Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, August 30
through
Saturday, September 5 2020
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It’s Saturday, September 5, 2020
Welcome to the 875th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Restaurant in the Piazza del Duomo
Peter K Burian - Own work
Restaurant in the Piazza del Duomo
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2.0 Commentary
Routine keeps one on track.
Always knowing where I am on the clock gives me great pleasure.
Away from any timepiece for two or three or more hours,
I most often can guess the clock within minutes.
Following a routine gives me good checkpoints.
When I wake I look at the clock.
That’s my only time check until the café, which I’ll tell about in a minute.
Breakfast is anytime from 5.00 to 6.00.
Then I intersperse work on the blog with
shaving,
dressing,
packing my backpack and my waist pouch,
cleaning up breakfast.
I’m cleaned up and packed and
the blog is put to sleep at about 9.45.
Every morning.
9.54, 9.38, even 10.00, all count the same in a global reckoning,
I leave about 9.45.
Don’t need to check the time.
A walk to Newbury St. and the sidewalk cafe takes about 45 minutes.
Sometimes I stop at the bank, add 10 min.
At the café I wait until 10.30 to order my morning cappuccino, very hot.
So that actually is a hard time check.
10.30.
Now my day which is starting at 10.30a is circumscribed by dinnertime, 5.00pm, virtually every day.
10.30am to 5.00pm: the time I have to budget.
A couple of hours on the phone, doing computer chores, and mostly,
planning the trip to Tuscany.
Often I reach an emotionally and logically fine place to break from my work, or
I run out of steam, so
I pack up.
It’s about noon.
Some variations.
Almost always on the way home, a stop at Whole Foods for groceries.
15 min.
Home at about 1.30pm.
Pretty close.
By computing any variations from the norm, and there are usually some of those,
my guess at the time when I arrive home is pretty accurate.
Somewhere near 1.45pm. a four-hour trip out.
Now I’m left with a time segment: 1.30p to 5.00pm.
But less than that really.
For one thing, I always have dessert when I arrive home: a half chocolate cupcake and a small scoop of ice cream that has so much air beaten into it that it contains only half the calories of rich and wonderful premium ice cream.
And for another, at 4.00p I stop what I’m doing to set the table and prepare dinner.
So, 2.15 to 4.00pm: I have only to account for an hour and three-quarters.
Don’t eschew boring.
Routine keeps one on track.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
Continuing to work on configuring neighborhoods in Florence.
Defining neighborhood as a contiguous area within which
a tourist will tour.
Amazed to discover that Florence has one space so small
that no point is more than a six minute walk from another; a space that includes
Vivoli gelateria,
Giotto’s Campanile,
Florence’s Cathedral with Brunelleschi’s Dome,
the Piazza del Duomo,
the Baptistery with Ghiberti’s doors,
the Palazzo Vecchio,
the Loggia dei Lanzi,
the monument to Dante,
the Ponte Vecchio,
the Fountain of Neptune,
the Museum of the great work of the Cathedral,
the Uffizi,
the spot where Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and burned,
the Piazza della Signoria.
Wow!
Wow!
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
You must live in the present,
launch yourself on every wave,
find your eternity in each moment.
Fools stand on their island of opportunities and
look toward another land.
There is no other land;
there is no other life but this.
~Henry David Thoreau
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
Have gotten two emails from people offering help with the Sacco and Vanzetti memorial.
One, a self-starter, has been forming questions on the approach to finding a site for the installation.
Blog Meister responds: That’s terrific!
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Last night I had a most delicious Turkey Soup.
I’ve got to post that recipe.
I am falling behind on recipes.
Sorry.
So much else to write about.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Piazza del Duomo is located in the heart of the historic center of Florence.
It is one of the most visited places in Europe and the world and in Florence,
the most visited area of the city.
The square contains the Florence Cathedral with the Cupola del Brunelleschi, the Giotto's Campanile, the Florence Baptistery, the Loggia del Bigallo, the Opera del Duomo Museum, and the Arcivescovile and Canonici's palace.
The west zone of this square is called Piazza San Giovanni.
And nearby is the Piazza della Signoria.
A café in Florence a different experience from what we will find in San Gimignano and Pisa.
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It’s Friday, September 4, 2020
Welcome to the 874th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
San Miniato al Monte (Florence) – Exterior
Benjamín Núñez González - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Miniato_al_Monte,_exterior,_Florencia,_Italia,_2019_01.jpg
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1.0 Lead Picture II
The Kat and Will tutor poster was not available a couple of days ago.
Kat and Will Tutor Poster
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2.0 Commentary
We’re waiting:
For the positivity testing rate to drop below 1%.
For the MBTA to directly address the jumbled way their trains pick up as carry their human cargo.
At least on the Blue Line, the trains are beginning to get unhealthily crowded.
Are they drunk?
Do they not listen to our Governor?
