Dylan's Candy Bar, The Rockettes and The Statue of Liberty

As I mentioned while blogging about my trip to London and Paris with Eldest Daughter this spring, it's special traveling with only one other person. You get to focus on their needs, have in-depth conversations with them, just go where the road takes the two of you. During this trip to New York I got a refresher on how witty Thing 1 is and how fiercely independent she is, too.

It was important to me that she ride the subway and so, on the way back from the Statue of Liberty, we caught it. I paused in front of the ticket machine, reading the instructions. She became impatient and pushed me aside saying, "Really mother, this is not that difficult." She pressed a few buttons and then said to me, "Insert three dollars and we're done." And that was that. She also navigated the subway map and signs to get us on the right uptown train. I loved every minute.

Several people had recommended Max Brenner's chocolate-themed restaurant near Union Square. Both the food and the chocolate desserts were excellent. We are now fans!

Perhaps the best part of our trip, other than the one on one time, was seeing the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular featuring The Rockettes. The red and gold Art Deco auditorium, a masterpiece built in 1932, seats 5,900 people. Yes, almost 6,000 people can see The Rockettes at a time. The Wooden Soldiers number is a synchronized perfection in precision. Thing 1 and I liked that best although the Raggedy Ann dance in Santa's Workshop in the North Pole is magical, too. There are live camels in one of the dances! Around the corner from Radio City is a second location of the Magnolia Bakery. We got cupcakes there although neither of us really liked them; we both prefer them less sweet.

A trip to New York would not be complete without a visit to Dylan's Candy Bar. We made some good contributions to the local economy there and even returned for a mediocre lunch after learning that the wait for nearby Serendipity 3 was more than two hours. Of our meal Thing 1 said, "They should stick to sweets."

It is impossible to even scratch the surface of the city in a long weekend. In fact, I counted that this was my 14th time to New York and still, I did two new things! I dragged Thing 1 to Times Square and fed her a bagel. She would not eat pizza.

We gave the Christmas windows along Fifth Avenue a good long look and actually spent the most time dissecting the ones at Bergdorf's, across the street from The Plaza. We went into Tiffany and looked at the really big stones. And we were sad to come home Monday afternoon.

Turkeys. And those who eat them.

Like many of you, I sat down to a Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family, and a table of nutritious, beautifully presented savories and sweets that could easily feed our group twice over.

On Tuesday The Pinks and I volunteered at the Monument Crisis Center handing out turkeys to families who might not otherwise have them on Thanksgiving. This was different than most of the volunteer work we do. It wasn't taking care of The Bounty Garden, which grows vegetables that benefit the food bank. It wasn't building homes for people who might not be able to afford them otherwise. It wasn't baking cookies for a community theater performance or washing rubber ducks.

We interacted with the people who will be cooking those turkeys. There were easily 300 people lined up around the block when we arrived. Most expressed their gratitude verbally, some just took their turkey, eyes averted. Some had babies on hips and toddlers by the hand, others wheeled oxygen tanks behind them.

I thought about those people Thursday night.

Are you Smitten?

We tried Smitten on Friday, the first day of summer vacation. Smitten is artisanal ice cream, until recently found only in the city. Each serving is made on demand using liquid nitrogen. It tasted fine but was nothing special. Berthillon is still my favorite. And locally, I really like the obscenity which is Fenton's.

Remind me to take time off work next June. And to not sign up for any volunteer activities. The weekend before school was out Thing 1 and I volunteered at both a Habitat for Humanity community opening and a Special Olympics fundraiser. The year-end academic and recreational activities of three children is a lot to juggle.

Speaking of three children, those of you with older children forgot to mention how fabulous it is when one of those children gets their driver's license. Many of the fears I had of my innocent child getting behind the wheel of a car were greatly reduced when I realized how helpful she could be, not only chauffeuring herself to and from her appointments but running our errands and picking up a sister on occasion!

Preparations continue for the B'Not Mitzvah. Thing 1 and I had coffee with the fabulous Harry Glazier yesterday. Harry is going to photograph the ceremony and festivities for us. I'm excited to work with emerging talent and look forward to his fresh point of view.

