Saturday in Alba

Posted on January 4, 2011 by yarnspinnerpress

Jonathan and I arose early Saturday and made our way without breakfast or coffee to the train station next door, where we walked about a mile inside the terminal to find the right track. Trains don’t go through. They end there, bumped up against mammoth rubber bumpers attached to steel I-beams. We bypassed the serve-yourself kiosk trackside and went inside the soon-to-be-heated train car. Nice place, all-electric, and with seats facing front, back, or across, depending on your need and sightseeing choices. First thing we watched was a continuing procession of people trying to get coffee or food out of the auto-mat kiosk. Universal fail. So after several cranky people boarded, off we went at a slow glide on the all-electric train to Alba.

Once we cleared the urban area, we finally saw the fabled Alps, a formidable sight. Soon after, we were racing across the very flat plains between the tiny towns south of Torino. You’ll see more from the photos than I could tell you, as crops were in and snow etched the landscape into a chiaroscuro of light and shadow. But note in the photos how prevalent were “hoop house” greenhouses, or season extenders. So it was no surprise that when we finally made our way to the outdoor produce market, local farmers were there with an abundance of leeks, cabbages, potatoes and greens of all description. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, we had to change trains. And there was a small cafe in the station where we finally got cappuccino and an Italian bread roll with a slice of ham for breakfast. It was also the place where I encountered what passed for bathroom facilities outside the city — an elegant porcelain fixture with treads to the side to put your feet, a biscuit-size hole to test your aim, and a sloping floor between to catch the mistakes. Providing some item of clothing didn’t catch them first. I’ll leave it at that, since further discussion would be depressing.

But then we headed east, and after traveling through splendid acres (or is it hectares, or something else?) of vineyards where is grown the cherished Barbera and Barolo wine grapes, we arrived in the ancient city of Alba.

Exiting the train station, we hoofed it toward the center of town and found the very long street market that runs for blocks and where you can buy anything from hazelnuts and oranges to handbags and clothing. Past all that, we finally found the outdoor produce market and then the truffle market, actually a small shop where truffles were purchased from the gatherers, and truffle products were sold. We passed on the truffle slicers once we found that the hugely expensive fungus only lasts a week out of the ground, but bought several small bottles of truffle oil for our foodie friends at home. Then it was off to find a meal with truffles in it. Unfortunately, the taste did not equal the price. But we persevered, soldiered on, and made the train back to town in time for the awards. It was more than we could have asked. We won best picture, best actress, best screenplay and readers’ choice. Bellissimo.

Next: Our last day in Italy, we go to the mall.

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One More Round Please …

Posted on December 31, 2010 by yarnspinnerpress
Aarrgh! I was out doing some ringing in of my own. Given the state of my age and stamina, I was confident I’d be home shortly after dark — in plenty of time to write something well-timed and at least making sense. But alas, here it is, 10 p.m. and I’m out of excuses. Hell, I’m not even inebriated, just full of steak, exceptional company and Rockbridge’s mighty carrot cake. Long drive into the hinterlands, but it’s worth it.
And now a word about the year just past, and the one yet to come. A year ago this night, I was still recovering from the cancer surgery and subsequent infection that had almost taken me off-planet. I had been running around collecting an odd assortment of songs for this movie I’d never seen and which was still being coaxed into its final form. I had no idea whether it was any good, or if anyone would ever see it. And then came Sundance, and the world was never again the same. Then it was Austin, then Kansas City, Columbia, New York, Memphis, Tulsa, Warrensburg, Columbia again, St. Louis and finally Torino. A year of trips, all of them good ones. Blessed many times over, making friends, meeting fans, tabulating expenses and oh, yes, keeping track of a couple of college classes. What a year. What a life-changing difference. I know this is the time for saying, “Boy, I’m glad that’s over.”
But here at the year’s end, I’m instead standing in my own living room, raising a glass of good old country well water, and toasting the future with that time-honored cry of the celebrating multitudes at this, the last minute of the old year.
“One more round, please. For the road.”
All blessings be yours for the coming year.
Marideth
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It’s (almost) a New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2010 by yarnspinnerpress

I’m confident Marideth intended to write something about the coming of the New Year. But she didn’t. On behave of Marideth, I am here to wish you all well and for you to have a great 2011.