And Governor Baker, you’ve performed so well to date, will you turn a blind eye to this most glaring example of covid-spreaders?
For election day to be no further than 60 day away.
For citizens of Massachusetts to turn away from illegal gatherings that encourage the spread of covid-19.
For at least some small percentage of fans to be allowed into sports arenas.
For plastic dividers to be introduced into indoor dining facilities to increase the number of patrons dining out.
For schools to adopt a hybrid formula for students to return to the classroom.
For the Celtics to win Game Three.
We’re hoping but not waiting:
For a vaccine for the virus,
For a favorable election day result.
For Tuscany to open up to visitors from the United States.
For Cam Newton to rise to the top of the pack and take our Patriots with him.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
I had a fun day yesterday.
Started to carve Florence up by centers.
Take the Chiesa di San Miniato.
Bing maps of the church reveal sites close by, adjacent.
Looking up the sites in Wikipedia describe them to us.
If they pique our interest, create a sheet for the site and
filing the site-sheets within a folder called San Miniato
With a bit of effort, great fun for me, the trip begins to take shape.
A visit to San Miniato will be an entire afternoon.
Highly desirable.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Dissent without action is consent.
~Henry David Thoreau
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday night we ate turkey salad.
It was a delicious change of pace.
Pretty simple: cut up the meat, mix it with salad ingredients, dress it.
I used a baguette from Iggy’s as an accompaniment.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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San Miniato al Monte (St. Minias on the Mountain) is a
basilica in Florence, central Italy,
standing atop one of the highest points in the city.
It has been described as one of the finest Romanesque structures in Tuscany and one of the
most scenic churches in Italy.
There is an adjoining Olivetan monastery, seen to the right of the basilica when ascending the stairs.
The interior exhibits the early feature of a choir raised on a platform above the large crypt.
It has changed little since it was first built.
The patterned pavement dates from 1207.
The center of the nave is dominated by the beautiful freestanding Cappella del Crocefisso (Chapel of the Crucifix),
designed by Michelozzo in 1448.
It originally housed the miraculous crucifix now in Santa Trìnita and
is decorated with panels long thought to be painted by Agnolo Gaddi.
The terracotta decoration of the vault is by Luca della Robbia.
The mosaic of Christ between the Virgin and St Minias was made in 1297.
The crypt is the oldest part of the church and the high altar supposedly contains the bones of St Minias himself (although there is evidence that these were removed to Metz before the church was even built).
In the vaults are frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi.
The raised choir and presbytery contain a magnificent Romanesque pulpit and screen made in 1207.
The apse is dominated by a great mosaic dating from 1297, which
depicts the same subject as that on the façade and is
probably by the same unknown artist.
The crucifix above the high altar is attributed to Luca della Robbia.
The sacristy is decorated with a great fresco cycle on the Life of St Benedict by Spinello Aretino (1387).
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It’s Thursday, September 3, 2020
Welcome to the 873rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Bob Dylan plays a guitar and sings into a microphone.
Alberto Cabello from Vitoria Gasteiz - Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan, onstage in Victoria-Gasteiz, at the Azkena Rock Festival.
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2.0 Commentary
How wonderfully people may age.
Thinking of America’s historically-amazing songwriter-performer.
Bob Dylan hasn’t written a song in eight years and now
offers a sixteen minutes creation, Murder Most Foul.
The subject is the assassination of Jack Kennedy.
But take a step away from the immediate and
we get a more philosophic message.
And Dylan is nothing if not a philosopher.
For those of us of a certain age,
life has been filled with horrors and responses.
No matter what social strata, ethnic group, regional affiliation.
horrors and responses.
And, through the medium of music, mainly,
but also of other genres,
Bob tries to list every one of these events.
And succeeds.
Nothing is omitted.
Hyperbole, perhaps.
Dylan embraces the effects time has had upon him.
Voice change.
Generational change.
Adorational change.
He presents himself as who he is today.
At this moment.
Not everyone is going to like who I have become.
But I’m an entertainer.
Until I disappear into eternity.
While here,
I offer myself for your edification,
for my own enjoyment.
I’m seventy-something.
Entertaining.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
It's not what you look at that matters,
it's what you see.
~Henry David Thoreau
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This, a review by Tucker J of Bob Dylan’s Murder Most Foul:
Hey Dom! Here is a piece on Murder Most Foul. Let me know if it satisfies!
