Travel Oyster

Bilbao, A Basque Gem

2012-01-24T06:22:00.001-05:00

Click here or at the end of the text for more photos.

We had just about settled into our apartment in Paris when we headed off again to the airport. JR had been invited to a mathematics meeting in Bilbao and I jumped at the opportunity to tag along and visit the capital of the Basque Country in northern Spain. We joined several French mathematicians on an Air France flight that left in the dark of a Paris morning and arrived an hour and half later in the bright sunshine of Bilbao. From the airport, it's just a 15-minute bus ride to the downtown.

As the bus entered the city, we got our first look at Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum. Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry's masterpiece, which has become a symbol for the city, pays homage to Bilbao's maritime history. All curves and angles, the museum resembles an enormous ship. It's covered with titanium panels that, depending on the light, reflect shimmering silver or dazzling gold. The museum sits on the banks of the Nervion, the river that runs through Bilbao, and its "prowl" juts under the Princes of Spain Bridge. The suspension bridge first opened in 1972, but in 2007 French conceptual artist Daniel Buren redesigned it, adding a huge red sculptural arch to the utilitarian bridge.

The Guggenheim was entirely financed by the Basque Government as part of a larger plan to turn the former industrial city into a tourist destination. We saw the results as we walked from the bus stop to our hotel. Once home to Bilbao's thriving industrial sector, the area had become a decaying eyesore in the heart of the town. Now, it is home to not only the Guggenheim, but also a library, office and residential towers and the recently completed Iberdrola Tower, designed by Argentinian architect César Pelli. Parks, pedestrian walkways and bike paths line both sides of the river and a series of beautiful bridges connect the two sides of the town. To get to our hotel, we crossed the Zubizuri, a pedestrian bridge, whose curved configuration seemed especially fitting for a group of mathematicians.

The conference was due to begin in the late afternoon so at 1:30 p.m., we all headed off for lunch in Bilbao's Old Town or the Zazpikaleak as it called in Basque. We learned immediately that Basque time is quite different from French time. The first two restaurants turned us away saying it was too early for lunch. (Lunch isn't in full swing until about 3 o'clock; dinner begins at nine.) We were welcomed at the third - the classic Café Bilbao - where we sampled many Basque specialities, including cod fish, calamari, grilled mushrooms, Iberian ham and Basque Idiazabal cheese, an aged sheep cheese. The mathematicians went off to their meeting and I stayed behind to enjoy a cup of coffee. As I left, the owner called out: "Long Live Mathematics," a sentiment I heartily endorse.

While the conference was in session, I explored the city on foot, taking in the ambiance of the old buildings with their enclosed balconies; watching the people; and listening to the beautiful sounds of Basque, which is still spoken by 25 percent of the population in the Basque territories. A pre-Indo-European language, the origins of the Basque language continue to be debated by linguists. Whatever its origins, it resembles no language I've ever heard and was completely incomprehensible to me. People, however, were friendly and even when we lacked a common language, they were warm and accommodating.

In the evening, we joined what seemed like everyone in Bilbao for pintxos at the downtown bars. The ultimate finger food, pintxos are toasted bread topped with imaginative combinations of fish, ham, mushrooms, potatoes, vegetables and cheese. There are also croquettes and fried calamari. Each bar has its specialities and the tradition is to go from one bar to the next, having a small beer, called a zurito, or a glass of wine and one or two pintxos. It's as much a social as a gastronomic event. It's not for the timid, but it's a friendly crowd, so I dragged out my high school Spanish, threw myself into the melee and bellied-up to the bar. My favorite pintxos was Iberian ham, porcini mushroom and goat cheese with a bit of red jam on top - or maybe the oyster mushroom, foie gras and grilled onions - or perhaps the salmon, anchovies and sprouts - or possibly the fried calamari.

Since there was so much to see and do in Bilbao (and so many pintxos to sample), JR and I decided to stay on through the weekend. According to statistics, 45 percent of the days in Bilbao are rainy and another 40 percent are cloudy. We beat the odds with only one cloudy day and four with bright sunshine.

On Saturday, we took the metro - a new gleaming system that is another part of Bilbao's renaissance - out of the city in the direction the Bay of Biscay. Thirty minutes later, we were in another world of rocky cliffs and endless ocean views. We walked along a seaside path for about 10 miles and then took the metro back to Algorta. There, in the old fishing village, we sat down to a lunch of fresh octopus, marinated sardines, and mussels in a red Basque sauce, accompanied by a nice glass of Txakoli, the local white wine. We were back in Bilbao in plenty of time to rest up for our nightly pintxos feast.

The next day, we visited the Guggenheim, which is just as stunning inside as out. Their famous restaurant, Nerua, was closed for vacation, but we ate very well and very happily in the museum's Bistro. The collection of the museum is not large, but its quality is high and its presentation in the large, soaring spaces is spectacular. To take in more art, we went to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the town's "other" museum. Its building may be less dramatic than the Guggenheim, but its collection, that includes lots of Spanish and Basque artists, is definitely first class.

On Sunday evening, tired, but happy, we said agur to Bilbao and headed back to Paris.

For more photos, click here.

To find out more about all the things to see and do in Bilbao, click here.

Hurrengoa arte,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Galette des Rois

2012-01-10T05:06:00.001-05:00

The decorations are still up in Paris, but the official end of the holiday season came on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. In France as in most of the western world, the feast marks the day in the Christian liturgy when the Magi arrived in Bethlehem "from the east" bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. If the three kings, as the Magi are popularly known, had come from France, they probably would have brought a Galette des Rois.

Walk past any bakery in Paris right now and you'll see the windows heaped high with these round, golden, flaky pastries that are a French gastronomic tradition of the Feast of the Epiphany. Everyone loves them and it's a pretty good bet that from now to the end of January if you are invited anywhere for dinner, dessert will almost surely be a galette des rois.

Inside the galette is a figurine know as a feve. The person who gets the feve will be crowned king with the festive paper crown that comes with every galette. Originally a bean was placed in the cake (feve is French for bean), but in the 1870s, porcelain figurines came into use. Now most feves are plastic, which, of course, has created a market for the old feves. There was a feve fair in Paris last weekend attended by hundreds of devoted collectors. Modern porcelain feves do still exist and come in all shapes and sizes. Famous bakeries offer a yearly collector's series. (A couple of years ago, one enterprising baker in the Vaucluse region of France created a whole series made up of characters from the Kama Sutra.)

Each year the newspaper Le Figaro publishes a list of the best galettes in Paris. (Click here to read this year's list.) Almost everyone, however, has their favorite bakery and an opinion on what makes for a really great galette. Cooking experts agree that the galette should be a golden amber color (a pale galette means it's undercooked); should have a fine, light crust that holds its shape when it's cut; the frangipane filling should be properly balanced - one-third pastry cream to two-thirds almond cream; and lastly, the galette should be served warm.

You can buy galetttes during the entire month of January and since many bakeries sell it by the slice, I've sampled lots of different galettes. I love the pâte feuilletée, the heavenly flaky crust, but not the almond cream filing. It reminds me too much of one of my least favorite sweets: marzipan.

I was introduced to marzipan when I was working at my first job in Princeton New Jersey. My boss was an intelligent, urbane European man, (click here to read the post Ann Arbor Traveling), who was subject to outbursts of temper, which had often reduced his previous secretary to tears. The first time he yelled at me, instead of crying, I admonished him for his behavior, telling him in the process that I was a Trenton girl with better things to cry about than him. A remark like that could have gotten me fired. Instead, it earned me a heartfelt apology and a big box of marzipan, formed into perfect, small imitations of fruits, vegetables and flowers. I hated it at first taste, but politely told him it was great. Big mistake since I ended up working for him for several years. I've lost count of the number of boxes of marzipan he presented to me.

So, as you can imagine, my first galette was a bit of a disappointment. Over the years, the galette des rois has grown on me, but I have never come to love it as passionately as the French. So I was really glad to see that on this year's list of best galettes is one from the Maison du Chocolat. It throws tradition to the wind and instead of frangipane, it's filled with a cream of dark chocolate from Ghana. I can't wait to try it.

Millions of French people can't be wrong, however, so if you're not in France and would like to try a traditional frangipane galette des rois, click here for a recipe.

To see more photos, click here.

Bon appetit,

Geraldine

Photos (unless otherwise noted) by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Paris
France

PARIS, HAPPY 2012

2012-01-03T06:51:00.006-05:00

In his book The Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway, writes about his return to Paris after some months away from the city: "When we came back to Paris it was clear and cold and lovely. The city had accommodated itself to winter…Our own apartment was warm and cheerful."

When we got back to Paris on New Year's morning of 2012, it was cloudy and warm. The city was as always lovely, but it looked a bit bedraggled in the aftermath of New Year's Eve.

We welcomed in the New Year, as we have the last few years, in a plane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Last year, the airline crew wore festive hats and at the stroke of midnight New York time, blew horns and rattled noisemakers. This year, there was just an announcement from the cockpit and some scattered applause from the passengers.

Our plane was full, but Americans were decidedly absent. Normally, that would make for a quieter ride since the French tend to speak more softly than Americans. It a lesson that takes a while to learn, however, and the French baby a couple of rows behind us definitely had not yet mastered the skill. As she cried and screamed for five hours straight, everyone took refuge beneath their head phones. That and the fact that airline regulations now forbid "loitering" in the aisles or galleys, meant that we made no new friends on this flight. Instead, we watched "Midnight in Paris," Woody Allen's nostalgic homage to the City of Light (which has made me view Hemingway in a whole new way).

We landed at Charles deGaulle airport in the dark of early morning and Terminal 1, which looks like a set for the 1960s animated show "The Jetsons," was wreathed in lights. As we waited for our bags to arrive, the couple with the screaming baby walked by. The child had finally and mercifully fallen asleep - too late for for us, but a godsend for the parents.

Taxis were plentiful, but I prefer the RER train. It's an easy transfer from the terminal to the train station and, as is the custom on New Year's Eve and Day, the trains into Paris were free. It was still dark, but, nonetheless, there were small, fleeting vignettes of life to be seen from the train window. At one stop, I saw a couple obviously engaged in a heated argument. The bad end to their New Year's Eve came when, at the last minute, she pushed him away and jumped on to the train, leaving him sullenly looking at her through the window of the closed door. At another station, a heavily-tattooed, metal-bedecked young man getting off the train, gently helped an old woman get on, and then turned and went on his way.

It was just beginning to get light when we arrived in Paris. The streets were deserted except for the sanitation trucks, manned by those perhaps under appreciated-workers, who every morning transform a littered and dirty city into a sparkling gem. Their task looked particularly arduous on this first day of the year.

As we walked along, a few more people appeared heading for the cafes and bakeries just beginning to open up and down the streets. We joined them, bought a baguette and headed for our apartment. It was warm and cheerful.

Another year in Paris has begun. I can't wait to see what it brings.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Paris
France

GREAT BOOKS III

2011-11-30T09:38:00.001-05:00

La Lecture, Georges Croegaert, Musée Carnavalet, Paris

The spotlight is on France in this year's edition of Travel Oyster's Great Books. I've chosen an incredible novel set in 1940 war-torn France; a delightful cookbook/memoir; a guide to good, inexpensive restaurants in Paris; and a beautifully-written travelog that is very, very funny.

Suite Française

by Irène Némirovsky

Alfred A. Knopf, New York

338 pages.

Suite Française may be the first work of fiction about World War II. Even if you are so inclined, do not let the subject matter of this book deter you from reading it. It is a stunning, insightful, humane, beautifully-written work of art.

Suite Française has two independent, but interconnected parts. The first, "Storm in June," opens amid the mass exodus of Parisians from the capital on the eve of the Nazi invasion in June of 1940. Némirovsky's finely-detailed characters, some courageous, some heartless, represent a multitude of French citizens, struggling to preserve a world that has ceased to exist. The chaos of the the first section gives way to part two, "Dolce." As its name implies, it is softer and more contemplative. It takes place in a German-occupied French village. With nuance, perception and incredible objectivity, Némirovsky shows us the complex emotions and the humanity not only of the conquered, but also of the conquerers.

The novel has the feel of a work written with the long perspective of history. Incredibly, Irène Némirovsky, a successful French writer of Ukrainian, Jewish descent, wrote Suite Française as events were unfolding in occupied France. She envisioned three more parts to her book: Captivity, Battles and Peace. "Captivity" came to Némirovsky herself when she was deported to Auschwitz in 1942. She died there two months later, three years before peace was declared in 1945.

Némirovsky's two daughters, who survived the war, saved their mother's papers from oblivion. The manuscript of Suite Française, however, only came to light in the late 1990s. It was published in France in 2004 and became an immediate best seller. In this edition published in 2006, the French is faithfully and beautifully rendered into English by translator Sandra Smith.

WHEN FRENCH WOMEN COOK

A Gastrnomic Memoir With Over 250 Recipes

by Madeleine Kamman

Ten Speed Press, Berkeley

357 pages.

Like a Proustian madeleine, Kamman's book, part memoir, part cook book, recalls a France that exists now only in the author's memory. Written 35 years ago, it is a cook book that takes the reader on a gastronomic voyage from the rugged coastal lands of Brittany to the isolated volcanic hills of Auvergne to the sun-washed land of Provence. Along the way, in eight delightful, nostalgic vignettes, Kamman introduces us to the women - great cooks all - who fostered her love of traditional food and led her to become a renowned chef and teacher. Among others, we meet Mimi Chérie, the author's great-grandmother, whose earthenware casserole in which she cooked almost everything, was always simmering on the old corner stove. We go mushroom hunting with Victoire, an Auvernat cousin of Kamman's grandmother, whose recipe for potatoes and wild mushrooms - made with brown veal stock, "the essence of French cooking" - is included in the cookbook.

