at last, a happier ending for Nance Dude

I was speaking with a friend a few hours ago about my blog, and she wanted to know why I wasn’t posting much anymore. Hubby was quick to offer, “she’s just being lazy.” Yes, I had to admit that is part of the problem.  But the bigger thing holding me back has been that I feel that I have very few interesting things to say, and have been choosing instead to focus on other interests. That is, until a few days ago. Out of the blue, as these things happen, I got a new comment on one of my two most popular blog posts–Nance Dude Legend–the one post with more comments than any other I’ve published. This comment caught my attention in a way no other has because of the interest readers have shown in the story. So I thought about it for a few days and decided I had no other choice but to pass it along to others. If true, and I have no reason to believe it’s not, it deserves to be known.

Legends tend to linger on forever, and over time they can become distorted as people add layers of hearsay to stories passed down by generations preceding them, and soon become distorted versions of truth. Maurice Stanley,  a native of Western North Carolina, wrote a historical novel in 1991 based on the legend he learned from his grandmother, who had seen Nance and Roberta Putnam out walking (in 1913) not long before Roberta’s death at the tender young age of 2 years. Stanley’s book presents all the known facts surrounding little Roberta Putnam’s grizzly murder and the arrest, trial, and subsequent conviction of her grandmother, Nancy Ann Kerley, also known as Nance Dude. It was impossible for most people to imagine how a grandmother could murder a child she had purportedly loved so dearly. It’s a fascinating story, and reading it I wished I could somehow turn back time sci fy style and make the ending a happier one.

Now we learn that apparently, there really was a happier ending, albeit bittersweet, for Roberta Putnam, and in way for Nance as well.

Here’s the comment that has had me pondering for days:

I wanted to share a different version of the Nance Dude story–it’s a bit at odds with the one you have heard and told before. My version is dedicated to all of those folks who said Nance Dude never committed that horrendous crime against her granddaughter and was unjustly accused.

You can find it at:

http://ashevilleoralhistoryproject.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/nance-dude/

Thank you.

Cliff Davids [a contributor to the Asheville (N.C.) oral history project.]

According to Mr. Davids, a fine writer by the way, Nance did–as she said repeatedly during her trial–give the child to a traveling preacher, the same preacher apparently that she had worked for, in Roberta’s words that rich preacher that ran the orphanage. He had brought her a child bitten by a rattlesnake from the orphanage, as he’d heard she was a witch who was familiar with mountain remedies that he hoped would save her, but the child died anyway. At about the same time, Roberta’s father or mother had told Nance to take Roberta to the state home because they couldn’t afford to feed her. Nance talked the preacher into switching the dead child with little Roberta, and it was the dead child who was placed in the cave where two weeks later Roberta was found. Going back to Stanley’s original book, the pieces of the puzzle take on a dazzling fit now that the new ending has come along.

If you’re one of those interested in the heartbreaking story of Nance Dude and her little granddaughter Roberta, your should click on the link Mr. Davids provided in his comment above to learn a fuller accounting of the story. It changes the legend from one of desperate people forced to do desperate things in desperate times, to one of unspoken heroes and heroines. Nance Dude died at age 104, quite a long time for a woman to live with the consequences of murdering an innocent 2 year old. Now, viewing history from a different angle as we’re allowed to do in Mr. Davids account, we can think of Nance at last as the tragic heroine she became rather than the cold blooded murderer of the legend. Roberta Putnam, if the new legend is not contested, lived until the winter of 2012. She lived to be 99.

(For the record, the other post with the most “hits” is one about choosing an eggplant. You can read it by clicking here,)

in human nurturing vs nature, nature wins

Much has been accomplished since I last was here. The big painting project I’d been planning for ages is done. I didn’t go for the purple I’d been looking at last year. Instead we chose a sedate taupe with an accent wall of dark blue that really shows off the white wood trim. It required packing away all the books and things on the wall–pretty close to moving out except we didn’t–spending about a week before and a week after to pile everything in the bedrooms and back. Four men filled the house for two long days with stepladders, paint buckets and rollers, lots of music (radio) and joking. Hubby and I spent those two days mainly staying out of the way, except for the afternoon I spent in the ophthalmologist’s office getting an eye looked after. It may have been the flurry of dusting door and window framing that caused one of my inner eyelids to puff up and droop down to cover part of my line of vision. I’d wake in the mornings with it glued shut. And boy was I a sight!    If you saw the old Charles Laughton version of Quasimodo in Hunchback of Notre Dame, well that was me for a few days! In the midst of all this, the old furnace in the basement had enough of the cold weather and decided to cut out too.