The invitations are still in various stages of assembly on the dining room table. The Hebrew intensive begins tomorrow. Panic is beginning to set in as the kids vocalize who they want to invite, based on who they were in or out with during the latter part of the school year. I hate this part. Even my father brought it up while we were riding his horses today.

In search of the perfect macaron.

Eldest Daughter loves these meringue layered cookies, often seen in pastel colors.

They are becoming so mainstream that there is a spread on them in the current issue of Food Magazine. If these are not the national cookie of France, please tell me what is.

Laduree, founded in 1871, has long been considered the best maker of macarons. However, David Lebovitz, our favorite food blogger, thinks that Pierre Herme gives Laduree a run for its money. Pierre Herme was founded in 1998, the same year Eldest Daughter was born.

Eldest Daughter was up for a comparison.

As it turns out, both Laduree and Pierre Herme have London outposts. We visited both shops there and Eldest Daughter liked Pierre Herme much more. It was the same in Paris although we did bring back macarons from both plus another patisserie.

Her favorite flavors were rose and salted caramel from Pierre Herme and rose from Laduree. In Paris I dragged her into Fauchon, the luxury foods store that's been around since 1886 and that Dave and I like best, and forced her to try the macarons there. There she liked one that was mostly vanilla except for a tiny chocolate bar tucked into the filling. To be fair, she also sampled lemon, vanilla and several kinds of chocolate.

Although you can buy macarons individually, she mostly bought them in boxes of seven as the boxes are works of art in and of themselves. I love how she shot pictures of them all.

We had a blast exploring pastry shops in Paris as it was also the week prior to Easter and beautiful sculpted chocolates were in every window and display case.

Summer means peaches.

Paige and I hauled our two sets of twins to Brentwood today to pick peaches. I'd only picked peaches once before and strangely, she picked the same place Dave and I had taken the kids five years earlier.

The peaches were just as good as I remembered and we came home with 5x as many as we did in 2008. Seriously. 50 lbs. We went a little crazy. But they just tempt you, the rosy orbs clinging to leafy branches within easy reach. Fortunately The Pinks are old enough to look through cookbooks for recipes now and bake with me!

This is Shannon.

We work together at PG&E. She's helping her parents out in the Village Goose booth at the Treasure Island Flea Market. And here she's helping Liberty create a piece of custom art for her room.

If I wasn't in the office when Shannon told me about her parents' business I would have been jumping up and down screaming. It's so me. I already collect letterpress tiles. And her parents make it easy for people to turn them into personalized art.

I'd always wanted to go to the Treasure Island Flea Market and a free Saturday plus the discovery of this business meant for me was the impetus. I dragged Liberty, Paris along.

The Market itself was well worth the trip. There were about a dozen food trucks so we had grass-fed beef and pulled-pork sliders for lunch. The vendors were about half traditional flea market and half interesting art and jewelry. This being the Bay Area, home of the Giants loyal, there was no shortage of Giants-wear, especially as it's baseball season. The coolest thing I saw was Giants t-shirts with a Day of the Dead, sugar skull style face. I will buy one next time. Or maybe I'll just order online. They were that cool.


The market is the last weekend of every month. People today told me that in the summer it's twice as big as it is in the winter. I'm already planning a trip back.

We spent a long time at Exit Plan B, a booth selling letter art photography signs, and with Emily Ireland, whose hand-painted Toms we really wanted.

The view of the city from Treasure Island is the best view I've ever seen. If waterfront homes ever come on the market Dave and I will need our very own Plan B.

Wrapping Up

I begin my new gig in a week. Since deciding to change my work situation I've been frantic tying up loose ends because starting a new project is synonymous with a reduced amount of free time and an increased amount of mental exhaustion.

As everyone knows by now, in the Jacob vs. Edward drama Edward gets the girl. Seeing Breaking Dawn Part 2 was on my list. The movie was fine. I just needed closure on the whole dang thing. It feels like forever ago that I read the Twilight Series.

I baked for our next two NCL commitments. My current favorite cookie recipe is similar to risotto and soup in that you use whatever you have in the house for the top of these three-layer cookies.

