The Egyptian Museum

(September 13th) When I think of Torino, Egypt does not readily come to mind. Despite this, though, I found myself wandering into and through an Egyptian museum. Peculiar, but I thought I'd share:

Sarcophagi and mummies

The tomb of Kha and Merit

Papyrus scrolls of the book of the dead.

Statues galore!

Most bizarre of all was the Temple of Ellesiya. This was an entire temple that had been carved out of the side of a cliff and transported to Torino. Apparently, Italy ad assisted Egypt in preserving a number of ancient temples and artifacts ahead of the flooding of a valley for a new dam. As a reward, Egypt gave this entire temple to Italy.

That's it for Torino. Next up: Milan.

The National Museum of Cinema

(September 13th) The National Museum of Cinema in Turin, as I mentioned before, was this gorgeous synagogue that had run out of money during construction and was subsequently handed over to the state.

The building itself was entirely supported by its shell: there were no internal columns or beams holding it up. And, to top it off, you could take an elevator directly through the middle to the top. Not for the faint of heart as it was all glass with no other walls!

Inside were a number of different themed rooms, such as Looney Toons:

and mad science amongst many others...

The view from the top was incredible. In the distance, the Alps

And to the East

 And to the South West

Definitely should be a top place on your list of places to visit in Torino.

Not Just Your Average Pasta!

(September 8th-13th) I am, as you can imagine from all of my running, a huge fan of everything pasta. That being said, I was completely unprepared for how extraordinary pasta could be when made fresh and served right! I won't recount every meal in detail, but a few special places stood out during my time in Torino.

'A Furcina (just a Google page, most places didn't have web pages). This neighborhood gem was precisely that: the type of restaurant that would be my go-to neighborhood haunt if I lived here. Between the waitresses that were all happy to help me make heads or tails of the Italian menu, and the splendid food, this place never failed to satisfy me on my multiple visits. My first visit led me to enjoying aubergine (eggplant) as a first course, and orichette with tomato and ricotta salata as a second with the house wine, which smelled like grape juice (very fruity) but had a sharp, full taste.  

The aubergine was almost like a calzone: ham, cheese, but eggplant instead of bread. And the orchilette, fantastic fresh pasta...al dente, but slightly thicker than we're used to...wonderful texture.  After this trip, I can confidently say that orchilette is my favorite form of pasta now.  Over top of the orchilette was ricotta salata. One word: wow! It was so fresh and pure.  I didn't know you could shave ricotta like that.

For the most part, my dining schedule was diametrically opposed to the Italian schedule of eating. Whenever I was ready for a meal (at a normal American time), it seemed that nowhere was open. Restaurant after restaurant would be closed till well after 1 pm...but just when I had given up hope during my daily wanderings, a street market would appear, complete and full of vibrance.  1/2 mile long, 1/3 of stalls were food...fresh produce with giant, round eggplants, teardrop shaped heirloom tomatoes, fish being carved straight from the carcas (a sword fish)

Before I get into my favorite restaurant of this trip, a few assorted dishes:

You can't very well go to Italy without having a pizza. So fresh, crispy, and delicious. A true carb-lover's paradise!

A typical salad. Lot's of great, high quality ingredients adding layers of flavor.

Don't ask me for the name of this traditional Piedmontese dish, but it was vegetables fried in dough. As I said, a carb-lover's paradise!

Gelato! Me and my colleague from Oxford enjoying a few different flavors.

A different take on brussel sprouts.

Caprese salad with aubergines.

Pasta with mushrooms. Nothing else. So simple, but so incredibly good.

Fresh octopus carpaccio.

A calzone. The bread was fried just right. Fantastic.

And now for the other restaurant that I wanted to highlight, La Barrique. This highly rated restaurant was something that I was saving for my last night in Torino. I splurged, a bit, too, by enjoying their fish tasting menu.

