Strolling Artists Today

I think, Christmas and New Year feasts are very stressing for the fathers and mothers of the families. Specially in this period of crisis. A cousin of my husband visited me this morning and told me about her "terrible" fate. She has to cook for about 15 persons this evening (and to wash plates after that). And to make gifts. Because those are her children and grandchildren. And 4 friends of her daughter. So, I can understand the man on the photo.



Those, who has not to think too much about the kitchen and the gifts, can take pleasure in walking through the streets and looking different shows presented by strolling artists. You can remember my post of a year ago about one of such shows Christmas Shows In The Streets Of Salerno. Sometimes you can see real troupes and very good performances there. I have not seen them this year (I rarely visit Salerno).



The weather is generally bad this year, it rains always, but some days are shiny, the temperature is high till today, about 16°C, and all beings try to live them as better as possible, in the streets.





Seems, these artists are more happy than persons walking near them...



Finally, if you live in the periferic streets of the old town and don't want to go far in the center, you can speak with S.Claus not far from your house. You had to see the face of these girls when they were near this dancing toy. It had something special. Even I was surprized to see him looking on me.

Feast In The Street

Every feast and maybe every weekend you can find this sort of markets in the streets of Salerno and in all other places of Campania. Normally, there are different little manufacturers that present their creativity. But the "most important" are not them. Everytime you will find these others:



These men (over) sell chestnuts. They fry them on this sort of oven directly in the street.
All others sell sweeties. I guess, they do homage to the tradition selling them. There are many different sorts of much more better bon bons in the shops, and when you see them for the first time, you do not understand who would buy something like this. But these vendors are the part of the culture, and they have to be, where the people celebrate something.

How To Prepare "Pan D'Oro"

We are only some days far from Christmas, so I want to tell you about a special Italian Christmas cake today. Every firm, fabric, group or family buys great quantity of these cakes some days before Christmas for every member of the group.

The Italian tradition is to eat "Pan D'Oro" o "Panettone" during the Christmas feasts. This is a family feast, so every group organizes meetings to create a family feeling for all members.

My story is about "Pan D'Oro"
that is a sponge cake in form of a star. Normally it's sold with a little bag with powdered sugar. Maybe you know about this cake. For me was interesting to see how Italians solve the problem of powder. I could never arrive to cover "Pan D'Oro" evenly with powder.



Shake the bag till the cake becomes white.

Open Italian Spumante that has better taste than Franch Сhampagne, they say

Attention! Don't clink plastic glasses! It's a bad sign!

You are ready. Best wishes to all you, my friends! Happy Christmas!

"The Bear"

Film by Jean-Jacques Annaud

GREAT. I have not other words. Splendid film.

My Italian Recipes. Polenta

The recipes of Italian foods is not the most frequent theme of this blog. In fact, you find only 5 of them in the category Recipes here (but TASTY!). Today I want to tell you about Polenta in my local interpretation.

Probably you know that it's a sort of porridge made with mais flour. But it has special components: Gorgonzola cheese and fresh meat sausages. Well, you can use what YOU like but for me these are the most important ingredients.

So, let's start from the beginning.

I use 250 gr of mais flour, that is ready in 10 minutes. For me is good. I don't like to stay hours and hours near the cooker. Boil it in salted water as is written on the package. Important is here to use this whisk when you strew flour in the water to have very fine porrige. If you forget about it (as I do often) you create too hard work for you after that.

Than we take Gorgonzola and cut it in little pieces. It is not very simple if you have fresh cheese, but it's necessary to do to have the uniform cover of our polenta.



Gorgonzola is not the same as other similar cheeses, but I think, if you like an other cheese too much (ehhh... I like Gorgonzola... you noticed it on the photo, it can't arrive alive from today till tomorrow), you can use what you like. Than you prepare sauce with sausages and tomatoe. It has to be enough liquid, if you want to use it so as in this my case. If you want to add the sause over Polenta, you have to make it more dry. I don't know how I forgot about sausages, so I used sooty pork meat this time. Excuse me.

