What Fills My Plate

Hot and Muggy, that is what we are experiencing right now here outside of Venice.   Venice, with all that water will be worse.   What I need right now is a nice cold frappe’, and a nice rain shower after. Monselice Castle Here’s a shot of our American cowboy burger restaurant, if you look behind it, you will see a castle on top of the hill above Monselice, a small town south of Padova.   You can see the grass is brown from lack of water.   Another lack of, is the ketchup we asked for.    Cheap Burger Joint! We both had fries and they brought us three packs of ketchup.   This was after I asked for molto ketchup…..a lot.   Served for a laugh from us.   They charge for each package, learning from McDonalds on this. Open on Weekends Another castle near Monselice and viewable from our home is this one.   Built much later by a man who was famous as a soldier for hire.  Behind this castle is the ruined building wh...

Several people have asked me questions about visiting Venice, Rome and parts of Italy.   I am always glad to help them my bird’s eye view of Venice with advice on what to see, and what not to see.   Most folks have a limited stay, so that is important.   Just this week, a dear cousin has asked me to help her friend at work who has planned a trip to Venice and Rome.   These will be the first webcams to get her feet on the ground.   There are many webcams which give people a good idea of what they will experience.   My plan is to start of with these with a small explanation.  Bookmark them and view them daily. What I have found is that many people have no clue about the islands of Venice with the big canals and the many small ones.   They think it is one big gondola ride in   a small canal, but there is a lot more.   Take a look at the big canal just off St. Mark’s Square.   BTW, if you are making a trip here, it is fun to bo...

Rovinj, Croatia This past weekend we took a pleasurable diversion on the coast of Croatia.   We have found a favorite place in the town of Rovinj, which sets peacefully on a spit of land protruding into the Adriatic Sea.  We have stayed in other towns along the coast but the view and the dining choices have won us over. Many places have a pig roasting on a spit, sometimes two, and you can smell it from several hundred meters away.  Many of the restaurants feature truffle based cooking as this is a truffle area extraordinaire.  We have found some creative chefs who offer items such as smoked sea bass mousse, fried octopus, marinated fish salad and octopus salads.  Prices have risen this year but are still under what we would find in Italy.  It makes the three hour trip from our home  more worthwhile when you know what you will experience at the end of the road. turn down the sound and watch the short video However, this wee...

Add caption I confess that I missed the invasion.  Many years have passed since I first noticed America has once again forced itself into the neighborhood.  People here get a chance to remember the past inside a large movie theatre just outside Padova, and  customers are forced to enter through the theatre before entering American Graffiti Restaurant and the  past glory of the 50’s.   I was not disappointed, which is unusual as I find attempts by Italians to make food of other countries many times miss the target.  Chinese food lacts the spicy/hot,   sushi is made by assembly line and without care, and Mexican food has terrible corn tortillas and badly made guacamole for example.  However, in this franchised burger joint, most of what I saw and tasted was above my expectations. Customers are greeted with black and white checkered floors, and chrome chairs decked with plastic red covers.  Everything on the walls resemble items of ...

Pollen Makers of Rovinj, Croatia It’s almost over!  Sufferers are rejoicing, and I am one of them.  Allergy Season is a real killer for me, and I am so glad to be able to breathe again like normal.  I only have a slight irritation in my eyes, something I can live with in comparison to the one week where I was coughing, wheezing, and unable to sleep well.  In the city of Padova there are quite a few cotton wood trees still dumping their cotton, but in my village there are only a few.  The mayor elected to cut most of them two years ago, and he was planning to replant with something else less harmful to allergies.  However, he lost the election and the new mayor (Sindico) has decided to keep costs down and not replant trees.   This past weekend we spent a 3 day weekend in Croatia on the coast.  Their were some yellow flowers that were a small problem, and, of course, the pollen from the evergreen trees.  A big help was the th...

Today I was in my local post office (Post) to pay my electric bill.  Included in this bill is the national television charge of approximately 20 euros.  This is how the country squeezes the turnip and makes sure they get all the money intended.  It is all above the table.  One good thing I noticed was a sign stating that now free wifi is being provided while you wait in line.  This is a good thing!  Lines are long here, often stretching outside in the cold.  Bills are being paid, money withdrawn and packages mailed.  Nothing is quick here. home made It's market day in my village, always Thursdays.  Strolling through I found three vegetable sellers, two fish, one cheese, one roasted chicken, one shoe salesman, one florist, and assorted junky stuff made in China.  I bought two bottles of hot sauce spreads from the Sicilian guy, he is my source to stay spiced up a bit.  We are expecting visitors and maybe they will share my desi...

Yesterday when I was in Padova I went to my usual bar where they have wifi and when I walked in I noticed that the owner had put up black and white photos of past historical events.  Almost in the center was a photo of John Kennedy shaking the hand of Nikita Krushchev, and I had to tell the owner that my hand had also shook the hand of John Kennedy.  I got a double take on that one and he asked me to explain, which I did in my elemental Italian.   When I was 9 years old John Kennedy was making a tour of the United States before declaring his candidacy for President.  This was in 1958 and in June he  made a stop at the airport of Colorado Springs where my family lived.  My father knew of the Kennedy family because he had been stationed in New England after WWII, and he told me that we had to go to the airport and see Kennedy.   We watched the plane land and taxi up to the terminal.  They used a moveable staircase such is now used for...