With its more than 250 regional recipes and careful instructions, the book is almost as good as taking a course in French home cooking. Although some recipes may be too complicated for anyone other than a complete devotee of la cuisine française, others are surprisingly simply. All of them are mouth watering and will take you sweetly back to a time when as Kamman says: "the air smelled nice; clean, fresh, and permeated with the happy essences of bread baking, the nostalgic aroma of wood burning, or the earthy smells of cattle ruminating in nearby barns."

Adrian Leeds Top 100 Cheap Insider Paris Restaurants

by Adrian Leeds

Insider Paris and France Guides

Take a walk in Paris any evening at dinnertime, and you're sure to see groups of bewildered-looking tourists wandering from one restaurant to another, reading the menus and trying to decide where to eat. Often as not, they end up in a very ordinary restaurant with a mediocre, overpriced meal. That will never happen to you if you get a copy of this great guidebook.

I've known Adrian since she moved to Paris from Los Angeles in 1995 with the then novel idea to produce an online guide to Paris restaurants. She's gone on to develop a business that includes property management, rentals, language groups and guidebooks. In recent years, she has made frequent appearances on HG-TVs House Hunters International. Through it all, however, she has continued to produce her Paris restaurant guide. Her research is extensive and hands on: she eats in restaurants twice a day. I can attest from personal experience that Adrian, herself, is a great cook, but most days her refrigerator contains just the bare necessities, including, of course, a chilled bottle of champagne.

The guidebook includes restaurants in all the 20 arrondissements in Paris - charming, local places with reasonable prices that tourists would be hard-pressed to find on their own. Every entry has a detailed description of the food, the service and the ambiance. There are maps, a glossary of French food terms and some helpful dos and don'ts of French dining etiquette. The book (click here to order) is available in both a print and electronic version. Don't go to Paris without it.

NARROW DOG TO CARCASSONNE

by Terry Darlington

Bantam Books, London

397 pages.

Narrow Dog to Carcassonne is the tale of Terry and Monica Darlington, a retired British couple who decide to pilot their canal narrowboat across the English Channel and down the canals of France to the Mediterranean. They are joined in their excursion by their narrow dog, a whippet named Jim. Since Jim hates boats, he is always eager to get on to dry land where he can roam the countryside and meet the local French people. Darlington describes it all in a wry, comic style that will have you laughing out loud. This is Darlington's first book - one that the Daily Telegraph called "A rich and winning comic debut, destined to become a classic."

Lots of people dream of drifting through France on a canal boat, but it's never appealed to me - too slow, too inactive, too many canals. With Terry Darlington as captain, however, I might reconsider. You may want to sit down with this book when you have plenty of time because it's possible you'll find yourself reading it from cover to cover in one sitting.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

The da Vinci Coda - A Michigan Horse Tale

2011-09-28T09:07:00.000-04:00

In 1499, the victorious army of Louis XII of France entered Milan, Italy by the Vercellina Gate and camped in the neighborhood of San Vittore al Corpo. On entering the city, the soldiers came upon an enormous clay sculpture of a horse. Commissioned by the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, in honor of his father and as a symbol of the power of the Milan, the finished statue in bronze was to be placed before the Sforza Castle.

Flush with victory and perhaps anticipating more battles to come, the French soldiers used the statue for archery practice. In the ensuing years, the elements reduced the already partially-destroyed clay sculpture to rubble. Thus, one of the great works of the Italian Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci disappeared forever.

Thousands of miles and hundreds of years removed from Milan, Italy, is Grand Rapids, Michigan, home to the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. Recently, after taking a visiting relative to the Grand Rapids airport, we passed the gardens on our way back to our cabin in northern Michigan and decided to pay them a visit. As expected, we found well-tended flower gardens, fountains, winding paths and beautiful sculptures, by artists such as Rodin, Picasso, Miro and Moore. What we did not expect to find was the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci's monumental horse.

Leonardo worked on il cavallo from 1482 to 1493, first on the artistic and anatomical elements of the horse and then on the more difficult technical problems associated with the bronzing of what would have been the world's largest equestrian statue. Work was stopped, however, when Ludovico decided to use the 100 tons of bronze needed to cover the seven-meter (23 feet) statute to make canons to defend Milan from the invading French. The effort was futile. Milan fell, Ludovico was imprisoned and the sculpture was lost.

In 1977, Charles Dent, an American airline pilot and amateur art lover read an article in National Geographic magazine. Entitled "The Horse That Never Was," the article told the story of Leonardo's legendary destroyed masterpiece. Dent decided, then and there, to recreate the lost sculpture and gift it to the City of Milan. He started a foundation and raised $2.5 million.

Dent produced a model for the replica of Leonardo's horse, but although a great lover of art, Dent was not an artist, It became obvious that a professional sculptor was needed to make improvements to the existing model. Nina Akamu, an talented American artist, particularly known for her animal sculpture, was given the commission. Then in 1994, Charles Dent died.

Dent's horse also seemed moribund when in stepped Frederik Meijer. The owner of a supermarket chain in Michigan and a well-known philanthropist, Meijer had read about the project in an article in the New York Times. He agreed to finance the effort and Akamu set about creating her own model.

Although many of Leonardo's notebooks still exist and are filled with drawings of horses, there is no definitive sketch of the 15th-century Milan horse. Akamu, however, studied the notebooks and other works by Leonardo to come up with her 24-foot-high sculpture, entitled The American Horse, which she feels is true to Leonardo's designs.

In 1999, five hundred years after Leonardo's model was destroyed, The American Horse was installed at Meijer Gardens. The same year an identical casting was given to the City of Milan. Il Cavallo, as it is known in Italy, stands at the gates of the San Siro Race Course, far from the City Center.

In 2007, the City of Milan announced that Il Cavallo would be moved from the race track to the park grounds of the Sforza Castle, its original intended site. So far, however, no plans have been made for the move.

The Sforza Castle has been waiting for its monumental sculpture for more than 500 years, but - since things often move slowly in Italy - it looks as if it will have to wait a bit longer.

(There's lots more to see and do at the lovely Meijer Gardens. To visit their web page, click here.)

Click here to see more photos.

Ciao,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor
Michigan

Astoria Oregon and the Columbia River

2011-08-09T08:20:00.000-04:00

On a recent family visit to Oregon, we drove from Portland to Astoria along the scenic East Columbia River Highway. It was a beautiful morning, but the surrounding place names, such as Dismal Nitch and Gnat Creek, belied the sunny skies. Turns out that Astoria is the third wettest city in the United States with an average precipitation of almost 70 inches a year. (The leader is Hilo, Hawaii with 128 inches followed by Quillayute, Washington with 104 inches.) Summer in Astoria is beautiful, however, since most of its rain falls in late autumn and winter.

Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery found that out when they spent the winter of 1805-1806 in what is now Astoria. Nearing the end of their 4,000 mile journey of exploration of the North American continent, the Corps was in dire need of supplies. They raced down the Columbia River toward the mouth, hoping to meet one of the last trading ships of the season, but an early winter storm forced them off the river and into a cove where they spent six wet, miserable days. As fierce winds blew and monstrous waves pounded the steep and rocky shoreline, Clark feared that the expedition would founder just a few miles from its destination of the Pacific Ocean. "A feeling person would be distressed by our situation," he wrote in his journal, trapped in "that dismal little nitch."

The group survived. They missed the trading ship, but with the guidance and help of the local Clatsop Indian tribe, they built a winter camp near present-day Astoria, which they named Fort Clatsop. The Corps spent 100 days at the Fort, only 12 of them without rain.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of Astoria in 1811. During that time, the livelihood of the town has come from fur trading, shipping, fish canning and now tourism. A friendly guide in the Heritage Museum told us we needed seven full days to see all Astoria has to offer. I don't know if she is correct, but I do now that two days was not nearly enough to visit all the parks, beaches, hiking trails, historical sites, museums, markets and restaurants in Astoria and nearby Warrenton. (Click here to visit the Astoria/Warrenton Official Visitor Information page. You'll find everything you need for your stay, including a great piece,"Fun in the Rain," that will make you want to seek out Astoria on a stormy day.)

Our first morning was spent outdoors, walking along the estuary of the Columbia River. Dams and locks have significantly tamed the once free-flowing 1,243 mile-long river, but the Columbia is still an awe-inspiring sight. We ate our picnic lunch near a picturesque abandoned cannery, one of about 30 that once lined the Columbia and made Astoria the salmon-packing capital of the Northwest.

On November 7, 1805, the Corps of Discovery arrived not far from our lunch spot. They were still 20 miles from the sea, but Clark mistook the mighty estuary for the Pacific. "Ocian in view! O! the joy," he wrote in his journal. Soon after, the storm rolled in that would maroon the party at Dismal Nitch. Another three weeks would pass before they actually saw the Pacific.

The ships that Lewis and Clark hoped to encounter in 1805 were engaged in trade, with routes between the Northwest territory, the Orient and the United States. To enter the river, these ships had to cross the notorious Columbia River Bar, a series of shoals and sand bars that since 1792 has been the graveyard for approximately 2,000 large ships. The Bar is just as dangerous today, but modern ocean-going vessels have the help of specially-trained bar pilots, who board the ships and navigate them through the restricted channels of the Columbia and over the Bar to and from the sea.

As we walked along the river, we watched bright yellow pilot boats pull alongside immense tankers to deliver or pick up bar pilots, who, each year, guide about 3,600 vessels, carrying 40 million tons of cargo.

In the afternoon, we visited nearby Fort Stevens State Park for a hike along the ocean, some birdwatching and a close-up look at the mouth of the Columbia and the infamous bar. The seas were calm and we watched as pleasure boats easily crossed the bar. Further down the shore, however, was a beached and swamped sailboat, a reminder of the dangers of rougher seas.

We had planned to camp at the park, but Fort Stevens was booked solid. Cancellations were a possibility, but not until later in the evening. Fortunately while waiting for our dinner table at the wonderful Columbian Cafe in downtown Astoria, we wandered into the Voodoo Room, the bar next door to the Cafe, where the friendly bartender told us about some little-known campsites near Gnat Creek, about 14 miles east of town. Darkness was approaching as we drove up a steep, overgrown dirt road. Just as we were getting uneasy, the road ended at a perfect, flat campsite surrounded by a cathedral of spruce trees. We set up our tents and climbed inside just as darkness fell.

We awoke to a Lewis and Clark kind of morning, with the rain making a low patter overhead. We rolled up our wet tents and made coffee and oatmeal huddled under the raised hatchback of our car.

By the time we got back to Astoria, the sun had returned. We walked about the town, looking at the old Victorian houses, sea views, distant hills and mountains. We had lunch at the Bowpicker - an old fishing boat converted into a take-out restaurant, where the only thing on the menu is fish and chips. The fish is albacore tuna and the line is long, but worth the wait. In the afternoon, we visited the Columbia River Maritime Museum, a fun and interesting place with well-curated exhibits.

Our last stop was a fish market in nearby Warrenton, where we picked up an freshly-caught albacore tuna that we had ordered the day before. We drove back to Portland and by 9 p.m., sat down with family and friends to a dinner of Stephanie's cold cucumber/avocado soup, Matt's marinated, flash-seared tuna and Erin's fresh, sauteed garden vegetables.

O! the joy!

(The recipe for Steph's "Avocado Soup with Herbs, Slivered Radishes and Pistachios is from her favorite soup cookbook, "Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen." Click here for a copy of the recipe.)

To see more photos, click here.

Until next time,

Geraldine

Photos unless otherwise noted by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Oregon

GROUNDS FOR SCULPTURE

2011-06-21T09:07:00.001-04:00

Were You Invited?

This past winter, I took a walk along the Seine just outside Paris from St. Germain to Chatou following the path of the Impressionists. (Click here to read.) I ended the day at the Maison Fournaise, the guinguette where Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted his famous Luncheon of the Boating Party. Standing in the winter chill, looking at the deserted terrace, I wondered what it would be like to sit in the warm summer sunshine amid the smiling young faces of Renoir and his friends. I got the answer to my question in a most unexpected place.

Returning home to Michigan after four months in Paris and Pisa, we stopped on the East Coast to visit family. On one of those hot New Jersey spring days that feels like deep summer, we paid a visit to the Grounds For Sculpture, located just outside Trenton.

Featuring hundreds of contemporary sculptures, most of which are displayed outdoors in its 35-acre garden, the non-profit Grounds For Sculpture opened to the public in 1992 on the site of the old New Jersey State Fairgrounds.

The New Jersey State Fair became the first sanctioned fair in Colonial America when King George II granted a royal charter in 1745. Held twice a year, it was very popular with local farmers and townspeople who came to buy and sell livestock and other merchandise. Five years later, the State Legislature banned fairs and they did not begin again until the mid-1880s. When I was growing up in Trenton not too far from the fairgrounds, the Fair was still a much-looked-forward-to annual event. By 1980, however, America's fascination with State Fairs began to dwindle, attendance dropped, and the historic New Jersey State Fair closed for good.

When the Grounds For Sculpture began construction in 1984, the land was hard packed by the millions of visitors to the Fair over the years and seemed an unlikely garden site. Planting began modestly with 12 Japanese maple trees and the garden is added to every year. Today, the Grounds are home to thousands of trees and tens of thousands of shrubs and perennials. It is the brainchild of well-known contemporary sculptor, J. Seward Johnson, known for his lifelike, life-sized bronze sculptures, many of which are to be found not in private collections, but in public squares and parks. Johnson's desire to make contemporary sculpture accessible to people of all backgrounds led to the establishment of the Grounds For Sculpture.

