You love Italian design? Here something new from Abruzzo. Creakit is a brand new company founded by two architects and their first product are these lovely baby-shoes everybody (even I) can make by itself with the kit they sell. Roberta is a passionate DIY creature, and at a certain point her husband suggested she put her professional experience into creating a DIY-kit for the shoes she made for their baby-girl Sveva.

Here my favourites models (you can tell I have two boys):

You might have guessed by now that this sort of green is my favourite colour (I am considering doing my new kitchen in a slightly darker hue of this).


Everything comes in a box that you can later use to pack your gift in, decorated with the provided ribbon. what absolutely astonished me was how complete this kit is. The English/Italian tutorial is clear and the step-by-step instructions make it easy to follow, even if you are not such a great DIY-er. What absolutely knocked me off my socks was the needle-holder (an idea of Roberto, you need men for this sort of technicalities) a tiny plastic strip. No disappearing needles in the cushions of the couch (I don't know why, I am not a couch-person, but this kit evokes a cosy afternoon on the couch with a cup of tea under reach, until the shoes are made).

The whole story in Italian and English can be found on http://creakit.blogspot.com/, and if you fall in love with them, you can buy them online at Etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5926475

The funny thing is that in Italy the kit is sold in design shops. So you can find it also in the new venue of my favourite Alessi-dealer: Katia at Archimedia, in Giulianova, at the Via Thaon di Revel in the center.

Because that's how it goes, design-freaks always manage to find each other.

Water has many faces. So you will find everywhere the so called mascheroni di fontana, fountains in the shape of a face.

Sometimes you don't even need to bother to build such a mask. You just need to look carefully.

Credits picture: Antonio Di Maggio

Iconicelle (which means as much as small, lovely icons) are en expression of simple popular faith. You see them all over the place in old Italian towns, and sometimes I wonder if there are also modern versions of it.

They are holy images and symbols placed in all places visited by many people: usually at crossroads, under arches. The idea used to be that people, on their way to work, could say a small silent prayer or cross themselves to invoke protection for their businesses and journeys.

Here a few of them, all pictures were made by Antonio Di Maggio.

This Madonna, not very visible from behind the protecting grate, is in Ofena:


These fresco's were partially deleted when the house was renovated. Pity. They can be found in Ofena, in via dell'Ospedale.


In via dell'Ospedale, a bit higher, they also placed this votive lamp. No wonder, as being there a hospital people needed some moral support when walking that street.

Not only Ofena has lots of iconicelle. Here a couple from Fontecchio. As the name of this village already suggests, In Fontecchio they had a beatiful Fountain, and this Madonna is placed just above the washing basin. The stone ornament on the right side is a details of the decorative fountain.


Another iconicella in Fontecchio is this one:


Most of this images are quite worn out because of age, traffic fumes, weather, light. This is inherent to their function of road altars.

Other were saved and protected in museums, which is all very well for the art works, but pity for the passers-by.


Still other were placed in cripts, as this one:


But many more can be found in the "institutional" places: churches, abbeys, monasteries, cemeteries. God knows if we lack any of these in Abruzzo.

Still in need of spiritual inspiration? Come and see by yourelf.

One misty, moisty morning,
when cloudy was the weather...

that was May last year, when I went to Abruzzo with photographer Antonio Di Maggio and his wife and my good friend Daniela Tasca. The weather was back then as awful as you will see in the next posts and pictures, but there is this stubborn, shy grace in the mountain landscape rounf Ofena in the mist: just as a toddler who refuses to give a kiss to the visiting aunty, and grumps, all closed in itself.

Which reminds me also of that sort of stubborn shyness many elderly locals have towards all that's foreign coming into their village.

Anyway, I am getting ready to go in just more than a couple of weeks. My 6-year old son will precede, he is going for the first time abroad without us (just his grandma), and as any good, neurotic Italian mom i am having nightmars of him being abducted. Definitely, this short separation will do all of us good: he will be the big boy, my mom will enjoy him exclusively for a couple of days, his little brother will be only child for a while, I will have to get used at the idea that there is no harm to me and my family in this big, wide world.

