The green awning in this photo on the left, Ciak, is the restaurant of our good friend Lorenzo and his family. There is no point in going through every person who owns every restaurant. We know them all.

"Monterosso non c'e piu" - Mayor Angelo Betta

I have pictures mixed in from before and after. To the right here are 2 photos of Via Roma. The street, as you can see, has flipped up to the second story of the buildings. The far right is the interior of La Cambusa restaurant.


Far left, a photo taken from a second story window of Ristorante Il Pozzo during the flood. Below is the Stella Marina beach, after the storm. Right, Via Roma, about 10 feet down from Il Pozzo. That arch was about 8 feet high, you can see how high the dirt is.













"There is no more Monterosso"

When we started Tuesday, we had no inclination it would turn out like this.

Manuel closed the Cantina for the season Sunday night, celebrating the end of a successful few months. Monday morning was to start cleaning and packing up the assorted “everything” that was there. The whole day was spent cleaning and boxing up the plates, silverware, bottles, and everything else you need to run a restaurant. As you can imagine, it was a huge amount of stuff. Manuel put it into the storage under the floor and locked up. Tuesday was to be a free day off and he'd come back and finish Wednesday. These photos were taken during the storm.

Tuesday morning I woke up at 7 am hearing wind whistling and screaming past our window. I went to the balcony to take the laundry in and could barely hold onto it. The rain started coming down in buckets shortly after. Manuel and I were going to spend the day at his parents, and we left the apartment at around 2. The window was leaking a bit and Manuel grumbled that we’d need to replace it. I worried about what seemed to be our biggest problem. The rain was that sort of sideways, sheeting rain that you can’t avoid, so he ran a few feet down to the garage and we decided to take the car down to his parents for lunch. We trudged through some heavy rain there, and didn’t give it a second thought.

At around 3:30 we noticed the flooding really getting serious behind the house. The only way I could describe it was a river. The first car parked in the street out front started to slide down into the sea. The so did the second. That’s when we realized how deadly serious this would be. We saw a silver SUV slide down, thinking it was ours. Today, we discovered it was still parked safe and sound amidst all the debris. We were one of the only cars left on a full street. Above photo is the boat dock in the Old Town, to the right, what used to be the piazza.

Via 4 Novembre was all we could see from the safety of Manuel’s parents’ 3^rd floor apartment. The street was no longer a street, but full of water rushing down, carrying everything its wake. We have no TV or water, and the phones are spotty at best. The only way we could really assess the situation was by calling friends and family. Vernazza, best we can learn, has fared more or less the same as we have. Which means that, since it’s smaller and just one formerly charming street, it’s more of less destroyed. The other Cinque Terre are, thank God, fine. The train station in Vernazza is collapsed, I don't know much else. Levanto is ok, with some serious flooding, but it seems that this storm saved all her wrath for Monterosso al Mare, taking literally the naming of red mountains by the sea. To the left is in front of the B and B on Via 4 Novembre, where the cars wound up. The right used to be the paved road of Manuel's parents house. It was full of cars before the storm.

Around 8pm Manuel and Boris, Manuel’s brother in law, went to survey the damage. Manuel’s face when he came back said it all. The Cantina and the B&B were lost. The restaurant is ok save for some moderate water damage, but the Cantina is in a basement and is still under about 4 feet of water. It’s impossible to enter. All of our storage for the wine cellar is gone, all the food and dry storage for both restaurants and the B&B – we still can’t open the garages because the water is still too high.

We are safe, and I suppose that’s the most important thing. Yet, when you really see distruction like this and it affects your life so dramatically, it’s hard to remember what’s important. It’s hard to know where to begin again. It’s hard to realize that this is actually happening to you and yours.

The Old Town fared much worse then we did. The 2 streets that run down from the mountains into the sea turned into dangerous currents, reaching the second floor of every building in the picturesque sea front piazza. Those charming pastel colored buildings that leaned on each other like drunken sailors in celebration now lean on each other like mourning friends for support. The road is twisted up, broken and almost flipped in half, looming 8 feet in the air. Cars lie haunted and empty, gnarled in trees, covered in dirt. Every person we walked by this morning, on our way to survey the damage had lost, at minimum, their livelihood. More had lost their houses and one family lost a son. Manuel’s uncle and family in the Old Town had lost their store. A friend of ours, whose family was one of the more fortunite ones in Monterosso, greeted us this morning with a quiet, “We are poor now”.