Hope you are ringing it in, in each of your own special ways. Thanks to all of you for being such special fans!

From the dog and cats and me and Marideth where ever you are!

Sarah, keeper of the blog

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Friday in Torino (You all do know I am home now, just posting after the fact!)

Posted on December 28, 2010 by yarnspinnerpress

Friday it was more of the same, except that nothing is ever more of the same in this far-away place. More walking, more exploring, and getting caught unprepared for restaurant closings. This time we ended up at a little hole-in-the-wall Kabob place, where Jonathan ate a whole baked fish and I dove into a thing called Moussaka but unlike any I’d had. The lamb for it was roasted on a spit set into the wall, and the cook used an odd little electric slicer to shave off thin slices perfectly cooked, and put them atop the mush of stewed tomatoes and eggplant that made up the base as well as the sauce for the lamb. It was, as they say, slap your grandmother good (meaning, I suppose, that you’d slap your grandmother if she tried to take some). It was that good, and I loved my grandmother – well, one of them, at any rate. The other had a mean streak and it was best to stay out of her way. But I digress.

What made us miss lunch was a trip to the festival office, which we probably should have done earlier had we not been so delightfully disoriented. Truth is, it took us that long to find it. Once there, though, we met Elisabette Bassignana, who had arranged our travel itineraries for us. A slim, 60-ish woman whose English was impeccable and who helped us weave our way through the twists and turns of Italian train schedules. For we had decided to go to Alba.

The reasons for this were numerous, starting with the difficulty of determining actual distances from the maps in various guidebooks. We, or at least I, had originally set our sights on an area of the eastern Italian Riviera called Cinque (pronounced Chin-quay) Terra. It’s been designated as a national park because of its unique character, and is a little string of five villages on the coast which has no access by road. You can get there on the train, or by walking from the nearest train station. But you can’t drive there. The villages are old, well–kept, and have become a sort of get-away for the rich and/or eccentric. I thought we’d fit right in.

But when we suggested this trip for the next day (Saturday) it threw the entire festival headquarters into a panic, because the round trip would take eight hours, not counting stopping for lunch. And we’d be late for the awards show. After a hasty whispered conference, a woman we hadn’t met before came over and sat down on her heels before us, and said, sotto voice, “This is classified information, and you cannot breathe a word of this, but you absolutely cannot miss the awards show. You cannot.”

Well, at that point, we knew we’d won something. But we didn’t know what. And to ask would have been rude. So we said, well, what about Alba?

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Now we’d already been eyeing Alba, so It wasn’t exactly a shot in the dark. Alba, about 30 miles south-by-southeast of Torino, is in the heart of Italy’s most famous wine country. It’s also the only place on earth where the white truffle grows. And the season, while well past the peak, wasn’t over yet. As good a second choice as we could find. Of course, we could have veered a little farther east to the town of Asti, which is, of course the first name in Asti Spumonte, and is its legendary home. However, eons ago, when the towns of Alba and Asti were kingdoms instead of towns, they regularly went to war. And Asti won almost every time. So we went with the underdog. And it was a splendid choice. Next time: the towers and truffles of Alba.

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Christmas Wishes

Posted on December 24, 2010 by yarnspinnerpress

Sarah has told me I must put up a post relating to the Holidays, and the New Year, and I agree that something probably should be said about this past year of my extreme good fortune in the midst of very hard times, and all our common hopes and fears when looking at the year ahead. But no matter how many images of this holiest of times I can manage to call up, this one old Stephen Foster song comes wafting forward to interfere, and reminds me that I must give thanks for every good moment, not just my own. These have been difficult times in every land, some of them very close to home. There are none of us so fortunate that we have license to forget those who are not, nor to ignore our obligation to look around us and find opportunities to see to the good of our neighbors as well.

Is there someone you know who will not feel the warmth of the Yuletide fire? Someone who will miss out on all the good cheer. Or are you that someone?

Remember, then, that in these darkest of nights, uncounted generations in numberless lands have met the dawn of these too-short days in celebration, in whatever form it takes, the never failing blessing of the return of the light.

