Category Archives: nugellae

Amy’s Ice Creams Sunday (best ice cream in Texas)

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One of the coolest things about living in Austin, Texas is that there is still an abundance of locally owned and managed food stores. That number is sadly and rapidly dwindling across Texas and the U.S. but Austin is one of those hold-out cities where folks take the local battle cry — keep Austin weird — to heart.

And one of the coolest things about being pregnant is that most weekends will find us at the best ice cream parlor in Texas: Amy’s Ice Creams, where the creamery takes local pride in on-site churning and idiosyncratic combinations, like the Vulcan Mind Melt above.

For those who grew up in the Baskin-Robbins era, the limited number of ice cream flavors might come as a surprise. But the servers are ingenious at creating the flavor you desire by combining the ice creams with the myriad toppings they have at their disposal. In fact, the “crush’ns” outnumber the ice cream flavors. (This weekend Tracie P had Belgian Chocolate and crumbled Heath Bars.)

There are even ice creams that have alcohol in them — stout beer and vodka the last time I checked — although the alcoholic content is negligible.

We’ve been having a lot of fun with food cravings (thanks again, Noah, for the awesome pickle shipment from Zabar’s!) and who doesn’t love ice cream on a lazy summer Sunday in Austin, Texas? I know I do. :)

Happy Sunday, yall… Buona domenica…

My first wine list gets the thumbs up from LA Times

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Photo by Ricardo DeAratanha, Los Angeles Times.

You can imagine that it gave me great joy to read that restaurant reviewer S. Irene Virbila gave my first wine list the thumbs up in today’s LA Times review of Sotto in Los Angeles.

Click here to read the review.

Daybreak in New Jersey and a lonely saxophone…

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Like a whole lot of likewise very unhappy people, I was stranded at Newark Airport in New Jersey last night (after a thunder storm had shut the place down and we all missed our connections).

With so many shipwrecked travelers, there were no hotel rooms to be found anywhere in the vicinity. But the nice folks at the Hilton Woodbridge in Iselin, NJ had a room and a beer for me when I finally made it down there (yeah, I had to go THAT far to find a room).

Especially now, it’s so tough to be away from Tracie P and adding yet another night to our separation, New Jersey was not where I wanted to be.

As we say to each other when shit like this happens, mwah… actually, MWAH!!!

My 6 a.m. ride back to the airport was ushered by the New Jersey sunrise and a lonely saxophone (above). Man, am I glad to “go home with the armadillo,” as we like to say in Texas. Wish me luck… because at this point, it couldn’t get any worse! I feel just like that saxophone playing over the Hilton’s speakers…

My first swim in the Adriatic

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Paolo and I went swimming yesterday before lunch at Torre dell’Orso, my first time in the Adriatic.

The water isn’t quite as warm as it will be in another few weeks, said Paolo, but, man, was it great… On a clear day, he said, you can see Albania on the other side of the sea.

The village of Parzen (Parzeń)

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The most remarkable thing happened last weekend: my friend and Polish blogging colleague Andrzej Daszkiewicz — wine writer and author of a number of Polish-language wine blogs — snapped some photos as he passed through the village of Parzeń and sent them to me.

Like many Jews of Eastern European descent, my surname comes from a toponym, in this case Parzen, which at one time was most likely home to a shtetl. The name Parzen came to our family after my biological paternal grandfather died and my paternal grandmother married Rabbi Maurice Parzen in South Bend, IN. The Rabbi, who passed away when I was still a child, is survived by my great uncle Manny Parzen, his youngest brother, famous in his own right for his research in the field of statistics. The Parzens were from Lodz (Łódź) and they came to the U.S. in the first decade of the last century.

Here’s what Andrzej — to whom I am eternally grateful — had to report:

    Two older houses there have their roofs covered with asbestos, which used to be very popular (because very cheap) material for that. Now it’s almost gone, but in some places you can still see it, as here.

    This village is located at one of the roads I could take driving from Warsaw, where I live now, to Toruń, where I used to live and drink wine and still have many wine drinking friends. We had a friend’s birthday party on Friday, and on Saturday I took that road driving back to Warsaw (usually I take a bit faster, but much less scenic one)…

    It is a small village now, with several rather isolated farms and no typical village center, no church (at least I could not see any). Two neighboring villages are much bigger, more typical ones. It is so small that there is no speed limit stricter than the regular highway one (around 55 mph).

    Parzeń is about 15 km from a quite big (for Polish standards at least) city Płock, and around 120 km from Warsaw.

Just this morning, Tracie P said to me, after she finished a business call, “Well, I’ve certainly gotten used to my new last name.” It’s incredible to think that our family name — the name our children will have — comes from so far away from Austin, Texas.

A heartfelt thanks, once again, to Andrzej for the fraternity and the friendship, and this wonderful virtual window into the origins of our family.

Dante Scaglione to return to Giacosa!

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Above: Enologist Dante Scaglione, left, with Bruna and Bruno Giacosa (photo via Franco Ziliani).

