Gypsy Kitchens: Linguine with Clams

Last night we made one of the easiest pasta dishes someone can make. We were feeding three - my brother, Luke, is in town - and didn't want to spend a lot of time on dinner. At the grocery, we picked up a kilo of small "vongole veraci," which are also called carpet clams (an unappetizing name). The other ingredients: olive oil, cherry tomatoes, garlic, parsley, lemon zest, red chili flakes and some kind of pasta. We chose linguine, but this dish was very popular in Puglia, where most cooked it with orecchiette. One other ingredient, a splash of whatever (white) wine you are drinking, can be replaced by water or dry vermouth.
The cooking process is fantastically simple. Begin by putting the pasta water on the stove. While it's coming to a boil, rinse the clams well and discard any that are very broken or have opened on their own. In a large pan (larger, in fact than this very big, Lodge skillet) heat up a generous amount of olive oil (1/3 cup, say) with a good dose of chili and the lemon zest. The spice can be varied to suit your taste, but remember that it will be tempered somewhat by being cooked. 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon zest should be good.

When the oil is quite hot, add the clams and spread them out so that as many of them as possible are touching the pan. Let them sputter and hiss for a minute or two, then splash in a little liquid (wine, water, vermouth). At this point, the shells will begin to open up. You don't have to cover the pan - actually, I would suggest that you keep it uncovered. After a minute or so more, add the cherry tomatoes (quartered), garlic (finely minced) and parsley (however you want it), and stir everything together.
Near the end of the above process, you should have put the pasta into the water. Timing, here, is key - the trick is to undercook the pasta and have it ready to add to the skillet at about the time the clams are done cooking. It NEEDS to be undercooked. This isn't a matter of taste preference, and I'm not talking simply "al dente." The pasta needs to be pretty underdone because it is going to continue to cook in the skillet.

As the clams open up, they release liquid into the pan along with the wine and the tomato juice. It's a good idea to keep the heat somewhat low (medium, really) so that the liquid doesn't boil off. When you add the pasta to the skillet, it's important to mix well so that it gets right down into the juice. The liquid will be absorbed, giving taste and creaminess to the starch.
When the liquid is mostly gone and the pasta is done, scoop it out onto plates and serve right away. The taste is terrific - it's a great way to accentuate both the flavor of the clams and the taste of the linguine (or orecchiette, or spaghetti...) without muddying the dish up with other notes. We ate it perhaps too fast, followed by a delicious salad that Rebecca made: fennel, apple, parsley, pecorino and lambstongue greens.

For those of you who'd like a simpler, more linear version of the recipe-

Ingredients:

2 pounds small clams

1 pound pasta

1/3 cup olive oil

3 garlic cloves, crushed and minced

8-12 cherry tomatoes, quartered

1/4 cup parsley

1/4 cup wine, water or vermouth

1 teaspoon lemon zest*

Red chili flakes to taste

- Begin to bring pasta-water to a boil.

- In the largest pan you have, heat the oil with the lemon zest and chili flakes until very hot.

- Add the clams and cook for two minutes. Add wine, then cook further, uncovered, until most clams are open.

- Start cooking pasta.

- Add tomatoes, garlic and parsley to cooking clams, reducing heat if too much liquid is being lost.

- When pasta is about two minutes away from being al dente, strain and add to clams. Mix everything together well. After two to five minutes - or when most of the liquid has been absorbed and the pasta is done - remove from heat and serve.

*Note: when you zest a lemon, make sure that the fruit is either unwaxed or that you have scrub-cleaned the peel under very hot water.

Pope Sighting #1

Every Sunday at noon, the pope recites a blessing from his window. With the marathon just about finished up, we moved into the square to wait for a glimpse of Pope Benedict. A crowd had begun to gather, the largest we've seen in Vatican City so far and they all seemed to be facing toward the same line of windows. We followed their lead and began to wait.

More and more people arrived with heads tilted upward toward the block of curtained rectangles. One window in the corner had a golden curtain instead of a white one and we assumed that signified "papal." I wanted to get it right because I wasn't sure how long the pope-pop-out would last. When I noticed a large film camera focused up higher than my target, I decided to reposition. I figured, if they don't know where the shot is, who does?

