Jim Dixon

We spent a few days in Norcia on our last trip, and while we loved it and will return, it’s not the best place for making day trips to the rest of Umbria. Norcia is up in the mountains, and the drive, while not particularly long, involves many kilometers of narrow, winding road. I think one of the smaller towns in the Val d’Umbria would be a better choice if you choose to be in this part of Italy. We also stayed in Spello and liked it very much. We have business connections in western Tuscany (about 30 kms SE of Pisa) and spend a lot of time there. It’s not as overrun with tourists as the area around Siena, but close enough to most of Tuscany to make a nice base. We’ll drive to Volterra or San Gimignano, over to the coast (it’s about 90 minutes to Cinque Terra), or north to Lucca. For day trips into Florence, we park in Pontedera and take the train so we can avoid the hassles of driving in the city. You can also take longer excursions into the Maremma, the area of southwestern Tuscany around Grossetto. There are some nice natural areas around there, including a strip of sandy beach that’s been called “the only unspoiled beach in Italy.” Jim

tommy, The drive down the coast from Pisa to Rome is nice...only about 3 hours of actual driving, so you can take a day and stop along the way. It puts you right at Fiumincino airport where you can drop the car, then take the shuttle train right into Rome (the airport is about 20 kms west of Rome). Be sure to arrange for the car rental before you leave. It's much cheaper. And I like Auto Europe, too, but mostly because that's what my travel agent seems to use and we've had good luck with it. Jim

Tana, I can't beleive this got by. I'm just a country goy myself, but I'm guessing you're both. I don't have a Joy of Yiddish so I may be wrong. I'm sure somebody will enlighten us. Food related: Last week I made a vegan pasta salad for a campout of the burrito slingers our boys work with, but I wanted to put a small sign on it to the effect that it wasn't an endorsement. Jim

We've only visited San Gimignano during the day since it's a short drive from Chianni there's a jewelry store there my wife really like, and the gelato place in Piazza Cisterna is good). But Bartolo's Inferno in the church is worth seeing, and nearby Volterra also has nice, smaller scale museums...the Etruscan museum is especially good (and we don't really spend much time looking at art or antiquities). Even more important, the fall is prime time for sagre, the food festival fund raisers that offer a great way to experience part of real Italy. The small town sagre draw the city folk out for cinghiale, funghi, castagne, or some other local foodstuff the town chooses to celebrate. The locals volunteer to cook and the streets fill with vendors of t-shirts, candy, olives, kitchenware, and toys. In October, a Tuscan sagra often includes vino novello, too. Ask the locals when you drive around and look for small signs. Chianni's Sagra del Cinghiale is sometime in mid-October (I'll get the dates), and it's not far from SG. Jim

tommy, I'll toss my recommendations for Venice into the pot... We rode back to Florence on the train with an woman from Rome who worked for a convention organizer. She was fuming about how badly some of the optometrists (I think that was the group) were treated, and most of them were Italians. She was speaking, of course, about the restaurants. Venice depends on tourist spending, but seems to hate it, although with some good reasons. The palce is overrun with daytrippers who strain the decrepit infrastructure but don't spend very much money. To maximize the dollar per visitor, more than a few eateries charge outrageous prices for mediocre food. But there are great places to eat at reasonable prices. I've listed some we liked on my site, but you can find more by walking the neighborhoods away from San Marco. Judith would spot a crowd of teenagers or a few old men at the tables outside, and we knew we'd found a promising bacaro, a Venetian wine bar that serves tapas-like small plates called cicchetti. I'll also recommend A Guest in Italy for finding a reasonably priced hotel in Venice. We've booked rooms at Albergo Doni, very close to San Marco, and also found an apartment for another stay through the site. One advantage to being near San Marco is the ease in finding your way back. Getting lost is a given, especially if you walk the outer neighborhoods, but there are usually signs pointing back to Piazza San Marco. An early-morning walk through the Rialto fish market is amazing. I was badly jet-lagged one day and got up at 4 am. I drank espresso with the fish mongers at the only bar open, right next to the market, and watched ancient carts filled with baskets of wriggling shrimp being wheeled across the wet stones. The hardest thing is not being able to buy some of the fish to take home and cook. Hvae a great trip. Jim

