827. News Flash! I'm living in Tel Aviv.

I'm now living in a strange new land, a place that I never would have imagined I would visit, much less live.

Tel Aviv is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and I'm looking forward to understanding why shortly. Although the unifying Bauhaus architecture is signature and unquestionably stylish, some of Tel Aviv's buildings are in disrepair and half of those look as if they are three violent storms away from dilapidation.

Alas, the beach and its promenade are very nice.

My Italian physicist guy and I found a great apartment deserving of the WHS title. We're minutes away from his work, shopping, bus stops and we're only five hops, two skips and five-tenths of a jump away from the beach.

Life is good.

826. great to be home

825. Jiggly bits. My birthday must be coming up.

Walking back from my thrice weekly grocery store trip today--it may be the way Italians do it, but I go for the fresh salmon (I'm addicted)--my belly jiggly bit got my attention.

It's not much more pronounced than when I first noticed it a couple of years ago, but I starting wondering (not quite worry, yet) about what other bits are going to start jiggling as I age.

I've always had large legs, and with those comes the big butt. Those have been jiggly for as long as I can remember, but my upper arms joined in the jiggle in my late twenties, followed by my tummy in my mid-thirties.

I don't have large breasts, so unfortunately I've never had that jiggle pleasure. The upside is, of course, that I am spared the saggy big boob phenomenon that just now my well-endowed friends are starting to fear.

Necks seem to start jiggling on small and heavy people alike around the age of 70. Skin sag is not discriminatory, but that's at least another 30 years away.

Joints seem pretty much immune to age jiggle, I think. I'll have to take note of the ankles, elbows and knees of some older folks tomorrow when I go out for my morning cappuccino and brioche.

My cheeks have also always been on the chubby side and I can always tell when it's time to go on a diet when my face feels fat. I know that sounds weird, but it's a real sensation. Have I stumbled upon my next jiggly region? Jiggly jowls. Great. (That "great" was said sarcastically, just in case it wasn't obvious.)

I found a website that has a whole page of face exercises you can do to help offset the signs of aging. However, I'm always skeptical of exercises that make you stretch your cheeks (by means of filling your mouth with air), your mouth (like in the second exercise, the one for the jawline), or stretch, tug, or pull any part of the face.

How would stretching encourage muscles to become more taut? In my stretching experience--yoga, exercise, rubber bands, the truth, etc.--stretching makes things more loose. Also, how can you trust a person who gives the instruction "smile without smiling**"? Aren't those lyrics to a U2 song, along with "scream without raising your voice"?

I propose additional lyrics to that wonderful song: "jiggle without jiggling; age without losing your poise".

We'll try.

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** #2 on the Cheekbone Creator Exercise of that same website

824. Enough already!

Is it just me, or does Firefox and iTunes send software updates at least every 3 weeks?

I find the whole update business terribly annoying. Are all of these updates really necessary? Methinks not, although I'm no expert.

In spite of my complaining, I must say that I like Firefox's new "+" tab you can click for a new, well, tab. Now why didn't they think of this before?

If you think my mood's sour, it's probably because my pizzeria is closed for the blasted "ferie". I understand now that "ferie" actually means "for the pure pleasure of bothering that stupid American Janelle".

I have a mad quattro formaggi pizza craving. Sadly, it's not the first time my pizzeria has let me down. As you can see in the image below, they are also closed on Mondays. Don't they know that quattro formaggi cravings don't care which day of the week it is?

However, I'm in luck, because the bar downstairs is open. My craving has mutated into a caffé shakerato craving. A caffé shakerato is an espresso shaken in a shaker with ice and sugar; in a word, it's yum. Pictures of that tomorrow.

823. Italy in August in four pictures and two words: Sales and Closed.

Saldi = Sales; Chiuso per ferie = Closed for holiday/vacation



Sconti = discounts (Sale! and it's closed!)


Si riapre martedi 25 agosto = (re)open (on) Tuesday, 25 August



Chiudera' per ferie = We will be closed for holiday

Saldi, saldi, saldi. Practically every store is having a sale. It's this way every August in Italy, a country that doesn't have Walmart, Ross or Marshall's. In this country, a 20% tax is built into the price and stores can legally only have a sale when permitted by the state. It's no wonder many live for the "saldi".

It's hard for me to get terribly excited since I'm going to be back home in a few weeks and I have the currency exchange working in my favor. I'm guessing that in this current economy our own "Back to School" sales will be lasting longer than usual.