Then, there he was! Pope Benedict XVI himself. What a strange thing it must be for a man who submitted his bishop resignation papers three times and was given a promotion instead to hear his name being chanted by a gaggle of tourists and pilgrims. Poor guy just wants to live in a Bavarian cottage and write books, or so he has said.
The crowd really did go wild for ole Joseph Ratzinger. The blessing lasted a little under an hour and groups of people would squeal when he switched into their language. It reminded me of people WOOing at a concert when their neighborhood is shouted out by the performer. Where all my Latin speakers at?!?
Banners were held up and flags were waved. I caught at least one person sobbing. I can only imagine how crazy it must have been when John Paul II, the rock star pope, gave his addresses. It must have been like Times Square during TRL. Man, the late 90s early 00s were awesome.

Then, Benedict went back inside and the crowd quickly dissipated, streaming out of Vatican City down the street where the last marathoners had passed through just an hour earlier.

The First Supper

As you can tell, we have begun our two weeks in Vatican City - the smallest sovereign state in the world. Since embarking on this trip, we've gotten a lot of "even Liechtenstein?"s, but surprisingly few exclamatory questions about the Vatican. I guess it's because it's chock full of stuff to see. As one of my friends put it, "I could spend two weeks just looking at the Sistine Chapel." We may just spend two weeks waiting on line to see the Sistine Chapel. Anyway, something we've been looking forward to is our rental apartment, as close to Vatican City as humanly possible. And the chance to cook.

Our first dinner was eaten in a sort of hunger panic, so taking pictures of it didn't work out so well. We started off with some never-before-seen large Carr's table crackers with gooey gorgonzola and a homemade Aperol spritz. Seriously, do they have these double-sized Carr's in America these days? We were amazed.

Obviously, one of the best things about having a kitchen is being able to keep and eat leftovers. Merlin had quite a bit of steak left and a bunch of the salad and carrots we made also survived. So, we would up being able to take pictures of our first supper-cum-lunch after all.

And what a lunch it was. Our kitchen not only has a gas stove, an oven, an immersion blender, a juicer, a coffee machine and a dishwasher. It also has a toaster. You can tell you're in Italy when your rental has more than just an electric stove and a microwave. (Though, we're not technically in Italy anymore. So, I guess Vatican Cityians have a respect for cooking as well).

My dinner was decidedly more "lenten" both in size and protein. It consisted of white fish and didn't survive the evening. So, a quick sautee of mushrooms became my sandwich meat.

Marathon Day

Isn't Marathon in Greece?

Yesterday we watched as thousands of runners streamed by the Vatican, which was at the approximate fifteen kilometer mark of the race.
We arrived early at Via della Concillazione - the grand boulevard that runs from the Tiber to St. Peter's Square - to find it almost deserted. There were a few policemen and a couple of photographers, but not many others. Suddenly, a pack of motorcycles and a large stair-car came screaming around the bend, followed closely by a small group of men running very, very fast. We were pretty unprepared and didn't have any time to get into position, so our photos weren't great. This is the group of leaders, though. The man who ultimately won the race, Dickson Kiptolo Chumba, a Kenyan, is the last runner in this picture. He's wearing red and only his arms, shoulders and head are visible.

The frontrunners were gone quickly, leaving us with an empty street again. Having never seen a Marathon in person, I was surprised by the speed of the running (there were much slower people to come), and by how much separation these men had gained after only fifteen kilometers.
A trickle of others began making the turn a few minutes later. The photographers and early fans left when the famous faces had gone by. Soon, though, more people began showing up - both in the race and along the course. This view is up Concillazione, with St. Peter's Basilica in the background.
As the morning went on, the mood became more festive. A band showed up in formal police regimentals and intermittently blasted a snippet of song. Behind them, from speakers mounted to the Vatican colonnade, Sunday mass was being broadcast.
We set up shop near the halfway point of the boulevard, taking pictures of interesting people. The second thing that surprised me about the marathon: how many people wear costumes. These two were part of a group of four dressed as Romans, appropriately enough. When we saw them, we wondered why there weren't more like them.
This guy was one of the most enthusiastic about having his picture taken. A middle aged, breathless couple actually stopped in front of us and demanded that we take their camera and photograph them with the Vatican in the background. A third thing I was surprised by at my first marathon: how many people had cameras strapped to their hats or in their hands. Also, the number of people taking pictures on, looking at or messaging with their phones - as they ran!

