France comes to town

Antoine's parents just left on Friday night to fly back home, via Paris.

They called from France this morning while I was engrossed in the big matchup between Milan and Napoli (Milan 1, Napoli 0) and didn't even hear the phone. I have saved their voicemail message spoken in both French and English.

How is it possible to love - and now miss - two people so much, whom I had never met in my life? Their son, my homemate for the duration, has apparently rocked my world more than one might think. Or understand.

These two lovely people with such French names, Pierre and Marinette, first came into my view on the morning of my birthday about 2 weeks ago. Antoine had brought them from their hotel to meet me so we could all go to breakfast together. I was walking down the steps of my building, and I started to cry. His mother hugged me and neither of us wanted to let go. When we pulled away, both sets of eyes had tears in them.

Well aware of the quality of food they are used to, what with life at their farmhouse chateau near the sea in southwest France (that is also a bed&breakfast) and all, we took them to my favorite Euro cafe. Of course. They loved it. I learned where Antoine's passion for lots of butter on his bread came from (his father). They were curious about the self-serve coffee in airpots, but at least it was Alessandro brand, and Alessandro is from Italy. 

They spoke their very best English, Antoine translated, and we all laughed a lot. I loved starting my birthday this way. They had brought me fabulous French bath products,  and chocolate bars, for gifts. Their company = my favorite gift that morning.

The next night we hosted them for dinner. Have I ever wished more, that our home was classier than I did that night? Maybe, but I'm not sure. I did tell them what I absolutely believe to be true - and Antoine translated this into French for them, so that I knew they understood what I meant, for certain: My home isn't that spectacular re: design/decor but, the food and hospitality are really good and, somehow once people are there, they are never in a hurry to leave. They understood. Their son has lived here almost 2 years. But I was referring to dinner guests, as well, and they knew that.

I loved that they loved our meal, enough to ask me to come and be their chef at their Le Petit Puy Loup! (They are serious.) 

They loved the antipasti I set out, the first-course creamy butternut-onion-apple soup with caramelized walnuts, the fish and vegetables en papillote (parchment paper), mashed potatoes which they were too full to eat!, handmade roasted garlic-rosemary focaccia, and ahhhhh, the best tarte tatin (apple tart) I think I have ever made in my life, with fresh spiced whipped cream. Marinette and I had a lively conversation - with Antoine translating + some sign language + even a little of Italian on my part since some words are similar in French - about the extolled virtues of freshly grated nutmeg, which I had used in the apple tart. I promised to buy her some whole nutmeg from Penzey's (where I buy mine) before she went back to France.

The next day they all enjoyed Santa Barbara. I recovered from entertaining and had other work to do. They were gone, traveling throughout Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and northern California for the next 10 days. They loved our national parks, San Francisco, and Las Vegas -- not so much but, the Paris hotel was OK with them. They did OK with dining out too, short of a small pizza in Fresno that appeared to Pierre to equal the size of California. The super-sized American thing will always appear curious to Europeans. 

I so belong in Europe.

Anyway, I only had the pleasure of their company briefly again, this last Friday, on Halloween. Which they said is not a big deal in France. Or in Italy, I told them, which is why I am usually in Italy at this hour...

Here was more presents-exchanging before they prepared for their flight home  - they are very big on See's candy, which I had to send home with them and I hope they didn't eat it all on the plane...I had to send Charles, their other son who visited in August, some homemade cookies because I adore him and he has an October birthday too...I had to send their daughter Elys my Dodgers NLCS rally towel, and my pink LA Dodgers cap went to Marinette because Pierre had bought himself a new blue one...and there was of  course the nutmeg, and homemade banana-raspberry-walnut bread, and cookies for the plane, since none of us are big on airline food.

They gave me more French bath products. Yum. I can never have too many of those.

We had our last meal together at Farm Stand, one of my current favorite places on the planet. How well does my life work: We were supposed to eat there on Thursday night but (long story) but we rescheduled for Friday night. Laurent, our host, was not there Thursday but was there Friday, and he speaks French. My beautiful guests had an even more incredibly delightful time because of Laurent being able to visit in French with them, and what can I say...the food there was spectacular as usual, we laughed hysterically about some slip from Antoine about "37 years of ketchup", and now we love each other all the more from having had another magical experience together around the table.

The piece de resistance- I agreed to sign in writing, that I would visit them in France in 2009. For the record, we both have a signed copy of that contract.  

How much did I not want to say au revoir ?? I just love them. I wish we had had more time together but, there is that fulfillment of my contract for next year to look forward to. And then there was that brief discussion of their b&b needing my services as chef...Can you guess how much I cannot wait to explore all this further?

The little Figaro experience in the last post? I know it all gave way to this. My heart about swells each time I think of how blessed I am to have this family to love in France. 

And Antoine? He's still here for a while. 

We're both pretty happy about that.

Tante Cose: Figaro, Magic, Music and, Love

Tante cose means "all good things" in Italian. 

Could I guess, out of the blue, that a little Italian fairy tale would impact my heart so much? I could not.

I promised in my last post that my dream about Figaro, the little kitten in Pinocchio, would make a good story, so here it is.

Actually it wasn't a dream really, just a whisper from wherever whispers come from in your sleep (and these weren't the Italian whispers from...oh never mind...whole separate story). 

The week before my birthday, on the Sunday morning, I woke up about 3 or 4 am, wondering what the name of the kitten was, in Pinocchio. I do not know why I was wondering this but, I was. I said to my angels I guess, "please, tell me the name of the kitten in Pinocchio". When I woke up again a couple hours later, I knew that his name was Figaro.

So, being the intuitive, "oh this must mean something!" kind of girl I am...I rack my brain and my Italian dictionary to learn what "Figaro" means, and nothing jumps out at me (from my brain, or the dictionary). Fine.

I write to some friends of mine who post fabulous notes on one of our favorite online forums that is about the Law of Attraction, intuition, how to let more love in...and I ask them if anything intuitive pops out at them about my little story.

Is it the black-and-white - am I living my life too 'either-or' right now? Does the cat - I don't know - totem animal - mean something? I looked that up. Cat represents magic and mystery, and? The cat is associated with mythology and a host of goddesses  - that certainly resonates. Hello, help?

What the ladies wrote back, on two counts, was that my story just reminded them of the song, "When You Wish Upon a Star".  And, they said, they just felt like they should tell me that.

OK!!! Something I can use! One sent me two links for the song on YouTube, and then I found one of my own favorite versions, in French! This one, and the others out there, with their beautiful montages of the Blue Fairy Angel in Pinocchio and, all the other Disney princesses, actually made me cry. And for the record, I have no problem -  feminist or other - with fairy tales, love at first sight, handsome princes, etc., so I loved this. 

And now I wish on stars every night. Why not? One beautiful cousin of mine once told me, if you think it means something, then it does.

Somewhere in there, that same Sunday night when I was finding the star wishing videos, I got another intuitive nudge - curious - to find the song from the movie Music&Lyrics, that I saw last year. It was easy to find, and as soon as little Haley started singing, I started sobbing. When Hugh chimed in, more sobs.

Hmm, this is interesting. Let's look at this, my intuitive me says.

Finding a way back into love. It sounds kind of corny, maybe. But, I am here to tell you, it struck a deep chord with me and I took the message to heart. I love the idea of knowing that if I risk opening my heart wider,  something, someone will have my back. I love the idea that this song could be just what I needed to hear the week of my birthday. I love the idea that its message was just for me at that hour and I especially love that a little Italian-named kitten gently took me there; to a place where I feel more loving than I have in a long time, towards so many people and situations in my life. 

What a gift.

Figurare in Italian means symbolize, represent, imagine. Yes, that works.

In the meantime, sometime during my birthday week, Italian itunes was playing the "Somewhere over the Rainbow" arrangement that sounds kind of reggae.... They call it "Cielo nel Cielo" which literally means, 'sky in the sky'. Beautiful. Just a little bonus birthday thing, I figured. 

