We're in Germany!

On Friday, bright and early, Kim and I headed to Milan and caught a plane to Frankfurt. From there we took a train to the town of Landstuhl which houses a large US and NATO military base and hospital. Our friend, Lynn (in light colored jacket) got a job here and is working as a contract nurse in a new Traumatic Brain Injury program at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Susan, her partner and recently retired, tagged along for the ride. So, we are having a wonderful reunion, laughing, eating and helping them rearrange their furniture in their very new apartment. We'll be here until Friday and will be lucky enough to visit the base hospital and learn more about what they're doing. This hospital is now the largest military hospital in Europe and many of the injured soldiers come through here to be stabilized before being moved to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC.

It's a very different world here; stay tuned.

Springtime in Alessandria....

The past few weeks have been really, really, nice here. Every morning we have been waking to a clear blue sky and the temperature has been in the mid 60's to low 70's. We're back to our long daily walking regime, visiting locales old and new.

Springtime planting is beginning...

Garden tours are essential to plan your strategy...

Sometimes there are other priorities other than gardening...

No coats necessary today....

Flowers beginning to bloom...

The Tanaro River flows past Alessandria and is 276 km long. It has an Alpine origin, the Ligurian Alps. We haven't explored it much (prior to recently) but on one of our long walks we found an area where we could access it more easily.

The Tanaro flows past the towns Ceva, Alba, Asti, and Alessandria before entering the bigger Po River (the longest river in Italy).

"The river is highly prone to flooding. During the two hundred year period 1801–2001 parts of the Tanaro basin were affected by floods on 136 occasions, the most devastating being those of November 1994 when the whole of the river valley was affected by severe flooding and the town of Alessandria was especially stricken." (Wikipedia) Rita and her family have spoken of the 1994 flood. Her son in law, Alessandro, lost a good deal of photographic equipment in that flood. Where our little apartment stands was severely flooded as well the entire neighborhood. These trees are planted along the river and even though we don't know for sure, we have surmised that they are related to flood prevention.

The universal forsythia....

One interesting thing (for me) having discovered this "new area" of Alessandria (by the river) is that the houses in this area are more single family dwellings...some have very large yards. Because they're up against a road that runs parallel to the river, we can see in their backyards and this is interesting to a snoopy person like myself...

Great looking raised beds; makes me really miss my garden.

An intrepid explorer...

A consultant told me that these are mighty sycamore trees...

We are not sure why they cut trees like this...very unpopular in the US but quite popular here.

A few other back yards...So great to see!

Springtime in Alessandria is a good time to stop and blow some bubbles....

Sunday With Rita...

Chapter 1: A Concert and an Invitation.

Friday night, we were invited to attend a concert with Rita, Stefania, and Chiara. It was sponsored by the Association of the Women of Alessandria (Associazione Donne di Alessandria) and took place at the Museo Etnografico—a sweet little museum that covers the history of culture and trades within Alessandria. For example, there’s an exhibit regarding the famous Borsalini hats, another showing the transition of eye glasses and optometry equipment, and my favorite, a multitude of different kinds of bottle caps, sealers, corks, etc. You know when you go to peel off the very pliable metal covering that may come on a bottle of, say olive oil or balsamic vinegar—the museum alludes to Alessandria having a role in its’ creation. In other rooms there are many old, stuffed birds, minerals, and the replication of an old (1800’s?) school room. I trust you get the idea for the venue of our concert. Oh and did I remember to use the word "little"?

This was a Concerto della Primavera (Spring Concert) and included two pianists, a soprano and a mezzo soprano who are with a group from Turin-- Teatro Stabile di Torino—a repertory company from Turin. Simply stated, musically it was a really great, high quality concert. Forget the part where a gentleman walked all around the little room taking flash photography (I left my camera at home!) or the unfortunate and universal problem of people feeling free to speak their minds loudly during a concert, or bizarre cell phone tunes going off because there’s no request to turn them off prior to the concert, or large stuffed cranes and eagles looking down upon the audience; forget all that. The music—Rossini, Schumann, Tosti, Mozart, Puccini, Chopin, Verdi, Bellini was wonderful. We were in and out within an hour and a half, a perfect amount of time for both Kim and me. Rita tells us that the mezzo soprano, Ivana Cravero is quite famous throughout Italy. So, it was very kind for them all to come to Alessandria and give us a free concert!

At some point during the evening Stefania let us know that she and Chiara were going with her husband to Florence for the weekend. Hearing that got me to thinking that this would be a good weekend to invite Rita to our apartment for Sunday lunch/dinner—my turn to cook and show her that I am not as inept as I appear in her kitchen. So, on Saturday as Kim and I headed out for a long afternoon walk (another future blog) we invited Rita to dinner the next day. She quickly stated that she would bring the squash cappelletti but I told her no, that I was going to prepare something that I thought she’d never had (yes, again, my Middle Eastern fare but I wanted something really different). She looked inquisitive when I said “hummus” and “baba ganoush” and just said, “va bene,” okay.