Now that almost everything is done and back in place, the eye all healed (nothing serious as it turned out–just a clogged oil duct in the inner eyelid), a new furnace with a humidifier added this time, it feels as if we’re living in a new house. Everything looks so clean and neat. It’s been exactly the prompt I’ve needed to get going on the massive clearing out of forty-some years of accumulation. Upstairs is practically done, and because the furnace installation mess had to be cleaned before I could do the laundry, that room is looking pretty good too. Next week it’s on to the storage room, my sewing room, and the electronic graveyard. I can just see myself wresting old computer monitors and hard drives and masses of cords and plugs from the hands of a Hubby who never met a piece of technology he didn’t want to hoard.  At the end, hopefully I will have met my goal of everything having its own place to be so that we can get to it when it’s needed, and if it isn’t likely to be needed, it should be pitched or donated.

Since it’s been so cold here, with temperatures locked into a deep freeze since Christmas, outside has looked pretty bleak. The roofs of just about every house in our neighborhood featured this look.  So it’s been a good time to hunker down and focus on inside pursuits.
In an effort to change the kitchen’s look on the cheap side, I scanned some prize show chicken pictures from one of my books and found some cheap black frames in in the local IKEA. Now it looks like this above the stove:

I would really have preferred a collection of those fancy ceramic chicken sculptures, but the ones I like best would have cost several hundred dollars. These work as a good enuf substitute and not counting the cost of the ink used in my printer, the total for the dozen frames (there are more on the other wall) came to less than $25, and works for me.

Sadly, a small tragedy took place as well. One afternoon I looked into the back yard during a brief foray of sunshine. Sitting there all puffed up was a small bunny. He looked so cold and lonely and forlorn, I started to worry about him being all alone and hungry. When I was preparing a salad later that day I decided to toss a piece of carrot near the entry under the porch  he’d dug through the snow and ice. Then I began to notice little brown rabbit pellets outside that hole so I felt happy at the evidence that he wasn’t starving after all, but I’d still toss little bits of veggies–I think he especially appreciated the turnip trimmings–from time to time. One evening this week as we were sitting down to supper, there was a loud thump outside the patio door and Hubby jumped up to see what had crashed into the house. Well, sad to say it was a big old owl. Less than hour before, I had donated a few bits of lettuce core and carrot trimmings and created a perfect lure for that owl’s supper! Kinda spoiled my appetite that night. I was pretty mad at that owl, but mostly I was mad at myself. I had no idea there was an owl lurking in the woods behind the house, but I grew up on a farm for goodness sakes! I should have known better. Now I have the blood of that poor little rabbit on my hands. The owl didn’t fare too well either. Hubby said he was dazed so badly he sat for a long time on the edge of the retainer wall. He wasn’t there in the morning, but the remains of the bunny were. As for me, I won’t soon forget that in nature, nature takes care of its own in its own way. It’s just best not to be born so low in the food chain as bunny rabbits.

snowbound!

Today is Friday, it’s January 11, 2013, and we’re about as snowbound as we’ve ever been in the seven years we’ve lived in Utah. We should have paid more attention to the weather predicting turtle who lives nearby here in the shadows of Mount Olympus. According to local news sources, this season’s is the biggest snowfall accumulation in the valley since 1993.  E.T. (Extra Tortoise), 69, is a 17-inch-diameter desert tortoise, rescued by Tosh Kano in 1988 through the State Division of Wildlife Resources during the construction of the Tuacahn Amphitheater. She warned us this was likely to happen back in October. Kano was the public works director for Salt Lake County at the time, and over the years he noticed a correlation between E.T.’s appetite and winter conditions. He was so certain about her ability to predict winter severity that he based his yearly order for road salt according to E.T.’s “predictions.”

