Author Archives: Larry

Genova Window Shopping

The Galleria Ferrari is one of my favorite places in Genova; it has some lovely shops and nice restaurants, but my favorite part is all of the used book dealers who daily put out their stock. It was fun to browse the titles neatly arranged on the tables, including some of my favorites like Pride and Prejudice or the Count of Monte Cristo, but it also made me a little sad to realize that most people walking about including me, would not be buying books to take home.

Window shopping is a great pleasure in this city; the shop clerks are still encouraged to use their creativity to display their wares, whether it is pastries, fruit, candies or clothing. I loved the chocolate sardines in their own “tins,” the peacock competing with the varied colored candies, or the lovely men’s suits and accessories. There’s really no reason to buy anything when it is just so much fun looking.

It’s spring time,of course, so everyone needs to buy some flowers or plants to greet the season. The weather has been interesting with a mixture of cool rainy days and mild sunny ones. Yesterday it was bright and sunny with hardly a cloud, but then just around dusk a front moved through with thunder and lightning & a cool breeze. This morning, I had to pull out my fleece for my walk to school but then packed it away in my backpack as I strolled about the shopping district.

Of course as someone remarked to me, it always seems to be noisy in an Italian city: I would love to experience this city filled with quiet Electric Vihicles, rather than the noise and buzzing of the scooters, motorcycles, and buses. Do you think that this crazy war with Iran will help make people aware of how much we need to quickly move to renewable energy to power our transportation needs? One can but hope.

Walking & Eating in Genova

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I spent much of of the weekend walking around Genova. The weather was great—temps in the low 70s (22-23 C) with blue skies and a very light breeze. Both days I walked over 15,000 steps—not on purpose, mind you, but Genova is a fairly big town with half a million folks that stretches over a hilly terrain up against the Ligurian Sea Walking is usually the only option since I don’t know the town well enough to use the Metro or buses, and I am too cheap to get a cab.

On Saturday I was on my own as I haven’t formed a group of buddies at school as happened during my time in Alberobello a couple of years ago. That’s ok…it’s hard not to have a good time, even solo, and Google Maps helps getting around without getting lost. The Galata Museum of the Sea was recommended to me as a destination, so I decided to give it a try. Genova has a long history of seafaring, dating back to the Roman Times.

The museum, however, was a mixed bag—starting off well with a life sized model of a Medieval Galley and a good section on Christopher Columbus—but with each floor going up, the displays got more chaotic and haphazard & I got more frustrated and tired. (Six floors and no elevator or any that I could readily find and utilize.)

One interesting fact: more than a million Italians emigrated, mostly to the States and Latin America, from Genova during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The photos below show a globe almost contemporaneous with Columbus, a 19th century picture of Genova, and a mid 16th century map.

At the end of the experience, you return to the entrance where you can pick up a hard hat and walk over to a WWII era submarine floating in the harbor. Walking through the boat, you have to ask yourself “who would be comfortable serving on a submarine, in a war or not”—certainly not your’s truly.

Fortunately, leaving the submarine, you are confronted with your choice of several restaurants in which to eat lunch. I chose the Love Restaurant (that’s what it’s called) where I ordered a tall mug of cold beer and a plate of mussels (cozze). Le cozze were incredibly scrumptious, the beer was ice cold, and a tiramisu and coffee topped off a perfect repast. I sat at the restaurant savoring my food and watching the tourists popping up out of the submarine for well over an hour, enjoying the beautiful spring day.

I liked the restaurant so much that the next day, when my house companion, Patrick, and I failed to find a restaurant in the historic center of town that he thought he remembered, I suggested we walk a little further to the Love Restaurant. He agreed, and pretty soon he had ordered spaghetti with clams and I, risotto ai frutti di mare (seafood risotto). WOW…the risotto was even better than the mussels. Being full, we decided to skip dessert, but succumbed to the lure of artisanal gelato on the way back to the house.

Patrick is from Hamburg, and he has lived and worked in Italy several times over the last decade. As you can imagine, his Italian is a lot better than mine, making conversation with the Signora a lot easier. Speaking of the Signora, she has invited us to dinner tonight as a special treat. She is obligated only to provide breakfast. I bought a dessert to share, and Patrick has decided on a bottle of wine. I plan on letting him handle the dinner conversation, as I get tongue tied trying to respond to her questions.