‘Twas a dark day in Dallas - November ‘63 The day that will live on in infamy President Kennedy was riding high A good day to be living and a good day to die Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb Say wait a minute boys, do you know who I am? Of course we do, we know who you are Then they blew off his head when he was still in the car Shot down like a dog in broad daylight ‘Twas a matter of timing and the timing was right You got unpaid debts and we’ve come to collect We’re gon’ kill you with hatred and without any respect We’ll mock you and shock you, we’ll grin in your face We’ve already got someone here to take your place The day that they blew out the brains of the king Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing It happened so quickly - so quick by surprise Right there in front of everyone’s eyes" So begins Murder Most Foul, Bob Dylan’s 17-minute ballad that begins by being about the assassination of J.F.K. and over its runtime evolves into so much more. The music is slow, almost appropriately like a dirge, and when a delicate touch of the piano bleeds into tearful string accompaniment, a space emerges for the singer's voice. He transports our mind's eye back to the vantage point of Dallas in November of 1963, promising that — no matter our age or ideology — we can also find tour damaged souls and lost innocence at that same blood-stained locale. As Dylan declares midway into "Murder Most Foul," we are riding to the "place where faith, hope, and charity died."
Deep within the song Dylan’s lyrics point to the “12 Million souls that are listening in.” On November 22, 1963, all ears were held hostage by the same story. Today, we are a captive audience once again—although under very different circumstances—and listening to Dylan’s first original song in eight years feels all the more significant as a result. The song unfolds slowly and to hear the song for the first time feels like a kind of communion.
In the opening passages of “Murder Most Foul,” President Kennedy is fatally shot in his limousine as it ambles through the streets of Dallas. Dylan elevates that vehicle from a crime scene to a time machine that drives through the decades, soundtracked by icons of each era. “Turn the radio on; don’t touch the dials,” Dylan rasps atop a scaffold of piano and bowed bass. He instructs “Wolfman Jack, ” the famed ’60s DJ, to play everything from Etta James, to The Animals, to Queen. “The Beatles are comin’; they’re gonna hold your hand,” Dylan sings, heralding the Fab Four’s single, which arrived Stateside roughly one month after Kennedy’s death. In Dylan’s epic, the Lincoln Continental becomes Kennedy’s mobile resting place, cruising past cultural milestones that seemed to sprout from historical unrest. Dylan acknowledges the assassination as “the soul of a nation being torn away”
significant American art of the past 60 years. References to music dominate the latter half of "Murder Most Foul." Dylan pleads with his nameless audience to "play" a roll call of great pop, country, blues, jazz, and rock and roll artists, in a seeming act of mourning for what is lost — both the physically and spiritually dead. There are lines when Dylan seems to offer the multicultural brilliance of American music as a source of comfort and a signpost toward redemption
In an interview with the New York Times, Dylan was asked if the song was written as a eulogy for a long-lost time. Dylan responded “To me it’s not nostalgic. I don’t think of “Murder Most Foul” as a glorification of the past or some kind of send-off to a lost age. It speaks to me in the moment. It always did, especially when I was writing the lyrics out.”
With the release of "Murder Most Foul" in a time of extreme American pain and need, Dylan has embraced his unique cultural and artistic authority to present a prophetic examination of American decline, taking a musical magnifying glass to the erosion of America's historical promise and the "slow decay," to use his words, of the American soul.
Blog Meister responds: Add these thoughts to the fast-growing body of thoughtful reviewers.
Well done, my friend.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Tuesday night I served a vegetable antipasto (salad) including cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, red onion, olives, and grilled asparagus.
For dinner I served wonderful slow-roasted turkey with gnocchi and roasted eggplant.
The food was delicious.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941)
is an American singer-songwriter, author, and visual artist who has been
a major figure in popular culture for more than 50 years.
Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as
"Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became
anthems for the civil rights and anti-war movements.
His lyrics during this period incorporated a range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences,
defied pop music conventions and
appealed to the burgeoning counterculture.
Following his self-titled debut album in 1962,
which mainly comprised traditional folk songs,
Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the following year.
The album features
"Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex
"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall".
For many of these songs, he adapted the tunes and phraseology of older folk songs.
He went on to release the politically charged
The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective
Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964.
In 1965 and 1966, Dylan drew controversy when
he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and
in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home (1965),
Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and
Blonde on Blonde (1966).
Commenting on the six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965),
Rolling Stone wrote: "No other pop song has so thoroughly
challenged and transformed the commercial laws and
artistic conventions of its time, for all time."
Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of drawings and paintings, and
his work has been exhibited in major art galleries.
He has sold more than 100 million records,
making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
He has received numerous awards, including the
Presidential Medal of Freedom,
ten Grammy Awards, a
Golden Globe Award and an
Academy Award.
Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the
Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The Pulitzer Prize Board in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power". In 2016, Dylan was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".
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It’s Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Welcome to the 873rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Prince Charles Louis of the Palatinate with his Tutor Wolrad von Plessen in Historical Dress
Jan Lievens (Dutch, 1607 - 1674) (1607 - 1674) – artist (Dutch) Details of artist on Google Art Project - hwGNdBafiHbIWg at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level
Tutors Available:
781-375-7862
kcapossela@swarthmore.edu
Will: Incoming analystat Morgan stanley; Swarthmore Student Budgetary Chair;
Stuyvesant High School GPA 95.5; ACT Math/Science 36
Kat: Incoming Teacher at Teach for America; Swarthmore Student Body Presidentpast two years;
Swarthmore College GPA: 3.8/4.0; ACT English/Reading: 36
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2.0 Commentary
Two talented young people, seniors at Swarthmore College,
are offering their services as remote tutors to school children of any age.