Kano said that normally she stops eating in September to prepare for her six-month hibernation, but this year she was eating  kale, mustard greens, parsley, and carrots until mid-October, so he knew something was different. Those are considered “super foods” in a turtle’s diet, thus he knew she was storing up fat for a long and hard winter. Other signs were noted as well. Acorns were bigger this year and there were more of them as well as more 100 degree+ days over the summer. I remember we were forced to take our neighborhood walks long after sundown because of the heat. Then we forgot about tortoises and  went on to Italy, extended our summer for several more weeks.   (In case you’d like to see E.T. and her owner yourself, to this KSL Utah channel 5 television site.)

It seems like a long time ago looking back now, but this picture proves we really did enjoy a warm interlude at Trevi Fountain in Rome this fall. Ahhh, it looks so sunny and warm. Legend has it that if visitors toss a coin into the fountain they will return to Rome. Should we hear E.T. is eating like a pig again this September, I may have to reconsider my swearing off airline travel if. I’m pretty sure that’s the quickest way to get to Italy, which sounds very appealing now.  .

For today though, we continue to look out the window to see if it’s still snowing . . . yup! it is, and is expected continue all day. The nearly two-feet snow cake on the back deck may come close to swallowing that yardstick Hubby left in it (above photo) if it doesn’t let up. Did I mention the basement furnace broke down last Sunday? It’s working hard at the moment, but it’s an old old unit we’ll be replacing next week just in case.

I’ll be back with more news in a few days. That is, if we don’t freeze first. Does anybody know how to build igloos? Cháo for now!

White Christmas with Wintersong

To paraphrase Dr. Seuss on the Grinch’s reaction to the magic of Christmas, and despite the conflicts hurled by grinches around the world, it still comes–without ribbons, without tags, without packages, boxes, or bags. Whatever represents that magic to you, Wintersong wishes you a very special holiday season with those you love.

the rest of the story: Italian cooking class recipes

In response to a reader request, I’m posting the remainder of Chef Andrea’s Italian cooking class recipes, plus his suggested wine pairings. Hopefully these wines or suitable substitutes are available locally. The home made Gnocchi (see recipe in previous post) is served with Bolognese style meat sauce. The recipe follows; for non-meat eaters, Chef recommends marinara.

Wintersong notes: While the chef specifies San Marzano style fresh tomatoes for these recipes, there are alternatives for Americans. The Marzano is a variety of plum tomato considered to be the best paste tomato. Comparable to the Roma, Marzanos are thinner and more pointed, and the flesh much thicker with fewer seeds with a stronger, less acidic taste.  They have a longer growing season than other paste varieties which make them more suitable for warmer climates, thus understandably unavailable in colder areas of the country. Canned San Marzano canned tomatoes grown in Italy may be ordered in bulk online, but can be quite expensive. I make my sauces using canned Marzano-style tomatoes grown in California. They’re available in some but not all American supermarkets.  In my own taste test experiments, I find that the extra time spent in finding and using the best paste tomato you can find, canned or fresh, is well worth the effort and extra expense.

As for “Spelt,” it’s one of those things that sounds–to me anyway–like something it’s NOT. (Does it sound like a type of fish to you?)  It’s a whole grain with a nutty taste and texture, a “cousin” to wheat. Due to several health benefits–more protein than wheat for instance–it’s an excellent source of essential nutrients, and is available in many grocery stores (like Whole Foods) and can be found in health food stores year-round.

The eggplant used in the cooking class was the Italian variety which are usually smaller than American eggplants which can weigh a pound each, and 4 would obviously be too much eggplant (in my opinion). I choose the smaller purple eggplant more in line with the size of slices in the picture above the recipe. They generally have less seed also.

In the Tiramisù dessert, Chef doesn’t specify type or quantity of chocolate chips. He intended you to use your own judgement and personal taste I’m sure. Each recipe serves 4 people with hearty appetites. 