The Steve Jobs book by Walter Isakson. Surely I'm the the last person in the Valley to read it. In technology circles its quoted as often as The Minority Report and The Social Network. My first clue was finding eight copies on the shelf in the Mountain View Library. Truth be told, it took me a long time to get through. Isakson is a gifted writer and I wanted to savor the words and also think about it, too. I began my tech career in 1989, toward the beginning of Apple's historic rise, and even worked on the short-lived NeXTWorld Magazine.

Deferred Tech Support. Off to the Apple Store I went with one ancient desktop and two laptops to migrate the data from the old one to the new two. I needed to straighten out Apple IDs and iTunes Libraries. I gave some TLC to my PC, which has seen little use this last year. It needed software upgrades and a good reorganization. A dusting too.

Filing. Recipes and travel articles and health insurance claim forms. Creating new files for 2013.

Framing. The kids' art and new black and white pictures we had taken in Mexico. Hanging all that stuff. Taking old stuff down. Deciding where to put old and new framed art. This takes time!

Alterations! I'll be in an office five days a week so I did a big drop off at the seamstress as well as parked myself in front of Pitch Perfect on demand to do simple fixes myself. You can skip Pitch Perfect.

Shopping. I hit the mall for some work wardrobe basics, essentially winter sweaters in fun colors to go with all those boring pants I just hemmed. Also foundations. Liberty, now 11 and who was with us, found this part as much fun as having a flu shot. Paris enjoyed it more and for the investment I made on her foundations, I should have let her go to Victoria's Secret like she wanted to in the first place.

My list is getting shorter and the daylight hours are getting longer. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Who quits a job they love?!

Me.

I woke up bright and early on January 1 and made Coq au Vin. I'm eating it right now and it's good. So good it was worth all that shopping and chopping and sauteing and braising and reducing. It's gluten-free, too.

Why did I cook instead of sleep in? Because one of my goals for 2013 is to cook more. And to cook more I need to spend more time at home, which is also why I quit a job I loved. It's hard to be a great mom and wife when your mind is constantly spinning technobabble messaging. I'm sure I'll love my new job, too, and I'll especially love that it's 43 miles closer to home and that I'll be able to see The Pinks both morning and evening. We're on the back nine after all.

The hardest part of quitting my job was actually getting the words out of my mouth. I literally had to force them out. And once I did, the recipient of that phrase, "My last day is January 11" sat back in his chair, paused and then said, "Really?!"

I'll be working on a change management project at PG&E come January 14. It's on Ygnacio Valley Road in Walnut Creek.

Girl walks into a bar.

Jen Pockell-Wilson and I giggled like young schoolgirls when we were waiting for Kim Drew. At The Ship, no less, an ale house at the corner of Battery and Pacific in San Francisco dating back to 1851, two years into the Gold Rush.

Girl walks into the bar. Her smile could easily span the 8-state-divide which usually separates us. She is blonde curls and turquoise eyes and Jen and I attach ourselves to her with a death grip for the rest of the evening.

Fortunately Jen and I are with good men, men who knew their role was to keep Kim's husband occupied while the three of us chattered nonstop on topic ranging from attachment parenting (we are way over it) to discipline (we are fans of it) to other Feb Moms (proud of our nationally ranked triathlete). Jen and Kim have the same quick, biting sense of humor. I am good at laughing.

The six of us ate mostly cow at 5A5 and took advantage of the last few days of foie gras' availability in California. Our visitors were quite adventurous and tried taco (octopus) salad and the lychee and berry palate cleanser.

It's cherry season!

The littlest Pinks and I dashed up to Maggiore's in Brentwood after school Wednesday to pick our share of Corals. The three of us picked 17 pounds in 40 minutes. That left us time to pick strawberries at Chan's, too. And then rush back to our 'burb for the Math Olympiad End of Year party.

This is our second year picking cherries and it's a tradition I just love -- it's the soft launch of summer.

I tried something new this year -- oven drying some. They are good and I am looking forward to baking some into my chocolate chip cookies this winter. Pitting those puppies by hand is messy! The crafter in me is going to try to dye some muslin with the juice.

My Foodie Saturday

While Dave went car shopping, the littlest Pinks and I headed through the tunnel to eat with friends. Our first stop was a restaurant I'd long wanted to try: Homeroom.

