Basta pasta

I knew pasta forms the base of the food pyramid in the Italian cuisine, but apparently my knowledge was not complete. If you leave out pizza and the rice dish risotto which do make it for a couple of entries in the menu card, the rest is all - with no exaggeration - some kind of pasta or the other. Take out your favorite text book on geometry and pick out all the regular shapes - tubes, cones, helices, toroids, thin sphagetti shaped objects (he he .. I like this description of the shape), flat sheets; and all that you imagine all have room in the generous world of pasta. And then the raviolis and the tortellinis with stuffing in them. I did not know that the flat sheets that make the lasagna are also called pasta, which is a quite a generic word. Anyways, the trouble about the accounting was slightly easy with the help of wikipedia which says there are 350 types of pasta. I wonder if the Italians have to be content with risotto/pizza for the remaining two weeks of the year !! Although I find the long sphagetti unmanageable, I have a new found interest and respect for it, thanks to the interesting commercials with spaghetti like the one below !!


I went on a holiday to Rome a few weeks ago. Its an 8 hour drive from Lugano to Rome, passing through several regions of Italy - Lombardy, Tuscany, Abruzzo among others. Stopped for a meal in the restaurants or sometimes went a bit fancy with the wish to experience the local touch by going for one of the trattorias, which is home-made food served in a small restaurant. Each of these places advertises a 'regional speciality'. Given my dietary preferences for a vegetarian meal, I innocently asked them 'do you have any vegetarian regional specialities?' "Yeah, sure we would get one for you" and after 20 minutes of delicious wait for the food, they come out with a 'pasta pomodori', which is essentially pasta with tomato. Being completely unaware of Italian cuisine, I would wonder what's so regional about this food that I eat at every stop. But it took me a while to figure out, with guidance obviously, that the speciality is in one of the intricate shapes of the pasta. With the long helices from one region, the shorter ones from another. The long sphagetti, the Italian counterpart of the Chinese rice noodles, with square cross section from the North of the countr
, and the oval, ciruclar cross sections from the others (now honestly I do not even remember which is from where, but you get the idea).

Two days into the trip, with the 'regional speciality' of pasta with tomato everywhere, I was ready to yell out "basta (enough) pasta". But then I was in a trattoria in one of these villages just after a long 12 km tunnel to Rome. They had the amazing dish 'pasta con funghi e tartufo (with mushroom and tartufo)'. It is probably the most delicious pasta that I ever had. This tartufo is supposed to be more expensive than gold and is one of the very special treats to the tongue ! So, if you find yourself with an offer to have pasta with tartufo, relish it !!! It's worth a shot, although you might later realize that it's an acquired taste !!!

piazza grande .. !

Piazza is literally a square. It's a very unique concept in the Italian/Swiss parts that I have seen, probably it can be seen every where in the europe. Other parts of the world have also piazzas like the union-square of San Francisco, but not as many as in the europe. Many a times it's an area in the heart of the town, where people lounge around, look at some of the nice architecture of the various buildings surrounding it at least one of which is likely to be a church or may be throw blank stares into the sky while enjoying their coffee in of the outdoor restaurants in the piazza. Usually in a city, unless you want to be in a building or a museum or a restuarant, there is no place where one can rest for a while, enjoy the sun or feed the hungry pigeons. Piazza is the home for all those who refuse to be bound by the walls, but still want to stay in the civilization unlike going into the woods. Come summer, these piazzas become the stage for a host of exciting outdoor events - from live performances of jazz to plays to movies.

Last week I was in the Swiss Italian town Locarno for the opening ceremony of the Locarno international film festival in the piazza grande. As the name suggests, it's a magnificent square with a seating capacity of 8,000. The shape enclosed by the piazza grande is not a regular geometric one and that adds a little bit of character and taste to the place. About a month ago, this square hosted the likes of Santana, Alicia Keys for their music concerts; and was the arena for the screening of the Euro football matches live. The opening ceremony of the film festival took off with a fine drizzle from the thick clouds engulfing the whole town. As I could not find a place selling umbrellas or ponchos, I went into a pizza place and was asking for a large pizza box to cover myself and my friends. They were not very welcoming for my request for a 'solo carta per pizza grande' (in MY Italian asking for just the box of a large pizza). Rain, a perfect beginning for a movie that was set in England - "Brideshead revisited". Then as the story started unfolding, so did the clouds, giving way to the stars and making the setting even more romantic for a story based partly on love (the other part being orthodox religious traditions).

The director of the film mentioned in his opening remarks that there is nothing like a bad weather, it's just wrong clothing. Whichever way he would describe it, we watched the movie with the clothes a little wet. Well, if that is the price you pay for enjoying a movie while being in nature, it's well worth it!

