What Fills My Plate

Rovinj, Croatia This past weekend we took a pleasurable diversion on the coast of Croatia.   We have found a favorite place in the town of Rovinj, which sets peacefully on a spit of land protruding into the Adriatic Sea.  We have stayed in other towns along the coast but the view and the dining choices have won us over. Many places have a pig roasting on a spit, sometimes two, and you can smell it from several hundred meters away.  Many of the restaurants feature truffle based cooking as this is a truffle area extraordinaire.  We have found some creative chefs who offer items such as smoked sea bass mousse, fried octopus, marinated fish salad and octopus salads.  Prices have risen this year but are still under what we would find in Italy.  It makes the three hour trip from our home  more worthwhile when you know what you will experience at the end of the road. turn down the sound and watch the short video However, this weekend, a weekend celebrated in Amer

Add caption I confess that I missed the invasion.  Many years have passed since I first noticed America has once again forced itself into the neighborhood.  People here get a chance to remember the past inside a large movie theatre just outside Padova, and  customers are forced to enter through the theatre before entering American Graffiti Restaurant and the  past glory of the 50’s.   I was not disappointed, which is unusual as I find attempts by Italians to make food of other countries many times miss the target.  Chinese food lacts the spicy/hot,   sushi is made by assembly line and without care, and Mexican food has terrible corn tortillas and badly made guacamole for example.  However, in this franchised burger joint, most of what I saw and tasted was above my expectations. Customers are greeted with black and white checkered floors, and chrome chairs decked with plastic red covers.  Everything on the walls resemble items of the American past.  I lived in the 50’s but

Pollen Makers of Rovinj, Croatia It’s almost over!  Sufferers are rejoicing, and I am one of them.  Allergy Season is a real killer for me, and I am so glad to be able to breathe again like normal.  I only have a slight irritation in my eyes, something I can live with in comparison to the one week where I was coughing, wheezing, and unable to sleep well.  In the city of Padova there are quite a few cotton wood trees still dumping their cotton, but in my village there are only a few.  The mayor elected to cut most of them two years ago, and he was planning to replant with something else less harmful to allergies.  However, he lost the election and the new mayor (Sindico) has decided to keep costs down and not replant trees.   This past weekend we spent a 3 day weekend in Croatia on the coast.  Their were some yellow flowers that were a small problem, and, of course, the pollen from the evergreen trees.  A big help was the thunderstorm that blew through the first night cleaning