Window on Fidenza fashion

One of the pleasures of strolling Fidenza's main street is window-shopping the elegant clothing stores whose windows stand out amid the more mundane establishments typical of a small Italian city--the pastry shops and gelaterie, the real-estate offices, tabacchi, coffee bars,  and pharmacies. the halal butcher, the florist,The little shops selling jackets, dresses, and underwear mostly aren't big-name fashion brands; for that you need to go to the Fidenza Village outlet mall a couple miles outside of town. But, or perhaps therefore, the stores in town put a surprising amount of energy into their window displays, changing the outfits on the manikins every few days. 

And although the styles of the different shops vary from party girl to refined matron, it sometimes seems they're all following a similar playbook. 

A few weeks ago, a lot of stores suddenly erupted in Kelly green, often paired with pink. 

I noticed this rather violent combination mainly because I find that shade of green peculiarly unpleasant. Maybe that's just because wearing it would make me look jaundiced. 

And the answer to the question that some readers may have--does anyone in Fidenza actually dress like this?--is yes. Not everyone, of course, not even most people, but when I sit in the coffee bar across from our front door and survey the passing crowds there are women who regularly astonish me with their enthusiasm for bright, bling-y, very Italian fashion. Although I admit I haven't seen anyone in that pink fur vest, at least not yet.

I was relieved when, within a week or so, Kelly green began to be replaced by black and white, a color combo (or non-color combo) much more to my own taste.  

You can see vestigial Kelly green in the background.

I'm not claiming that every store in town turned its back on color. But the shift was noticeable up and down the avenue.

Not only that, but some of the clotheshorses of a certain age that I like to keep an eye on (but am too cowardly to photograph) began appearing in, for example, a black-and-white blanket-check coat, a white puffer jacket over black pleather leggings and boots. Clearly a memo had gone out to the fashionistas in town and everyone was following its orders.

But by the time I'd taken a few more photographs and started the arduous process of composing this little squib, the ground was beginning to shift beneath me. Pink had at first been merely an accent.

Now it began claiming the starring role.

Or perhaps the shift is not to pink per se, but to exuberant colors calculated to counter the cold, foggy gray of a Po Valley winter. 

It's also true that Fidenza's fashion attention span seems to be remarkably short. The photo below shows one of the windows that first made me realize that black and white was the "in" look for November. It was taken six days ago.

And here is the same window as of yesterday. Apparently while I was writing this a new memo went out.

I'm not rushing in to buy that suit, but I still like any of these new colors better than Kelly green. And come what may, color-wise, I can be sure that strolling around the neighborhood, even under gray, drizzly skies, will continue to be a reliable source of entertainment. 

Addendum: Macchinette in Sicily

I saw some interesting vending machines during our visit to Sicily, too. A couple that I examined in Palermo sold the usual drinnks and snacks but not the sustaining range of groceries provided by our macchinetta in Fidenza. However, the Palermo macchinette had not only a variety of condoms but also CBD products with names like Skunk, Amnesia, and Gelato #420. 

Pay no attention to the old lady ogling the merchandise.

Medical marijuana is legal in Italy, as long as it's not very strong--less than 6 percent THC (the main psychoactive compound in marijuana). That's notably less than the 10 percent allowed in California. CBD is legal for general sale to Italians, but only if it's even weaker--less than 2 percent THC. So although the CBD products in this machine are pricey, at 10 euros for a gram, they probably don't deliver much of a kick. (This is all based on a quick internet search; please don't take it as legal advice.) 

The most surprising macchinetta I've seen was also in Sicily. A small kiosk in the middle of one of Palermo's busiest streets is a coin-operated laundry. As we walked by I saw this gallant fellow shield a companion from the stares of passersby like me. Then the items she'd just taken off went into the washing machine.

I suspect these folks weren't locals, but I didn't have the presence of mind to ask. The artwork-cum-sign above their heads mentions rivers, lakes, oceans, and Niagara Falls as well as soap and washing machines. Perhaps that makes people feel more comfortable doing their laundry out in the open.   

