The Dampness Won’t Dampen Our Plans and Matzah Milanese

The last weekend of March provided a doozy of a downpour. But rather than stay inside all weekend (well, with the exception of Saturday afternoon), we decided to brave the storm and explore more of Genova and Milano. After buying Martello some pants that actually fit, we treated ourselves to a romantic dinner (a belated Valentine's Day meal, if you will; we're slow) at Enoteca Tiflis, a cavernous wine bar and restaurant that's tucked behind Piazza del Erbe and looks like it stepped out from medieval central casting. Unfortunately, the ambiance bested the meal (there was a weird Asian-spice and kebab thing going on), but the wine Trofie Wife selected (a Sangiovese from the Marché region) was divine.

After dinner we skedaddled home so that we could awake along with Euro Daylight Saving Time and make our way to Milano on the early train. Our main goal was shopping for Passover staples coupled with some sightseeing. Of course, the rain persisted, but we trudged on, easily navigating the Milano metro to reach Eretz, one of the city's kosher grocery stores far from the city center. It was quite small but packed with folks of seemingly various levels of observance greeting each other as they shopped for the upcoming holiday. The store had a good mix of products both familiar and new, with most of them coming from either Israel or France (too many of the Italian products weren't Ashkenazi (Eastern European Jewish)-friendly, sigh...). There were no Streits or Manischewitz products in sight (a welcome change), and Martello was in awe of the kosher salami selection (while I was dubious of the faux, fatty beef proscuitto). We carefully curated a selection of light, non-perishable, and "necessary" items, as we would be forced to lug around everything with us all day. We stopped into the adjacent kosher bakery for a donut (Trofie Wife) and teensy tuna and egg sandwiches (Martello), but Trofie Wife shunned their (non-Lavazza) coffee machine for the output of a proper espresso maker elsewhere.

We made our way back to the city center so we could tour the famed Duomo and imposing Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Due to the rain, we didn't scale the Duomo's roof, but we will be back in order to do so. The pictures really speak for themselves, but the Duomo soars into the sky and all the sculpture bedecking it is intricate and impressive.



Within the Galleria, Martello spotted a sign for a beit midrash (Jewish library) curiously situated above a McDonald's (unfortunately, we couldn't get a good shot of them together in one frame).

Our Sunday brunch was eaten at Obikà, a chic mozzarella bar that recently opened its first New York cafe. We had a sampler of three types of buffalo mozzarella, and Martello enjoyed the lighting fixtures while Trofie Wife was fascinated by the automatic kitchen door that opened and closed with perfect timing (we're a couple of simple pleasures).

Obikà is just one eatery within a giant food court situated diagonally behind the Duomo. Security stopped Martello from taking pictures (likely because we'd use them to open our own trendy food court), but among the ridiculously overpriced grocery items was a limited-edition bottle of Bling H20 (sadly, an American product out of LA; the company decorates frosted glass bottles with Swarovski crystals, pumps in purified water, and then sends the crass item to market) decorated in honor of President Obama and priced at 300 euros!

In the afternoon we attempted to attend a Magritte exhibit at Piazza Reale, but it was the last day of the show and the line was hundreds of people long, though you have to give folks a lot of credit for waiting outside in the rain on a long line to see art; I doubt that happens often in the States. We ended the day with a quick stroll through the Brera neighborhood, a bathroom break at the Castello Sforzesco (maybe we'll go back to actually tour the castle next time), and some excellent gelato at La Bottega del Gelato (pignoli ice cream!). Trofie Wife should add that during our Brera stroll we ran into some animal rights activists. I accepted their flier and read and translated it later in the week, learning all the Italian words related to the importance of spaying and neutering a pet (Martello has taken note of my innovative method of learning the language via protest literature). It's funny, because I remember watching an episode of The Dog Whisperer some years back which featured an Italian man and his Standard Boxer who had moved to Southern Florida. Cesar Millan (ha! Sorta like Milan!) explained to the man that the dog really needed to be neutered if he was going to be properly socialized, and the man insisted that it's just not something that's accepted in the machismo Italian culture. I don't recall where in Italy that man was from, but there's definitely a larger movement abreast here to control the domestic animal population (which includes shipping a number of cane randagi (stray dogs) home with me).

Upon boarding the train for home, Trofie Wife realized that we had arrived and were now departing from either Binario 20 or 21 (21 was the infamous platform (its history soon to be chronicled in a station-based museum) from which Italian Jews were shipped to concentration camps during World War II). If it was in fact 21 on which we traveled, oh the irony that it was now being used as a means of transport to kosher for Passover goods!

Baci e gelato,

Martello e Trofie Wife

Carnevale, Genovese Style

Fat Tuesday (martedì grassi) had technically already occurred on the prior Tuesday, yet Genoa conveniently scheduled its big carnevale celebration for the following Saturday, when our guests were in town. After failing to get moving early enough to take the old-timey train into the country, we set our sights on visiting the San Lorenzo cathedral prior to viewing a portion of the carnevale (but not before le simpatizzanto della destra and I took a nice walk to the grocery store, spotting a peacock a’courtin’, his feathers fanned and the female peacock completely uninterested in his display).  Upon arriving in the city, we slipped into the so-called Oriental Market (reminiscent of the Arthur Avenue market in the Bronx) and then made our way down Via Septembre XX, which was closed off, 5^th Avenue parade style and covered with costumed, silly-string-spritzing and confetti-throwing revelers (Trofie Wife especially liked the below dino get-up with optical illusion included).

