"Cool"

People living in a wide swath of cities around the globe are familiar with the Eataly chain: a store concept associated with the Slow Food movement, featuring only Italian made foods, ingredients and products. Little Eatalies are in many cities outside of Italy. The biggest such store is the one in Rome, which occupies four floors of Italian foodie goodness. Shopping there is as close to a food mall experience as you will ever get here, and it requires a commitment of at least a few hours. 

You shop, you taste things, you park your cart and have a meal or just a drink, and you shop some more.  You can go for a thematic food festival and try all kinds of things. You can take a cooking class on the top floor. It is a lot of fun. 

Wines occupy a whole floor, and are divided by region. Remember that Italy has only recently outpaced France in terms of wine production (France still makes more money off their wine, but it's because they charge more per bottle). 

It has only been during the pandemic that we learned why there was always such a line outside the pizza restaurant inside Eataly. 

Oh, we said. No wonder. Delicious!

The absolute BIGGEST version of Eataly is located just outside of Bologna - a foodie city, for sure - and it is a giant sprawl involving not just the Eataly concept in its essential form. It also includes

 on-site food production displays and laboratories, as well as whole agricultural displays with an active chicken yard and coop, cows and goats...It is tailored to not just the individual consumer but also corporate clientele. A special city bus in Bologna takes you there. The place is so big, you can grab a bicycle outfitted with a cart and ride around inside, shopping, eating, watching chickens, whatever. 

This mega-Eataly is known simply as 'Fico.' 

Friends, that's a LOT OF SALAMI.

Ahem. Excuse me. SalUmi. Not salami.

Naturally, the chickens get to roam a bit here.

(Every time I scroll past this image in my phone photos, I remember...best. popsicle. ever.)

Fico in slang vernacular is 'cool.' 

Fico is also, more directly, Italian for 'fig.' 

Some readers of this post need no introduction to the humble fig. I certainly knew what a fig was before moving to Italy, but I only came to understand its importance to this country - as well as the world, really - and its history over time. 

Botanically speaking, the fig is a kind of wonder. Its flowers grow inside the fruit.  That fruit can often contain remnants of the fig wasp that participates in its fertilization. People often say that they have sliced open a fig and found some waspy remains. Tasty! 

At the same time, the sap from the fig plant/tree is poisonous to humans.

Have these realities stopped Italians from prizing figs? Absolutely not. 

Figs are an excellent source of calcium, potassium and a moderate source of fiber, and if you like your fruit on the less 'dolce' side, then plenty of fig types land on the not-so-sweet end of the scale. 

Most superficially speaking, the fig is something you can expect to find sold by your Italian fruit and veg stands during the latter summer months. I don't know if this is a climate change thing, but fig availability seems to be widening, time-wise. This summer in particular has been very, very figgy for awhile. 

There are a number of varieties, and of course all food snobs swoon over Mission figs, but I'm not sure why. They are beautiful, of course, with their bruise-colored skins. But the yellow-green ones pictured above are, I've discovered this summer, like honey in fruit form. Incredible.

 When you get figs, you have to get busy. They are incredibly fragile and short-lived. You have to eat them within a day or two, or figure out what you will do with them so that you can preserve them. I'm still saving a jar of rosemary fig jam from a friend. I brought it here with me five years ago. Those of us from the South, in particular, know the value of a preserved item like that, born of much kitchen labor and sweat over a stove. 

When we requested an apartment in the city center of Rome, we did not think about trees. As in, we did not think we would be almost completely deprived of trees. But more or less, we are. 

On my way to visit my favorite art supply store, hair stylist or butcher, there is one, lone tree situated between two buildings. 

It reaches out for the sunlight and shades a few feet of sidewalk in the warmer months. To me, its insistence and resilience is a bit astonishing. 

I've come to think of this as 'my' tree. I am utterly charmed by it. I stop and regard its status on every walk I take near its vicinity. 

After several trips underneath it, over time, I noticed that there was a lot of bird poop on the ground underneath this tree. 

And eventually, I happened to notice a smushed fig on the ground, too. Ah, it's a fig tree!

Obviously, this tree has been in this location for some time, and the birds benefit - so much so that sighting any growing figs still on the branches is a challenge.

I can't really say for certain whether volunteer fig trees are considered problematic here, but what I have noticed in my city wanderings is that they tend to appear in assertive ways, and at least some are allowed to flourish, however impossibly.

