Any Mudcatters in ITALY?

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 11:42 AM

Looks like October of next year...

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 05:08 AM

John Grisham's "Playing for Pizza" is about the American gridiron football scene in northern Italy. I found the descriptions of the games numbingly incomprehensible but he's great on the food.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 01:07 AM

Yes, he is and he loves good food. I read him as much for the gastronomic delights as for the story.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Oct 19 - 10:00 PM

Brunetti is in Venice, right?

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 19 Oct 19 - 01:21 PM

You must do the Brunetti (Donna Leone) tour AND get the cookbook..great recipes in there.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Oct 19 - 12:34 PM

Montalbano diet? How about the Montalbano tours?

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 29 Aug 19 - 04:56 PM

Tricolore Fusilli is my favourite pasta to prepare, as (enlarged) it is so easy to see when it is ready. I add it to a sauce/soup made from a mug of veggie powder soup, plenty of tomato sauce, spices (garlic, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, pepper, salt) and sometimes mushrooms and, yes, iceberg lettuce.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Aug 19 - 02:39 PM

Cannoli, ye gods. Especially the ones with pistachio... We were in Sicily in June and regularly spoiled our appetites with either cannoli, gelati or both. I came home determined to make my own cannoli, but you have to buy special metal tubes...Mrs Steve took one look at my burgeoning waist and banned me... We decided to lust after them from a distance and get back to Sicily as often as possible!

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 29 Aug 19 - 11:44 AM

I'll end mi Italian food stories with our Sicily trip: I tried the Montalbano diet but only managed 4 mullet (and not for lunch), but not with his usual red wine, and had one canolli siciliano with enough sugar to keep me buzzing for days, no wonder (spoiler alert) 6-12 at a time saw off Camilleri's pathologist character!
RtS

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Aug 19 - 05:53 AM

Me too. Now, as Mrs Steve will be home late this evening, we need something simple, so we're having Marcella Hazan's onion and butter tomato sauce with spaghetti and parmesan. I'll have to persuade her that it needs be washed down with a bottle of Negroamaro, even though it's only Thursday (aka Friday Eve...)

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 28 Aug 19 - 03:51 AM

Steve, stop it, I'm drooling all over my keyboard!
RtS

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 07:37 PM

Correct. And you must use two tossing implements to mix the sauce and pasta, and you should always preserve some pasta water in case the sauce needs loosening, which it often does. And no abject little bowls of grated Parmesan. Parmesan is grated on to the finished dish, preferably at the table. That is followed by a healthy drizzling of extra virgin olive oil, from a bottle on the table, at the consumer's behest....

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 06:00 PM

"that Barcelona is hellish" (Steve)..? When I visited in 1988, I remember lots of pimps and prostitutes around La Rambla, and read that it was still like that but, when I visited last year, I found it a nice family-oriented kind of place...only the comfortable sand soon gives way to pebbles when taking a dip at the nearby beach!

"And just dumping big gobs of sauce on top of a heap of pasta is simply not the done thing at all." (Steve) Agreed - Italians always seem to add the pasta to the sauce pan and mix it in there, before serving.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 02:39 PM

There's a deli in Whitefield (Roma) that sells orecchiette. It's the best thing for that pasta bake with layered pasta, tomato sauce and mozzarella that Italians love. Fresh basil only...and for orecchiette con cime di rape. We use tenderstem for that dish rather than the chewy turnip tops beloved of Pugliese, and I'll confess to chucking a few cherry tomatoes in mine.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 11:40 AM

OK, come to think of it she did use one of those flat-cross-section extruded forms of pasta rather than round spaghetti.

I don't think I've ever seen orecchiette in the UK. Common in large parts of southern Italy, I think.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 10:37 AM

It's the putting it on spags that isn't "authentic" rather than the bolognese, which "properly" goes on fettuccini or tagliatelle. Or so I am informed by the internet, which is never wrong.
Steve, you have reminded me of a language pet peeve which I shall harangue about in that thread.
Keep the info coming anyway!