The second week of school started today.

Learning to Cook Traditional Genovese Pasta

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The school arranged for three of us to take a Genovese cooking class this past Thursday: two Brazilian ladies, Irma & Zilma, and me. Our chef and teacher was Francesco Soldi, who in addition to teaching cooking to visitors like us also owns and operates his own catering service, Apriti Sesamo.

Our menu included:

Focaccia alla genovese

Trofie con pesto genovese

Crostata alla marmellata

Focaccia is a traditional Ligurian bread made with good Italian flour, yeast, olive oil, water, butter and salt. The Genovese people love their focaccia and focaccerias are as common as pizzerias on most shopping streets in Genova (Genoa).

There are certainly hundreds of different kinds of Italian pasta, varying from place to place in size and shape. Trofie, a small, hand rolled pasta, about the size of a small macaroni, is a favorite in Genova and is usually to be found on most restaurant menus, usually served with the Genovese version of pesto.

We made the dough, rolled and cut it out, and then made pesto by grinding up oil, pine nuts, and basil with a mortal and pestle—more work than I would probably ever want to do regularly; but judging by the taste, worth the effort.

Crostata (a pie or tort) is found in most Italian pastisserias. We made us ours with flour, butter, sugar, and one egg. We used a jar of apricot preserves for the filling. Again, learning to roll the dough out properly was a lesson for all of us.

Cuoco Soldi was a patient and helpful teacher, even with students such as me who clearly had never rolled out pasta dough or made a pie. Rolling out enough pasta for three of us and then forming it by hand took all four of us, including the chef, about half an hour—definitely not cost efficient.

All told, the entire lesson in preparation and cooking took us about an hour and a half, after which we had the great pleasure of eating the fruits of our labors, accompanied by a lovely bottle of Pinot Grigio.

It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon—and I learned a lot of kitchen and food vocabulary as well.

More from Geneva

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Today is my third day in my Italian Language School, A Door into Italy. I was assigned to a middle level group, as I expected—there are a few people here who are quite advanced and can hold sustained conversations in Italian, and then a group of relative beginners, and then there’s the rest of us. Still struggling with which tense to use and often failing to come up with the vocabulary one needs. After three days, though, I feel that I am making progress.

English, of course, is a common language for many of us, but my class of eight is very, very diverse. There is one other American man: an engineer from Hawaii on sabbatical from a job in South Sudan. The other man in the class is from Tokyo and is here in Italy working for his company which has sent him to school for three months to learn the language. The five women include a Ukrainian, a Palestinian, an Israeli, a French speaking Swiss, and finally a Tanzanian woman who met her Genovese husband online. The school’s winnowing seems to work pretty well, as we all seem on about the same level.

Yesterday, after class the school offered a guideded walking tour of the city, providing a great introduction to the city of Genova (Genoa). After several cool rainy days, the sun has come out and it feels like spring, so there are lots of people touring and shopping.

As I mentioned in my last post, my neighborhood seems to be a working class/middle class enclave. The tour took us through the heart of the city, including governmental and banking buildings, historic monuments like the city’s Duomo or Cathedral, San Lorenzo, and an area consisting of lots of small, narrow alleys with shops, businesses, galleries and restaurants.

This last area reminded me a lot of the central part of Siena. Even though the tour took us nearly two hours, we didn’t make it to what is called the Porto Antico area and the bayside promenade, which I hope to see in the next couple of days. I am adding some photos I took of our group as we wandered around.

Again, the duomo certainly is reminiscent of the duomo in Siena, although the Siena church seems to have been done by better craftsmen and artists. Still it is lovely to walk into these medieval buildings and be reminded of the bygone days of faith sacrifice.

Genoa, Italy

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Left Denver on Friday afternoon on a Lufthansa flight stopping in Munich and then catching a shorter flight to Genoa. Flights to Europe are little more expensive this year than a couple of years ago, but I booked before the Iran War and the ensuing oil crisis. Seats in economy class are smaller and less comfortable these days, and I was not able to sleep after the pretty horrible evening meal. There are literally more than a 100 films you can choose from, including a lot of European and Asian, to keep you quiet and entertained during the nine hour journey.