Of course, it turns out that fig trees are ruggedly drought tolerant. They root VERY deeply.

A favorite small piazza near my apartment is in fact called Piazza del Fico. Old men sit underneath the lone fig tree and play chess. There is such regard for this tree that despite its age and sag, it is lashed to a building so that it remains upright and provides shade. Look closely for the tether above the extreme bend in the trunk, below:

By now, you are probably recalling that the fig leaf is the historically understood way to make a frontal image of a nude human being more PG. And quite rightly so, as its size covers a lot of area. 

Upon delving further into the topic for a book structures project (when we are conversing in person, ask me more about this, as I could show you the result), I found that the humble fig has an extraordinary history. 

Not only did the twins Romulus and Remus survive their mythic abandonment - set adrift in a basket on the Tiber, only to arrive here and be suckled by a she-wolf (or a prostitute, we will never be certain, except that the Italian term is the same for both creatures) - courtesy of a wild animal, they were also sated by figs from a tree on the river shoreline.

Augustus Caesar made sure to plant sacred fig trees on and around the Capitoline hill. They were always revered during the festival known as the Lupercalia (remember the twins' story above, and that the term for both wolf and prostitute is 'lupo' (m) or lupa' (f)). 

Romans believed that the fig tree could thwart deadly lightening in a storm. 

Adam and Eve never picked an apple from the Tree of Knowledge (wrong part of the world for apples!), but instead, probably sampled figs from that tree before being cast out of the Garden. 

Jesus Christ is described as having cursed a fig tree, causing it to wither. 

Judas hung himself - in shame and despondency, following his treachery - from a fig tree. 

Mohammed insisted that every man in possession of a fig tree was a man with wealth. 

Buddha reached enlightenment underneath....sure, you guessed it, a fig tree. 

Here is a small watercolor on parchment by artist Giovanna Garzoni (1600-1670), one of the rare female painters to be represented in the famous Medici family's collection of curiosities. She has to have had either a steady collection of figs she could rotate in and out while painting from this still life, or she was a fast painter. To get watercolor to dry on this unique surface, she had to apply it in thin washes and tiny dots.

If you have a fig tree, you are a fortunate person. If it is bountiful, you are of course a fortunate person with a lot of fig-loving friends, probably, eager to arrive for that short window of time to harvest, process and enjoy the fruit.

If you have a farmer's market and you encounter figs for sale, buy a few and (carefully!) bring them home. 

Slice them open. Regard their unique structures. They are beautiful! Look for waspy remains. 

Reflect on their longstanding relationship to - and widely varied meaning for - humankind.

When you eat a fig, you are not only 'cool,' you are partaking in a deep history of rescue, protection, risk, nourishment and abundance. 

 

 

Spice Sisters

I have a pretty ridiculous spice collection. 

It currently occupies the inside of a two shelf cabinet above my microwave, the top of my microwave, two more shelves of a standing corner wire rack in this weird space near my pantry, and a few more things are tucked into the pantry itself. 

I arrived here with the bulk of my collection. Some things have been added because of their wider availability here. Sea salts are prevalent, for instance. I'm hoarding a parmigiano/basil sea salt, for fear that I'll never see it again. Nothing can truly compare with Sicilian oregano, which is sold dried on its twigs. I finally figured out that 'dragoncello' is the (fancy!) name for tarragon, which is divine in chicken salad. The spice guy I visit at Campo dei Fiori carries a variety of spice blends, but many of them are intended for tourists who think that there is some mythical secret to many Italian sauces and dishes (once you learn the actual limitations placed upon these traditional items, then it is not difficult to stock your pantry with the basics).  

I have had to embellish my collection quite a bit with things I could more often obtain outside of Italy, because some spices here are not prized in the local cuisine. I now have dill obtained from both France and Germany. Paprika from the Netherlands. And generally, any really hot spices such as chili powders have to come from somewhere outside of this country. Italians use actual chilis sometimes, but pretty infrequently. Pandemic cooking has prompted me to branch out in my inclusion of more international foods, so the turmeric I once bought on a whim now has a use in my kitchen. Friends have 'muled' spices to us, too. 

When I am reunited with my favorite container for my spices (an old wooden first aid cabinet we call Spice Aid), I fear that I will have to somehow cull my collection. 