The weekend of my birthday, Antoine's parents came to visit from France. 

More to love.

That story is next. 

My New Year

Buon giorno!

Yes it's true...I am back. 

Did I know I was so missed for the last duration? I did not. But, my beautiful friend Tina (can I begin to tell you how much I adore her?) was chiding me in no uncertain terms last night over my birthday dinner at Il Toscano where our host Vittorio (another whom I adore) not only made the birthday girl un piatto speciale - pasta alla sea urchin - yum - but back to Tina...she has very much missed my blog.

So here I am, with a pending 4-course meal to prepare for Antoine's parents who are visiting from France ... and Roma and Inter are playing one of THE matches of the season. Ibra just scored. He is so sexy, in that Euro-big-nose kind of way and I especially love him because he's married to an older woman, and yum I just read that he is favored for the Ballon d'Or (Euro footballer of the year; that video shows a recent goal at the very end) but I digress, again. I do have a big dinner party coming up this evening and do I appear concerned about having all those 4 courses prepared well and on time, setting the table, etc? I do not. Did I mention Roma and Inter are playing live at the moment?

So it's my new year, yesterday was New Year's Day. This is usually when I set my resolutions but considering that this calendar year (as of January 2008) I hosted SportsBites radio for 28 consecutive weeks, started Melting Pot Tours with my sister Lisa (have I ever mentioned that I adore her?), have hosted house guests from both Italy and France more than once, started this blog and will soon be starting a new one for our Tours website, have cheffed on a yacht, and I'm sure I've done a host of other things that do not come to mind right this instant...I am sure that it's OK with the gods that I don't make a new to-do list at this hour, I think I'm good for resolutions.

I think I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and ramp up ways to have fun. And laugh. And how to do more of that with the people I love most in the world. Even take it to Italy and France again. Maybe Spain too.

And while we're talking of a perfect world, here are the plans for my special birthday next year. Party for lots of my favorite people and me at the Casa Del Mar Hotel in Santa Monica. Saturday night, 17 October 2009. Rooms and parking for everyone who wants to stay overnight and have brunch the next morning. Amazing tapas, paella, Sangria, birthday dessert, live music and dancing for the party. Spectacular party favors for everyone who comes. Individual (non-coupled) guests of all ages invited to bring a guest. Too much fun.

Before I break here - squash+apple+shallots+sweet potato for soup...then tomatoes, then garlic for antipasti, are waiting to be roasted - here's a quick update in case you were as concerned as Tina that the world was gypped for several months while I didn't blog:

The Soreal Cafe is no longer. It appears to have been replaced by a Botox Center. No further comment.

Sundays are still sacred and I now am even more annoyed when I'm asked to be somewhere since Doll and I usually work on Saturdays now; men, money, family (remember, not necessarily in that order) still being the only things I allow to interrupt my sacred time and space. Antoine's parents are considered family and, yesterday was a company holiday.

My sacred box of Cream of Wheat had to be thrown out because my pantry had a bad case of bugs this summer. I hate that. Rest assured, when we finally have some serious fall weather around her, Red Chef Cream of Wheat Man and I intend to get seriously re-acquainted.

Some friends who are on the same spiritual page as me at the moment have taken to wishing on stars after I shared a dream that I had last Sunday morning about Figaro, the kitten in Pinocchio. Come to think of it, that would make a great story to blog. Like me, if you have no problem with fairy tales, princesses, magic, and discovering a beautiful new voice, I hope you will enjoy one of my favorite new videos here.

Finally, just to assure you that not everything has changed since we last met, I leave you with this ... SportsBites radio may be on hiatus and I don't get to say this out loud as often as I used to, but I still think Alessandro Nesta gives whole new meaning to soccer being the World's Most Beautiful Game.

Inter has scored 3 more times (Ibra - 2 of the 4 goals) in this match which yet again gives credence that some things are destined to stay the same, for at least a while longer. 

Life for them, and me, is very very good and keeps getting better and better.

Dreams do come true: A Cereal Cafe

So Doll (my sister Lisa) and I are around town today, having been interviewed by the Beach Reporter for our new Melting Pot Tours... a fascinating Business Profile (complete with photo) for this Thursday's paper I'm sure, and there we saw it - The Soreal Cafe. A cereal cafe, in Hermosa Beach. (There is no website link, I am so sorry.)

I said to Doll, "you know, I had a thought one day, that every time a new business opens, someone's dream comes true!"

Isn't that a nice thought? Just imagine. Someone wanted to open a cereal cafe. And now they have. This is a wonderful world. I understand that this place has 30 or 40 cereals to choose from, and you can select a combination if you'd like. You can even have your selection with some frozen yogurt. You can, I am sure, have a choice of milks to go with your cereal. You can also have some fresh fruit with your choice or combinations of cereals. The possibilities are probably endless! Unlimited!

Imagine how blessed this cafe's customers must feel. Maybe their (the customers') dreams are coming true, it is entirely possible.

This reminds me of a woman I knew many moons ago who was telling me a story about how she liked to eat oatmeal for breakfast sometimes. Her mother used to make it and she had loved it as a child and so on the morning of this particular story she spun to me, she had gone down to some restaurant and, ordered oatmeal....

You know, I have no recollection whatsoever of what other pearls her story contained because I had so much trouble getting past her craving homemade oatmeal and going out to order it at a restaurant. She owned a fabulous home, with a gourmet kitchen. It's just not right.

Imagine if I had a day where I woke up craving hot cereal and did what? Got out of my jammies, dolled up enough to be seen in public (on a day when I'm craving hot cereal; how long would that take?), and drove to where? The Soreal Cafe?

It has occurred to me whether they serve Cream of Wheat. From the red box. The 2 1/2 minute version. I doubt it.

Oh never mind. 

Let's just leave it at...someone wanted to open a place that served cereal, and now their dream has come true.

Once again we have pure proof, and another reason to absolutely believe what I always claim to be true.

Life is very good.

Euro Cup and Cream of Wheat

This month's oomo (see my post on Objects of my Obsession for more on that) pretty much keeps getting better and better. 

My week, as I've stated earlier, has not been one of the best on record and there are those of us who, oh I don't know, cook something up, to make ourselves feel better. 

If you saw the movie Sex and the City, or even if you didn't...there is a scene where our heroine is being spoon-fed some breakfast by one of her friends. She's had a really bad fall and they take such wonderful care of her. I was whining last week to my friends that I would not mind at all if someone spoon-fed me some breakfast right now.

My point - it looks as though she's being spoon-fed some creamy white cereal, and it reminded me of Cream of Wheat, the hot cereal that I ate as a child, and one of my favorite kid meals.

My mom used to make eating it really fun for us. She'd tint it with a little food color - blue one morning, green the next, then pink, etc - and we'd eat it with milk and sugar. And all would be right with the world.

So I've been thinking of how I need to go buy some Cream of Wheat, not even sure if they still sell it...but I could get very used to a habit of creamy white bland cereal right about now, even if it's already getting warm at 8 in the morning. Never mind. I need that comfort right now.

Last night I found it. Expensive! But there. The red box with the little man-chef smiling at me. My only choice was the original 2 1/2 minute recipe. I hugged it all the way home.

Euro Cup sidebar: Italy vs. France at 11:45 today. This was a do-or-die match which had a lot to do with both teams being in Group C - The Group of Death. And France is their nemesis, to put it mildly. Italy had to win today, or pack their sorry bags and go home. If they did win, they'd advance to the quarterfinals which begin later this week.

So, it occurred to me, this morning, why not, oh I don't know, tint my Cream of Wheat blue? 

Because France might wear blue jerseys today. This happens sometimes; their national jersey is blue and so is Italy's.

Oh.

Well then, I'm clever, I can think of something else. 

How about the Italian Flag? Green, white, red.

I made my little pot of cream of wheat, put some cereal in one bowl to tint it red. Some in a second bowl to tint it green. The remainder, white, in the pot.