The best part of the spectator experience became watching people cross the street. There were volunteers at the crosswalks, trying to dissuade people from crossing. If it was apparent that they were dealing with someone very stubborn, the guards would sometimes allow them to cut through during less-crowded moments. This old man shuffle-sprinted across slowly, weaving his granddaughter (daughter? abducted child?) through annoyed runners.

In general, the bulk of the people we saw were energetic and enthusiastic - this being less than a third of the way into the race, it's good that they were. We left as we began to see more people struggling.
It was a perfect day for running, it seemed. The air was cool, the sky was blue, Rome looked beautiful. We wandered along the colonnade, looking out past the "border" at the athletes, listening to the singing from inside the basilica.

The woman who won the race, Ethiopian Firehiwot Dado, took her shoes off before the finish line, paying homage to the woman who won the 1960 Rome marathon. You can read more about her here. The amazing thing - she took her shoes off and STILL won by more than two minutes.

Things Italian People Like

Pinocchio. Italians seem to really like Pinocchio. Maybe they don't like him as much as they are proud of their great contribution to children's literature. There are a lot of souvenir shops in this country and every one of them is filled with the wooden boy. We saw posters for a Pinocchio themed circus, a Pinocchio themed water park. I honestly saw more Pinocchios than Mona Lisas (though that may be because they're a little peeved that she lives in France).
Gelato. It's not just for tourists who are looking to fill up before Praying and Loving. It's served just about everywhere. What was most surprising to me was the fact that if someone offered gelato, they always offered at least eight flavors. One flavor that kept popping up was Zuppa Inglese (which my mom chose, in the center, above). It was basically gelato with pieces of 'zuppa inglese' in it (sponge cake which has sopped up liquor and been drizzled with cherry and chocolate). Looks: 5. Taste: 8.
Aperol Spritz. Italians like Aperol Spritzes so much that bartenders call it simply "a spritz." It's made with Aperol and either prosecco or white wine and always served with a slice of blood orange. Sometimes a splash of tonic water is added and/or a green olive - which tastes better than you would think. Aperol is like a sweeter, less alcoholic Campari. It sites rhubarb, bitter orange and gentian among its ingredients. For the record, this was the only spritz we ever saw in branded glassware.
Covering Pizza with Prosciutto. Any time we sat in a restaurant that also functioned as a pizzeria, we would see pie after pie come out of the oven and then proceed to have one long, thin sheet of prosciutto after another laid upon it. Vegetable pizza, mushroom pizza, cheese-less pizza, it didn't matter. I worried for the poor waiter who then had to distinguish which pie was which at the table.
The Piaggio Ape. The vehicle was created after WWII by the man who came up with the other most-liked-by-Italians-vehicle, the Vespa. We saw them in every part of Italy except for, thankfully, the autostrada. This isn't an excellent picture, but imagine it loaded up with hay or crates of tomatoes or a few pigs - then, imagine a large, burly man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth filling the entire cab. Another ape variety we saw quite often had a covered back, like a vespa van as opposed to this vespa pick-up.
Driving Erratically. It's hard to get an adequate illustration of the Italian love of driving erratically, but if this is your average parking job, you can just imagine...
Autogrill. The final car/driving related thing, I promise. Autogrills line the autostrada in Italy and there's even one in the center of Rome, which has constant lines of motorcycles and vespas parked outside. We dined there once and in true Italian fashion, were given a slice of warmed bread and a packet of extra virgin olive oil with our better-than-average packaged salads. When I looked up Autogrill, I discovered that its not only the largest retail-catering company in the world's travel sector, but its majority shareholders are the Bennetons. What's funny about that is the fact that United Colors of Benneton stores have been everywhere. Literally every town has at least one if not three (men, women, maternity/children). What Gap is to the US, Benneton is to Italy. So, basically, Autogrill is like a Gap-owned Cracker Barrel (without the country store).

