All About Pizza

[Joe H]

Several posts back there were some comments about Venice. I thought that I would add a little experience that my wife and I had there eleven years ago.

At the time we had only known each other a few months. I had business in Vicenza and, to coerce my wife into going with me (girl friend at the time) I said we would stay in Venice. After a flight from the U. S. which was the ONLY flight landing in the worst snowstorm since the 1960's in northern Italy (not an exaggeration) we were able to rent a car. I should note here that it took me one half hour to "dig" the car out since it was under over 8" of snow. We left Malpensa, turned onto the Autostrada and my (future) wife, who had never been overseas before, suggested turning on the radio since, "we might find an all news station like Washington's WTOP." I mentioned to her that we were in Italy and, more than likely, there were no all news stations that were broadcast in English.

Anyway, it took us six hours to drive the 175 miles from Malpensa to Venice. At some point the snow changed to rain and, eventually, the rain changed to drizzle. We pulled into Venice and parked in the municipal garage. I remembered that the water taxis in Venice were among the most expensive on earth from a trip several years earlier. I also felt that I knew my way around Venice. (Yeah, right!!!)

I suggested to Carol that we take the vaporetto since I felt that we wouldn't need a water taxi. She asked me if I knew where the vapaoretto station was and, of course, I said yes.

We had two large suitcases each and I was wearing anew black leather trench coat that I had just bought at Neiman Marcus. (I say this because it was a nice one!) Anyway, we left the garage with our luggage and it started to rain heavier. I thought that I knew where we were going and, trustingly perhaps dutifully, Carol followed me.

I didn't know where I was going. I thought I did. But in truth I really didn't.

After 15 minutes of wandering through the maze of streets and alleyways that are a small part of Venice Carol said to me, "Why don't you knock on a door and ask for directions?" I suggested that most Venetians didn't speak English just as there was no all news station in Milan. She didn't care and said that they could use sign language to direct us!

Anyway, somehow, I found the vaporetto stop probably 500 meters from where we started. In the meantime I had ruined my new leather coat and Carol caught a cold. A bad one.

At some point we walked off of the vaporetto into the lobby of the Danielli and they asked why I had not called for a boat since they usually dispatched these for their guests?

Ignorance built on ignornace and obstinance can build a true mountain. Except this time it was a very deep canal in Venice.

Four days later, after my future wife finally got out of bed from being sick, we walked around Venice on a foggy, chilly Saturday night in early December. They were just erecting the Christmas Tree in San Marco square. There was not a word of English or Japanese (for that matter) to be heard. We spent almost an hour finding da Fiore where we had dinner. Afterwards once again we accidentally got lost. But this time it didn't matter. In the cold mist of that night I feel in love. Not just with my future wife but with the most enchanting city on earth.

We walked and walked and walked. It was quiet, lonely, eerily still. But it was beautiful.

I feel in love that night. With a woman and a city. We go back every year. In fact we'll be back at the end of next week.

Joe Heflin

[jaybee]

Joe, that is a beautiful story. Thank you for telling it in such detail. I cringe with the thought of you walking through the rain in your new leather coat, trying to look all macho. Great stuff. I imagine the "magic" of Venice could easily have been the "magic" of Paris" or Barcelona, or many other cities under such circumstances.

I was in Venice for a week many years ago (whe Princess Di got married). It was a profoundly depressing and disquieting experience, despite staying at the elegant Cipriani and eating the best that Venice had to offer. Perhaps my mood and state of mind were not the best then. I think Thomas Mann recommends Venice either as a place to die or for lovers. At that time, I was in neither state. As soon as I got to Sienna, however, my mood improved. Verona did wonders for it. I have no desire to go to Venice again. Venice is on the same page in my book as Mexico City. as places to avoid.

Edited January 25, 2003 by jaybee (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Stevie-boy, NOW will you admit it's a matter of opinion and NOT fact.

No, it's just proof that he doesn't know good from bad.

Joe H - Now that was a lovely story. I'm glad that Venice holds such a warm place in your heart.

