High Water (Not Hell) in Venice, part 7
Hummingbirds & Other Venetians
Sep 29, 2007
^ detail on Saint Mark’s cathedral
^ So much for the singing gondoliers. They seemed to spend most of their time on their cellphones (like everyone else in Italy).
^ Alitalia Italian Airlines? Not for much longer…
The scene above took place on the balcony of the apartment, whose beautiful hanging garden of herbs and flowers attracted the local wildlife, including very large black bees and what appeared to be hummingbirds – which caused some debate among us. When finally convinced that they were birds, Enrico hoped that we had spotted something rare and strange (he’d never heard of hummingbirds in Italy). I asked our seemingly knowledgeable boatman later on about the surprising presence of colibri’ in Venezia, and he claimed that they were common.
Turns out everybody was wrong.
They weren’t birds.
They weren’t bees.
They were hummingbird moths. The antennae should have tipped me off. I did notice those, and thought it odd for a bird to have something like that on its head…
High Water (Not Hell) in Venice, part 6
Venice’s Bad Karma
On Saturday morning, I learned what a macchiatone (“big spotted one”) is: it’s basically a caffé macchiato (coffee “spotted” with steamed milk), with a bit more milk – so, somewhere between a macchiato and a cappuccino, served in a cappuccino cup. I had it with a delicious little torta di riso (rice cake).
Then Enrico and I explored some more.
^ “In this antique home of the Dario family, Henri de Regnier, poet of France, Venetianly lived and wrote in 1988 and 1901.” Venetianly?
^ This was a mystery. Was the pigeon already dead when someone gored it with an umbrella?
The apartment we were staying in was owned by a Jewish family. On the wall near the kitchen was a framed edict of 1777, issued by a prince of Venice on the orders of an “Inquisitor of the Arts”, detailing horrifying restrictions on Venice’s Jewish community. Sobering reading. The Venetians invented the concept of ghetto, apparently.
Venice is indeed a beautiful city, but it has many centuries of bad karma to pay off.
Trattoria Al Passo, Venice – Only Fish!
While we were all in Venice, Jeet’s friend and Andrew’s colleague, Umberto, wanted to take us to his favorite restaurant in the nearby village of Campalto. The restaurant’s card says Solo Pesce (only fish), and that’s all we had – lots of very, very good fish, most of it local and extremely fresh. Umberto and his friend Mauro ordered for all of us, and at the risk of a bad nautical pun, I will say that they went overboard.
Pictured above is the amuse bouche of smoked fish, which was served with Franciacorta (champagne-method wine made in Italy).
Then we had an antipasto crudo (raw antipasto). The object in front that looks like it has two big black eyes is a cavalletto di mare (sea grasshopper). These things have always looked creepy to me. The “eyes” are defensive mimicry – that’s actually the tail – and they have way too many little legs underneath. But I ate it anyway, and the flavor was divine – sweet, and the flesh slipped right down without being slimy. The plate also contained two kinds of shrimp (not raw) and some kind of fish (swordfish?).
I didn’t get a picture of the other antipasto, carpaccio di tonno (because I was too busy eating it): very thinly sliced raw red tuna, served almost Japanese style, but with olive oil. On the plate was a small mound of green stuff; I put a chunk of it in my mouth before I realized it was wasabi, which I’ve never seen served in an Italian restaurant before. Ouch!
Next we had cappesante (scallops), grilled, then served on decorative shells. Apparently this is not the season in which they are large. Didn’t matter – they were tasty!
Then razor clams, also grilled.
Then we finally got to the primi, first polenta with schie, the tiny and flavorful local shrimp. (We did wonder who peeled all these little bitty things.)
And, finally, risotto with clams. Fortunately, someone had thought to cancel the order for a pasta dish as well, and we hadn’t ordered any entrees.
All this took a long time, which we didn’t mind as we were eating and drinking fine things in good company. Pictured above are Enrico, Kiki, Hadi, and Geraldine (shown reacting to a bad joke, not asleep on the table!).
We paid about 65 euros a head for “only fish” (plus quite a lot of wine, coffee, a few desserts, and limoncello) – well worth it!
Trattoria Al Passo
via Passo 118, Campalto (VE)
phone: 041 900470, 338 347 6106
closed Mondays and Tuesdays
High Water (Not Hell) in Venice, part 5
When in Venice, Eat… Curry
In St. Mark’s Square, Jeet bought some necessary props (above).
We returned to the apartment to greet Andrew and Victoria, arrived from Paris. Jeet and Andrew set to work making a fantastic Indian meal.
Which they served in appropriate national costumes:
(Hey, I just live my life, in all its glorious weirdness – don’t ask me to explain it!)
Jeet learned his Indian cooking from Tsering and Tenzing, old friends from Woodstock. While we were enjoying the results of their lessons in Venice, our daughter, on quarter break from school, was staying with them at their home in Mussoorie. Yes, we’re all just one big happy family!