Enjoy this view of the road to the mountain and Forca di Penne, taken from the small green bedroom.

Abruzzo, land of olives, saffron, wines, candied almonds, what more? You won't believe it, but try and add beer to it.

I just discovered that next to the production of industrial beers as the Peroni brand, Abruzzo is home of an interesting brewery in Spoltore, just above Pescara: Almond bier. http://www.birraalmond.com/

The reason of their name is that they started up in the premises of a former almond producer. A hommage to the past of their region. So in the same space where once local women used to select almonds, now their children and grandchildren produce an eccellent beer, appreciated by the most famous Italian sommeliers. Their Grand Cru is especially recommended for the festive celebrations in December.

The reason I mention them, is that I find the recipe section of their website very interesting. Several traditional abruzzese recipes revisited with beer as an ingredient. So next time you want to entertain in Abruzzo style, surprise your guests with beer. They will love it.

Home-made olive oil from Abruzzo is what made me a big, healthy girl. Good, cooking with your own family-produced olive oil is the way most Italians of my generation and younger were raised. This has marked our taste-buds forever (must be the stuff they call imprinting). Problem is, everybody else knows only supermaket oils, so their taste standards are based on the wrong things. But there is hope for change.

All this because yesterday I took part into two workshop on excellent Italian olive-oils, held in Amsterdam and organized by the Italian Trade Commission ICE. We were lectured by Pierpaolo Arca, an outstanding expert and professional taster, on how to taste olive-oils. We tried 6 different sorts, and we noticed the deep differences in flavours, "hues and odours", bitterness (or the lack thereof) and all sort of subtle differences we never knew you can taste in oil.

Pierpaolo told us all there was to know about the chemical composition of olive oils, what makes the difference between an extravergine, vergine and plain olive oil (the last one is not edible as such, that's why it undergoes all soort of chemical treatments, to make cheap olive oil, SO JUST DONT' BUY IT).

All this supported by international research telling us what a great healing power natural olive-oil has. Just look at the statistics, said Pierpaolo (and, boy, how we looked at them) showing how people in olive-oil producing lands live longer and healthier compared with the European average. We left wondering how come people die at all, in Italy (or it must be that the reason of all the car-related deaths there.)

Basically Italy has the most severe legislation when it comes to the production of oil, the highest bio-diversity and that makes all Italian olive oils so rich and different from one another.

And Abruzzo? Well, three out of the nine producers present came from Abruzzo, and believe me, their oils taste almost like my own home-made olive oil. Which made me feel home again, in a cold winter Amsterdam night, with heavy rain, thunders and flashes outside.

But we didn't care about the weather, beause we were inside, all cosy, warm tasting olive oils. And marvelling at how much can you, how am I call it? FEEL, sniffing and drinking little sips of oil. We never knew before you can taste oil like you do with wine. Boy, were all the Dutchies flabbergasted by a sip of oil. Must have been alcohol in it.

Now some basic information:

Marco of the Podere Colle Arioso (info@collearioso.it)
Francesca of Cantinarte (www.cantinarte.com)

These guys produce the greatest olive-oil you ever tasted (that mean, if you have abruzzese tasting buds as I do). So if you are around the place, do yourself a favour and call on them.

Also, you can follow a 3-days course of Olive oil tasting organised by Slow Food in different locations in Italy. Check on www.slowfood.it. Something I will put on my list for 2008.

And, by all means, if you manage to get a good bottle of olive oil in your cupboard, just use it. Don't pass it down to next generation but be selfish and enjoy it yourself. Oil is no wine, and after a couple of years all the nice flavours are gone.

A hot summer in Abruzzo, the one we just had, and not just because of the weather. Actually, we were soooo lucky with the weather. OK, one week average 44 degrees hot, but we were staying with my brother at the seaside, and hot weather is just more bearable on a beach. If it gets too much, I can always decide to stay in the water till my neck, and this is exactly what I did. What the heck, that's what I am dreaming about the whole year in rainy Amsterdam, so it's not just a bit of hottiness to spoil my day.