Appetizer:  Insalta di Farro (Spelt Salad)

2 cups spelt
8 tomatoes green and not very ripe
black olives pitted
carrots
celery
2 bunches of arugola
lemon zest
extra virgin olive oil
salt

Cook the spelt in a large pot of salted boiling water until tender. Cool well under cold water, drain well and place in a large bowl. Add all other cut ingredients, making sure that they will have a nice shape and good presentation. Drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. Mix well. Allow about 10 minutes to rest and season well before serving.

Suggested wine pairing: Frascati Spumante – it’s a pure Malvasia grapes Spumante, handmade produced with the Champenoise Method from the local Winery San Marco from the Lazio region ed. 2009.

Ingredients for Bolognese meat sauce:

1 lb of grounded mixed meat (70% beef and 30% pork)
5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of salt
one carrot, one stalk of celery, one onion
1 cup of dry white wine (Frascati is preferred)
1 lb of whole peeled tomatoes (like San Marzano quality)
fresh herbs like rosemary, bay leaves, and sage
1 cup freshly grated Pecorino cheese (or Parmesan cheese, as you prefer)

In a large frying pan over low heat, stir in the “soffritto” made from carrots, celery and onion with olive oil (extra-virgin) and cook until it starts to brown. Then you can add minced beef mixing with minced pork. Let it cook for about 10 minutes. When it’s browned, turn the heat to medium-high and stir in some dry white wine and cook it until it evaporates (please never use any sweet wine, it’s disgusting!). Now you can add your chopped tomatoes (boil them first and get rid of the skin). Cook it for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, or up to 2 hours (depending on how much sauce you’re cooking). Saute your gnocchi with the ragù sauce (or marinara), drizzle with Parmesan cheese to coat your dish. Serve hot. It’s gonna be delicious!!!

Wine Pairing: Marmorelle, it’s Frascati Superiore DOC – it’s a pure Frascati grapes from the Winery Principe Pallavicini ed. 2009 (Colonna – Rome – Lazio).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eggplant Parmigiana (Parmigiana di Melanzane) 

5 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
4 large eggplant, cut into thin slices
200 ml/2 cups sun flower oil to deep-fry
1kg./1/2 lb italian fresh tomato skinned-chopped (Tomatoes on the vine or Roma tomatoes are the best types that you can get back home)
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon fresh organic basil
9 Oz. fresh (250 gr.) mozzarella cheese, shredded (I’d suggest normal mozzarella and not the buffalo one because it’s drier and will not release too much liquid to the Parmigiana)
3.5 Oz. (100 gr.)  grated Parmesan cheese

Cook the sauce first. In a large frying pan over low heat, stir in the clove of garlic (remember to keep the skin on, just smash it an saute into extra virgin olive oil) and cook until it starts to brown. Boil the fresh San Marzano tomatoes and remove the skin, then chop them and add to the frying pan. Cook it for about 15 minutes, then add salt and freshly chopped basil leaves. In the meantime place the eggplant sliced into circle in a colander and sprinkle with the coarse sea salt. Let drain for 1 hour (we skipped this in the class, because we didn’t have time, but it’s okay because the eggplant I got for you at the market were very small and seedless). Heat the oil in a large deep frying pan until very hot. Shake the salt off the eggplant and fry ub small batches until golden brown, 5-7 minutes per batch. Drain onto paper towels. Add salt.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a medium baking dish. Spread a layer of eggplant in baking dish, top with tomato sauce, shredded mozzarella, few leaves of fresh organic basil and top it with Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers. Bake the tray of eggplant until hot and bubbly (about 10 minutes) and serve it covered in Parmesan cheese. Decorate with fresh basil. Can be served hot or cold.

Wine Pairing: Cesanese di Olevano Romano – it’s a pure Cesanese (the typical red grapes from Lazio Region) aged in small barrels from the Winery Azienda Agricola Proietti ed. 2009

Side dish: Broccoli Romaneschi (Roman Style Broccoli)

1 clove garlic (don’t forget to keep the skin on it while you’re sauteing with extra virgin olive oil)
2 heads of roman broccoli (about 2lb/1kg)
Salt
Chili Flakes

First clean and wash the broccoli. Remove the bottom of the plant, leaving the smaller leaves and cutting it into smaller pieces. Let the broccoli cook in salted boiling water for a few minutes, until each piece is tender and soft. Then in a large frying pan over medium-high heat, leave garlic to brown with extra virgin olive oil. Once the garlic is brown, take it out (the garlic taste is still there) toss in your boiled broccoli, leave to simmer with garlic until everything is nicely sauteed. Season your dish with saltl Add chili flakes if you’d like. Serve warm.