We ran into the first of Johnson's sculptures over a great lunch in the courtyard of the Peacock Cafe. Afterwards, because of the afternoon heat, we wandered over to the shady, flower-lined paths along the lake. It was there that we came upon the luncheon of the boating party. They were all there - Renoir and his future wife, Aline Charigot, and their friends - a complete, life-sized reproduction of Renoir's masterpiece. Johnson's version includes another table with Johnson and three of his artist friends as well as a maitre d' with a checklist, asking, Were You Invited?, which is the title of Johnson's sculpture. We walked right in and sat down.

Johnson's art has been called "kitsch," and I can see why. Still, it is hard to resist sitting down in an empty chair, smiling at your new-found friends or in the case of my brother, planting a kiss on Aline's pretty face. It's just what Johnson wants: to convince you of the authenticity of something that isn't real in order to change your perception and allow you to become intimate with a work of art.

There are other Johnson sculptures reproducing the works of the Impressionists scattered throughout the park. You can even find a version of Monet's Giverny garden at Rats, the park's elegant French restaurant.

Johnson's pieces, however, are only a small part of the Grounds For Sculpture, which has more than 250 works by several dozen contemporary artists. They are found around every turn of the elegant and beautifully-tended gardens as well as in indoor exhibition halls. The halls are renovated 1920s to 1940s State Fair buildings that once housed exhibits of domestic arts, motor vehicles and small livestock. There are also guided tours, lectures, concerts, plays and even opera performances.

The gardens are a perfect place for a picnic, which you can order up at the Peacock Cafe. There are lots of benches and tables scattered about the grounds or you might just want to picnic with Madame Monet and her son On Poppied Hill, a poppy-strewn hillside based on Claude Monet's Woman with A Parasol (1875) and Poppies (1873).

For a racier picnic spot, seek out Déjeuner Déja Vue, Johnson's version of Edouard Manet's Déjeuner Sur l'Herbe. The subject matter of the original, painted in 1862-63, scandalized the French public and the work was subsequently rejected by the Paris Salon. Today the famous painting hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Déjeuner Déja Vue is cleverly hidden away behind dense shrubs at the end of an unmarked trail. Many visitors never find the art work, but those who do, like us, are likely to experience a sense of surprise and a soupçon of the scandal felt by the French public.

To see more photos, click here.

Until next time,

Geraldine

Grounds for Sculpture

18 Fairgrounds Road

Hamilton, New Jersey 08619

Phone: (609) 586-0616

Email: info@groundsforsculpture.org

Photos unless otherwise noted by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Discovering Tuscany

2011-05-02T07:17:00.000-04:00

A friend from Lucca, a beautiful and well-known town just over the mountain from Pisa, asked me recently if I'd ever been to Monte Carlo. "Yes," I responded, "several times. We lived in Nice and Monte Carlo is nearby." "Not that Monte Carlo," she said, "Montecarlo di Lucca."

Montecarlo, it seems, is a town perched on an isolated hilltop in the Province of Lucca. Its medieval center is well-preserved and it is still surrounded by its splendid wall. It is one of the seemingly hundreds of small, beautiful Tuscan towns unknown to me, even after all these years of visiting and living in Tuscany. Every year though, thanks to Italian friends, we discover more of these hidden treasures.

Many travel writers have described Tuscany as passé, with nothing new to discover. They need to go traveling with our friends. If they do, they'll find - to name just a few - places like Montecarlo, Camaiore, Populonia, Peccioli, Vicopisano, Giglio Castello, Celle di Puccini, Sarzana, Fosidinovo and Barga, a medieval town with a modern-day jazz tradition.

There is enough beauty, interest and culture in each one of these town to merit its own article, but it's a bit of a Catch-22. If I take the time to write about every beautiful town we see, I won't have time to visit the towns. Instead I'll use this post to share with you photos taken all over Tuscany.

Pisa, Florence and Siena may be the crown jewels of Tuscany, but there are plenty of other Tuscan gems waiting for you to discover. So if you come, don't be afraid to wander off the beaten track.

In the meantime, click here to see my photos.

Ciao,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Italy

ELBA AND PIANOSA - PARADISE OR PRISON?

2011-04-13T09:08:00.001-04:00

In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte was banished to the island of Elba. He took with him his mother, his sister and an army of 600 men. He kept his title of Emperor, but his kingdom was confined to this 224-square-kilometer mountainous island, 20 kilometers off the Italian mainland. Surrounded by a sparkling sea and wild natural beauty, Napoleon set up household in the Villa di San Martino, using another villa, the Palazzina dei Mulini for official functions. He declared himself content with his new role in life and set about building roads and making social improvements. Three hundred days after he arrived, however, Napoleon escaped from his island confinement and returned to France to take up once again the reins of power.

Part of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba is one of a chain of seven jewel-like islands just off the coast of Tuscany where the Ligurian Sea meets the Tyrrhenian Sea. According to local mythology, the islands were formed from pearls that fell from the necklace of Venus as she arose from the foam of the sea. I don't believe the pearl necklace theory. It's obvious to me that given the incredible diversity of the islands, the necklace must have been made up of seven different gems. (For a more scientific explanation, including several links in Italian, click here.)

The seven islands are Elba, Gorgona, Capraia, Giglio, Giannutri, Pianosa and Montecristo, the last made famous by Alexandre Dumas in his novel, The Count of Monte Cristo.

On a recent weekend, we signed up with a few friends for a two-day trip to Elba and Pianosa, organized by CAI, the Alpine Club of Italy. At 6:20 a.m, we met up at the Pisa station with a genial group of about 30 hikers. With everything organized in advance by our very capable capogita, we took a train, a van and two boats and arrived on the island of Pianosa at 10:30 a.m.

As its name implies, Pianosa is flat. Its highest point is 29 meters, but it is not without interest. First inhabited in the Upper Paleolithic era, the island, known then as Planasia, was an important grain producing area for the Romans and has the remains of extensive Roman catacombs. Like Elba, Pianosa also had a famous prisoner - Agrippa Postumas, who was exiled there by his grandfather the Emperor Augustus in 9 AD.

Successively populated and abandoned over the centuries, Pianosa became known in modern times as the home of a self-sustaining agricultural penal colony established there in 1858 by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Prisoners lived and worked on small farms and produced and sold all the products needed on Pianosa, including wine, bread and pecorino cheese. A photo exhibit on the island presents a portrait of a tranquil, bucolic existence for guards and prisoners alike. In the 1970s, however, the serenity on the island ended when the State established a maximum security prison there. Pianosa became home to Italy's most dangerous criminals, including mafia chiefs and convicted terrorists of the Red Brigades.

The prison was closed in 1998 and Pianosa, along with the other six islands, became part of the National Park of the Tuscan Archipelago, which maintains a small staff on the island. Nature has taken over the fields and farms of the prisoners and the maximum security buildings have fallen into disrepair.

Our tour included a two-hour walk along a coastline dotted with picturesque coves and inlets - a veritable beach-lovers dream. After a picnic lunch by the sea, we visited the catacombs and the town. With its beautiful abandoned port and empty buildings, Pianosa has a mysterious and melancholic feel, even in the bright Mediterranean sunshine. Just before five, we rushed to catch the only boat to Elba, lest we become Pianosa's latest prisoners.

On Sunday we made up for our leisurely stroll around Pianosa with a strenuous climb to the second highest peak on Elba, Monte Calanche. It was pretty much 900 meters straight up and then a final push to the top made with the aide of lines attached to the rock face. "Divertente," as our guide said. It was, indeed, fun and the effort required to get to the top made the splendid view from above all the more beautiful and our prosciutto panini all the more tasty. After that, it was all downhill - long and fast.

On the ferry back to the mainland with following gulls and a setting sun, I sat and reflected on the two grand truths of the weekend:

1) Without freedom, even a paradise such as Elba can become an inferno, and;

2) It's amazing how far you can get on a mountain (and in life) if you just put one foot in front of the other.

To see more photos, click here.

Ciao,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Italy

Campiglia to Portovernere, Beyond the Cinque Terre

2011-03-29T06:43:00.004-04:00

Liguria, home to the Italian Riviera, is one of Italy's smallest regions. It sits in the wide, sweeping arch of northwestern Italy facing the Ligurian Sea with the Apennine Mountains forming a majestic backdrop. In between is a land of steep valleys that drop precipitously to a crystalline blue/green sea. Picturesque fishing villages cling to its coast, including the Cinque Terre, five seaside towns that are so special that in 1997 they were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Once a well-kept secret, the five towns are now part of the Cinque Terre National Park and have become one of Italy's best-known and most visited tourist spots. On weekends, especially in summer, the beautiful trail along the sea that connects the five towns is crowded with walkers.

What many people don't know is that just south of the Cinque Terre is another town, Portovenere, that is every bit as beautiful as the other five. Portovenere is part of the same Park that encompasses the Cinque Terre, but it is not as closely linked as the other five towns. It's a three to four hour hike from Riomaggiore, the most southern of the Cinque Terre, to Portovenere.

Portovenere can be reached by car, but we took the train from Pisa to La Spezia and then a bus to Le Grazie, where we began our hike. All this was easily accomplished with the aide of our friend Francesca, who knows every twist and turn of all the hiking trails in the area. After getting off the bus, it was just a short walk to the trailhead.

Not a hike for the faint of heart, the trail begins on an ancient mulattiera. These mule trails, found all over Italy, were once the public roads that connected villages, particularly in mountainous areas. Our mulattiera, composed of thousands of steps made of local stones, zigzagged through the forest climbing quickly and steeply toward the medieval village of Campiglia, our first stop.

Campiglia is well worth the climb. From the piazza in front of the church, there is a view of the busy harbor of the Gulf of La Spezia, the Ligurian Sea and the Apennine Mountains. On this day, clouds covered the lower slopes of the mountains so that the majestic peaks appeared suspended in a dreamscape of sea and sky.

In the gastronomic world, Campiglia is known for its high-quality saffron, made from the stems of the crocus plant. (It takes about 150,000 flowers to make one kilo of saffron.) In times past, the saffron was made only from the wild crocuses that grow in profusion on the surrounding hills. About 10 years ago, however, the town began cultivating crocus and now has a thriving industry.

Fortunately for us, the cafe on the main street in Campiglia was closed and in our search for another, we discovered Piccoloblu, a charming cafe/restaurant, where everything is homemade using local products. Sitting in the sun with an incredible view of the sea, we sampled several offerings, including the best onion focaccia I have ever tasted. Fortified, we struck out for Portovenere.

Just outside of Campiglia were two signs indicating trails to Portovenere - one marked difficoltoso. "Not so difficult," said Francesca, "and much more beautiful than the other." The difficulty is the steepness of the descent and the loose rocks underfoot. The beauty is everything: the distant mountains, the sun-baked cliffs of Monte Castellana aglow with flowering plants and, of course, the sea on both sides of the promontory that runs swiftly downhill to Portovenere.

Midway along the path is a rocky plateau, where the sun on the rocks turned spring into summer. It was a perfect place for a snack (hiking makes you hungry) and a leisurely look at the almost surreal panorama of Portovenere and the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto. If I ever get around to writing my book, "Great Picnic Spots of the World," this place will surely be in it. The warmth of the sun also coaxed forth some early wild asparagus that we gathered in anticipation of a evening frittata.

As we got closer to Portovenere, the larger panorama gave way to beautiful details: the black and white facade of the 11th-century Chiesa di San Pietro on its rocky perch high above the sea, the imposing Genovese military fortress, and the Golfo dei Poeti, an inlet that was admired by poets from Petrarch to Byron. Beyond we could see fishing boats in the harbor and the quayside lined with brightly-colored medieval buildings.

It started to rain just after we reached Portovenere, but it was a light drizzle that only added to the romance of the town and the sea. We visited the church and walked the old, medieval main street, where every store sold local products, including rich, creamy pesto from nearby Genova.

Then it was back to Pisa for a wonderful meal prepared by Francesca's husband, Fabrizio, that included a frittata with the wild, freshly-gathered asparagus.

To see more photos, click here.

A presto,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor
Italy

Populonia, An Etruscan City by the Sea

2011-03-15T05:23:00.003-04:00

We're in Pisa, having left behind the bright lights of Paris and the bustling street views. Our apartment here looks down on the rooftops of medieval buildings, into gardens hidden from view at street level, and out beyond the town to the gentle, undulating Pisan Hills. To get to this sun-filled room with a view, we have to climb 89 time-worn, stone steps. Inside all is open and modern, but the building shows its age in the huge oak beams, the brick-lined ceiling and the thick stone walls. (Click here to read about the medieval skyscrapers of Pisa.)

As old as Pisa is, however, it is a newcomer on the Italian stage when compared with Populonia, an Etruscan city south of Pisa on the Bay of Baratti. Named for the Etruscan version of the god Bacchus and famous in antiquity for its wine, Populonia's origins go back almost 3,000 years.

The Etruscans have intrigued me ever since my Italian grandfather told me about an Etruscan chariot discovered in his hometown of Monteleone di Spoleto. Now housed in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the chariot is one of the great treasures of the Etruscan civilization. So, on a recent sunny and warm Sunday when our friends Fabrizio and Roberta proposed a visit to Populonia, we gladly accepted.

An hour's drive through the verdant Tuscan countryside brought us to the little weekend cottage of Roberta's brother not far from the ancient town. After introductions and warm Italian greetings, the four of us set off through the hills for a 10-mile hike that would take us down to the port of Populonia and then up to the fortified part of the town, known as Populonia Alta.

It is uncertain if the Etruscans were a people indigenous to Italy or if they migrated to the Italian peninsula, most probably from the Near East. Although examples of the Etruscan language are found on their tombstones and in one or two fragments of written texts, there is no Etruscan "Rosetta Stone" to aid modern linguists. It is known, however, that the Etruscans were at the height of their power, both commercially and militarily, in about the 5th century b.c. In the following centuries, the Etruscan civilization was gradually assimilated into the Greek and Roman cultures.