I’ve seen Kat helping younger children from the time she was in high school and
chose to spend her four-year required ‘payback to the neighborhood time’
tutoring.
And the demand for her time was off the charts.
She’s pretty spectacular.
While I don’t know Will as a high schooler,
I do know him as an incisive, supportive person
under whose guidance his students will thrive.
Have a child who could use a gentle but talented helping hand?
Reach out to these two.
Primary Day today.
After which I will studiously ignore politics until Wednesday, September 9,
after which we will have sixty days left before the election.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
Incorporating a random list of ‘the twenty artworks you must see in Florence,’
I added to my growing list of options.
At the same time I refined the template I created containing
the details I’d want to capture for every piece of art I study.
It’s so much fun I have a hard time keeping away from it, sometimes
neglecting routine chores.
Neglect that often leads to a bite in the rear end.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Life isn't about finding yourself;
it's about creating yourself.
So live the life you imagined.
~Henry David Thoreau
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night I had a delicious turkey dinner.
Slow roasted.
So juicy.
I do love turkey.
It was delicious.
Very.
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A tutor, formally also called an academic tutor, is
a person who provides assistance or tutelage to
one or more people on certain subject areas or skills.
The tutor spends a few hours on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to
transfer their expertise on the topic or skill to the student.
Tutoring can take place in different settings,
Tutoring began as an informal and unstructured method of educational assistance,
dating back to periods in Ancient Greece.
Tutors operated on an ad-hoc or impromptu basis in varied and unfixed settings
wherein the main goal of the tutor was to impart knowledge to the learner in order to
help the latter gain proficiency in the subject area.
Methods of tutoring only began to become more structured after the 20th century
through focus and specialization in the training of tutors,
application of tutoring, and
evaluation of tutors.
From the 20th century onwards,
with the rapid spread of mainstream education,
the demand for tutoring has also increased as a way to supplement formal education.
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It’s Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Welcome to the 872nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Metro Toronto Convention Centre, late 2004
Conventions impact the local economy and are often fiercely fought over.
Post-covid, not so much.
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2.0 Commentary
The conventions of both political parties are over.
Let’s take the next few days off.
Don’t worry.
Be happy.
Hard to with such impactful events like Presidential elections looming.
But the conventions raise a lot of dust.
Let’s let it settle.
Take the next few days off.
Let’s not return to routine until the Wednesday after Labor Day.
September 9.
That will leave eight weeks before Election Day.
Time enough to vomit all you want.
So far, I have no plans.
But I never really make plans.
People seem to make them for me.
Like this Wednesday dollar oysters, the invitation from a friend
Or another friend just this moment announcing intent to stay over for two days.
So, I’m sure I’ll get plenty of ideas.
But often, I like being alone.
As the city prepares to go comatose for Labor Day.
Sounds oxymoronic.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
Driving through the country, one plans for city to city.
But for an urban stayover, one plans block to block.
So I took the list of buildings we might be seeing and
using the Bing maps,
I measured how far on foot one site is from the other.
Almost fifteen sites were withing 15 minutes of the Uffizi.
Only three were more than 15mins, and
none of those were more than 45 min on foot from the Uffizi.
Impact:
Our hotel will be as close to the Uffizi as we can afford.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Simplify your life.
Don't waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant.
Don't burden yourself with possessions.
Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have.
Don't destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past.
Live in the present.
Simplify!
~Henry David Thoreau
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Sunday night I ate the other half of a roast sirloin.
With some broccoli rabe.
But the gastronomic highlight of the meal came from the Sassella Valtellina wine
I opened yesterday and then vacuum sealed.
Lovely. Lovely.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
A convention, in the sense of a meeting, is a gathering of individuals who meet at an arranged place and time in order to discuss or engage in some common interest.
The most common conventions are based upon industry, profession, and fandom.
Trade conventions typically focus on a particular industry and feature keynote speakers, vendor displays, and other information and activities of interest to the event organizers and attendees.
Professional conventions focus on issues of concern along with advancements related to the profession. Such conventions are generally organized by societies or communities dedicated to promotion of the topic of interest.
Fan conventions usually feature displays, shows, and sales based on pop culture and guest celebrities.
Science fiction conventions traditionally partake of the nature of both professional conventions and fan conventions, with the balance varying from one to another.
Conventions also exist for various hobbies, such as gaming or model railroads.
Or a meeting of delegates or representatives as in state-sponsored political conventions.