Dessert: Tiramisù

4 eggs
4 tablespoon of confectioner sugar
250gr (about 9 oz) mascarpone cheese (it’s an imported product in the States, so I’m using the Italian measurement so you will know how much to get!)
ladyfingers or savoiardi biscuits
200ml (about 2 cups) espresso coffee

Make some coffee to dip the lady fingers in and set aside. To make the cream mixture, separate 4 egg yolks from the whites, use an electric whisk to whip the 4 egg whites with 2 spoons of confectioner sugar and a few grains of salt–until stiff but not dry. In a separate bowl beat the 4 yolks and 2 spoons of confectioners sugar until very thick and light in color. With a wooden spoon, stir in 250 gr of mascarpone cheese  until smooth. As soon as both of the creams are ready, fold them from the bottom to the top with a spatula (so the egg whites will maintain their consistency). To assemble, dip half of the ladyfingers, one at a time, into the coffee mixture and line a long flat serving dish with them. Spoon a layer of the cream mixture over these. Add another layer of dipped ladyfingers and some chocolate chips, then spoon the remaining cream over the top. We prepared only one layer of ladyfinger, even if the quantity of cream was enough to make two layers. Cover with a thick layer of grated unsweetened chocolate/cocoa powder and leave it chilling in the fridge for a minimum of two hours. If you want, this dish can be made up to one day in advance. In this case sprinkle cocoa powder only before serving and not in advance. It will be delicious!!

Finally, in Chef Andrea’s own words, Have fun cooking and a great dinner!!! And when you’re planning a trip to Rome, be sure and consider signing up for one of his cooking classes yourself. Here’s a link to learn more.

our cooking adventure in Italy

 It’s that time of year again! Things begin to get hectic–lists to be made, stuff to buy, special projects relating to Christmas–and everything needs to be done first. We did take time out for a movie last week. Maybe you missed LIFE OF PI (book Yann Martel) when it was published in 2001. It’s one of the most extraordinary and well written books I’ve ever read. The plot involves a cargo ship sinking on the Pacific and the sole survivors, a 16-year old Indian boy named Pi and a tiger called Richard Parker. It won the prestigious Booker Award in 2002. It was so intense I could not imagine how it could be made into a movie, but Director Ang Lee somehow pulled off a 3-dimensional miracle. Readers and reviewers offer different interpretations of its meaning. Some say if you’ve ever doubted the existence of God, it will make a believer of you. In a letter to the author, Barack Obama described the book as “an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling.” The last statement about storytelling I wholeheartedly agree with. Will it make you believe? Impossible to gauge, but I’m pretty sure it will make you want to. I hope you’ll see it. Today, in case some of you who celebrate Thanksgiving are a little tired of turkey leftovers, I’m sharing Italian Chef Andrea Consoli’s recipe for Gnocchi with Regú Bolognese Sauce, as well as a few pictures of the cooking class we took with him in Italy in October.

Our Italian friend in Las Vegas who travels to Italy regularly urged us to take a cooking class on one of our four days in Rome, just the two of us, after our organized tour was done. We decided on a class with Chef Andrea Consoli in an older, less touristy neighborhood in Rome that retains the look and feel and of a traditional small Italian town. The menu for our five-course lunch was selected according to season. The selections on the menu are what’s available seasonally, and only local produce is used.

The broccoli on the right isn’t the typical broccoli you find in U.S. supermarkets. It’s a special Italian broccoli called cavolo broccolo romanesco, which is a little confusing because it’s actually a member of the cauliflower family.  We used it in the 4th course as a side dish. (Since we’ve returned home Hubby has made the same dish several times and used regular broccoli, and it works just fine. We might try broccolini in the future too.)

I’ve never ever been able to keep my kitchen pots all nice and new looking, so I felt a little better about it after I saw these  kitchen pots and pans–cleanly scrubbed but not fancy–pots with heart and soul like the ones in my kitchen.

