In Search of an American Burger with a Sicilian Surrealist in a Forsaken and Deserted City

In continuation from here...

 

 

After the dinner Giorgio’s wife made for us, we sat around in his drawing room sipping on Cynar. It was August and Rome was stifling hot, humid and deserted by all but the tourists and the stalwart Romanisti. It was nice, though, for it felt like family and was very familiar. Giorgio was sketching something near me or behind me, I don’t know what. But he was intent on capturing something in the light of the room. I was exhausted from a day of roaming around the city and had a few more days before I was to go back home and to college at Santa Clara.

Affogato and Averna with a Sicilian Surrealist

Our time at the dinner table was over. Giorgio motioned to me and his wife that he was moving to the drawing room. His wife said she would prepare the affogato. Meanwhile Giorgio foraged in his liquor cabinet for a bottle of amaro. “Seeing as we are all Siculi, shall we have some Averna with our dessert?” he suggested. As long as it wasn’t Cynar, I was fine with it. I’d been plied with the artichoke amaro in Palermo with every family visit. Averna was a relief.

“Isa was visiting a friend near Piazza Navona and brought back some gelato from Tre Scalini.” Isa had a sweet tooth, I gathered. Giorgio too. Fine with me. I was 20, skinny and ready for whatever came my way. I could handle amaro and gelato.

Fettuccine and Forastera with a Sicilian Surrealist

Una favola continuava

It was 7:00 PM and Giorgio’s residence was about 15 minutes away from the pensione I was staying in. But I wasn’t that familiar with Rome, and we didn’t have GPS in 1971. So, I gathered my myself, a little gift I had gotten In Sicily for his wife, and my camera, and headed out. I thought I should probably take a bottle of wine, and earlier in the day I had gone into a shop which sold wine, beer and liquor and looked for something appropriate. I knew little to nothing about wine, despite the fact that my dorm mates  at university had last names like Mondavi, Sebastiani, Heitz, Pellegrini and Filice. My uncle back in California was a wine merchant and he told me a little about Italian wines.

The store had what I would now call a selection of tourist recognizable wines from places like Umbria (Orvieto),  Lazio (Est! Est!! Est!!!) and Campania (Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio). The white wines all looked more amber-like, so I tried to find one that wasn’t as dark. On a display I found a white wine, simply called Ischia Bianco, from the eponymous island that was a popular day trip for vacationers.

Caffè and Cannoli with a Sicilian Surrealist

una favola...

My first trip to Italy was in 1971. I was a student on summer break and spent days in Rome, wandering the streets at all hours with my camera. One night I happened to be near the Spanish steps when it was very late. In fact, it was almost dawn. And down the street from the steps on the Via Condotti, the familiar noises of a coffee machine, the grinding, the steaming and the drip, drip, dripping, sounded. With the aroma of fresh coffee, I was drawn like an insect to light.  It was there where I first encountered the Sicilian Surrealist.

What kind of life have you had?

 In memory of Luigi Pira and Dino Illuminati

I was in the room next to my wine closet when I thought I heard the murmur of low voices. There was no one else in the house, and it startled me a bit. But as I inched closer to where the wine was, I realized the voices were coming from inside…

Italy's "Miracle Harvest" for the 2022 Wine Crop

"Un Miracolo!"

Get ready, for here it comes! The long-awaited (and inevitable) treatise tsunami over the 2022 Italian grape harvest. Just like the ubiquitous dissertations on the perfect Thanksgiving wine or the vaulted Springtime piece on the gaggle of new rosé wines. Why do we love these so? Too many scribes today are looking for the easy-layout, the slam dunk, the no-brainer, when it comes to content. The 21^st century has broken everything, and the internet leads the way, always and in every way. So, let’s get ready for a plethora of boilerplate and an avalanche of cliché, with regards to the 2022 harvest. It will be epic!

Dispatch from Kyiv: Why I won’t be going to Vinitaly this year

The following is a speculative compilation deriving out of anecdotal missives from friends in the wine trade who are in Ukraine. This is only a drill. Слава Україні!

 I’m in the basement of our apartment building, where I now live. I am a young Ukrainian in the wine business (mainly p.r. and sommelier studies), but right now, me and my family, and our country, are fighting for our lives. So, I won’t be going to Vinitaly this year.

