Making It Hot for Winter

As even Padua gets its dose of snow and the Christmas season rolls in, I have decided to combat the cold and make some super HOT pepper spread.

From this summer's batch of plants that thrived on my very hot southern-exposure terrace, I harvested the little red peppers and made crema di peperoncino.

Plucked plants - peppers - kitchen supplies to get started

It will keep me warm as the winter progresses. Just a dab of this stuff and your mouth is aflame! Red pepper,  garlic and salt smeared on bread. Simple. Effective. Great.

Peperoncini which also provide the perfect colors of Christmas

The finished and jarred spread of... edible fire!

Just how much piccante can you stand?

As for me - a lot.

Bring it on!

Ingenious Suburban Italian Gardening

Such a terrific solution to this gardener's dilemma: how to grow squash in a relatively small space. Just use your fence to let the vine grow vertically. And when the squash gets big and heavy, seat it on its own custom-made wooden shelf attached to the fence and hovering over the sidewalk. In no time, you'll have some great chow for some autumn risotto di zucca.

I am very proud of my neighbor's ingenuity.

For a recipe for Pumpkin risotto, click here.

Is This Garden a True Improvement?

This historic, central and hidden corner of the city looks so lovely, doesn't it? Unfortunately it's fake.

Fake in that the grass is plastic while the flowers and bushes are real. Yet that one important element of grass being fake compromises the whole beauty of the arrangement.

This is a picture of the courtyard behind Palazzo di Ezzelino, which dates back to the 12th century and is located off Via Santa Lucia. The courtyard is nestled behind the old palazzo and between several up-scale shops.

When I first came to Padua and discovered this little haven, it had a couple of marble benches and a wall full of spray-painted missives dedicated to lovers and local graffiti artists. The teenage population used its secluded nature to romantically sit together, kiss and make out.

I remember one May day in 2008 when a local artist, Sonia Furiato, decided to dedicate an art installation to the unique space for a roving exhibition I was curating, Libri d'artista per il centro di Padova (Artists' Books around the Center of Padua) . She laid dozens of white origami birds around the courtyard and something magical happened that afternoon. Kids and shoppers were drawn to the space and her action within it. They stopped in their tracks. Their faces lit up. (Unfortunately the shopkeepers didn't understand what was happening and seemed upset at the performance, as they came out and scolded her.)

Then fairly recently I walked through the space again and found it cleaned up (from the spray paint), landscaped and fake. It doesn't invite anyone to stay in the space anymore. The benches are gone. The garden looks great but lacks heart. There isn't any meaning to any of this, especially if it doesn't even have real grass.

I'm sure the shopkeepers splurged on the landscaping but don't want the hassle of cutting grass. Plus, glass needs to be weeded and no one wants to do that either. Solution: spruce it up with flowers and plastic! Such a gorgeous way to kill the spirit of a place.

Where is a city allowed to not be pristine? Only in the outskirts and under overpasses? We as humans often have an underbelly of our public persona, which is not always perfect. I believe our cities should be allowed to have similar "alternative" spaces, especially if they bring meaning to those who live there. The former version of this courtyard respected that loved, hidden and cruder part of ourselves.

Where do the teenagers have to go now to catch that minute of privacy, I ask?

The Terrace Bears its First Fruit

Tomatoes are technically

fruit,

right?

Well, I've got my first ripe cherry tomato from the terrace.

Small, very red and hopefully very tasty!

Summer's here-

Even though many people associate Italian cuisine with pasta and tomato sauce, the tomato was introduced to this country only after the discovery of America. So American land is responsible for an entire food culture on another continent. Pretty wild stuff.

Bomarzo, in tema in tempo

So my recent nostalgia about Bomarzo: Il Sacro Bosco is shared by other Italians! I came across a La Repubblica article that focuses on the wild late-Renaissance garden in yesterday's online edition. It announces the release of a book, "Bomarzo: il Sacro Bosco", published by Electa and edited by Sabine Frommel with the collaboration of Andrea Alessi.

Until now, Bomarzo has always been underrated. I am so glad it has been seen as worth of having a book dedicated to it now.

For my blog post. For La Repubblica's article.

Bomarzo: Park of Monsters

"Tu ch'entri qua con mente parte a parte et dimmi poi se tante meraviglie sien fatte per inganno o pur per arte."

These cryptic words are inscribed into the rock that makes up the statues and monuments in Bomarzo's Park of Monsters in the province of Viterbo, 90 km north of Rome. I came to this park most recently 4 years ago on a foggy December afternoon to revisit Prince Pier Francesco (a.k.a. Vicino) Orsini's mysterious park, which he originally called the Sacro Bosco (Sacred Wood) at its construction in the 16th century.

The prince dedicated the park, a Mannerist labrinth of monsters, exotic animals, mythical characters, monsters and bizarre buildings, to his deceased wife, Giulia Farnese. The architect Pirro Ligorio, who also was commissioned by the Vatican at the time, elaborated the plans for Orsini's park that walks its visitors through a "wild" woods where enormous mounds of Tartufo rock jut out in the shape of elephants, dragons, lions, giant turtles, temples, Pegasus, Orcus, Neptune, Hercules, Sirens and Sphinxes.

Is it art? Is it a mystery? Is it a park? Is it a graveyard? Is it mythical? Is it real? Some of these questions have been pondered by writers and artists who have visited Bomarzo over the centuries.

The park was abandoned after Prince Orsini's death in 1585 and was not revived until this past century by the couple, Giancarlo and Tina Severi Bettini. They are buried in the temple, with perhaps, the remains of the beloved Giulia.

No one can exactly explain the precise reasons for the collection of characters and pathway through the wood.

With that winter fog I witnessed in 2005, the mystery felt alive even 4 centuries after its creation.

You walk into a leaning house which plays with your perception of reality and construction. You start to get confused about direction and gravity as the doorways and floors tilt and the proportions become too small compared to the size of your human body.

Monsters glare at you beyond their mossy stare and frozen movement. The sun struggles to reach the ground under the blanket of foliage in the dense wood, considered a park. It is wild yet has been controlled by a human's handiwork. This is not your traditional English or even Italian Renaissance garden. Everything is exaggerated in Orsini's natural oasis, built as a monument to death.

The man was rich and depressed. He commissioned a grotesque work to be made of rock and trees. Inscriptions provoke the visit as he moves through the space:

"Voi che pel mondo gite errando vaghi di veder meraviglie alte et stupende venite qua, dove son faccie horrende, elefanti, leoni, orchi et draghi."

"Sol per sfogare il core"

I highly recommend this bizarre park of monstrosities. It's a unique experience into the past, sublime, mysterious and dark world of a former prince.

For more information, go to Bomarzo's website.

Dragon with Lions




Hercules and Cacus



Pegasus Fountain



Temple and tomb



Leaning House



Me inside of Orcus' mouth