I haven't been, but several friends who live in SE have been raving about it. Give us a report. Jim

I'm glad to see it, altho' chagrined a bit at not responding to some questions from last year! edemuth... The owari satsuma mandarin (I'm calling it rosolo di mandarino) is awesome, as good as the limoncello and a beuatiful color. I'll be making more when Snow's Citrus starts shipping in October or November. The kumquat version is decent, but not as good as the mandarin...it's a good way to use up a bunch of kumquats, though. I wasn't too happy with a currant infusion...just didn't have the clear flavor that I suspect comes from the citrus' acidity. I do have a batch of nocino (green walnut) soaking now...last year's was great. Roger... I make 4:5 sugar:water syrup and dilute the infused grain alcohol 50/50...that yields a 95 proof limoncello. I keep a bottle of Don Alfonso limoncello on hand to compare, and mine's getting close. I find that we mostly drink the citrus infusions on the rocks using crushed ice...when the ice melts and dilutes the liquor it rounds out the flavor. They are pretty sweet, but highly alcoholic, so it's easy to get loaded. Jim

I think you're right...Blue Nile is just west of 24th (next door to our vet). I'll have to check out Noodlehead. Portland is blessed with good Vietnamese restaurants on about every other block. Jim

Saigon Kitchen, my old standby and practically next door to Blue Nile at NE 9th and Broadway, serves this as Cha Zio Noodle (cha zio may not be the precise spelling, but it's what they call spring rolls). I've had it at several other Vietnamese restaurants, most of which offer several variations of something (spring roll, fish balls, barbecued pork, etc) on a bowl of rice noodles with mung sprouts, lightly pickled carrot, lettuce, cilantro, and nuoc mon, and often topped with chopped peanuts or fried shallots. Jim

In Portland $20-ish entrees are considered expensive... For a quintessentially Portland experience, I'd suggest Higgins*, Jake's Famous Crawfish, Paley's Place*, or Wildwood, all on the upscale side by our provincial standards. Another option would be to sample the small plates on 28th at Tabla, Navarre*, and Noble Rot*. Other excellent choices include Cafe Azul (classic Oaxacan moles, incredibly good but a little pricey), Carafe*, Pascal Sauton's new Parisian Bistro, Bluehour*, the most styling spot in town but with really good food, too, Bastas*, an often overlooked but good and affordable Italian restaurant, or Cafe Lauro, David Machado's new pan-Mediterranean spot. *one of my olive oil customers...salt grains optional Jim

In my experience, no...I brine with salt only (and here's the mantra: quarter cup kosher, 4 cups water) and add flavor with a rub, mop, or other surface treatment. I find that sugar in the brine tends to make pork hammy, which isn't too bad, but I don't really like it with chicken. Jim

That seems high to me with all the news about nobody traveling. We paid about $600 RT (PDX-MILAN) in 2001, and my travel agent was tellng me that prices should be going down even more. And I prefer to let her do the work of finding the lowest fare. I'm not convinced that you find anything really cheap on a regular basis using the online ticketing sites. I call my agent, tell her roughly when we want to travel, and she usually gets us a good deal (on car rental, too...last time we drove an Alfa). Travel agents have been getting screwed by the airlines for a few years, so mine charges a piddling $20/ticket...I think it's worth it. Email me if you want her number.... Jim