Everything on the menu looked so good; I couldn't decide.  Luckily the tasting menu had most of the dishes that I was contemplating (except the fresh eel,  but I'm sure that I enjoyed the red mallet much more than I would have the eel).  I'm trying to think of the last time that I had a meal this satisfying...certainly, this was better than the multi-starred restaurant in Paris. 

Course 0: goat cheese mousse with raspberry sorbet. Light, creamy, but melted in your mouth.  Very smooth, I didn't know that you could get that texture out of goat cheese.

Course 1: marinated, raw scallops, toasted quinoa, daikon, burrata sauce. Textures complimented each other perfectly. Scallop flavor paired well with burrata sauce, though a little rich. And the toasted quinoa...crunchy but still quinoa, one of my favorite grains.

Course 2: fish of the day, a red mallet, served with burraba beans, a seaweed cream wine reduction, topped with salmon roe and finishing salt. The sal de mar, cubed, had just the right crunch and taste to finish the dish off as the other flavors were all mild. Italian white wine from nearby piemonte. Hints of pear amidst its floral notes. In contrast to the later wines, almost had a Chardonnay flavor....but very subdued compared to an actual Chardonnay... much more pleasant really.

Course 3: squid ink tortelli, stuffed with angler fish in a wine sauce. Wine pairing was a local piemontese grape I had never heard of (Erbaluce). Slightly creamy with a wee bitter note at the end. Very graceful (i.e. smooth and pleasant). Matched the sauce well.  Just about the thinnest pasta of my whole trip.  Delicate, but flavorful.  Accentuated the angler fish stuffed inside.

Course 4: white fish (mollet? From sea south of Italy) with porcini, creme de celery, mustard sauce, wilted spinach. Tamarind decorating sides of plates. The fish was a bit like rockfish, but much larger. Wine from umbria....subtle flavor to contrast the potency of the celery cream and mustard. Finishing salt a flake...punctuated other, creamy flavors.

Course 5: goat cheese cheesecake, with raspberries and pistachio ice cream topped with crushed pistachios. Slightly nutty and chocolatey base. All together, fantastic.  Different texture than a normal cheesecake....creamier really. Harkened back to the goat cheese mousse that started the meal. To drink, a Sicilian dessert wine. Very sweet and thick like a port, but lighter in character. 

Course 6: a medley of morsels. First, a chocolate and crispy rice...reminiscent of voodoo donuts. Next, a cookie: slightly nutty cross between a french cookie and a butter cookie. Nut covered tart filled with a lemon cake. Pistachio canolli...ricotta cream was so fresh and va bene. Macaroon with extra dark chocolate shavings.  So bitter by themselves, but an after thought with the creamy macaroon. Raspberry custard tart...trio of flavors and textures meshed so well...tart alone like an egg tart. Cinnamon cookie had a pleasantly contrasting texture to other morsels. Perfect compliment to the espresso. Truffle: uncoated  chocolate ganache rolled in bittersweet chocolate. Very soft, melted in mouth.
 

And yes, I ordered an espresso for the sake of everyone back home since I don't drink coffee.

It's amusing to think that I was worried that I'd leave hungry when I first came in here.  For one of the first times since I arrived in Italy, I am full.
 

The description of restaurant exactly as billed, though easier to find. Inside it was elegant, like Lauduree but with ample spacing between tables.  Louis Armstrong gently played in the background, and my timing had been impeccable as the restaurant went from empty to full within minutes (I was the first dinner guest at 7:50). 

The evening grew late, Louis continued to serenade me, and the wines slowly were embibed...

 

Running in Torino

(September 8th-13th) Running through the middle of Turin is the Fiume Po, a wide, slow moving rive with bike paths galore! Every morning before my conference meetings, I would get up and head down to the river before running for an hour along the trails. Afterwards, when I had time on Saturday before I had to catch my train to take me to Stuttgart eventually, I was able to go back and photograph a few of the places that I enjoyed running past.

In homage to their cultural roots, a reconstruction of a midieval village was erected along the river as a tourist attraction for the winter Olympics.