The little (vending) machines

The only vending machines that are part of my life in California are the ones for BART tickets and parking spaces. Otherwise I associate them with bottles of water and stale candy bars, conveniences I've turned to only under desperate circumstances, such as being stuck in an airport or a hospital waiting room at two in the morning. 

Here in Italy, though, vending machines are ubiquitous. I'm sure a big reason is that, with stores and bars often closed in the middle of the day, on Sundays, and on Thursday afternoons, the machines are the only way to provide 24-hour access to the things people need.  

A case in point are machines selling cigarettes. Here's one that also sells lottery tickets. To buy either you have to insert an identity card or other documentation to prove that you're 18 or older. I was surprised to see that prices are almost half what they are in California.

Equally thick on the ground are machines that sell espresso and other coffee drinks. Apparently Italians need to be able to reup their caffeine intake anywhere, anytime.  

This one, a few blocks from us, grinds beans to order. I'm too loyal to my local bars to try it, but my price-conscious husband pointed out that the machine's cappuccino is less than a third the price the bars charge. (Maybe the machine saves money by leaving out that second p.)

Here's another machine a few blocks in the other direction, a marvel of ingenuity capable of serving up anything from decaf espresso to tea with lemon to hot chocolate. Note that you can get a little or a lot of sugar or just an empty cup. As the Italian TV chef Giorgione likes to say, Che meraviglia! 

I was surprised to see all the coffee drinks with ginseng, since I hadn't heard of this off-putting combination before. Maybe people only drink it out of machines. The website of one purveyor of such beverages, boasting that ginseng "has invigorating and energizing effects" and "is a natural aphrodisiac," describes the taste as a bit spicy, bitter at first with a sweet aftertaste, adding, "Some say it reminds them of toffee." No wonder, since these drinks contain minimal amounts of ginseng but lots of sugar and fat. 

The Fidenza government has its own vending machines. On a corner on the outskirts I spotted these. 

The box on the right provides the town sanitation service's color-coded bags for recyclables and garbage. The pink structure on the left dispenses water, still or sparkling; you have to bring your own bottles. Both offer their wares for free--ah, social democracy!--to those who have the right kind of identification card. As nonresidents we, sadly, do not. 

Recent additions to the local vending scene are little open-air alcoves on the street containing machines that sell everything from condoms to tomato sauce. Pam says these places only began appearing in Fidenza in the past five to ten years, and that they're referred to as "macchinette," little machines. The one we're most familiar with is a few blocks from us. It houses several vending machines that sell not only coffee drinks but an extensive array of sodas, juices, cookies, chips, and other impulse buys. (The red door is purely decorative.)

Coffee was what these two ladies were here for.  

What brings us there several times a week is the machine that sells bottles of milk. Pam swears it's fresher than what's in the supermarket, and it's also 30 cents cheaper.

The same machine also sells yogurt and kefir in several flavors, and at various times butter, grating cheese, tomato sauce, dry salami, rice, ground coffee, cream, and tiramisu. You could survive for quite a while just on what you can buy from this little automat.

In addition to what they sell, these little stalls also offer young men (it always seems to be men) a place to hang out late at night when the bars are closed, the weather's damp, and they're not ready to go back home to their parents. The machine we go to used to sell beer as well as soft drinks, but that's no longer true. Pam says that the young fellows would hang out there into the wee hours, drink, and get increasingly raucous. The neighbors are probably grateful the beer is gone.

Young males are no doubt the target audience for another convenience some of these machines offer, tucked in among the snacks: preservativi, that is, condoms. Good to have them handy if you've been drinking a lot of ginseng espresso.

This machine, down at the other end of town, provides three brands, including a "preservativi ritardanti" for "the joy of taking your time. "

Apparently some are impatient, though, or perhaps bursting with too much ginseng energy. A sign on the same machine begs, "Please don't kick the dispenser." 

Organ adventures

This post is not about offal, nor anything salacious. (Apologies to those who are disapponted on either count,) Rather it concerns the musical powerhouse sometimes hailed as the king of instruments: the pipe organ.

Our friends Kate and Randy, whose visit I described in the preceding post, had come here from Paris, where they've been staying for a few months. During their time in the City of Light Kate made a startling discovery about her partner: he has a thing for organs. "I feel this should have been disclosed a lot earlier in the relationship," she told me. In Paris he made a point of visiting several famous church organs, including those that had been played by Saint-Saens and Franck, and talked about how wonderful they were, how beautiful the sound, and about his own family's long history with the instrument.