Our walk began in the rolling hills where the Etruscans once farmed wheat and cultivated their vineyards. As we topped the last hill, we got our first view of the beautiful wide curve of the Bay of Baratti lined with the remains of forges from the 4th century b.c. Its curiously sparkling black sand is all that remains of the profitable metal industry of the Etruscans, who exploited the rich cooper ore in the area of Populonia and later the iron ore from the nearby island of Elba.

The Romans and all who followed continued the mining, depleting the area of its metal resources and producing enormous mountains of slag that buried all traces of the once-great Etruscan city. As the centuries passed, all that was left of Etruscan Populonia was the memory of its name.

As we stood on the beach, however, we could see the remains of metal forges, large groups of Etruscan tombs and an enormous round tumulus. Although some Etruscan artifacts were found in the early 1800s, it was not until 1897 that the first tombs of ancient Populonia were uncovered by a self-taught Italian archeologist named Isidoro Falchi. In 1929, an Italian mining company began operations to extract valuable metals that still remained in the huge slag heaps. As the material was removed, more traces of Etruscan Populonia began to emerge. The downside, according to some archeologists, was that the use of heavy machinery not only destroyed many items, but also profoundly modified the stratigraphic distribution of the archeological find.

In spite of this, the necropolis of Populonia is still one of the most important monuments of the Etruscan civilization. Along with an industrial area and an extensive Roman-style acropolis, the necropolis can be seen at the Archeological Park of Baratti and Populonia.

Since it takes many hours to visit the park, we decided to leave it for another day. Instead, we walked along the sea to the edge of the port and then uphill on the Romanella Path. Although rebuilt many times over the centuries, the path is the same one used by the Etruscans to get from the industrial lower part of their city to the fortified town above. As we walked, we passed long stretches of the original Etruscan wall that dates to the first half of the 5th century B.C.

We ate our picnic lunch in front of the imposing 15th century fortress built by the Lords of nearby Piombino, using the foundation of an earlier Etruscan building and stones from Etruscan tombs. Beneath us were the remains of the acropolis and a view out across the sea to the island of Elba just visible on the horizon. We sat a while in the sunshine, had an espresso in a cafe (in Italy, there's always a cafe nearby) and then headed downhill.

Our return route took us along the edge of the archeological park with a view of many of the tombs, across fields and down a wooded path back to the cottage. We arrived just in time for a glass of wine and the last few pieces of a delicious frittata made with spring leeks. After recounting the day's adventures, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the much-more "modern" Pisa.

To see more photos, click here.

A presto,
Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Italy

Nice - A French/Italian Interlude

2011-03-02T08:49:00.001-05:00

After two months of almost constant grey skies, the sun was shining brightly on our last day in Paris. We were headed for Pisa, via Nice where JR was attending a math conference. If the weather held, we would have a beautiful flight. As if to compensate us for all the rainy days, the skies stayed clear and about an hour or so out of Paris, a shimmering mass appeared on the horizon. Then, below our eyes, the snow-covered jagged peaks of the French Alps took shape and rose above the surrounding landscape almost as high, it seemed, as the sky itself. As the plane came in for a landing at the Nice airport a short time later, we had an unparalleled view of the entire Côte d'Azur.

Nice is a perfect transition between the bright lights of Paris and the small-town, medieval atmosphere of Pisa, where we will be for the next two months. Although much smaller than Paris, Nice is still a big and bustling city. And it offers some things that Paris does not: the Mediterranean Sea, the mountains of the Pre-Alps, blue skies and warm sunshine. The town also has a real Italian feel - not surprising since Nice was part of Italy until 1860 - and on the streets you hear lots of people speaking Italian.

Traveling with us was a good friend from Paris, Adrian Leeds, who was looking for and found an apartment to buy in Vieux Nice, the oldest part of the city. While JR was hard at work pushing back the frontiers of mathematics, Adrian and I trekked up and down hundreds of steep stone stairs (no elevators in old Nice) looking at apartments that ranged from awful to okay. Then on the third day, we found the one that was the diamond in the rough - a great view, a balcony, big windows and high ceilings. To read more, (or to rent the apartment when the renovations are finished) go to Adrian's site here.

With the apartment taken care of, Adrian and I had time to enjoy Nice's Carnaval, an 18-day long party that fills the streets with floats, flowers, confetti and lots of happy people. We ate lunch on the touristy, but beautiful and sunny Cours Saleya, a salade niçoise for Adrian and soccca for me. (Socca is a flavorful chick-pea flour crepe that's made in a pizza oven and served with olive oil and lots of pepper. My favorite socca in Nice is at the Socca d'Or on rue Bonaparte near the Port.) On her last day in town, Adrian and I celebrated at La Petite Mason, a great restaurant just around the corner from her new apartment.

Modern-day travelers love Nice for its mild climate, its beaches, the wide sweep of the Baie des Anges (the Bay of Angels), and the long Promenade des Anglais, where you can walk for miles along the sea. It seems the area has always been attractive to people, since what are thought to be the oldest human settlements in Europe are located near Nice at Terra Amata. The Greeks came to the area around 350B.C. and gave the town the name Nikaia, the forerunner of its modern name, after Nike, the goddess of victory. When the Romans arrived in the beginning of the 1st century, they built Cemenelum in the protective hills high above the sea in the area of Nice now known as Cimiez.

Once on my own, that's where I headed to see the extensive Gallo-Roman ruins and the Cimiez-Cemenelum Archeological Museum, located in the Jardins de Cimiez. The park, fragrant with olive, pine and cypress trees, is also home to a beautiful 17th century Genoese villa that houses the Matisse Museum. Matisse spent the last 40 years of his life in Nice and the museum has a good collection of his works. Within sight of the museum is the elegant Hotel Regina, where Matisse lived, and the cemetery of the Franciscan Monastery of Cimiez, where the artist is buried.

On Saturday, the last day of our stay in Nice and also coincidentally my birthday, JR and I took the train to Menton for lunch at Mirazur, a restaurant with a spectacular view and food to match. (In 2009, Chef Mauro Colagreco's Mirazur made the S.Pelligrino 50 Best Restaurants in the World List.)

After meeting the chef, who gave us a tour of the kitchen, we said our goodbyes, walked along the sea, found a cozy niche among the rocks, and sat in the sun.

Next stop - Pisa.

To see more photos, click here.

A presto,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Nice
France

NO END TO PARIS

2011-02-23T02:54:00.001-05:00

Paris 2011

There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it….Paris was always worth it.

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

There may be no end to Paris, but the end of our stay here is in sight. The time passed quickly and there were so many things I wanted to write about that will have to wait until next time. I'm in good company though. Hemingway didn't begin writing The Moveable Feast - a book about his year in Paris in the 1920s - until 1957.

I'm always sad to leave Paris, but never sorry to leave behind the grey Paris winter. In his opening lines of The Moveable Feast, Hemingway describes it this way:

Then there was the bad weather. It would come in one day when the fall was over. We would have to shut the windows in the night against the rain and the cold wind would strip the leaves from the trees in the Place Contrescarpe.

Ahead of us is Pisa, but on the way we'll be stopping for a week in Nice, where the sun shines 300 days a year. JR will be at a conference, but I'll have plenty to do. I'm going to tag along with a friend who is looking for an apartment to buy in Nice's Old Town. It's the beginning of Carnival so there'll be lots of festivities and, if the weather cooperates, I'm also planning to take the wonderful "Train des Pignes" up into the mountains. We have reservations for Saturday lunch at Mirazur, a restaurant in nearby Menton that a recent New York Times article said is "worth a plane trip." I'm feeling better already.

It's been a great two months in Paris and like Hemingway, we're planning our return. In the meantime, here are some visual souvenirs of our stay. Click here to see the photos.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Paris
France

DROUOT, A DAY AT THE AUCTION

2011-02-16T05:12:00.001-05:00

At some point in my childhood, my father became enamored of antiques and began searching for bargains at local auction houses. Without my mother's compliance, he set about transforming our house. Soon, our suitable, kid-worn living room couch and chairs disappeared, replaced by a suite of "French Provincial" furniture, whose main attribute was that it made the floor seem comfortable. Side tables with delicate spindly legs, which tipped over at the slightest provocation, completed the ensemble.

Our vocabulary changed too. A couch was now a divan; light fixtures became chandeliers and sconces; the bureau a commode; and the cabinet that held our dishes in the dining room a credenza. Our mantle, previously a repository for keys and stray items, began to fill up with a collection of vases (now pronounced vāzs) made of what my father assured us was authentic Venetian glass. If she had embraced our new, elevated vocabulary, my mother would have called these vases, ramasse-poussière. Instead, somewhat irreverently and much to my father's annoyance, she called his prized collection "nothing but a bunch of goddamn dust collectors."

I thought of all this recently when I visited the Drouot auction house at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris, the firm's headquarters since 1852. Drouot has four auction locations in the city, 100 auctioneers, 70 independent auction firms, and 21 exposition halls, where 3,000 auctions are held every year. According to its website, "Drouot is the oldest public auction house in the world, a crossroads of the art market, an inexhaustible reservoir of paintings, furniture and art objects of every epoch and price…a magical and ephemeral museum open to all."

Drouot is also a place to see and be seen by le tout Paris. Experienced art and antique dealers, mink-clad matrons and hip young designers stand elbow to elbow with hopeful, first-time bargain hunters and grey-haired retirees. When bidding starts, everyone has a chance. If your bid is the highest, the auctioneer's gavel will slam down, the word adjugé will ring out, and you will be the proud owner of one of the innumerable items sold at Drouot each year. It could be a famous painting for a million euros or a 10-euro box of uncatalogued bibelots and bric-a-brac.

A novice to auctions might find Drouot a bit intimating. There are experts in the halls who bid with just a raised eyebrow while other bids come in, fast and furiously, over the telephone and the internet. The competition can be fierce and all the discussion, of course, is conducted in French.

You don't have to buy anything, however, to have a good time. Drouot does have a museum-like quality and there's great people watching. On sale days, all the auction rooms are alive with the sing-song of bids, the buzz of conversation and the sometimes satisfied, sometimes disappointed sighs of the bidders. And a day at Drouot obviously brings back memories. Over and over again, people point to any one of hundreds and hundreds of objects on display and exclaim: "Mamie had one of those."

I saw lots of divans, chandeliers and Venetian vases that my father would have loved. On the other hand, I know exactly what my mother would have said.

For more photos, click here.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Paris
France

LOCKS OF LOVE IN PARIS

2011-02-02T05:43:00.006-05:00

As Valentine's Day approaches, locksmiths in Paris may see an increase in business as lovers of all ages seek out the perfect Love Lock. What better day than February 14 for lovers to attach their locks, a symbol of their eternal love, to the bridges of Paris? The preferred bridges are the Pont des Arts, which crosses the Seine near the Louvre, and the Pont de l'Archevêché behind Notre Dame. An endearing romantic custom or an eyesore, depending on your perspective, love locks now cover bridges all over the world.

We first saw them a few years ago in Florence on the Ponte Vecchio, a romantic bridge that needs no embellishment. There, the railing around the bust of Benvenuto Cellini - who, as luck or love would have it, died on February 14, 1571 in Florence - practically sagged under the weight of the locks. Florence has since banned the practice, but love, accustomed to obstacles, continues to win out and the locks seem as numerous as ever.

On a recent Sunday, we watched as a couple of a certain age glided on roller blades on to the Pont des Arts. Colorfully dressed and sporting bracelets of small bells, they jingled their way to the middle of the bridge, bent down and attached a small brass lock. Then they stood up, kissed and together threw the key to the lock into the Seine. Thus, their love is sealed forever - unless they part before then or until the City of Paris comes and removes the lock.

The history of love locks is somewhat obscure. Everything from a Pagan custom to an Italian novel have been put forth as the origin of the practice. Whatever the truth, cities all over the world are debating about leaving or removing the locks. Paris, the City of Love, but also the city of order and beauty, is in a particularly difficult position.

In the beginning of May 2010, Paris City Hall announced that although they found the phenomenon of love locks "pleasant, likable and spontaneous," eventually the locks would have to be removed to preserve national heritage. Then on May 13, pedestrians crossing the Pont des Arts found that all but a handful of the approximately 2,000 locks adorning the bridge had been removed sometime during the night. According to City officials, "the municipal services did not intervene."* The mystery of who was responsible for removing the locks has not been solved, but no matter, the removal just provided a clean slate for a whole new group of lovers. Once again, locks on the bridge are declaring the eternal love of couples such as Laurent and Agnes, Meredith and Drew, and Shelly and Franz.

City Hall has not called me yet, but I have a great idea. Paris should commission a large, hollow, translucent statue - a copy of Venus de Milo or if that offends artistic sensibilities, a huge lock, a heart, a key? The French love debating so a public discussion on the matter could be launched. Then the City could convene a commission of artists and intellectuals to study the matter and select the winning form. If I'm asked to be on the committee, I'll suggest that the Hommage à l'amour, as I'm calling it, be placed in the sculpture garden on the Quai St. Bernard with its unparalleled view of Notre Dame.

When hopeful lovers placed their love locks among thousands of others on a Paris bridge, they would know that at some point, the city would remove them, recycle some and put a randomly-chosen few into the statue. I think it would meet with general acceptance because even the most ardent lover knows that you need to be lucky to survive in love.

(If you are in Paris and love locks don't appeal to you, you might be interested in a contest that the City of Paris is running until February 9th. Everyone is invited to submit "sweet words, declarations of love or even marriage proposals, in 160 characters maximum, a message of love sent to your Valentine. The most beautiful compositions will be placed on the 170 illuminated panels of the City all day on February 14.")