It is Sunday evening, Genoa time, which is eight hours ahead of Denver. The ride in from the airport provides a good view of the city. The part I saw was very industrial looking; the cab drive, who had great English, says that the three kilometer harbor front pedestrian mall is quite delightful. I’ll have to report on it later, after I have seen it.

I am staying with a 79 year old widow in a large early 20th century apartment in the center of town. Neither eye-catching or charming, most of the people walking around the neighborhood are busy going about their daily lives—stopping at the supermercato and the pasticceria for coffee and brioche, with a side of gossip. I am pretty sure I am going to enjoy walking around and exploring.

My landlady tells me that I am only ten minutes from the language school which I will be attending these next three weeks. I am happy with my interactions with her. I have to work hard not to intermix Spanish words with the Italian, but she always gives me an off kilter facial cue when I do that, so I think my decision to stay with a local family is going to pay off. Classes start tomorrow at 8:30. I’ll keep you posted on how it is going!

My large well furnished bedroom is very comfortable, with its 12 foot ceiling and eclectic furniture. The terrazzo floor is a marvel. I think the bed will provide a great sleeping opportunity.

Tonight I finished my first day in Genova at a local restaurant recommended by Signora Toce. Just a block away, when I walked in at 7:30, I was only the second table seated. There was an interesting couple at the next table over. She was white and he Black. I eavesdropped for a while, but could not quite make out where they were from. I heard both Italian and English—so I settled on their being British. I finally got up my nerve to start talking to them—turns out Julian is from South Africa and Gloria is from Lake Como. He’s a business man, and she works for the Italian foreign service in the consular service. She was in Genoa for work and he came along. They were so much fun to talk with; and with their urging I ordered the panacotta with strawberry jam topping. Delicious. We talked for nearly an hour, and I enjoyed meeting them so very much.

Lilacs and Spring time in Denver

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Sue and I just got back from an afternoon drive around Denver; spring has arrived here in Denver several weeks early. Usually the peak time for Lilacs is mid-May, and it is still early April. That probably portends a hot summer and a long fire season; let’s hope that’s not the case.

Anyway, back to the drive around Denver. One of our stops was City Park. Between the lake and the Nature & Science museum, there is a lovely grove of lilac bushes, with a large range of colors and varieties. Lilacs grow well here in Denver–they can survive our normally cold winters and our frequent droughts.

I have long loved lilacs as does Sue. I used to be able to luxuriate in their smell as well as their blossoms, but sometime during the Covid Pandemic, I lost most of my sense of smell. It is not completely gone, but these days, I can only detect a slight scent of most aromas that I used to enjoy–like lavender, lilacs and baking bread.

Lilacs always remind me of our dear friend, Marie Funkhauser–perhaps the kindest and most helpful neighbor one could ever have. We lived next door to Marie and her family in Alexandria, VA for more than 25 years. She took care of Bryn and Erin when thy came home from school. We knew that the children were always safe and lovingly cared for, making our work lives just a little bit less stressful.

Each spring, Marie would cut a huge bouquet of lilacs from the bushes in her backyard and bring them to Sue; the whole house would be filled with the aroma of lilacs for many days. What a lovely memory…and what a lovely friend.

Lilacs also bring to mind the first stanza of Walt Whitman’s tribute to the fallen Abraham Lincoln:

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

Happy Easter

Orchid Show at the Denver Botanical Garden

Our friend, Martha Birney, recently invited us along with Mart & Bob Larson to join her at the Denver Botanical Garden to view their Orchid Show. We are all members of the Garden, and it is one of our favorite spots in the city in all seasons. My photo library is full of flower pictures going back to the time we first arrived in Denver more than a decade ago.