Then we went home, in de middle of the place where woods were burning. And that makes a completely different story. I was following the fires everyday on the news and everyday there were new ones. A plane crashed while attempting to estinguish the fires, the pilot died, the region called for and received the calamity status (which means: extra money allotted to repair the damages). And then we went there ourselves. Me, my mom and the kids. After leaving L'Aquila, while driving toward Bussi, we could see far away a tower of smoke. Too far to understand where exactly it was, but undoubtedly from our village's side.

Then just before Navelli, we drove into thick smoke. We could smell it now, and I can tell you, fresh wood burning smells really nice, I always loved it. Just not this one time. My older child was also triggered by the smell. "Mom, do you smell it? They are roasting sausages and meat on the stick". Yes, it smelled of campfire, and of arrosticini, that's what he meant. And than I thought we were lucky it was'n a garbage belt burning. That one wouldn't been smelling nice.

So we stayed a week in the village, and every evening we would go out for a walk and see a thin red line of burning fires somewhere far away, on the edge of a mountain. On the way back home the line has moved.

The road near Navelli was closed to traffic the day after we passed. So all the traffic was diverted on a couple of godforgotten mountain roads (with fantastic views, that's true). After two days someone put handwritten signs on a cardboard to show were to go to each village. Beacause nobody, really, knows these roads. When it became clear it was no temporarly diversion, the signs became more solid. I don't know if by now they re-opend the main road. Might not happen that soon, Navelli and Collepietro were truly badly hit.

And for the whole week I felt under siege in my own village. You know, the place I am longing to go one whole year long. We have never been seriously in danger, that's not it, but it was a very nasty feeling seeing smoke towers during the day, and burning lines at night. And one evening, after the first, big summer storm of the season we saw after a thunder a new fire starting on the road to Villa Santa Lucia. Probably the only one with a natural cause of the whole season.

(picture stolen at http://rossitramonti.blogspot.com/2007/07/cadlo-afoso-ed-incendi.html) thank you, Emiliano

It's time for a good bite of Torrone Fratelli Nurzia. Because it's winter in Holland. Days are darkening, the weather is unspeakable, rain and strong wind keep inside the lucky ones who can choose to, and I feel like a serious craving for a bar of Torrone dei Fratelli Nurzia. A 500 grams bar, not the small ones. Which means I am ready for that Christmas feeling, two months in advance. Boy, that's a serious problem.

And what it is, you might ask? It is the most deliciously soft chocolatey thing, with honey and whole hazelnuts, to munch and nibble under a blanket on the couch with a good book, or just without (and a huge jar of water next to you). One of these things that melt in your mouth (and I am not talking juicy sleazy sex here, god forbid). One of these things, you know, you just forget about calories and before you know you put 4 kilos extra all on your tummy. Which will stay there forever, and I cannot care less, because it is all worth it.

Which is what happens if I are just my usual piggy-self when it comes to torrone Nurzia (the only edible torrone in the world if you want my opinion, and anyway, I don't care if you feel differently, there will be more torrone all for me in that case). Instead of distributing around to family and friends all the good torrone (3 kg.) my mom sends me, I eat it all by myself with my beloved one - beloved one gets anyway less of it and he knows - well than the least you can expect is to move two clothing sizes up. And nobody heard me ever complaining about this.

Well, my mom got the hint by now. Last year we were discussing on the phone the yearly parcel, and I asked for small-bars packages, because easier to distribute. "Like it makes any difference", she said "you eat it all yourself anyway". She got a good point here, but I was surprised to hear she knew. How naive of me.

Now, if you look around and are a bit lucky, all you chance to find in Italy in the shops is Torrone Sorelle Nurzia. They are the part of the family gone commercial. While the real thing has forever been packed in a metal wrap and a paper box with Art Deco ladies on it, the Sorelle have lately chosen first for a plastic wrapping with at least a metallic goldicolour, and later went shamelessly transparent, logo-printed foil.

Shame, the whole experience of unwrapping an abducted bar, hidden under your bed and eat it before you are caught by cousins and brothers who did not manage to even get close the Christmas tree (were all the bounty was stored), is down the drain. They don't make that good old noise, no, it's all squaky-squeaky now.