Honorable Mentions

Good food, good wine and sunglasses should go without saying.

La Pausa. This is the two to four hour break in the middle of the day, which seemed really lovely in theory, but was actually quite frustrating in practice. Nothing makes you feel more American than discovering your need to get errands done trump your admiration for the concept of the siesta.

Wishing Each Other A Good Day. No matter how busy an Italian is, they will always take the time to wish someone a good day as they arrive and as they depart. Two people will interrupt their conversation to simultaneously greet a new arrival. A person standing next to you at a counter, with whom you have made no contact whatsoever, will wish you a good day as you pay up. During our time in Tuscany and Umbria, every "bon giorno" came with a smile.

Emergency Pulls in the Shower. We're pretty sure that it is actually required by law in Italy to have an emergency button in a hotel shower. So, maybe this isn't so much something Italians like as it is something they do. Even still, if you're ever in a shower in Italy and see a string hanging from somewhere high up. Do. Not. Pull. It.

The Trani Port

We are here in Trani, a small, sleepy village on the shore of Puglia. The town's center is its port, which is pretty but small - this is not a deepwater harbor and the yachts are understated by Mediterranean standards. It's a pleasant place to walk around, with a few places to eat or get a glass of wine and a thriving - if not exactly lively - fishing scene.
Not always so demure, Trani was once the most important port on the Adriatic. During the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, this region was among the most thriving on the peninsula, and the city maintained trading consuls as far away as England and Holland. Frederick II departed for the crusades from this harbor and the port was rivaled in Italy only by Venice.
Of course, things changed and the town has been somewhat forgotten. Today, its main industries (other than tourism) are centered inland, where a few large marble and olive oil companies are based. The port is quiet right now, and most of the boats moored at the piers are small pleasure craft. We've seen a couple being motored out past the breakwater, but the town feels very settled into its offseason slumber, and the owners of these boats are likely elsewhere. At night, when it's been breezy, the wind howls through the empty masts and makes a very empty, haunting sound.
There are, of course, locals who work on their nets and sell their catch from small crates. The fish (that we see) are generally small and well-picked through, but are plentiful and appear to arrive constantly on the piers.
There are more shuttered restaurants than open ones - but the places that are taking customers right now have terrific fish. We've eaten better than almost anywhere else, and the food has been fresher than what one can typically find in the middle of March. Cooks take great pride in showing off their ingredients - fish are almost always brought to the tableside live (or nearly live), to be inspected before meeting with the knife and olive oil. Men in kitchen clothes are omnipresent at the waterside, standing and talking with the fishermen.
The dock market seems to never end - there are people selling fish at eight in the morning and at eight in the evening. The hum of generators begins sometime around dusk, when electric lights are turned on and people come to the dock after work to pick out something for their frying pans.
I imagine that there's a different, more hectic scene here in August, when there are more people at the water to buy gelato than seafood. It's nice to be by the shore when it's quiet and not feel as though the town has completely gone into hibernation - there is a feeling of camaraderie and a winter energy. Last night, when a local couple caught us looking across the restaurant at their sardines, they told the waiter to bring us a plate of them. They were delicious, lightly fried and accompanied only by a wedge of lemon. The people in that place - the couple, the waiter, the chef - were really proud of their fish.

Watch Your Head

On our drive back to Trani from Castel del Monte, we spotted a stone archway in a field and pulled over to take a look. As we were getting back in the car, we noticed that on the other side of the same road was a group of these cone shaped stone structures.
The tiny dwellings, taller than me but shorter than Merlin, were in excellent condition and - unlike the archway we first discovered - were free from litter accumulation.
Inside was cool and moist feeling and the stonework was simply amazing.
Light came through the top, the point of the cone, and illuminated just how precisely and skillfully the thin smooth stones had been piled up. After a quick google of "cone shaped stone dwellings near Castel del Monte," I found out that the structures were trulli (conical stone dwellings specifically found in the Puglia region of Italy). Communities built them without any mortar or cement so that they could be dismantled if a taxation inspector was coming to their village. It was their way of dodging any fees for owning property.
I also found out that the specific field of them we'd stumbled upon is for sale. Apparently, buying trulli real estate is a new craze amongst English and German tourists. At least according to Wikipedia and Lonely Planet.

