Amsterdam: "It's just like Berkeley in the 60's"

Another year has gone by and we're on our way to Europe again. This year we're visiting Amsterdam and Paris. We used some Alaska Air miles for our tickets and got really lucky to score business class seats on the trip over, however they only had coach seats available for the trip home. Given how delightful our nonstop flight in Delta's business elite section was on our way to Amsterdam, I'm already dreading the horrible flight home in coach that has us changing planes in Detroit, MI. Oh how I envy people who get to travel in business class all the time on these long haul flights to Europe and beyond. Where do I sign up for that same treatment?

Thanks to those awesome lie-flat seats on the flight (and the seemingly never-empty wine glass), we all managed to get some sleep on the way across the Atlantic, which helped to smooth out the rough edges of our first day in Amsterdam.

Our flight arrived at 1:00 PM and by the time we took the train from the airport to Centraal Station, checked into our hotel and took showers, it was almost 4:00 PM. We purposely didn't plan any activities for our first night since we knew we'd all be tired. So we decided the best strategy was to just wander around, have a beer and enjoy the atmosphere.

Although I certainly was aware of the "weed" culture here, I wasn't prepared for just HOW prevalent the weed smoking was. It's everywhere! All the cafes advertise "drink and smoke rooms" and every other shop on the street is selling some kind of weed-related edible, or accessory in which to smoke/roll your weed. I have personally never smoked weed and I'm wondering if just spending a couple of hours walking around central Amsterdam gives you a contact high? So although I didn't partake in the local café culture in that manner, I did enjoy a couple of nice local "Holland" beers. One of which was fruity and served over ice. Pretty darned refreshing!

The weather was lovely; about 74 degrees and sunny, so it was just nice to walk around and soak in the sights (and there was plenty to look at). We had a bit of trouble finding what looked like a decent place to have dinner. There seems to be plenty of fast food and take-away joints, or what April likes to refer to as "Shwarma on a Stick"; but it seemed like people were only drinking (and smoking weed) and NOT eating an actual "meal."

So we sat at a café and had another beer while we pondered where our dinner meal was going to come from. I'm pretty proud of myself that while sitting at said café I was able to hack myself into a nearby WiFi signal; I took a chance at the password for "Greenhouse" and typed in "greenhouse" and voila! I was connected. So now perhaps I shall add "computer hacking" to my list of skills. After some Internet research, we found a nearby restaurant and wandered over for dinner. It was just OK; nothing to rave about, although I would have to rave about the delicious hericot verts wrapped in bacon that accompanied my steak. Très délicieux!

It wasn't long after we returned to the hotel that our jet lag seemed to kick in with an earnest; April was the first one knocked out, followed by Sean. I managed to catch up on work email and get a couple of hours of work done before I too had to surrender to the sandman. April was able to sleep the entire night, whereas Sean and I both were wide awake around 3:00 - 4:30 AM, but finally fell back to sleep until 7:30, so not entirely a successful night of sleep.

After a light breakfast in the hotel, we headed over to the museum district for our 11:00 AM "highlights tour" of the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of Amsterdam. While on the city tram, we were chatting with an older couple from San Jose. I had to chuckle when discussing the "café culture" prevalent in Amsterdam his wife said "Amsterdam is just like Berkeley in the 60's!"

We managed to get to the museum with plenty of spare time for a much-needed cappuccino.

The museum was recently re-opened after a 10-year renovation that cost more than 375,000 Euros. The museum has on display more than 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt,  Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer.

This entry hall had previously been whitewashed over and painstakingly restored during the recent renovation. The murals on the walls are actually painted on canvas and had been removed before the walls were covered over with paint.

The hall is beautiful and its difficult to understand why anybody thought it would look better just painted over with white paint. Who does that? The museum, constructed in 1885 was the work of architect Pierre Cuypers, who also designed more than 80 churches and it's easy to see the similarity to some churches in its gothic and renaissance elements.

In the "Gallery of Honor" are some of the Dutch masters' most famous works of art, including Rembrandt's "The Night Watch".

After a LOT of religious art seen last year in Italy, it was a bit refreshing to see art depicting the simple Dutch life as seen in these paintings.

This works, entitled "The Feast of St. Nicholas" by Jan Steen was pretty funny as it depicts the whole theory of the "naughty and nice" list at Christmastime. The girl received a basket of toys, while the little boy received only a switch!

This one was one of my favorites entitled "Drunken Couple." We decided we might want to commission a work called "Drunken Aunt" for April.

The "modern art" section featured this biplane designed by Dutch aeronautical engineer Frits Koolhoven in 1917. An FK 23 Bantam, the biplane is the oldest airplane in the Netherlands to have been preserved in its original state.