Or conventions of organizations made up of smaller units, chapters, or lodges, such as labor unions, honorary societies, and fraternities and sororities which meet as a whole by sending delegates of the units to deliberate on the organization's common issues.
Conventions are often planned and coordinated, often in exacting detail, by professional meeting and convention planners, either by staff of the convention's hosting company or by outside specialists.
Most large cities will have a convention center dedicated to hosting such events.
The industry is generally regulated under the tourism sector.
The Constitution of the United States of America has a provision for the calling of a
constitutional convention, whereby delegates of the states are summoned to a
special meeting to amend or draft the constitution.
This process has never occurred,
save for the original drafting of the constitution,
although it almost happened in several cases.
The US Constitution also has provisions for constitutional amendments to be approved by state conventions of the people.
This occurred to ratify the original constitution and to adopt the twenty-first amendment,
which ended prohibition.
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It’s Monday, August 31, 2020
Welcome to the 871st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Panorama of the Valtellina
from Alpe Piazzola in the comune of Castello dell'Acqua.
Arnaldo Zitti - Photo taken by me (five foto combination)
Valtellina Landscape from Piazzola Alp (Sondrio)
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2.0 Commentary
Valtellina is a valley in the Lombard region of Italy.
Quite excellent wines are produced here,
wines that for the past forty years have been among my favorite reds.
Dom’s restaurant, when it was operating, always featured Valtellina,
carrying an example from many of the villages that put their names on the bottles.
Maybe I liked them because they are a
little bit lighter and leaner than their
more famous cousins in Barolo and Barbaresco.
Perhaps because they have their own style:
think raspberries, flint, and smoke;
think juicy and delicious,
less pretentious;
light-hearted enjoyable,
shedding the somber.
And yet a serious wine,
to be paired, discussed, respected.
Valtellina wines are not everyday purchases,
most coming in north of $20.00 a bottle.
But they give value.
I drank one with a steak on Saturday night.
Wonderful.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
Four days in a foreign city.
I spent my trip-planning time listing the major buildings that we’ll be visiting in Florence.
Listing all the possible sites in Florence is tedious but enlightening.
The Uffizi first, likely followed by the Museo Nazionale di San Marco.
These two will take the first of the four morning events of our stay in the city.
Why do I say four days?
Remember we’re talking four full days.
Not including the late afternoon and evening of our arrival in Florence.
Nor the morning of our car ride to Rome for our flight pout of Italy.
In my experience, the intensive effort a great city demands of the visitor exhausts.
Four days.
A trip on the heels of a more leisurely four days driving through the Tuscan countryside.
That’s eight days net of travel.
Then come home.
It’s time.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Government is not reason;
it is not eloquent;
it is force.
Like fire,
it is a dangerous servant and a
fearful master.
Experience has taught us that it is much easier to
prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to
dislodge them after they have got possession, and when the
freedom of speech is taken away then
dumb and silent we may be led,
like sheep to the slaughter.
~George Washington
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
Choosing regions of Italy to visit or not to visit: I liken the delightful task to choosing books to read: Too many books! Too little time!
I spent four days (straddling last weekend) in mid-coast Maine, on an offshore island where my family has summered for over fifty years. Went with my younger brother, who hadn't been out for many years and with whom I hadn't spent quiet one-on-one time in many more years. We had a wonderful visit. Glorious weather, gracious neighbors, new friends who have recently purchased one of the properties, great seafood (hen clams and razor clams) harvested from the consistently clean mudflats - it doesn't get any better than that!
Because of the remoteness of the island, there's no light pollution at night - even the mainland a mile away is populated only by small villages - and the Milky Way is close enough almost to touch with one's hand. What was even closer was Venus, monstrously huge in the pre-dawn sky. Whereas the stars were typical pinpricks in the sky, some brighter than others, of course, Venus was the size of a tennis ball, a flaming orange-yellow. I never would have seen it had the outhouse not called at 4 am. Venus was so bright that even the next morning about the same time, when it was thick-a-fog, I could see a large vague spot of brightness, the light of the planet shining through the cloud.
So I've been playing catch-up all week with emails that piled up during my absence (no electricity at the island, and no cell phone carrier coverage nearby) in between stints of working my regular job. It's all good.
Blog Meister responds: Sounds idyllic. God bless, my dear.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday night I had a baked russet potatoes, roasted asparagus, and a third of a two-pound slow-roasted dry-aged rib eye steak (butcher only had boneless) finished using the broil-sear method I employ.
Amazing.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Valtellina is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland.
In past centuries it was a key alpine pass between northern Italy and Germany and
control of the Valtellina was much sought after, particularly during the Thirty Years' War.
Today it is known for its ski center, hot spring spas, bresaola, cheeses (in particular Bitto, named after the river Bitto) and wines.
In Valtellina, wines are produced mainly from Chiavennasca
(the local name of Nebbiolo grape variety)
with other minor varieties such as Rossola nera permitted up to 20% for the
Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) and 10% for the
Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG).