Now the tricky part was getting the three colors to sit just so in my cereal bowl, but they did, for just a minute. It was beautiful.

I blew a kiss, to my Italian team that I just love, and enjoyed my cereal, all mixed up (so pretty!) with sugar and milk.

France wore blue jerseys today. Italy wore white. With little Italian flag emblems on them.

Italy beat France 2-0.

Color me happy.

Hurt, Pray, Cook

In Elizabeth Gilbert's brilliant book Eat, Pray, Love she takes her reader on a virtual trip through Italy, India, and Indonesia. She spent four months in each country to basically heal her life, and her story is a great read and even better inspiration.

These last few days I've borrowed some of that, not only limited to the title of this post...

I mentioned this on one of my SportsBites radio shows as well. When I am hurting, I do two things. I pray and I cook. More often than not, I do both things together and not only because it makes the food I'm preparing taste even better. It just makes me feel better.

Having been raised Catholic with strict rules and regulations on how to pray (and how to do everything else), quite honestly I have tossed all of that and am pleased to report that for years now I have just made up my own prayers (and my own rules and regulations). So far that has worked out really well for me.

Cooking is one of the most sacred activities I practice. My cookbook is titled Angel Food. It has nothing to do with angel food cake and has everything to do with invoking and welcoming Divine presence when I cook. This is both for my benefit and healing, and usually for the people I am cooking for as well. But since I regularly cook for just me, and lately my heart is hurting, my kitchen has felt like one of the safest places to be. 

There is something about working with dough or pastry or chopping vegetables or folding a perfect omelette that just feels really good. The other day I made chocolate chip cookie dough partially just because I love that it was the first recipe I ever learned with my mom, and partially because I wanted to bring cookies to people I was meeting at an Italian festival on Saturday. 

I made the cookies, packaged them up, and forgot to take them with me. So my lovely friend Tina, whom I shared the evening with because it felt really good to have someone for dinner, happily took them home. 

This was after we learned that our evening's other main event, the encore broadcast of the Euro Cup match between Spain and Sweden was on at 10:30pm EST, not PST, and we'd completely missed it. Oh well. Our Greek tacos for dinner followed by Tina's gift of cherry pie had made for a wonderful meal, so we were happy.

I spent the part of Fathers Day that I wasn't a zombie-slug, making homemade Bolognese sauce for spaghetti, with some little homemade rolls, which leftover I will love enjoying tonight. My dad loved pasta with meat sauce. At home in our family we always loved spaghetti left over, the next day. Personally I love it anytime. It was the perfect meal to think of him by.

Yeah. Just some notes on feeling better through cooking and food I guess. Not what pop culture would necessarily subscribe to but surely we all know how much I care about that.

By the way, in case you haven't read it yet, I can't begin to tell you how happy the ending is in the book Eat Pray Love. And it's a true story. Everything that unfolded for her, she absolutely deserved and had coming to her. I love that book.

I trust that the good news in all of this, is that we all deserve an ending at least that happy. 

I very much look forward to mine. 

Euro Cup + (Other) Objects of My Obsession (oomo)

I am really not big on signature acronyms, cutesy alliterations or, anything cutesy for that matter. But, I use the reference 'object of my obsession' so often that I've decided to give it the label oomo from now on.

Starting today, Euro Cup - headline/top-story/main event of SportsBites radio this last Thursday and one of this month's oomo - deserves a lot of my time and attention, so much so that Antoine (quite easily) talked me into going to English pub The Underground to watch the Portugal-Turkey match. I hesitated (English pubs are not usually my favorites) for about 5 minutes at his direct orders ("let's go!"). But, they do have many big screens airing soccer for this duration and, upon finding free parking (miraculously) only about a mile away, we walked in and there on all those screens was the beautiful Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portuguese teammates all lined up for their anthem. 

I didn't need any more coaxing to just sit my little butt down and settle in for the afternoon.

A yummy BLT, really good fat fries, and about 3 cokes later, I was happy and Portugal had won, 2-0. I started taking mental notes in there for future reference: Mon-Fri, 2 for 1 burgers 11-3, and that Manchester United burger on the menu with blue cheese and bacon did sound pretty good...Italy plays on Monday at 11:45...matches go on most of the month, often on weekdays...happy hours after about 3pm....chocolate volcano cake was today's special dessert...the service was good and soft drink refills are free....hmmm....

Plus, there is really something to be said for watching Euro football players on the big screen which I learned 2 years ago when I fell in love during the World Cup. And herein lies another oomo. Steve Amoia was my very welcomed guest on SportsBites the other day, and we got to talking about the new short, incredibly hilarious film that is probably aired all over Europe at the moment (they are so lucky), starring Franck Ribery (from France and, not the most handsome man) and Italian Luca Toni who, gives whole new meaning to um, dreamy. 

The two amazingly talented footballers are teammates for Bayern-Munich in Germany's Bundesliga and are quite the duo, both on and off the pitch. It is tremendous fun to watch them play together and their goal-scoring is just, spectacular. Their short film begins with Luca taunting Franck with the World Cup 2006 Champions shirt he wears, reminding his French friend of "second". They speak only Italian and French, respectively, but clearly they understand each other very well. The whole little episode cannot be enjoyed without laughing out loud even if you can't understand a word of French or Italian. Luca Toni is known for his gestures and facial expressions anyway and Ribery is famous for his practical jokes and being a clown.

My point is, their website and film, The Grand Final, is the new oomo. I am addicted to it.

Oh and by the way I saw Sex and The City - the movie - for the second time today. It's not an oomo but I did like it, I thought it was just really fun with great one-liners, hair, clothes, shoes. It made me laugh, and cry. A couple of my favorite parts were the reference about almost never looking back,  and, the guacamole.

Yeah. I will leave you with that. Stay tuned for more oomo, I'm sure I'll be addressing those from time to time....

Buona notte!

How I fell in love with Italian football

Buona sera!

I was going to go into a soliloquy about why I haven't posted anything lately but let's just drop that boring note and get into the good news, shall we? Euro Cup 2008 is finally here this Saturday, the moment I've been waiting for pretty much since Italy won the World Cup, on 9 July 2006. 

The Cup that changed my life. It's high time I told you that story.

On 17 June 2006, from Germany, the World Cup's schedule featured Italy and the USA in the first elimination round, and there was a party at a friend's sports bar/restaurant.

I was at the party early. Lots of my favorite Italo-American friends would be there and I did not want to miss a beat. I made sure I was seated front and center - great big screen, great furniture, great food, even better company and, suddenly, before my very eyes, Gli Azzurri - Team Italy.

Oooh. Mmm, I thought as  I watched the players in blue. Mmm. Having never watched a pro soccer match before in my life, the first thing that got my attention was that there was no padding, no helmets, no protection except goalkeepers' gloves (and Italy's goalkeeper...whole separate thing to notice...) so, wow, you could see these men really well. And they really were worth a look. Oooh. Mmmmmmmmm.

Then it happened. Italy scored the first goal. The beautiful Alberto Gilardino slid to his knees and mimicked playing a violin. (If you watch the video in the link above, you'll see this scene).

I was in awe, mesmerized. I had never seen anything like that in my life. I looked seriously at my friend Linda, sitting next to me, and said,

"I'm in love. I'm done. Toast. I love this game. I love these players. It's over. I'm...done." I probably said all this along with hand gestures of sorts. Then I was about speechless. Very unusual for me.

The match ended in a draw, 1-1. Team USA was invisible as far as I was concerned. I remember absolutely nothing about them or their squad. I only had eyes for Team Italy, especially when I discovered Alessandro Nesta. (Later on I laughed to my good friend Jim Riggio that I had mistaken Gila for Nesta: "I thought it was Nesta that did the mock violin thing! I fell in love with the wrong guy. Not all that unusual for me!") Never mind. I was madly in love with 23 men, all at the same time. Deep, deep love.