After thoroughly suturing ourselves with art and history, it was time for a cold beverage and some lunch. We wandered around near the museum district and settled at a nice Irish pub for some grub (and beer).

Later that afternoon, we had tickets to tour to the Anne Frank house. It was a somber visit. Having read her diary during my young school days (perhaps Junior High?), it was a familiar story (and such a sad, sad story). In an interview her father did before he died (at age 93), he said something along the lines that as parents, we think we really "know" our children, but we're wrong. We don't really know what they're thinking and just how deeply they "feel." Reading Anne's diary was a shocking revelation for him to realize that he didn't really know his daughter as well as he thought.

Next on our agenda for the day was a lovely canal cruise, which my feet really appreciated as I think we had probably walked more than 6 or 7 miles already (over lots of uneven pavement and cobblestones). And the weather couldn't have been nicer.

 

 

 

And that's pretty much a wrap for our first full day in Amsterdam. You can view all of my pictures from Amsterdam Day 1 here.

Our Idyllic Escape from Tourists in Toffia, Italy

While planning our activities while in Rome, April and I discussed taking some cooking lessons so we could perfect our Italian cooking skills. April researched the many options available and instead of staying right in Rome, we found an option about 45 minutes outside of Rome in Toffia with Convivio Rome. Our daylong adventure in Toffia is probably one of my favorite things we did/experience on our entire trip. To quote Liz Lemon, "I want to go there."

Toffia is a small hilltop village with a current population of about 350 people, although their population swells closer to 900 people during the warmer months as many Romans like to keep summer homes there. Located in the ancient Sabina region, the area is an agricultural-rich area with primarily olive oil and wine production.

 

April and I were joined by two more cooking "guests" who were a mother and daughter from Canada, so it was a nice small group. Convivio Rome is ran by a sweet couple, Guido (8th generation Roman) and Sally (Australian who fell in love with Guido while visiting Rome) who live in Toffia.

We were all picked up at the Fara Sabina train station, about 45 minutes outside of Rome, and driven by a cute Italian boy to Toffia, about 20 minutes away.

Sally met us at the entrance to the city and as we walked towards their home, gave us a bit of a tour along the way.

 

During our walk into the center of the village, one of the local "wine growers" passed us several times with his bounty of just-picked grapes.

All of the wine produced by the villagers is for "local-use" only, meaning that all of the residents basically bring their bottles and containers to be filled up after the harvest. They do a similar thing with the olive oil production with residents basically acquiring their year-long needs shortly after the harvest and production. I think that they actually pay for the wine and olive oil, but the amount is quite minimal.

Toffia features a community garden and we stopped there to pick some fresh herbs to use during our cooking lesson.

 

We arrive at Sally and Guido's home and after a brief introduction to Guido, our lesson begins. I think one of the reasons why I enjoyed our day so much here is that Sally and Guido were instantly like old friends. And the food we prepared was amazing!

I loved that we were kind of thrown back into an era where you actually knew all of the people that produced your food; they personally know (and are friends with) the butcher, the guy who grows the vegetables, the cheesemaker, the olive maker and the wine maker. I suspect they also acquired the flour from someone they know who mills it.

First up, we learn to make tagliatelle pasta (your basic egg noodle). April and I have made pasta many times, but this recipe varies slightly in that the ratio of eggs was a bit higher, and instead of using just all-purpose flour, it was a mixture of 50% all-purpose flour (European 00 flour) and 50% semolina flour.

 

This was the first time we had learned to make pasta entirely by hand, meaning that we didn't use a sheet roller to create the thin pasta sheets. I'm pretty sure my french rolling pin isn't quite long enough for this method, so I'm going to need some supplies when I get home!

 

After the pasta was completed, it was time to start the Ragu (a basic meat sauce). This is a basic staple sauce in most Italian kitchens and Guido told us that on Sundays, you can smell various wafts of Ragu from most kitchens in the village.

The sauce begins with a basic mire poix of celery, onions, carrots, then flavored with pieces of pork cheek (kind of like pancetta, but the cut of pork comes from the pig cheek) and fresh bay leaf. There was also a generous amount of olive oil. After this mixture was cooked down for a few minutes, we added some ground beef and wine.

Finally, the Italian version of tomato sauce, as well as a can of "San Marzano" tomatoes were added to the mixture and set aside to simmer while we prepared the rest of today's dishes.

Next up was the dessert, Ricotta cake. I loved how everything we did was made entirely by hand; no blenders, food processors, or mixers. Even the pastry dough for the cake was done on the board by hand.

I though it was an ingenious idea to keep the parchment on the bottom of the pastry to line the dish with.