I am attached to my green, white, pink, black and Szechuan peppercorns.  I enjoy having the option to use ancho, guajillo and hot Mexican chili powders. 

I can even sprinkle saffron in a recipe that calls for it. 

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 Several years ago, I was teaching an interdisciplinary course on spirituality and art at the women's university that has employed me for over 25 years. And in that course was a young women from Afghanistan. One of two guest students on our campus, she was participating in the program sponsored by the Clinton Foundation to educate women from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

She was exactly the type of student you might expect in a case like this: slightly older than traditional college age, yet youthful in her innocence. She was extraordinarily respectful towards her teachers. She was quiet, and did not draw attention to herself. When I saw her around campus, she was usually walking alongside the other young woman in the same program. 

She was a delight to have my class, of course, but not because of all of the traits I previously described. She always stopped to speak with me after class. She asked questions about the topics we studied. I inquired about how things were going for her on an American college campus. She exhibited a muted yet steady enthusiasm for a subject I initially thought might be problematic for a Muslim who, on two potential fronts, might not be inclined towards the study of visual art associated with a wide variety of faiths. As it turned out, I never should have been concerned. 

She was there to learn. She was there to soak up anything and everything.

Her goals included majoring in business so that she could return home to help run her family's business. She did not talk about what life was like at home. She did not talk about how the women of her country, prior to 2001, were barred from receiving an education. 

I did not ask.

She did not say. 

Towards the end of the school term, she told me that she was going home for the holiday break. She asked if she could bring anything to me from Afghanistan. 

I asked for saffron. 

While it is principally grown in Iran and Greece, Afghanistan is increasing its production in the 21st century. Saffron is considered to be the most expensive spice in the world, largely due to the particular labor of harvesting it. Put simply, saffron must be harvested by hand. The delicate stamens of the purple crocus sativa flower must be withdrawn via tweezers, and this must be executed within a very brief window of time after the blooms are picked. 

While I don't fully know, I think that there are grades of saffron, with the most expensive, full-strength varieties being sold for high amounts of money and exported around the world. I wasn't asking my Afghani student for that type. I was asking for the saffron that was of lesser value, affordable for the kind of citizen I presumed she was at home. The kind of saffron that could - via a generous pinch - deliver both a rich amber color and a heady fragrance to select dishes in my American kitchen. And, it turned out, even the 'average' saffron that, when one stamen is wetted with water and dragged by a brush across a sketchbook page, would leave a glowing, yellow-orange trail.  

When she returned, she delivered 6 vials of saffron. 

I felt so blessed by her generosity. I said so. She slipped back into the fabric of the campus and its spring term. Every now and then, she and I would wave to each other as we passed. 

A year after that, I wondered aloud in front of a colleague, "Is that student still here?" 

The answer: she withdrew from the program in order to give her sister a chance to participate in it instead. 

I don't know anything about her now.

Tonight, my thoughts return to her, to her countrywomen, to the way that the world is watching as the United States and Nato troops withdraw from the 'endless war' in her country. To an enemy force that the former U.S. president regarded as worthy enough of a 'peace agreement,' the talks for which were conducted without including representatives of the country that had hosted foreign troops for twenty years. News reports from this past Spring tell me that while that force has honored the agreement to not kill Americans, educated and female Afghan citizens are even more frequent targets. 

One outcome of that 'endless war' was the rise in visibility and leadership of women in Afghanistan. I am sobered by the changes unfolding in near-daily media chronicles of both the withdrawal and the simultaneous and rapid occupation of zones of an already beleaguered country. 

I hope that I never pretended to have all the answers for questions in my Spirituality in Art class. I certainly cannot pretend to have answers for this dilemma, this near-certain humanitarian crisis, either. 

All I know is that for a few weeks, I was able to interact with someone who never treated education as an automatic right. She bore her position, so very distanced from home, among a variety of women who never had to question whether they could open and read a book, walk into a classroom, speak authoritatively to a populated room, or wield personal or political power. 

There is no clean or snappy way to end this post. I have no lesson or wisdom to impart. I worry for women in many places. Today, tonight, I worry for certain ones more than for others. 

 

Senza Studenti (Seconde Parte)

 

The last time we were able to travel within the country we live in was October 2020. We took a driving tour through select locations in Tuscany for our anniversary, and it was lovely. 

