Pasquetta (Little Easter)

It's Monday 24 March and we are going to the house of friends to share Pasquetta with them, the day after Easter being a national holiday when friends get together.

We had a wonderful afternoon at the house of Federico and Ling. There were 9 of us: one couple, the hosts, Taiwanese and Italian (Ling and Federico); their friends, both Italian (AnnaLisa and Nicola); mutual friends, Japanese and Italian (Kyoko and Rosanno); the Japanese friend (Akiko) of our Japanese friend Kyoko . And us. So four languages were being spoken, we laughed and had a great time, discussed a little politics. I will really miss that in America. Where do I go to find it?

The hosts are quite a pair. Federico went to Taipei to make pizza. There, he was visited by AnnaLisa and Nicola. They went with him to a disco, where he met Ling. Edi and Angel came to Verona to study Italian; in school, they met Kyoko. Kyoko had previously gone to London from Japan to study English, where she met Rosanno whose Italian company had sent him there to study English. Akiko was Kyoko's business colleague in Tokyo. That is how we all intertwine. Amazing.

Federico is an accomplished pizza maker and brioche baker. He bought a commercial oven for their apartment, and made four huge pizze for all of us. It was better than a spettacolo.

I am standing in the kitchen of Federico (Fede) and Ling, which is almost the same size as their soggiorno (living room), accomodating a large central table, two sides of cabinets and appliances as well as the HUGE commercial gas oven in the corner. This oven is Fede's pride and joy; he says that if Ling ever wants to return to Taiwan, the oven will go with them.










And this is Fede, the most enthusiastic innovative Italian I have met. He is willing to try anything, is open to anything and lives his life with gusto. It is not surprising, once you know him, that he went to Taiwan to make pizza for the Taiwanese and fell in love at a disco with Ling, a woman who is also an adventurer in life.

The first step of pizza making, the dough.

Now we are in the prep stage, setting all the toppings and grated cheese, and capers and anchovies and onions and...and...and...

These are the four pizze in the enormous oven, in the first stage of the baking.

These are the four pizze ready to eat. To the left in the photo is the GIGANTIC pasta maker that Fede just had to buy.











It was a great day.

Being a pedestrian in Verona

I have to vent a little.

The pedestrian in Verona is below dogshit. No kidding. This is the pecking order...
Buses, trucks, cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, strollers, dogs, dogshit, pedestrians.

Step off the curb into a crosswalk at peril of your life.
Be in a crosswalk without making eye contact with a driver of anything at your peril.
Try to make eye contact with a vehicle driver who is purposefully looking the other way, with his head swiveled away from you as far as it can go.
Take your eyes off the pavement of a sidewalk for an instant (i.e., to answer your cellphone) and slip on dogshit only to hear, after the fact, Attenzione, signora!
Walk on a sidewalk towards any two Veronese and expect to get shouldered out of the way.
Flatten yourself against a building to let a truck go by on a narrow street, and watch the sideview mirror pass a centimeter from your nose, at full speed.
Start to cross a street and, hearing a moto or a scooter approaching, run for your life.

This I will not miss.