard at Florence-is listed for $5.5 million. “Hah,” said I, “if I had 5-and-a-half mil, I’d high tail it to Tuscany, not the Texas hill country.”

Since the aforementioned assets are not even a blip on my radar screen, I took a free trip to The Vineyard at Florence. Gorgeous scenery, fabulous amenities, 30 acres planted in vines  . . . what’s not to like?

The site explains that the developers are The Dionysus Group, LLLP, comprised of “members who share a desire to combine the best elements of life-community, exceptional living, natural beauty and wine.”

Guess they’re nurturing their Inner Italian-just like I am . . . albeit with much better funding.

Remembering Amarcord

Posted by 2 Comments

By Walter Sanders

Maybe the greatest cinematic love letter ever filmed, Federico Fellini’s 1973 Amarcord is a special treat on Valentine’s Day.

amacordIt’s a multi-layered, lasagna-like love story-a good looking taste treat of Fellini’s remembrances of growing up in Rimini. Through the eyes of his alter-ego teen character Titta Biondi, Fellini tracks a year (from spring to spring) in pre-WW II Fascist Italy.

Amarcord, dialect for “I remember,” is about his love of youth, his love of the seasons passing, his love of women, his love of political folly, his love of the foibles of love, his love of Rimini, and his love of being in love, his love of memory and how it expands some images…and laughs at others.

The characters are lush and over the top. Zio Teo, the crazy uncle, sprung from the asylum for a family picnic, climbs a tree and howls for hours like a horny wolf “Voglio una donna!” (I want a woman.) [Read more…]

Bitter. . .Sweet. . .Love

Posted by Leave a Comment

Italian Paolo Conte composes love songs for grownups.

Italian Paolo Conte composes love songs for grownups.

Italians can seem jaded about the idyllic promise of romantic love. And who can blame them? They’ve been at the dating game for thousands of years longer than we have. As a culture they’ve known youthful passion, mature affection, illicit sensuality and unrequited love—over, and over, and over again. Millennia are just a long time to keep chasing “happily ever after.”

Paolo Conte, the idiosyncratic Italian singer-songwriter, set me pondering love in all of its complexity. The other night as I listened to Gelato al Limon, one of his early hits, I felt compelled to pick up the liner notes and read the lyrics, poetry really.

In his rough baritone, accompanying himself on jazz piano, Conte brilliantly uses the metaphor of gelato al limon, tart-sweet lemon ice cream, to represent bittersweet love, the passing of time, the loss of youth and fleeting pleasures.

“A lemon ice cream. It’s real lemon—do you like it? Another summer’s bound to end.”

We fear that the guy in the song has just given up. . .he sings of “the sensuality of desperate lives,” and “woman just entering my life. . . don’t be afraid that it may already be over.”

Ah, but then a sanguine saxophone wells up behind the piano and the mood changes. He lets us know, with humor, that he’s still up for the game. . . “This man can still give you much more. E un gelato al limon, gelato al limon. Gelato al limon.”

best-of-paoloconteFor a more complete introduction to the musical genius of Conte, check out the 1998 compilation CD The Best of Paolo Conte (Nonesuch)

Also, a very good fan site is at Paolo Conte online.

Top Ten Movies to Inspire Italian Wannabes

Posted by 4 Comments

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck explore the Eternal City on a Vespa in Roman Holiday.

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck explore the Eternal City on a Vespa in "Roman Holiday."

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck explore the Eternal City on a Vespa in “Roman Holiday.”

Whether La Befana, the Christmas witch, or good old Santa Claus is doing the shopping, wannabe Italians will swoon for any of these DVDs in their stocking. Our Top Ten “Discover Your Inner Italian” movies, in chronological order, are . . .

Roman Holiday (1953) Beguiling postwar Rome is the real star of William Wyler’s bittersweet masterpiece, although ingénue Audrey, in top gamine form, gives the Eternal City a run for star billing. She did receive the Oscar, after all.

Three Coins in a Fountain (1954) Three single American women in Rome: Each throws a coin into the Trevi to wish for the man of her dreams. As Sinatra crooned, “Which one will the fountain bless?”
[Read more…]

Hunting for Porcini

Posted by 2 Comments

Dried porcini are easy to reconstitute and add intense mushroom flavor to many dishes.

Dried porcini are easy to reconstitute and add intense mushroom flavor to many dishes.

My youthful encounters with wild mushrooms did little to prepare me for Italian porcini. The fungus of my childhood is the puffball (Calvatia gigantea). Every year at summer’s end, dozens of these absurd orbs ballooned in the grass of our front yard in central Pennsylvania. My dad picked piles of puffballs and proudly lugged them into the kitchen, where my mom sliced and seasoned them, dipped them in flour, and hauled out a cast-iron skillet to fry them in homemade lard. Thank goodness for the pork fat. If those puffballs had any flavor, they were keeping it to themselves.

Years later, I tasted fresh porcini (pronounced pohr-CHEE-nee) and my appreciation of wild mushrooms was drastically, permanently upgraded. It was autumn at a country restaurant in Tuscany. The cook cleaned one just-picked fungo porcino, removed its stem, drizzled the saucer-sized taupe cap with fruity extra-virgin olive oil, seasoned it with salt and the wild herb nepitella, and grilled it over a wood fire. He served the mushroom alone on a plate, which made it seem really special.

I bit into the juicy flesh. It tasted like meat from the earth—complex, rich, and woodsy. The body was substantial yet tender. Truly this was a mushroom so exciting, it deserved to be called wild.

[Read more…]