Kate has no objection to Randy's interest, but she has a hard time overlooking the double-entendres that inevitably arise whenever he gets on the topic. Being with me didn't help, since every time Randy said something organ-related Kate and I would snort and snicker like Beavis and Butthead. Admit it: when someone talks about his grandmother's "big organ" and how she "needed two men to help her," could you keep a straight face?

As a good hostess, I hoped to provide Randy with a few organ adventures here in Fidenza. And as luck would have it, the Church of San Michele, down the street from us, was celebrating its 300th birthday with an organ concert during Kate and Randy's visit.

The concert included a small group of instrumentalists, a choir of 12, and several soloists. in a program that included Mozart's Ave Verum and Coronation Mass but centered on a pipe organ that was built in 1764, 42 years after the church was consecrated. You can see it peeking over the heads of the choristers on the left side of the photo.

Fidenza's bishop was in attendance (the gray-haired man in the front row), as well as San Michele's priest (who's at the other end of the same pew). We think the fellow in the middle is Don Benjamin, a priest from Togo who serves one of the country parishes outside of town and was just given Italian citizenship a couple of weeks ago. And that's Saint Michael off to the right, the one with the golden sword.

I was disappointed when I saw the little pipe organ sitting on the stage. I'd assumed we'd be hearing the big sound of a church organ, and in truth when the organist, Matteo Francesco Golizio, launched into the solo program that made up the middle section of the concert his antique instrument sounded quite a lot like a merry-go-round calliope. 

Two men playing with a little organ.

While he played the church's own organist, Luigi Fontana, seemed to be hovering behind him like an anxious stage mother. But then Fontana lunged forward and I realized what was going on: Fontana was pulling out or pushing in the stops on the organ that changed its timbre and tone. This is presumably what the two men helping Randy's grandmother had also been up to. 

Sometimes it took quite a vigorous tug.

All in all it was a lovely concert that we thoroughly enjoyed (except for the not very comfortable wooden pews). More exciting was the up-close-and-personal organ experience we had a few days earlier in Fidenza's venerable Duomo.

Not long before our guests showed up I was telling my friend Pam about Randy's organ obsession and she offered to introduce us to the organist at the Duomo, Giovanni Chiapponi. Moments later Giovanni himself rolled by on his bicycle. Pam flagged him down and in a few minutes we had an appointment for the day after our friends arrived to meet him at the church and get a tour. 

Il Duomo.

The cathedral was mostly deserted on a Thursday afternoon, and because we were with Giovanni we were able to go up behind the altar to the choir loft, where the organ console is nestled. It's a handsome piece of furniture with lots of pedals for both feet and hands, including several new buttons that had been recently added above the keyboard for new kinds of sounds.

While we were there, Pam took advantage of our access to the choir loft to show us a fresco hidden inside one of the wall panels. 

Most of the imagery that once covered the inside of the Duomo was whitewashed over centuries ago during an outbreak of the Black Death, but for some reason this one image was spared. It's sad to think of how magnificent the church must have been before its frescos were obliterated.

Then Giovanni sat down, flipped some switches, and began to play. He showed us the amazing range of musical sounds and nuances the organ can deliver, by pressing foot pedals or turning stops on and off. Because this organ is fully electric, he doesn't need any help with the stops and can do it all himself. The dexterity and coordination of his feet and hands were amazing. 

He improvised a stream of beautiful, churchy-sounding music, with some Bach dropped in here and there. It was most impressive. Randy was entranced.

So was I. I was embarrassed when tears began stinging my eyes. Something primal about that sound in that space momentarily overwhelmed me.   

If religion wetr as simple and as powerful as that feeling, as moving as that soul-stirring sound, I would be a convert. It's unfortunate the words so often get in the way. 

Of course that moment of transcendence didn't last very long. Soon I was once again egging Kate on and annoying our menfolk with a stream of organ-related witticisms. After all, we'd just met the fellow with the biggest organ in town. 