Every match Italy played after that, I was able to watch even if it meant getting up between 5 and 6am (Evening matches were 9 hours ahead of California time). My schedule was always clear to indulge my new passion. How magical. How fabulous. I love falling in love in July.

Italy triumphed over Germany in the semifinal on 4th of July. I was late to my family's party that day. I could not wait for 9 July, when the Final would be with France. Huge party plans began to unfold.

By that hot - scorchy, actually - Sunday morning, at least 500 Italo-Americans, sports fans or not, had gathered at a site in San Pedro for the 11am match. I was asked why I had left the house on a Sunday so early (refer to my post on Sacred Sundays) - by now, for those who knew me well, that was such a foolish question. Duh!

Spectacular! Italy won and we all went positively insane, as if these players were made of our own flesh and blood. I had never seen a trophy ceremony like that. I had never, ever been so thrilled at the victory of a sports match.

I could hardly sleep that night. I felt like my life had been changed forever. It had.

I went to Italy a few months later and the country was still tingling from all that. Pictures of my new heroes were everywhere. They were on TV commercials. I was enraptured, always thinking, "they are so lucky in Italy!" I went to Rome for the first time and was told more than once that my favorite site, the fabulous ,Via Del Corso, was where the team's bus arrived in Rome for their coming home celebration two days after they'd won the World Cup. 

By then I had begun studying and following the players' individual club teams and a new friend in Torino even took me to a live Juventus match one freezing afternoon, which was one of the highlights of my life. I got to have conversation after conversation with beautiful men in Italy (such a great way to practice my second language) - because I was this bizarro anomaly - an Italo-American woman who loved Italian football. How much fun was that - for maybe everyone, least of all, me. I learned more Italian vocabulary than I might have otherwise, for reading the sports journals and watching the sports news every day. There were always such great interviews and photographs of my favorite players. (They are so lucky in Italy.)

The next two times I went to Italy after that? More of the same. I say I travel there not only because I intend to literally make the motherland my second home (it already is the home of my heart and soul; my body just needs to catch up), I go to collect people and their stories, revel in the cuisine, and immerse myself as much as possible in the national religion that is Italian football. (And for the record, I'm kinda homesick, by the way.)

This passion has brought more joy into my life than I thought it could. Since EURO CUP starts on Saturday, and it's said, for Europeans to be almost as important as the World Cup, it would definitely be fair to say...

I am so lucky.

That De-Cluttering Thing

It is Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, and it's raining.

This - a little reminiscent of when, it seemed like every Memorial weekend our family planned to go camping, it looked on the Friday like it was going to pour rain and our trip would be cancelled. I remember once driving up to the mountains anyway and the skies were clear and blue and our weekend was fabulous. I also remember another time, arriving at our destination where it was freezing cold, we huddled in our tent trailer to play games most of the time, I walked our doxie to work up some body heat...and finally it snowed. So we packed up camp, drove home, and ate Burger King Whoppers for dinner.

Yes. And now in fact I usually don't travel on this weekend anymore, unless I am already in Sicily like I was last year where it was hot and sunny on the Saturday and poured rain on the Sunday and Monday, come to think of it...but this weekend I am staying close to home because I have self-committed to the dreaded task of, de-cluttering.

For months Antoine has asked me to get rid of my now-former-office in our living room. Since I can use my MacBook from anywhere now, including the floor of the living room, I no longer need the ugly desk and its entourage of papers, accessories, etc., that uglify that corner of the room. I have gotten rid of the desktop that was there, so it's not like I haven't gotten started.

(The 8x10 framed AC Milan team photo does get to stay, somehow, some way though - to his chagrin I'm sure - because it is a constant reminder to me of how much beauty is in the world.)

I have, to my credit, cleaned out my file drawers over there and have put other things in relatively neat boxes and, do have plans to shop with my friend Tina tomorrow to perhaps find some other receptacles that I can live with, to store things...Meanwhile, my room has yet again, an overflowing dresser of clothes and things I think I need most of but since everything is just thrown in there at the moment I'm not entirely sure. Then there's the closet "filled with all Diane's shoes" Antoine once advised another visiting French guy (I wish, was my response to that inaccuracy) that really does need another ruthless clean sweep (but most of the shoes will make the cut).

What I really would like to do is purge everything in this whole place, and start all over again. That would just be so freeing, so .... different. Lots of people have new homes and don't furnish them right away. I could very very very very very easily do that. I probably would keep my bed, the TV (because Euro Cup starts 2 weeks from today), and the refrigerator you know, because SportsBites is my signature.

It's 10:08 and the fun really must begin shortly. I think I'll put some coffee on and if it's not raining too terribly, I'll duck out now and walk over to the French bakery to buy the day's baguette. I'll pretend like I'm in France.

I'm sure that will make everything else that waits for me back here at De-Clutter Central so much easier to deal with.

As you want...

Come vuole. Two of my favorite Italian words when strung together. 

As you want. They also sound pretty good in English too. 

I love you

I miss you

I'm waiting for you/I'll be waiting

My pleasure

and

Back to bed ...

Sigh...all of these little strings of words in my opinion just sound...beautiful.

But back to As you want...

It was brought to my attention by someone close to me, that I talk about a lot about soccer on my SportsBites radio show and, people "here" don't care about soccer. They don't want to hear about it. They don't get the soccer channels on TV. They want to hear about American sports, like they talk about on all the other sportsradio shows.

Their case in point was, I shouldn't spend that much time on soccer.

Hm.

This reminded me immediately of Hugh Grant's and Sandra Bullock's characters in Two Weeks Notice when she insists that "all men" think or do something, and he asks her, "How do you know? Do you know every single man? Have you asked every single man if he does/thinks that?" And of course she has to say no.

Then I was reminded (after this conversation ended, about the feedback on too much soccer) of when I had a little freelance stint with a local beach newspaper, to write "SportsBites" and I regularly wrote about Europe, especially Italy and, their sports/events/athletes. I was asked, about one year ago, to not write about Europe any more, and write only on local sports. 

Hm. (My thought at the time.)

I could have said a lot of things in response (and come to think of it, could say a lot of things right now) but, I took the high road and wrote a farewell column called "Time to Say Goodbye", exited stage right, and began doing a radio show chatting up as much of Europe and Euro sports as I wanted.

So it occurs to me yet again, as it did last year....do we, as artists, do what we do for others, or for ourselves? Really, the answer is a no-brainer.

When I do my show each week, it is the hour I feel most alive. Whatever inspires me, whatever I talk about, especially if it's Euro or Italian football (soccer), or food, or baseball, or the Giro d'Italia going on right now - this week's show theme - I about feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin I am so excited. It seems to me, that only good can come from that kind of passion. 

I've been told my listenership is expanding and steadily growing. That sounds and feels good.

The show will become even more and more international-oriented. World sports and world cuisine fascinate me and you can guess that I am not in the mood to stop what I love doing.

I do not do well when tweaking who I am, to make others more comfortable or solicit their approval. It is painful. Excruciating might be a better word to describe how it feels when I'm asked to do that.

First thing this morning I found this quote in my email:

"If all the great artists, inventors, mystics, educators, and geniuses of history, waited for the world to understand, accept, and be ready for them, we would still be in the Stone Age."

--Alan Cohen

Here's another pearl:

"You have never really liked being told what to do."

-- Ask and it is Given

A few years ago there was a brilliant sports story about an exceptional high school athlete, who had only one hand. He was a pitcher at Mater Dei, and was aggressively sought after by college after college.

The young man talked about how everyone once told him he couldn't be an athlete - for gods' sake, he only had one hand! When asked how he dealt with such seeming ignorance, inconsideration, and lack of encouragement, he indicated that his philosophy was the following.

Just ignore what everyone else says, and do what you want.

I am eternally grateful to this fine young man who summed up the clearest code I live by, in a single sentence.

