Buona Domenica!

Ciao Zio Tony fans! Good morning and welcome to Sunday in Milano.

Like every third Sunday of the month, it's a "buona domenica"
for a capucinno and chocolate filled brioche ...




and a stroll down Corso Garibaldi ...


to hop the Metro for Porta Genova station.



Because, it's a "buona domenica" to wander the Navigli market ...



with a bag of warm roasted chestnuts ...



searching among one man's trash
for another man's treasure ...



or just a nice .... uh, "borsa".



Because it's a "buona domenica" just to people watch ...



and listen to the church bells chime.

Position Report: Italian Lakes & Plans with the P's

Ciao Zio Tony Fans! (Well, I don't know if it's "cheating", but, instead of creating a new post, I've just added the pictures to show you the grand time I had with my parents).

I'm sorry the blog has been a bit quite recently, especially after the great feedback you've given me on the ZT tales I've posted so far. My only excuse is that I've enjoyed a welcomed rush of visitors over the last few weeks; so, my virtual existence has taken a bit of a hiatus while the flesh&blood Zio Tony has gotten to show off Milano and share a few "you won't find this in Foders" ZT-spots with friends & family.

Actually, Mom & Dad are in town and I spent the weekend giving them Zio Tony's deluxe Lake District tour, starting with the Borromean islands on Lago Maggiore



and then overnighting at Lago di Orta before dropping them off at Bellagio on Lago di Como this afternoon.


Out of it all, I have to report that Orta is the real gem. Although I had visited there twice before as an hour or so stopover on the way to somewhere else, I realize now that anybody who wants to experience the real magic of the Italian Lakes needs to do it the other way around. The other lakes and towns may own the paparazzi buzz and been-there-checklist-cachee', but Lago di Orta is a place where one wants to walk at midnight, wake to the morning, and explore through the day (by foot, rowboat, or bike). That is, it is a place to stay a while.


I hope to give you a full expose' on Orta in the future, but, for the next couple of weeks ZT & the folks will be busy swinging with Paolo Conte,

(follow http://www.last.fm/event/708083 to a clip of "Via con Me" )

and touring the northeastern province of Trentino
to sample grappa in Valle dei Laghi,

(You may recall I rode through here on "What Fun a Fondo!"
We came back for some of Giovanni's finest "vecchia riserva")

... explore family roots in Preghena, Val d' Non,

(My mother's great-grandmother immigrated from here in 1885)

(We arrived at apple harvesting time)

... and nosh at an agriturismo outside Trento, yes, thanks to the auspices of Slow Food.

(Julie & Tim got the playt-by-playt, real time texting ... all 5 courses)

(and we picked up a few bottles of the fab Pinot Nero to go)

Once we're back in Milano, we'll attend a matinee wedding at Teatro alla Scala.

(Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro")

So, hang tight and I hope to have the quill back in hand in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, I'll try to post a few light snacks for you to chew on.

Ciao! Ciao!
ZT

"Great Teteuns!" Weekend, Part III: How Bovine

Ciao Zio Tony Fans! Welcome back to the "Great Teteuns!" weekend in Val d' Aosta and the closing chapter of my journey to discover the unusual. However, as you are about to experience, when I finally arrived at the "signature destination" of my travels, I was overwhelmed with the notion that the more we explore the unfamiliar, the more we discover the familiar. Granted, Italian culture is not so different than our own to find the similarities incredulous. But, that’s really not the point.

It’s just that when coming across a epicurean specialty called “teteun”, described simply as “cow’s udder, to which Gignod dedicates a festival”, one’s expectations are naturally set for something out of the ordinary.
Gignod is in the northwest Italian province of Val ‘d Aosta, not in Kansas, so; the setting is not what we’d expect for a Midwestern county fair.


But, it turns out the closer you get, the more things start looking familiar ...

Women gossip on benches while their husbands huddle together at the bar ...


and, of course, children want to be children anywhere ...


Which may not be so unusually usual. But, if you recall my first blog post, “Ciao Cowboy”,


... and realize that the name Gran Teton (the mountain range you see in the background) shares a mammarial association with the word “teteun”, you’ll understand why I almost fell over at what I saw sauntering by ...


The dance hall was also pleasantly familiar. Actually, the only thing out of the ordinary was how these people could dance straight up & down a wall. (By the way, on a completely unrelated subject, if anybody knows how to rotate movie video, please drop ole' Uncle T a tip ). Otherwise, having spent a few years two-stepping in Texas, I easily recognized the familiar ways of the different couples: the marchers, the shufflers, the spinners, the gliders, and the two old ladies dancing together ...



Getting to the "fait accompli" of the Feta di Tetuen was no different. Standing in line at the chow hall and eves dropping on the conversations (the best I could, as my Italian still has a long way to go and the local dialect seems to be smattered with French), I found myself in the middle of a Rotary Club or Boy Scout dinner.



Except, the wine selection was much better and served only by the bottle (in this case, a plummy young "Gamay")



Granted, what you see on the plate may not stimulate a dyed in the wool vegetarian - but, I imagine it packs enough of a Pavlovian ping to trickle the salivary glands of other omnivores out there. (By the way, the "teteun" is the organ looking piece of meat in between the chops & the sausages ... :)P

In the end, it seems that one of the many joys of traveling and exploring something new, is the comforting re-discovery of where we have already been. So, I'm glad to report that the only unusual thing I discovered at the Feta di Teteun is that cow's udder is a meat that .... well ... tastes like cheese.