After wending our way over to the cathedral, we strolled to the Porto Antico and cute Sarzano neighborhood (which houses the University’s architecture school through an imposing castle gate and stair and thus 1) an inviting architecture book shop and 2) a chic thrift store, which respectively await the return of Martello e Trofie Wife) on our way back to the Piazza De Ferrari for the conclusion of the carnevale festivities—an homage to Purim. We’re not sure if this is an annual occurrence or not, but the carnevale organizers decided to include a mention of the story of Purim and some Jewish music at the end of the general carnevale celebration. It was late in the afternoon, but the sun was not totally down, so (from what we think we understood), the Jewish community president couldn’t make it to the celebration, but a representative of the community wished everyone a good carnevale on his behalf and then there seemed to be an exchange of commemorative plates. A great band played a mix of old and modern, likely local and more familiar Jewish tunes. The crowd that remained, largely thinned from its mid-afternoon height, was grooving right along, and we’re pretty sure that only a handful of them had heard this brand of music before. 

A small gathering of protesters carrying Palestinian flags and distributing a lengthy explanatory handout soon wandered into the crowd. Trofie Wife couldn’t really digest it while dancing (and without her extra-large dictionary), but nearly managed to fully translate it a week later. [Note: Martello takes issue with the fact that the following description makes the protest out to be more impactful on our day than it was in actuality. To which I say, Trofie Wife spent an hour and a half translating said handout while he was watching some dubbed, dumb movie from the ’80s, and I’d like to put my effort on display.]

Theirs was a two-folded protest. The first reason they had gathered (and we’re not sure if they were present during the full carnevale celebration or only the Purim part) was to express their frustration that the Jewish carnevale was being twinned with the city of Jerusalem. Each section of the multi-stage carnevale was devoted to carnival traditions of a different country (for example, Italy, Croatia, Brazil, etc.). The protesters took issue with the fact that instead of pairing the Jewish carnival with a country, it was paired with a city (which they believed was done to avoid mentioning Israel following the Gaza operation), and, as they explained, an international city that did not solely belong to Jews. Ignoring the overall tone projected from such statements, at the most basic linguistic level, Martello and I were confused by this assertion, because none of the carnevale literature that we had received mentioned either Jerusalem or Israel (the twinned area was denoted “the Middle East”), nor did we see any Israeli flags, as the protestors had also lamented, meant to signify Jerusalem and the Jewish carnevale. This piece of the protest seemed to lack much traction (especially since protesters had apparently expressed their frustration to the organizers who didn’t quite understand their complaint either and thus chose to ignore it).

The second, more cogent, reason for their protest was that the organizers and Commune of Genoa had invited the Jewish carnival (which they noted was a “religious holiday”) and thus the religious Jewish community into the old city of Genoa while simultaneously attempting to prevent construction of a mosque in the old quarter where the bulk of the religious Muslim population resides. The growing movement to halt mosque construction throughout Italy is not only xenophobic, but incredibly foolhardy if Italy hopes to fully integrate Muslim immigrants into their communities as opposed to further isolating them. I’m not sure if there is any sort of Islamic carnival (and if so, where on the calendar it falls), but clearly if such a holiday were contemporaneous with Carnevale and Purim, the Genovese Commune should have welcomed its celebration. Short of such a fortuitous opportunity, the community should do what it can to make its newest minority community feel at home; issuing permits to allow them to construct their own house of prayer is as good a place as any to start. Of course, welcoming the new should not be done to the exclusion of continuing to celebrate the unique virtues of older minority and majority communities. The protestors—according to their literature, a mix of ethnic Italians, Jews, and Muslims—also should have pointed out that even if the connection has become looser as Italian society continues to secularize, carnevale has deep roots in the Church and thus along with Purim is a religious holiday, and therefore, in their eyes, its public celebration in the face of banning mosque construction should be just as frustrating as the public celebration of Purim, if that is, in fact, their main message.

All in all, while it was annoying to be handed fliers while I wanted to dance, it was a respectful protest, with viewers mainly ignoring the protesters and protesters not being verbally disruptive of the concert in any way (most of them hung in the back or on the sides while a couple worked the crowd with their handouts); I doubt a similar protest in the States would have taken on such a quiet demeanor.  

Following the end of the music, Trofie Wife finally got her hands on some zucchero filato (cotton candy! bearing a surprisingly straight-forward name as opposed to the fanciful French barbe à papa), after seeing it in the hands of way too many babes and not her own. It was delicious! 

We then made our way over to Piazza del Erbe for some aperitivo e stucchini (happy hour with free snacks!). We passed up going to a party thrown by Martello’s co-worker in favor of hitting the sack early so we’d make it to our Sunday destination—the fabled Cinque Terre— at a godly hour.

Baci e gelato,

Martello e Trofie Wife