Fennyblack – Page 5

Bright colors for Indian celebrations, spicy food and digestive sweets

How to find an Indian mood in Florence?

Just going to Via Guelfa, in a very comfortable and welcoming restaurant:

Indian restaurant - Royal India — Indian restaurant – Royal India

It’s the first time for an Indian taste here, so maybe it’s better to have the fixed-price menu and enjoy several dishes, spicy creams, tikka chicken, vegetables, flavored rice and, obviously, tandoori chicken. Typical products to remember: Pappadam and Puri, two kind of flat bread.

In the meantime, let’s see the place: all those colors drew my attention, green, purple, red, yellow, like the original pigments.

Then, here you are some particular staff shown on the shelf, like these turbans:

Actually, the traditional names for Indian turbans are ‘Safa‘ or ‘Pagri‘, depending on the kind of tissue they are made of. And generally, the colors depend on the kind of celebration you’re going to have: weddings, birthday or obviously, pale colors as brown and blue for unhappy ceremonies.

Well, let’s finish with the traditional Indian black tea named ‘masala chai‘ and typical desserts (almost based on sugar and coconut) and colorful sweets you’re served at the end of the dinner, in order to help you to digest:

Traditional Tuscany: fiorentina? Chianina? Cantina? what else?

Yes here we are, the second part of out tour in the countryside of Tuscany (near Arezzo) going until the upper side of Umbria. Enjoy for example, this little fiorentina, fresh meat from poor Tuscan-rooted beef:

Then, it comes the best hamburger you can find in this area: Crispi’s Chianina hamburger. It looks like a classical McDonald’s one, but it isn’t, I swear it.

let me also add this picture, it’s the one I prefer. It’s named ‘Lo sfondo’ that is to say you will have that sense of happiness while eating it and stomachache just after it 🙂

Chianina burger: 'Lo Sfondo' — Chianina burger: ‘Lo Sfondo’

And now let’s stop thinking about food, and have a look to some souvenirs you can get while going all around: magnets representing those landscapes and fields you can find on your road, sign about famous films run in those areas (as the one shown in the picture below: New Moon, Twilight), postcards about cantinas (the place where wine is produced) and historical monuments…

Tuscan souvenirs: postcards, magnets, posters

and then the most particular picture: a poster about the different kind of glasses, with different shapes and glass: generally they are linked to a particular kind of wine. Wine experts always say that there’s a only kind of glass for a specific wine, have a look here:

poster about wine and glasses: the kind of glass you use is related to the kind of wine you’re going to drink

Finally, let’s have a good Italian coffee, together with some special chocolate becoming exactly from their best production known all over the world: baci perugina frim Perugia

Italian Coffee in Montepulciano (La Briciola restaurant)

chocolate from Perugia ('baci perugina' are the most popular in the world) — chocolate from Perugia (‘baci perugina’ are the most popular in the world)

Ending with a wonderful panorama

Escape: Tuscan countryside

Yes I was escaping, flying away from the city, just for a brief wend.

But it was like going back home, in the countryside of a wonderful area as Tuscany.

That’s why I want to share some pictures with you, to offer you an escape, going deepen in the fields and trees and sun and weird moments of life.

Let’s start the tour from a little town near Arezzo, named Civitella Val di Chiana (exactly where the popular ‘chianina’ is made). Here you are some little snapshots of a huge landscape:

Tuscany - Civitella Val di Chiana — Tuscany – Civitella Val di Chiana

and then, something more particular and weird…

for example, think about those little towns that became popular thanks to their homemade products, as cheese and wine..

The following are Montepulciano’s ‘cantina’ views:

Montepulciano: Ercolani's cantina (1988) — Montepulciano: Ercolani’s cantina (1988)

and the to finish this brief tour (actually it lasted at least 1 hour), here you are the perfect end:

products of Tuscany: wine, cheese, homemade jam, particular smoked ham, lots of..

to finish, just ring the bell if you want to book and taste and enjoy…

Enjoy the rest of the trip in the next article!

– coming soon –

Florence: towards the Dome

It was my ordinary walk. I just want to share some nice shots I took while walking towards the Dome, not from the side that everybody knows – from Santa Maria Novella station – but from the back, through Via dell’Oriuolo. Here you are my walk, enjoy it by the pictures and in reality too, if you have this chance!

Just after two minutes, here you are what appears in front of you:

Now the Dome is very near to my camera, let’s zoom in

And finally, here you are the great view

So amazing… Just staring at it.

Philately: fabric stamps, luxury brands stamps, artistic and historical stamps of the past.

Spending some days in your own house, the house where you grew old and your family still lives in, always gives you nice surprise and souvenirs from the past. While tidying up one of the room, where all the books are stored, that I found the interesting stamps I’m going to show.

Some are made of fabric (never seen before!) and some seem to be part of a fashion collection, because their illustrations are about specific luxury brands. Then, there is an ‘artistic’ one, that represents a painting by Giorgio Vasari and an ‘historical’ one that shows the boundaries between the Republic of San Marino and Italy.

Here you are the little pieces to collect:

On the top there are luxury brand stamps: Krizia, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferrè, Giorgio Armani, Laura Biagiotti and Prada. On the bottom you can see the stamps made of fabric and they were made to celebrate the art of crochet.

Here you are the second tranche: the first stamp represents a painting by Giorgio Vasari

Also in this picture you can see the Vasari’s one and another stamp about ‘Tintarella di luna‘, which is an old Italian song sung by one of the most popular Italian singer, Mina is her name.

the last one is about the representation of Italian state. In details, the division between Italy and Republic of San Marino:

That’s it for now, see you at next discovery 😉

It’s not a bag!

