Monday November 29th, 2010. Posted by Alex:
A neighbour of ours, here near Pontremoli, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She has lived here for many years. The story went that breast cancer is unusually common in the Lunigiana, and it was said that this was confirmed by her specialist. The reason put forward is that (forgive me if the following is a bit blurred) these high valleys are close to aircraft routes, and do not give an opportunity for the pollution from the jet engines to escape – I’m not clear whether this explanation was supposed to have originated with the doctor, or whether it is “common knowledge”.
A cluster of cancers at a particular place and time is of course a long way from a demonstration there is some particular danger associated with that place and time – a great deal of statistical work has to be done to get a clear answer, and many cases, unless the samples of very large and the correlations very clear, opinions can remain divided for a long time. We know, for a simple fact, that clusters will necessarily occur for reasons of pure chance. Obviously I am not qualified to join the debate as to whether there is a particular danger here in the Lunigiana, but it did seem that there is a real question mark.
Let’s be honest, the” explanation” above is not exactly convincing, especially to those of us who have lived close to the flight path to a major airport airplanes go over at 1000 feet every two or 3 minutes. But searching around a bit, I did find something of interest. It is, apparently, well known that the Lunigiana has soil that is very low in iodine. I believe that the area has even been used in studies on the effects of low iodine. And guess what? One of the accepted effects of a diet that is low in iodine is an increased susceptibility to breast cancer!
Iodine deficiency is a long-term problem, and it is unlikely to affect you if you eat food from many different areas, or if you are only a temporary visitor. One of the nice things about this place, however, is that a lot of the food really is local. People eat vegetables out of their ortos, while the fresh food in the shops and supermarkets, as well as the food cooked in restaurants, is often of local origin. So the message seems clear: if you actually live here, and if you eat the good local food, you really should try to make sure that you buy iodised salt.
As Aurelia said in “Love Actually” (my favourite line in the whole sweet movie): Just in cases!
Tuesday June 29th, 2010. Posted by Alex:
You need hunger and thirst to go.
Filatiera as about 15 minutes in the car away. It would be quicker, but it’s on the other side of the Magra river. The town’s Festival of Hunger and Thirst went on for four evenings. Basically everybody eats and drinks in the town square and off a couple of streets to this side. Very relaxed.
Thursday December 31st, 2009. Posted by Alex:
It is rare that I walk out of a restaurant, food uneaten, simply because the quality is so low.
I remember that in 1971 I had ordered sweet and sour pork balls in a Chinese fast food place on the corner of Fosse Road North and King Richard’s Road in Leicester, but found them too disgusting to eat. In 1998 I left of the Parkway Hotel in Dunmanway, West Cork, for a similar reason. Allowing for the possibility of something having slipped my mind, I am willing to grant that the same thing might have happened somewhere, sometime in the 1980s. So the events of last Sunday were about the fourth such event in nearly 40 years.
We decided, spontaneously, to go out to Norton Street (Leichhardt) for lunch. We started at the “cheap and cheerful” end, and decided to go into a cafe/restaurant known as Grind. “Grilled fish and chips” sounded interesting enough, and we both decided to have it. Before sinking to describe the food, I will mention that the waitress, who spoke hardly any English, made a genuine attempt to be charming.
The food came. Being “cheap and cheerful”, although far from dirt cheap, I could just about accept that the salad was uninteresting, and that there was too much on the plate, presumably in order to make it look as if there was more food there than was really the case. I could just about, although with disappointment, accept the stick-like little “chips”, the sort produced with the least care and attention possible. The fact that all the other food was plonked on top of the chips has no excuse, but would not cause me to walk out, merely not to go back. The main part of my fish did not taste too bad either. However, on the top was a curious spirally-flowery cut piece of fish, whose taste can fairly be described as utterly foul. Only a death-wish would have inspired one to eat it. It is impossible to believe that anyone in the kitchen knew what it tasted like.
We wondered whether to make a scene, but decided for the “quiet life” option of commenting if we were asked whether the food had been all right. So after a few minutes of toying with what was on our plates, I went to pay. No, nobody did ask whether we had enjoyed the food, not even the common courtesy of that question, let alone the genuine concern that should have resulted from customers leaving with their plates nearly full after five minutes.
As an amusing coda to the incompetence of the staff, the bill was for $41.30. I gave the waiter at the till a $50 bill and a $2 piece. He opened the till, shut the till, open it again, put some money in, took it out again, shut the till. Clearly it was beyond him to work out that I needed a $10 bill and 70 cents. He then turned to the “manager”, gave him my $52, and asked him to “sort it out”.
I should mention, in case the managers and staff were different that day, that this happened at lunchtime on Sunday 27 December.
We then went down the road to a French place for delicious food, served with care, and costing very much the same.
Thursday March 12th, 2009. Posted by Alex:
“But daahhling, don’t you just adore cocktail hour? In the right company, of course!”
As usual you can click the picture for a bigger view
Monday February 23rd, 2009. Posted by Alex:
After lunch at Sri Lankan restaurant Janani in Homebush (mmmm… and not a whiff of coriander, aka poison parsley, as far as I tasted) yesterday, we bought some Nag Champa in the Sri Lankan grocery store next door (treasure trove for all that ground this and parboiled that and yellow and red coloured this that and the other). Here is the box I got not long ago from our local Leung Wai Kee Buddhist Craft and Joss Stick Shop, shown with the new one underneath.
Top: Bottom:
Which is the fake that’s pretending to be the other one? If you look closely (you might have to click the pictures to get a large enough version to read properly) you’ll see even the warning messages have the same wrong grammar – and even wrong spellings!
All I can say for definite is that the upper one, with the hologram, has the familiar, heady, heavy perfume I expect from that kind of incense. The other one has similarities, but with overtones of the savage tobacco my old Uncle Len – may he rest in peace – used to put into his aluminium-stemmed pipe and smoke on a Sunday afternoon in the living room of that house not far from the Hagley Road.
Tuesday February 10th, 2009. Posted by Alex:
That is my proposed common name for coriander leaves, known in America as cilantro. OK, I know most people think it’s delicious, but for the rest of us it is vile. I found a website for coriander haters, and know therefore that I am not alone.
What is my take on the taste? Very cheap, dirty, over-perfumed soap.
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This isn’t the interesting, focussed blog you might have been looking for… "Pica Pica" is, as I'm sure you knew, the name for the common magpie. It's no more than a collection of bits and pieces I wanted to make available for friends and family. I have other blogs for dharma related material (at DangZang), and a small one for translation at my work site. Oh yes, it's by Alex Wilding |