There were nine other people besides us, and at times the kitchen was a little cramped with all of us trying to have a hands on experience with each dish’s preparation. Yes, in case you’re wondering, the first thing we were instructed to do was wash our hands!

Here’s the chef himself demonstrating the proper way to fry the thin slices of eggplant  (skins intact) for a very different version of Eggplant Parmigiana than the one I usually make. And look at that grease-laden fry pan. It’s just as bad looking as mine, but it does the job every bit as well as a shiny one!

Pretty soon we’re all pretty busy, washing and rinsing, chopping, peeling, and boiling, looking up now and then to follow the Chef’s instructions. You know  of course of chefs in famous restaurants sometimes have reputations for being obnoxious and bossy. Chef Andrea was not. He was always professional, sometimes funny, but he never hesitated to point out our mistakes. Here I get my first chiding about leaving the meat alone and letting it brown instead of nervously stirring it about. He rightly pointed out we wanted to eat lunch not dinner. I don’t do that at home because there I don’t have a chef watching over me out of the corner of his eye, but I refrained from telling him that. I grinned at him instead!

The potatoes (yukon gold) are all squeezed and soft, ready to make into Gnocchi. A tip from Chef Andrea: use the potatoes you’ve had in the bin for awhile, the ones that have begun to sprout roots. Because they retain less moisture, they’ll make the best dough since the secret to good Gnocchi that holds its shape is to get as much moisture out as possible. Dump the flour on top of the potatoes and mix well as Hubby demonstrates using his hands.

When the flour and potatoes are well blended, divide the mixture into balls, then roll the dough into ropes about 3/4 of a inch thick using your fingertips.  Cut each rope into pieces about an inch long. You can cook as is, but if you want the traditional looking gnocchi, you can find a gnocchi press like this one in gourmet specialty shops; pressing the dough against the tines of a fork works too. Finally we all sit down to eat the fruit of our labors together. We all look happy  because this photo was taken AFTER  we’d finished all five courses.

Spelt salad made with green tomatoes, black olives, carrots, celery, arugula, dressed with olive oil, salt and zest of lemon.

The chef thoughtfully prepared a marinara sauce to serve Hubby’s meatless gnocchi. That’s actually his entree. The rest of us (carnivores) had the bolognese made with ground beef.

Here’s that very different (but delicious) eggplant parmigiana. Unfortunately we all ate the Italian broccoli before I remembered the camera.

That’s dessert, a traditional tira misù made with real mascarpone that puts to shame the one Olive Garden–here in the U.S.–serves.

Now for the Gnocchi recipe. As Chef Andreas would say:  ENJOY!

Ingredients for the dough (serving 4 people):
- 500gr / 1/2 lb Potatoes (the one that fits this recipe are old potatoes and not fresh and watery ones……remember that the more water is contained in the potatoes, the more flour you need to add and the heavier the potato dumplings will be!)
- 250gr / 2 Oz all purpose flour
- pinch of saltIngredients for the sauce (serving 4 people):
- 1 lb of grounded mixed meat (70% beef and 30% pork)
- 5 tablespoons of E.V. olive oil
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- one carrot, one stalk of celery, one onion
- 1 cup of dry white wine (Frascati is preferred)
- 1 lb of whole peeled tomatoes (like San Marzano quality)
- fresh herbs like rosemary, bay leaves, and sage