Homeroom is on 40th St. in Oakland, not near any other restaurants or retailers. It specializes in Mac & Cheese and its owner is a well-known food blogger. I wish the menu featured a sampler. Fortunately we're good at sharing. I had The Exchange Student with artichokes, spinach and feta. My friend had Mac The Goat, with chevre, scallions, breadcrumbs, mushrooms and olive oil. One of her kids had The Classic and the other had Vermont White Cheddar. My rebels had scones and orange juice.

The food was great and very rich. None of us came close to finishing our lunch. Or maybe it was that we were saving room for our next stop, Ici, the artisanal ice cream shop, on College Ave. in Berkeley. I just love the Elmwood district and because it was a cool day, the line wasn't long. The storefront is beautiful and girly, and the owner is a former Chez Panisse pastry chef, impeccably credentialed in my opinion. Apparently I have a thing for Chez Panisse alumnae; I frequent a Temescal bakery and read David Lebovitz religiously. My friend bought ice cream cones to take home; they are hand made with a bit of chocolate inside the bottom. I love that! We shopped a bit; I'm always on the lookout for quirky things to put in the kids' care packages for sleep away camp.

The Pinks wanted to take a dip in the pool after we returned to the sunny side of the tunnel but the sun did not bring the heat on this particular Memorial Day Weekend Saturday. It actually rained in the late afternoon. And so we snuggled on the sofa, under blankets, and watched Tim Burton's remake of Alice in Wonderland.

Lemon Coconut Cake

We spent the week before Christmas at Tahoe as usual. Unfortunately it was blue skies and dry the whole nine days we were in residence. It turned out to be okay. It would have been hard for me to focus on work if the snow conditions were pristine. And I did have to work.

We spent one afternoon ice skating at Northstar. Skating is free and ice skates are $5. This could be the biggest bargain on the north shore. The rink is lined with fire pits and heated cabanas. F&B can be ordered and consumed right there. And there was a live band playing. Even the break for the Zamboni was an event with people lining up around the outside edges of the rink high fiveing the driver. We killed a few hours with my parents, my brother and his family, his sister-in-law and her kids, and his in-laws, the Owles. Northstar was very lively compared to Squaw.

After that we headed to the Owles' nest in Dollar Point for drinks and appetizers. My parents birthdays are Dec 5 and 6 and I'd baked a cake that morning for a belated celebration at the Owles. It was one of the best cakes I'd ever baked. The cream cheese frosting is worth every calorie.

Layered Coconut Cake

• 1 cup butter, room temp
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons good quality vanilla
• 3 cups cake flour, sifted
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup dessicated coconut
• lemon curd

Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 8-ounce packages Philadelphia Original Cream Cheese, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon good-quality vanilla extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese at high speed until light, about five minutes. Beat in the vanilla, then the confectioners’ sugar; beat at low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and beat until light and fluffy, about three minutes.

Cake: Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter 3 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Butter the surface of the parchment paper as well. Lightly sift flour all over the sides and bottoms of the pans before tapping out any excess. Set aside.

In a fairly large bowl, sift the cake flour before adding the baking powder and sea salt. Whisk the three dry ingredients together and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer place the softened butter. Using a paddle attachment, cream the butter first on low speed, gradually increasing to medium speed. Once light and fluffy, add the sugar; again, beat until light and fluffy. This should take three minutes or less. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix for an additional minute.

With the mixer on medium-low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture and the coconut milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Divide the batter between the three buttered/floured pans. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until ever-so-lightly browned on top. Transfer the pans to a wire rack and cool for ten minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and continue to allow them to cool on the wire rack.

Once cooled, place one cake on a cake plate and start layering. Begin with the frosting, then add the desiccated/shredded coconut and last the lemon curd. Repeat twice. Take cake under table and eat it there so you don't have to share.

Flat Apple Pie

The Pinks and I watched The Pioneer Woman on Food TV last weekend. The story of how Ree Drummond met her husband is just adorable. Ree baked a flat apple pie that had us all drooling. We had friends over for dinner Sunday night and this was very easy to make for dessert.

We served it with whipped cream (real whipping cream + vanilla + granulated sugar) and Ree's caramel sauce, which we upped the ante on by subbing whole cream for half and half.