What I would like to share with you this time, it’s my very enthusiastic discover of last night, in one of the room of my house where I would never expect to find this thing.

As written in the title, when I was in front of it, I totally thought it was a vintage bag, maybe one of the bag of my grandma..or one of my mum’s adolescence. But I was wrong.

Actually, you can have this impression just at first sight, because after some seconds you can realize what is it…

A very old camera, the real vintage mood 🙂 I think it was of my grandpa, and it was completely lost in the frippery of that room. I was completely surprised to find it and imagine its story.

Here you are one more picture:

et voilà: ‘Alfa‘ seems to be the brand of this camera (never heard about it, but I’ll start my research asap), model should be Click II – type Achromat 186 (or maybe not?!)

Now you can understand why I firstly thought it was a little bag from the past – its case is totally made by brown leather and it’s also vintage model – no doutbs..

Anyway, if you know more about this camera history – for example, when it was produced? in which year ? (I also think it must be used with a sort of base, because there’s a little screw on one side, don’t hesitate to write me!

Colorful breakfast: Macarons or Macaral?

I took some pictures, they’re very colorful and bright, looking so happy. They’re about this new trend of ‘Macarons‘, something I thought was produced in France. I’m speaking – writing?! 🙂 – by using the past tense, because, in fact, some days ago I discovered something different. There was this old lady, who was working in one of the most colorful and modern cake design/pastry of Florence – Rinaldini its the name – and she told me that their origins are Italian, they’re part of the Made-in-Italy-history.

In fact, by looking at the following pictures, you will see that they’re called ‘Macaral‘ in order to be distinguished from the universal trend of nowadays. I think that Ladurée brand is playing a very essential role in the diffusion of those biscuits all around the world, and it’s also helping to spread the conviction that macarons are from France, even if it’s not true.

Anyway, wherever they’re from, it seems you can’t avoid to have 2, 3, 4, 5 (…) Macaral at least once in your life, for breakfast or a break in the afternoon..

And if when you are in front of those colorful infinite rows, you have such difficulties to choose the best flavors, just don’t worry, it’s normal! You’ll be displayed all the possible flavors of the world…violette, strawberry, pistachos, licorice, chocolate, coffee and many, many others.

If you want a tip: just choose by the color 🙂

‘Dolci’: sweets in Naples, a total delight.

Last weekend I was i Naples, I got fat in just 3 days 🙂

I didn’t want to, but it was impossible to avoid those wonderful windows where you could stare at all those sweets. So utopian to not eat everything there, and here you are the explanation: ‘sfogliatelle’, ‘baba’ in the background and ‘struffoli’, the typical sweets for Xmas time.

And this was the wonderful bakery, or better a pastry shop, that draws the attention of everybody: this is Leopoldo, on of the most popular bakery of Naples. And now it’s becoming even more popular thanks to the addition of the ‘gelateria’ corner. Now you can have the pastry on the right (by Leopoldo) and ice creams on the left (by Casa Infante): a total delight.

And finally, here you are one the wall that drew my attention, a black and white picture of the past:

Delights of the past, the same as in the present.

Fendi QuTweets for Christmas 2014, nice marketing operation

Here you are what happened. I’m gonna tell you about a cross-media experience I’ve just had while exploring Fendi world.

I decided to spend some days in Rome, it was too long I didn’t see the magic city, and even more time I didn’t have a walk in the city centre, near Via del Tritone, Via del Corso, too much time I didn’t get nervous by walking into the crowd of Rome.

Well, I was there for the perfect day, not only sunny, but also in one of the last weekend before Christmas, when all the people start to buy Xmas gifts. Well.

While I was walking, I got to Fendi and stopped in front of the most lively decoration I’ve seen in these days. I’ve always loved its way to communicate because generally its not to standard, and thinking that a luxury brand likes to enjoy the colors – as I’m going to show right now. Let’s discover little by little Fendi decorations for Christmas 2014:

They’re not penguins 🙂 but just little colorful birds that look like very social and happy.

And here you are one more picture:

Yes, there are a lot of birds all around a giant Xmas tree, Fendi Xmas tree.

And here you are another view of Fendi building (and store):

Firstly, I thought about this weird decoration, by thinking ‘How much social is it?!’..I was looking at all these little tweety birds among the bright bags which decorated the main wall of the building. Too weird, but happy and colorful, contrary to the rest of the conventional bright Xmas lights.

Once I was back home, I wanna look at Fendi website, let’s see the actual bags I’ve seen hunging on the building…let’s see this new collection and what it’s about.

And here you are what I read: ‘Fendi QuTweets’. I found again those Fendi-style birds, and also a nice video showing them flying all around the new bags, eating accessories and jewels.. nice Xmas operation: from the streets to the web. Maybe now it’s time to go the shop, isn’t it 😀 ?

Look at Fendi QuTweets video here.

Video about an Italian Radio: Radio Kiss Kiss

Just some words about this post: in the video, they talk about this new phenomenon of Cloud.
Actually it’s one of the most important Italian radio, Radio Kiss Kiss, based in South of Italy, Naples.
Actually, also the more ‘traditional’ channel of communication (that is not traditional anymore), has to compare with the new kind of infrastructure, the Cloud. In fact, radio speakers and managers talk about this moment of transition: how the radio is evolving and decides to base its business on cloud.

The language of the video is Italian, enjoy the video!