Correction - Mi dispiace, Milan

AC Milan actually did win today, 4-1, with Udinese and, that wasn't enough to put them ahead of Fiorentina in the final standings see, because Fiorentina also won, and that goal by Pablo Osvaldo was the only - and winning - goal in the game and he is from Argentina and has played well in the past for Italy's national U21 (under 21) team I trust, because he has Italian roots and passport. See how much research I get done on Sunday nights?

I just probably would do well not to blog and watch spotty highlights in Italian, considering I still have not mastered my second language yet.

So sorry, Milan...I'll try to get all your wins and losses straight in the future, I promise.

xo

Back to Camp, and Serie A finale

Buona sera!

Just a quick post - or so I'll try to do that. We know how I get on a roll and it's hard for me to zip it.

I just wanted to report that I had SO much fun at Camp Getaway last month, Fearless Leader Patti let me come back for a special weekend with just 16 of us total, and all but 3 of us were scrapbookers, or croppers...that might be the real word. 

Anyway, this was such a great group of ladies, from all over SoCal mostly (one from Wyoming). Patti and Janelle and I were the short staff this go around; I helped in the kitchen and Janelle was the resident nurse and massage therapist. Instead of all being in separate cabins and 'commuting' to a main lodge, this time we all stayed in a large cabin with two sides of the house separated by a kind of great-room - nice kitchen and living area mostly taken up by...scrapbooking tables. The bunks were much nicer and I had my own room! It reminded me of a b&b room in Europe.

I was asked if I 'scrapbooked' and I said no, because that would just equal my having more stuff. 

I read tarot cards per request, and traded Janelle a reading on Friday night for a massage on Saturday. What a fabulous trade. Both the reading and massage were extraordinary. The jury is still out on who did better on that deal. Great fun. This morning we practiced yoga together on the deck, with ants. We read about ants in an animal totems book and only learned that ants like "social". What a revelation.

OK so nice hot weekend in the mountains where it actually was a little cooler than here at sea level...and I am home in time to do one of the things I do best on Sunday nights. I am watching Domenica Sportiva on RAI TV to see what I missed in Italian football this weekend - (there was a TV up there but they used it mostly for movies - as if Italian football would have been a priority for anyone else).

InterMilan won the Scudetto - the Serie A league title; Roma were 'champions for an hour' per the show here. I really wanted Roma to bump them out of first place but we see that didn't happen. This whole show tonight, just about, has been about those stories and I wish they knew that we heard them the first time (lots of revisiting) and we'd like to see some of the other match highlights, thank you.

Now they are finally showing clips of AC Milan's match with Udinese, and how they LOST and came in fifth place in the league, since today was the last day of the season. Fiorentina (as in, Sebastien Frey) came in fourth -- this is all important in the league because unlike our American sports, the Euro leagues have Champions League, and relegation...more than I'll go into here and now; this is good info for SportsBites in the future.

Anyway, the Milan match today had the beautiful Roberto Rosetti for their referee so I missed a LOT, god I hate when that happens. AND Pippo Inzaghi peeled off his jersey and threw it to the crowd; at least they showed that on the highlights here. GRRRRR.

At least I have now just noticed a certain Pablo Osvaldo with Fiorentina's highlights since he did this fabulous bicycle/scissor kick to score a great goal, and he was just interviewed. Yum.

See, this is what I tried to tell my fellow lady World Cup Champions fans about two years ago...if you follow the club teams in addition to the national team, you get to see the World Cup guys again, and their teammates. But no one really took me up on it. Never mind.

Euro Cup starts June 7. It's like the World Cup all over again, only with just European teams. This is such a wonderful consolation for Serie A ending now. As I always like to say, life is so good.

Stay tuned for more on that!

Date Sauce and Pigsty

This morning I could have slept in til 4:30, but I woke up at 4 - and stayed awake. You know, just in case I accidentally fell back to sleep for too long, perhaps lost in a dream about nursing the beautiful, now-injured Vincenzo Iaquinta back to health in time to play for Italy in the Euro Cup this summer...

No, nothing like that. I woke up half an hour early because I was nervously thinking of at least 6 or 8 more things I was going to need for the food styling I was scheduled to do at 7, for Tony Danza and his son Marc, so they could make Date Sauce.

OK yeah. I'll back up.

Thursday, on my way home from hiking in the hills, I got a call on my cell phone from the lady who turned out to be Tony Danza's publicist. She was asking about my availability less than 24 hours later, to style food for a morning segment on Good Day LA. Tony and his son Marc have written a memoir cookbook, and they would be making Date Sauce for the segment.

Now. I had had my coffee already, and granted I was located kind of off the beaten track when I was speaking with this lovely person I'd never met before but, I had to ask, "Now are there dates in the sauce, like the dried fruit? Or..." (even though I was quite sure I'd heard her correctly).

No, she said. It's a sauce you make for dates as in, a romantic dinner at home.

Oh. Yes. That kind of sauce. Oh. Fine. Yes. I can make those.

We made plans to email or speak again when she had more details and, now I was committed to a job that could conceivably take on a life of its own if it tried (this kind of thing happens regularly). That afternoon I had originally made plans to explore Japanese noodle places during a late-lunch R&D excursion with my sister on behalf of R&D for Melting Pot Tours. 

Now instead, after SportsBites radio, I shopped - again - at Crate&Barrel. 

It took until after 10pm last night to get everything shopped-prepped-packed for Date Sauce. Which brings us back to my waking up at 4, not dreaming about Iaquinta...getting to FOX studios early actually, to prep for the TV segment, meet the Danzas, etc., it all went well. Then the even- better part of my day arrived.

My sister Suz teaches first grade, and today her 14 little students were hosting their mothers for a Tea Party, and a little Mothers Day program they have been long preparing for. Suz needed quality grown-up help, and as we always want these things done right, we recruit family accordingly. My mom, Lisa, and I arrived by 11am with our sleeves rolled up.

It was difficult not to fall in love as soon as I walked into the classroom. 14 beautiful little people were very excited about their new guest because they'd never met me before. Some children were doing math, others were painting little cakes with frosting. I wondered out loud, right away, what was wrong with that picture, and was told very calmly by my sister that "we are taking turns." Of course.

I was already in food mode, so immediately I was on strawberry detail (rinsing, slicing), then we made tea sandwiches with the children. Ours were cream cheese and cucumber, yum.

We also made cream tarts topped with the sliced strawberries, bananas, and mandarin oranges. Then my mom and I made ham and cheese sandwiches while the children were at 'lunch'.

When they came in there was still grown-up work to do to get everything ready for the moms' arrival at 1pm. To keep the children entertained, I was ordered gently but firmly to "read them a story!"

I was handed a picture book called Pigsty - what a laugh. Its hero Wendell has a messy room and while uninspired to clean it, some pigs move in and his life gets more complicated. Hilarious. Perfect for even those of us who love to honor their 6-year-old child inside.

I made story hour interactive - too much fun! I started by asking the children if they knew what a pigsty was, and every single one of them did in fact know that word. We wondered if we knew ANYbody whose room was like a pigsty? We learned that there are farms in France and Italy, since one of the pigs in the story arrived with a big suitcase with Rome and Paris stickers on it! We had tremendous fun with the story and were all disappointed when it had to end, which punch line I wouldn't dare spoil for you.

It was time for the mothers to arrive, and they did. It was such an incredibly beautiful afternoon for them, for all of us. The food was of course very delicious, and the interaction between these beautiful little children and their moms was so moving. I loved every second of it. 

My sister is a genius. She has taken (originally) very difficult little people, and since September has inspired them to be so much more of who they really are. I am so proud of her. It was a joy, pleasure, and privilege to be with her there today to share their very special day.

And, I collected hugs all afternoon, one little girl has the same name as me so we're new best friends, one little boy is a big soccer fan, one even looks like a miniature Bruno (France)....I can't wait to go back and visit them again. Plus, they all really enjoyed cooking, what's not to love.