They lost everything.

Seeing it today was like a war zone. The mud in the pictures reaches up to almost the tops of the doors. All windows were blown out. I don't know how long it will take to recover from this.

What makes this place so charmingly isolated is exactly what is hurting us now. These towering mountains and meandering creeks hadn’t seen rain all summer. The ground was dry and couldn’t absorb the 500 mm and more of rain we received in less then 3 hours. That’s about 20 inches. It’s unimaginable the devastation that there is here.

The water came from the mountains funneled through the few streets and narrow houses to the sea, which was raging and roaring up in return. The two met at the shore, on Via Fegina, drowning everything that there was left.

Monterosso, as I’ve said before, is small and we have very little variety of what we can buy here. In a disaster like this, that becomes dangerous. We have no tools and no equipment, like backhoes and caterpillars, that we need to start digging us out. We have no running water to start cleaning up. We have evacuated all the tourists via one train they had run this morning to Genoa and another boat that carried others to La Spezia. There are not enough supplies here for us, let alone them, and the next person who complains about leaving their rental car here is going to get thrown in the ocean. This is a national state of disaster, at a minimum.

The news isn’t showing very much up close of the complete destruction here because they can’t get here. Val di Vara valley had some damage, and the autostrada is completely collapsed, leaving us without a way in or out. The pictures the news is showing is people in other towns on the Liguria lamenting about the mess in their basement, and they only have a few inches of muddy water to clear out. If they could only imagine what it’s like here.

It’s incredibly difficult for me to describe what it feels like to see a community like this affected in such a way. These people work incredibly hard and have climbed up from a history of poverty and backbreaking work in the mountains and the sea to make this into a resort like setting and a tourist hot spot. It’s 1,000 people and I don’t know the exact statistics, but I can’t really call anyone the “lucky ones” right now. Everything is lost now, and rebuilding is something that I can’t even begin to imagine where we will start.

My mom said, “Start at the front door”, and we will, once we can get to it. For now we’ll sit here and clean up what we can, staring at the cruel sea and looming mountains that both give us an unparalleled view and unbelievable isolation. Those red mountains and sea that gave this town everything, for centuries, including it’s name, and have proved how quickly a natural disaster can take that away. That crystal blue, Ligurian sea and those same rolling green mountians are tranquil again today, and the sun is shining over twinkling waves, as if to show spite. They are not anyone's friends today.

Note: The photo's taken DURING the storm aren't mine. Manuel's cousin, Elia, sent them to me on Facebook.

Monterosso is no more

The old town is destroyed - completely. The water went as high as the second story and left mud and earth in its place, filling the store fronts and ruining EVERYTHING there was there. People lost everything - more then we did. And we lost a lot. We have electricity in the new town but no water.
The stores are empty but we're well stocked here at home. They took out all the tourists by boat at 11 am today.
The Cantina is still under 5 feet of water and the b and b is lost too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8850001/Flash-floods-tear-through-town-in-northern-Italy.html

Keep us in your thoughts :/

Going down now to survey the damage. The army helicopters have been flying by but can't land. We have power on and off and no water.

It stopped raining today.

