One of our favorite stops on our evening food tour is a place down a little side street in the neighborhood of Cannaregio, formally called Trattoria Ca’d’Oro, but most people know it by it’s nickname, “Alla Vedova.” It’s been owned by the same family since 1891. During World War II, the father of the current owner passed away, and for some odd reason, people started to say, “Hey, let’s go to the widow’s place.” That’s…
In the past couple of years, I have been baking bread at home. The very first time I made a loaf, I walked all around the house, shouting to anyone who would listen, (Adam, the dogs, the cat, the TV, the neighbors…) in a Tom Hanks Castaway voice, “I… HAVE MADE BREAD!” There was magic in it. To take flour, yeast, salt and water and turn it into something so beautiful, was and still is…
One of things we miss a lot from the States is corn on the cob. You can’t buy it here. It’s such a cruel joke, because we are surrounded by corn fields. If you take a train from Venice to anywhere on the mainland, you’ll see acres and acres of wine vineyards (of course), rice paddies for risotto, and even more than those, corn fields. Everywhere. Yet not a cob to eat. All of the…
I feel a kinship with Vivian Howard, star of “A Chef’s Life,” owner/head chef of Chef and the Farmer in Kinston, North Carolina and author of the spectacular cookbook, “Deep Run Roots.” For example, we both lived in New York City and then decided to move to small towns. For her, it’s a tiny fire district in North Carolina. For me, it’s Venice, Italy. In both of these small towns, we have access to top…
We don’t keep it much of a secret that August is “Angry Season” in Venice. It’s when our temperatures are hot, the humidity is high, and it’s when you need your personal space and you can’t get it, because it’s also high tourist season. It’s also when most Venetians, including ourselves, shut our businesses and get out of Dodge. This August, we made the decision to stay in town, rather than escaping to cooler and…
Our home, always a work in progress, is where we celebrate, even the smallest things. We celebrate countless anniversaries — the day we met, our marriage exactly one year later, the day Adam proposed, the day we left Los Angeles on a one-way ticket to Italy. We even celebrate down to the days — we celebrated 2,000 days together just this Thanksgiving. In this home, we constantly strive, and not nearly always successfully, to keep…