Trulli usually date back to around the 15th century, something that initially disappointed us. Due especially to their diminutive size, we assumed they were more ancient. It's amazing how much Italy will spoil you on something actually seeming old.

Castle Hunting: Castello dei Monte

Frederick II (who also built Trani Castle, among others) built a mysterious hilltop monument that can best be called a castle - but probably was never intended as a defensive structure or even a palatial residence. In fact, not much is known about the reason for its existence, other than its grand statement of beauty and power.
The castle was built during the 1230's in the form of an octagonal prism, with octagonal towers on each of the eight points. The design is somewhat unusual, and is thought to be a metaphorical translation of the relationship between square earth and circular sky. The structure was originally faced with marble (instead of the current sandstone), but it was stripped by vandals along with much of the interior. We weren't allowed to photograph the rooms inside, so we didn't linger and aren't able to show you what they look like.
The building is barely defensible, having no moat and only a small, poorly protected door as an entrance. It wasn't necessarily built as a palace, though, because there is no kitchen and few creature comforts inside. It is thought that king Frederick built it partly as a hunting lodge and partly as a religious and monarchial symbol. Not much is known about his purpose, though, or about the people who designed and built it for him.
It's location is impressive enough - the walls are visible for several miles in all directions, on top of the hill. The land rises up out of olive orchards and some rocky, sparsely-grassed pastures. We drove along roads bounded on each side by ancient stone walls and wound our way towards our goal on a bright, hot afternoon in March. It wasn't too disappointing that we weren't able to get better pictures because the experience was so strangely beautiful.

Castle Hunting: Castello di Trani

We came to Trani because we didn't find a place to stay in another town - it's beautiful here, and we found a terrific seaside castle just a short walk from the central port. It's a blocky, white thing that gleams in the sun and looks much newer than it really is. We took a little walk around it and went in for a minute - much of the interior is "under renovation," so we didn't get many pictures inside.
The castle was built between 1233 and 1249 by Frederick II (1194-1250), the Holy Roman Emperor and king of Sicily. One of the most powerful of the Medieval kings, Frederick was also - as "King of the Romans" - the ruler of Germany, Italy and Burgundy, though his claim on those lands was somewhat tenuous. In this part of the world his rule was absolute, and he had an enormous impact on the area's development. He built dozens of castles in southern Italy, becoming known as "stupor mundi," or "wonder of the world."
Trani was an important port in the early part of the last millennium, and Frederick expanded it as a major embarkation point during the crusades. Part of the expansion included building a defensive structure to guard against attack - the castle was much more impressive, though, than probably was necessary. It survived in its original shape until the sixteenth century, when it was renovated to house a cannon battery. Interestingly, part of this renovation included lowering the original towers. Apparently, the advent of gunpowder based warfare made high towers a danger to castle defenders. If the towers were damaged enough to fall, they posed a risk to the people inside. Also, it was more difficult to aim cannons from higher points, so lower walls became an advantage.
The original moat was connected with the sea by a series of locks that regulated its depth and allowed it to be drained at low tide or filled at high tide. It was an oddity when it was constructed, and no longer is part of the structure. A drawbridge originally connected the courtyard with the surrounding land, but it was replaced in the 19th century when the building was turned into a prison. The clock, also, was added, and the flooding system was done away with because it made it easier for prisoners to escape. These days, the rock beach below the walls isn't especially inviting, but it makes a beautiful tumbling, rain sound when the waves wash over it.
The contrasting white, geometric blocks and seawater create a strange kind of dichotomy between solidity and liquid that is especially striking in the extreme sunlight. Close to noon, it was difficult to rest the eyes on any of the surfaces.
There is really only one vantage point on land from which to view the castle - the rear walls are hemmed in very closely by buildings and an ugly, trash-filled gulch. There is a breakwater, though, that can be reached from the port. It offers a beautiful view of both the castle and the town cathedral, which was built just before the defenses. We stood in the wind and watched some people fish in the Adriatic.