The closest experience I had to this while in India was in the 5000 person capacity open air 70mm theater we had in our college in Madras. With a film every week, in all the seasons of the year, it was definitely a great time. Not knowing its true worth, I missed many movies in that OAT. Then the next experience was the half-oval amphitheater in the Caltech, laid in three rings of grass around a small 16mm screen. So small, so cozy, with a room for just 100 people. And the jasmines that lined the separation between these rings would set the ambiance for a romantic summer evening under the stars !! With my interest for the movies and the open skies, open air theaters are a heaven for me !!

got cafe?

I picked up the coffee from the vending machine. Although a few machines are OK, a few others make an inhomogeneous preparation, with the sugar settling down at the bottom and no stirrer to mix it up. As I sat down to have this machine coffee and my taste buds started reaching a 'happy ending' with the sugar, I wondered what a good coffee tastes like.

Although neither Christianity nor coffee originated in Italy, these folks have become a considerable authority on both. So, I asked my Italian friend "What's a good coffee?". "A good coffee .. " he started off, but then paused with a deep breath as if the description was beyond words. He looked at the vending machine coffee and with a smile he said " .. definitely not this".

There are several kinds of coffees around here, some with two teaspoons full coffee served in a very tiny cup that can be barely held - the espresso or the licho: something you can sniff out of the cup. Add a drop of milk to this to create a machhiato. Half a glass of milk more makes it latte macchiato. Capuccino with the froth on top of it. And the story goes on. To feel like a real Italian, one should drink a macchiato for the breakfast and a licho without even a single drop of milk as a dessert after lunch. A capuccino is acceptable for a breakfast, but definitely not after lunch. There are so many ways of preparing a capuccino: if you get a capuccino with a chocolate topping - Switzerland, cinnamon topping - US, no topping - south of Italy. If you ask for a capuccino and get a latte machiato, you are in the north-east of Italy where the names, as I heard from my friends, are interchanged. A capuccino thus serves as a kind of a coarse grained GPS for identifying your position!! At the risk of sounding like a sexist, I should point out this hilarious video on macchiatto from "Italian Spiderman !!".

Well, starbucks definitely is responsible for the coffee revolution in the US. One of the mistakes new comers in US do is to use starbucks as a landmark before they realize there is a shop every street corner. As can be guessed, the most popular coffees in the US are about 300 ml to 400 ml compared to the 30ml espresso. And they are usually loaded with sugar, and many times ice. I only had the 'brain freeze' drink once. I caught a bad cold for one week after that and I decided to give up on iced coffee. Coffee is definitely very popular there as you can get a mug full of coffee and finish of your work as the person attending to you refills it regular intervals. And one thing an americanized person will miss in the Italian side is the luxury of taking your coffee to go with you!

In India, at least when I was growing up there a few years ago, coffee is a very unique and not many variations exist. Ask for coffee, you will have a cup-full of wonderful drink on your table in a minute. The closest american and Italian counterparts to this drink are cafe latte/latte macchiato. You will not be grilled with questions such as - hot or cold; ice or no ice; sugar or no sugar; tall or grande; without milk or with milk (whole milk/skim milk) or with soymilk; for here or to take it go and finally are you paying with a starbucks card today?? Without those questions, that's definitely a more enjoyable experience. Slowly the americanized coffee shops are mushrooming in the big metros.

Espresso machine at work place seems to be one of the basic amenities in the Italian region. People help themselves liberally with it. I stayed late at work one evening and saw my Italian friend drink a coffee at 10pm. I asked him "dont you have trouble falling asleep??" "nope" he replied. I laughed and said "I forgot, coffee and s*x are good at any time of the day." "Well, I am not really sure about the second one, though !" he replied instinctively !!

The famous mathematician Godel used to say that mathematicians are machines that convert coffee to theorems. Seeing so many smart people at my work place get a regular coffee every few hours, I am not only convinced of it but am also thinking of trying it out in greater proportions myself .. !! Let me try my luck with a boost of caffeine.

credit credit ..

Today my friend showed me a news article on a new flying coat released in New Zealand. Just for 100,000 USD, you can fly to your work everyday, escaping all the traffic. Instinctively I wondered if they sell it on credit. Imagine holding your girl friend with your left hand, punching up your right fist into the air and flying right into the air (well, after somehow managing to switch the coat on). The fact that you have a credit card bill stops you and your dreams from reaching high into the skies?? :). May be yes, atleast in this part of the world I am in.

When I opened my first Swiss bank account in January, they asked me if I wanted a credit card. "Sure", I said very positively. "OK, based on your salary, you are eligible for a credit limit of 4000 CHF. We will freeze that amount in your savings account. You can not with draw that amount. And do you also want to set me up for an automatic pay so that all of the balance gets deducted from the savings at the end of the month?". Confused, I said, "hold on. I did not even follow your first sentence. You give a credit card and freeze all the money in the limit? That makes the available balance less than in using a debit card." "That,s how credit card works, Sir".
Having stayed in the US for 6 years, I considered myself a self appointed authority on credit and wanted to enlighten him. I could not do it for want of time. I hope this blog reaches him.