I promised Suz I definitely wanted that reading a story opportunity again, at which request she and Lisa agreed that I was so much fun and that the kids really liked me! What a wonderful compliment. What a fabulous day.

It's a no-brainer. I really am only 6 years old inside.

Soccer Men Sing

I'm afraid there's a new object of my obsession.

Last spring when I was in the French Alps for about a week, one of the first nights I spent nestled in my own little apartment (for which keys Antoine had given me when we parted company in Paris; his family owns the apartment), happy as a clam. I had made dinner with exquisite groceries then relaxed to watch TV. I was lucky to have about 5 channels. Two were Italian and the other three were French.

One night on Italian TV, there was a music show that had contestants, of which I gathered were teams made of one celebrity and one non-celebrity. I say this because one celebrity looked just like Fabio Grosso of Italy's national soccer team. But as he was all decked out in jeans, a Marilyn Monroe TShirt and blazer, I wasn't sure until...they introduced him as Fabio Grosso and the crowd went crazy. He was the hero that made the last penalty kick for Italy to win the 2006 World Cup.

So here was one of our favorite Italians, with a microphone. I wondered if he was going to sing and, what that would sound like. He has a great voice and sang beautifully. It was pure pleasure to watch his equally great presence on stage as if he did this all the time. It appeared as though his club team (Lyon, France, actually for the last two years) perhaps just gave their players a night off once they won the league championship...

He sang a song after his 'competition' (he didn't win; couldn't tell you why not) that was very high-spirited and as fun to listen to as it must have been to sing, which the entire crowd did. I figured it must have been a 'soccer song' because they have those in Europe...here, sports songs like this? Not so much.

Fast forward one year...I get an email from the wonderful Steve Amoia, who is one of my new best friends. He writes extremely well on many subjects including his favorites...Italian football and world soccer. He forwarded me the link to his Calcio website that includes a 'best of the web' list of articles and videos on all sorts of splendid things, including Italy's national team.

One video is "Azzurri Players Singing". It is a charity singfest by the national team from about four or five years ago and includes some of the present top players.

Can I guess how many times I've watched this? They are singing Azzurro, the same song I first heard by the beautiful Fabio Grosso one year ago. (Azzurro is the color blue, in Italian.)

Fabulous. I am in heaven, because now, at least 23 Fabio Grosso types are singing joyfully, and they sound - and look - fantastic. The solos by some of the biggest stars are especially impressive. The jazzy, sexy bridge between verses backs up footage of them goofing off and having too much fun. 

At the end, the bonus minutes show a commercial, set in the dark, starring one beautiful goalkeeper (but this was before Buffon's time), then 5 or 6 other players at the end. They're all wearing Under Armour type clothing. 

So worth a look.

Now I am addicted to the entire video and am on a tear to learn the Azzurro song. The lyrics are neither complicated or difficult; it's a little story about the summer and taking a train "to come to you".... something like that.

My favorite line is about "the train of desires in my thoughts".

Yum. That would definitely be worth the price of a ticket. 

Even in twice-the-dollar Euro.

Enough to be Dangerous... re: Milan and Juve

Eccomi, here I am again with another tale to tell about how I know enough Italian to be dangerous, but not enough to get myself out of trouble...

And why are we not surprised, this case has to do with my vast knowledge (kidding) of Italian football and my passion for what I would like to be my favorite teams but now I'm kinda thinkin' I might need to reconsider that...

I mentioned the beautiful "G" in one of my last posts...he is the man I met in Rome last November - this was a mere 16 hours before I flew back home to LA.  As I said on my SportsBites radio show the other day, that would be my luck to meet someone like him just before I leave Italy, without a set date to return once again.

Anyway, we have finally just begun regularly emailing with - for me - pure pleasure. I write to him in Italian and he usually writes to me in English. Very, very charming English. Did I mention that this is pure pleasure on my end? 

The other day we wrote about speaking on the phone, and I asked, maybe on Sunday? I added that maybe a match with Milan or Juventus would be on TV that day. In that case, I would be "very very busy", so we could speak before or after. 

Mind you, I did not even know if he was tifoso (a fan), and, I happen to know that both these squads have fans all over Italy, including Sicily...so I could not guess that his response would be what it was. But, he had in fact told me he was back in Napoli, his town, so believe me when I say that I wish I'd been knocked upside the head in advance, because...

Those in Napoli....not big fans of northern Italian squads. Not big fans of Milan and Juventus in particular, I'm sure. Do they want to talk - or hear - about them? You know? Not so much.

He wrote, in Italian (my Italian dictionary and I now just about require surgical detachment) - in some capital letters (ouch) - words to this effect. 

And then, that he loves my website, and my work, and that he is waiting, anxiously for my next letter.

But, can you imagine still, how horrible I felt? Oh s--t.

My first thought was  OK you know what? NOW would be a really good time to never, ever speak - let alone write - Italian again. And, if we ever meet up in Italy again (at that moment I was quite sure I'd be a fool to ever expect that), I might do well to just somehow communicate that I had now become a deaf mute - probably the best thing that could ever happen for him. 

But then it occurred to me that this would in turn, equal the idea of my trying to communicate in Italian via, what, sign language?? That would just be disastrous beyond comprehension. This lovely gentle man does not deserve that. Nor does Napoli. Nor Italy.

I am hard-pressed to think of any entity that would deserve that.

And that would still not excuse me from having to write down my words, now would it? And when we were together, what would I do? While pretending to be a deaf mute? Use a magic slate or notepad to script the botching of his beautiful language?

Oh just never mind.

Back to my story. (We were talking about my mention of being a Milan and Juve fan to this man from Napoli, remember?) I needed to back out of this one yesterday, and yet, do I know enough Italian to say how foolish I felt? To express what I'd really like to say?

I do not.

I write to tell him exactly that, and how sorry I am. I did know how to say I never meant to say anything offensive and that I'm afraid he's angry at me. I try to explain that we rarely see Napoli on TV here, Milan and Juve are just the squads I know the best. And, that when I do come to Napoli, that we can be tifosi for his team, together. 

He writes back to say he was joking! He could never be angry at me. (It's a good thing I have that in writing.)

Yesterday I sent him Fabio Cannavaro's recipe for pizza. Canna is the captain of Italy's national (soccer) team, and the one you may remember (shaved head, fabulous smile) in photos after the 2006 World Cup holding up the trophy with tremendous joy. He is from Napoli. It was suggested to me, that great champions come from Napoli. I just wanted him to know, that I get it.

Little sidebar, last note - you'd think I'd have learned a little something from another encounter, with the last Italian man, from Milan, who insisted, "Diane. You can't be a fan of Milan and Juve. It has to be Milan or Juve." Yeah. He disappeared into the ether shortly thereafter. 

Do you think I ought to try the deaf mute thing? For the greater good, to perhaps put beautiful Italian men out of their misery once and for all? 

Maybe not.

The alternative might be way too much fun.

Enough to be Dangerous but...

It is incredibly hot at the beach this weekend. I would be on the sand doing this but I don't think they have wi-fi out there and you can probably guess how unnerved I get when people and their out-of-control children do not practice proper "beach etiquette". Don't get me started. 

Let me first say that if I seem on the cranky side, I am. I do not like anything extreme, and heat with an thick air of humidity is one of those things. And I just learned, having gotten up about 10am, that I seem to have missed an airing of Milan's match today, during which one-of-the-objects-of-my-obsession, Pippo Inzaghi, scored 3 goals. For the record, my post title here doesn't refer to being cranky enough to be dangerous, so I'll leave that alone for now.

What it does refer to, is how I know enough Italian to be dangerous but not enough to get myself out of trouble. Knowing what I do about the power of the mind and one's spoken word, I might do well to stop saying that. Maybe I will after this post because I have such good stories to tell about evidence has yielded in my life so far, especially within the last year.

Pool Toys

Last May I spent a week in Sicily, at the beautiful agriturismo property at Sant'Agata Millitello.

