Memorial Day in Italy

Like most Americans, I'd forgotten the military history of this holiday. It always seems to be overshadowed by barbecues, start-of-summer sales and white shoe season...

Not this year. At the Florence American Cemetery, it's impossible to ignore the 4,400 marble crosses and stars of David and the massive wall carved with the names of many of the young American GIs killed in 1944-45 during the campaign to liberate Italy.

Current Italian and American soldiers and airmen turn out in force every year. Italian re-enactors don pristine woolen American uniforms and proudly pose for pictures with the kids. This year, Brig. General Charles Estes, a Utah native stationed in Germany, tried to shore up the alliance by noting Italians and Americans have been fighting side by side for 65 years (if you include Iraq and Afghanistan).

And there was a slight controversy as his Italian Counterpart, Gen. D. Marco Bertolini, Tuscany Regional Commander of the Italian Army, chastised his own country today for neglecting to honor the soldiers who gave their lives in the war and the veterans still alive today.

Inevitably, April 25 commemorations of "Liberation Day" turn into political debates between the current Communist Party and the ruling Conservatives. The Communists have co-opted the history of World War II Italian partisans who fought alongside the Allies and declared themselves the political party that saved Italy. And the conservatives hate being compared to Mussolini's fascists who nominally shared similar ideology 70 years ago. Add to that the tension between the middle of the country (a communist/liberal stronghold) and conservative blocks in the north and south.

One Italian woman said she'd been waiting years to hear that from another Italian's lips. "Without the Americans," she said, "we'd be speaking German or Russian."

But then, we looked around us at hillside villas, many gobbled up by German investors in the 80s and 90s. Ah, she said with a shrug, "We say: What the Panzer couldn't conquer, the (deutsch)mark did."

Typical Italian humor...

Wild Greens

Driving through Tuscany in the spring you'll happen upon natives clambering up and down the hillsides, clutching bunches of what looks like grass in their hands. A few weeks later, the bunches appear in town: Agretti, or Barba di Frate (Friar's Beard). They look a bit like chives and have a slight onion-y smell.

I had to search UK websites for a recipes. Turns out, a bit of olive oil, garlic, and salt and pepper was all it required...

Summer Fashion

A sea of linen has appeared in the markets--sundresses, tunics and camp shirts in white, navy, tan and, occasionally, red. But those are for women of a certain generation (over 25).

Younger fashionistas seem to prefer long, tight t-shirts printed with faces. Audrey Hepburn from "Breakfast at Tiffany's," Charlise Theron and rhinestone cowgirls are the favorites.

And, of course, there's always Marilyn...

Oltrarno Guerillas

The more uptight residents of Oltrarno (the neighborhood across the river) are upset about counterculture incursions into what was -- and still is -- the alt part of the city:

At the end of April, a group calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of Poetry plastered amateur prose throughout the Santo Spirito neighborhood: odes to "Arianna," for example, or the line above-- "I'm wonderful. Everyone else is crazy."

Then, May 3, police discovered vegetables, camomile and fruit trees planted in the planters around the church. According to The Florentine, authorities also found a small pot plant. (Oh the humanity! Marijuana found in an artistic enclave!) The guerilla gardeners pledged (threatened) to retake the piazza this summer.

Residents complain that the poetry will damage the historic buildings. MEP guerillas claim the paper is attached using a mixture of water, sugar and tonic--all it needs is a good rainstorm, they say.

They may be wrong about that: Where the poetry has been scraped off, it seems to take the first layer of paint with it.

I guess we'll see if there are lingering bad feelings about that "all-natural" glue....

New Fruit

The fruit is changing with the season. Oranges are being replaced by ciliegia (cherries), albicocca (apricots) and these....

The color of apricots, in the shape and texture of kiwis with alarming seeds the size of olives. We'd call them loquats. The Italian word is "nespole."

Just Call Me Doc

In Italy, I've discovered I get an assumed boost in status as the proud holder of a bachelor's degree (even if it IS in one of the borderline social "sciences"). Technically, I could be called "doctor" -- or dottoressa, Dott.essa for short.

It's the Food

In honor of Festa della mamma, an Italian website surveyed 400 foreign exchange students from 50 countries, asking who has the best mothers. The winner, of course, was Italy. The 17-year-old students said Italian mothers always find time for their children.

I think a good pastasciutta probably pushes Italian mammas over the top....

Groundhog Day, Italian Style

The Italians have something similar on April 3: "Terzo aprilante, quaranta di' durante..." (If it rains on that day, you can expect 40 more days of rain until summer.)

Given that two weeks of April were enchanted, I'm assuming we're in for several more weeks of this.

Equally ominous: The first 12 days of January are supposed to predict the weather for the months of the year. Early January was wet...

The Great Race

The Mille Miglia rolled through town yesterday--classic car after classic car putting through Piazza Signoria. Even my son, who normally doesn't pay much attention to these things, got into it: shouting "not old" at the newer model "service" cars from BMW and Mercedes.

Now a two-day endurance road rally from Brescia to Rome and back, the Mille Miglia used to be an annual, 1,500 km, 20-hour race from 1927 to 1957. It inspired carmakers like

Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati and Porsche to design GT or grand touring cars. It was disrupted only by World War II and cancelled in 1957 after a Ferrari blew a tire and killed nine spectators.

Today, the only cars allowed are cars that participated in the original races over those 30 years. We noticed plates from as far away as Japan and Canada. And Jack saw a suspicious number of modern Ferraris...

It reminded me a little of "The Great Race."

The Day the Music Died

Despite a sellout crowd for Strauss' "The Woman Without a Shadow" (in my opinion, he should have stuck with waltzes) and the presence of Sophie Loren (I was THIS close) on opening night, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino company members are in full protest.

Last month, Italy's president signed a decree reducing salaries and allowing early retirement for female musicians and dancers (lowering the age from 52 to 45-years-old) in an effort to save money. According to The Florentine, from 2004 to 2008, the lyric and symphonic foundations in the country (not the major national symphonies and opera companies) lost 100 million euro--70 percent of that money goes toward salaries.

The musicians say it will be the death of the theater. To make the point, they've been hanging sheets with scrawled messages outside the windows of Teatro Communale (not a lot of poster board in the country, apparently).

On strike, they cancelled the May 2 performance.

And yet, Florentines still crammed the ticket window on a Saturday morning....

Tanti Auguri a Me

Lunch at the Four Seasons, Firenze. First, a look around the 15th-century villa (a former papal residence with the largest private garden in town). Restoring this frieze (discovered after construction started) delayed the opening for three years.

Then, the food: Semolina and black cabbage soup, beef tagliata and pistachio creme brulee with birthday greetings written in nutella.

Blue period

I've been noticing the work of a particular graffiti artist. He gets around town--leaving this bulldog face on a garage door near Santo Spirito, on a crumbling brick utility building in the suburbs and on the bathrooms in Cascine....