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 10:34 AM

Well it was certainly on every menu we saw in Venice but that's just a sop to Brit tourists. Meaty ragùs are served up with ribbon pasta such as pappardelle, which holds the sauce much better than spaghetti. An Italian ragù will often contain pork as well as beef, often chicken livers too, will rarely contain garlic as well as onions, will be started with a soffritto of onion, celery and carrot (pancetta goes in mine too), will be cooked slow and long with the addition of milk, and last but not least will not include that abomination known as dried basil that blights many a Brit attempt at an Italian dish. And just dumping big gobs of sauce on top of a heap of pasta is simply not the done thing at all.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 09:39 AM

never ask for spaghetti bolognese. It isn't Italian.

They may not use that word for it, but yes it is. I have a friend from Bologna who had a party in Edinburgh for her mother visiting from home. it was very unlike any Scottish party and spag bol was the main dish (though a lot drier than the usual British version). Mother didn't comment on getting Scottish food.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 05:38 AM

There are two magnificent villas in Stabiae, Villa San Marco and Villa Arianna. In typical Italian fashion many of the treasures in them were nicked and sold off, and huge chunks of wall frescos have been hacked out (many of them now in the archeological museum in Naples). They are still magnificent places to visit. Stabiae is where Pliny The Elder met his end during the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius. Don't get off the Circumvesuviana at Castellammare di Stabia, though. It's an ugly port town, and the little station at Via Nocera is closer to the villas.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 05:21 AM

In Naples I was accosted twice in a few minutes, once by a bloke affecting to show me to the right platform for a "fee," the other a bit more serious, a man on the escalator who tried to nick my man-bag via a distraction technique. A bag across the body, rather than slung over one shoulder, is better than nothing, though cutting the strap with scissors is time-honoured. I've given up on man-bags in favour of bulging shorts pockets with zips. I don't think Naples is really any worse than other big cities, though the organised crime outfit there is very nasty. My sister was robbed in a Dublin street and I believe that Barcelona is hellish. I had my debit card stolen from under my nose in Bude Sainsbury's at a checkout. Luckily, my bank was just a hundred yards down the road.

As for pizza, there's great stuff in Naples as well as the inevitable tourist crap. We took refuge during a deluge in a little pizzeria in a back street near the station in which was both cheap and magnificent. The wood-fired oven was right there in the corner by the rickety tables. The margheritas, which the others had, were huge and delicious. I asked for a pizza fritta. When it came it was about three times the size of the biggest Cornish pasty ever and about twice as thick. The waiter looked at me with that look that said you'll never eat all that, pal. I ate the lot to spite him. I could hardly move all afternoon. If you want good grub in Italy, go to the eateries where the Italians go and never ask for spaghetti bolognese. It isn't Italian. And don't drink cappuccinos in the afternoon. Not done. An amazing Neapolitan phenomenon is the merest hint of rain miraculously producing ten thousand umbrella-sellers within seconds.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 04:34 AM

WE never felt any more in danger in Naples than in any large city. As well as Pompeii & Herculaneum we could recommend Villa Oplontis.

RtS

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 11:55 PM

The only times I've actually been the victim of pickpockets have been in Edinburgh.

But yes, they are an issue. In the area around the station you see a lot of jackets dumped near wheelie bins. I assume the modus operandi is to take the whole jacket before rifling its pockets.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 11:00 PM

Ok, are the pickpockets/muggers *really* that much worse than anywhere else? Don't they love us wonderful tourists? I don't speak English abroad if I can help it, at least..