This recipe makes two so be sure to make two pie crusts (or buy them at Trader Joe's, the perfectly acceptable easy way out). Each pie feeds four generously or six conscious eaters.

Ingredients:

5 Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar

2T all-purpose flour

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2t salt

6T butter

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In large bowl, stir together the apples, brown sugar, granulated sugar, flour, salt and lemon juice.

Put pie crust on baking sheet. Place half the apple mixture on one crust and the other half on the other crust. Fold over the edges of each crust so that it covers 2 to 3 inches of the apple mixture. No need to be artistic - the more rustic the better. Dot the tops of the pies with chunks of the butter.

Bake until the filling is golden and bubbly, 30 to 40 minutes. If the crust appears to brown too quickly, cover the edges with aluminium foil for the remaining baking time.

Allow to cool slightly, then slice into wedges with a pizza cutter.

Olympic Seoul Chicken

Liberty had this for dinner at her friend Emma Vaccaro's house and raved about it. It is very good and easy to make, too.

Adapted from Arthur Schwartz, author of Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food and Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking.

¼ cup (60ml) rice vinegar (unseasoned)

3 tablespoons (45ml) soy sauce

2 tablespoons (30ml) honey

1-inch (3cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced

8 chicken thighs, skinned

10 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

1½ teaspoon chili powder (I used cochutgaru, but any will do)

a handful of chopped green onions, including the dark green part

1. Mix together the vinegar, soy sauce, honey, and ginger.

2. Heat enough oil in a large skillet until it just covers the bottom. When it’s hot and shimmering, sauté the chicken thighs until well-browned on all sides, about 10 minutes.

3. Add the garlic and chili powder and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring constantly so the garlic doesn’t burn.

4. Pour in the vinegar mixture, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, or until done. While the thighs are cooking, turn them a couple of times in the marinade.

5. Once they’re done, remove the cover, add the green onions, and cook for another minute or so, until the sauce is slightly thickened.

Serve with rice, kimchi, toasted nori, or any other accompaniments. Also good with a pile of steamed green beans drizzled with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds sprinkled on top.

The Smells of Summer

Summer is nearly over on the calendar. The kids are back in school so the season is over in their minds. I will miss the smells.

Peaches. On the counter one day before spoiling.

Sun baked babies. Sun-warmed children covered in sunscreen, slightly sweaty.

Freshly cut grass. Followed by sneezing.

Moisture, slightly sweet. In the air before the morning fog burns off.

Basil. Walking through the Farmer's Market.

Cleats. Soccer practice has begun.

Roasting tomatoes. Tomatoes arrived on the late side this season and we are buried with them now.

Air conditioned air. The slightly sweet odor in your car.

Aida!

It's no secret that my sports-loving husband is also a huge opera fan. For him, visiting Verona meant going to the opera. It's one of life's check offs.

I, however, am not an opera fan. We've been to the San Francisco Opera several times and frankly, it's a lot of work: reading those subtitles, watching the performance, listening to the singing in another language, and hours and hours long. Then add the trip into the city and the dinner. Still, we were in Verona and Dave got tickets in advance of our trip. And so we went. At the 2,000 year old Roman amphitheatre called the Forum.

For those of you unfamiliar with this particular opera, here's the short version: Aida is an Ethiopian princess. She's captured and brought into slavery in Egypt. A military commander falls in love with her and must choose between her and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. And we all know how operas end.

Aida is four long acts. Apparently Verdi had a lot to say in this particular opera. The triumphal march in the second act was well done, with four obedient horses. There were no subtitles. There was no need for vocal or instrumental amplification. At one point there were more than 350 performers on stage. It was a warm but not an oppressively warm night. The moon was out. The sun set behind the Forum. It was another perfect moment. And the woman seated in front of me gave us a laugh.

We left the kids at the villa and the ten of us had adults-only dinner at Trattoria al Pompieri. The risotto in local red wine was too rich to take seriously but the salumi platter was amazing. I honestly don't remember what I ate but I do remember being embarrassed that I did not offer to share it with anyone. Black and white photographs of famous Italians covered the walls; we amused ourselves by making up stories about them.