Chapter 2: Sunday

Rita was due at our place at 1PM; she chose the time and told us that she really prefers to have her big meal early in the day and not in the late afternoon or evening. All was well under control until about 12:15 when all of a sudden, our electricity just went out—and the small detail that the chicken wings which were baking. Fortunately our stove top is gas and so I was pretty much able to carry on with everything else; I moved the chicken from a baking realm to a low frying realm. Meanwhile Kim remembered at the last minute that she wanted to buy baklava from our local Turkish kabob place and headed out to do that.

The menu was marinated Middle Eastern style chicken wings and thighs, hummus, baba ganoush, rice with cinnamon and hazel nuts, a version of pita bread, and the baklava. While Kim was off on her mission, I heard our gate open and there stood Rita—ten minutes early and asking why our gate buzzer didn’t work. I didn’t answer right away because I was thrown off a bit by her early arrival AND by the fact that in her arms were: a bottle of wine, a container of fresh fruit, a large bowl of squash pasta, and a beautiful, large chocolate torta. We had invited Rita to dinner and she decided to cater it….

Ahh, the grazie, grazie’s flowed from my mouth as I tried to find room to put down her catered meal. I try to tell her that I am a few minutes behind because of the electricity outage to which she replies, “What electricity outage”? I show her that our power is out and she says in broken, but authoritative English, “Come with me” and she heads out the door and takes me to a part of the courtyard where there resides a box filled with keys. Just outside the complex gate are two huge locked panels that I’ve noticed but never knew their purpose. She fits in the key, opens the panels and there before us are over 50 electrical switches. She contemplates which one should be ours, flips the switches and sends me home to see if it worked; you know it did. Just as we were closing up the panels, thankfully, Kim appeared and we moved back inside to shining lights, a working oven and food galore.

Chapter 3: Give Me a Fork!

Our kitchen and dining area is quite small. I have zero counter space so tend to utilize our dining room table for my food preparation. With Kim having run out for dessert, the table was still in chaos because it is usually Kim’s job to set the table and get that part ready while I finish cooking. I quickly went back to work finishing up my final steps before serving the chicken and rice. Kim was quickly trying to get the table organized and Rita opened the bottle of wine and began explaining to us that this particular type is not popular with men..."Perche no?" I asked and she told me it is a "frizzante" style vino and none of the men in her family like it. I felt sooo like adding that it was similar to "Real men don't like quiche" but guess what language deficiency got in my way? So we moved on and Rita began asking about the bowls of food and I began trying to explain their contents and the various ingredients. I taught her about the spice sumac and we had a taste test. We also discussed the various types of rice (riso) and we examined the grains of the three types I had--arborio, basmati and long grain (she pretty much sticks to the classic arbori for risotto and rice salads).

She put servings of the hummus and baba on her plate along with some rice and said, “Give me a fork”. I quickly handed her one and she began eating her dinner….Never mind that I hadn’t finished serving or that Kim was still trying to clean the table after my food prep and organize the table settings—it was time to eat! I quickly began putting the chicken pieces on a plate and Rita said basically, “No, no; serve from the pan” to which I replied, “presentazione e importante”. “Va bene” she says. By this time I was almost beside myself trying to not laugh. This woman who is always dressed to the nines, serves her meals with crystal and silver has just decided to chow down and ignore the fact that not only had we not served ourselves anything yet, we weren't even seated!

Oh, what can I say other than it was one of those times when you had to be there and have to know Rita to truly understand how funny this was to us. Soon, we joined her and began taking delight in all the food (pasta too!) talking about ingredients and recipes and complimenting one another on each of our creations. For me, the ultimate compliment was that Rita asked that we empty the fruit container so that she could take home a plate of leftovers. So, after a meal of chicken, rice, hummus, baba ganoush, pasta, fruit salad, chocolate torte, and of course wine, we all looked at one another and said it was time for a walk….

Fruit and a chocolate torte.

Chapter 4: A Walk to the Cemetery

Rita’s husband died in May of last year and every other Sunday she walks to the cemetery to place flowers at his vault. By now, you our blog readers know that we like visiting the cemetery and go fairly often; this was our first opportunity to go with Rita. During our walk (yes, Rita did tell me that I probably would get cold because I had a light jacket…) we talked of many things--politics, immigration issues, "The Pope," growing car sizes, gas mileage and family stories. After she'd spent time at her husband's vault, we walked more and she led us to a part of the cemetery we'd never seen--the Jewish section.

For the most part, the area is unkempt and very different from the rest of the cemetery where there are no weeds or fallen (knocked over?) tombs, many flowers and a constant stream of visitors. I read that after WWII, most surviving Jews left this area and moved to Turin where there is a much larger community.

Newer looks...

This is more typical and just a few yards away from the above picture.

Faces from the past....

This seems to be a monument (though neglected) to those murdered--it's an oven.

From the Jewish section, she showed us the children's section.

It is looked over by the Madonna and Child....

So, after a long walk where so much was discussed and discovered, we headed home.

And this ends our story about our Sunday with Rita.

The End.