Napping between meals

Our friends Kate and Randy were here over the weekend to check out our Fidenza lifestyle. What they experienced was a lot of gabbing, a daily nap habit, and plenty of eating and drinking. They seemed to enjoy it, and we certainly did.

On their first night here we took them to one of our favorite local restaurants, whose exact name is a bit unclear. It's the Antica Trattoria al Duomo on the restaurant's own Facebook page, but it's the Antica Trattoria il Duomo according to the sign over their door, and I've been saying "Antica Trattoria del Duomo" because I kept seeing it that way online, including on the Fidenza town website and an all-Italy site listing the country's best trattorias. 

"Antica Trattoria" can be variously translated as the old tavern or the old diner, and the Duomo in the name refers to the Cathedral of San Donnino, which the restaurant used to be right next door to, before it moved a block or so up the street.

The back of the Duomo, as seen from the little piazza in front of the restaurant.

I suppose it hardly matters whether it's the old diner at the Duomo, the old Duomo diner, or the old diner of the Duomo. Whatever it's called, the food is great.

In particular, the Antica Trattoria is famous for its antipasto of salami, prosciutto crudo, and other salumi accompanied by torta fritta, little rectangles of bread dough that are turned into tender pillows via a quick sojourn through very hot lard. Many other places in the area make torta fritta, but Antica Trattoria's version is amazingly light and the meats are top quality.

Danny wondered if this local specialty might be a bit too carniverous for Randy, who was a devoted vegetarian until recently. But he need not have worried: Randy enjoyed the antipasto as much as the rest of us did, and we finished every bite. 

In the days that followed we had plenty of pizza, pasta, cappuccini, panini, pastries, wine, beer, meatball soup, gelato, and Bar Teatro's best-ever tiramisu. When it came to the latter, our instinct for self-presevation kicked in and we got just one and shared it.

I love how Italian desserts are served with little shovels.

Their last day here was Randy's birthday, and he proposed we celebrate by going back to the Antica Trattoria for another round of antipasto. We were happy to oblige. We once again ordered the restaurant's very generous antipasto for two.

What better way to say "...and many more" than a plateful of torta fritta?

The preceding days of eating and napping had taken their toll, though. We just couldn't finish it all the second time around. We did, however, manage to eat most of the pasta or meat courses that we ordered as follow-ups, before we staggered back to our place, moaning about how full we were, and hobbled off to bed.

Danny and I were so exhausted by all this high living, and by the interrupted sleep brought on that night by a very rich meal, that we didn't get up till eleven the next morning. By then our guests were long gone. How they managed to get up, pack, and leave in time to catch a 6:30am train to the airport I can't imagine. When at last we got a message saying they'd arrived safely at their destination, I wasn't surprised that Randy added, "We're ready for our naps!" 

Home (away from home) again

We got back to Fidenza on Thursday afternoon, greeted by warm sunshine and shiny-clean streets. The annual San Donnino festival had finished the weekend before, and by the time we got here all evidence of the crowds, the food stalls, and the late-night carousing had been scrubbed away. 

As ever, I arrived with a mental roster of things I wanted to be sure to do while I'm here. At the top of our list was eating at Bar Teatro, so we hurried over at lunchtime on Friday. The place was fully booked--I guess everyone else has figured out how great Angelo's cooking is--but luckily for us one customer was a fast eater and left a table empty that we were happy to grab. Danny had a veal chop with carrots and green beans and a salad of red cabbage and mache, while I, fighting to stay awake, opted for my favorite comfort food, pasta with a meaty tomato sauce. And a glass of fizzy red wine to help me get to sleep, because the next thing on my agenda was a nap. The pasta, the wine, and the nap were all delicious.

Another thing on my list was clearing out our pantry shelves. Last July I'd noticed that we'd been invaded by cupboard moths, and now when I looked over our food supplies I could see they'd been busy eating and breeding the whole time we were gone. Some open bags of flour, nuts, and other comestibles we'd neglected to put in the refrigerator before we left now were the cupboard-moth equivalent of Bar Teatro--a great place to get a good meal. So this afternoon I took everything off the shelves, washed off the legions of dead moths (and hopefully a lot of moth eggs), threw away everything that looked to be infested, and put the rest back in sealed containers and in good order. If the moths turn up again I'll know I missed something.