(I wish I was there now.)

If you click on the link above, you will see the swimming pool. It is actually my swimming pool, and trust me, I will be going back one day, sooner than later, to remind them of this! The week I stayed here, it was incredibly hot (kind of like today), and they did not have plans to open the pool until June 1, but I was leaving May 28 and, as I said, it was incredibly hot. See the photos of the terrazza, where for the first couple days I did lounge like a lizard between the shade and sun but, I was very gently but firmly persuasive about them getting the pool ready for me. They finally did.

Now here was the deal. The property was managed by their father and two beautiful brothers, both of whom I was afraid I would fall in love with at the same time and so I did but, back to my story...I told them, in my best (albeit limited) Italian, that what they needed for my pool, were some pool toys.

This was a very curious concept to them, and there wasn't a simple way I could explain things like plastic floats, water wings for children, rafts, styrofoam noodles, perhaps the things a 9-yr-old-child-in-a-grownup-body might play with in swimming pools here. I did not know these words in Italian but, I did know enough to say in Italian, with a smile I'm sure, mind you...

"They're things to play with in the pool. They're usually for children, but sometimes they're for adults, too."

As soon as I said the word "adulti" I knew I was in trouble. They blushed, I blushed, we all laughed nervously, and I realized that I had suggested a reference to something along the lines of "adult toys" of another persuasion. Fine. I decided right then and there I was going to just shut up and not speak any more Italian. EVER.

The good end of the story, I am pleased to report, is that I was shopping in town later that day, and there was a little clothing boutique that offered a catalog of their summer line...and each model in every picture, sported some kind of ("children's") pool toy as a prop. 

Now there was a gift from the gods. Don't I always say that life is so good??

Allora. I gave the catalog to Mauro when he came to pick me up in town (I forgot to mention that he and Massimo were always my personal drivers, concierge, slaves, etc.; as I said, I loved them), I could in fact tell him that these were pool toys, and we had a good laugh. I did buy a toy water pistol for the pool another day. I left it there for them, or better, for their beautiful little nephew, when I finally departed from what came to feel like my home there. In tears, by the way.

Tu sai, you know, that kind of seems like enough for you to digest about now. What I will do is write another post about my second story on this theme. It has occurred to everyone by now, I'm sure, that I perhaps could not tell a story in its condensed form if my life depended on it.

Stay tuned. Another litany on this topic follows, in Part 2.

This week: French accent

Bonjour!

My first news of "French" - can you guess, is about my resident French guy, who alerted me gently this morning that he wants to be known not as "French guy", but as "Antoine" ("my real name!"). So, I will refer to him accordingly, he seems to be so happy when his name appears in my work...I have yet to mention him again on my radio show but from now on, his name will link to my March blogs; read up on "Two French Guys" to learn what all this rambling is about.

Starting on Monday, for Tuesday, Doll (my beautiful sister) and I prepared a meal for about 70+ people - Coq a Vin - and all the accoutrements, including dessert. The complete menu:

Chicken Liver Mousse with toast points

Cheese variety with crackers

Mushroom Palmiers (savory mushroom-filled puff pastry)

Coq a Vin (chicken in red wine with mushrooms, bacon, pearl onions)

Noodles

Roasted string beans, carrot, onion with tarragon

Baguettes with butter

Apricot cake with slightly sweet, mildly-spiced whipped cream

Sparkling pink lemonade

OK so here was the deal. Monday we prepped the appetizers, made the dessert, and got the chicken started. The mousse unfortunately had the color of I-won't-say-what, but while it is a Julia Child recipe and incredibly good, that did not end up translating all that well to our guests because, that color really kind of was a turn-off. As for the Coq a Vin, the initial chicken prep included cooking the bacon - good. The desserts came out fine - very good.

One other time Doll and Suz (our other sister) made a French dish that famously became known as the "12-step entree" because it was so incredibly involved and at that hour was also prepared for about 70 guests. Really, I think this chicken on Tuesday was nearly that kind of commitment (for 70 different guests). Let me try to recall if it was 12 or less steps (I am sure it was more than 12) and who did what even though truly, Doll gets full and complete credit for this dish as I promised everyone, I promise:

1. Cook bacon (reserve fat, of course; everything from now on gets sauteed in that!) - Doll
   
2. Clean and halve mushrooms - Di and Doll
   
3. Boil pearl onions - Doll
   
4. Peel pearl onions - Doll and Di
   
5. Chop shallots (we actually used onions, don't tell) - Di
   
6. Chop garlic - Di
   
7. Saute mushrooms - Di
   
8. Saute pearl onions - Di
   
9. Saute onion and garlic - Di
   
10. Brown chicken pieces - Doll
11. Prepare seasonings - Doll
12. Cook chicken with wine and all of the above - Doll
13. Reduce sauce for serving - Doll

I really should run this by Doll to see if I forgot anything, but since I was there for the duration, I think this is pretty accurate. Yes. We should have enjoyed a bottle of some nice Bordeaux after all that. But, we didn't.

Anyway, it all went over tremendously well. Each of our lovely guests seemed to enjoy everything and there we had it, yet another labor of love. The best part being, we got to be together, and eat El Burrito Jr on Tuesday for lunch - a Dolls tradition that had, up til now, been relatively shelved. We've just love our bean&cheese burritos since we were kids.

Last night, Antoine (formerly known as French guy) decides (with good reason; he'd had a relatively crappy day) that he is homesick and thinks he wants to go home to France for a visit, maybe in June. Just to see his family, be with them, see their new farm-chateau home that he only saw under construction last year at this time, see the farm animals that he loves, eat his mother's cooking...I cannot blame him. In June there is a music festival day, around the 20th, and last year he was particularly homesick on that day. 

Here is a time when I wish I could just wave a magic wand and take someone's hurt away, but, since I can't...I made his favorite roasted tomato pizza last night and we sat up late talking, way past my bedtime but never mind. We chatted up things like he loves that the beautiful Sebastien Frey is one of the objects of my obsession because he's French and plays Italian football. And, that the equally beautiful (Italian) Luca Toni is another, because for he plays in Germany with Franck Ribery from France and, he used to play for Fiorentina with...Sebastien Frey.

The UEFA Cup is going on right now we both hope the final - 14 May I just learned - will be Fiorentina (did I mention ... oh yes. I did) and Bayern-Munich (as in, the beautiful Luca Toni). 

There are also rumors flying around the continent that Frey could be going to AC Milan during this summer transfer season. I can't begin to tell you how happy that would make me.

And, having said that, turning from French to Italian for a moment, stay tuned for my next blog. It will entertain you silly while it gives circumstantial evidence - yet again - that I can speak enough Italian to be dangerous, and not enough to get myself out of trouble.

And one last note -- my beautiful sister Lisa (whom I mentioned earlier as Doll), in her vast spare time, has now brought up the home page for our new Melting Pot Tours - please have a look!

Au revoir for now.

Finally a morning at home

This week has been more demanding than usual and this is the first morning I can do what I think are four of the most beautiful words when strung together: go back to bed.

French guy wanted me to get him up at 7:15 this morning. For some special reason neither his hi-tech phone and up-til-now-reliable watch alarm could not do that job. Do not ask me why these things happen. He said we could have breakfast together! Surely that tugged at my tenderer side so I said OK. And, the one morning I so look forward to sleeping late I have to be both the wakeup call and breakfast fixer which meal, interrupted by his extended cigarette break, made me gently ponder that maybe I'd do well to run away from home soon.

Having said that, the days this week were long and fabulous, including yesterday when a ticket to the Women in Business conference was a gift from my friend and last weekend's bunk&cabin mate LuAnn. With our lovely friend Juli, we had some specific comments about the potential improvement of next year's conference (having written "NONE" when asked on the survey which tasks we'd like to help with in 2009), we ate good food* and especially enjoyed learning about the wonderful Crown Jewel Club and its spectacular work to raise the quality of life for young girls who live at-risk here in LA. I am likely to add volunteering with them to the things-to-do-in-my-vast-spare-time because I was really moved by this story. 

