Posts by giovanni tiso
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I have much the same affection for a few items in my parent's/grandparent's houses; particularly a battered and slightly degraded copper saucepan... I covert it desparately, I'd steal it but I know it'd be missed instantly.
Mum keeps advertising the fact that she doesn't know whom to leave her mother's rolling pin, a single-piece cherrywood number almost as tall as said grandma (I'm sure she broke into Little John moves when we weren't looking). And I keep pointing out that I'd be extremely happy to solve that problem for her...
I also remember the art deco buildings that were demolished pre-art deco mania and I wonder if they regret it or have simply erased such foolishness from their memories.
From some photos at the central library it seems that Wellington lost some great buildings in the eighties, and they looked in great nick in the photos taking just before the wrecking ball hit. But then maybe they were rotting from the inside, who knows, and as you say there's the problem of the earthquake-proofing work. The historic places trust must have its work cut out for it. And, as Danielle points out, there's the whole problem of that period of time when a building or an object is old but not quite old enough - we've all been there I think, clearing wardrobes of stuff that maybe now we'd like to get back. That's why losing stuff can be such a great way of saving it - Italians managed to lose whole cities for centuries as well as these.
I stumbled upon the most fabulous bibliophile/nonsense loving site
Indeed, that's a gem. E pluribus plurum - heh.
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Russell, I am saddened and disappointed that you chose to broach this subject while I'm away - for it is I who wrote the book on making a dick of himself in such situations. Although mostly in New Zealand, mind, perhaps there is such a thing as being a native speaker of connecting names to faces. Or perhaps it's that New Zealanders *always* address one another by name. Show offs.
If/when I become king, my first edict will be to outlaw names with subtle variations. Ann/Anna, Isabel/Isabella, Kirsty/Kristy - we shall have no more of that.
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Sorry to have strayed of topic, but the roadside olive trees that the Wellington city council planted during the eighties, are probably off limits to the public now. They won a prestigious award. As a result, I guess I'd get growled if I tried picking them.
When we lived in Mt Victoria we were going to the olives from a very laden tree in the garden of our flat. I mentioned it on the phone to my mother - never one to overdramatise health hazards - and the first thing she said was '...but YOU MIGHT DIE'. As it happened, our (Greek) landlord beat us to the bounty by one day. Now we have an olive tree but it doesn't bear fruit, perhaps it's too young, but I'd look forward to bottle me some olives, although with due care otherwise WE MIGHT DIE.
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I am very interested in hearing about baking the bread and the recipe will there be a follow-up post?
I'll talk to Russell, but I'm determined to at least post that recipe, yes, if that plan comes to fruition. I'm travelling to the source next Tuesday, and my cousins there reckon the lad and I could take part in the grape treading. Can't wait.
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you know, the more i hear about this giovanni tiso guy? the more i like it.
I also hear he's very, very handsome.
I'v got a drawing and some writing rendered by his dad, my great great grand dad. That information's planted a memory of an imagined person. I imagined what my great grand dads dad looked like when I looked at his hand writing. I now see that imagination of the man as memory...
That's lovely, and good for your family for holding on to the documents. I'm assuming they're from the late 18th century, yes? Were they immigrants by any chance? Migrants families have a special sense of the value of such things, I saw it first hand when they were putting together the Italian exhibit at Te Papa.
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Thank you Russell for the hospitaly, this is quite exciting for me I must say. Although I was doing the classy thing and not plugging the blog... that was all him, I swear!
The instructions lost me about 1/2 way through, somewhere around the masher.
Picture, pictures, lessee... These are the dumplings coming out of a potato ricer. You take a fistful of dough, put it in the ricer, squeeze and when the dumplings are 3-4 cm long you cut with a knife flush to the exit holes. With a masher you leave a fistful of dough on a chopping board and press down. The final look of the dish is much like this (although I cannot endorse the recipe on that site. Nutmeg? That’s just crazy talk.)
I do get a bit giggly though when parents at my 6 year old sons school insist on 3 course meals for lunch and on children sitting down at the lunchtable for 45 minutes.
Heh... welcome to my life, ages 6 to 11. The dreaded school canteen, brings back food memories, but of a most unpleasant kind. It must be that if you weren’t good enough to be an army cook they sent you to the schools (on account of children not being equipped with rifles).
Cajuns never go *anywhere* - it's like after they were exiled they never wanted to move again! (And they also have a really intense relationship with food. Hmmm. Is there a pattern here?)
You might be on to something, I’d sure love to find out if it’s the case. In my not infrequent delusions of grandeur I see the Grandmother Range as a worldwide research project done with overlays in Google Earth, leading to all sorts of interesting conclusions. Or not. But this could be one of them.
I head Declan Kyberd give a lovely talk once on Ulysses and the Irish habit to walk everywhere; his grandparents apparently used to walk for hours to get to another village just to play cards with a particular couple. Later he was in LA with his wife for a conference, and she kept being accosted by motorists assuming she must be a prostitute - why else would a woman walk about like that?
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Sorry, I should have perhaps clarified. What all these polls show is that Obama won the debate hands down among the group that supposedly counted - leaners and undecideds. It was a rout.
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I guess I'm judging it on how swing voters might react, rather than on outright performance.
All the polls of independent voters taken before and after the debate, not to mention during (those who watched on CNN would have had reason to scream "The Worm! The Worm! Peter Dunne is going to be elected president of the United States!") suggest the exact opposite. Including the focus group polled by Fox News.
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Should've read "Note to poor Aucklanders". :)
Is Triangle free to air? Cool.
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I don't understand why anyone would want to watch it, except as a form of political masochism.
There is that. Plus it was a really good debate, in which the candidates had ample opportunity to talk and make their cases. The best I've seen, I think.