A Busy Day In Italy

Modena is a small town in the flatlands of Northern Italy where they grow rice and age Parmesan and make their famous balsamic vinegar.

And this is the city that is also home to the restaurant rated best in Italy and second best in the world with three Michelin stars. The unobtrusive entrance to Osteria Francescana.

I got a table for two by repeated online efforts and making myself available when someone cancelled their place. We arrived early of course and spent some time in the nearby church veered market where naturally we bought some vinegar.

The northern plains of Italy suffer terrible winters so residents like to duck out of the fog and rain underneath the arches lining many older city streets.  In summer they offer shade:

We checked the local covered market which we had visited previously, where my wife bought some vinegar and some bottled kitchen additions, pickles and the like.  Had we an apparent,net they had vegetables fruits meats and fish which would make daily shopping quite pleasant. Apparently the owner of Osteria Francescana does just that.  

You can't bring meat back to the US but you can bring cheese and packaged foods, so we do.

Credit cards are widely accepted at your average tourist haunts but not at local stores. Italians think paying for small amounts with a credit card is weird and merchants hate paying the fees. Many would rather not have your business than deal with a card. Carry cash! Your convenience is not their priority.

One Euro is worth about $1:20 this year.A five Euro bottle of wine could be described as costing $6.  Exchange rates are complicated because bank fees and charges muddle things up. For instance they changed our rate which we snagged in the US at €1:10 which became €1:20 by the time we got our paper money at First State bank to take to Italy with us...

We got back at the eatery two minutes before time. We stood around ignoring each other like customers approaching a disreputable business and suddenly a wild haired man, thin as a stick rushed by, waved, announcing in accented English he'd be ready in five minutes. A wave of adulation and clicking cameras followed Massimo Bottura round the corner and then the doors opened. English is the first language of the Osteria with its customers. My Italian fluency took them by surprise. 

It was a remarkable meal, shown below the off-the-menu amuse bouche which by itself was fish four ways, intense falcons such that I was glad to get a mere taste and not face a whole plate of the tiny delicacies.

There were about 15 courses including the famous five seasons of Parmesan, the cheese reduced to foam, cream and mousse covered by a slice of delicately fried cheese. This dish made the restaurant famous.

I quitE liked their play on popcorn, brought to the table on a plate with a big cup. Te waiters are happy to pose for the cam area oddly. Everyone was recording their meal.  At first I was shy but my wife took these pictures for us.

Oops I dropped the lemon tart! is a dish famously created after a chef dropped the last tart and Bottura was forced to improvise. So he made the mistake into his best known dessert, offered on an artistically broken plate.  Tasted like Key Lime Pie to me but maybe I was just missing Key West.

He came by each table and said a few words.  I find it uncomfortable taking to the chef and I think he much preferred talking to the windbag behind us.he did talk about his soup kitchen program using his fame to bring attention to the idea of feeding the poor nourishing tasty food in dignified surroundings. 

That human decency alleviates the stress of paying seven hundred dollars for two lunches without wine.  We did take a glass ofbubblyItalian prosecco as an aperitif but we had a long day ahead so we chose to save three hundred bucks and not do the wine pairing.  In the end all I can say is it was an experience and I'm glad we did it but I can't see doing it again. I'd rather spend the money there than at Disney World but I am likely in a minority.

For whatever reason my wife had decided she wanted to attend an opera, something she did once as a child of which she had no memory. I have long wanted to go to the Arena di Verona, an open air opera performance in a Roman Amphitheater. The show started at nine (dusk) and we had a two and a half hour drive from lunch. I didn't know it at the time but they now offer supertitles on the advertising screens shown in the picture above. The titles are in Italian and English and were a boon to my wife who got a lot more out of the performance of Rigoletto which she thoroughly enjoyed. To her surprise.

The evening was highly atmospheric and we were smart to sit in the cushioned seats close to the action. Yeah yeah, the stone seats at the top cost $30 and you can wear shorts. Down below we paid $150 each and had to wear long pants which was okay by me. It was not at all cold either and we got to keep our wine glasses as souvenirs which was an intermission bonus.