To see more photos, click here.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor
*The Telegraph
May 13, 2010

Paris
France

THE PATH OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS

2011-01-19T05:11:00.002-05:00

In the summer of 1880, the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir was in Chatou, hard at work on a future masterpiece. He invited a friend in Paris to come for a visit. "You won't regret the trip, I assure you" Renoir wrote. "There is not a lovelier place in all the surroundings of Paris."

Courtesy Phillips Collection

The painting that Renoir was working on was "The Luncheon of the Boating Party" (Le Dejeuner des Canotiers). In it, many of Renoir's friends, including his future wife, Aline Charigot, sit in the sparkling sunlight on the balcony of la Maison Fournaise, a guingette in Chatou.

On a recent morning in Paris when the sun made a rare winter appearance, I decided to heed Renoir's advice and visit Chatou, which is on the banks of the Seine just seven miles west of Paris.

Courtesy Musée d'Orsay

Renoir's friend probably took the train from Paris' St. Lazare Station, a subject much painted by Claude Monet. The advent of the train line from Paris to the small towns outside the city made it easy for the young Bohemians to hone their painting skills en plein air. Painters, including Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Morisot, Pissarro and Caillebotte, flocked to the surrounding countryside along with like-minded musicians, actors and writers, including Guy de Maupassant who set many of his stories and novels in the surrounding area. Rich Parisians came as well and built the elegant villas that still line the river.

Instead of the train, my friend Marcelle and I headed out of Paris on the more convenient RER, the regional branch of the Metro. Three stops beyond Chatou at St. Germain-en-Laye, we began the four-mile walk that would take us not only back toward Paris, but also back through time.

The chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye, dates to 1124 and was the birthplace of King Louis XIV. We crossed the park of the chateau and headed down to the river, where the scenery in many places is still surprisingly bucolic. Glimpsed through the trees or across the shimmering water, the towns of Le Pecq, Bougival, Croissy and Chatou look very much as they did in the time of the Impressionists.

Barges still pass as they snake their way from Paris to the sea, but the cafes, bathhouses and all but one of the famous guinguette - those raucous dance halls painted and patronized by numerous Impressionists - have disappeared.

We walked up the river toward Croissy-sur-Seine and on to the Bougival bridge, the subject of an 1870 Monet painting. Halfway across, we descended steps to the Ile de la Chaussée. The island was also known as the Ile de la Grenouillière, in honor of a popular guinguette on the island that, in its heyday, attracted a cross-section of French society. People swam and boated during the day, and ate, drank, danced and loved away the night. A popular guide book of the time gave this succinct description: "La Grenouillière, just between us, is not exactly a recommended spot for clergymen."

From this island, it's a short walk across a connecting dike to Ile des Impressionnistes. When we arrived at the dike, however, a locked gate barred our way. In formal administrative language, a large sign announced essentially that because of high water, the dike was unstable and we risked drowning in the Seine. Marcelle, being French, was all for defying this attack on our liberty, and urged that we go forward. What came to my mind, however, was the Great Flood of 1910 and the drowning, not far from this very spot, of Alphonse Fournaise, the son of the family that owned la Maison Fournaise and one of the young, happy people in "The Luncheon of the Boating Party." No matter how romantic, I did not want my first view of the Ile des Impressionnistes to be my last. Although still certain of her position, Marcelle agreed to turn back.

She was right, of course. From the other side of the river, we could see people (presumably French) walking the full length of the dike, high above the water. On the other hand, our detour took us past beautiful villas built in the late 1800s, small, balconied riverfront houses in Chatou and the town's beautiful Church of Saint Leonard and Saint Martin, built in the second-half of the 13th century.

We crossed over to the Ile des Impressionnistes at Chatou and set out to find the la Maison Fournaise, the last surviving guinguette. The landscape across the river toward Paris has changed dramatically, but the Maison Fournaise looks much the same as it did more than a hundred years ago. Its exterior was aglow in the light of the setting sun, but inside all was dark. Our hopes of a warm drink on the balcony made famous by Renoir were dashed. Instead, we walked across the bridge and into an inviting, but decidedly less famous cafe, where we ordered espresso and pain au chocolate.

There we sat - subjects for a modern-day artist - two good friends at a table by the window in a Paris cafe, talking and laughing and whiling away the end of a beautiful day.

To see more photos, click here.

Recommended Reading:

Yvette

by Guy de Maupassant

(Chapter 2 has a lively description of la Grenouillière.)

Click here to read in English on Ebooks.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Paris
France

PERE LACHAISE CEMETERY

2011-01-12T07:44:00.005-05:00

After death, most people's lives are shrouded in obscurity. Some individuals, however, are so exceptional they are remembered when most others are forgotten. In Paris, the tombs of many of these remarkable people can be found in Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

A friend of mine, in town for a few days in December, went to Pere Lachaise to see and photograph the tomb of Frédéric Chopin. On her first two attempts, the cemetery was closed due to snow and icy walkways. Finally, on the last afternoon of her trip, Pere Lachaise reopened, but the day had already begun to wane by the time she began her search. All too soon, the first bells announcing the closing of the cemetery began to toll. She lingered - determined to achieve her goal - until well after the last bell. Then, the very real prospect of spending a long, cold night curled up at the foot of the famous composer's tomb sent her rushing for the exit.

And that's what brought me to Pere Lachaise - a promise to take and send her the sought-after photo.

The Cemetery of the East, as it is officially known, is the largest in Paris. It opened on May 21, 1804 and is located on a 108-acre tract of land. Known formerly as Mont-Louis, the land was purchased by the Jesuit order of Paris in 1626. In 1675, King Louis XIV financed the building of a chateau and gardens there for his confessor, Father François d'Aix de la Chaise (Pere Lachaise).

According to the cemetery's registry, the first person buried in Pere Lachaise was a five-year-old girl, Adélaide Paillard de Villeneuve, whose tomb has long since disappeared. In the two hundred years since, more than one million people have been buried here. Unless you have a perpetual plot, however, your tomb at Pere Lachaise is not an eternal resting place. Remains from expired or abandoned plots are regularly removed to the cemetery's ossuary.

For years after its founding, however, the cemetery was sparsely populated since the predominantly Catholic population of Paris was reluctant to be buried in the unconsecrated ground of the strictly secular cemetery. Then Nicolas Frochot, the Prefect of Paris, had two very clever marketing ideas. The first was to offer plots in perpetuity, and the second was to move the remains of the ill-fated 12th-century lovers Héloise and Abélard, the playwright and actor Molière, and the poet La Fontaine to Pere Lachaise. Shortly after, Pere Lachaise became the chic place of repose.

When I arrived on a Saturday morning, camera in hand, the permanent residents were, of course, their usual discreet selves. The streets of Pere Lachaise, however, were bursting with life. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the cemetery each year and, even on this cold winter day, there were many people wandering the cemetery's 60 miles of cobbled lanes in search of the graves of the famous. Most of the visitors were consulting maps and looking very much, themselves, like lost souls in the realm of the dead.

I found Chopin on a small, hilly street, guarded by a sorrowful Eutrepe, the muse of music and in the company of other composers and musicians. Then I wandered a bit myself, taking in the beauty of the surroundings and the distant, hillside views of Paris. Pere Lachaise is, in fact, a microcosm of Paris itself with its old winding byways and its more modern, open avenues. There are trees, gardens, beautiful sculpture, enormous monuments, squares and quiet corners.

The list of notables is long and international in scope (click here) since you don't need to be French to be buried in Pere Lachaise. The only requirement for non-Parisians is that you die in Paris. Take your time, though. There's a long waiting list.

For more photos, click here.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor
Paris
France

NEW YEAR'S DAY IN PARIS

2011-01-04T03:49:00.000-05:00

Like the Grinch who stole Christmas, I crept downstairs on Christmas morning and removed the holiday wreath from our front door. We planned to be in Paris for New Year's Day and the first leg of our journey was by car from Ann Arbor to the East Coast.

We drove south through Michigan in the dark of early morning and turned east on Route 80, where for the next 500 miles there would be no major towns. In Ohio, the pale grey dawn revealed an almost deserted highway passing through seemingly endless farmland. Until the 1850s, this area was known as the Great Black Swamp, a place of endemic malaria and impenetrable marshes. By late morning, we were in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. Four hundred million years ago, these mountains were the highest on earth - much taller than the present-day Himalayas. Today their highest point on Route 80 is 2,250 feet (686 meters).

We passed into New Jersey at the Delaware Water Gap on the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Here, when the Appalachians were at their highest, water that eventually would become today's Delaware River, began its inexorable task of cutting a passage through the towering mountains. The end of our trip, like the beginning, was shrouded in darkness, but an hour later, we were gathered around the family table for Christmas dinner - the beginning of a festive week with family and friends.

On New Year's Eve, we boarded a US Airways flight for Paris. At midnight Paris time, flight attendants attired in holiday hats, wished us Bonne Année a Paris and we toasted in the New Year.

We arrived at deGaulle Airport to the good news that in honor of the New Year, all trains to Paris were free of charge. The bad news was that there was an action sociale (a strike) in progress, which meant that trains would run only every 20 minutes; would go only as far as Paris' northern station and not center city; and were running 15-20 minutes late. Still, it was a nice gesture.

The weather was grey, damp and cold. A persistent fog obscured the distant views of Paris and until the train entered its underground passage, we were left to contend with the sight of graffiti-scarred railway sidings and nearby neglected buildings.

Paris, therefore, looked all the more stunning when we stepped out of the metro an hour later. And its deserted streets seemed to be ours alone. Presumedly, Parisians had partied hard the night before and were still in bed at this early hour. We found a bakery and headed to our apartment for coffee and our first pain au chocolat. By afternoon, Paris was humming again and we walked about and bought some groceries.

Because the best way to overcome jet lag is to enter into the local rhythm, we arranged to meet a friend in the early evening to take in an extraordinary exhibit at the Grand Palais celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Italian jewelry company Bulgari. With our eyes still dazzled by rubies, emeralds and diamonds as big as the Ritz, we stepped out of the museum and on to an equally sparkling Champs-Elysées. The four hundred trees that line the avenue were lit by a million twinkling holiday lights and a Christmas market lined the famous street. Presiding over it all was La Grande Roue, a 200-foot-high illuminated Ferris Wheel.

The first day of our stay in Paris ended in the cozy 12th-century cave of the Equinox, a friendly neighborhood restaurant. As jazz music mixed and mingled with the melodious sound of French, we ate hot soup and boudin blanc and toasted our return to Paris.

For more photos, click here.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Paris
France

GREAT BOOKS II

2010-12-08T09:18:00.002-05:00

Woman Reading by Edouard Manet

Winter has come to Michigan. The temperatures have dropped and the first snow is on the ground. It's time to light the fire and curl up with a good book - which means it's time for:

Travel Oyster's Great Books II

Notre Dame of Paris
(The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

By Victor Hugo
Penguin Books, 1978

493 pages.

The first time I saw Paris, I carried with me my now-faded copy of Notre Dame of Paris - Hugo's 1831 paean to one of the world's great gothic cathedrals. Set in 1482, this historical masterpiece is still a perfect introduction to Paris and to the architecture of its magnificent cathedral. It was also Hugo's highly successful plea for the restoration of the cathedral and other gothic monuments throughout France. In Hugo's tale, history is seen not through the image of great events, but rather through the desires, needs and passions of its people. Around his characters - including Quasimodo, Esmeralda, the loveless antagonist Archdeacon Claude Frollo and, above all, the cathedral itself - Hugo weaves a spellbinding tale of intrigue and romance that pits rich against poor and good against evil.

A Traveller In Italy
by H. V. Morton
Dodd, Mead, 1982
636 pages.

"I'm sure you've read H. V. Morton's A Traveller In Italy," wrote a faithful Travel Oyster reader. I had not although I have visited many of the towns in northern Italy that Morton writes about in this long and always fascinating book. Morton begins in Milan and leisurely makes his way through the regions of Lombardy, Emilia, Venezia and Tuscany. Along the way, Italian history comes alive as Morton turns silent ruins and ancient churches into places where love and death played out on a grand scale. Morton had a knack for knowing or finding just what every traveler wants: the treasure behind the locked door, the fabulous dinner in an unheralded town, the forgotten masterpiece in a country chapel. This is not surprising since Morton first came to fame as a young journalist who scooped the official Times of London reporter during the coverage of the opening of King Tut's Tomb in Egypt in 1923. A Traveller In Italy was written in 1964, but like Italy herself, it's a timeless classic to be savored slowly.

ULTIMATE BREAD
by Eric Treuille & Ursula Ferrigno
DK Publishing, Inc., 1998
168 pages.

In Paris and Pisa, a delicious crusty baguette or a chewy pane casalingo is a daily pleasure. Turn down almost any street, it seems, and you'll be tempted by the sights and scents of freshly-baked bread. Bread prices are regulated by law so good basic bread is inexpensive and for that reason, almost no one in France or Italy, including me, bakes bread. When I'm back in the States, however, and longing for an earthy rustic bread, I often make my own. And when I do, this is the book I most often turn to. It is the first one I ever bought and although I now have a shelf full of bread books, Ultimate Bread is still my favorite. It has beautiful photos, clear explanations and wonderful, easy to follow recipes that will fill your kitchen with the flavors of Europe, America and the Middle East. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced bread maker, this book has something for you. (If you don't want to bake or a trip abroad is not on your agenda this year, then order online some of Ann Arbor's justly famous Zingerman Bakehouse bread.)

A Sand County Almanac

by Aldo Leopold

Oxford University Press, 1949

92 pages.