When I went to the US 7 years ago, I did not have a credit card. I did not even find a need for it. Slowly as I find out how cheap it was to make purchases online, on amazon and other places, I realized I need a credit card. The only bank that was ready to offer it to me was the university bank with a 1000 USD limit. I used to use it for online purchases - books, phone cards, flight tickets .. and used to pay all the amount due at the end of the month. As more months passed by, I was too lazy to carry money all the time. And especially US was not a safe place to carry bigger denominations in your pocket. So, started using the card for purchases in supermarket. As I used to pay off the bills completely and regularly, it become a convenience card. I used to walk out of my house without a single dollar in a pocket for months together. As I used the card more, I started receiving letters from the bank saying they increased my credit limit. They started believing me. Other banks also started sending me offer letters for new credit cards. In less than 3 years of my stay in the US, I had 8 credit cards, with a total limit of about 25000 to 30000 USD. Nice. Now the problem was to safe guard the cards. Because losing them, I lose tens of thousands. So, most of them remained home.

In the last 3-4 months of my stay in the US, I was not sure of when I was leaving the country and to where. Without having any idea that I would be finishing my degree and going out of salary in 2 months, I froze my money in somekinds of investments. I had the last month to live on, the previous months bills to pay, and on top of these there were moving expenses, purchase of laptop. America, I finally decide to use the lessons I learnt. I applied for a new credit with 10,000 USD limit and no interest for one complete year. Used it fully for all the expenses above and still had some usable limit. That was the time I was prowling to see what all I can buy using a credit card. In fact, I thought I would buy the Taj Mahal if they sold it on credit. Some one asked me "why would you want to buy it?", "Why not if its available on credit?" I asked in return. The question is not about need, its about the availability of the object on credit. One of my friends was ready to sell it to me for 2,300 USD, but he said he only accepts cash. Too bad I had to pass on a genuinely good offer.

In India, the concept of credit has started lately. Since the chance of default is very likely, the rate of interest can go upto 50% a year ??? And since it's still a society where everyone is worried about what the neighbor thinks of them, these bankers do not mind making a big fuss outside your home or even seizing the object bought on credit if the timely payments are defaulted.

Coming back to the main story, I moved to Switzerland and finished up the limit on the card in a few days with the furniture I bought. That solved one problem, began many others. While I was waiting for my first salary, I was in a bad condition financially and the banks in the US in a worse condition to offer me a new credit card. So, I had to change my ways. Anyways, slowly life changed a little day after day with me starting to use the debit card for a few months. And now like most of the Swiss, I take a bagful of coins and a pocket full of bank notes to pay everything. .. That's a big change. Whether I want credit or not is different, but will still not mind arguing with the banker on the definition of credit...

seven minutes from you ..

"I am pretty close to you. I should be reaching there in 7 minutes" "four minutes walk from the university .. " .. these are expressions I never heard before coming to Swiss Italian part. Being from India I picked up the local sense of Indian punctuality. Back in India, a modest error bar on the given time is on the order of 30 minutes. Most of the times the excuse for someone not showing up on time is that there will be no one else on time !! Nice all great minds think alike. Coming to the US, things were pretty punctual. Every thing is within couple of minutes from you. When I first arrived in the US, I naively believed that couple of minutes is 2 minutes. But anything upto 10 minutes can easily be considered couple of minutes. But, here in Switzerland, the land that sets the time with its precision watches, people are precise to the very minute. Of course, needless to say trains/public transport everything runs exactly on time. Such a perfect society !! In every street corner where there is a city-bus stop, there is a big clock just on the other side of the street displaying the exact time. These clocks do not have a seconds hand, but as far as I can see with my cell phone clock, all of the time are exact to the Central European Time.

In that sense the Italians are more open minded. They think more than just about themselves. You probably would have walked into one of the banks/courier services/hotel or infact any business that cares about time in other parts of the world. They have these wonderful array of clocks displaying time in N.Y., Tokyo, New Delhi .. .. I was in Rome last week and each of the bus stops in the city had a time of its own. For a moment I was even confused that they Romans were trying to make the tourists feel at home by displaying their time. Apparently these clocks are all out of order.

The trains are so much on time in Switzerland, that recently someone wrote a program to show the predicted position of the train in the country at a given point in time. And unless there is a natural disaster, which I do not wish for Switzerland, is the same as tracking the train positions in real time !!! Nice standards .. setting the time for itself and for the rest of the world .. !!

and as I understand from others, this punctuality in the Swiss Italian side is nothing compared to that in the Swiss German side !!

some boxes are more idiotic than others

"idiot box" - a perfect companion for people like me. but unfortunately I fall in the category that's too lazy to watch a TV. In the 15-20 min of cathode ray exposure I get every fortnight, I did manage to see some differences in the media here in Switzerland.