This show, while not large, did not fail to impress. If you are like us, you can’t pass up the orchids for sale at the supermarket, but given the dryness of our climate and the less than ideal growing conditions in our apartment, we have to treat them almost like cut flowers. You buy them, knowing that the blooms will last a month or, if you are lucky, three; but whatever the time, once the blooms have fallen off, you are faced with the dilemma of throwing them away or placing them in some forgotten corner, never to bloom again & then to be discarded at some later time when plant shelf space becomes scarce. (Actually you can sometimes coax them into rebooking if you happen to have an facing window and a lot of patience!)

But fortunately the Garden has the staff, resources, and conditions to grow a large variety of these lovely blossoming plants. They don’t have a detectable perfume, but boy are they stunning.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit at the Garden, and then Martha treated us all to a sumptuous meal at a new Indian Restaurant, Curry & Grill 2. The food is wonderful with delicate flavors and just the right spiciness for our American palate. The staff were warm and welcoming and the service excellent. There were just a few other diners, which encouraged us to linger and talk, and we never felt any urgency to leave. We’ll definitely go back & soon.

The time spent with Mart & Bob is bittersweet these days for Martha B and us. They told us recently that they have decided to sell their apartment and move to the Quad Cities to be near their son, Isaac, daughter in law, Megan, and two young grandsons, Ezra & Jasper. Knowing how important Bryn, Joel and Charlie have been to us since our move to Denver, we can’t blame them, but we are certainly going to miss them immeasurably. Almost every Sunday, one of us hosts for brunch and then a very competitive card game of Wizard; we won’t know what to do with ourselves once they are gone!

Science is Dead; Thank Goodness We all Know that the Earth is Flat

Today the Environmental Protection Agency repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being. It means the agency can no longer regulate them and the oil and gas industry are free to facilitate pumping more and more CO2 into the environment.

This brings the EPA into alignment with the CDC which says we don’t need to vaccinate our children against many childhood diseases and don’t take Tylenol because it causes autism.

The truth is now suspect, and George Orwell’s Big Brother is watching us all. I hope you find this message as comforting as I do?

Erin & John’s Visit–A Respite from Cuba

After a wonderful two weeks visit, John and Erin left this weekend to return to Cuba, thankfully now nearing the end of their two year assignment. They are slated to permanently leave the island in early May. Since their arrival in the summer of 2024, conditions on the ground in Cuba have deteriorated incredibly. Hunger, malnutrition, and rolling blackouts are the norm; the results of a US imposed embargo & a corrupt and ruthless regime that has no concern for the well-being of its citizens.

Recently they had a scary incident with their cat, Diego, who became very sick and nearly died. Erin first met Diego during her first State Department posting in Mexico City, when he followed her home one day. Fourteen years later, he’s like a child to both John and Erin. When they took him in for an emergency vet visit a few weeks ago, the clinic had neither running water nor electricity and couldn’t provide adequate care for the poor animal. Diego fortunately survived that illness, but they didn’t want to risk losing him if they had to rely on local veterinary care again, so they asked us if we would keep him for a few months if they brought him back to the States.

We readily agreed, even though Sue is allergic to cats, and I am not much of an animal lover. John & Diego arrived first, and when we visited their vet the next day, he was down to a little over seven pounds (down from his fighting weight of 12 pounds) and in pretty bad shape with kidney and heart disease. Still with a little care and lots of love, he is now doing much better. When Erin arrived just a few days later, she could already see how much Diego was improving. In a little more than two weeks he has put on a couple of pounds and seems content to be with the “grandparents.”

Diego will be with us for the next several months…, and, even I have to say he is a pretty special cat and keeps us entertained.

On another front, I have a book to recommend; the title is Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi. I checked out an audio version from the local library and have been enjoying listening to the story. The title character is an 86 year old Portuguese immigrant to the United States, who shows up one day in a small Georgia city (a fictionalized version of what has to be Athens?) Theo, as he insists on being addressed by one and all, is a cultured man who loves art, literature, and music and sees and nourishes the good in people he meets & comes to know. Some might call the book saccharine, but Theo sees the better angels in each and every person; perhaps a lesson for us all. I’d really like to meet a real-life Theo, but perhaps I need to first emulate his kindness and be on the lookout for the good.

Larry's Blog for Friends & Family

Ramblings–both physical & mental