A House that is Love

I saw the film “I Am Love” when it came out in 2009. And though I appreciated—dare I say “loved”—the visual style of it, the movie itself left me a little cold. And yet…and yet…there was something about it that has stayed with me since. The fact is that the film, even as it struggles to tell an unlikely love story between a man and a woman (played by Tilda Swinton), is itself a love letter to the city of Milan and, most passionately, to one architectural site in particular, the Villa Necchi Campiglio. I’ve always wanted to see the Villa, and this past weekend, I finally did.

If you are ever in Milan, you must go see it (Via Mozart 14). It is the most unusual combination of styles and feelings. It is elegant, grand, and spacious, while at the same time, cozy, lived-in and inviting. It fascinates rather than intimidates. And it all happens against a backdrop of rationalism, art deco, and “random (decorative) acts” of classicism and antiquity. The structure is calming, as opposed to cold. And the place is flooded with the most stunning light and quiet…right here, in the middle of the city.

Most touching perhaps is the degree to which the house yearns to tell its story. Every corner feels like a life lived. And in true Italian fashion, it is spectacularly open for your exploration. There are the occasional velvet cords to prevent passage, but surprisingly few, and not once did I see or hear the words “do not touch.” Nothing shines with renovation or replacement. Instead, it all languishes a bit in the passage of time. Chairs seem to have been recently sat upon. And books breathe quietly on the shelves waiting.

A google of the property will show you many more images than I have here. But I was taken with smaller details, as opposed to spaces, and that’s what I’ve tried to share with you here.

Ties that bind

Today, I had news via email from a friend I haven’t seen in years that another friend I haven’t seen in even more years is dying. I didn’t know. Living in a different country…well, these things happen. Actually, he wasn’t as much a friend as he was something both more and other: a mentor and a distant guide. One of those people that watches over you from afar even when you’re not aware of it, encourages you, tells you when “done good.” One of those people that shapes your life without you’re knowing it at the time, giving you loving pats in the right direction. Then…all of a sudden shifting gears, treating you as an equal, even maybe asking your opinion or your advice. His name is Mike Hughes. He and a lovely man named Harry Jacobs creatively headed up the Martin Agency when I had my first job there, fresh out of college. I can’t imagine how many lives he’s shaped and encouraged along the way…

 

Now, he’s dying of lung cancer. A non-smoker, diagnosed in 1995. Stage IV since 2005.

I spent a good deal of my morning reading his blog, Unfinished Thinking. (I’m not promoting his blog. God knows, this is not a time for promotion, self- or otherwise. But I am sharing it, because it’s so incredibly worth sharing.) To say the least, it’s an emotional read. Beautiful. Poignant. Funny at times. Human through and through. Lovingly articulated. Full of thought, ideas. Not surprising. The man made a living writing and thinking. And now, he’s writing and thinking about his own impending death. Until then, though, his life is so incredibly rich. And it enriched mine, and yet again, today. I can’t help feeling cheated though, that I didn’t know him better. That I didn’t give him something back.

And all the while, I kept thinking: this internet—this Net—is so amazing. Wondrous. Sometimes I loath it. Avoid it. Think it’s stripping away our humanity. But on days like today, it felt like God almost. Keeping people together. Allowing them to share the deepest most significant feelings. Letting us say what must be said and hear what must be heard. Seeing that we’re not cut off and away, even when the distances are huge. Letting us witness.

Today, I was thankful for that and so many other things. For Mike, mostly. But also for being bound up in that great painful and awe-inspiring weaving that we’re all bound up in.

Politics in tatters

Yesterday and the day before, Italians were at the polls—that is, who deigned to venture there. We tend to think that it’s one’s duty to participate in democracy by voting, but what if, really, there is nothing to vote for? What if what is good and true and decent and runs deep in the blood of your countrymen, threatens to be undone, obstructed, ignored and/or negated by the farce that is your government? What if your choice is between a liar, a comedian and a gazillionaire clown?