Whatever your tradition, take time to celebrate the light. Light a candle or a fire. Share the warmth. Be the light that casts away shadows, your own or your neighbor’s. And when you enter that moment of grace, that light of consciousness that you and I and all our neighbors are standing together in the Blessed Now, say a prayer for tomorrow. If you have none at hand, here is the one that has flown across a century and then some, to sing itself to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyV60kTvEFE

I join Sarah, my able assistant, Zoni the dog, Priscilla the cat and all her many kittens, Dali, Onyx, Fraidy and Sparkle, and all the Winter’s Bone team, in wishing every one of you a warm and joyous holy season, and a new year full of possibilities, opportunities and good fortune.

Marideth Sisco

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Another Day in Torino

Posted on December 22, 2010 by yarnspinnerpress

Thursday a.m. bleary-eyed but walking. Stumbled down to breakfast on time to hear of more computer troubles. I cooked up a post late last night hoping it would go, but no go. Now Jonathan’s Mac is down – no internet connection even though he has, or had,  wifi in his room. We stewed over the otherwise delightful breakfast of apple-filled croissants, Caffe American, half-scrambled eggs and pancetta. tried the computers, his and mine in the lobby, gave up and went to the movies.

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First on the bill, because we promised the director and his girlfriend yesterday at the luncheon that we’d watch it, was “Small Town Murder Songs.” Splendid is too simple a word. It’s Canadian-made, in Mennonite country, and Jill Hennessy, of “Crossing Jordan” fame is a major player. The cast gave a fine, well-knit ensemble performance. The standout star, though, referenced in the title, was the score.Ed Gass-Donnelly readily admits to having constructed the film around the soundtrack, and it’s easy to see why. Composer Bruce Peninsula and the group “Fembots” punch out a relentless, percussive sound that is its own character in the film. Peninsula has taken old Baptist and Mennonite songs, many of traditional shape-note structure, and emphasized (an understatement) their rhythmic structure with drums, Drums and DRUMS. This is a movie that will need good sound systems, or much of its impact will be lost. It wasn’t perfect. A tad uneven in spots. But man, what a sound. Oh, and the story was terrific, too, but I’m waxing on, and there’s more to tell.

Unfortunately this was followed by a Portuguese “festival film” that will remain nameless. So chock full of long pauses to make sure we’d get the symbolism, we took turns dozing off.

After our nap we returned to our trattoria, Nuove Salette, for a Piedmont Pizza lunch. Jon got a cheese-glazed something with slivers of anchovy. Mine was layered with tomato, mozzarella, gorgonzola, topped with paper-thin slices of pancetta. Maybe not to die for, but I’d suffer the trip again for it.

Afterward, too fun of wine and pizza for a real nap, we went traipsing off down past the train station in search of a legendary bar that apparently no longer exists. I wish these guidebooks would keep up, for heaven’s sake. A mile and something and a couple hours later we made it back to the hotel, not nearly as sad as a sensible person would be at not finding our destination, because we talked, and arrived a wee bit brain-frazzled from having polished off 1920s blues, the cultural shift in 1900 that was reflected in the art of the day–and days following, proud moments from Shakespeare’s later years, and the differing religiosities of Jim Jackson, Arizona Dranes and Blind Willie Johnson.

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It woulda took You two hours and a mile and something too.

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Another Day in Torino

Posted on December 21, 2010 by yarnspinnerpress

Midnight something Wednesday, no, Thursday. (While in Torino)

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In between searching for a clock and trying to fathom our computer troubles, we got dressed respectably and hoofed it, in a light rain, over to the Directors’ Luncheon, which was held in an old, old royal townhouse up by one of the piazzas (I still can’t figure out where I am half the time. Jonathan just charges off with the map and a keen sense of direction crafted, I guess, in the wilds of NYC, and off we go).

 

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I wore my dress coat and nothing on my head, so arrived a bit damp, but not awkwardly so. The luncheon was buffet-style, with some small tables, not nearly enough, so people mostly wandered around, plates in hand, and schmoozed. I latched onto some small handmade pastas that are a local specialty whose name I can neither spell nor remember. At the time, it was something warm, and went well with the wine — more local Barbera, smooth and delicious. Afterward we staggered back the mile or so to walk off the meal, and agreed that the next best thing was a nap. We each retired to our well-curtained and well heated rooms. And so went the afternoon.

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