Verona charmed us and we took The Pinks back another day for further exploration. It's an adorable town with a cathedral that's less grand on the outside than others in cities of its stature yet filled with beautiful art inside. We poked our heads in during Saturday mass and enjoyed a bit of the service. The people in Verona are friendly, the stores and restaurants abundant and the streets easy to navigate. There are bridges to see. And gelato to eat.

We quickly visited Casa de Giulietta, the dumbest tourist attraction ever. This is the recreation of Juliet's balcony, which isn't real to begin with as Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is a work of fiction. There's also an iron statue of Juliet in the courtyard, which people get their jollies on by rubbing her right breast. Heck, if this adventure enables the kids to better connect with the works of Shakespeare, it was worthwhile.

Camping in the Louvre

Dan nailed it: staying in an old Italian villa is like camping in the Louvre.

Villa Mila is exquisite. Our living space was about 10,000 sf. There's a second stairway leading to another wing, closed off by velvet cord. Several rooms had two sets of double doorways and were locked. Three of us did manage to unlock the internal door leading to the attached chapel, which was hot, musty and used for storage of misc. religious objects and IKEA housewares still in their original packaging.

The bathrooms had working bidets. The hardwood floors creaked, especially in our room. Four of our friends mentioned ghosts as there seemed to be no reasonable explanation for doors opening and closing randomly at odd hours.

The villa is hidden from the street by 8' tall stone walls. It's reached by prying open two green, weathered barn doors then driving under a covered archway past the 400-year-old stables. A large field is to the left with the pool and gardens behind it. All of the rooms are dark, with ornate, heavy window treatments. At first we attributed the darkness to the house being kept shuttered up during the heat of the day. But during Week 2, when the heat wave passed, we realized that the walls themselves were painted in dark colors or were paneled. The hand painting was beautiful with many religious details or elaborate scenery. The grand foyer had swords and rifles hung above oil paintings of dour family members and a large marble shelf atop the lattice-covered radiator. There was also a low entry hall table, which we kept buried under sunscreen, insect repellent, guide books, maps, keys, and shared receipts.

The room we spent the most time in was the smallest room, the library, which had reliable wifi, the lightest colored walls and the most amount of natural light. It held only one sofa and two small chairs so it was a real accomplishment to be seated comfortably!

The formal living room, which we alternatively drank limoncello in and let the kids use for crafting, had an enormous Phantom-of-the-Opera-style chandelier. It was covered in cobwebs, too. The floor was parquet tiles covered with throw rugs.

This is the fourth European villa we've rented and our first experience with the house manager living on site. She was well-intentioned and quite helpful, down to finding our fish-like friend an Olympic-sized pool to keep her conditioning intact for the Trans Tahoe Relay. She arranged for two different chefs to come in and cook for us, which was one of the highlights each week. However, The Pinks could not understand why she, or any of the other Italians we encountered, smoked. None of us could understand why she became unglued when the kids hauled the mattresses from the third floor to the first in order to have a mass sleepover in the music room, which was easily 20 degrees cooler than the third floor.

There's the de rigour pool on the property, where the kids spent a fair amount of time. Each house we've rented in Europe has the same cheap white plastic lawn chairs -- the stuff you see at Safeway -- and this was no exception. Why is this? Perhaps Americans hang out more in their yards than do Europeans?

In hindsight, the best part of the villa was its prime location for integration into (or observation of!) village life. It was at the end of the one-horse-town's main drag and adjacent to the murky Adige river. I loved being able to hand the kids a 20 Euro bill and asking them to return with pizza. I met a friend for coffee at La Boulange here in the burbs this week and noticed how noisy it was. At Cafe Teatro, Villa Bartolomea's equivalent, it would have been much quieter with people sitting together but not necessarily speaking animatedly, drinking their coffee slowly, not necessarily powering through breakfast.

As is typical in Europe, commercial hours are approximate and not set to optimize revenue. Shops are closed either Sundays or Monday mornings, sometimes both. In Modena, shops are closed Thursday afternoons. We wanted to buy a bottle of Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena and the shopkeeper in one of Modena's best-known food shops, although physically in her shop and speaking to us, would not open the door for us to purchase a hundred dollar bottle of vinegar.

