La Rosticceria

A ‘rosticceria’ is possibly the Italian equivalent of fast food, only this does not mean hamburgers or pizza and the like, but ‘real’ food.

Rosticceria’s are quite common here, some are average, and some are excellent. They are basically shops which prepare and cook a variety of dishes, both cold and hot, ranging from roasted meats and pasta to vegetables, all of which are kept good and hot. You simply choose what you appeals and it is all nicely packaged for you. Then you just go home and tuck in. Just the thing when you can’t be bothered to cook, or even, possibly, when you have unexpected guests.

These really useful places are open throughout the week until the early evening, and often open on Sunday mornings. You can often book beforehand, if your Italian is up to scratch, but watch out at weekends, because all the best stuff goes pretty early.

Yesterday, my other half paid a visit to our local rosticceria which is about 10 minutes on foot from our house in Milan. On our menu yesterday was: Lasagne, ‘Capriolo’ – or Roe dear/venison, cooked in a red wine sauce, polenta, and lentils. It was all extremely yummy, and the venison was wonderful, as usual.

Now, this particular rosticceria does not do venison every day, but that is part of the fun, the ‘menu’ is quite varied. During the cooler months, read, more or less from now on, venison – Roe, Fallow or Red deer, and wild boar dishes become more common. But even if there is no game, there are often roast chicken (and you can only purchase half a chicken if you are not ravenous), ‘lo stinco di maiale’ – pork shin(very good), and veal dishes. All is very well cooked and ready to eat.

All this good food comes at a price, of course, but for around 30 Euros, three people can eat very well, and seeing as this is only about 10 Euros more than good old MacDonalds, well, the choice between the two places is pretty easy. Try finding similar quality food in a restaurant for around 3o Euros in Milan, and you will be hunting around for rather a long time.

Ah, the rosticceria, yet another great reason for living in Italy. And before anyone says anything, I put my diet on hold yesterday – I mean, I don’t get to eat venison that often, and I love it.

Sausage Crisis!

My good friends at the 4-4-2 pub in Milan, as I have mentioned before, are about to launch their full English breakfast. The launch is planned for the 28th and 29th of October, 2007. But the 4-4-2 has a problem, a big problem: that is they have no good frozen English sausages to serve up with their inaugural English breakfast. Alessandro the landlord urgently needs a supply of good frozen English sausages.

If you think you can help him out, and you happen to be an English sausage manufacturer who would like to enter the Italian market, this could be a great business opportunity. Personally, I think that English style sausages would go down rather well here, with the right marketing, of course. The England brand is strong, and, as an aside, I believe that good quality subtly flavoured English sausages, either fresh or frozen, would sell well here in Italy. This would be a good opportunity to test the market and verify whether Italy is a good market for your products. I believe that Sainsbury’s, the UK supermarket chain, has a link with the Italian supermarket chain Esselunga, so perhaps either could help out.

You can contact Alessandro, the landlord of the 4-4-2 pub in Milan from the 4-4-2 site, which is here. The 4-4-2′s telephone number is +39 0233101296, and Alessandro speaks English.

Please help resolve the sausage crisis!

Apologies Once More

Sorry about not having responded to some of the interesting comments left by my readers. I’ve been a bit tied up with another project, and work. Normal service will be resumed!

As for the other project – it relates to this blog, and once I’m happy with how things have gone, I’ll post details here.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Grey, wet, and dull in Milan today and breakfast.

I almost cannot remember the last grey day here in Milan. It’s been so long. Anyway, to remind me that it is possible to have grey, wet, and dull weather in Italy, Milan today is suitably grey, wet and dull, with a hint of cool thrown in for good measure.

Just the sort of day when you need a little good news to cheer you up. Well, possibly, I have that news. You see, while having a quick pint down at my Milan local the 4-4-2 last night, Maurizio the barman, told me that from the 27th and 28th of October, that’s a Saturday and a Sunday, the 4-4-2 will start serving English style breakfasts.

Personally, I can’t wait to check this out. A good, comprehensive, full English breakfast is wonderful. Although it is not something to be eaten every day, unless you feel like setting a new personal best in terms of cholesterol levels, that is. But, what the heck, every so often this sort of treat won’t do any long term damage. In connection with this momentous event, mention has been made of smokey bacon, fried bread, baked beans, real English sausages etc. Indeed, the very thought of all this yummy stuff is making my mouth water.

There, told you I would brighten up this dull day.

PS The print out the 4-4-2 page of this blog and get 2 beers for the price of one offer is still on!

Happiness – How happy are you?

On BBC World a few months back there was an interesting series about happiness and how it can be assessed. Unfortunately I did not manage to see the whole series, but I did like the idea of using happiness as a way of measuring of how well things are going in the world. It may seem simplistic, but it could well be highly accurate.

It would be interesting to carry out a survey country by country of the levels of happiness that exist. I think this would be a good measure of the performance of politicians too, after all, if you are happy with those leading you, you will be happy to keep them there.

The trouble is measuring levels of happiness. I suppose there are various questions that could be asked, such as ‘On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you?’ – with five being the highest and one being the lowest level of happiness, or sadness, depending on which way you look at it. Then you could ask ‘How happy are you with the politicians currently in power?’, again on a scale of 1 to 5, and, perhaps more telling, ‘How happy are you with the other political parties who are not in power at the moment?’. The, other questions could be asked to about personal and work circumstances, and the end results could be averaged, statistically analysed, by those who like this sort of thing, all with the scope of arriving at a ‘happiness’ factor or ‘feel-good’ factor.

How about testing this out? How happy are you, my good readers, on a scale of 1 to 5? Answers on a comment, and mention, if you like:

• where you live, country and place
• your age
• whether you live in a town or a city

Try to be as honest as you can.

I’ll kick off, my happiness level is around three at the moment. I live in Milan, Italy. I’m 42 and I live in a city.

Italy has Grillo, Myanmar/Burma has the Buddhist Monks, and both countries have unhappy people

No, I know there is no comparison between the Italian oligarchy and the Burmese despots, but both are examples of the people being encouraged to revolt against arrogant, non-democratic leaderships.  Some of the Buddhist monks who are bravely attempting to right the wrongs in their country may well end up being shot.  The Burmese regime is known to be violent, and not too shy about opening fire on the unarmed, in true dictatorial fashion.  And monks have died before in Burma for having previously attempted to protest against the regime.

If normally passive, pacific Buddhist Monks are stirred into action, then that must mean that there is something badly wrong.  And then in Italy, we have a stand-up comedian teasing the politicians.  Although the situation in Italy is nowhere near as bad as that in Burma, the fact that normally independent individuals and groups are standing up and acting in both countries says to me that people are not happy.

Will Grillo be shot?  Well, people who stick their noses too deeply into certain affairs in Italy have been known to come to a sticky end, but I don’t think, although I’m not too sure, that Grillo is considered to be a real threat by the power mongers in Italy.   Whereas in Burma, alas, I fear that lives may be lost.

Let’s hope that in both countries things happen peacefully.  And that the true meaning of the word ‘democracy’ is restored.

Have a look here to see how beautiful Burma/Myanmar actually is.