Ben, If you can swing more than 2 weeks off, do it...the plane ride is brutal from the west coast and it only makes sense to stay longer if you can (altho' the NW-KLM Seattle-Amsterdam is a little easier...SAS also flies directly to Copenhagen, and we have the Lufthansa PDX-Frankfurt thing here...but it's still a bitch). Once you get to Italy (can't speak for France), things are relatively affordable (or have been when we've been there, last time in 2001 pre-euro). I'll put in a plug for our vacation rental connection in Tuscany...we stayed here (and eventually became booking agents) because it was the cheapest palce I could find, so if you want to spend a week or so in one spot let me know (details on my site...check out Il Piano or Noverchia, nice little places for two). I'll second Venezia...you gotta see it. I've used A Guest in Italy to book both hotels and an apartment (my recommendation)...they have a nice choice at the budget end. Jim

etnea, Thanks for the info...not sure if we'll make it, but it does sound tempting. Mt Etna was also erupting when we were there in Oct 2001. We had just left Bronte, birthplace of Judith's grandfather (and it seemed like a depressing place...dark, dirty, with a Mussolini-era building still pockmarked from WWII machine gun fire in the central piazza) and were driving west back toward the road to the coast. My friend Chris yelled, "holy shit, stop the car," and we pulled over and looked back. It was a long way away, but we could see bright flashes of red shooting from the mountain. Jim

fixed it.... Jim

rigtatoni al quatro gigli Walla Walla sweets have been in the markets here...I've been slicing in half, rubbing with oil, and grilling. Jim edit to note that the same mispelling of rigatoni is on my web site...d'oh!!

Taking a cue from brinemaster klink, I use a quarter cup kosher salt per quart of water. You can leave the chicken (or pork) in it for as long as a few days (have yet to encounter any mushiness) or as short as a few hours and still get a juicier chicken. I brine whole birds, then push a mixture of herbs under the skin (oregano, sage, marjoram, thyme), garlic, salt, pepper, and a little olive oil to hold it all together. There's usually a half cup or so of the herb blend...you can use quite a bit more if you like. I usually cook on the weber, indirect heat (sometimes with wet wood added for smoke), turning a couple of times, but don't bother to tie...it results in what my family and friends consider one of the 'best chickens ever.' Jim

d'oh!

I met Oregon winemaker Andrew Rich at the first olive oil tasting I ever did...it was at Great Wine Buys on Broadway and he was pouring his wines at the same time. Portland's a small place, and people who like good food tend to show up at the same events, so we kept running into each other. We've done our Andrew-and-Jim show at GWB a couple of times since. Andrew makes really great wines, and he's easy to talk to about them. So you Seattle-ites may want to check out his winemaker's dinner at Brasa Wednesday, August 26th. Say hello from me. Jim

We're eager to get back to Sicily, and I have a picture of the old city of Cefalu and the rocca above my desk to remind me. etnea, a question: what is the weather like in the winter? We have a postcard from Cerami (where my wife's grandmother was born, near Enna) dusted with snow, so I'm guessing the interior can get cold. But we liked Cefalu so much I'm sure we'll stay there again...but I didn't get to see much of the southern coast last time, and then there are the islands...I really want to see Pantelleria. Thanks Jim

I've been making fig paste with the crop from my tree (a 'white' variety called Italian honey fig). Cut them up and cook in a little dry marsala or just white wine with some citrus (I've used lemon, orange, or both) juice and zest. Cook down to jam-like consistency, then pour into a sheet pan lined with olive-oiled foil...you want a layer about half-inch thick...you can also mix nuts into the jam stage...I've used toasted filberts (that's we call hazelnuts out here). I dry the paste in the sun, covered with screen to keep the bugs off, but a very low oven will also work. When the paste is firm, flip it over and dry the other side a little, then cut into smaller pieces, wrap with plastic, and store inthe reeefer. Eat with cheese. Jim

seems about right to me.... thanks Jim

are you speaking from personal experience here, Jason? Jim

So that's deep SE, like nearly to Clackamas Town Center? What Asian store do you like? I need some fish sauce. Jim

sounds great...the only problem, of course, is that you have to drive out to 82nd... Jim