*The morning pastries and Champagne reception at the end were my favorites!

Thursday was Pancake Day at KABC radio, which is every other month, and I go to haunt all the lovely people who are indulged by the world's best pancakes, prepared with the ultimate TLC by one of my angels, an elderly gentleman named Lynn Mink, whom I absolutely adore. I say that my job is to help Lynn, but really I just go to get in the way, visit with Mark&Brian and their entourage at KLOS and the same for the ESPN sportsradio guys, and be generally useless. But it is tremendous fun and worth the 5:30am wakeup call to be there at 7am. 

After that, I met Doll, my sister, to peel 40 lbs. of potatoes for that night's Senior Dinner, for which we and our other sister are the chefs once a month here at a local church...there are typically 100+ attendees. (These lovely people choose their restaurants well!) Each third Thursday from Sept-May we get to work with a host of other angels in the kitchen and serve some of the sweetest people we've ever known, a gourmet meal that is prepared with pure pleasure and all the love we can possibly pour into it. So, it tastes really good - to everyone - and while we all go home comatose and exhausted from head to toe, it feels incredibly good. And, my pure reward for Thursdays in general is to watch the one-hour AC Milan show on GOLTV from 9-10pm...a true reminder that life is very very very very very good.

I had had to break from the dinner prep to do my SportsBites radio show for which I was my own guest! I did the entire show alone and spent the hour mostly making myself laugh with my own humor. When I listened to the archive I had to hope that my listeners didn't think I was completely wacko. I even told of a soiree with a guy in Italy but spared everyone the rest of the story about how (speaking Italian, mind you) I tried to get him to take me to Milan for the weekend to see the soccer match between Milan and Torino. When he'd asked me what was in it for him I had laughed and indicated pretty much anything he wanted!! I really wanted to go to that match!! But he was too lame to even take me up on it, what a fool. 

Meanwhile, I promised to post the recipes I mentioned on the show, and I will get those to you in a future blog, I promise...I probably should be cutting this one short by now.

Wednesday night French guy and I went and watched some sports at a bar down the street and ate little burger sliders. We had tremendous fun discussing which we thought are our favorite worst restaurants which he thinks is a good topic for a future blog, so look forward to that! "Our teams" that night, the Dodgers and San Antonio Spurs, both won so we were happy. I told our bartender this on our way out, but she looked thoroughly confused and I don't think she knew what I was talking about. 

Tuesday I did a big bake job for a client's sales meeting. I got a raging headache from baking 8 recipes that clearly made me OD on the essence of sugar. Now I still have enough packages of mix so that even if I baked it all off it still would be too much to feed the village. Right now the box sits in my car for later-dealing-with. More than you need to know I'm sure.

And then, one of the big highlights of my week, were two emails back-to-back, from the handsome (let's just call him) "G" in Italy, whom I met the last night I was in Roma in November. He had crossed my mind last week and it had been some weeks since we'd written so hoping that he hadn't yet fallen in love with another woman he met near Piazza Navona, I dropped him a note in my best Italian...and he wrote back immediately inviting me to Naples, where he is now...and added that if I wanted to go to Positano, Amalfi, Ischia, Capri, and Sorrento ("all of these are beautiful places!" he writes in his best English as I read with delight realizing that I've always wanted to go to those places, and ideally with a man), that he would be happy to take me there, and signs the last note, you're in my heart.

Move over, Sebastien Frey.

Chef Di goes to Camp

What a laugh. The American Sportswoman herself lands on a top bunk an arm's length from the ceiling, and plays with bows and arrows.

Let me clarify. I am by no means the great American Sportswoman. Just ask my brother-in-law who has a less-than-complimentary name for his wife and me, which I will not repeat here, but it's not "The Great American Sportswomen". My active sports of choice (and with all due modesty, I am pretty fit and in shape) are:

softball - I can play catcher, and I get great hits but I can't run or field well - so if a team needs a great catcher and has a designated runner, I'm their girl

yoga - makes me feel spectacular; it's not a competitive sport, I'm not a competitive girl, I  love a sport that's all about me

hiking - at the beach, daily, and in the hills/mountains as often as possible

archery - as of this weekend; read on

and, I am really really good at 

the hula hoop.

Some of this did in fact set me up nicely to attend Camp Getaway this last weekend. In a note sent a few weeks ago by ("Fearless Leader") my lovely, extremely clever and brilliant friend Patti Londre, she invited me to come for the weekend in April. I saw was the word "Getaway" and I signed up.

I invited my friend LuAnn to be my cabin mate - she gets away about as often as I do. We Italo-American princesses packed our luggage, MacBooks (mine stayed in its bag all weekend), non-sleeping-bag bedrolls, and left on Friday afternoon for the promise of not having to DO anything for the duration unless we really wanted to.

You know, I swore my intention was to sit on a deck for the entire time and read a book (or better, a magazine) yet, I did in fact sign up for some stuff and became - my own version of the great American sportswoman.

First of all, our cabin was some distance from the main lodge (where, the eating was), so right away we got lots of little hikes in. The thin, fresh, pure, amazingly clear air felt fantastic and I was pretty excited about "roughing it"; it was only for 2 nights after all.

They had a great yoga class first thing in the morning! I LOVED that! I could only sleep until about 6am anyway because that ceiling was a little close for comfort and yeah, it just suited me fine to get up early...

Then, I took archery lessons! This really resonated with me on lots of levels because, Diana, Roman goddess of the Hunt (or, in Italian, la dea della caccia) is my patroness, and she of course was quite adept with the bow and arrow (and, she was the only goddess who wore a short skirt...we may have a little too much in common come to think of it...). So, after an hour lesson, I wasn't by any means expert at the sport, but I was high on the idea of exploring it further, which I will report on later. LuAnn had to call her sister, the Gina, to tell her I was 'arching' which I think they thought was funny (why?).

Then, there was a fabulous nature hike in the afternoon, to Jencks Lake, very beautiful...quite the workout. Some hills, a beautiful stream, varied terrain...I LOVED it.

Now comes my favorite food note. Our cabin mates Brandee and Michele brought a fine bottle of red wine and when I came out of the shower Saturday night, they were serving it up in dixie cups, and I spotted their open bag of Mother's brand iced animal cookies. I had thought I'd seen that bag on the shelf and had hoped they would share them with me. They did, quite generously. I LOVE those! I ate so many I almost wasn't hungry for dinner. But, I was. 

And lots of chocolate was easy to come by this weekend. Very good.

After dinner, HIP HOP dance class! Great workout!! SOOOOO much fun! I am not THE dancer by any stretch but Jaami our instructor was adorable and even though she had almost no voice and had to teach pretty much by sign language, it was great and I LOVED it!

Yoga class early Sunday morning! 

Oh, and you know what? My new friend Janelle, fellow camper from San Diego (she read my goddess cards, I owe her a tarot reading) told me they have hula hoops there! Very good information.

I did not get the most athletic camper award but one of the leaders thought I deserved it! So did I!

I was both energized and relaxed to come home early Sunday afternoon and that night, was quick to catch up on the Italian sports highlights on RAI's Domenica Sportiva. 

Milan and Juve played on Saturday, Juve 3-2 - but the bigger game had been Sunday night - Inter and Fiorentina. 

YUM. On the show was an interview, at length, with the beautiful Sebastien Frey, goalkeeper for Fiorentina; he is French and has played in Italy for several years and, speaks very silky Italian. I could only understand part of what he said but never mind. He used to wear his hair longer and blond with a hairband but now sports it dark and spiked and still he's ... did I say beautiful? yum? Oh. I did. 

It was just suggested to me (by French Guy) that I ought to do an interview with him ... perhaps a little something to look forward to on my next trip to the continent. 

Hm, yes, with a bottle of silky red wine in tow. 

Minus the dixie cups.