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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Protea Cinaroides

There are not very much news and very special hybrids of flowers in Italy. To have something very interesting and beautiful, you have to order it abroad. I cannot find petunia pendula here, for example, these hybrids do not exist for Italians. WHY??? I ask seed's vendors. Because there is not request.

We had an anecdote about it in SU. Caviar was very rare and expensive food at that time. It existed only for "special persons", not for everybody. And maybe for this reason everybody wanted to have it on the table at least for the feasts. So, the anecdote was this:

One man enters a shop and asks a salesperson: why do you never have black caviar in your shop? Becase there is not request, answers the salesperson.

I enter the shop near our house (only about 1 km far, under the hill): Do you have Asiago (it's a sort of Italian cheese that I like when it's fresh). -No. I never buy it because there is nor request. People in this zone do not buy Asiago. They buy only 2 sorts of cheese -Mozzarella and Parmiggiano.
Point here.

That is why I was surprized to see this new for me plant. Protea Cinaroides. Sincerely i was not impressed by this plant. But it was interesting to know it.



Saturday, March 28, 2009

I love Porchetta!

Now I want to tell you about one thing that makes me forget about the weight and do a travel of 500 km in one day to eat it. This is PORCHETTA. Exactly so, all big letters.

In short, it's boiled pork meat.

It is "natural" in any part of Italy and in every supermarket you can find it too, but I've never eaten so good preparations as there, in Bastia Umbra, during the spring agricultural show that we visit from time to time. I don't know why is it so good. Maybe it's new and fresh -the porks are killed in December and the meat maybe has to "mature" before it's ready to eat. I don't know. But it is simply marvellous.

You can visit this my post from 2008 to see more photos of it (Traditional Italian Meal)

Vendors cut it and put inside the bread. Every visitor of the show eats there, old and young. There are not tables and places to sit, so everybody makes it's best to relax the feet after walking among the exhibitors. I found a very good place, so good, that began to sleep after porchetta and beer waiting for my husband. Waking up I found different other persons sitting near me and eating. So, I was the Savior of the humanity. The only my husband could not sit there because a respectable man can not sit on the earth. I have not to think about the rules of the society -I am and was always famous as a lawbreaker...

And other people followed me. Somebody has to be the first to break the rules of the society. If my feets are painful and those who organized this show did not think about them, the rules of the society do not interest me. It's against the nature of the body to eat in feet -I think.





Tuesday, March 24, 2009

A Prince Of The Smiles

Probably there are different Princes Of The Smiles.

One of them is known in all the world and is Charlie Chaplin.
His international fame dues mostly to the silent cinema. He had to be understandable to everybody.



There are not less great but less known characters in other nations too. One of them is Italian Totò.
Unfortunatelly it's very difficult to understand many of his movies because his talent is based mostly on the game of words and napoletan dialect. This short from the movie "Misery and Nobles" is maybe some exagerate but clear without words.



And here is one of the examples of modern "international" laugh-making art. I wanted to find something not long, but if you like the video, you can watch different "shows" of this group in the list on the right. Find "maski" word -and laugh.

Friday, March 20, 2009

How Many Shrouds Of Jesus Of Nazareth Do You Know?

I wrote news about the Shroud of Turin in this blog (The Shroud Of Turin) about a year ago.

I like to read how the modern science restores the events happend centuries ago. There was, except shroud, Is there a difference: we and Neanderthals? More about Ötzi too and Sparta, Leonidas and false legends (excuse me, there were many spelling errors in that posts but I have not time to correct them)

Now I learned about an other interesting thing. Did you know that exists the second shroud of Jesus of Nazareth?
"a bloodstained cloth, measuring c. 84 x 53 cm"

Here is a quoter from Bible (in Russian, I'll try to translate something) from Wikipedia:
Евангелие от Иоанна, глава 20, стихи 6-7: "Вслед за ним приходит Симон Пётр, и входит во гроб, и видит одни пелены лежащие. И плат, который был на главе Его, не с пеленами лежащий, но особо свитый на другом месте".
The Gospel according to John part 20,versus 6-7
"after him enters Simon Peter and sees only shroud(s -plural in Russian). And the cloth that was on the head, not together with the shroud(s) but twisted in a special way in an other place."
If you know how it's correct in English, write me, pls.

So, according to John, there are different shrouds and a cloth.

What I heard yesterday, that the cloth has identic with the shroud of Turin blots. It was twisted like a turban on the head of a person that had one arm up. A human, with blood AB that is usual in Palestine but rare in Europe, dead in upright position, wounds on the head are so that the person had a "hat" of needles.