- 1 cup freshly grated Pecorino cheese (or Parmesan cheese, as you prefer)Instructions:
To make the gnocchi you have to cook potatoes in a large pot of salted boiling water until tender, for about 20-25 minutes. Drain and slip off the skin, then mash until smooth. Gradually stir in salt and enough of the flour (I usually use ¼ of the quantity of potatoes) to obtain a smooth dough that is just a little sticky. Now you can take a piece of dough and roll it on a lightly floured work surface into a rope about 1 inch (2.5 cm) long. Repeat with all the dough and you can give the gnocchi the shape you prefer. Usually to give the gnocchi their special grooves, twist around the tines of a fork.
In the meantime, in a large frying pan over low heat, stir in the “soffritto” made from carrots, celery and onion with E.V. olive oil and cook until it starts to brown. Then you can add minced beef mixing with minced pork and let it cook for about 10 minutes. When it’s browned, turn on the heat over medium-high and stir in some dry white wine and cook it until it’ll evaporate (please never use any sweet wine, it’s disgusting!). Now you can add your chopped tomatoes (boil them first and get rid of the skin) and cook it for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, up to 2 hours (depending on how much sauce you’re cooking).
To cook the gnocchi, put a large pot of boiling water over high heat. When the water is boiling, toss in few tablespoons of salt with the gnocchi. Stir to keep the gnocchi from sticking, and when they’ll rise to the surface scoop them out with a slotted spoon.
Saute your gnocchi with the ragù sauce, and drizzle with Parmesan cheese to coat your dish. Serve hot. It’s gonna be delicious!!!Wine Pairing: Marmorelle, it’s Frascati Superiore DOC – it’s a pure Frascati grapes from the Winery Principe Pallavicini ed. 2009 (Colonna – Rome – Lazio).

the magic of rainy days in Venice

The week in review: It’s been fairly quiet this week along the Wasatch. The snowstorm that swamped us for three days last weekend finally quit sometime Sunday, and we were able to get out of the house and into the city for our bi-monthly lecture from the Forum for Questioning Minds, where Jill B. Jones, author of CASINO WOMEN, shared stories of women casino workers in Reno and Las Vegas.  Monday night I had a longgggg night in the Sleep/Wake Center at the University to learn whether I ever learned to sleep and/or breathe correctly upon birth 70 years ago. In other words, “why do I snore so bad?” More on that when I have results. Also, got good news from my Halloween colonoscopy. No more of that, thank goodness, for three years.  Now all that’s left until January, barring unforeseen maladies, is another blood test. Now let’s go to Venice to see how rainy weather only adds to the magic of the city.

The Grand Canal, Venice (the 8th day): Here our driver guides us along one of the major water-traffic corridors in Venice, which the Italians pronounce Venezia (ve-nit-zi-a) by the way, in a water taxi or water bus, not sure what to call it. The S-shaped canal continues for about two miles, and most of the 170+ buildings date from the 13th-18th century. Rich Venetian families apparently vie with each other to show off their richness with these picturesque palazzos. Most buildings emerge directly from water with no sidewalk pavements, and can only be viewed from the front by boat. And here I am looking and feeling like a country bumpkin all agog in the big city, hardly able to believe where I am… It’s mid- to late-afternoon and we’ve been warned to take along our rain gear as clouds gathering suggest there’s a real possibility of some showers later. At the moment I’m not concerned about getting wet. All I can think about are scenes from movies (like James Bond’s Casino Royal & Moonraker, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and wasn’t there one with Meg Ryan or some other American sweetheart?); all I can hear in my head are the voices of Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, and Placido Domingo, and even Dean Martin pops in with That’s Amore.  Here’s one of my favorite waterfront palazzos. Two things never fail to catch my eye: flowers in flowerboxes and color.

All too soon we’ve covered the full two-mile length, past idle trade ships and and impressive cathedrals (so many we can’t possibly remember all the names; we’ve discovered it’s fairly safe to say either St. Mark’s or Santa Maria’s and be right 30% of the time) and pass through the famous Rialto Bridge to enter the area of St. Mark’s Square where we’ll disembark and get ready for our much-anticipated Gondola ride.

Back at the boatdock, we all line up into six-person groups waiting for our turn. Three or four boats with our groups had already loaded and left the dock when the rain began. It didn’t seem so threatening at first, and then it was nearly our turn to take the next boat. Suddenly the sky darkened and all the clouds overhead seemed to burst at the seams all at once. Someone saw a gondola with our people aboard, already drenched to the skin, trying to make it to one of the smaller canal bridges where they would wait out the storm looking rather miserable. For a change I was really happy we weren’t in one of the first groups, hence we stayed reasonably dry under the canopied waiting dock. When it became clear the rain had no plans to stop, our tour director announced the gondola rides had been cancelled.

