Archive for July, 2009
Blog Closed for Vacation
Or, in italiano:
Yes, Bleeding Espresso is ready for a break, although I personally am not going on vacation. I’ll still be here in Badolato, still working full-time, and still making appearances on Facebook and Twitter, but without writing blog posts, I’ll have more time to spend with P’s family (many of whom are visiting from around Europe) and enjoy all the fun stuff going on here in the village throughout August:
(Click to see larger image, and then click that image for even larger print.)
Come join in if you need a ferie too!
Buon agosto!
Calabrian Olive Oil: Cossari Extravergine Olio di Oliva Biologico
Did you know Calabria, one of the poorest of Italy’s 20 regions, is actually the source of 25% of the country’s olive oil?
And that in the 2009 Guida ai Migliori Oli del Mondo di Qualità Accertata (Guide to the Best Olive Oils in the World, Quality Assured), among the top six, three were Italian–and *two* of those were Calabrian?
Yes, down here in the toe of the boot, we have some excellent olive oil or olio d’oliva — that glorious provider of monounsaturated fats, which can naturally lower your cholesterol and risk of heart disease. FYI, extra-virgin quality aka EVOO is the healthiest as it is the least processed, keeping intact all those fabulous antioxidants that also keep your heart healthy.
Now you probably don’t think of Calabria as a main source of olive oil because producers here are often families with small groves who get their olives pressed at local mills; they use the oil for themselves and their families, give some away, sell some locally, and then perhaps sell the rest to wholesalers who take our dense, robust Calabrian olive oil and mix it with that of other regions and smack a label on it as being from *that* region–probably famous for its, ahem, olive oil.
I’m not naming names, but rest assured that even some the largest olive oil companies engage in this practice–and nobody’s complaining. Hey, everyone has access to great olive oil, gets paid, and us here in Calabria? We still have some of the best olive oil in the country right in our backyards, only we get it fresh from the press. Win, win, win, right Joe of Italyville?
Well, for those of you who aren’t lucky enough to have neighbors who gift you their Calabrian olive oil, how would you like to get some of the good stuff straight from the source delivered right to your door?
Recently through Facebook, I met Vincenzo Cossari, who was born here in Badolato but has been living and working in Milan for years; after we exchanged the usual “to which family do you belong” info (and we figured out he went to school with one of P’s sisters), he sent me a link to his family’s website through which they sell organically produced Calabrian extra-virgin olive oil right here in Badolato:
Cossari Extravergine Olio di Oliva Biologico
Especially for you foodies out there, I highly suggest trying out true Calabrian olive oil at least once in your life (trust me, you’ll want more). Not only is it great for preserving fish, eggplant, mushrooms, and any number of vegetables, it’s the absolute best for preserving our beloved peperoncino.
Use this year’s oil fresh on salads and last year’s oil for frying, and you’ll soon find out why, if given the choice, most Calabrians avoid the stores and go straight to the presses for their olive oil.
If you like what you see at the Cossari website, be sure to contact Vincenzo, who speaks perfect English, at vcossari(at)hotmail(dot)it or through the contact form on the site, and let him know I sent you.
And soon you, too, can be enjoying this wonderful sapore di Calabria in the comfort of your own home.
P.S. Yes, the first photo shows olive oil in a vinegar bottle (aceto means vinegar in Italian for those who don’t know). This is because we often receive olive oil in large five liter bidoni so we transfer it to smaller, emptied out bottles for ease of pouring. Reduce, reuse, recycle baby!
What’s your favorite way to enjoy olive oil?
Love Thursday: Another Heart from Marnie
Do you remember when I featured a gorgeous water lily heart here a while back?
It had been sent by Marnie of Country Fried Stitches, and, well, it seems Marnie can’t escape the love — lucky her! Here is another from our esteemed LT correspondent:
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
Where have you seen love lately?
Remember you can always send me your love photos, and I’ll post them here!
Commemorating the Real Moonwalkers: Andrew Smith’s Moon Dust
Let’s cut right to the chase here: many of you reading this weren’t even alive on July 20, 1969.
Neither was I.