I’m exaggerating, maybe. I’m not really sure. I’ve never been able to follow the nuances of Italian politics, and given the sheer number of parties it would be a full-time job, requiring a mastery of the Italian language, which I do not have. But it seems to me, that this election was summed up with a great deal of head-shaking and eye-rolling, on the part of my friends, and comments which roughly translated into: “We’re really in the shit this time.” Where do you turn when economic hope dwindles every day and the people who propose themselves as solutions can’t talk seriously about solutions? What does it mean that the candidate more and more Italians began to agree with handed their own anger and frustration back to them on a platter, and at a higher decibel? Yes, there were ideas, too, and the anger was justified…but so much rage…and where does that take you in the end?

Not that American politics, lately, is anything to be proud of. It seems that the job of politicians worldwide is to oppose each other with a vengeance, dig into unsustainable positions in the interest of “winning,” and, the people be damned. I remember when Obama was elected. Even if all that potential wasn’t reached and all that hope wasn’t translated into reality, it was an amazing moment. I so wish someone new and valid and intelligent would appear for Italy.  Someone with a vision, and that most beautiful of all things: a plan!  Someone who’s not recycled from the slush heap, someone who has the power to reign in all the disparate voices and interests in the common interest of this amazing country. Someone that could speak from his heart to theirs! But I think I’m asking too much.

Every election season, Milan is full of temporary, mobile billboards that shout slogans and faces for the weeks preceding the election. It’s a blur of opinions, slurs and really good dental work. When the elections actually occur, the billboards gradually fall into tatters, and are eventually removed until the next cycle. I have always found these tatters fascinating, perversely beautiful and telling: They say more truth about the political scene than any written word. I amuse myself by giving these accidental works of abstract art the titles they seem to deserve.

Stuffed calamari: A recipe in notes and drawings

Hello again, and happy Monday morning. It’s hard to get started after such a warm, food-filled weekend as ours, so I’ll wallow for a minute or two, in what we ate which so soothed our tired urban souls. Then perhaps, I’ll be able to wrap myself around work and To-Do and things that are slightly less gratifying than cooking and eating in famiglia.

Saturday night, we treated ourselves to stuffed calamari, a rather labor-intensive dish Lidia Bastianich presented on MasterChef Italy. The woman knows what she’s doing (even though her rather extensive commercial empire is a bit off-putting. It’s hard to square that degree of mass-market success with authentic, home-cooking, but she’s warm and engaging and her food—at least this dish—does not disappoint). Our version is less precise, thrown together with intuition and  dash. But it’s delicious and satisfying and worth the effort. Here’s the recipe as she presented it:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. / 395 degrees F.

Ingredients for 2 calamari
(We make 8 small-medium sized ones for a family of 4, and adjust all the quantities accordingly):

2 medium sized calamari
1 shallot, chopped
1/2 white onion (we use lots, we love onion), chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
thyme q.b. (=quanto basta, i.e. to taste, whatever seems right)
prezzemolo, q.b.
peperoncino, q.b.
half glass of white wine
100 g breadcrumbs (a handful or so, again, q.b.)

1. Clean the calamari (see above), removing the innards, the non-edible parts of the head and the quill, or pen. Remove the fins and the long tentacles, chopping them into small bits, and setting them aside. Dry the cleaned, tubular squid bodies and set aside along with the lower portion of the head and the small tentacles.

2. In olive oil, sauté the chopped onion, shallot and garlic. When the onion is translucent, add chopped parsley, thyme and peperoncino to taste.

3. Add the small calamari bits (the chopped long tentacles and the fins), and finish with the 1/2 cup of wine, which should give a satisfying sizzle and disappear in a cloud of vapor when it hits the pan!

4. Remove from the flame and mix with the waiting bread crumbs. If your mixture seems overly dry to you, add a little olive oil, or water.

5. Stuff each empty calamaro body with the mixture, and reunite it with its head/tentacles. Sprinkle any filling that remains over and around the squids. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and place in a preheated oven for 10 minutes.

What emerges is tender and savory and delicious. Drizzle with a little olive oil if you wish, before serving. NOTE: Overcooked calamari will become tough, so observe cooking time with care.

