Just a Note...

I really hate construction projects.

To my dear blog readers, this is really sucking up my energy right now to the point where focusing on the blog or anything else just seems to be an absolute impossibility.  I do love writing this blog, and sharing my ideas, but they are certainly not flowing like they should.

I am causing myself to worry too much, that we are taking too much on.  This is stifling me, I know, as I read back what I myself have written.  Fear contracts.  Love and hope expand.  I need to feel the love and have the hope.  Everything will be ok. 

Construction: Four Week Summary

Our lives have been focused on wine lately.  With the construction of our new wine cellar going on, Micha is now thinking about how he might fill it up with all sorts of vintages.

Let me give you an idea where construction has brought us to.

The main raw construction is finished.  The interior walls are constructed, the supportive steel girders are in, and the electrical tubing has been installed.  In the first photo above you can see an old hand-hulled stone which we have repurposed as a sink for the cellar.  The guys built the walls for it yesterday out of old bricks.

We have ordered dozens of 3 inch thick pine shelves which will be built in with supporting old bricks.   

But before that happens, the ceiling needs to be sand blasted and the walls need to be plastered.

10 days and the first guests arrive.

HA!!!

Oh, and we are burying a 1000 gallon water collection tank which will recieve all of the hill runoff and gutter water.  The collected water will be used for watering the grounds and the orchard.

It is all very exciting and terribly nerve wracking.  I am trying to stay calm and focused but it is not easy when you realize there is cement dust everywhere, including in your mouth and your nose.  

Time to wash it out with something good...

Ain't It The Truth.

As only Gina could say it.

Today is her first fund raising event in New York.  Good luck, my dear!!!!

Cowgirl Cure Foundation

Gina DePalma has started a brand new foundation for Ovarian Cancer Research.  The Cowgirl Cure Foundation draws its name from the Cowgirl in every single one of us women  -- the resilience, the femininity, the toughness and the single mindedness of  spirit which has helped mankind survive the odds.  

Isn't that a great name?  Gina really wanted to inject positive, can-do energy into this foundation, because that's just the kind of cowgirl she is!

So now, on the heals of winning the James Beard Award for Pastry Chef of the Year 2009, she is launching Cowgirl Cure with an on-line auction taking place to benefit the foundation.  Take a look at the items -- a lunch for four at Babbo,  cook books,  a gastronomic walking tour with Serious Eats creator Ed Levine, art from yours truly, and much more. 

 

Back 2

I have many things about which I could post.  There are new construction things to see, there are things from the States to tell, there are new exciting plans and well, so much to tell.

But I am simply not in the mood. I am wiped.  In the last seven days I have done so much, seen so much, and I don't even have the energy to get off of my chair, go across the room, pick up my camera and download new pictures.  

Things seem to hit me hard these days.  Like I have been softened by the last years.  Not being in the USA for four years somehow changed how I see things.  I forgot how it is there.  I forgot how easy it is how difficult it is how much people talk about money how little time people really have how many cars there are all going the same way all with just one person in the car how important networking is how great Manhattan is how delicious Thai food is how beautiful Rittenhouse Square is how nice it is to be near family and to hang out with friends.

I completely forgot.  And that makes me kind of sad, because now I am going to miss those things (well not the talking about money and too many cars part).  I think forgetting is part of surviving life in a foreign country.

I got out of my plane and I met my sister.  We laid ourselves directly on the sitting benches in the International Terminal and gazed at the sky through the atrium windows.  We stayed there for a long time, savoring this first-time-together-since-the-world-turned-upside-down-because-of-cancer moment.

I got out of my train at Penn Station in Manhattan.  I walked up the escalator to 8th Avenue.  I stopped.  I took a very deep breath and closed my eyes and smelled that I am in New York smell.  That smell I have at times hated and at times thought I could never live without.  I hailed a taxi, marveling at the ease of it, this thing that I did a thousand times in my previous life. I walked to my hotel and met a friend who I had seen last in 2007 but for whom the entire world had turned upside-down-because-of-cancer since our last visit.  

I watched my mother read her book in my sister's living room, the first time I could do that since her world-turned-upside-down-because-of-cancer last year.

I am so full of impressions and gratitude and sadness and aching.  All of that stands in stark contrast to the huge amount of energy I am going to need to move this project, this one here in Italy, to its next level.  I feel overwhelmed.  A bit scared. But still full of plans.

It was so good to get home to Micha and Max.  

None of this probably makes much sense.  Forgive me, please. I'll be back to my old self tomorrow.

Back

I am back in Italy after two weeks with family and friends in Philadelphia and New York.  I had a wonderful break.  So many things happened that I have to document it all over a couple of days--but first of all I must say that the time was spent enjoying the company of people that I love.