By November, no one was going anywhere. All travel between regions was heavily restricted. For awhile, the only reason you could go out was for groceries and other essentials. Christmas and New Year's were very, very quiet holidays- particularly for Italians, and particularly for the original seat of Christendom, the city of Rome. 

Only within the last 6 weeks have restrictions been lifted in any substantial fashion. This past Spring term for university level study abroad students - those who could actually get here - involved a two week quarantine upon arrival, weekly Covid tests, and travel only within the Lazio region. This is a FAR cry from what they usually do when they are here (which entails treating Rome as a home base from which to go anywhere and everywhere around the Mediterranean and Western Europe, yielding this somewhat sad outcome of rarely getting to know Rome itself). 

As restaurants heaved as many tables and chairs as possible outdoors so that they could actually have some business (indoor dining has only been permitted since last week) and a smattering of tourists have retaken the crosswalks and the city's fleet of rent-able scooters, the country's museums have been doing their best to extend the dates of exhibitions that were unfortunately closed for several weeks. 

So, we booked a weekend trip to Milan.

Former students of mine will recall our 2008 visit to this city, principally to see The Last Supper by Leonardo. We went so that the fashion students could see some high fashion and shop, the interior design students could admire some modern architecture, and we wound up taking a somewhat spontaneous train trip out of the city to Lago Maggiore so that a few brave souls could slip into the chilly water and the rest of us could have a cocktail in front of some gorgeous scenery, far from the concrete jungle. 

I didn't think too much of Milan, then. I recall taking a self-guided tour of the rooftop of the Duomo (pictured above) which was quite remarkable. I won't forget seeing the Leonardo painting. 

But for me, Milan didn't hold a candle to the cities further south. I had some kind of romanticized attachment to Tuscan towns and the allure of Rome. 

I have since changed my mind. 

A few things could certainly help with that change, of course. 

This past weekend, I did not have to worry about the safety of students. I did not have to be concerned about whether they were having a good time. 

(As the Lombardy region was the absolute worst in Covid numbers for most of the past 16 months, going to its biggest urban center did give us pause, but the overall stats everywhere are seriously on the decline, and of course, we remained masked everywhere.)

Having lived in Rome for five years, I better understand the city's limitations as well as charms. Romans really don't consider themselves to be Italian. This whole 'Republic' experiment, if you will, has just been underway for close to 150 years, which is a pretty short gig for a place that has been continually occupied for somewhere around 3000 years. The most recent, large-scale trauma inflicted on this "country" (which is comprised of a loosely linked set of tribes and city-states, to be honest) left Rome largely spared of physical damage, whereas cities like Turin and Milan sustained far greater amounts of it. I have heard more than once that Italians do not believe in change; you are not expected to leave your hometown. 

And yet, Milan's industrialized, cosmopolitan atmosphere speaks to a fresher sensibility. The mass transit system is widespread in scope and reach. Our hotel - so close to the train station that I worried I had made a poor choice, as those places tend to be overly worn and bare-bones - had this very youthful, hip vibe. 

This built-in sculpture greeted us at the front door of our hotel.

What's more, we didn't encounter a single surly Milanese citizen - who often had much greater fluency in English, compared to their Southern counterparts - in our entire visit. 

Now, I am confident that everyone is feeling better about life in general because a sense of normality is creeping back. And our American-ness - so pale-skinned, chubby and blatant, even if we use our best Italian language skills whenever possible - is misinterpreted as a sign that tourists are returning (indeed, they are, but we are not the harbingers of that). 

Therefore, we may be misinterpreting the extraordinarily pleasant service (in a country that is, by and large, completely disinterested in service) we experienced. 

But all the same, we enjoyed ourselves. 

I was over the moon about the exhibition, of course. 

To see this array of works by Italian women artists from the 16th and 17th centuries alone was impressive. 

The labels on this map do track the movements of some artists in more than one place, but the sheer number of names is still quite staggering against the time I can recall, of not so long ago, in which only a handful of these names could be cited at all. 

And to think that some of even the known, earliest painters could and did create LARGE works - when we originally thought that they did not, could not - is also gratifying. Sofonisba Anguissola's altarpiece, designed to honor the memory of her late first husband, stands against the litany of much smaller self-portraits and portraits of others as this standout narrative of loss and commemoration. 

