Go 2 the Start

Time flies

The summer is passing by in a blur, but I haven't done so many fun things in a long time. Here are some scenes from the past weekend.

Friday night we rented a rowboat and rowed around Lake Anne, near where I live. I've been wanting to do this for a while, and I'm so glad we did. The evening was incredibly pleasant and cool, a rarity for mid-July in DC, and Lake Anne proved a lot more charming than it appears to be at first glance. Afterwards we ate dinner at a tapas place in one of the open-air restaurants in Lake Anne Plaza. Great way to start the weekend off.

View of Lake Anne from the rowboat

Long time, no see

I'm toying with the idea of reviving Go2theStart. I do miss blogging, and keeping in contact with all my online friends. Plus I have nowhere to put all my new photos! I can't believe it's been over a year now since I maintained this site. So let's see what happens...

Galleria Subalpina

The Galleria Subalpina is a sort-of indoor public square off Via Po and Piazza Castello. I don't have too much to say about it other than, look how pretty! I didn't explore it, just ducked in to take photos as I passed by.

I can't figure out the name of it though - the sub-Alpine gallery? When I first read about it I pictured an underground plaza beneath the Alps but it's in fact in the heart of Torino.

VISA had sponsored some kind of Olympic art contest, and the finalists were on display

The Caffe Baratti & Milano is a local institution. I'm ashamed to say I shirked my duties and didn't indulge there. This photo seems somehow very Manet-ish. Could almost be any century!

Cooking for dummies

The Washington Post has a front-page article today about the sorry state of culinary knowledge among Americans (I plead guilty!). Cookbook editors and food companies are having to dumb their recipes and terminology way down in order for consumers to understand them.

I agree - for me, terms like 'dredge' chicken are a mystery... then again, I know what it means to 'blanch' vegetables and it surprises me that people wouldn't know what 'saute' means. When in doubt, I call my mom. But what cracks me up are the examples of cooking gone terribly wrong as reported to cooking advince hotlines:

At a conference last December, Stephen W. Sanger, chairman and chief executive of General Mills Inc., noted the sad state of culinary affairs and described the kind of e-mails and calls the company gets asking for cooking advice: the person who didn't have any eggs for baking and asked if a peach would do instead, for example; and the man who railed about the fire that resulted when he thought he was following instructions to grease the bottom of the pan -- the outside of the pan.

Haha! If you lack common sense, even the most literal instructions aren't going to help! That 2nd example of greasing the pan sounds like a typical mistake for a man... not to stereotype or anything! :-P

There's a story passed down over the years in my family, of my very cooking-challenged but also mess-averse dad. One morning in the pre-microwave days, he decided he'd fry up some bacon but in order to avoid the grease splattering all over the stove and counters, he first laid down newspaper over the range. You can guess what happened next! Preventing one mess created a far larger one.

Chocolate intoxication, part 1

The Joys of Bicerin

Torino is known as a city of automobiles and the home of Fiat, but as far as I'm concerned, it should be known as the chocolate capital of the planet. The European chocolate industry was nurtured here and the combination of chocolate and hazelnuts known in Italy as gianduja was invented here. Nutella comes from Torino. And everywhere you turn in this city you're confronted with chocolate shops and cafes. On offer at most of them is a drink found only in Torino - the bicerin.

Bicerin is a layered drink of molten chocolate on the bottom, espresso above that, and whipped cream on top. You're not permitted to stir it. It's meant to be drunk as layers so that you start with sips mainly of cream and finish with pure chocolate. Somewhere in the middle they all blend together in your mouth. A calorie bomb it may be, but the drink is to die for.

Al Bicerin is the tiny gem of a cafe where the drink was invented, although you can get them everywhere nowadays. Obviously, it's a must for any visitor to Torino! It's in the charming little Piazza della Consolata and go early to avoid a wait as the place seats 30 at most. There is a chocolate boutique next to the cafe.

Here, a couple of the ubiquitous volunteers for the Torino Olympics in their colorful coats are walking past Al Bicerin cafe. There's something funny about a septuagenarian sporting a backpack!

Shh... don't tell anyone, but I think the bicerin at Pepino, a cafe near the Egyptian Museum in Piazza Carignano, is better than the original! Rumor has it that Pepino's gelato is pretty tasty too, but I never managed to make it past the bicerin bar!

Taking my bicerin Italian-style at the bar of Caffe Pepino - my hand looks gigantic in this photo

Torino memories!

I don't have time to post on this blog right now but I like to come here from time to time to enjoy the photo below, that I posted before I went to Torino. I walked through that square many times every day I was there and seeing it now brings me right back to Torino!

Where I'm staying in Torino

Just found this AP photo of Piazza Solferino in downtown Torino. The hotel I'll be staying at is situated just off this square! The oddly-shaped structure you can see in the background is part of the Olympic Atrium (sort of an info-central for the Torino Olympics)... It's close to Piazza Castello (where most medals ceremonies will be held). However, I had no idea there was a skating rink right there in the square as well! I think this is a sign... of good things to come!

