Once upon a time in Venice, I was a museum intern, and once upon that long time ago I fell in love with this dreamy little metropolis of canals and palaces and chilled glasses of sgroppini and steaming plates of fresh spaghetti alle vongole. How can one not fall for a place where you wake…
A Package for The Planet (a.k.a. The Monkey’s Uncle)
Some while back, My Friend, The Planet (otherwise known as Planet Ross) sent me his blue monkey. He’s a funny little figurine with a pointy hat that probably has some sort of spiritual significance, but the only spiritual influence he’s had so far in London has been scaring one of my colleagues so much just…
Living in the Casa della Signora – Venice revisited
Reluctantly leaving the toasty interior of Taverna San Trovaso behind, Monsieur and I headed for the Collezione Guggenheim, or Guggenheim Collection. This is where I had served as a museum intern, many a moon ago, in the days before every kid had a mobile phone and when we all wrote snail mail, not e-mail, to…
Getting our feet wet in Venice
Monsieur and I slumbered long, that first night in Venice. In fact, we somehow slept through our alarms before finally falling out of bed at an embarrassing 11am. That was stupid. Now we’d have to move fast to make up the time. Our lateness didn’t escape the attention of the hotel receptionist. A man exuding…
Christmas
It’s now a couple of days after Christmas, that day that so many of us dread because of the pressure to buy, to wrap, to send (on time), to give, to receive, to avoid our bank balances and to steel ourselves for potential familial undoing. I am happy to report that, apart from the uphill…
Margaritas with Margarita
Splendid Becca did the unexpected: this afternoon she sent me a bottle of José Cuervo’s Margaritas with a stunning glass from which to consume this Christmas cocktail. Now, that’s what I call the incentive to drag me out of my pre-Christmas illness wallow-hollow and back into the festive spirit (no pun intended). Then, with superb…
Your last meal on the planet…
A comment from Grassroots Gourmet really got me thinking this morning. She wrote that Anthony Bourdain once stated that if he were on Death Row and had to choose his last meal, it would be Osso Bucco. That made me wonder: what would I choose as the last meal of my life? I’m still struggling to…
Osso Buco, by Billy Collins
(Photo from Politicook.com. I’m afraid I didn’t have any of my own photos to use and this one shows the bones very well.) Pat of Singleforareason sent me a link to a poem today. It relates to my Rome-ing in the Rain post, where Monsieur warms up with a hearty Ossobucco (which can be spelled…
Rome-ing in the Rain
For the previous post, From Gladiators to Gondolas… click here. Marcus Agrippa’s Pantheon is a remarkable, cylindrical structure that never dates. Its pediment proudly states: ‘Agrippa me fecit’, or ‘Agrippa made me’, and it’s little wonder that this Roman General had his name emblazoned across this building. Initially constructed in 27AD and rebuilt by Hadrian in…
From Gladiators to Gondolas: to Venice via Rome
I couldn’t believe it when Monsieur confessed he’d never been to Venice. I just about fell out of my (imaginary) gondola, before formulating an emergency itinerary and agreeing travel dates to introduce him to this dreamy city without delay. He needed little persuading. The only problem was that we’d be visiting Venice in winter, so there’d be a…
Dining in Disguise – or why Ruth Reichl is my new favourite food writer.
It isn’t often that I find a book that makes me want to read it twice in three months, but I should have known from the review that I’d want to immediately re-read Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl: “GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is Ruth Reichl’s delicious and mischievous account of her time spent as an…
Epicurienne 