Now we have everything ready for the last step.

When you cooked polenta and sauce, you set fire in the oven. In 10 minutes it is ready for our polenta.





15 minutes are enough. Just to melt the cheese.



And here we have the result. Unfortunatelly without sausages. With them is much more better. ;-)))
Left it to rest for other 15-25 minutes, so that polenta (mais) becomes harder.
This plate is splendid to use the next day. Warm it in microwawes. The cheese and the sauce becomes more liquid. You can even fry it. Great the same.

Killer Of The Palms

«Долгоносики-заговорщики» на Яндекс.Фотках

I looked among my photos and could not find it. A general view of the seafront palms of Salerno. Who could imagin this photo will be precious testimonial of it's previous beauty and splendor...

Most of that plalms in Salerno and in all the region do not exist more. The workers saw the poor rests of the palms all the autumn, their enormous trunks and leaves, and take them away. And all this because a little insect arrived in Campania.

I don't know if it is the same type of the weevils that you see on the photo, I know there are many species of them. But this one loves palms too much. Red weevil. What it makes with the palms you can see on my photo in the bottom. It distroys the leaf part (a palm in the background) and the palm dies. And so there are all dead palms everywhere you go today. Even here on our hill there are gardens with dead palms now. But the seafront of Salerno had too many of them and the disaster is more distinct.

It's Love!

More photos about first moments, hours and days of our lives made by photograph Lenard Nielsen you can find in this Russian site news.open.by

Flowers Made From Plastic Bottles

Evry year I write about the Christmas decorations in Salerno. And I have to say, the designers and artists are very brave there. Very interesting is that they use simple things for their art. This year they invented to adorn the town with flowers made with plastic bottles.

This little park in the center has an entire corner dedicated to this art. Even if in this period, when the weather is not very bad and the temperature is about 15-20°C, the park is full of natural flowers. The best impression these plastic flowers make in the night because they have lamps inside.

Not only this park, other streets are decorated so too. Here is the Dom street (with the bell tower on the background).



Flowers are very beautiful. And so incredibly easy to create!!!!!!

Common Soul Closed In A Terrible Body

«трёхглазый человек.» на Яндекс.Фотках

They say, this man, Mikle Perry from US, comited suicide because nobody loved him.

We watched a documentary about Siamese twins yesterday, where those twins told they are normal and distinct persons, they have the same desires and hobbies like all others.

I remembered my very first experience as a teacher. I worked in 3 different schools in far villages that year, teached Russian language. You know, it's difficult to find teachers who want to go in that places, so every teacher is wellcome.
My oldest pupils were only 3-4 years younger than me. One of them had a really terrible look. But he wanted to stay always near me. I remember, it was a torture for me because I could not look at him.
But he was very clever and lively. It was a pleasure to speak and to work with him. So a month later I did not see his terrible face more.

Than, many years later, I had some experiences with dieing and very ill persons. They have these terrible pains and lay in the position when they suffer less. We think, they do not understand anything. But their mind, their souls are not ill and they hear and feel everything. And often suffer more to hear what we say about them.

We are so closed in our narrow-minded conception of what is normal! Our limited understanding of the multiplicity of the living forms is really surprizing. The infinity of the forms is something external for us. We think, only I and those similar to me have consciousness. Others -no.

A person is different if he/she comes from other country, has other religion, has other habits... and if he/she has malformations?

Once I heard somebody crying: There are so many invalids on this seafront! They have not to come here! My children have not to see persons like them! I want, my chldren grow normal persons!

Normal persons... Normal!!!
How much time will need our civilization to allow others, "not normal" to live happy in that body the Good God gave them? How much time we will need to understand: the soul does not depend from theform of the body?