The pleasures of travel are often associated with places beyond our everyday existence. In these delightful and beautifully-written essays, the author takes us on a wondrous voyage of discovery into the natural world. For his journey, Leopold travels no farther than the fields and woods surrounding his farm in Sand County, Wisconsin. Nonetheless, he finds there a world apart, which he describes in twelve lovely essays - one for each month of the year. It's a book to read and reread and one that the great Thoreau himself might envy.

ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY
by David Sedaris
Bay Back Books, 2001
272 pages.

I was lucky enough to hear David Sedaris read a selection from this book in a Paris bookstore. After his reading in English, the book's translator reread it in French. Now by the time a translator is finished with a piece, she has reworked it several times and knows it inside out. In spite of this, Sedaris' translator had trouble reading the story because she couldn't stop laughing.

The book is divided into two parts: the first contains hilarious essays about Sedaris' life in North Carolina with his dysfunctional family. The second part, appropriately entitled "Deux," deals with his time in France with his partner Hugh and Sedaris' attempts to learn French. The essays have titles such as, See You Again, Yesterday; Jesus Shaves; and I'll Eat What He's Wearing. Anyone who has ever struggled to express themselves in a foreign language with a limited vocabulary will identify with Sedaris, and his irreverent and pointed prose is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud.

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

THANKSGIVING RISOTTO

2010-11-17T09:34:00.005-05:00

Norman Rockwell, Freedom from Want, 1943

If you grew up with Italian-American grandparents, as I did, foods such as ricotta cheese on toast for breakfast or tripe in red sauce for lunch were not uncommon. When it came to Thanksgiving, however, my grandparents could have arrived on the Mayflower. Gathered around the Thanksgiving table - heaped high with roast turkey, stuffing, gravy, candied sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, green beans, cranberry sauce and apple and pumpkin pie - our family could have modeled for a Norman Rockwell painting.

When we arrived at my grandparents' house on Thanksgiving day, however, there was no smell of roasting turkey or freshly-baked apple pies. Instead, the house was filled with the sweet aroma of tomato sauce and chicken broth. That's because my grandmother left the preparation of all the traditional American dishes to the care of someone else's grandmother - Mrs. Bonani. Along with her husband, Mrs. Bonani ran a small, local catering business. On Thanksgiving Day, dozens of Italian families lined up talking and laughing while the delicious smell of turkey - missing from their own kitchens - filled the neighborhood.

Traditions come in many forms so it doesn't seem odd to us that when the family reminisces, we all agree that no one has ever made better turkey, stuffing or gravy than Mrs. Bonani. Sooner or later, however, one of us will always say: "Yes, but the best thing of all was Grandmom's risotto."

It came to the table steaming hot accompanied by a bowl of my grandmother's homemade red sauce and a dish of sauteed chicken livers. Amid admonitions of "leave room for the turkey," we heaped the rice onto our plates, patted it flat with our forks to cool it a bit, and then topped it with chicken livers, sauce and lots of freshly-grated parmesan cheese.

Risotto is not difficult to make, but it does require time and attention. So unless you have a Mrs. Bonani to cook your Thanksgiving dinner, you may want to try it on another day. Here's the recipe. Bon Appetito!

Geraldine

Risotto with Red Sauce and Chicken Livers

1 lb chicken livers

2-3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the livers

2 tablespoons finely-chopped onion

2 cups of Arborio or Carnaroli rice

3 1/2 cups chicken broth

2-3 cups of your favorite tomato sauce, plus extra to pass.

1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

salt, if needed

1. Chop chicken livers and saute in olive oil until tender. Don't overcook.

2. Bring the broth in one pan and the red sauce in another to a steady simmer.

3. Put olive oil in a large heavy pot and saute chopped onion over medium heat until it is translucent. Add the rice and stir quickly until the grains are well coated.

4. Add 1/2 cup (two or three ladles full) of the steaming chicken broth and cook the rice, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until all the liquid is gone. Never stop stirring and stir completely over the bottom and sides of the pot or the rice will stick.

5. When the chicken broth is absorbed, add 1/2 cup red sauce. Continue adding broth and sauce in alternating order, adding slightly more broth than sauce until the rice is completely cooked.

6. After about 20 minutes, taste the rice. It will begin to be tender, but the center of the grain will still be white and starchy. At this point, add half the sauteed chicken livers and more liquid. Continue cooking as above. It usually takes about 30 minutes to cook the rice to perfection. To test, bite into a rice kernel. At the moment that the white "core" disappears, the risotto is finished. (My grandmother usually cooked this risotto a bit longer so that the rice was softer than a usual risotto. You can take your pick.) Be sure that when you are finished, the rice is not dry, but rather saucy.

7. About two minutes before the rice is done, add all the Parmesan cheese.

8. Add the remaining cooked chicken livers to the extra red sauce. Pass at the table, along with more Parmesan cheese.

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

MICHIGAN AUTUMN

2010-10-25T23:00:00.000-04:00

It's a dreamlike autumn in Michigan. The sun shines every day and the air is warm and inviting. The only rain is the soft, steady stream of dappled yellow, orange and scarlet leaves that fall through a clear blue, cloudless sky.

The vast deciduous forests of the state are famous for their spectacular fall displays of color. This year, however, nature has surprised and awed even long-time Michigan residents like us.

Pure Michigan, the State's official web site, offers a variety of color tours throughout Michigan. We followed one on the 18-mile long Old Mission Peninsula, which juts out into Grand Traverse Bay. The roads of the hilly peninsula wind in and out and up and down through apple and cherry orchards, vineyards and blazing forests, all set against a backdrop of the turquoise bay. It's just 60 miles from our cabin in northern Michigan, but if we had crossed the ocean to see it, we would have thought it worth the trip.

As I gazed, I wondered, how many leaves are there, on just one maple or oak tree? According to Michigan Forests Forever, a mature, healthy tree has between 200,000 and 250,000 leaves. More than half of Michigan's 56,000 square miles are covered with trees -- 11.4 billion trees --and more than 75 percent of those are hardwoods. Factoring in smaller trees which would have less leaves, but adding in the billions of uncounted shrubs and bushes in the understory, I decided to use a conservative figure of 100,000 leaves for each hardwood in Michigan. By my calculation, that's 855 trillion leaves. That figure makes even the U.S. national debt look small. In fact, if Michigan leaves were dollars, we could pay off the national debt 62 times and still have 10 trillion dollars left over!

If we had to clean up the leaves, every one of Michigan's approximately 10 million people would have to rake up more than 85 million leaves each. Fortunately, nature takes care of most of them. Still, according to my estimates, we will have to remove about 500,000 leaves from our small lawn in Ann Arbor.

Dazzling and daunting figures, but as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, click here to see my photos of Michigan in autumn.

Photos can also be seen by clicking here.
For color tour routes in Michigan, click here.

Comments are welcome and can be left below.

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Michigan

CRABBING ON THE OREGON COAST

2010-09-23T14:21:00.004-04:00

On a recent visit to Portland, I went out one morning to get some coffee. As I walked down Hawthorne, not far from my son Matthew's house on the city's southeast side, people I had never seen before smiled and stopped to invite me pet their dogs. It's probably just me and my East Coast upbringing, but sometimes his neighborhood seems just a tad too friendly, especially so early in the morning. When the perky young woman in the coffee shop told me to "have a nice life," I knew it was time to get out of Dodge.

Fortunately, a trip was already planned to Netarts Bay on Oregon's magnificent Pacific Coast. The prey was Metacarcinus magister or Dungeness Crabs - big, sweet, succulent crustaceans that are found all along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to California. The crab's common name comes from the town of Dungeness on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, where the first commercial fishery on the West Coast opened in 1848. The Washington town was given its name in 1792 by British explorer George Vancouver because it reminded him of a point on the English coast near the Strait of Dover. Dungeness is an Old Norse word meaning "headland."

Friends Paul and Kris, accompanied by Kris' dog Leon, left Portland early to launch the boat and set the traps. Matthew, Erin, Stephanie and I followed at a more leisurely pace, enjoying the drive through the Coast Mountain Range, which is covered by temperate rain forests dripping moisture and moss. The coast itself is a sliver of rocky volcanic land between the mountains and the sea.

Netarts Bay is less well-known than nearby Nehalem or Tillamook bays, but archeological studies show that native people have been catching crabs in its water since the late-Holocene era. Like us, their base was the Netarts Sand Spit, which forms the bay and protects it from the Pacific Ocean. The Spit also provides a close-up view of the massive, basalt sea stacks known as the Three Arch Rocks. The Spit can be reached on foot via a four-mile path or, as we did, by a short boat ride across the bay.

The five collapsible baited crab rings marked by floats were all set out by the time we arrived. I was given the honor of pulling in the first catch. As the boat was maneuvered over the rings, I began pulling, gently at first to remove the slack in the rope and not scare away the crabs and then rapidly to get the crabs into the boat before they escaped. All male crabs bigger than 5 3/4 inches are keepers and can be dumped into the bucket. If a crab gets away, you have to grab him from behind so he can't bite. We learned firsthand, however, that some of the big ones can reach around and latch on to a finger pretty tenaciously.

There were a couple of other crabbing boats, but our main competition came from harbor seals interested in the salmon carcasses we used for bait. They arrived in groups, circling the floats and then diving gracefully searching for dinner.

After a day of pulling traps in the fresh ocean air, dinner sounded like a good idea. By late afternoon, we had 22 Dungeness crabs and two dozen butter clams that Paul dug up at low tide. Best of all, a rented house was waiting for us just up the road in Oceanside. Stephanie found it, as she likes to say, on the Worldwide Web. It had a view of the Pacific and was a great buy at just $120 a night.

We set the pot to boil and as the sun set (just before the rains came), the champagne was opened and we began feasting on some of the best, sweetest crab meat I've ever tasted.

For a Northwest crab cake recipe, click here.

To see more photos, click here.

Cheers,

Geraldine

Photos (unless otherwise noted) by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Oregon

BEARS IN THE NIGHT

2010-08-24T13:04:00.000-04:00

"Ger, a bear is here."

These are not the whispered words one hopes to awaken to at 3 a.m. on a moonlit summer night - especially when "here" is right there, just five feet away. "She has a cub with her." Suddenly, the full-length screens that separate our cabin's sleeping porch from the Great Outdoors seemed incredibly flimsy.

There are bears in our part of northern Michigan, but 90 percent of the estimated 15,000-19,000 bears in Michigan live in the Upper Peninsula. Although we often hear the snort of white-tailed deer in the woods surrounding the cabin, our several bird feeders have never been molested - a sure sign that no bear has passed our way. All that changed as I slowly raised my head and came face to face with Ursus americanus - an American Black Bear.

Black bears are one of the most extraordinary animals in the forest. When food is scarce during the cold Michigan winters, they go into a state of lethargy from October until April or early May. Asleep in their dens, they reduce their metabolic rate, surviving without eating, drinking, exercising or passing waste. During this time, usually in January, they give birth to one to three cubs, waking occasionally to feed and care for them.

Not eating is a surefire way to trim down and during their long sleep, bears lose up to 30 percent of their fall weight, which can range from 100-250 pounds for a female and 150-400 pounds for a male. When they emerge in the spring, they're very hungry, but have to content themselves with spring grasses and an occasional frog or nest of eggs. By the time summer arrives, however, bears are eating 11 to 18 pounds of berries, fruits, nuts and insects every day. It takes a lot of foraging to find that much food, so I'm sure well-stocked bird feeders are always a welcome sight.

Our bears, which we can see quite clearly in the light of the full moon, look like they've been eating well. They're both standing on their hind legs. The mother bear is about 5'3" - just my height, but she weighs about 200 pounds, which is probably what I'd weigh if I ate 18 pounds of food a day. The cub is about three feet tall and is quite a husky little fellow.

Bears have a keen sense of smell, but are very nearsighted. We, however, are obviously well within their range of vision because our bears are looking right at us. If it weren't for the screens and a well-placed sense of caution, we could reach out and touch them. How frightening! How exciting! What a great photo! Nonetheless, I decide this is not the time to get up and grab the camera.

While we (and the cub) look on, the mother bear makes quick work of our bird feeders, ripping them apart with her sharp claws. She saves the oriole feeder, the one right next to the porch, for last. She's so close now that we hear the glug, glug, glug as she downs the syrupy sugar water. Standing there with the bright orange feeder in one paw, she looks like a Disney cartoon character -- so much so that I wait for her to raise her free paw, wipe it across her mouth and say "Ah!" Instead, she drops the empty feeder, whimpers softly to her cub and the two of them lope quickly off into the forest.

A little research the next day reveals that bear attacks in Michigan are extremely rare. Black bears, in fact, are shy and seek to avoid people - unless you provide them with a food source. We've got new bird feeders, but we take them down every evening and lock them away. We also intend to follow the sage advice of Henry H. Collins in his Field Guide to American Wildlife:

If you see a bear, leave it alone. Its sense of responsibility to man is quite limited.

(To learn more about black bears, click here.)
(To see more photos, click here.)

Geraldine

Photos (unless otherwise noted) by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Michigan

MICHIGAN BLUEBERRIES

2010-07-31T00:58:00.003-04:00

At Veggieville in Idlewild, just down the road from our cabin in northern Michigan, and in fruit stands all around the state, the tables are heaped high with deep, dark, juicy blueberries. Not surprising, since Michigan is the number one producer of high-bush blueberries in the United States. First domesticated in the early 1900s, blueberries are native to North America. Although they are produced worldwide, the United States and Canada account for 73 percent (489 million pounds) of the world's blueberry production. (U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council figures.)