We held a lovely Mother's day brunch.  Here's Heather, my nephew's girlfriend, with the Frittata di Spinaci e Salsiccia, German Potato Salad, and Fresh Fruit with Mascarpone.

I surprised my niece Jessica and her fiance Rob by rolling up and bringing her favorite painting of mine, entitled GreenMan, which I painted in 2001.  I framed it over in the States and they hung it right away.  It was a gift to congratulate both -- he gets his JD in a couple of weeks, and she her Masters in German Literature and Pedagogy.  A couple of real slackers. 

The table in the picture below is a family heirloom.  I bought it in the As-Is department of IKEA in 1985 when I worked at the Philadephia store.  Who says IKEA furniture doesn't last?

I was able to attend a concert given at Temple University. My nephew Andrew is completing his Master's in Music Composition there.  Here are the girls waiting for the concert to begin.
I visited my dear friends, Becky and Michele (the two ladies who went and rescued Gina DePalma's cats last summer).  They prepared a feast for my sister and I.  Grilled Shrimp from Giada, pasta from Silver Palate, and Ricotta Pound Cake from Gina DePalma... and a bottle of Brezza Barolo from my own wine cellar which was given to them by other guests of ours!

Michele and Becky with their two babies, Milo and Buddy...

... and for all of us, a final family event in my sister's home. 

I was also able to attend a fantastic food and wine event with my friend Gina DePalma. I met lots of famous people, but the highlight of my day was seeing how Gina was surrounded with the love and respect of every one of them.   Just seeing her with her restaurant "family" did my heart good.  

Gina is well and thriving- She has started a new foundation to support Ovarian Cancer Research.  I will be posting about this in the next day or two.  Also, construction continued here unabated, and huge things were in store for me when I returned.  More on that also.  For now, I am going to unwind my inner clock, try to get back on schedule, and enjoy the nature which exploded while I was gone.

For 

100 Evergreen Drive

As I have been circling America and Europe, living here and there, my sister has lived in the same home in the farm country of Pennsylvania.

As I have been trying out different careers, lifestyles and locations, she has been raising children with her husband, working in one career and taking care of house and home.

  They have bought a new condo in the city, and have sold this house.  I feel fortunate to have been able to come over and see it one last time.  It's a new phase.  Downsizing.  Public transport versus lawn care.  Urban versus suburban.

After a year fraught with serious illness and unimaginable stress, it is time for a new beginning.  But that does not take away from the goodness that was this life and this home.

Goodbye, 100 Evergreen Drive.

Hello, Philadelphia.

Acqui Terme 2

Gina DePalma wrote a great article about Acqui Terme on the Babbo Website.  There is also a great Sommelier post about Brachetto, the DOCG wine of the Acqui Terme area.

Gina DePalma Wins the 2009 James Beard Award for the Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year

This is the industry's highest honor, for which she has been nominated a total of 7 times!  Please join me in jumping up, screeching and congratulating this amazing woman, this warrior, this survivor for being the top of her class.  You can read all about the awards and the winners here!

Philadelphia 2

So many thoughts, such a small blog.   

I was walking around Rittenhouse Square in Center City Philadelphia yesterday afternoon, trying to process so many thoughts which were shooting around in my head.  I had been in the city all day.  So many nice things happened yesterday, and I was feeling grateful just to be alive and breathing in city air. 

First, I rode into the city with my brother in law, who has been very ill, but was well enough to drive into Philly to sign the lease on his new office for his consulting firm.  A milestone.

Then, I sat on the steps of the Art Museum, gazing at City Hall, talking to a stranger for over an hour about life and moving around and perceptions and about what draws us to certain places.

Then, I met two ladies who I knew only through the Internet who came into the city to meet and have lunch.  It was cathartic.  Wonderful, interesting company, lots of laughing, in a beautiful environment with beautiful food, surrounded by art.

Then I went shopping at J. Crew and had a Michele Obama moment. 

I met my sister, who was taking course in town,  at 30th Street Station and rode the ancient SEPTA train back to the countryside with her.

Seriously, what a day.  To be in America, to be doing those things which we do in America.  

At the same time, I was missing Micha.  Badly.  He loves Philadelphia as I do.  I saw us walking around Rittenhouse together, trying to control Max on the street.  I felt their presence with me. We have shared so much for so long, and he is taking care of our life in Italy right now, so I can go back to it feeling reinvigorated.  

The emotions slammed through my head, as did the impressions, of life in the States and of life in Italy, of the good of both and what is missing in both.  How you can't have it all.  How you have to be grateful for moments in both. How special they both are.  How much both demand of you.

I felt very alive, and fell asleep very early.