A view of the ice ring in Piazza Solferino, in central Turin, Italy. One million people are expected to visit Turin during the 2006 Winter Games. Many other tourists are expected to visit the city, completely remodeled on the occasion, and enjoy its world-class food and wines, after the Feb. 10-26 Olympics. (AP Photo/Massimo Pinca)

Oh yeah. World-class food and wines are a huge part of my agenda while I'm there -- including a resumption of my daily gelato habit from last summer!

A great read

In today's New York Times, Garrison Keillor reviews American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville, a new book/travelog about America by the French writer-philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who writes, Keillor says, with the 'grandiosity of a college sophomore.'

It is freaking hilarious! Keillor's review, I mean (I haven't read Lévy's book yet). Quite clever also.

Keillor's writeup is brilliant -- brilliant I tell you! Go read it now, before it's lost forever behind the paid archives of the New York Times.

Hell hath no fury like an Oprah embarrassed

This piece by TIME magazine's television critic pretty much sums up my feelings on the Oprah Winfrey-James Frey kerfuffle:
Oprah Clarifies Her Position: Truth, Good. Embarrassing Oprah, Very Bad

In a nutshell:

What made the show such fascinating TV was that it was personal --  you-humiliated-me-and-now-I-will-vivisect-you personal -- in a way that almost never materializes on air. There may have been offenses committed against truth, against literature, against addicts and their caregivers, against persons real, fake and composite. But above all, by God, these were offenses against Oprah, and Heaven help you should you commit one of those. When Talese offered the euphemistic concession that the whole affair had been "sad," Oprah stopped her cold: "It's not sad for me. It's embarassing and disappointing for me."

I'm not a fan of Oprah. I'm not not a fan either -- but I am automatically very skeptical of anyone who cultivates a cult of personality on the level she has.

Scenes from Marquette

I really love Marquette. It's a charming midwestern college town with a nice little downtown that's, if not vibrant, at least healthy, with not a chain store to be found downtown. There's even one of those all-but-extinct family-owned department/clothing stores (Getz)... and instead of Starbucks, the lovely Dead River Coffee on Washington Street, with wonderful coffee, yummy cakes, and friendly mom and pop proprietors. For a couple lunches I headed to New York Deli for soup or bagels, which transforms itself into the Italian Place by night. And for some really fabulous candy, Doncker's is a must -- don't miss the caramel!

Ah, I miss living in a place with character and individuality. Northern Michigan University would be a fantastic place to go to college. (Can I start over?) God bless Marquette!

A view up Marquette's main street

Room 501 at the charming (if overheated) Landmark Inn

The streets were lined with individually decorated speed skate cutouts. This one is dedicated to the women short trackers who call Marquette's US Olympic Education Center home

Let's eat!

I had dinner with some of the gals at Red Lobster on the rest day. After snacking on pound cake baked by Barb (chef extraordinaire to the skaters!) and Tiggie's cheese curds, I couldn't eat too much of my dinner! But I manage to choke down some of Red Lobster's insanely delicious Cheddar Bay Biscuits™. Mmm!

counterclockwise from top left: Sue, Linde, Tiggie, Ruthie, Pattie, Barb, Linda, me

What's wrong with this picture?

Technically speaking, nothing -- they were taken by Pablo the Great, after all. I love them (and him and Denise for sharing them!) but there's something off about me in both of them!

'What's wrong with this picture' #1?

Okay, it's a trick question, since you can't easily see it. But it's that *I'm* the one standing on ice. That's just wrong! Apolo's on dry land.

 

'What's wrong with this picture' #2?
The waistband of my super-sexy black long johns is peeking out around my waist. How unbelievably dorky!

Morning in Marquette

I have a corner room in my hotel here, with a view out one window of Marquette's main street and out the other of Lake Superior. Not bad!

Sunrise over Lake Superior

Winter morning, downtown Marquette, Michigan

Lake Superior from the fire escape (I had to hold the door open with my foot to avoid being locked out in the cold!)

I do like this hotel, but it's impossible to sleep because it's so overheated in my room. Even set to 'low heat,' it's overpowering... I can't imagine what 'high heat' would produce. I turned it off before I went to the races yesterday. My room was pretty cold when I got back 9 hours later. It's either blast furnace or nothing!

I'm confused

I'm embarrassed to ask this, but -- what's the difference between the Senator McCarthy who died today and the one famous for his red-baiting during the early years of the Cold War? Weren't they both called Eugene?

I was so baffled to hear on the news that Eugene McCarthy had died -- I figured he died ages ago -- and to hear him eulogized in glowing tones! Normally he's spoken of with the scorn. Well, the one I'm thinking of, that is. Nothing of that is turning up in any of the articles about Eugene McCarthy who died today. And surely if it was a father/son then the father would have been mentioned at least in passing.

I'm confused.