Unknown Beautiful Plant

The first week I turned back to the activities of the Archeological Group was dedicated to it's tasks only. Sunday I had to change a girl in S.Peter At Court and took my photocamera with me. I'm not very brave to take the photos with it. Have to read more the instructions. But anywhere I go I have it and take photos.

So, Sunday I went to the diocese (because the keys from S.Peter are there) and noticed these beautiful flowers pending from the vases hanging on the walls. I have to say you, Salerno is just prepared for the feasts. Italians have the first important feast on December, 8. Immaculate Conception. And it's possible to see even the Christmas Tree for this day in the houses.

I said, I saw a very beautiful plant. Here it is:



As you see, this is a pending plant with hard leaves of an evergreen. Here you can see them better:



And the flower was like twisted a little and had a sort of needles on the end of the petals. Very beautiful, velour dark red. Here you can see better the flower:



I would like to have this flower in my garden but I don't know it's name. I asked all the persons I met in Salerno that day. One man that sells plants too. But nobody could say me the name of the plant... :-(((

Italian Funeral

From time to time I receive these questions: how are cemeteries in Italy (read: Italian Cemetery), how are the funerals. Sincerely, I don't like to write about it, even if I understand this interest is perfectly normal. It's a part of the culture, and in this case of the Italian Culture.

The funerals I partecipated at were so:

The deceased remains in his/her bed,
the workers of the funeral agency take the coffin in the room before they have to take the deceased out of the house.
He/she has to be burried next day after the death. There are 1 or 2 cars with garlands, than the third car is the catafalque, after it there are cars of those who accompains the deceased.
They take the closed coffin first in the church, than to the cemetery. The coffin remains one day more open in a special room to control that the person does not sleep (I think, it comes from Middle Ages when they could not understand, if the person is dead or asleep). It is not obligatory to make autopsy.

If the cemetery is not far from the church and the house, relatives and friends can go at feet there. Sometimes the catafalque is not a car but a carriage with black horses.

Italian Breakfast

Sunday morning was dedicated to Salerno, Archeological group and museum of S. Pietro A Corte. I came in Salerno at 9 and had one hour for a walk. I had my new photocamera with me and used it with great dedication. :-)

Sunday morning is the holy time in the little towns of province. You find niobody in the streets only some persons that do not want to eat in the house and go out to make their breakfast in the bars. There are not so many bars open but you can find 2 or 3 of them.

The weather was good, the temperature about 15°C, so if the bar is in the beautiful and open place with the sun shining, you take your coffee or capuccino with cornetto and sit relaxed for the door. Some persons can sit hours with a cup of coffee this way.



Bars do not cook the cornetti they only warm them and post then in these special boxes. Sometimes you can choose one of them yourself, other times the barman gives it to you. Normally you pay after you've finished to eat and to drink.



Sincerely I adore cornetti. Some of the bars have them so incredibly good that I could eat and eat them. I know these bars (not every bar has this special beauty) and am regular client there.

How To Use Ink Pen With The Same Short Cartridge Forever

Many of us love ink pens. They are not only better than modern ball pens. They are more healthy too. Because we don't lay on the table when we write, and we take the fingers far from the pen. It's good for our eyes.

But there is a problem with these pens. In the most cases we have to use cartridges.
1/ you need many of them if you write much.
2/ the ink is not good -for my tastes.
The cartridges you buy are often dry too. I don't understand how is it possible that the ink can dry in the close plastic cartridge but it is the hard reality.

So I "invented" a good way to avoid these bad sides of my ink pens. I refill them.

It is not difficult but many of my friends did not use this method. And that is why I decided to tell you about it.

You need only this: good ink, a used syringe, paper and water to clean the syringe.



Take off the cartridge with care ot to damage the hole.



Fill the syringe with ink



Fill the cartridge with ink till it's mouth



Put the cartridge carefully on the pen (don't damage the hole of the cartridge)



Write!



I have to say you, I've never changed the cartridges, I can't remember you how many years I use those I bought first time I did it.
Ah, forgot. Wash the syringe after use and you will never change it too.