Edited January 25, 2003 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[Joe H]

Actually Verona is special, too. On one of our trips we spent two nights in Verona in early December while there was a kind of winter carnival going on adjacent to the coliseum. We absolutely love this city. But not the two star Il Desco which is one of the more disappointing meals that I have had. The same night that we were walking back from Il Desco we found a restaurant in a courtyard that had built a 15 foot tall Christmas tree out of wine bottles. It was incredible. We took pictures of each other in front of it, even walked into the restaurant to thank them for their imagination and "flair" in doing something like this. I don't remember their name but if we ever go back we will certainly have dinner there. Someone who cares that much would seem to be a truly talented cook, or at the least, a wino with real style. I'd like to think that I relate.

[jaybee]

Actually Verona is special, too.

Verona! Our lovely hotel was across the small piazza from the Cathedral. We went to see Rigoletto in the Verona amphitheater. Boy was it crowded, uncomfortable and unforgettable at the same time. When everyone lit the small candolino and went "ahhh" it was magical. But unlike Venice,Verona was real life. Today. Not some mummified corpse of a city, rotted and dirty around the edges, spectacle but not vibrant.

[Craig Camp]

It was cool and damp and the Christmas lights in the street had a glittery kaleidoscope look in the mist. It was about 8 p.m. and we left the hotel without an organized plan. After the required few minutes of being lost we found our friends hotel and then the four of us headed out to find a warm place for dinner.

It was not a good night to be looking for a restaurant without a reservation but after an hour or so we were lucky to find the last table at a promising looking trattoria with a warm roaring fireplace that was sorely needed after more than an hour in the cold and damp. There was only one menu for the evening (in fact all of the restaurants were like this) – seafood prepared in almost a dozen different ways. I was a bit nervous as I did not know the place and this is a city where you can actually order spaghetti and meatballs in English. But as I looked around the room the food looked excellent and the smells where enticing. I asked for the wine list and was very encouraged to find a good selection of small producers at great prices. It was a good meal – not great – but good and prepared with care and pride. We had a wonderful time – everyone in the restaurant was having a wonderful time.

It was time to get back to the piazza and we left the comfort of the restaurant, going back out into the cold, but the warm feeling of the grappa in our stomachs carried a little of the warmth of the fireplace with us. We were a long walk from the piazza and the streets where empty, but magically lit by the Christmas lights. At each turn of the maze that would take us back to the piazza more people joined as every restaurant in the city emptied simultaneously. Soon we were in a river of people all flowing to the same spot. Everyone was talking and laughing - all with full warm stomachs like ours. In the distance, I could hear increasing numbers of firecrackers exploding.

We turned the last corner and the current of people carried us into the piazza. It as already full and the party was in full swing. Thousands carried bottles of prosecco, sang and lit firecrackers.

Then it was midnight and the sky was filled with fireworks. Giant, golden explosions filled the air splashing color on the Duomo and the multitude of celebrants below. A feeling of magic filled my heart as the energy swirled around me.

Then it was over and the current flowed back out of the piazza. We retreated to the bar of our hotel and ordered a bottle of Bellavista. Some moments live in your mind forever.

Venice, New Year Eve, 1999

[Kikujiro]

Italian bread is on the whole way below French, but Venice deserves a second chance from the Plotnickis.

I drink wine every day, so I conclude it's okay for me to enjoy the occasional Zinfandel.

[Bux]

Italian bread is on the whole way below French, but Venice deserves a second chance from the Plotnickis.

I drink wine every day, so I conclude it's okay for me to enjoy the occasional Zinfandel.

We haven't even ascertained that it's alright for you to drink wine everyday and you're concluding that you may enjoy Zinfandel as well as drink it.

[Bux]

Italian bread is made, as far  as I can tell, from good ingredients, and it's made (in the places where I like it) with care and skill. So I'm content to say that it's good bread.

I also like Danish bread, which is about as opposite to Italian bread as you can get. It's very sophisticated, has widely differing textures and flavours according to type of bread, and it's the only refined white bread I've eaten that I have liked. So I'm content to say that Danish bread is good bread.

It happens that I dislike French bread. I find it either fluffy and tasteless, or greasy or doughy. I can understand why others might like it, but it's just not to my taste. So I don't find French bread good.