Grapes are limited to a harvest yield of 12 tonnes/ha.
The finished wine must be aged for at least 2 years prior to release
(3 years if a Riserva bottling) with a minimum alcohol level of at least 11%.
Yields for the DOCG wines are further restricted to a maximum of 8 tonnes/ha.
While the aging requirements are the same as the DOC, the
minimum alcohol level for the DOCG wine is 12%.
The best-known villages for red wines are:
Grumello, Sassella, Inferno, Valgella, and Maroggia.
The village names are normally indicated on the label.
Additionally there is an Amarone style DOCG wine called Sforzato (Sfursat).
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It’s Sunday, August 30, 2020
Welcome to the 870th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Three cultivars of eggplant, showing size, shape, and color differences
J.E. Fee - originally posted to Flickr as Three Types of Eggplant
Three varieties of Eggplant
See Howard D’s piece in 11.0 Thumbnails
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2.0 Commentary
Planning the trip brings me great pleasure.
It’s really two trips.
The first several days will entail a lot of driving through the beautiful Tuscan countryside
as we touch down in Arezzo, Assisi, Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa, and Padua.
Having just decided in which towns we will sleep and eat,
I’ve begun planning our four-day stint in Florence.
So many museums, buildings, works of art, walks, and cafes.
So many rich opportunities.
Yet there is pain.
We will not see a great many buildings and art.
Listing those is painful.
We list everything so that our omissions are consciously made.
No accidents.
It is a microcosm of our lives.
In any given week we have choices to make.
Who to visit?
To invite over?
What to read?
What to watch?
What to eat?
How hard to work?
What we choose to do brings us joy.
But we must omit.
We have too many options.
Can’t do them all.
Happy news:
Called Whole Foods early Saturday morning.
They have dry-aged meat available.
Bone-in not available, I ordered a two-pound boneless rib eye
to pick up later in day.
I’ll look forward to that.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting its essence
Among things that shouldn’t be said to a traveler:
"You mean you were in Florence for four days and you didn't..."
Because I am planning the four days we will spend in Florence.
So many options.
I will list all of them.
Prepare a brief description of each.
Estimate the time each stop will need.
And then plop the most exciting into our calendar and see how it falls together;
or apart.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
"What are you rebelling against, Johnny?",
he answers
"Whaddaya got?"
~Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler,
his iconic role in The Wild One.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
"What are you rebelling against, Johnny?",
he answers
"Whaddaya got?"
~Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler,
the iconic role in The Wild One.
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Howard D:
Once again, a mention of something in your blog and I have a perfect prompt:
Keep up the good work.
[not proof read; so sorry about that]
Blog Meister responds: Howard, my friend, sounds like a perfect method. But I believe most of the same delicious results can be produced in a far easier way.
As soon as I get a moment I will publish my method.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Friday night I ate alone: leftover chicken cacciatore.
A lovely time and a delicious supper.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Poor Man’s Caviar (Caviar d’Aubergine)
It’s also called Jewish Eggplant Caviar, Sephardic Eggplant Caviar, Greek Eggplant Caviar, Turkish, and, to round it out, Israeli... and all these variants somehow, for obscure reasons, tied to the Jews, regardless of provenance.
It was my father who introduced me to this dish. He did it the best way possible. He cooked it for me, without ceremony or preamble. He was a far better cook, it turned out (I came to realize, having learned this only in retrospect), than my mother, but he hardly ever prepared anything in the kitchen. His devotions to work, which were not, fundamentally, at a conceptual level very much different from cooking, prevented it. He was a pharmacist and for most of my early youth – until I was seven or eight – he pursued his vocation, for which he was licensed of course, and graced with a degree from the Columbia University College of Pharmacy. He graduated in 1930. From then until he sold his last drugstore, in 1953, he practiced his trade with virtuosity and great seriousness.
As he learned the trade, and the underlying science of pharmacology, at a time when most prescriptions were written for drugs that had to be compounded from elementary components as pure chemicals, and dispensed in whatever form the pharmacist could contrive for ingestion by the patient: sometimes a powder to be dissolved, sometimes a tablet, sometimes a capsule, sometimes an emulsion, sometimes an elixir. It was then common practice – what is now nearly 100 years ago, when, freshly minted as a pharmacist he began to make a living at it, my father got his first job in a working pharmacy. He must have had something of an entrepreneurial spirit, because it was not long before he had gone through a succession of jobs, working for others in junior positions, that he formed his first partnership in a store in the Bronx.
I am not sure how long this first partnership lasted, and don’t recall if there was a second, but I do know that somewhere in the progression of his career, he went solo, and he had at least two stores of which he was sole proprietor, and largely sole employee. It meant, practically speaking, that as a child growing up from infancy – when I was born, he owned what was fated to be his last store: Fenton Pharmacy, on the corner of Fenton Avenue and Boston Post Road in the Bronx, literally across the street from the extensive housing project I called home for the first nine years of my life – I hardly ever saw my father, as he opened very early in the morning, and came home late in the evening. A measure of his devotion to his clientele.