My mother-in-law has taken our children across the border to Poland, where now they are safe. My husband is fighting for our freedom in eastern Ukraine. I’m here with my mother, who is a widow and needs my attention, for she cannot travel far these days. And my father-in-law, we haven’t heard from in days. He’s back at the farm north of Kyiv, tending to the land and the animals. We are very worried for him.

I looked forward to Vinitaly every year, to meet with winemakers and my social media community. Especially hard it has been in the last two years because of the Covid. But now we face an even greater enemy to our being here in Ukraine.

I love Italy, their wine and food and people. I love how free the country is. I would bring back a little of Italy every time I went. I even loved Vinitaly. I didn’t mind the crowds, the confusion or the uniquely Italian form of organizing a large event like Vinitaly. Now I wish I had a bathroom here in Kyiv like the worst one I would ever find at Vinitaly. Or a dry panini and an overpriced bottle of frizzante water. It sounds like heaven to me.

But I am now part of the resistance against one of the most evil of humans, I cannot even say his name. But you know who I am talking about.

My husband has seen things no one should ever have to see. We are a peace-loving family. My children are innocent. We are innocent! But cruelty doesn’t distinguish between the guilty and the guiltless. No, the bombs from above are indiscriminate in their path of destruction. But we are not beaten. We are bloodied, yes. Our hearts are broken, but our spirit is unscathed. And we will win!

I’d love so much to see my friends at Vinitaly. But I’d love even more to see my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my dear husband and my sweet, sweet children. I cannot even think about a wine fair, although I am guilty to say I dream about it. Maybe one day, in the future. But for now, we have more important things to attend to: Our Existence.        -Марія Павліченко

 

DONATE:

UNICEF USA Official Site - Help Children in Ukraine

SAVE THE CHILDREN - Ukraine Crisis Children's Relief 

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS 

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR THE RED CROSS 

UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES - Ukraine Aid

Wanted: Wine Tastemakers – Older White Men Need Not Apply?

Feb. 29, 2040

Dear Salem Morgon,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the position we posted. We are currently screening the next level candidate for our wine tastemaker stint and you have made the cut. Congratulations!

As you know, we are currently recruiting candidates to form a dynamic new team for ViniVer§Ω as THE preeminent and never-before-seen #WineInfluencer Neoteric Eno-zine. The next step for us, with you, is to further ascertain if you will be a good fit, on our soon-to-be award-winning squad!

So, let’s get down to it, por qué no?

Doctor Notti on Italy, wine and the intergalactic dust storm of 2016

On July 18, 2016, an intergalactic dust storm - Mendacium Collocatio – plowed into earth, broadsiding North America. It modified the brainwaves of half the people it hit, and created synaptic disruptions in them, for which we are just beginning to understand the ramifications. It also appeared that those who were affected also acted as transmitters of turmoil, impairing about 20% of the people they came into contact with. It was during a hotly contested political campaign, and this was not noticed for what it was. It was thought at first that the activities of people were aroused due to their emotional connection to one or the other candidate. We are only learning now that was not the case. The earth had been hit with the equivalent of 15,000 kilotons of this cosmic micro dust, 10,000 times more powerful than the bomb that exploded over Hiroshima. And while the dust storm didn’t spread toxic and lethal radiation like a nuclear blast, it nonetheless caused widespread disruption. And it has been theorized that it made the human population on earth more susceptible to dormant viruses lying in wait, creating a confluence and causing a Perfect Wave scenario. The last time this planet experienced such a Perfect Wave was 66 million years ago.

“Wine? I don’t care about scores, competitions mean nothing to me and I don’t collect anything!”

– The Gen Z interview

While writing a recent story for the paper, I sat at a coffee shop and scribbled. An apparition of a  person hovering nearby saw that I had a copy of a wine magazine and asked me what I was reading. Being the quintessential introvert, I squirmed. And then I showed it to her. She could have been young enough to be my granddaughter, if I’d had one. “Last year I turned 21,” she said, and have been thinking about wine and alcohol. I had no idea they had magazines about wine!”

I was on a deadline and was pressed to finish the piece, which had nothing to do with the magazine. So, I told her I was working on something else and could I send her some interview questions. We’d earlier determined that we had mutual acquaintances and thus there would be no risk from exchanging emails. “I don’t check my email that often,” she said, “but text me when you do, so I can pull them up.” And with that I finished my flat white, she disappeared, and I boogied out the door to my next appointment.