I wonder how much bread you've had in each of these countries. On the whole I've found French bread superior (to my taste) to Italian and Spanish bread, but this is so relative and breads vary all over within a country. I think French bread has been going through an evolution if not revolution in the past generation. Sourdough starters and whole grains are far more popular than they used to be. The baguette is no longer the standard it used to be.

I remember loving the bread in Vienna. It may just be that it resembled the bread I knew best as a child in New York--real baker's rolls and rye breads with crust.

[Kikujiro]

I didn't claim it was alright, I just decided it was necessary.

[Bux]

Stevie-boy, NOW will you admit ...

Joe H - Thanks for telling it like it is.

There you go again Stevie-boy. It is ...

Again.

I find I rarely care what a poster is going to say once he's prefaced his remarks with an unnecessary and inappropriately consdecending taunt. Without getting into the merits of bread around the world, pizza, Zinfandel and how sad it is for someone to have missed the magic that is Venice, can I deplore the attempt to belittle another member in an effort to belittle his opinions or posts.

[Bux]

Had an excellent pizza in Italy recently tiny little clams placed onto a pizza base which was sauced with nothing but new olive oil and garlic. Clams were alive and closed when the pizza went into the oven, but opened up unde the heat, spilling there juice on the pizza to mingle with the oil and garlic. Drank it with a nice Chianti.

Otto, a new restaurant in NYC (big thread on the NY board because it's Mario Batalli's new joint) came in for some criticism of its clam pizza. Most diners seemed to think the unshelled clams were out of place. They wanted to just dig in eat the pizza without opening up small clams. I see some advantage in having the pizza there to catch the juices so nothing is lost. How tiny were your clams?

[macrosan]

I wonder how much bread you've had in each of these countries.

So do I, sometimes.

I've been to Italy about 14 or 15 times for holidays, say average 10 days each, so I'd estimate I've eaten bread in Italy at 300 meals. I've probably eaten at Italian restaurants in the UK serving Italian bread another 500 or so times.

I've been to Denmark 11 times, for a week each time. So my estimate is that I've eaten Danish bread at maybe 150 meals.

France is the hardest to estimate. I've been for so many one/two day trips I've lost count, but I'll guess at 100 meals. Of course I've had 200 or more meals at French restaurants, but I've always suspected they're not serving true French bread.

Edited January 26, 2003 by macrosan (log)

[Adam Balic]

Had an excellent pizza in Italy recently tiny little clams placed onto a pizza base which was sauced with nothing but new olive oil and garlic. Clams were alive and closed when the pizza went into the oven, but opened up unde the heat, spilling there juice on the pizza to mingle with the oil and garlic. Drank it with a nice Chianti.

Otto, a new restaurant in NYC (big thread on the NY board because it's Mario Batalli's new joint) came in for some criticism of its clam pizza. Most diners seemed to think the unshelled clams were out of place. They wanted to just dig in eat the pizza without opening up small clams. I see some advantage in having the pizza there to catch the juices so nothing is lost. How tiny were your clams?

Bux - Clams were tiny, ~1.5 - 2 cm in length. Very little meat, but this cooking technique had the advantage of allowing all the juices to be captured by the pizza. Bigger clams would have ment soggy dough I think. Clams were added at end of cooking of pizza so they didn't dry out during cooking. As soon as they opened up pizza was taken out. Clams can be sucked of the shell in seconds, pizza eaten as per normal, can't see to much problem with that. Could be a problem if it was a cheese containing pizza I guess, but I prefer them without cheese and tomato anyway, so no problems for me.

[peterpumkino]

......A feeling of magic filled my heart as the energy swirled around me.

Then it was over and the current flowed back out of the piazza. We retreated to the bar of our hotel and ordered a bottle of Bellavista. Some moments live in your mind forever.

Venice, New Year Eve, 1999

That is exactly what it is all about Craig.

ps and your comment that you have to be very careful in Venice as it is a city where you can get Spaghetti and meatballs is so accurate (although in the Holiday Inn in Rome they had the decorum to refer to it as 'Spaghetti alla Perla" - when I asked what it was, thinking it was some exotic dish, oysters? Caviar?, he told me that as they had so many Americans they had to put it on the menu as they assumed that that dish was Real Italian and would complain if the hotel didn't offer it - the waiiter said, very sheepishly.).