Then the Sorelle got good deals with distribution, which means big production volumes and price consciousness and you don't need me to tell you what this all does to the taste of whichever good thing in life. For God's sake, you can buy the sorelle's Torrone at the highway supermarkets. Now, if this is not cheap.

But if I got you interested for the real thing, you go to L'Aquila, Piazza Duomo which is the big central square hosting a market every morning, you go on the lower uphill side of the square and you enter Bar Fratelli Nurzia, which is a coffee and bon-bon shop rather than a drinking hole, and there, just there, you find it. In all seasons. But Christmas time, is of course, the best time for it.

(And if you are there, and think of me, and wish to send me a little something from home, well, who am I to say no?) My mom wouldn't be happy though, she always told me to beware of strangers offering you sweets...

Maybe it sounds a bit corny all that nostalgic stuff about my mountains in my last post. But today I was looking through last summer pictures Menno needed for his website on my next cooking course in Abruzzo (he wanted personal, authentic stuff, and boy, he got it) and I was just noticing how much happier Cinzia and I look there. Of course it was Summer. Of course, we were on holiday (and take my word for it, mothers' holidays are great, but not relaxing. Every year we go back home in Amsterdam just craving for a full schoolday of personal freedom to do our own things. To get some bits of these magic moments known only to mothers. When you are A-L-O-N-E. Just you and whatever you are doing that moment: cooking, working, cleaning, reading, ironing, brushing you teeth without that multi-tasking stress).

If I really want to be honest now, I should add that the part about enjoying a beautiful day at Campo Imperatore could be read on our husbands' faces as well (fathers too, poor things, need some rest, but hey, they can abstract what they do from the continuous thought about their children. I actually miss them when they are at school). But in our mom's pictures there is that little extra: we belong to this place, we changed many homes in our lives, but this is ours. Truly ours, to share with our beloved one. (Please, check if it is really like this or if I am making this up). That dreamy, relaxed, looks like we just got a Botox, but not, it's just sheer joy.

Ok I got it, I know what it was: it's just that we had left the smaller boy of two with Grandma home, and we have the certainty that whatever our big boys are going to figure out, they can never walk too far away without us loosing sight of them. Because as far as you watch around, it is just prairie, sheep and grass. We don't need to chase them, to warn them, to bother them as only Italian mother do: the place takes care of them. We just sit down and enjoy it.

Next year we are going to camp in the small canyon Cinzia knows. Never knew there is one there, but she is a geologist, that makes the trick. With all the kids and the dogs. Just like we did with my dad when we were real small. Back then, we would get out of our tent in the morning, and all around there were sheep. Their dogs attracted from our dogs, and the shepherd looking for company and a chat. I can miss the shepherd, though. Nowadays we have more chance of a ranger reminding us we did something illegal. This is the problem when the free range of your childhood turns into an official National Park.

I did it again: on a dark and cloudy day in Amsterdam, I foul myself thinking that the big blue cloud behind Central Station is one of my mountains in Abruzzo. The landscape gets suddenly more texture, more movement, it is so much more beautiful. Pity they never thought of making a couple of serious mountains in Holland. You may believe they can make everything here, when it comes to redesigning a landscape, but a mountain, really, it is not a Dutch thing. It is my thing.

Well, I cannot claim patent on using clouds as substitute mountains. My friend Mahtab does exactly the same. When you are born and raised in Teheran, a city surrounded by mountains, you just can't help it: mountains are your thing too. Which makes two of us, living in Amsterdam, and seeing mountains in the distance. Maybe there are more like us around.

Back to my mountains: the Gran Sasso from the side of Campo Imperatore. The Monte Camicia in the distance. Picolle (actually, a hill, the name says it all). Il Riccio, where my dad had a piece of woodland. All the small burghs climbing higher and higher, until you get to the huge plateau of Campo Imperatore, setting of all of the spaghetti-western and 3.000 years of summer pastures, and you go towards L'Aquila, where the mountain tops part, and the road goes just in between that open space and you feel, you know, that by going further you will end up driving towards the infinite, at 2000 mt. height. These are my mountains to me.