Route 66

 
 

After I turned 40 (many years ago), I desperately longed for a simpler time, a time before computers, smart phones, video games and apps controlled our every waking moment.  A time when families actually sat down at a table, dined together over a home cooked meal, and communicated face to face in real time, without the incessant disruption of beeps, whistles or ring tones.

 

Heading southeast from the south Rim of the Grand Canyon, I turned off the interstate onto Route 66.  What I found was a surreal, Disneyland-like place that time had forgotten; a myriad of vintage motels, restaurants, and gas stations that the interstate had long passed by.  

 

 To the east of Flagstaff, there was a three mile wide crater created by a crashing meteor over 20,000 years ago.  I had never seen anything so other-worldly.  Walking along the rim of the crater, trying to fight the wind from blowing me into the mouth of the crater, it was a strange experience to feel so small. 

 

Heading west, every so many miles there were unusual signs beckoning drivers to find out what “IT” was at the Jackrabbit Trading Post. 

In Holbrook, there was a motel with rooms shaped like wigwams.  The sign outside the Wigwam Motel posed the question, “Have you slept in a wigwam lately?”   With vintage automobiles placed in the parking lot in front of the wigwam-shaped rooms, it looked like something from an alternate universe.  If it had not been for visions of stained, lumpy & spring mattresses, I might have spent the night there. 

Then I happened across a corner in Winslow, Arizona with an image of a girl in a flatback Ford painted on a brick wall. 

The town of Winslow seemed to accept its immortalization courtesy of a song made famous by The Eagles.  Tourists were eager to have their photo snapped while “Take It Easy” blared from a loud speaker outside a store across from the corner.  

 

Continuing west through Seligman, I came across the Snow Cap Diner.  Buses filled with tourists were eager to photograph this living monument to nostalgia and kitsch, including me, who is drawn to a good vintage gas pump.  Across the street was the Mother Road motel, down the road the Road Kill Café.

 

 

 

 

 

   

Further west in Hackberry, there was an old filling station serving as a Route 66 Visitor Center (Hackberry General Store).  Outside, vintage Mobil gas pumps, Coca Cola signs, automobiles and Greyhound Bus terminal signs kept watch. 

It was not hard to imagine what life must have been like back in the days before the interstate was built, in the age when families got into a large automobile and took a road trip to no place in particular.  A time when going out to have a burger and a triple scoop milkshake brought to your car by a carhop was the entertainment of the evening.  I am old enough to remember pharmacies when they had soda & ice cream fountains, drive in theaters, drive in restaurants, full service gas stations, and going for drives in the family station wagon or vacationing up and down the east coast via automobile. 

The places I remember from my childhood fell prey to the advancement of the modern age.  Soda fountains long removed, drive in theaters replaced by condominiums or shopping malls, full service gas attendants replaced by self-service gas pumps ready to swallow your credit card.  I often wish I had been born a little earlier, circa mid-1950’s, so that I could have experienced a simpler time when Route 66 was the main street of the lives of many people.  I can still read books and look at vintage photographs and be thankful for the people who fought hard to save the few reminders from the wrecking ball of advancement.  Now if there were only a way to force the shut down of maddeningly loud technology and 24/7 disruptions for just a day or two in order to enjoy the silence.

Limoncello

 

Pronounced “Lee-moan-chel-lo”, (accent on third syllable), Limoncello is an Italian lemon liquor that hails from Southern Italy, in particular Amalfi, Sorrento and Capri.  Basically translating to “small lemon”, this delectable beverage is meant as an after-dinner “digestivo”.

My introduction to Limoncello was in 1996, when I visited my boyfriend’s family in Calabria, and his Nonna served us her homemade version.   I had never tasted anything like it, and I easily built a tolerance to it, at times drinking it like it was water.  His Nonna must have thought I was a lush.    She explained the extensive process involved in making this concoction at home.  I was discouraged.

When I was back in the United States, I learned that you can buy Limoncello in a liquor store.  I recommend Caravella Limoncello Originale d’Italia.  You can usually find it on shelves where aperitivos are stocked (like Chambord, Midori).  It is sold in a clear bottle and you can’t miss the bright yellow liquid inside.  The key is to store the bottle in the freezer and serve it chilled, including pouring into a chilled glass. 

The taste of Limoncello is pleasant, it isn’t as tart as eating a lemon, it has a bit of sweetness to it, but it also has a bit of a kick to it.  Your mouth may pucker a little when it goes down for the first sip.  If you don’t want to drink it straight, make a Limoncello martini by combining it with a good vodka (Grey Goose) and ice, and strain into a martini glass.

These days, I see Limoncello on menus all over the place, whether it be in the form of a sorbet or a cake, or an ingredient in a cocktail. 

