When one thinks of great Italian wines, immediately the great reds pop into mind: Brunello, Barolo, Chianti, Amarone, etc. World class wines that are in demand all over the world. When one thinks about white wines, however, different associations are made. Food friendly, quaffable, light, cheap, and so on. There are some great white wines…
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Simply delicious” Spaghetti with Clams
I have noticed that the so-called great cooking experts are creating a violence against decent cooking that actually is surprisingly simple. They will add complexity for its own sake, add surprising taste sensations when none are needed. Among the unnecessary ingredients I have found are lemon juice, white wine, bottarga, various herbs and extraneous spices.…
Bagels in Italy
What do you do on a snowy day in Bologna? Today it started to rain but ended up snowing—very nicely. But I came across an interesting bagel recipe. It seemed simple enough to make the dough. Once the dough was made I could ignore the rest of the instructions as I knew better how to…
La Famiglia Sagre I: Porcini!
Sagre is an Italian word for a festival. It is a kind of cross between a low-brow foodie event and something like a state fair. Like the Gilroy Garlic Festival, a Sagre has a single theme. The theme is a celebration of some type of famous local cuisine. They have Sagre’s for almost every type…
Fringe 14: Opera and Horror
It is now Tuesday 2 days before we leave. We started the day with our morning coffee. We went to a coffee place called the rooster, and indeed I found a rooster painted in chocolate ontop of my cappuccino. Then onwards for a tour of Edinburgh Castle and afterwards we were hosted to a high…
Fringe Day 13: Erricone to Gilbert and Sullivan
Today’s Fringe festival was a low-key day. It started with a lazy morning and then going to a lunchtime concert at St. Mary’s Cathedral. It featured a youthful all-female ensemble called, the Soteria Piano Trio. They played a varied program. The first half was modern music, but not atonal at all. The core of the…
Dungeons and Drag Shows
Today, Sunday 13 August, was a lazy day. We had only a show at 6:00 and we decided to use this as a down day. Eli went out on his own. As I ran out of clean socks so I ran over to Marks & Spencer to buy a few new pairs (they had a…
Saturday Queer Stories and Opera
Saturday, we had two shows but they were in the late afternoon and then late evening. So we started the day out going to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Gallery Number Two (yes that’s it’s name). It had a nice but simple collection: a single Monet, 2 Picasso’s, 1 Leger, and a smattering…
Fringe 8/11 tale of two monologues
It does warrant discussing the venues of the Fringe. There are literally hundreds of venues from temporary trailers, to converted hotel conference rooms, classrooms, theaters and a variety of other strange spaces like extra rooms in a cavernous bar or restaurant. I’ll try a better job of taking pictures of the venues. Friday was a…
Fringe Aug 10
Every morning we have a 1-2 kilometer walk to the venue in central Edinburgh. Usually I get up in the morning and have a cup of tea with the free breakfast that comes with the room while Eli sleeps in. Teens need more sleep than adults. I also use that time to call friends and…