CamoGLI

The "gli" is the hardest sound for me to pronounce in Italian. It comes out like a hard "glee" no matter what I do. Maybe it's this strange sound fixation that started my quest to explore the town of Camogli. When I pass it on the train, I spend the next ten minutes silently repeating, "CamoGLI. CAMOgli. CAM -O - GLI" until I realize that I've started whispering or speaking out loud and scaring all the nice Italian people next to me on the train. I told another friend, Lorenzo, about my desire to visit Camogli, and he smiled widely. "It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen", he beamed. This, coming from a Monterosso boy, is big praise. These little towns have more then their share of rivalry, and for someone to so heartily endorse a town not their own? Well, that sealed it.
So today Camogli it was. Cold, but a cloudless sky and a huge sun creeping over the Ligurian sea. Camogli is about an hour west (and a bit north) of Monterosso by train, on the same line that stretches along the coast up to Genoa and down to La Spezia. It's a small town, about 6,000 people, compared to nearby Chiavari, Santa Margherita Ligure and, of course, the bustling city of Genoa. I heard it compared to Vernazza, the next town to us here in the Cinque Terre, but considering its about 15 times bigger, I don't really think that's a fair comparison.
Whatever it is, Camogli is beautiful. Once called the "city of a thousand white sails", it's been an important spot on this stretch of Liguria since Napoleon. The boats still bob carefully in the still ocean below the colorful, typically Ligurian pastel buildings, with their intricately painted facades. The top photo is a great example - those windows? Fake. Brickwork running up the side of the building? Not real. Elaborate molding above those fake windows? You guessed it. This NY Times article from a few years ago explains it better then I can - and might be talking about this exact building in Camogli- but insomma, for those of you lazy readers, the trompe l'oeil artwork is typical of this region. Those too poor to afford rich exterior work of their house simply painted it on. Or, maybe those practical Ligurians found a way not to sacrifice style and keep their buildings sturdy.
Camogli also has it's own castle (again with those pesky pirates) that is perched over the rocky cliff in the shadows of a centuies old cathedral, which was much more ornate then I expected. A cruise ship tour next to me is also responsible for this next piece of information - the stone circle designs in front of most churches in Liguria is to symbolize and remind worshipers of the moment that life comes and the moment that death comes to the body.
Life came to my body, however, in Camogli sitting in the sun underneath the towering church on the rocks, eating a foccacia in the Camogliese fashion (anchovies, olives and tomatoes - though I'm not too sure they can patent that as something unique in this region) and when I discovered Camogliesi, a local dessert produced not that long ago - in 1970 - by a local man. This dessert - half cookie, half donut and stuffed with a cream (rum flavored is the most traditional) is like a heavy, delicious, rum laced bomb for your stomach. The woman in the shop explained it to me as a beignet with a cream filling. I bet you CAN eat just one. Really, I'd be hard pressed to devour more then a few, and at 28 euro a Kg, so would you.
The day was perfect, again, save for those cruise ship groups. I was mortified - honestly, completely embarrassed - as an American, listening to some of the conversations these people were having. The beaches were "gross" (not at all true), the pizza is better in Connecticut, and why-oh-why is everything so expensive?
If you don't want to try and experience it, stay on the cruise ship. Please. For my sake. Don't leave me shooting apologetic looks to shopkeepers, counter-people and old Italian women in your wake.
I get it - we're dependent on tourists here. But sometimes, even in Camogli, I wish I could choose which ones.
Fortunately, I found the worlds largest pan (or at least close) used to fashion a fish fry every summer on the town's feast day. I probably can't eat it, thanks to that shellfish allergy plaguing my life, but throw in a rummy flavored, gooey centered Camogliesi, and I'm there - cruise ship catastrophe or not, it was really the most beautiful place I've visited outside of my little home. And by next summer, I'm sure I'll have that "gli" down cold.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, wild boar nipping at your nose...

The restaurant is hosting a special dinner tonight for a bunch of VIP’s from the Italian government throughout the country. Wanting to show off a little bit of what makes Liguria special, they’re throwing out a lot of fall favorites and foregoing the sort of “modern twist on local favorites” theme. Tonight is all Liguria, through and through, like Grandma used to make. Or Nonna for that matter.

All of this meant that yesterday Manuel and I had a mission. We were designated chestnut pickers. To the mountains outside town we went, about a 10 minute drive up those twisty, narrow roads that kept this region so isolated for so long. We parked the car, grabbed our baskets, and started walking to a childhood spot Manuel remembers as being great for chestnut picking, in addition to a place he once found a porcini mushroom he claims to have been at least 3 feet in diameter (The fish was THIS BIG…).

Regardless, this Jersey gal was ill-prepared for a chestnut picking expedition. One, it was cold up on that mountain, and the other, I had no idea what a chestnut looked like outside of my grandmother’s oven or a street cart in New York City. It was another reminder of the stark differences in food culture in Italy and the U.S. We don’t go and “find” our food very often, and when we do – pumpkins, apples, blueberries – we go to a farm and walk on paths and follow the instructions to do so in a somewhat sterile environment. We’re not exactly hiking 30 minutes to find a strawberry then go home. Here, this is how you do it – there are no chestnuts at the market as they are quite small this year, and someone needs to go and find them. Walking 45 minutes down a mountain is it– and quite a popular one for Ligurian kids, I was rewarded with some great views as I discovered a sign that made me really question the intelligence of this little trip.