Anyway, my point was, he made up concoctions, from prescriptions, and a variety of ingredients as designated, and prepared in a certain formal order of procedures, and they had to work, which meant no mistakes. Analogously, it has always been suggested to me, no doubt by the self-same practitioner of the pharmaceutical arts that I called my dad, recipes for dishes for cooks to prepare to order, from a variety of ingredients as stipulated in precise measurable amounts (more or less) were more or less the same operation. And called for the same innate skills.
Whatever the confluence (or mere coincidence) of requisite skills, the fact was, in my experience (and, even as a very little boy, I was discerning and discriminating about what “tastes good” to the point of fussiness and censoriousness when a dish didn’t meet my standards; this charmed my father no end, and it was a good thing he would always chuckle when I made my pronouncements, because I am sure this helped mellow what was clearly an over-compensating tendency to carp—a fault I am sorry to say persists into my declining years, when it is at least a little more appropriate to the gerontologic stereotype), all in all, my father was a really good cook.
If I was showing the engagement and attention of true interest in what must have been one of those rare occasions of his leisure coinciding with the opportunity to indulge one of his many culinary favorites, it must have been still some early stage in my development. I had to have been old enough to retain the details of his instruction, however, because I have remembered how to make this dish ever since. Let’s say, I had to have been somewhere between ten and twelve years old. By then, we had moved to Providence RI, because he had changed careers, given the opportunity, and was made sales manager of a small pharmaceutical company that made some very popular over-the-counter items whose success derived from the efficacy of one ingredient, which was virtually a miracle cure, adored by parents around the country for its usefulness in controlling a rampant and unavoidable nuisance ailment of infants: diaper rash.
This all has nothing whatever to do with the cooking lesson my dad decided to bestow on me one day. I forget all specific contextual details. Time of day, day of the week, the weather are absent from memory, but not the ingredients, and not the general order of battle in the preparation of this amazingly simple and delicious dish. It may have been one of the warmer months, and it may have been a weekend, because there was charring of the skin of the main ingredient involved. I do vaguely recall that there may have been a charcoal grill involved – the use of which to some other supercedent application, for example, the grilling of a main course of meat of some kind, necessitated this supplemental cooking device.
I do know we did have an electric cooktop and oven in our kitchen (very much the latest in domestic appliances of the high end variety—it was how I was introduced to the still premium brand of Thermador, which made our excellent kitchen devices). And I do know such a means of producing high heat, otherwise applicable in a great range of methodologies, was not a very efficient way of scorching the outer surfaces of foodstuffs, but especially vegetables.
I remember distinctly my father telling me “I’m going to show you how to make poor man’s caviar,” which he proceeded to suggest, without an outright assertion, that it was perhaps magically even more of a delicacy than the namesake dish that, however old I was, I knew was rare and therefore dear. I also knew eggplants were what you bought at the grocery store. I would have been hard put to find a source for the real thing, though I had already been introduced to the luxury roe by virtue of a very special trip to New York, something of a gustatory baptism, that included a visit to The Russian Tea Room, the acknowledged shrine of celebrants in quest of such piscatory pilgrimages. It’s probably superfluous to add that I loved caviar from my first bite from the statutory spoonful (on a spoon made of bone, the traditional implement for tasting).
In any event, if my father could extract magic from the dubious innards of this strangely gourd-shaped fruit, so be it. And yes, as we always surprisingly learn, usually early in our education of domestic matters, the eggplant, like the tomato, is a fruit, a berry, in fact. Indeed it is related to the tomato and the potato, and like those other two trans-genus indispensable comestibles, it is treated almost exclusively as you would any vegetable. Though I am sure there is some renegade or anarchist chef or wannabe in some overlooked corner of the culinary-industrial imperium, who is feverishly discovering ways of turning the eggplant into some form of bonbon: a foam or a custard, or more like (and not unexpectedly, as you will be able to infer from this recipe) a pudding.
Before leaping right into the recipe, which is straightforward and simple enough, with a modicum, indeed, a minimum of ingredients, I’ll first state that the last few times I went to the trouble of scorching an eggplant somewhere artfully short of incineration, it was to make a dish I also love, called baba ghanoush – an Asian/Middle Eastern/Aegean/Bosphorus kind of a specialty, especially good for dipping, a wonderful accompaniment, a complement really (like a viola to a violin), to that far more popular and ubiquitous vegetal paté called hummus, which is, in contrast, a legume-based meze (to categorize it properly). Baba ghanoush is delicious, smoky, and savory, and, if made right, with all the necessary umamiesque features that are now de rigeur in our regimens.