And for that reason, it’s simply impossible for us, who have always known moon landings to be possible but have never seen one live, to grasp what those days leading up to the Apollo 11 mission felt like and the wave of emotions that swirled through the 500 million people watching Neil Armstrong take his “one small step.”
But that doesn’t stop me, who has always had a fascination with the final frontier, from trying to imagine.
And one summer day in 2006, I got a little help from my old friend William, he of the orgasmic Ionian Sea view.
In one of our many morning conversations over cappuccino the year before, I had told William that one of my earliest career aspirations had been to be an astronaut; I waxed poetic about Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama (surely a uniquely American concept, no?), and how if I had been able to attend (it wasn’t even remotely financially possible), my whole future coulda woulda shoulda blah blah blah.
Well, when William came back down here the following summer, he brought me a copy of Andrew Smith’s Moon Dust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth from England; I had never even heard of it. He insisted that it was all the rage in the UK, and, indeed, it was shortlisted for the British Book Awards Best Read of 2006.
Moon Dust is Andrew Smith’s account of what has become of the remaining Moonwalkers–only nine of the twelve men who have walked on the moon’s surface from 1969-1972 are still alive to tell their stories.
Smith was inspired to pursue this idea because of what happened during a 1999 interview with Charlie Duke, who became the 10th man to walk on the moon with Apollo 16. In the course of the meeting, Duke received a call with news that Pete Conrad, third man on the moon with Apollo 12, had died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident in Ojai, California. “Ojai,” incidentally, is a Native American word for moon.
Duke plainly stated, “Now there’s only nine of us,” words that stuck in Smith’s head for years. Then he finally decided to pursue the answer to the question, “Where do you go after you’ve been to the Moon?” by tracking down all the surviving Moonwalkers to see how their lives were changed by their experiences and what they’ve been doing since their lunar days.
I devoured this book that summer, and I still think about it periodically, but it wasn’t until the coming of the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing that I picked it up again.
Just like the first time, I became fully engrossed in the stories of these extraordinary men who accomplished things I can’t begin to wrap my head around. Smith does a fantastic job of transporting the reader right there before, during, and after the moon landings, putting human faces, dreams, and feelings to names I’d only heard of.
Yes, Smith’s narrative could have been a little less about him and apparently there are some rather glaring factual errors (not that I could have picked them out), but none of that mattered to me. All I wanted to do was sit down with the Moonwalkers and just listen, and Smith’s Moon Dust gave me the chance to do just that — in many instances leaving me with even more questions about the men who walked on the moon, the space program’s past, present, and future, conspiracy theorists’ beliefs that the moon landings were a hoax and never actually happened, and so many other things I hadn’t even considered before I read the book.
Just like an excellent nonfiction book should.
Whether you were alive or not on July 20, 1969, I highly recommend this book for an amazing look into the minds, hearts, and souls of nine of the 12 most interesting men to have ever walked the earth — and the moon.
What do you associate with the July 20, 1969 moon landing?
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Introducing Carmelina: Another Kid Joins the Herd
Today should rightfully be a Going Green post according to my schedule, but I’m under several deadlines and simply couldn’t do the planned topic of water conservation justice this week, so please try to suffer through these adorable photos of Carmelina, our newest kid, instead.
Yes, we have a new girl around here, this one via a friend of P’s who couldn’t keep her. Lucky us!
And in an interesting turn of events, the guy who originally had Carmelina (before P’s friend) seems to think she may already be carrying a new little kid or two. We have to get a blood test from the veterinarian to find out, but fingers crossed that there will be kids in a few months! Yay!
All the girls are getting along swimmingly and can often be found playing around and being silly with one another. I tried to get some video of their hijinks but my camera is acting up, jumping around, losing color, generally being disagreeable. I’ll keep trying though because it really is adorable to watch.
See more photos of the girls (and some other fun shots of our tomatoes, figs, grapes, a lone pomegranate that couldn’t, and more!) on my Flickr page–and feel free to friend me if you’ve got a Flickr account! That way you can always keep up with my latest photos, and I can keep an eye on yours as well.
Ah, and if you’re still in a goatish mood, check out this goat and dog pair that were wandering around Norristown, PA together (thanks Megan!). Too cute!
Buon weekend!