April 2008

April in Florence, Italy

What a great trip this was – I met Kirsten Soderlind in London on Wednesday April 23rd. We went to the Courtlaud Institute of Art on the Strand. The highlights were a still life of a bouquet of flowers by Monet and a landscape by Van Gogh – I’d never even seen photographs of these beautiful works.

Early Thursday, we left the hotel to take a bus to Gatwick to fly to Pisa, taking a train to Florence, arriving mid afternoon. After a bit of a mix-up, we met Helen Taylor at her apartment, just across the Arno River at 101 Via de San Niccolo.

Helen is teaching in Florence this semester and is living in this wonderful little apartment at the top of a 5-story building – great exercise, but it was a relief to see the bench on the last landing, knowing we’d almost reached Helen’s front door. One of the best features (besides not being able to stand upright in the small kitchen) is the deck that overlooks a green hillside with a Roman wall, Fort de Belvedere, and Boboli Garden on the skyline. We had several lovely morning breakfasts and afternoon wine sessions on this deck.

Every minute of this trip was fabulous, but here are some of the most memorable.

Sunny, warm days. The food – every meal was wonderful! Our first cappuccino on the Piazza dell Signoria, with an incredible Italian pastry. My daily one-or-two-or-three gelatos. The art. Florence is a city steeped in beautiful buildings, statues, frescos – everywhere you look is a picture. Walking through the Uffizi with Kirsten, seeing Botticelli’s Primavera and his Birth of Venus, Leonardo’s Annunciation. Amazing. Santo Spirito Church with the afternoon sun coming through the stained glass windows as Kirsten and Helen stand by a dark oak confessional. Dinner with Mark and Judy, Helen’s neighbors from Issaquah, and sipping Prosecco on the deck of their hotel room just off the Piazza Della Repubblica.

The view from Piazzale Michaelangelo as the sun set, reflecting off the Arno River and its bridges, bathing Florence in an amber glow. Walking over the Ponte Delle Grazie bridge to Helen’s apartment, and the Ponte Vecchio with its gold and silversmith shops. Shopping with Kirsten at the San Lorenzo market and finding a gorgeous leather handbag at almost half the price as in the store where I first saw it. Talented street musicians giving late-evening performances in the Uffizi couryard.

Listening to Mary Camp, an art historian from Lummi Island who is teaching with Helen this semester, explain the statues at Bargello, a police station/prison turned art gallery. Followed by our lunch at that great restaurant with the handsome singing Italian waiter. Spending a morning by myself at Santa Croce Church, standing next to the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli. A particularly tasty pannini, hot off the grill. Raising our wine glasses to toast the memory of Karin.

And more than the art, the sights, the architecture, the food, the wine, and yes, even the gelato, I’ll remember the good times with good friends. Thank you, Helen, for being an excellent hostess, and such a gracious friend.

Grocery Shopping in England

Since our pathetic icebox is so small, I have to go the grocery store at least every other day. The two downtown grocery stores are pretty sad, probably like most inner-city stores: small, rather dingy. Lidl is a German-based store and Iceland, despite its name, is a British store. However, all products have information written in all sorts of languages, including Polish, Russian, and Italian.

Fortunately, there’s a Farmer’s Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so I get most of our “fruit and veg” there – the prices are better, as is the quality. Joan, the egg lady, sells a half-dozen eggs for 69p – that’s about $1.40, a bargain compared to the grocery stores. A quart of milk is about 90p, or $1.80, what is it in Seattle now?

Like everywhere, most of our produce comes from all over – potatoes from Scotland, bacon from Yorkshire, green beans from Kenya, grapes from Chile, avocados from Egypt. We’re eating cosmopolitan meals these days!

The best thing is the dairy – yummy yogurt; single, double, clotted, and soured cream; and incredible cheeses! Ah, the cheese, not a yellow cheddar among them; and nothing so boring as Swiss. All the cheeses have descriptions that sound like fine wines: Red Leicester is “a bright russet-gold colour with a slightly open texture and mild lemony flavour,” and Wensleydale was “originally made by the monks of Jervaulx Abbey and has a mild flavour, with a honeyed aftertaste.” (The second-best thing is the HUGE cookie selection!! The Brits do like their biscuits, and so do I!)

And, then there are the things I can’t find, at least in our local Bedford stores. Surprisingly, there’s no Irish/Scottish/steel cut oats. The polenta is just cornmeal, and not very good at that. I was looking all over for ketchup and mustard, and finally had to ask. Table Sauce aisle? Sure enough – tartar sauce, brown sauce, mustards, vinegars, salad cream (that’s for sandwiches, I think), salad dressings.

And, then there are the things that I couldn’t find by the names I called them: cornstarch is corn flour, granular sugar is castor sugar, powdered sugar is icing sugar, zucchini are courgettes, ground beef is minced beef. Buttermilk is sold in one-cup containers!

And, then there are the things I’d never imagined. Like an entire cooler shelf for LARD, and all its variations. Blood sausages, little bit-sized pork pastry pies that are to be eaten cold (because if you heat them up – we tried it – they will absolutely dissolve in fat), rice pudding in one-serving cups, toffee yogurt, beef tongue molded into bologna-looking slices.