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 07:23 PM

Naples isn't like anywhere else I've been - arriving there late at night and trying to find a b&b in that maze of streets was mindblowing, Istanbul was never that crazy the whole time I've been going there. But pizza is not one of the things that makes it unique. I tried a couple of highly recommended places and they were indistinguishable from what I could get in Edinburgh.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 05:28 PM

Just reread me post. When I said: "...in muchly under an hour you can visit Pompei, Ercolano (Herculaneum) and Vesuvius" I didn't mean in all in an hour! Give 'em a day each. Especially Pompei, which is huge! Herculaneum is an incredibly rewarding place to visit. Half a day gives you a good taster. We went twice in a month. It's amazing, it's poignant, and it's much quieter than Pompei.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 01:37 PM

Some comments about music might be on topic. This is from the Arbëreshë people, an Albanian minority settled near Matera in 1468, as refugees from the Ottomans, where they have lived ever since with essentially zero conflict with their neighbours. The polyphonic style is like that of the Tosk of southern Albania and the Ipirots across the border in Greece.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_kfKveAGf_0

Italy is a nation entirely composed of minorities (only 5% of the population spoke Italian at the time of reunification) and the variety of folk traditions that have been preserved there is extraordinary.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 12:46 PM

Sounds good Steve - I'd like to see Naples and (a bit later!) die.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 12:39 PM

We spent a week in Lecce in June 2016 (the week we were ignominiously knocked out of the European Championships AND the week that seventeen million idiots voted leave). We found it to be a quiet and elegant place with great eateries and kind people, and we wouldn't have missed the evenings' passeggiata for the world. Grand! I hate to say it (especially in Jack's presence), but you won't see much of Puglia unless you have a car or pay expensively for transport.

Naples is a mad place with fantastic pizzas where you'll need to strap your wallet to your body. The archeological museum is the most higgledy-piggledy amazing place. Go to the duomo and see the grisly sight of St Gennaro's bones sticking out of the top of an urn. Get the Metropolitano to Pozzuoli, walk up the hill through the town and walk into the Solfatara crater. Sinister. Take the ultra-cheap Circumvesuviana railway (you'll have to endure the beggars) and in muchly under an hour you can visit Pompei, Ercolano (Herculaneum) and Vesuvius. There are two amazing Roman villa at Stabiae that hardly anyone seems to know about. Sorrento is nice but far too busy, at the for end of the Circumvesuviana, about 80 minutes from Napoli. Very good gelati. The world began in the Bay Of Naples. Capri is crazily busy and it should have a capital called Ripoffsville but if you go on a small open boat on a warm summer's day the voyage is unforgettable.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 12:36 PM

Mrrzy will be too late for this, but it's impressive.

Matera City of Culture 2019

You have probably seen Matera on film - it was the setting for Pasolini's The Gospel of Matthew and Mel Gibson's The Passion. It dates back to the Neolithic: the only place like it I've been to was Hasankeyf in Turkey (recently almost totally demolished by the Erdogan regime on the pretext of building the Ilisu Dam). For their City of Culture year, Matera put on some great modern art exhibitions. There was one particularly effective one where a photographer constructed paired photographs, one half shot in Matera and the other in places in Jordan, where the people in each picture appeared to be interacting with each other - rather like that artist who built seesaws into Trump's wall so that kids on the American and Mexican sides could play together.

Matera will still be worth visiting after the City of Culture stuff is over.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 11:17 AM

Do moderators have a problem with this sort of utterances :

'I am 100% sure our world would be a more interesting and peaceful place if humans would stop emigrating and be content to VISIT other nations - apart from genuine asylum seekers, that is. '

being called out as narrow minded little Englander idocy?

Apparently.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 07:55 AM

I was born in England the day Alf Ramsey's ENGLISH team won THE World Cup, Jack; thus, no-matter how unpopular, I am indeed an English repatriate NOT an "immigrant."

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 06:06 AM

No need to draw attention to it when some Australian immigrant farts.

Anyway, here is a survey of Tim Parks's work.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/41773.Tim_Parks

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 01:42 PM

Yes, GUEST - I am 100% sure our world would be a more interesting and peaceful place if humans would stop emigrating and be content to VISIT other nations - apart from genuine asylum seekers, that is.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 01:18 PM

'I would never live there as I am English'

????!!!!