A third thing I've wanted to do is make a bollito misto. I've written before (here, for example) about restaurants in the area that specialize in this classic meal of boiled beef, tongue, chicken, sausage, and other meats. It's a feast-day dinner; recipes often start by saying "Serves 10" and calling for a whole tongue, a six-pound cut of beef, a calf's head, and so on. It's not something you'd think of making for yourself and your husband, no matter how much of a meat enthusiast he might be.

But ever since we started coming here I've been intrigued by the little DIY bollito misto kits at our local supermarket. The package includes a thick slice of raw tongue, a bony piece of beef, and a quarter of a capon, plus half an onion, a carrot, and a stalk of celery. (In Italian they call a celery stalk a gamba, a leg. Isn't that cute?) The label says "for broth" but I can't imagine that a thrify Italian housewife would toss away the meats after they'd been cooked.

Yesterday when we went to the market Danny got a turkey thigh--that was on his wish list--and I grabbed one of these bollito packages. This morning we followed up with a visit to the big Saturday street market, where we loaded ourselves down with parsley, cabbage, onions, carrots, and various other necessities, four bagsful altogether.

Danny took this photo. Thank you, dear!

Inspired, this afternoon I started a minestrone in the InstaPot, looked through the bollito misto recipes in our various cookbooks, and then put the bollito meats on the stove to simmer with the recommended rosemary and parsley while I did battle with the cupboard moths.

Once the pantry cupboards were cleaned up I followed another recipe for a classic bollito accompaniment, a sauce of parsley, garlic, anchovies, breadcrumbs, and olive oil. 

At last the meats were done (or as done as they were ever going to get--the capon was still weirdly rubbery after more than two hours of simmering). I extracted them and added some vegetables and pasta to the broth. Traditionally the brodo is clarified and served with anolini or other filled pasta, as a very refined first course. But we had a lot of veg filling up our fridge and I'd been made aware of just how much dry pasta we've got stockpiled, so I opted for a vegetable soup with whole-wheat farfalle instead.

Then came the main course. We'd bought some mostarda di frutta (very sweet candied fruit spiked with hot mustard oil) and a pepper relish to go with the bollito, along with the green sauce I'd made. 

Here's our dinner. From the top, there's a mostarda peach and cherry, the green sauce, a slice of tongue, several pieces of boiled beef with some of the capon in the middle, and the pickle relish. It was a wonderful meal; even my critical husband said so. The meats on their own are pretty bland, but when they're eaten with the various relishes the plate really sings. I'm exhausted but very pleased with myself. 

What's next on my list? A visit to an art show at the town's exhibition space (formerly a high school and, before that, Fidenza's fascist headquarters), some blog posts about vending machines, fascists, and greeting cards, and an investigation into making this blog's subscription doohicky finally work. There's a Roman-cuisine restaurant I'd like to try, in addition to going back to our old favorites. I want to see my Fidenza friends and get my Italian up to speed. Most of all, I hope to spend some time just enjoying being here. I'd be crazy not to.

Sicily, part 4: The rest

 We are about to climb aboard a plane and returning to Italy, and so I am racing to finish the story of last May's Sicily trip before I return to Fidenza and resume my regular blogging duties.

Danny is a fan of hot springs and when he read that Sicily is full of volcanic geyers and mineral springs he proposed that we include a visit to one in our itinerary. Francesca obliged by taking us to the thermal baths in Segesta, in the countryside about an hour's drive east of Palermo. 

"Terme" means thermal baths

The hot springs we've visited in California are either unsupervised naturally occurring pools in the middle of nowhere or part of more or less elaborate spas. Usually the latter include not only hot pools but also cold plunges or cold showers to help you recover from cooking in the thermal springs.

The place in Segesta was very nice, very clean, and quite underppulated on a weekday morning, but all the water apparently came from the same hot spring. The large indoor jacuzzi-like hot tub, the outdoor lap pool, and the showers all were hot and sulfurous. The only way to cool off was to stand on the deck and wait for a breeze. After we'd showered and dressed Francesca spread towels all over the seats of her car, lest we imbue them with the stink of sulfur that clung to us for the rest of the day.