I could write a book on the foods of Northern Italy. In fact, many books have been written on the subject. Instead, here, I'll tell you about three grocery stores near the villa. To get a grocery cart, you insert a Euro coin in a slot and the cart untethers from the others. When you

return your cart the coin comes back to you. In Italian grocery stores you must bag your own groceries and pay for the bags. This is not quaint although it does encourage reuse.

Familia was 2 km east of the house. It was adequate, much like a large Trader Joe's. This is where we did our initial provisioning because of its proximity to the house. It's biggest drawback was its limited produce selection.

Galassia was 7 km north. It was like a large Safeway with the addition of basic housewares, that cheap patio furniture and appliances. I bought additional fans here during the Week 1 Heat Wave. We shopped here whenever we were going to get my favorite pesche gelato at L'Arte del Gelato.

We didn't discover Interspar, also 7 km north and near L'arte del Gelato, until the end of our trip, sadly. It's Costco without the membership. We should have provisioned there! Dry pasta was literally two aisles. I could never have imagined so many shapes and sizes of pasta. Truly. Beverages took up an entire aisle -- sodas, bottled water, juices. Cheese was one side of a refrigerated aisle, pork products being the other side of course.

And of course none of these places are open on Sundays.

Check Off #2: Pop Up General Store

The Pop Up General Store is where professional chefs, mostly Chez Panisse-trained, sell the food they make and love to eat. It's in Oakland on Wednesday nights every three to four weeks.

This has been on my list for a while, too. Frankly, it was not worth a trip all the way into Oakland. We had Pizza Politana for dinner there and browsed the stalls, maybe 15 in total. I bought a loaf of expensive bread that the kids ate in the car on the way home. We ran into a family friend and left.

To salvage our trip into Oakland we stopped at Scream Sorbet on Telegraph Ave. Liberty enjoyed the Strawberry Lemon sorbet while we were in the city a few weeks ago and on this evening she had the Seascape Strawberry, Paris had the Tangelo and I had the Apricot. The sorbets get very close to the real fruit taste. You don't have to go into Oakland to get Scream; they do quite a few local farmer's markets, including my parents'.

Every day, sometimes twice

There are so many things to love about Italy!

Here are some of our current favorites, in no particular order.

The people watching. The well-coiffed and heeled and not-well-coiffed. In big cities the women wear short shorts and high heels. In small towns they wear mumus and Birkenstock knockoffs. I am still working up the nerve to pop pictures.

The gelato. Cafe Teatro, a block from our villa, is pretty good, though. Paris, Liberty and I have been eating limone and fragola (strawberry). Tori favors stracciatela (chocolate chip). Our friend Kate Singer has pledged to try a new flavor each time. Thus far she has had Puffo (Smurf blue and anise tasting) and Nutella.
The pizza. 3,5 euros buys a pizza big enough to feed two children or one hungry adult.
The shoes. I added pair of purple Tod's loafers to my collection. Need I say more?
The pace. I fear that Italy's economy is not far behind that of Greece.

The architecture. The duomo in Verona, completed in 1187, was just average looking on the outside. The inside was breathtaking, jawdropping. The medieval paintings, frescoes and marble font made this a worthwhile haul across town. Oh yes, and 4pm mass was going on, too. Thom and Sara, Kate's parents, got the checkoff. The Arena is worth another post alone.

Check Off #1: Roli Roti

I'm working my way through my list. I don't generally goal set; I bumble through life trying to cover the basics of staying happily married, actively participating in a family that raises thoughtful children who will leave the world a better place and remaining gainfully employed. So this is the summer I'm working my way through a list.

First on my list was getting me one of those dang rotisserie chickens.

There is a rotisserie chicken truck at the Pleasanton Farmer's Market. But we don't go to that market. It's 15 miles from the house and we have a perfectly fine market in our town. Yet on many Saturdays I have driven past it on the way to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, looked longingly at it, and been unable to pick one up. The way I get this dreamy look in my eyes then drool when we get within two blocks of it drives my daughter nuts.

This time I did the unthinkable: I drove there just to get a chicken. Seriously, the bird was good. The potatoes, which roasted in the drippings and then were salted, were amazing. But even better than the food itself was the smell of the roasting chickens. It took me back to the markets in France. The line was long. The day was hot. The bird was worth it.