And as I say, it’s usually baba ghanoush I have as the objective when going to the trouble of singeing an eggplant or two, leaping right over the opportunity of making this equally savory, equally lubricious, equally umami delicacy which is so much simpler and easier and faster to make. It’s easier and simpler and faster (and also cheaper, as it turns out) given that it omits a key additive in so many Middle Eastern meze, not the least of them hummus (the Queen of meze herself), and that is, tahini. Not every household has a supply on hand, and if not, it’s a particular hardship to come by in these days of Covid precautions venturing out for the rare ingredient (though tahini has become almost, but not quite, a regular household grocery stocking item in most super markets).
Plus, poor man’s caviar is the purer product, in terms of concentrating on the core flavors of smoked eggplant (smoked anything really... there being no savory as primeval and beckoning as the flavor of smoke, that evanescent residue of burnt organic matter).
So here is poor man’s caviar
Two medium eggplants
Three tablespoons of olive oil (spring for the better grades of EVOO)
Juice of ½ a fresh lemon
Two cloves of garlic, minced
[optional] ¼ to ½ tsp of ground sumac
[optional] ¼ to ½ tsp hot smoked paprika
[optional] ¼ of a red bell pepper or tomato, minced
[optional] ¼ of a small yellow onion, minced
First, pierce holes around the neck and the base of the eggplants with a coarse sewing needle, or an awl or ice pick will do
Using tongs (and cooking mitts), over a grill or other very hot open flame keep turning the eggplant so all surfaces are exposed to the flame until the skin is scorched, but short of allowing the skin to break down and fail.
The alternative, if a gas or other open flamed device is not available, is to place the eggplant on a lined sheet pan under a broiler in the oven, perhaps between three and five inches from the element. You’ll have to be vigilant about turning the eggplant periodically to ensure uniform scorching of all surfaces.
When the eggplants are done, and are cooled sufficiently to handle without injury, on a clean surface or within a very large bowl, remove all the scorched skin and discard it. There will be a significant amount of fluid inside the eggplant, most of it probably trapped, but perhaps already escaping, so be prepared to drain this fluid (which can be reserved for other cooking uses – which I will not go into in this recipe).
Cut away the stem end, and any remnant of the base that did not get cooked in the process, and discard (I assume you discard such remnants into a compost collector).
Mash the resulting total amount of cooked eggplant flesh, redolent of the smoky residue of the cooking method with a fork. Add one or two tablespoons of the olive oil and the lemon juice. Add the minced garlic, cutting back if you’re not a devotee. And sprinkle in the optional sumac and hot paprika (or either). The latter spices add that frisson of tangy spiciness that brightens up many Middle Eastern and Turkish dishes—and a good replacement for that tang of sea water embedded in the taste of the real mccoy of caviar, the fish eggs, that squirt of our salty primeval roots every time we bite down on the tiny morsels..
At this point, you have a choice for blending the ingredients to the right consistency. You can do it by hand, as I know my father did, steadily and patiently, using the tools you have at hand. A granny fork is a good place to start and potentially the most fatiguing and frustrating, as it will be slowest.
You could also use a mashing device, like a potato masher of the type you hold in your hand. Personally, I like a dough cutter, that crescent shaped hand-held device that has six or seven “blades” (sometimes they’re stout wires), and which conforms to the shape of the inside of a medium to large bowl.
The idea is to break down the cooked flesh of the eggplant into a uniform paste or jam, but no further, that is, so it retains some of the texture of the “eggs” that were part of the eggplant and so its not chunky, but not liquid either.
You can accomplish the same thing, very carefully, using a food processor. The trick is to pulse the ingredients (and the volume is such that you’ll have to be using a very large capacity food processor, as there’s a lot of semi-liquid ingredients that will leak from a smaller processor—most processors have a mark in their bowls to set the limit of the volume of liquid it can contain). Pulse until you have reached the desired consistency of a loose paste. And no further.
What you risk with a food processor is that you will puree the ingredients so it loses all integrity except as a liquid, at which point, you may as well procure some tahini, add some other solid ingredients, and especially the optional onion or tomato and pepper, and make yourself some baba ghanoush.
If you’ve gotten to the right consistency, that’s the time to add the optional tomato and pepper bits, and simply stir them in uniformly. They are meant as much, if not more, for the texture and the bit of color they add, as for any flavor.
When you serve it, drizzle on the last tablespoon of olive oil. I used to like to serve it like real fish-egg caviar: with garnishes of chopped sweet onion, shredded hard-cooked egg yolk, and triangles of toast, preferably pain de mie. Some people also like minced or chopped cornichons as well, as a garnish.
Done right, Poor Man’s Caviar should taste deeply smoky and should linger as a texture and a flavor on the tongue. You can also add some sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste, but that’s up to you. If you go this latter route, Maldon Smoked Sea Salt Flakes are a real bonus.
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