 Ingredients:

      ·         12 lemons (7 yellow, 5 green)  **if you can’t find green then use yellow

·         1 quart grain alcohol (or vodka)

·         1 pound sugar

·         1 cup water

·         wide-mouth bottle (for steeping)

·         clear bottle (for storing and serving)

 Recipe:

Zest the lemons into thin strips (exclude the white pith).  Put into a wide mouth bottle.  Poor the alcohol over the lemon zest.  Seal the bottle. Store in a dark place for 10-15 days.  Shake bottle occasionally.  After two weeks, take one cup of water, combine with sugar and bring to a boil in a stainless steel pan (~ five minutes, until syrupy).  Allow to cool. Filter the alcohol from bottle one, combine it with the syrup into the second bottle.    Varying the sugar to water ratio and the temperature will affect clarity, viscosity and flavor.  Taste while you are combining and before you pour into the second bottle.  It should have a lemon flavor, both sweet and tart.  If the flavor is too strong, you can dilute it with more sugar syrup.  Stick the bottle in the freezer and serve chilled.  Yields about two quarts.

Side note:  there are other similar products available, particularly Caravella Arancello (orange).  The bottle is clear and the liquid bright orange.  While it is also flavorful, I prefer Limoncello, probably because of my wonderful memories of Southern Italy.   If you wish to make Arancello, use ten oranges, one liter of vodka, 15 teaspoons of sugar, two cups of water, and two bottles.   Peel the orange zest (exclude the white part).  Combine the zest with vodka inside the first bottle.  Store in a cool, dark place for two weeks.  After two weeks, using two cups of water, over heat, dilute with the sugar.  Filter the liquor with a strainer, add the water and sugar into the second bottle along with the contents from first bottle.  Chill and serve it chilled.

Centi anni!

Vesper

Bond.  James Bond.

Every woman’s fantasy and every man’s man. 

If you ask anyone who played the best James Bond on the large screen, you’ll get different answers:

·         Sean Connery

·         George Lazenby

·         Roger Moore

·         Timothy Dalton

·         Pierce Brosnan 

·         Daniel Craig

The first big screen James Bond was actually played by British actor, David Niven, in a comedic version of Casino Royale (1967), alongside the great Peter Sellers.   Patrick McGoohan, Irish actor famous for 1960’s British cult favorites “The Prisoner” and “Danger Man/Secret Agent” (whose character was strangely similar to James Bond right down to his introduction of himself in every episode: “Drake.  John Drake”), later turned down the part of James Bond (enter Sean Connery).  McGoohan also turned down the part of “The Saint” (enter Roger Moore).

I have always been in the Sean Connery camp myself.  My favorite Bond film is “Goldfinger” followed by “Dr. No”.  My third favorite Bond film is the somewhat overlooked “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.  This film is the only one where James Bond gets married (to Teresa), who just happened to be played by my favorite British actress Diana Rigg (Mrs. Peel, of 1960’s Avengers).  The film also had exciting bobsled chase scenes with Blofeld (Telly Savalas), and who didn’t want to take a peek under George’s kilt!! 

And then along came the most masculine, physically fit, edgy, and exciting James Bond portrayer yet, Daniel Craig, and I was a convert (and I am not usually drawn to blondes, I much prefer the dark, Mediterranean type).   My favorite modern Bond films are the Daniel Craig trilogy, in this order: “Casino Royale”, “Skyfall” and “Quantum of Solace”.  I hope there is a fourth on the horizon.

I had my own James Bond, a worldly jet-setter, connoisseur of the finer things, right down to the drink he always ordered, a “Vesper Martini”, and bartenders knew how to make it without asking for further explanation!  However, my Bond was Italian (you know- the dark, Mediterranean type).  I knew of the Vesper character from “Casino Royale”, but the connection between Vesper and a martini wasn’t immediate for me.    

Ian Fleming, author and creator of the famous fictional spy James Bond, wrote the novel “Casino Royale” in 1953.  Vesper Lynd, arguably one of the most unforgettable “Bond girls”, was a character based on a woman Fleming had an affair with when he was a Naval Intelligence Officer (nicknamed “Vesperale”).  In both the novel and film remake of “Casino Royale” (2006), James is intrigued by Vesper.

In Chapter 7 of the novel Casino Royale and in the 2006 film, when asked what he would have to drink, Bond ordered a dry martini to be served in a deep champagne goblet with “three measures of Gordon’s (Gin), one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet.  Shake it very well until its ice cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel”.  After ordering the drink, he added “I’m going to patent it when I can think of a good name”.  Later in the novel, Bond named the martini after the dark featured, enigmatic character, “Vesper”.   

In later books and films, James Bond ordered his martinis with vodka (rather than gin), “shaken not stirred”.   I read that Kina Lillet is no longer produced, but can be substituted with blanc (white) Lillet Dry Vermouth or Cocchi Americano (an aperitivo distributed by Giulio Cocchi Spumanti from the Asti region of Italy).

I, myself, prefer “girly” martinis, flavored with Limoncello, pomegranate vodka, chocolate or lavender.  This Vesper raises her tall-stemmed martini glass to her Bond. 

Saluti e centi anni a ti..