For centuries, blueberries were a staple of the diets of the indigenous people of North America. Fresh blueberries were baked into cakes topped with maple syrup (another Michigan delicacy) or were dried to enjoy during the long, cold Michigan winters. Wild, tart, intensely-flavored blueberries are still out there in the bogs and forests of Michigan, where members of the Michigan Potawatami tribe once foraged for them. They're free for the picking, but they're much smaller than the cultivated ones so it takes a long time and a strong back to fill your bucket.

Whether cultivated or wild, blueberries are good and good for you as your mom might say - low fat, sodium free and a good source of fiber and vitamin C. They are great by the handful, topping your cereal or bursting out of muffins - and who could argue with a fresh blueberry pie. As far as I'm concerned, however, there is nothing better on a hot summer day than a cup of homemade blueberry sorbet.

Here's my recipe. Try it. It's easy. (If you don't live in blueberry country, the recipe works just as well with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries or other berries that grow in your part of the world.)

BLUEBERRY SORBET

4 cups of blueberries, washed

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/1/2 cups water

1/2 to 2/3 cup sugar

(I like tart sorbet so I use the lesser amount)

1. Purée the blueberries in a food processor or blender until smooth or leave a little chunky if you prefer. Stir in the orange juice, lemon juice and vanilla.

2. Put the water and sugar in a saucepan and heat over medium-high heat,stirring to dissolve the sugar. Continue heating until just before it boils.

3. Whisk the syrup into the blueberry mixture and let it cool. Transfer it to an ice-cream maker and follow the manufacturer's directions. I have an inexpensive hand-cranked Donvier model, but you can make sorbet without an ice cream maker. Just put the blueberry mixture in a shallow pan or ice cube trays, put in the freezer and whip the mixture from time to time as it freezes.

4. Top with a sprig of mint and enjoy. If you don't eat it all in one sitting, be sure to take the remaining sorbet out of the freezer and put in the refrigerator about an hour before you want to serve it.

To see more photos, click here.

Enjoy,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Michigan

STATUE OF LIBERTY

2010-06-23T06:30:00.001-04:00

Up the street from our apartment in the Marais in Paris is the Carnavalet Museum. Located in two magnificent, adjoining townhouses, the museum is filled with thousands of items documenting the history of the City of Paris. One of the most surprising is a small painting by Victor Dargaud. It depicts a colossal statue - La Liberté Eclairant Le Monde (Liberty Enlightening the World) - in a residential Parisian street. Wreathed in scaffolding, she lifts her copper torch high above the surrounding buildings. Fashionably-dressed 19th-century Parisians, perhaps on their way home from a Sunday stroll in the nearby Parc Monceau, gaze upward at this grande dame.

Last month as we prepared to leave Paris, it looked for a while as if the eruption of the Icelandic volcano might cancel our flight back to the United States. The painting came to mind as I began musing on the possibility of a transatlantic crossing on a stately ocean liner. At the end of the journey, we'd sail into New York harbor, where that same French grande dame - now known as the Statue of Liberty - would be waiting to greet us.

An icon of America and a symbol of welcome for millions of immigrants at the turn of the 20th century, the Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from the people of France in 1884.

The idea of a sculpture to commemorate French-American friendship was the brainchild of Edouard René de Laboulaye and a group of influential French citizens. De Laboulaye, a writer and politician, was an admirer of the American Constitution and a proponent of a French republic with similar democratic principles. In 1866, De Laboulaye gave the commission to the young French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who drew up plans for the Statue of Liberty. American funds would be used to buy the land and to pay for the statue's pedestal.

De Laboulaye wanted the statue to be ready for the Centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1876. However, other commissions for Bartholdi, technical issues, the Franco-Prussian War and problems with financing on the US side pushed back the date. Liberty arrived in the United States - very fashionably late - in 1884 and was dedicated in 1886.

In 1900, my then 21-year old Italian grandfather sailed into New York harbor on the Georgia, a ship out of Genoa. On his way to the immigration center on Ellis Island, he passed the Statue of Liberty. He was seven years older than the Statue herself, but she was already famous and he was just one of millions of people looking for a better life in America. Some years later, my Romanian grandparents would arrive and they, too, would gaze at the Statue of Liberty with wonder and some trepidation.

Next year, Liberty will celebrate her 125th birthday. She has been many things to many people: a symbol of international friendship; a call for a democratic republic in France; a repudiation of slavery; and a beacon of hope to immigrants arriving on American shores. Most recently, in the wake of September 11, she has come to stand for courage in the face of adversity.

As time has passed, Liberty's French ancestry has faded from the public consciousness. It seems that, along with my ancestors and millions of other immigrants, the Grande Dame of France has become an American - albeit one who still has an unmistakable French elegance about her.

Take a virtual tour of the Statue of Liberty by clicking here.

To see more photos, click here.

Geraldine

All photos unless otherwise noted, by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

New York
Paris

TRAVEL IN THE TIME OF VOLCANOS

2010-05-27T10:56:00.001-04:00

Photo by Brynjar Gauti

Travel is wonderful -- until train workers go on strike, the cab doesn't come, your passport gets stolen, or - as happened this spring - a volcano erupts and cancels flights in airports all over Europe.

A morning computer check on our last day in Italy showed an email from our airline carrier telling us that one or more of our bookings had been "disrupted." That's airline parlance for "your flight has been cancelled."

We were not alone - the Icelandic volcano that had snarled airline traffic all over Europe earlier in the spring, had erupted again and cancelled all flights out of Pisa. Given the vagaries of the volcano, we decided to take a train to Paris, where two days later we were picking up our transatlantic flight home after four months in Europe.

Train reservations were hard to come by, but we finally booked two tickets on the night train from Florence to Paris. The "night train" sounds exotic and for many immediately brings to mind the elegant train compartment in Alfred Hitchcock's classic movie North By Northwest, where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint passionately embraced. Most sleeper compartments, however, are less romantic and, like ours, have six narrow little beds that fold down from the walls. If all goes well, your fellow traveling companions don't snore (ours didn't) and you sleep pleasantly through the twelve-hour journey and wake up refreshed in the City of Light.

This unexpected travel delay had an upside - a beautiful Sunday in Pisa and the chance to have one more delicious Italian meal. As we walked the back streets of Pisa, our attention was caught by a small hand-written sign advertising typical Tuscan dishes. It led us to Toscana in Tavola, a just-opened restaurant so small it was like stepping into a family dining room. Inside we met the family - Roberto, Simona and Andrea. They've been in the food business for almost 40 years and grow and produce almost all of the food they serve. We put ourselves in Chef Roberto's hands and were served delicious prosciutto, salami, cheeses, focaccia, wine, Tuscan Soup, and tender, quickly-sauteed pork, After lunch, the family sat down to enjoy a glass of wine with us. We exchanged stories and left promising to see them next year.

That night on the train, we reminisced about our first sleeper train on a trip from Paris to Madrid. New to France, we did not know that tickets had to be validated in a machine. Because of this violation, the ticket taker - who arrived In the middle of the night - wanted us to pay a fine or leave the train at the next stop. We refused and were backed up by our fellow travelers, who rose from their beds to defend us. "They are foreigners and don't know the system," they protested. When the ticket taker finally relented and stamped our tickets, we all cheered in a spirit of French/American solidarity.

This time, the train trip went smoothly. We got to Paris in the morning, spent the day and night with friends and woke on Tuesday to find our flight home was "on time." A short walk across a lovely Paris park brought us to the RER, where we boarded the train for the one-hour trip to the airport.

Two stations later, however, the train came to a halt and an announcement told us that an accident had stopped all trains to the airport for an undetermined amount of time. "Undetermined" can be anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. We got off the train and tried to find an alternative train, a taxi and then a bus - all to no avail. For part of this time, we had in tow a young couple from Texas, with Texan-sized baggage. At some point, when we took the stairs, they were obliged to take an elevator and we never saw them again. We hope they made their flight.

We were pretty resigned to missing our flight when the RER began running again. We got back on and arrived at the airport with about 40 minutes to spare.

It was a nice flight on a new plane that was not at all crowded. The food was okay and the movies were good and when we arrived at our destination, the first bag to appear on the luggage carousel was ours. Unfortunately, the last bag to arrive on the luggage carousel was also ours.

In the end, though, things went pretty well. There were a few change of plans and we spent a bit more money. On the other hand, we made some new friends, ate some great food, had some adventures and still got home on time.

The moral is that when you travel, it pays to leave extra time and to heed writer Susan Heller's advice: "when preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money."

For more photos, click here.

Ciao,

Geraldine

Toscana in Tavola

via Tavoleria, 8

Pisa, Italy

Tel: 392 3435098

Photos (unless otherwise noted) by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Pisa
Italy
Paris
France

THE PISA THAT ISN'T?

2010-05-06T07:49:00.004-04:00

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, the medieval town wall and the cathedral with its oval Byzantine dome are perfectly framed in my office window. In spite of this priceless view, it's sometimes impossible to stay inside and work, especially on days when the sky is a clear blue and the Tuscan sun is warm and inviting.

The streets of Pisa are alive with activity. Everyone is outside, walking, shopping and, of course, talking, talking, talking. Around every corner there is something to see: a medieval tower house illuminated by the sun; a cafe terrace where two elegant women sip - in a nod to summer - a tall frothy drink adorned with strawberries; tourists whose faces light up with amazement at their first sight of the Leaning Tower; African street vendors hawking their wares of lighters, tissues, beaded jewelry and fake Armani watches.

A Pisan friend, who is very pessimistic - as are many Italians - about the future of Italy, tells me that I have created and written about a Pisa che non c'è. It's a charming Pisa, he says, but one that does not exist. "Where is your Pisa?", he asks. "I don't see it."

What he sees are young people who can't get jobs; public services in disarray; cities in decline; an apathetic, discouraged electorate and a self-serving government. Could it be that my Pisa is a myth made of smoke and mirrors and good camera angles?

I feel at home in Italy, in this land that my ancestors left more than a hundred years ago. After my friend's comments, however, I began to wonder if it is possible for a visitor - even one who spends two months a year in Italy - to really know the country. I may understand Italy's problems, but I don't really suffer the consequences. I read the Italian newspapers; shake my head at the price of gas (about eight dollars a gallon); lament that the garbage has not been picked up or that some ancient stone streets in Pisa have been blacktopped over to save money on maintenance - and then I get on the plane and go home.

Nonetheless the Pisa that I write about and photograph does exist and it's very real. There are the beautiful medieval buildings; the back streets that seem always to be deserted except for the wheeling swallows; the friendly, outgoing people; the markets; the thousands of students who give this old town a youthful feel; the wonderful food; the nearby beaches; the Monti Pisani - the hills behind the town that in springtime are awash with wild orchids and tender wild asparagus perfect for a risotto to be shared with good friends; and the beautiful cathedral complex with its improbable tower which, no matter how many times you see it, continues to amaze.

There are things that are wrong here, but someone else will have to write about them. I plan to continue to concentrate on the wonderful Pisa that is.

For more photos of that Pisa, click here.

Ciao,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Pisa
Italy

PARMA

2010-04-29T12:52:00.009-04:00

As the train pulled into the Parma station, my train of thought went like this: Parma - Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese - Prosciutto di Parma - pasta with prosciutto and Parmesan cheese - sandwiches with prosciutto and ripe, red, middle-of-summer New Jersey tomatoes - Grandma's risotto made with alternating ladles of homemade red sauce and chicken broth, stirred constantly and finished with sauteed chicken livers and lots of fresh-grated Parmesan cheese. Food and Parma just seem to go together.

As soon as we arrived on a recent visit, it was clear that Parma is a food town. Tempting-looking restaurants are everywhere, serving Parma's signature pasta dish Tortelli d'Erbetta. Incredible markets line the elegant streets, all of them packed to the rafters with prosciutto, parmesan and culatello. And where else can you find I Musei del Cibo - The Food Museums, three of them, devoted to tomatoes, prosciutto and cured meats, and parmesan cheese?

It turns out, however, that there's a lot more to Parma than just ham and cheese.

Its 12th-century cathedral is decorated with frescoes by Correggio, a 16th-century master of light, color and perspective. You have to strain your neck a bit to see the assumption of the Madonna into heaven that adorns the dome, but it is well worth the effort. This is no solemn-faced Madonna with clasped hands, but rather a joyful one with bare feet and raised arms, whose bright, white garments are blowing in the soft heavenly wind.

Next door is the majestic Romanesque baptistry, built entirely of rose-colored Veronese marble. Octagonal in shape, it is one of the most remarkable baptistries in Italy. Its interior has a high, fan-shaped ceiling and is covered with frescoes, and sculptures by Benedetto Antelami, the 12th-century master who designed the baptistry. (Take along a small pair of binoculars. They are indispensable for seeing details on works of art far above your head.)

From the 1500s to the 1800s, Parma was ruled first by the Farnese dynasty and then by the French Bourbons. They gave Parma a lasting culture of literature, art, theater and music. Verdi operas were performed in its Ducal Theatre; conductor Arturo Toscanini was born in Parma and the town is home to the Farnese Theatre and the Regio Theatre. Music festivals are held throughout the year and there are two interesting music museums. The National Gallery, housed in the enormous Palazzo della Pilotta, has works by Parmigianino, Canova, Teipolo and Leonardo da Vinci.

Many Italian cities, including Pisa, have a faded, albeit charming elegance. (Recently, with Italy in dire financial straits, faded is the predominant word as the lack of care for all but the major monuments is becoming more and more evident.) Parma, on the other hand, shows no sign of this fading glory and could very easily be the film set for a 18th-century period drama. The obligatory duel could take place in the long, straight walkways of the Ducal Gardens. A carriage ride out to the palaces in the nearby hills (today accessible by bike paths) would be a perfect place for a love scene.