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 12:34 PM

I would never live there as I am English, but enjoyed my second visit in May this year to Italy/"A Beautiful Stage"

And I also heard about spag bol not being popular in Bologna, but thought it was due to their preference for wet/fresh rather than dry pasta..?

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 11:25 AM

I read that in Bologna do not ask for spaghetti bolognese, it's the wrong shape of pasta!

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 08:27 AM

Tim Parks has some terrific books about Italy, try the one about Verona (where he lived for years).

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 07:48 AM

We went to Florence 3 years ago, the little hole in the wall eateries in side streets were deceptive: go back several rooms once you are inside and great food. Enormous steaks! In Naples early this year we mostly ate by the sea or again in side streets great seafood, and pizzas of course.
Rts.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 03:36 AM

I did an Interrail trip in March, Naples-Matera-Lecce-Perugia-Bologna. I'd been to Bologna before and would have liked to spend more time there, but accommodation is scarce and expensive.

My wife is gluten and dairy free, and there's not much left of Italian food when you take those out. (Turkish food is WAY better for us). The food market in the centre of Bologna is great. We found Lecce the least interesting of the places we went to, but Steve Shaw here gets a lot more out of it.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Aug 19 - 11:51 PM

Looks as if I may be going to Italy (Naples Rome Florence Verona) with some foodie/wine-y folks, next September (2020)... At least I'm going to try! Advice? New mudcatters? Montalbano tour? Thanks!

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 11:25 AM

Thanks! Me, too. We're going into the studio tomorrow for a quickie live recording session so we can get some more downloads available. Stay tuned.

And congrats on your new website as well. I've owned my URL for 10 years now and still haven't designed my website. You made me miss the "high lonesome of Wyoming."

--WyoWoman

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jul 08 - 09:56 PM

...please send out your best intentions and prayers for our success...

Giving thanks for a complete and safe journey and sharing, darlin'. Really proud of you!!

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 02 Jul 08 - 09:42 PM

Wonderful. I would love to be in contact with him once he returns. How might that happen?

And yes, Roberto did contact me and we will be pumping him for information, too.

Now ... on to fundraising several thousand dollars between now and October ...

--KC

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 02 Jul 08 - 05:16 AM

The great Dave Kenningham (leader of folkmob)is in Italy at this very moment! He says that he has learnt many italian folk songs that he will treat us with on his return.

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: My guru always said
Date: 02 Jul 08 - 04:12 AM

It sounds like a wonderful adventure, enjoy every minute. Safe journeys!

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Roberto
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 05:31 AM

Yes, Susan, I'm in Italy (city: Pescara; region: Abruzzo, central Italy, eastern coast). I've sent a PM to WyoWoman/kc. R

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 11:29 PM

Not really, but ... it's a start. ;=]

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Wincing Devil
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 11:24 PM

I've BEEN to Italy, does that count? Midnight Mass at the Vatican with JPII, back in 82

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 11:14 PM

I'll send him a note.
This is more about the organization and the gathering we'll be part of. I'm so excited.

Terra Madre

Soon, I'll post to see if other Mudcateers have performed in Europe, so we can suss out some of the challenges before we get there. We've already decided we'll either have to do without a bass or see if we can rent one there. Otherwise, we have to buy another whole airline ticket for the bass. ;=]

Yep, the opportunity of a lifetime. A way to represent America as ambassadors with our music and our humor and our affection.

I think we're also going to be able to post some of our music on the Mother Earth News website and raise some money for the trip that way. Stay tuned ...

Both of you are powerful, spiritual women, so please send out your best intentions and prayers for our success in this amazing adventure.

Love,
WyoWoman/kc

Subject: RE: Any Mudcatters in ITALY?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 06:30 AM

I think Roberto is in Italy