There are wild boar in these woods. No problem, Manuel assured me. There are hunters out here to shoot them and control the population.

But if we see one, we have to run. Fast.

Fantastic.

I’m not a runner. Not even close. And now I’m thinking of wild boar horn impalement, getting shot by an Italian hunter, and if I can climb a tree if the boar is chasing me. Will someone hear my screams for help? If a girl gets impaled in the forest will anyone hear it?

Now, this was all very amusing to Manuel as he watched me walk on tiptoes, vigilantly studying the surrounding undergrowth for signs of impending boar attacks. He assured me it was safe – “Do you think I want to die out here? No.” – and on we went.

Chestnuts, I’ve discovered, hurt. They are protected by spiny little sea urchin cases, and the way to get them out is akin to something of a soccer move, manipulating them with your feet until the nut pops out. I just grabbed them and threw them in my basket. They could do that at the restaurant. With gloves.

After our baskets were full, we made our way back to the car. We passed a hut where the father of a friend of Manuel’s does his work cutting tombstones (again, not scary at all). They talked a little, then I heard him ask if we’d seen any “cingiale in giro”. Have we seen any boar around?!

Needless to say, we were out of there, though Manuel again assured me that the man was kidding and that he hadn’t seen any boar either. The car packed full of chestnuts, a laughing Italian and a nervous and cold American girl, and we were on our way back down the mountain to heat, home and where we eat boar, not run from it.

Fresh Ricotta=Soup. Really.

The Cantina is closing on Monday, which means that one of my favorite times of year is here. Some people refer to it as autumn, or even fall (or autunno), but I refer to it as "soup season" (which might also be called pumpkin season, chestnut season and so forth. But that's for later). Anyone who knows me well knows that I love soup. A lot. I could live off it. I'm not saying this in a weird diet sense, but that I am almost always cold and I think soup is a fantastic way to really see some unique twists on global cuisines. Pho? Tom Kha? Minestrone? Gumbo? Goulash? Tomato? The list goes on. There is a soup for every mood.

So, when Manuel appeared with some fresh ricotta the other day, I was looking for some ways to use the fantastic, mildly sweet, creamy cheese other then eating it mixed with nutella on canestrelli (local Ligurian shortbread cookies). I made it in pasta (throw it in a tomato sauce just before serving) and was pretty much stumped after that. I wanted to make something different!
Then I remembered my food pilgrimage to the epicenter of "fusion" cooking before it was fashionable - Malta. I'd eaten a hearty vegetable soup there with a ton of stuff thrown in, disturbingly called "widow's soup", and I'm pretty sure I recalled some fresh ricotta scooped on top.

I found this recipe online (http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1748,147174-255205,00.html) but jazzed it up a little - Fresh tomatoes instead of the paste and a touch of cumin, paprika and oregano - fresh rosemary and a dash of balsamic vinegar and honey, to keep that agrodolce Maltese feel. I also started with sauteeing some pancetta then starting my soup base from that. I omitted the pasta and poached the eggs whole on the surface of the soup, so upon serving the yolk could be broken, adding another level of flavor (and who doesn't like to "play" with their food?). Era buonissima:

SOPPA TA LARMLA (WIDOW'S SOUP)
This versatile and hearty vegetarian soup saw many Maltese families through difficult times, including WW II, when Malta was under constant threat of seige from air attack and people spent a majority of their time in shelters. While growing up in America, we also called this our meatless "Friday soup."
3 tbsp. olive oil
2 heaping tbsp. tomato paste
3 lg. onions, chopped
Salt and pepper
In a large soup pot, fry the onions in the oil until they are softened. Stir in the tomato paste. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fill the pot to the halfway mark with water, bring to a boil and add:
1 chopped and cleaned cauliflower
1 c. cooked beans (or peas)
2 chopped carrots
Any other vegetables you want
After 3/4 hour of simmering, add:
1 c. dry pasta (elbows, shells, broken-up spaghetti, etc.)
1 chopped lg. potato
Add more water if needed to cover the vegetables and cook for 20 minutes more. Into this simmering soup gently add:
2 eggs, slightly beaten in a cup
1 c. ricotta or feta cheese
For a special treat we often cracked open and dropped in a whole egg for each child or added hardened chunks of Parmesan cheese to soften in the soup. I think you'll agree this soup, served with a good bread, can be a meal in itself.