I couldn’t resist snapping one last image. Do you know what these things are? These delicate, clear “quills” come out of the skid’s little body. I find them beyond amazing. When you hold them in your hand, they feel like very thin plastic, and they are perfectly translucent. What a constant amazement nature is! Humbling.

Color Story #11: Winter Citrus & Cedro-Love

Winter is singing its swan song. Two days ago, we all said, “Spring is in the air.” Today, we are in the midst of our last snowstorm of the season. Despite its fearsome chill, it isn’t going to have the last word. We all know it. We felt it in our bones. You can’t take that kind of certainty lightly.

So outside, the sky is humorless and frigid and frosty and white-like. And the ochres of old Italy are doing their brave best to keep things warm and cheery until the next Season takes her rightful place.

I have never been a huge fan of yellow, but under the seasonal circumstances, I crave it. I want to see it. I want to touch it. I want to smell it and eat it. And my dreams have been fulfilled, this winter, by a fruit I have ignorantly avoided lo these many years. The cedro. you see it there, above this text: that giant, yellow thing (somewhat-like-Jimmy-Durante’s-nose) trying to look prettier than it is, next to its petite cousin, the lemon. Look, I’ve peeled a bit of it for you. Can smell that? That’s the sweet sour smell of yellow! The rallying call of sunshine. Take a deep breath of that color, and let winter go!

Now here’s the part that requires courage at first, then absolutely no courage at all. You know what it’s like to eat a lemon, yes? So you might think that eating the halfmoon slices from the inside of this behemoth would have you in contortions of acidity. But it doesn’t. You might think that munching on that white spongy bit snuggled between the pulp and the peel would be, in a word, unpleasant. But it isn’t. It’s the most peculiar pleasure I’ve known these past grey, icy months. And I’ve grown to crave it, as I said—no, to need it. Like the return of warmer light and longer days and shorter sleeves or no sleeves at all.

I clean the sunny sphere then peel it, sometimes leaving little bits here and there for extra bite. Then I quarter it lengthwise and cut away the center edge of each quarter, removing the seeds and the inner, white fibrous core all in one maneuver. Then I slice each quarter into thin little crescents, trying to balance the amount of pulp and the amount of white. A drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt later, I’m deep in the middle of a Sicilian summer without leaving my Milanese kitchen. The taste, if the cedro is a good one, is startling. Lemony, yes, but without aggression. Gently, subversively lemony, with a sweetness that’s all the more touching, coming as it does from one who’s lived her life thus far in such a lumpy, unattractive package.

There are foods that make your heart sing, aren’t there? Mine belts out arias for the cedro.

NOTE: The window above is not mine. I just enjoyed it briefly last week in Piemonte. And the building is the one I see across the street every day. Bits and pieces that make up my world.

Urban Pattern #3: From Milan to Africa to Miami

I’ve been walking a lot lately. Just to get the physical and mental kinks out. There are a lot of them to unravel, believe me. But as long as there’s stuff to look at, I’m happily drugged into a state of blissful curiosity. I can’t look at the world enough.

Milan, like most cities, I imagine, is totally different in the winter than it is in the summer. But the gray and the bare and the stripped clean have their own magnetism. Skeletal shapes. Uncompromising lines. Trees that look more like ink drawings than they do like plants. The parks are full of cropped leafless bushes waiting for Spring, and they gave me my latest inspiration. Weirdly (or maybe not so weirdly), it all took me to warm places in my head, because I ended up, apparently, in Miami:

But this is how I got there:

And all of a sudden, boom, I’ve traveled from a bleak city park to the African savanna or thereabouts. It’s fun—this leaping about without limits or passports.

[If you liked this post, you might also like "Urban Pattern #1."]

Beloved

Working again, so time is short. Such is the nature of battling against deadlines. I miss the chance to blog well and with feeling. So today’s offering is tactile…something that I love and that I’d have difficulty finding the right words to describe, even if I had the entire day free. Something which sets me “right” in my daily existence: old leather. The more the years go by, the more I love these things, cherish them. I don’t remember where many of them came from. Some were handed down to me, already old and well-loved. Some I bought myself. Some just happened into my path and I kept them, knowing I’d keep them forever.