Posting in a hurry this morning in Atlanta, Georgia, but just had to share the good news that enologist Dante Scaglione will be returning to Bruno Giacosa. My partner over at VinoWire Franco was able to confirm the rumors today. Here’s the link for the post at VinoWire.

Una gran bella notizia! Great news!

Italian sayings: buona visione, buona degustazione, e buon weekend

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It’s been a busy week here at Do Bianchi.

The other night I spoke about Fellini’s Notti di Cabiria and my semiotic approach to Fellinian wine pairing (semiotic or “Econian” as Vintuition pointed out) at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin.

I wish the weekend at home with Tracie P were in the cards for me but — ahimè, alas — today I’m heading to Atlanta where I’ll be leading two wine tastings and seminars tomorrow at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival.

It’s been a long week and it’s going to be even longer. And as I head off to another working Saturday, I’ll wish you all a buon weekend (a great weekend) with a list of Italian optatives… (Briciole and Avvinare, which ones am I missing?)

Work/Study

Buon lavoro = may your work be fruitful.
Buona lettura = enjoy your reading.
Buona lezione = may the lecture/class be fruitful.
Buon seminario = may the seminar/class be fruitful.
Buono studio = may your study be fruitful.

Senses

Buon appetito = enjoy your food.
Buon ascolto = enjoy the music [listening].
Buona degustazione = enjoy the tasting.
Buona spaghettata = enjoy your spaghetti [pasta].
Buona visione = enjoy the movie.

Travel/Recreation

Buona continuazione = enjoy the rest of your day/activity.
Buona domenica = enjoy your day of rest [the day of the Lord].
Buone feste = happy holidays.
Buon fine settimana [buon weekend] = have a great weekend.
Buona permanenza = enjoy your stay.
Buon proseguimento = enjoy the rest of your stay/activity.
Buone vacanze = enjoy your vacation.
Buon viaggio = have a safe trip.
Buon volo = have a safe flight.
Buon weekend [buon fine settimana] = have a great weekend.

Health/Rest

Buona guarigione = I wish you a speedy recovery.
Buon riposo = sleep well [get well soon].

Greetings/Salutation

Buona giornata = have a great day.
Buon giorno = good day [greetings].
Buona notte = good night [good-bye].
Buon pomeriggio = good afternoon [greetings].
Buona sera = good evening [greetings].
Buona serata = have a great evening.

Boudin balls and Brunello (and a Ringo Starr anecdote)

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In case yall don’t know what boudin balls are, yall don’t know what you are missing!

Boudin balls are a specialty of Cajun cuisine: you form balls using uncased boudin (pork and rice sausage, commonly found in Louisiana and East Texas where Tracie P grew up) and then you dredge in flour and cornmeal and then you fry.

For Easter this year, Pam brought steaming-hot, freshly fried boudin balls over to Mrs. and Rev. B’s house (she lives just a few blocks away). I paired with an 06 Brunello di Montalcino by Il Poggione that I’d been saving for the occasion. I wrote about it over at the Houston Press, the Houston alternative rag, where I am now a regular contributor on wine. Here’s the link. Fun stuff…

Speaking of Easter, what Easter celebration would it be without memaw B’s deviled eggs?! Man, they’d be worth the drive to from Austin to Orange alone! Love that stuff! Also excellent with the Brunello, where the acidity and tannin the wine cut through the fattiness of the filling like a Bowie knife!

Speaking of balls, I am reminded of something I once heard Ringo Starr say. It was back in 2003 and the French band was asked to open for Ringo at the now defunct Bottom Line in the Village. (You can imagine how thrilled I was to get to do this! It was an amazing experience. Nora Jones — at the height of her fame — also appeared with Ringo that night. Incredible!)

After sound check, Ringo was totally cool and signed autographs for all the folks who managed to make it in through the extremely tight-security (I got to be there because we sound checked after Ringo’s band). At one point, this dude brought him a baseball and asked him to sign it. To which Ringo said, “I’ll sign just about anything, but I don’t sign balls.”

So, there you go…

Singing with David Garza for Japan tonight in Austin

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The above photo is little bit blurry and it’s hard to make out what’s going on in it. But it’s one of my favorite photos of the year so far: me with one of my musical heroes, David Garza, in the studio recording the new Nous Non Plus record last month, snapped by Tracie P through the control room window.

David is one of the most remarkable singer-songwriters I have ever seen or heard and you can imagine how thrilled I was when he agreed to play on our album (which we started mixing in Los Angeles today, btw). And he’s a super sweet and generous dude…

That’s David wearing Céline Dijon’s hair, with me (Cal d’Hommage) and Jean-Luc Retard (on the right).

David’s going to be singing for Japan tonight at Vino Vino in Austin: there’s no cover and Jeff Courington, who owns and runs this awesome wine bar, is going to be donating 25% of sales to the Red Cross Fund for Victims of the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Please join us if you can (I’ll be sitting in on a song or two and Tracie P will be there, too) and please remember our sisters and brothers in Japan.