Notes

Evening in Scilla

We spent the first half of July in the hills near Nicotera, where the air is supposed to be cooler but mostly felt heavy and still under the midday sun. By late afternoon, the heat becomes a physical presence in the rooms, so we decided to drive south towards Scilla. The highway hugs the cliffs, dipping in and out of tunnels that frame sudden, brilliant views of the Tyrrhenian sea far below.

Scilla in the height of summer is loud and busy, especially around the main beach of Marina Grande. But if you cross the castle promontory and head down into Chianalea, the old fishermen's neighborhood, the noise drops away. The streets there are too narrow for cars; they are just paved alleys that run parallel to the water, intersected by tiny stone stairways that descend straight into the sea. The houses are built directly on the rocks, their walls stained white by salt, with boats tied up outside front doors like parked cars.

We walked to the far end of the district, where the alleys open up slightly near a small harbor. The sun was setting behind the distant, hazy silhouette of Sicily, casting a long orange light across the Strait of Messina. We sat on the stone steps of a pier for an hour, watching a couple of kids try to catch crabs with a piece of string and a bit of bait. Dinner was at a small restaurant with a wooden deck built on stilts over the water. We had grilled swordfish—local, or so they said—with lemon and wild oregano, and a plate of simple tomatoes that tasted intensely of the sun. By the time we drove back up into the hills, the temperature had finally dropped, and the air smelled of salt and dry pine.

A weekend in Bologna

Took the train down on a Friday afternoon and stayed two nights in a small place near Via Indipendenza. The city in late winter is quieter than I expected — porticoes mostly empty in the early morning, the light coming in sideways and bouncing off wet stone. I walked from the station to Piazza Maggiore the long way around and stopped twice for coffee.

The thing I had not done before was climb the Asinelli tower. Five hundred steps, give or take. The view at the top is mostly rooftops in three shades of red, with the hills somewhere in the south. Worth doing once. I am not sure I would do it again.

Best meal of the trip was a plate of tortellini in brodo at a tiny place I will not name because the queue is already long enough.

Three books I finished this autumn

I read slowly and I do not finish most of what I start, so a list of three is closer to a season's worth than it sounds. In rough order of how much I enjoyed them:

The Leopard by Lampedusa. I had been meaning to read this for years and finally did, in English. The famous line about everything having to change so that everything can stay the same is genuinely earned by the time you reach it. I underlined more than I usually do.

A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr. Short, and the kind of short that feels like the right length rather than a constraint. Quiet book. I read it in two sittings on a rainy weekend.

The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. I am still not sure what I think. I will probably re-read parts of it in a year or two.

A lemon cake that finally worked

I have tried four or five different lemon cakes over the past two years and most of them came out either too dry or oddly bitter. The one that worked is closer to a yogurt cake than the more traditional pound-cake versions. I am writing it down here so I do not lose it.

Two eggs, a cup of plain yogurt, three quarters of a cup of sugar, half a cup of light olive oil, the zest of two lemons and the juice of one. Whisk those together. Then a cup and a half of flour with a teaspoon and a half of baking powder and a pinch of salt, folded in gently. Bake at 175°C for around forty minutes in a small loaf tin lined with parchment.

The trick, as far as I can tell, is the olive oil rather than butter, and not over-mixing once the flour goes in. Keeps for three or four days under a cloth on the counter.

Small balcony, late summer

The two tomato plants survived July despite my forgetting to water them for nearly a week while I was away. The basil did not. I have made my peace with the fact that I am not the kind of person who can keep basil alive on a south-facing balcony in August.

What did surprise me was the rosemary. I bought a small pot in May expecting nothing, and by the end of summer it had doubled in size and was producing more than I could use. Apparently rosemary likes being ignored. I am taking notes for next year.

Notes on slowing down

I spent most of January trying to read more and check my phone less, with mixed results. The reading went better than expected. The phone part is harder than it looks, mostly because the device itself is not the problem — the habit of reaching for something, anything, in idle moments is the problem.

Putting the phone in another room helps. Reading in the morning before doing anything else helps more. Neither of these is original advice and I am sure I have read both of them in at least three different books over the years. Sometimes you have to discover the same thing several times before it sticks.