The other big attraction in Segesta is its Greek temple, which dates from about 420 BC and is the best preserved Doric temple in Europe. Sitting all by itself on a hill, it's very photogenic.

Francesca told us that although it is a classic Greek temple, it was built by the non-Greek locals to try to convince Greek colonies elsewhere in the area to side with them in one of the small local wars that were always going on. The alliance fell apart, the war continued, and the temple remained roofless and uncompleted. 

One way to look relatively young is to stand in front of a ruin.

After our week together in Palermo ,Valerie went off with Francesca to see more temples in Agrigento while Danny and I took a bus to Piazza Armerina, a small town in the center of the island. The scenery along the way was mostly unpopulated and very beautiful.

 Piazza Armerina is a little hill town with a surprisingly large cathedral at the top, its dome like the cherry on a Sicilian titty pastry.

The view from our bed-and-breakfast.

We got plenty of exercise walking around the town. Here's the street leading up to the cathedral.

The Duomo itself is surprisingly restrained, decorated in Wedgwood blue and white.

It seemed almost un-Sicilian, although one of the balconies is decorated with the island's emblematic three-legged woman, the trinacria, the symbol that's now emblazoned on the Sicilian flag.

The reason most people, including us, visit Piazza Armerina is the astonishing Roman palace a few kilometers outside of town. This huge villa, with its thermal baths, dining rooms, exercise rooms, public halls, enclosed gardens, and quarters for guests, children, and servants, was built in the fourth century AD, then laid waste by capital-V Vandals and others in later centuries. Then a vast landslide in the 12th century covered it over.

When archaeologists began excavating the site in the early 20th century they discovered that the villa's acres of mosaic floors had been almost perfectly preserved. It's one of the world's most extensive set of Roman mosaics.

Birds, animals, and marine life dominate the mosacis, with scenes of hunting, fishing, and chariot races. 

These competitors were on the floor of the children's playroom.

Fishermen-putti decorated the part of the palace that housed the hot, cold, and tepid baths.

And this sexy medallion was in the master's bedchamber.

My photos don't come anywhere near doing justice to these mosaics and the villa's story. Of all the "sights" in Sicily, this was the most exciting.

Our third and final stop was Catania, on the western side of the island. We had booked a room at the XX Miglia bed and breakfast, conveniently near the bus station. We arrived at the address, a big, rather battered apartment block, and were buzzed in and told the code for the elevator that would take us to the top floor. The interior courtyard looked more than a little alarming. "We should have spent more money," Danny said nervously. 

Once we arrived at the top, however, we discovered a lovely little hotel with pretty rooms, welcoming hosts, and, the next day, an excellent breakfast. We later learned that the keypad on the elevator, which the B&B owners had installed at their own expense, was to keep the building's other tenants from using it.

We had a day in Catania before flying back to Fidenza. The old central city is a baroque banquet. 

The famous elephant obelisque in the main square was charming even while undergoing some hydraulic repairs.

The cathedral, just across from the elephant, is suitably grandiose.

Inside are the remains of a cardinal, sheathed in silk and silver, who is remembered for--what else?--his commitment to charity.

We also made a quick visit to San Nicolo, a Benedictine monastery that's another of Catania's must-sees. This vast pile in the center of the city provided a very sweet life to the monks who lived there.

One of the monastery's two cloisters.

The grand entrance.

The decor features poor Sant'Agata's mastectomy.

An informational sign notes that the monastery was a favorite stopping place for well-born 18th-century travelers because of the high quality of the accommodations, food, and wine it offered. One visitor, amazed by the luxuriousness of this "palace," was assured that it "was nothing else than a convent of fat Benedictine monks, who wanted to assure themselves a paradise in this world, if not in the next." 

After visiting the monastery I was grateful to be able to toast our own version of the good life with a Campari spritz, followed by an "aperi-fish" platter of fried baccala, mussels, swordfish involtini, and other seafood and a tasty salad--probably a rather ascetic meal compared to what those long-ago fat monks enjoyed. Still, for me Sicily was more paradaisical than not, and the interplay of the bright and dark sides of its history are a big part of its appeal.