Cannes. November, 2012

My beloved friend Patti shares my enthusiasm for taking on an assortment of different names. In Cuba, she was Que Lastima, while I retained my traditional Latino moniker ChiChi Fargo. In Rome, I am Svendita Totale, in Turkey, Ekmek Kadayif. She also goes by Chaka Cohen, Patrice Giselle, Jocelyn James, Miss Piatelli, and is currently featured on Facebook as Tapenade Roulet. (She wanted the single, mysterious one-word Tapenade, but Facebook, alas, required a last name.) I took this photo in the central market in Cannes as an homage.

Cannes. November, 2012

When Jacques Pépin came to the US of A for the first time (to work at Manhattan’s Le Pavillon in 1959), he says he was shocked that he couldn’t find any mushrooms in the markets. Except for maybe some cultivated white button variety. Now, of course, it’s different. But back then, imagine his surprise, especially as he’d come from France where an assortment like this is an everyday thing.

Monaco. November, 2012

Hey, when did all this happen? The last time I’d been in Monaco, in 1972, it was a somewhat sleepy beach town with tiny, family restaurants on quiet alleyways, a modest port, a walk-to public beach and a casino and fancy hotel up on one hill. I turn my back for one minute! (Actually almost 40 years.) And now it’s covered with skyscrapers, filled with yachts. I went looking for the charming train station of revered memory and found that it’s now underground (with skyscrapers built above it), the beach nowhere in sight. You forgot to say, “May I?”

Civitavecchia, Italy. October, 2012

Some traditions hold fast in spite of the encroaching digital age. Like these death notices, a frequent sight in Italy, especially in the South. In this case, a funeral home has its own board for postings. But it’s more common to find these broadsides pasted on walls across the city, letting friends and neighbors learn of a loved one’s passing. These are rather tame graphics compared to those I saw in Naples some 25 years ago.

Ischia, Italy. October, 2011

On my morning run around this island neighbor of Capri, I encountered many Italians who were also here on vacation. And the morning fish market. And some lovely gardens and beach clubs, closed after the season. And while I ran out to this castello/fortress accessed by a small causeway, I declined to return later in the day to tour the torture museum. Non, grazie.

Amalfi, Italy. October, 2011

As luck would have it....  When I see the various talismanic items hanging from rear-view mirrors in the US of A -- rabbits’ feet, rosaries, red pepper/horn combos, fuzzy dice, etc. -- I remember the simpler approach seen here in this Italian coastal town, a request to Italy’s patron saint (a title he shares with St. Catherine of Siena): “St. Anthony of Padua, protect me.” So noted.

Milos, Greece. October, 2011

A lazy Sunday morning stroll to the top of the island of Milos (as in Venus de....) The streets were deserted. We encountered goats and other livestock, but no people. They were all in church. Or hiding and pretending to be in church. No one's fooling Dr. Blake.