Dreaming In Italian

I had been telling Gaudio that I hadn’t had much lasagna in Bologna and was looking for a really good place for it. After all it is one of the signature dishes of BO and I had had a couple of mediocre examples. So late in May on a Sunday he and Sandra picked us up at the the apartment and we went to a place reasonably obscure. It is in Borgo Panigale which is part of Bologna not far from the airport. The only time that I had been in Borgo Panigale before was when I went on a tour of the Ducati factory 4 years ago. As usual I digress. In any case Gaudio is something of a regular since he has a customer near there and they go to lunch there from time to time. Gaudio is now involved in a business to import small producer champagne to Italy and called ahead to see if it would be OK to bring a bottle. This is very unusual in Italy but they said “yes” so we enjoyed a nice bottle with the meal. Karen and I had the truly excellent lasagne and she had an opportunity to try the crescentine – another local specialty which Karen dubbed “pillows of the saints” to everyone’s amusement. These little fried pieces of bread puff up and are served with salumi (various cured meats) and usually squaquarone, a kind of fresh, very soft, spreadable local cheese that goes extremely well with the meats.

Crescentine – a local specialty not to be missed.

Salumi

When leaving I asked if they had a biglietto da visita (business card). They didn’t’ but made one with a sheet of paper with a stamp for the trattoria. After doing a web search I found that it’s not as obscure as I had thought. Good food gets recognized and you can find their website by clicking here (although it’s all in Italian) and of course Trip Adviser has reviews and a lot of nice photos which you can find here. I have a few of my own below.

Luscious lasagna made of multiple layers of house made green pasta

The lunch bunch – I’m not sure why I look startled

I don’t have a large sampling of Bologna pizza. Like almost all of the pizzas that I have eaten there they follow the thin crust, light on toppings and wood-fired oven model. There was a simple little pizzeria near where we were living on Santo Stefano so it was really convenient to pop over there for a take-out pizza. Since they are thin crust they are ready in minutes. That leave enough time to go to the corner store just steps away and pick up a beer or two. We became very familiar with our old friend Moretti – a popular and inexpensive beer in Italy.

The day after the party I had a “sbronza” (hangover) and so did my friend Gianluca. Karen had gone on one of the Saturday field trips with other students. I exchanged some texts with Cesare who recommended Spacca Napoli as a good place for a pizza which had the added benefit of being not too far away. So Gianluca came over and we went for something to bring us back to life. Two pizzas and a shared liter of beer did the trick. The pizzas are really big there but we both managed to get the job done.

The pizzas at Spacca Napoli – terrific and BIG. Prosciutto for Gianluca, sausage and mushroom for me

Karen had eaten one pizza in Bologna; at Regina Margherita not too far away from us and also on our street, Santo Stefano. I thought that we should really try a highly regarded pizza place so we reserved a table at Scalinatella, a highly reviewed place in the center of town and invited Marco and his wife Claudia to join us. Claudia couldn’t make it do to a work related dinner but we had a pleasant evening with Marco (the yoga master and investment adviser for a large Italian bank). Marco’s pizza was dubbed “Pugliese” and was tomato sauce, onion and mozzarella (with the token basil leaf). I talked Karen into splitting one with mozzarella di bufala, and cherry tomatoes since this type of mozzarella is really special and largely unavailable outside of Italy. Unfortunately, while the cheese was great, there were not too many tomatoes and it come across as a bit bland. Oh well, sometimes even the best of intentions …

Marco’s Pizza Pugliese

The split pizza with mozzarella da bufala and cherry tomatoes

We did get to at least see Claudia on this trip because she drove into town after her dinner to give Marco a ride home. Hopefully we’ll see more of her on the next trip.

One of the brochures that I did was on a place called Sala Urbana. This was the only brochure for which I did the entire translation; that is, there was no previous english translation. The brochure was new, probably because Sala Urbana was closed for several years for restoration. It was a challenge but I think that I did a pretty good job. There often are a few things that are almost untranslatable or that have some kind of idiomatic meaning that I could not find in the dictionary. Those things were clarified when I met with Monica and Margherita. After finishing the translation I really wanted to see the room so I went there one day when I was early for a different meeting. Sala Urbana is on the 2^nd floor (that would be the 3^rd in the U.S.) along with the civic museum so I couldn’t enter without a ticket. So I went to the biglietteria (ticket office) and explained that I had just finished a translation of a tourist brochure about Sala Urbana and wanted to see the room. The woman there asked me to wait just a moment and went into an adjacent office and returned with the director of the museum, Carla Bernardini. Carla then gave me a tour of the room and indeed the entire museum. This included taking me into her office to show me a terrific view that few people ever see – from her office window across the city  . It was indeed a very special experience.

I returned did take some photos of the room and others are available by doing a web search for “Sala Urbana Bologna”.

The coat of arms of Pope Urbana VIII to whom the room is dedicated

Memorial painted on the wall and niche with bust of the pope

Some of the 188 costs of arms of very important city rulers over about 400 years

The magnificent ceiling with faux 3 dimensional painting – a Bologna specialty in the 14th century

Since the lovely K and I have an apartment I would love to have had friends over for lunch or dinner but there are too many friends and not enough time so we decided to have a party. The original plan was for Friday, May 29 but I found from one friend that it would be a terrible day to have a party. Tuesday June 2 is a national holiday, the equivalent of our 4^th of July so a lot of people will be taking both Friday and Monday off of work to make a 5 day holiday. So with only 3 days remaining before Friday the 22^nd we changed the date, invited a bunch of people, did shopping and food prep. It really wasn’t too big of a problem. I bought a bunch of ground beef and pork (about 2.5 pounds worth) and Karen made little meatballs. I made a 12 egg fritatta with some of the great asparagus available now. I also bought a bunch of salumi (cured meats); mortadella, prosciutto and salami – about 1.5 pounds in all plus cheese, bread, cantaloupe and sun dried tomatoes . With food there must be something to drink so there was also a bunch of beer, wine and sparkling water. We had a total of about 18 guests and everyone seemed to have a very good time. I thought that we perhaps had too much food but I will say that Italians like to eat. They descended on the table like a swarm of locust and consumed everything in sight. We finally got to bed at around midnight after the last guests had left. Tired and happy.

Of course I totally forgot to take any pictures – you’ll just need to use your imagination.