Italian Food

I am deep into preparatory research on the countries, cities, and towns that we will visit this year. Planning a trip is at least half the fun! I've been reading memoirs by Americans who love and live in Paris, but now I'm learning about Lucca, the ancient city in Tuscany where we will spend a few days.

The other day I came across Why Italians Love to Talk about Food by Elena Kostiukovich in the library's new book section. This is a very readable treatise on Italian history and culture through the medium of its food by a Russian translator who has lived in Italy for 2o years.

Each section of the country gets its own chapter, and I'm lapping up the ones on Veneto and Tuscany where we will visit. I especially like the nice list of famous foods and food products for each section at the end of its chapter. Here's hoping I can avoid looking totally clueless in Venetian and Luccan trattorias.

Dirt Cheap (or Free) Phone Calls

Somehow this article from PC Magazine got passed along to me, so I'm sending it to you! See slides on 10 ways to make phone calls - from Bing to Skype to Google to..........

The 2010 Census Won't Tell Much About Us

Did anyone else wonder why there were so few questions to answer on the 2010 census form? Having unearthed lots of really interesting information from past census records about the early days of my family in this country, I'm thinking that my great-great-grandchildren (if any) won't be able to find out much about me in 2010.

Past records had great stuff like where your father was born, your occupation, etc. This time, it looks like all the government wants to know is whether you own your own house, what race you think you belong to, and who else lives with you.

Apparently, most people get the 10 question short form, but some people get the big 69-question form. Here's something from the Better Business Bureau explaining how people getting the 69-er are thinking it's a scam! Genealogists in their families will be lucky. The rest of us fall into oblivion.

Lots of Tomatoes!

This year one of my daughters suggested we can tomatoes since she heard that the white coating on the inside of commercially canned tomatoes leaches bad stuff into the food. So, instead of putting in 4 tomato plants, I set out 10. I grew these from seed starting in March. There are 5 little San Marzanos and 5 Big Boys. This may be a big, and I do mean big, mistake. Stay tuned.


Meanwhile, I discovered that my cute little strawberry plants are really covered in blossoms. Last year there were only a few. This is now their second spring, so maybe they have decided to stay. The rhubarb plant is doing nicely as well. It will get to grow undisturbed for probably another 2 years. I have excellent will power so far, but I do love a rhubarb pie.

p. 629, Oranges Glacees

At last I have finished Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking! After considering a simple recipe to try myself, I caved and went for this one. At least it doesn't have the ton of cream and/or butter like all of Julia's other recipes.

Here are the photos to show how I slaved over it this afternoon:

Six large, colorful oranges ready to go!

Making candied orange peel.

This was the killer part - took so long!

Macerating the cooked orange peel in orange liqueur.

Making the sugar syrup.

Glazing the oranges with the hot syrup.

Ta-da!

It did look great, but it wasn't so delicious that I would go through all that again. The book goes back to the library, and I can sleep well tonight.

How Do You Pronounce, "Nicolas Sarkozy?"

Here's a good link from the Resource Shelf, one of my favorite Web sources. The Voice of America (VOA) Pronunciation Guide is a nifty way to hear the real way to say the names of international persons and places in the news.

I tried Nicolas Sarkozy, just to check my high school French. Boy was I off! OK, I'm using the American tv news announcer pronunciation, but still.... I left the "s" on Nicolas - WRONG - and put the accent on the ''koz" in Sarkozy - DOUBLE WRONG.

Try it yourself. Check the Short List link at the bottom of the screen for recent names in the news. Make yourself sound brilliant!

Card Catalog Project

Some time ago, I became aware that library card catalogs were disappearing. When you did find one, you had to pay a pretty price, since people had begun to find interesting uses for them. Take a look at a blog post from PH: Poetic Home for some of the ideas.

So, in my library work, I came across a small one with no legs. I bought it and promptly relegated it to my basement laundry room where it languishes under forgotten sewing projects and stuff to wash/iron someday.


I could use a new coffee table, but what to do for legs? All of a sudden it occurred to me that I could use.......books. I'll just need to find some that look good and can be stacked to the same height, then cemented in place. Anyone have any ideas?