Her chess game painting, portraying her sisters playing an intellectual game that had undergone a major change in allowed moves - the Queen piece was finally permitted diagonal advances across the board - is a marvel of fine Italian textile reproduction and the nuanced interaction between young, female (!) players. 

This piece of heraldry is populated with carved peach or plum pits: the much celebrated carving skills of Properzia di Rossi. Legend holds that she once carved all twelve scenes of Christ's passions into one such pit.

I felt compelled to sneak this shot of Lavinia Fontana's self portrait at the spinet, a painting I have included in lectures for years and years...and one I have never seen in person before. No doubt, captions in books have included the measurements. And yet, I still did not imagine that the image would be the size of a box of pasta. 

And Elisabetta Sirani's Portia Wounding her Thigh; the wife of Brutus injuring herself to prove that she was tough enough to endure pain and therefore, capable of keeping a secret as important as the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar. Some might fixate on the glowing, bleeding thigh. I remain captivated by the Roman sandal combined with a contemporary dress. 

And this heretofore unpublished Artemisia Gentileschi painting, damaged in the explosion at Beirut's port just last August. It had been living with a wealthy owner's private collection housed in a palace 800 meters from ground zero of that brutal, deadly event.

It will leave this exhibition and go to Italian restorers.

And I don't care what anyone else thinks about this: Artemisia's Cleopatra is a tour de force study of the female form. Some argue that this is a self-portrait, and from a purely artistic standpoint, it makes sense to use the subject matter you have close at hand. That practicality, for me, overrides any interest in sensationalizing it (the recording from our hand-held devices stated that this painting's date times nicely with a letter from the artist to her lover, complaining that she had gained weight...I will sit - my ample self! - on my hands in order to refrain from launching a tirade on how Italian this observation is).

Exiting the exhibition entailed a short walk through a few more rooms in the Palazzo Reale.

And on we went...to a bar specializing in Belgian beer. Here's the thing about walking the streets of Milan - they feel the least Italian of any of the other cities I've visited. 

We kept chuckling at how the deco-styled buildings and even more modern structures smacked of....Paris. But then we would see signage in Italian and remember where we really were.

We had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant.

We slept in comfortable beds in our upgraded room. 

On our only full day there, walked a funky neighborhood known as Isola - because it was originally separated from the rest of the city by rail lines - looking for street art.

We lunched at a hip restaurant with a motorcycle theme, as it was near a well-known cycle repair shop. 

 In the same area, we sought out the Bosco Verticale - the vertical forest, a pair of apartment buildings that have a wide variety of plants and trees on each of the balconies...intentionally. Here is a link to the architect's description of the project dedicated to sustainability. The award winning Vertical Forest is a 'house for trees that also houses humans and birds,' existing as a micro-climate that scrubs the air, enhances biodiversity in the urban environment, and has helped launch the careers of Flying Gardeners, or climbing arborists (be sure to follow that link and read about them!) 

Nearby is the tallest skyscraper in Italy, the Unicredit building. 

As per the usual, what was most likely Milan's hottest day of the year so far was *this* day. This is my fate. Heat waves track me like hound dogs. I crashed for awhile in our (air-conditioned....REALLY air-conditioned. ASTOUNDING!) room and The Spouse went out for a little sight-seeing jaunt of his own, to see a large ossuary at San Bernardino alle Ossa. 

Here are his photos of this chapel, almost entirely decorated with human skulls and tibiae.

Have I mentioned lately that we are not typical tourists? 

We closed the day with an excellent pizza dinner in a huge space with music playing over the speakers in the dining room, which is quite unusual in itself, compared to our relatively quiet dining experiences in Rome and elsewhere (who needs to play music when the very vibrant locals are loud enough already?). But the marketing here is to the youth of the city. The older folks, I presume, can either hang in there with the noise or they can go to a little trattoria that hasn't changed since the 1960s. 

We had just enough time on Sunday morning to seek out brunch somewhere. Brunch as a concept is almost unheard of in Rome. In Milan? Different story...and amusing, when you consider that 'brunch' hours at restaurants might begin at noon and last until 5pm. 

We went via tram to Milan's Chinatown for dim sum.

My dumpling fantasies (I don't know when I last had them) fulfilled, we boarded a train for home.

We're going back. It is a vibrant, large city worth exploring.

Learn from my mistake in thinking otherwise.