[jaybee]

ps and your comment that you have to be very careful in Venice as it is a city where you can get Spaghetti and meatballs is so accurate (although in the Holiday Inn in Rome  they had the decorum to refer to it as 'Spaghetti alla Perla" - when I asked what it was, thinking it was some exotic dish, oysters? Caviar?, he told me that as they had so many Americans they had to put it on the menu as they assumed that that dish was Real Italian and would complain if the hotel didn't offer it - the waiiter said, very sheepishly.).

Yeah, we Americans are so stupid, ignorant and dumb. Gosh, it never fails to amaze me. I wonder how we became the richest, most powerful and most successful nation on earth populated with such idiots?

[Craig Camp]

I think the comment refers to the fact that American tourists carry such ecomomic clout that even hotels in Rome change their menus to cater to them - not because they are stupid but because they have money.

[Adam Balic]

Oh, so what Peter should have said was that Americans were stupid and ignorant and Italians have no cultural integrity . Must be terrible if you are an Italian-American.

[macrosan]

Craig, I think you're altogether too nice a guy

Jaybee was reacting to Pumkino's ludicrous and badly-intentioned assertion about Americans' lack of knowledge of "real" Italian food. Sadly, this has become a standard feature of Pumkino's posts.

When a four-year-old has read a nursery rhyme book so often he knows it by heart, but that's all the language he has learned so far, he speaks the words on all occasions without any understanding of what he is saying, and without any relevance to what he wants to talk about. In a four-year-old, it's quite amusing and often endearing. With Pumkino it's just an irritation to which the mildest of us is finally bound to respond.

[Craig Camp]

Oh, so what Peter should have said was that Americans were stupid and ignorant and Italians have no cultural integrity . Must be terrible if you are an Italian-American.

Something must of gotten lost in the translation here? I think free enterprise is allowed in Italy too, without it destroying all cultural integrity.

I was not trying to defend Peter - from the looks of his posts he needs no help.

[macrosan]

I was not trying to defend Peter - from the looks of his posts he needs no help.

Actually, I'd have said the reverse.

[oraklet]

macro-san,

that would be a three-year old, wouldn't it? or perhaps two-year old?

anyway, i find it interesting that you like danish white breads. in my (fortysix years of) experience they are boring, tasting too much of yeast, with poor textures. VERY hard to find a good quality (which is why i bake bread). now rye bread, that's another story.

and right, sadly french baguettes seem to be in decline. and "italian" bread is best outside of italy (judging from my many disappointments in northern italy).

[peterpumkino]

Thanks Craig, but you are right, I don't need any help.

However, time and time and time again whenever you say anything mildly critical you get the Americans bleating company lin: "I wonder how we became the richest, most powerful and most successful nation on earth populated with such idiots?" This argument can go on and on and I do not want to contribute to it.

All I can say was Craig was 100% correct when he said, "I think the comment refers to the fact that American tourists carry such ecomomic clout that even hotels in Rome change their menus to cater to them - not because they are stupid but because they have money".

Do you guys have such massive inferiority complexes that you have to think this way?

[Adam Balic]

Oh, so what Peter should have said was that Americans were stupid and ignorant and Italians have no cultural integrity . Must be terrible if you are an Italian-American.

Something must of gotten lost in the translation here? I think free enterprise is allowed in Italy too, without it destroying all cultural integrity.

Free enterprise is a disease of stoopid Americans, real Italians would never prostitute their proud cultural traditions to cheaply sqeeze a few extra bucks out of Americans.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I think you guys all are taking these comments too far. The original premise for any of this is that Italy is disorganized as a country. Little things that are simply either don't work correctly or are a pain in the ass to accomplish. Pumpkino's tale of the post office being out of stamps is a good one. Because to set up a system that would ensure that would never happen is so easy that a child can do it. When I go to a small Italian city to find a restaurant and its a holiday and the police station is closed so I can't get directions, I find that more frustrating then words will allow. Some people find those things charming and don't care, I find them maddening.

The reason I find it maddening is that when I plan a trip somewhere, I do not leave extra time for those type of little ineffiencies. I just don't have time to hear that you can catch the next train. But I am sure that if I lived in Italy I would get used to it. But I am also sure that I will never live in Italy because I don't want to get used to it either.