If we were lucky we’d have one more chance for that Venetian gondola ride tomorrow, weather permitting. We proceeded to our hotel in Venice’s mainland suburb. While Mestre is modern and industrial and cheaper than its neighbor, the “canals” we viewed from our hotel window, admittedly picturesque in their own way, could not compare to the romantic canals of Venice. On the way to the coach, a dazzling rainbow set against a brightening sky seems to promise our group, many of us understandably disappointed–many wet and hungry–that our chances were very good. (That’s me in the green jacket with the street lamp jutting out from my head.)

Sure enough, the next morning we made it, and, again, I learned the gondola rides featured in movie settings and picture books are a little more complicated. Should my readers visit Venice someday and seek out your own gondola adventure,  be advised that there are different ways to navigate the canals. And I’m pretty sure if you want to snap a digital or two, you’ll have loads of opportunities. The chances are more than even that you’ll encounter a bride and groom along the way. But where were the singing gondoliers from the movies? You know…the ones with the striped shirts and straw hats? The reality is that you see all kinds of boats on the canals used for different purposes, weddings, funerals, pageants, even races. It’s considered a special occasion boat and the current cost of a ride is around €80 for a 40-minute cruise (sometimes with a glass of wine). There are cheaper deals available, but our tour was apparently one of those. Six to a boat instead of two, no serenade. I had to content myself with the voices in my head–Bocelli, Pavarotti, and Domingo, and danged if Dean Martin didn’t pop in again once or twice!

You may be struck, as I was, at the vast number of clothesline you’ll see hanging outside. Seems because of the high cost of electricity, most Italian homes do not have clothes dryers, only about 3-4% from what I’ve read. Most Italians hang their clothes to dry in yards, on folding racks set out on the porch, or clotheslines outside in front of their windows. They reason that it’s not only easy, but economical, an important consideration when you consider how expensive it must be to rent or own a home in Venice.

Lest you think all of Venice as a city exclusively spread out along water canals, I offer this alley view. That’s Hubby waiting for me to catch up along one of the mazes of sidewalks leading back to St. Mark’s Square. Always at a loss for navigating, I’m always asking, Are you sure this is the way out? Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, he’s right, as he was this time, thank goodness!

Back on St. Mark’s Square is  the great church (St. Mark’s Basilica) with its beautiful clock tower. On the top terrace below the winged lion  with an open book are two bronze figures, hinged at the waist, which strike the hours on a bell. One figure is old, the other young, to show the passing of time. They are said to represent shepherds as they are wearing sheepskins, and are giant in size so that their form can be recognized at a distance. Although the clock tower has undergone numerous restorations over the years (originally a statue was kneeling before the lion but was removed in by the French in 1797 after the city surrendered to Napoleon), the bell is the original one.

Now you may have heard or read about the flooding in northern Italy the last few weeks, and of course scientists have been saying for years that Venice is slowly sinking. Every time the rains come, the winds blow, and tides sweep more water in. It’s easy to see from this picture taken along the boat docking area how flooding would be a big problem for Venice.

And it’s no secret that in this 21st century, there are few places a person can’t get to within a day of travel, and more people than ever are now realizing long-held dreams of seeing the world, fulfilling their own “bucket-dreams.” Thus the tourist industry continues to flourish, particularly in Italy. It continues to be an important part of our global economy. Thus, in an effort not to discourage visitors to Italy’s famous city built on the seas, Venetians came up with alternative ways for tourists to get around the square in the (more and more) likely event of flooding. Indeed, you can see the props scattered around the square when not in use although you may not recognize what they are. When they are needed, here’s how they look.

Rather than complain, since you can’t argue with Mother Nature anyhow, nor can we yet agree among us that global warming is real, floods are now a fairly regular part of the Venetian tourism experience. Ever resilient, the tourists have learned to take it all in stride and make the best of it, even thinking of it as an different kind of travel adventure. This picture is from Reuters News Agency, but you can go online and do your own search (floods in Italy) and come up with your own assortment of tourists flopping around straddling floating tubes or surfboarding through the streets. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad philosophy for life. Let me add quickly, however, that in spite of the magic of that Venetian rainbow, I’m glad we saw it while you can still navigate on foot there. We got out at just the right time. Venice, or Venezia, as my new Italian friends would say, still holds a lot of magic.