And even though it's not all about the food, I'm sure our film would include a romantic tete-a-tete across a candlelit table in an elegant Parma dining room. Our couple would gaze lovingly into each other's eyes. And then, perhaps, they would be happily distracted - just as we were - by the arrival of the first course of a wonderful dinner: succulent Tortelli, filled with soft ricotta cheese and wild field greens, bathed in sweet butter and generously adorned with Parmesan cheese.

(Click here for the recipe. For photos from la Repubblica, click here. Even if you don't understand Italian, the photos are very instructive.)

Click here for more photos of Parma.

Buon appetito,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor
Italy

ITALIAN TRAIN MUSINGS

2010-04-21T11:15:00.004-04:00

I met Marco some years ago in Lesson 1 of my "Italian for Beginners on CD." We were destined to spend a lot of time together and although, eventually, we both went our separate ways, I learned a lot from Marco. For instance, in that first lesson, we took a train trip together and Marco taught me the word sciopero meaning strike - as in, the train workers are on strike. In Lesson 2, (with the strike over) Marco and I were on our way to Genova. We should have arrived at mezzogiorno, just in time for lunch, but a friendly fellow passenger informed us that questo treno è sempre in ritardo - this train is always late.

Italian friends tell us that Trenitalia has gone decidedly downhill from its high point in the 1970s when it was a leader in efficiency, technology and service. However, being from Michigan - where train travel outside the main Detroit to Chicago line is nearly non-existent - train service in Italy looks pretty good to me. Tickets can be purchased online on a well-organized web site. Trains are reasonably priced, on time more often than not and take you to every part of Italy. You can step out of a train beside the canals of Venice, the Renaissance walls of Lucca or just a stone's throw from the Ducal Gardens of Parma. (To read the Travel Oyster post on Parma, click here.)

The scenery on the line between Pisa and Parma is beautiful. The first train runs up the coast to La Spezia, with the sea on one side and the marble-rich Apuane Mountains on the other. The train from La Spezia to Parma, just two cars long, is modern and comfortable. It goes up the Taro River valley with views of ancient towns and castles, gently rolling hills and the majestic Apennine Mountains.

Everything went like clockwork until the last leg of our journey at LaSpezia, where we were catching the InterCity train from Genoa to Rome, with a stop in Pisa Centrale.

As I went to check the schedule board, I overheard someone say - like an echo of my early Italian lessons - "questo treno è sempre in ritardo." And, sure enough, the board said the train would be late - first by five, then 10, then 20, then 30 minutes. We knew, however, that there was a ordinarily slower regional train that would get us back earlier than the delayed InterCity, especially since it stopped at Pisa San Rossore, a station closer to home.

What happened next shows that even experienced travelers can make mistakes. In the dark, it was difficult to see all the station names, but we thought San Rossore was the stop after Viareggio. We should have checked more closely because the train makes an additional stop at Torre del Lago -- and that is where we, mistakenly, got off at 9:30 on a Sunday night. Luckily for us, there was one more train to Pisa. Unluckily for us, it wasn't until 11:14 p.m.

Since we had almost two hours to wait, a nice bowl of pasta in a quaint trattoria sounded like a good idea. Torre del Lago is the home of the Puccini Festival in summer, but on a Sunday night in April, it was deserted. A tour of the downtown yielded only a take-out pizza joint with one wobbly plastic table. We sat down, clinked our plastic cups and ate a slightly-undercooked pizza.

When we got back to the station, it was locked and dark. A railroad employee arrived, went into the station and managed to set off an alarm. He fiddled for a while to turn it off, gave up and left with the alarm still ringing. An automatic announcement told us that the train was approaching and that the arrival track had been changed from Track 1 to Track 2. (This is something, I must admit, that Trenitalia seems to do regularly and always at the last minute). A second announcement then reminded us that it was forbidden to walk across the tracks. We would have had to leave the station, walk down some steps, cross the street, walk up some steps and reenter the station.

Obey the regulation or miss the train? I'm not sure what Marco would have done, but we picked up our bags, looked both ways and then ran across the tracks. Right on time at 11:14 p.m, the last train to Pisa pulled into the station. We got on and took it to the next stop: Pisa San Rossore.

To see more photos, click here.

Ciao,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Pisa
Italy

ARTICHOKES, BEAUTIFUL ARTICHOKES

2010-04-14T06:25:00.004-04:00

"Carciofi - grandi, piccoli, verdi, viola - tutti belli." It's April so it's only natural that the vendors in the markets of Pisa are hawking artichokes - "big ones, small ones, green ones, purple ones, all of them beautiful."

Just outside of town, bordered by the 16th-century Medici aqueduct and with the Pisan hills as a backdrop, the fields are bursting with the verdant abundant carciofi plants. On the Borgo Stretto, the little three-wheeled truck, incongruously named the Euro-Star, is full to the top with the flower of the gods -- so named because the Greek god Zeus is said to have created the artichoke.

A plant resembling the artichoke, possibly from the cardoon family, is mentioned in Greek and Latin writings. The Italian word carciofo, however, comes from the Arab, al kharshuf, and it was the Arabs who brought the modern-day plant to Italy sometime in the 15th century. Since then, the Italians have made the artichoke their own, just as they did with the tomato which was brought to Italy from the Americas in the 17th century. The artichoke made the reverse journey, arriving in California with Italian immigrants, who found there, on the coast of the Pacific, the cool, moist climate that artichokes love.

Artichokes have many health benefits and, supposedly, regular consumption of artichokes is linked to healthier skin and improved skin luminosity. In 1947, Marilyn Monroe was named the first Miss California Artichoke Queen, and we all know how luminous her skin was. Could it have been the artichokes?

The artichoke itself is the unopened flower of the plant. Baby artichokes are not simply small artichokes, but are secondary flowers that grow near the base of the stem, where they are protected by the dense foliage of the plant. No matter what the size, however, when the petals begin to open, the artichoke is overripe. So be sure to look for tightly closed ones.

There are approximately 90 different varieties of artichokes in Italy, but most never leave the area where they are grown. Every region has its special recipes. However, in the spring when artichokes are young and fresh, all they need is a little salt, some olive oil and perhaps a bit of garlic. Two Tuscan friends, who are very good cooks, suggested these simple recipes. I've named them in their honor.

Carciofi alla Fabrizio

Ingredients: artichokes, olive oil, salt, water.

Wash the artichokes in cold water.
Remove the small leaves at the base and all the exterior leaves until the very light green/yellow leaves appear. Cut off the pointy ends of the leaves. Don't be stingy here. Much more of the artichokes goes into the compost heap than in the pot. If you have the artichoke stems, peel, slice and cook them as well. They are almost as good as the heart.
Cut the artichokes in half or quarters depending on the size. Unless you have a variety of Italian artichoke that is spineless, remove the spiny choke with a knife.
Wash again to remove any errant spines.
Lightly cover the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil. Heat oil to medium, put in artichokes and sprinkle with sea salt
Cook over medium heat. After a few minutes, add some water and cover the pan. When water evaporates, add more.
Continue cooking in this manner until artichokes are very soft - 20 to 30 minutes.

Carciofi alla Paola

Ingredients: artichokes, olive oil, garlic, salt, water.

Wash and clean as above. Cut artichokes lengthwise into slices.
Put in a pan with olive oil, turn heat to high, add artichokes and chopped garlic Sprinkle with sea salt.
Cook over high heat, stirring constantly and adding water as above until artichokes are very soft, approximately 20-30 minutes.

My friend Angela suggested a variation to this recipe : Peel some potatoes, cut lengthwise into the same thickness as the artichoke slices and cook along with the artichokes as instructed above. The recipe is called Padellata di Carciofi e Patate.

To see more photos, click here.

Buon appetito,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Pisa
Italy

ROME IN THE COMPANY OF CARAVAGGIO

2010-04-01T08:23:00.005-04:00

"Let's go to Rome this weekend," said our friends. We were hardly settled in Pisa, but who would say no to Rome? Not us, especially when the object of the trip was the Caravaggio art exhibit at the Scuderie del Quirinale which runs until June 13.

La Freccia Bianca - the White Arrow train - pulled into the Pisa station only five minutes behind schedule and arrived in Rome three hours later. That gave us more than enough time to take the metro across town, deposit our bags at our hotel and walk back to the museum to pick up our tickets reserved for a 6 p.m. entry. (This exhibit is the hottest art ticket in town so unless you are willing to spend three to four hours waiting in line, reserve your tickets in advance.)

Caravaggio, born Michelangelo Merisi in Milan in 1571, created a new naturalistic style of painting. Whether saints or sinners, his subjects were shown with all their imperfections -- scars, wrinkles and even dirty feet and nails. His sometimes shocked audience, nonetheless, were dazzled by his realistic style. His masterful use of chiaroscuro continues to influence art today, 400 years after his untimely death at the age of 39.

The show at the Scuderie features 24 masterpieces of Caravaggio. It seems like a small number, but it took us more than two hours to take in the beauty of it all. The crowds were manageable since by 6 p.m., many tourists are already back at their hotels thinking about dinner.

Our dinner reservation at Trattoria der Pallaro, on the via del Pallaro not far from the Piazza Navona, was for 9:30 p.m., an hour when things are just getting going in most Rome restaurants. Chef-owner Paola Fazi welcomed us, posed for a photo in her kitchen and kissed us goodbye when we left. The menu costs 25 euros and there are no choices to be made. Paola brings you what she has cooked that day: first a selection of antipasti, then homemade succulent pasta, fish, meat, salads, dessert and even a carafe of the house wine. After such a dinner, we were glad to have a long walk back to the hotel.

The next morning we visited three churches that have works by Caravaggio - Santa Maria del Popolo, San Luigi dei Francesi and San Agostino. We couldn't get reservations for the Galleria Borghese, which has a Caravaggio room, so that will have to wait until next time.

Lunch was a great big ice cream cone from the fabulous Giolitti, Rome's best gelateria. Afterwards, we trekked over to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel. The crowds were enormous, but the museum is very efficient in getting people in quickly. It was our first look at the chapel since restoration was completed in 1999. The restoration of the walls and ceilings lasted 20 years - twice as long as it took Michelangelo and other famous painters of the day to paint them.

For our second dinner in Rome, we chose Grano, a sophisticated restaurant with good jazz and great food and wine that is located on a small square not far from the Pantheon.

Sunday noon found us at a piano concert in the 17th-century Capella Paolina in the Quirinale Palace. The Paolina Chapel has exactly the same dimensions as the Sistine Chapel. Instead of frescoes, however, its ceiling is decorated with gilded stucco angels. The concerts are free, but you do have to pay five euros to get into the Palace, which you can tour before the concert starts.

Many of the restaurants in Rome that are open on Sunday offer lunchtime buffets. We chose Babette, located on via Margutta, traditionally known as Rome's "artist street." Works by local artists hang on the walls and give the place a cozy feeling. Their buffet offers everything from soup to nuts and, of course, pasta and risotto. It was a long, leisurely lunch and we tried a bit of everything.

Early that evening, we boarded the train, closed our eyes and slept as La Freccia Bianca sped along - in the darkness between the sea and the mountains - back toward Pisa.

(Photography was not allowed in the exhibit, but to see the works on display, click here to go to the museum's website.)

To see my photos of Rome, click here.

A presto,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Italy

PISA IN SPRINGTIME

2010-03-26T03:19:00.002-04:00

After two months of grey days, beautiful weather finally came to Paris. A brilliant sun illuminated the clear Parisian sky and the monuments of Paris sparkled in the warm spring air. The break in the weather came a bit late for us since we saw this lovely spectacle from the window of our airplane as we left Paris. We were, however, bound for Pisa - that beautiful faded jewel of a city on the banks of the historic Arno River; Pisa - with its ochre and honey-colored palazzos that shimmer under the famous Tuscan sun.

About an hour into the flight, we looked down onto the majestic pure white Alps, still covered in the abundant snows of winter. Then, a curtain descended; the sky became thick with clouds and the Alps disappeared from view.

It was snowing in Pisa when we landed in 100-kilometer an hour headwinds. The door to the terminal was locked and no one seemed able to find the key. As we huddled together on the windy tarmac, people began to search for hats and scarves buried in the bottom of suitcases, put there with the belief that they certainly would not be needed in sunny Tuscany. Finally, the key was found, our bags collected and we walked out of the terminal into the warm light of friendly smiles.

Ten minutes later, we were in front of our new home, a fourth-floor apartment in a building that was once part of a nearby convent. Just off the medieval Borgo Stretto, our little vicolo is so narrow that from the living room window, it's almost possible to touch the house across the street. The real beauty is behind the building, where flowered balconies and gardens are alive with bird song.

It stayed cold for a couple of days and a big blizzard paralyzed the north of the country. We stocked our apartment with supplies to withstand the siege: prosciutto, pecorino cheese, roasted eggplant, seafood salad and biscotti. In the morning, we had our coffee at Salza, a beautiful bar and pasticceria that is on the List of Historic Places of Italy. A friend, one of the unsung great cooks of Italy, invited us for dinner and made a simple, creamy perfect risotto. Things were definitely looking up.

Yesterday, the warm weather arrived. We turned off the heat and opened the windows. On lines suspended high above the ground, we hung our freshly-washed clothes out to dry. They joined others strung above the courtyard in a bright colorful display. The Piazza Garibaldi became a meeting place for crowds of smiling people eating gelato in big waffle cones. Tourists appeared in shorts and t-shirts (even though it's not that warm). The tables on the terraces of restaurants and cafes, especially on the sunny sides of the streets, filled with people, and the melodious sound of Italian echoed off the medieval buildings.

It's springtime in Pisa.

To see more photos, click here.

A presto,
Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Pisa
Italy