It was a memorable road trip in Giovanni's BMW 520 which he lent to me for our last couple of weeks in Italy. So much went on in the last month it was an outing to Modena and Verona that stood out as being as varied from my regular life as was possible.

Parma and Modena

My wife wanted to see a lot more Italy this trip so when we set off from the Cinque Terre I made a plan to drive across the top of Italy through the Po Valley. The Po is one of then largest rivers in Italy, home to vast fields of grain and cronies and rice, Italy's breadbasket. It's climate is hot and sticky in summer and cold and damp and foggy in winter.

Parma is home to ham and cheese and frankly not much else. We stopped because one has to see for oneself and we found the main drag, walked it, looked in shop windows and admired the angry mass of no parking signs scattered everywhere, Key West style:

"Park anywhere on this street even with a handicapped sticker and you are fucked" but some wag added a little something to the tow away picture which made me smile.

Why not join the shared bicycle program if you haven't a bike of your own or are afraid of getting it stolen?

Well, that's Parma done. On our way to Modena, home of Balsamic vinegar we saw a dust spout in a parking lot:

I wondered if it was god telling us we had spent too little time in e City of Cheese, but when we parked the three hundred horsepower car in the lot outside the pedestrian zone and we started walking we saw his and all memory of dull Pama was forgotten.




The sun was out and Modena was glowing in orange and yellow like the sunflower capital of the Po Valley.




The arcades, more famous in Bologna, were in evidence here too, to provide shade in summer and protection from heavy cold winter rains.




We liked Modena real well as we wandered around. Madison Avenue is a miles away from here thank heavens, as nowhere did we see signs promoting this quiet city as the Balsamic Vinegar Capital of the world.




And we lost our souls when my wife the determined shopper spotted the covered market. Built in 1931 it was to replace the unsanitary medieval covered market. Mussolini did like his public works.




WalMart eat your heart out. They like their food fresh and local around here.




We inspected the fish as I never ate fish as a kid and I have no idea what fish names are in Italian (I don't know sailing terms either as I only started sailing in Santa Cruz). The lady asked of we wanted anything and when I said just looking she said typical I always draw the tourists which rather put me off taking hero tire or that of the dead octopus (pollipo) squished in the corner rathe dramatically.




But the cheeses I could not resist. Lucky my wife could because I'd have bought the lot.




This is my second favorite childhood dessert, fresh ricotta, sheep's milk curds pressed into a common or garden plastic basket to give it th distinctive ribbing apearance and eaten with heaps of sugar.




And then it was time for one more meal, and my wife came up with a doozy from Lonely Planet which she had previously downloaded to her Kindle. Trattoria Aldina is hidden away upstairs across from the covered market, we found the front door of the palazzo and tip toed in.




It was like being a member of a secret eating club and as the minutes passed the place filled and our quiet corner was suddenly surrounded by lunch time gourmets.




We tried as usual to taste the local stuff and Aldina doesn't have menus, just quick fire recitals and as my wife put it this didn't seem to be the place to split dishes and pick courses so we with the flow and it was one delicious ample flow. First local fizzy red wine, prosecco.




Then two past dishes, meat ravioli and local pasta, curled up around prosciutto and covered in a cream sauce.




Then roast veal and pork on one plate and roast lamb kebabs on the other with roast potatoes.




Then my favorite dessert of all, zuppa inglese, English soup, which is supposed to be the Italian rendition of trifle discovered in 19th century when British sailors, occupying Sicily during the Napoleonic wars introduced the pudding to Sicilian nobility.




Ten the bill, something under forty Euros and we staggered off back into the beauty of Modena.




Whose cathedral was undergoing renovation...




...but who delighted my wife with versions of what she hopes could be her next car.




Fiat paid off Chrysler's government loans six years early (eat your heart out Faux News) and the Italian press is full of the fact Fiat owns sixty percent of Chrysler with Big Plans. Me? I don't lust after the Fiat 500, I'm looking forward to Carmax getting a load of lightly used Alfa Romeos for me to pick over. Fat chance but a government employee can dream can't he?


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