By the way, Jesus had not a hoop of needles but the "hat" because the crowns were similar to hats in that period. (compare on the photo Monomakh's Cap)

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

For A Walk In Vietri

What you see here is Amalfitan Coast. From the first settling on the way to Amalfi. That's name is Vietri Sul Mare. It is situated under the road I normally go to reach Salerno and I never walk down there. Normally I see it so as at this second photo.

Yesterday I had much time till my shift in museum where I had to go in the afternoon this time, and I decided to pass through the main street of Vietri to make some photos to show them to you here.

The costal unique road you can see on the hill on the right of the photo. You can reach Naples if you go this way from Salerno, too. The road is spectacular in a sunny day because many parts of it are not so "flat" as that you see here but precipitous, on the rocks.

The town is known as a place where most part of population works in ceramic studios. I made many photos and collected them in a slide-show to make the post not so "heavy". If you want, you can watch them, if no -not.



What do you see here?
The main streets are full of ceramic shops. Every shop is an other studio. For the doors you can see the best work of this studio -a picture in ceramic. There is a big fabric that you see on one of the last photos representing a square in front of it (in the background). All they are very colorful. Prices are for stupid tourists, it's clear. More or less the same you can buy in other places at half price. But the look of the town is very interesting. You find ceramics everywhere.

Here a picture in ceramic.

Monday, March 09, 2009

How To Find Me

I had to use the battery of my cell to re-charge it, so I made many photos when we turned home this evening. In Picasa I found that it's possible to make slide-shows now. So I decided to try with these photos. I thought, it could be entertaining to present you this "film" of our street.

Some comments.
1/The street begins when we have to turn LEFT on the 3-d photo. The road on the first photos and that on the right of the 3-d photo is nothing else as the main road in Avellino direction.

2/The men on one of the next photos are playing the national game "bocce". Those are very hard balls and the game is a mix of billiards and bouling. You can see places for this game everywere. The locals say: the men are playing their balls. ;-)
Unfortunatelly if I have to passthem when I walk at feet there, I have to go through this crowd of cretins that feel free to see you sooo... or even to say what they think about a woman going out the house without a man, and, as conseguence, comes in to listen all sorts of stupidities from other men.

So, now you know how to find me if you want to drink a cup of tea with me. But if you are a woman, it will be better you take a car.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Italian Cemetery

I promised to write what I know about cemitries in Italy. Unfortunatelly I'm not very confident with this theme, so I can tell you what I've heard.

Italians have to put their deceased in the cemetry the same day when they are dead. But they do not burry them: the coffin remains open till the next day in a special room. It is because there were cases when the dead persons woke up from their lethargic sleep. I think it comes from Middle Ages.

Normally cemetry is outside the town. (photo 1) It is not very vast place with different parts inside. The gate is open as an office: from...till... They call cemetry "Campo santo" -"holy place", "holy field".

There is not so much place in the cemetry, so first the deceased is burried for about 10 years, I think. Than the remains are exhumated and posted in a special wall (photo 3). Some families can allow themself a sort of room, an external crypt, where the deceased members of the family are posted in special holes made in 3 walls of the "crypt" from the floor till the ceiling. One of them, where I was once, looked like the background part on the last photo. First is the church of the cemetry here, I think, and than are the crypts.



Tuesday, March 03, 2009

The Best Company In The Dining Room

In the last years of high school I read different books about the rules of etiquette. It was interesting, specially, because we did not learn them in the school, and our parents, simple persons, hardly could know many of them.

One of the rules was about the optimal number of the persons at the table during the meals. They had to be not less than 3 and not more than 9. Many years later I read about one scientific research that confirmed that rule from the point of view of our health.

The research said:
Good conversation durin the meal helps to create right athmosphere and conseguently it helps good digestion etc. =good health.
The company at the table has to be not less than 3 persons because 2 persons are not sufficient to maintain the conversation.
The company has to be not greater as 9 persons because too big company can not maintain interesting conversation for ALL the members of the company.

Last time I was in museum I remembered about these rule and told it to Pietro. Pietro thought a little and than said: do you know for how many persons were built the tables in triclinium?
Sincerely I did not know what was that triclinum. Here is the description from a dictionary:
Nell'antica Roma, complesso dei tre letti a tre posti, collocati lungo tre lati della tavola, sui quali si disponevano i commensali per mangiare

In the Antique Rome, it was a complex of 3 beds each with 3 places posted on 3 sides of the table where the guests settled for meals (more or less)
So, this rule has nothing with good health, nor with good conversation, mmm? Vestiges of the Roman past. Look at this picture from Wikipedia

But my mother said us always when we were at the table: The rule is "when I eat I'm deaf and dumb. I'm sure, you know this rule too.
Do you know where comes this rule from?
This rule comes from the monastic life.
When the monks ate in the refectorium of the monastery they had to listen to one of them that read the Bible. Therefore they could not speak in this time.

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