Most of the river was lined with picturesque rolling hills, atop of which were old churches or other such structures.

Of course, eventually you had to come off of the riverside trail to cross a few roads...

There were lots of parks and concert venues near the river though. The Monday morning that I ran past ones, such as on the right in the image above, the gutter was filled with cups and bottles.

At the end of this bridge is the Chiesa della Gran Madre di Dio.

The view North from that bridge (the running trails ended here).

And to the West from that bridge, another plaza!

On my long run that week, I had headed as far South as I easily could go (some 10 miles from the city center). This wouldn't have been very notable, except that as I was crossing a pedestrian bridge a bee flew into my mouth and stung my tongue! Madre di Dios indeed! I was extremely thankful that I wasn't allergic to bees like I was as a little child; imagine trying to explain what happened to someone when they don't speak your language and you could barely talk! Luckily, the worst that happened due to this bee was that my tongue was numb for the rest of the day, and I had a really bitter taste in my mouth (probably from biting the bee after it stung me).

The European Odyssey of 2013

(September 8th-13th) It almost seems as if this is a yearly migration for me. Come the end of the fiscal year, I take off for a month long trip, and the last few times it's been a month to Europe for work. As exciting as that may sound, keep in mind that these trips are usually so full of work that sight seeing isn't a possibility; however, since I've had too many trips in a row like that, I deliberately scheduled some easy days to enjoy the scenery.

The first stop of my trip was Torino, home of the winter Olympics a few years ago. Never having been to Italy before, I was very excited. At the same time, though, it was definitely a foreign experience compared with visiting England or even Germany. Apparently, knowing Latin provides no help whatsoever in understanding conversational Italian. Go figure! The people of Torino were very welcoming, though. After leaving the airport, I was highly dependent on the kindness of strangers to get onto the right train, then to the right buses. Google Maps, uncharacteristically, failed me in helping me navigate. Luckily, this kind old lady, slightly hunched over, who didn't speak any English took me by the arm from one bus stop to the next, including helping me on and off of the crowded buses. Super sweet.

Torino itself was slightly disappointing. Generally, I have a preconceived notion of European cities having a classical, old feeling about them. But Torino, it was almost modern. The conference center was in the Olympic Ice Hockey stadium:

As you can imagine, the acoustics were pretty bad in the conference rooms. Trying to hear the speakers became quite a burden at times.

The rest of the city was a mixture of historical and modern, a strange juxtaposition if there ever was one. On the outskirts, larger, mid-centruy blocks of apartments had been built, but inside the old city center, everything old seemed to have a new facade.

As I often try to do in new cities, I tended to get up early and to take long walks out of my way as I traveled to my daily destinations in order to take in some of the sights, such as Santa Rita da Cascia

Chiesa Cattolica Parrocchiale Santa Teresa, plus an art installation in front of it:

Giardino Andrea Guglielminetti, and old fortification that is now mainly frequented by dog walkers

Piazza Castello, and the front of Madama Palace, the old seat of the one-time rulers of Italy.

And the back of the Madama Palace (your eyes are not mistaken, it looks about 400 years older on one side than the other...).

The film museum. This originally was built as a synagogue, but the owners ran out of money near the end of construction and turned the building over to the state.

And a few views of the film museum from I Giardini Reali...

A few things that struck me about Torino were the plazas. You could be walking through a dense maze of narrow streets, and all of a sudden everything would open up on a gorgeous plaza, larger than a football field, filled with statues, sun bathers, or tourists enjoying the site.

Another thing that struck me was that oftentimes there was an eclectic mix of WW2 era apartment blocks juxtaposed with ultra-modern green condominiums, such as the next two pictures from different directions at the same interesection

And finally, the public fountains. Everywhere there were these charming little bull fountains (little bull being the English translation since Torino means little bull in Italian)

Still to come from Torino: the food, running, film museum, and the Egyptian museum...