Spread on the bottom was a locally-made (naturally!) cherry preserve that was more similar to a currant (the cherries are tart) then our sweet bing cherries. The ricotta filling was simply sheep's milk ricotta (apparently sheep's milk is sweeter than cow's), sugar, eggs, chopped chocolate (which was also made locally) and some fresh lemon zest.

 

And voila! In a matter of a few minutes, it's ready to bake and you have a very simple, but delicious dessert.

 

Finally, it's time to create the meat course: Veal Saltimbocca. It's amazing how something so simple to make can be so delicious. I definitely think it's the olive oil!

Paper-thin slices of veal are layered with a slice of prosciutto and skewered together with a fresh sage leaf. That's it! No salt, no pepper. It's then quickly sauteed (fairly high heat) with some olive oil (but of course!).

 

 

Paired with a simple arugula salad and an orange reduction sauce (which we also made), it was very delicious. Isn't your stomach rumbling just reading about these dishes? Guido told us a funny story about how he tried out his idea of the "orange sauce" to pair with the Saltimbocca on his Roman friends. Their basic response when tasting his version was "it's not like Nona makes." Apparently you can't teach a dog new tricks and they only want to eat something that's exactly what they're used to, and in this case, whatever their beloved grandmother's made. Hopefully my grandchildren will feel that way about my cooking!

 

It was now time to eat, so we all retired to their "taverna" which is kind of "cave-like" and very cool. What a great place to entertain! Sally told us that they're often asked by fellow villagers if they can host a party in their taverna! It's the perfect spot for a party.

 

From the flat area where the dining table is located, looking across the room is the entrance to their cellar, also a nice place to sit and enjoy a glass of wine.

 

 

Our meal, complete with a generous amount of local wine was one of the highlights of my trip to Italy. The day was perfect! It was warm and sunny, the class was fun and engaging and I am completely in love with Toffia. Remember the movie "Under the Tuscan sun" where Diane Lane's character is on vacation in Tuscany and she falls in love with the village and buys a villa there? I can see that happening! Seriously, this place is fantastic! But obviously, not very realistic for me, but one can dream!

 

It's now getting to be late afternoon and sadly it's time for us to go. Sally and our cute Italian driver accompany us to another nearby village of Farfa for a quick tour before we drive back to the train station. Along the way, we had some amazing views of Toffia.

 

The Farfa Abbey is one of the most famous abbeys in Europe. Farfa Abbey played an important role in the history of the Sabina area, having controlled, during it's "golden age", nearly all the nearby towns and villages. The monks of Farfa owned 683 churches or convents; two towns, Civitavecchia and Alatri; 132 castles; 16 strongholds; 7 seaports; 8 salt mines; 14 villages; 82 mills; and 315 hamlets. They even had their own army and navy. It's hard to imagine this fairly small abbey run by monks to have risen to that level of power.

 

 

As one of the most powerful Benedictine monasteries in Europe, it played a major role in the power struggles between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, opposing the power of the Papacy for centuries. With the crisis in the Benedictine order and the struggle for the Papacy in the twelfth century, the Abbey began to decline and eventually fell under the control of the Papal States. From here on it's history follows that of the Vatican and the struggles between powerful Roman families for it's control. In 1477 AD the Orsini family asserted it's growing power in the Sabina by expelling all the monks of Farfa and replacing them with Teutonic monks. In the following centuries the Abbey passed under the control of various Roman nobles such as the Barberini and the Farnese but it never really reacquired the importance and independence it once had. Finally, in 1841 AD its powers were definitively transferred to the diocese of the Sabina.

 

 

Farfa also became a focal point for trade with an important weekly market. After the reconstruction of the monastery by the Orsinis during the Renaissance, new shops were built around the monastery to accommodate the merchants, giving birth to a twice yearly fair lasting 15 days. These shops and the urban structure of which they are part can still be seen today and the street names reflect the original uses of each street, for example "via di droghe e cere" (street of medicines and waxes), "via di panni e sete" (street of cloths and silks) and so on. You can still see the characteristic stone slabs at the entrance to each shop which were used as counters by the merchants. The signage in the village is really lovely too; of course I loved the sign outside the bakery.

 

 

While we were visiting the church, a wedding was start about ready to start. We've actually seen quite a few brides during our travels in Italy.

 

 

It was an idyllic day. In addition to their one-day classes, Convivio offers 3 and 5-day courses, combined with accommodations in Toffia, either in a shared environment (room of local villager) or sometimes they rent out entire dwellings for the class participants. I'm pretty sure one of these options (3 or 5 days) will be worked into the planning process for a future trip to Italy.

Thank you Sally and Guido for such a fantastic day!

Ciao!