Brescia is a ghost town in August. Everybody is at the sea or somewhere else for vacation, which makes Brescia the perfect place to be in hot August: No lines at the gelateria!

822. Bad Design of the Week: It's two gags in one, it's Pomodoro Gelato!

Prepare yourself. The above photo was taken in a gelateria, or ice cream shop, and pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato.

Yes, you understood that correctly: This is a picture of tomato ice cream.

Like most gelaterias in Italy, all of its ice cream is handmade in their on-site backroom kitchen, and I have an American friend who works in this particular gelateria. She told me about this new flavor her boss came up with recently and she invited me to stop by and give it a try.

Now, I admit that I didn't try it with an open mind. I speculated that the owner of this famous shop is a clever man, too clever perhaps, and successful enough to risk such an obvious flop. Here is a man, I thought, who reasoned that since the tomato is a fruit and all the other fruits have found success in the frozen dessert world, why not be the first to make a tomato gelato. Afterall*, the tomato is a prime ingredient in many important Italian dishes, from pizza to pasta to panini to... well, I'm sure you get the point.

In other words, I guessed that this ice cream wasn't invented because of the probability that it would taste good. It's a novelty flavor, a clever flavor, an "I dare you" flavor. I wasn't expecting to be blown away, nor was I expecting to be grossed-out since I do like tomatos.

It tasted exactly how one would expect tomato ice cream to taste. It tasted like a frozen salty tomato. Compliments to the owner and shop for getting the flavor exactly right, but a big boo for serving it as a gelato. As gelato, it's plain nasty.

The only good uses that I could come up with for this ice cream are to give it to people whom you don't like very much and to serve it as a literal gag joke. Let's hope this flavor stays (and dies) in Italy.

Congratulations, Pomodoro Gelato, not only have you revived this blog's once weekly award feature, Bad Design of the Week, you are also its recipient.

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*I know that afterall is not a "real" word. Correctly written, it is two. However, I believe that the time has come for them to enjoy compoundedness** like "however", "moreover" and "bookkeeper".

** I know that this isn't a word either, but it's so fun to say!

821. I don't know what that is, but I'll have some.

I knew that sooner or later something would inspire me to start posting again, and today that thing happened.

Let's see if you can guess which of the true items below was the thing responsible for pulling me back into the wonderful world of blogging after 107 days:

1) today was my last day at work

2) the anticipation of being back home in California for a 3 week vacation in September

3) the excitement of an October move to Tel Aviv with my boyfriend

4) my 20th year high school reunion, that I won't be attending, is happening tonight

5) the brownies I cooked tonight resembled something out of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind

6) the initial sound of an embarrassing snore (mine!) snapped me out of my sleep on the train ride to work this morning

7) the Siena casting company for the last James Bond movie sent me a text message informing me of another upcoming film audition--Don't they know the number of my agent? Jeez!

Only one of these special and tender life moments was responsible for kicking me out of my blog funk. Can you guess which one it was?

If you guessed that number 5 was the event so compelling, so exciting, so humorous to be The Reason for this post, then give yourself a big pat on the back, because my arm can't reach that far.

My apartment is a proud owner of a convection oven.* Shamefully, though, tonight was my first night of opening up her hood and testing her out; my home menu is rather boring and consists mainly of salmon, pasta, broccoli, and the occasional curry rice dish. In other words, I've only used the top burner bits.

Armed with an online brownie recipe, cookware, 5 eggs (!), sugar, chocolate, flour, a pinch of salt, a ton of butter, and a nifty convection oven (apparently a standard in Italian and French kitchens), I decided to give baking a try in Italy.

The result:



I have no words. Isn't it a good thing that I have a blog?

Better yet, what did I learn from this little brownie adventure?
1) convection ovens and brownies do not mix--maybe
2) convection oven is more fun to say than use--but the hum sound of the fan was relaxing, like a little yen fountain
3) 5 eggs whipped for 10 minutes were each excessive--trust my instincts in future baking adventures
4) don't use the first recipe I find online
5) a scary brownie is still a good brownie, although this one tastes more like a cake
6) I actually stopped a cake mid-rise
7) my convection oven hates me

I consulted with my brownie expert boyfriend. His mind also saw geographical features; however, it was the valleys that had caught his attention. "We can exploit the valleys by putting ice cream or whipped cream in them." Brilliant!

8) with a little imagination a freak-of-nature brownie can become a dessert lover's dream

Point number 8 is telling me that it also has Universal application. Well, I'll start with the brownie and then move to the blog.

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* Am I, therefore, a proud convection oven renter?