First thing is the language. Every time I punch a random number on the remote control of the TV, the first challenge is the number of seconds I need to figure out the language they are speaking. Right now it's 2 seconds for me from the time they start speaking very slowly. I do watch the news once in a while in Italian and English. There are some programs with quality, but I don't watch them, because they require some proficiency at the local languages. I somehow end up catching a glimpse of dubbed versions of flashy american programs - from Dr.House to Numbers to Gilmore girls to Desperate housewives .. and finally feel disgusted at myself.

The next thing is that the number of advertisements is limited. That's very refreshing compared to the US where there used to be a considerable amount of commercial air time breaking the continuity of the show exactly when you can not afford to miss the next few seconds of action (unless you dont mind wasting your money on a subscription to the ad-free HBO). Although I still do not know the exact pattern of the ads here, I see that there are not as many ads for cars and definitely know Switzerland is a happy country as there are not as many ads about anti-depressants as in the US. The number of tv commericals are really high in India. Imagine watching a 2:30 hour movie over 5 hours !! It's not an exaggeration if it's a very popular and recent movie. To reduce the distractions from studies, my friend as a kid was given a choice either to watch the TV show or the commericals in between and he chose the commericals. His strategy of wasting more time always worked !! And just in case you are not sure cows flying in the skies of Switzerland and then yielding great tasty milk is a fact or fiction, look at the bottom of the TV screen for the note 'publicita' which tells you that it's an advertisement, much to your relief .. !!

Here a few samples, selected with a great bias:
milk commerical (Swiss)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vVRivrXBO5Q
lottery commerical (US)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FhcEp6PJJnc
mobile phone commercial (India)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uNSF0WIZw2s

somehow I still like that advertisements made in India. Well, at the end, advertisements are not meant just to be pieces of art, but to touch the local sensibilities. My liking the Indian ads only shows that I am still desi at heart .. although am beginning to like the Swiss commercials as well !!

sorry hooters, but life seems to be better .. !!

Today is my birthday .. when I used to live in the US, one of the few accepted ways of celebrating a birthday was to go for a drink at the hooters bar. Once the staff there know its your birthday they convince you that you are a prince from Saudi and they are your harem, at least for a few minutes (was I convinced .. ?? :) ). deep down - in my heart - I knew there could be better things but I was not sure what .. well, I had them all today ..

well, there were the most awesome wishes on the phone/email from family and friends .. thanks to you all !!

But a few things made the day really special .. in the order of occurrence they are -

1. I had plans of going to Italy between 12-17 of July, and was trying to set up an appointment with the embassy hoping that I can renew my existing visa. The Italian embassy was kind enough to give me an appointment for 10th and the soonest I would get the visa in that case is the 17th. Cancelled my plans! Then looked at my existing visa, and then this time read the text in english, rather in Italian as I did previously, and it said my current visa is valid until september - hurrah ..

2. we applied for a project time allocation on swiss national computer center 2 months ago, and got the good news today - sweet

3. I had the wonderful company a few of my friends from work, even at a short notice, for a drink at Lanchetta bar .. of course, the card/gift were very special - awesome ..

4. my friends' 10 year old son baked a cake for me. This made my birthday very special compared to anything I had so far. It was just unbelievable that he was so thoughtful and sweet to bake it for me - touched .. !!

In summary, it was a great birthday. The icing will be continuing celebrations which I will have with a few friends that could not make it today .. !!

egg fried rice, beta version

I have lived alone, away from my family, for 11 years now, and never never had the desire the cook until recently. I used to eat all sorts of easy to eat foods from salads to eggs under the name of health, and the true reason is laziness. Anyways, for some reasons (I can tell you soon) I started cooking recently.

a new experiment .. egg fried rice .. beta version .. tried it on a friend .. the actual release is scheduled for next week .. :) I started with the recipe of the Indian egg fried rice and ended up with Chinese egg fried rice. nevertheless as long as the original motives are kept a secret, it should be fine, I guess. I think the end product is anyway restaurant quality .. so, the release is going to be at the scheduled time ..

and the Italian touch to the egg fried rice is the use of olive oil ..

time to go back to Italy/Spain quarter finals .. go Italy !!

Italy reaches quarter finals

Last night Italy made it to the quarter finals, after defeating its arch-rival the French team 2-0. It was a much awaited victory in the euro, at least on the Swiss Italian side. I knew about this game, not by watching it on television, not by reading news .. !! I was kept awake for more than 1.5 hours after the game by the enthusiastic team supporters going aroud the streets of Lugano and honking their cars to glory. Lugano is sucha small town, I strongly believe its only a few cars that managed to loop around the city and publicise the victory .. !