Rome is known for its fountains—and its drinking water. The fountains I’ve always liked seem always to have theatrical masks in them somewhere.

The picture on the left is one I took in December in Rome. At night.

If you think about the last time you were in Rome hanging around the Pantheon in the Piazza della Rotonda, perhaps with a can of beer conceeled in a paper sack as is all the rage, you might not have associated theatrical masks with this fountain, especially if the beer has begun to course through your veins and the guy with fat lips and the monkey grafted to the back of his empty skull starts to look like a friend from high school…

In any case, click the picture to see it larger.

This particular fountain was built around 1577. The masks in this fountain look like they were inspired by similar ones by Michelangelo, according to Garden-Fountains.com, who have some nice articles on The Fountains of Italy and Rome.

My other favorite mask fountain? The Fontana del Mascherone di Via Giulia financed by the Farnese. Odd. Entrancing. And the via Giulia is kinda nice, too.

I’ve been having an interesting discussion over on Twitter via my @newsfromitaly persona.  The question I posed was ‘Who’s your Italian of the Decade? Someone who has raised Italy’s image positively throughout the world.’

Those who have been mulling this question over, Italians and non-Italians, have come up with an interesting list.

Here are the names, with links to Wikipedia entries, so far.

• Roberto Saviano,

• Valentino Rossi,

• Carlo Azeglio Ciampi,

• Luciano Paverotti,

• Guido Bertolaso, – Wikipedia entry in Italian

• Enzo Biagi,

• Mike Bongiorno,

• Rita Levi-Montalcini,

• Beppe Grillo

• Gino Strada

Do you know who these Italian are?  I’m not convinced that those not familiar with Italy will know them all.

One of the people on the list is my own choice, but I’m having second thoughts.

Any other nominations more than welcome.

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For services rendered my other half received a rather special Christmas hamper this year.  The hamper was crammed full of all sorts of Italian food goodies.  One such goody was was something called Crutin.

Those in the know will tell you that Crutin is an Italian cheese with pieces of black truffe embedded in it.

The very same in-the-know people may also say that Crutin tastes very good.  Having now sampled said Crutin cheese, I have to say I agree.  It is very good.  Indeed, so good it was that I decided to write something more about it here.

Crutin not Crottin!

Crutin is made in the Piedmont region of Italy and should not be confused with the French cheese ‘Crottin de Chavignol‘ which has a similar sounding name.  The French Crottin, which I’ve not tried, is made with goats milk, as is the Italian Crutin – which, aside from the names, may add to the confusion.  Crutin, the Italian cheese remember, also contains cow’s milk, as well as crumbs of black truffle. French Crottin contains neither cows milk nor truffle. So now you know.

Funnily enough the French Crottin cheese has its very own Wikipedia entry in English – the Italian cheese Crutin though, does not.  A bit of a shame really, as it should have, and adding insult to injury, Google wants to change the word ‘crutin’ into ‘curtin’!  France 1 Italy 0.

What does Crutin Go With?

The label which came with the Crutin says that it is a cheese which is best enjoyed with a full bodied red, such as Barolo or a Bararesco.  It is a full flavoured cheese, so pairing it with a good red will not do any harm at all.  The red I had with our Crutin was a heady Sicilian wine, which went down very well in the company of this fine cheese.

Crutin, though, is not simply a cheese to be sampled during the cheese course of a special meal, it can also be used for cooking, and the maker, Italian cheese specialist Beppino Occelli states that Crutin will go well with pasta and risottos.

Or how about this as a suggestion? Grate Crutin and mix it with butter.  The cheesy butter mix should then be spread on thick country bread.  It’s probably delicious in this way.

Crutin is a cheese for all seasons, and is not something which solely accompanies hearty winter food, as it may be grated and sprinkled on salad dishes in warmer weather.

At the end of the day, cheese lovers like me will find that Crutin tastes just fine when nibbled all on its own, without the glamorous company of heady red wine or the like.

The Crutin Cost

Unless you happen to be rather well heeled, this not perhaps an everyday Italian cheese.  At around €17 for 300 grams, you’d probably call Crutin a cheese for special occasions.

Good things don’t tend to come cheap, and this Crutin cheese is definitely good thing.  I know, I’ve tried it, and I want some more!

As for the other things in this Christmas hamper, well, more will be written about them soon.

Crutin cheese makers: Beppino Occelli – website in English.

Note to Joe, if you happens to pop by – this is yet another glorious Italian delicacy well worth sampling.

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I recently participated in a lively twitter discussion centered around solutions to the airline security issues currently facing international fliers.

After thinking about the problem for a while, I have distilled the essence of the solution into but two words: Diaphanous Gowns.

(We should work on the word “Diaphanous” because it is a word you seldom hear unless you’re prone to sucking the sap outta those bodice-ripper novels you (used to?) find in supermarket check-out lanes. Diaphanous “is of so fine a texture as to be transparent or characterized by extreme delicacy of form.”)

Wouldn’t it be nice to see travelers in clothing of fine texture? Wouldn’t it really, really, help the underpaid guys with the guns to actually see through clothing? Bag o’ explosives diaper-pinned to your jockeys? Visible! Ha ha! Nice try!

Make diaphanous gowns a requirement for international travel and the benefits pile up like dust in unswept corners.

But the benefits of such gownage goes deeper than airline security. The fact that a diaphanous gown weighs practically nothing would make airplanes lighter, thus more fuel efficient. (Prices for a ticket would plummet of course.) Plus, being infinitely thin, requiring flyers to don diaphanous gowns would cut the need for those ginourmous seats they put in steerage class. Thus they could make airplane seats narrower, thus saving even more weight and allowing even more room for that all-important Duty-Free cart to come rambling through the cabin. Imagine how nice it would be to slide diaphanously into your snugly seat!

Do you see? It’s all good!

And don’t get me started on the benefits of wearing diaphanous gowns when it comes time to join the mile-high club. OK?

Yes, here in the Lunigiana we’re blessed with a laid-back lifestyle and a land full of good things to eat. After documenting the processing of Armando’s pig, we’ve been invited to eat much of it at Armando and Francesca’s house. Tonight we’ll be eating cotecchino con pure, or a sausage made from the meat and skin plus some mashed potatoes.

But things aren’t all paradiso found in northern Tuscany. Nope. After our snow storm, in which our entire village lost water for an entire day, the murkey russet sludge started coming from our pipes at the exact moment we lost electricity. It was time for bed, luckily, so we hibernated a while.

But then came the rain. A torrential downpour that put soccer fields completely under lakes complete with ducks.

That was yesterday. You can see the blue bike stored under the overhang in the picture.

It rained all night, then stopped for about three hours. Now it’s raining gatti e cani, cats and dogs. I’m glad we’re on a hill. I wasn’t so glad when the hill was iced over.

Then, to top it all off, someone hit our car while it rested peacefully in our little community parking area. A tail light is broken, a bumper smudged in black. No note, not even in Italian.

Ok, so there are good things to balance the bad. Here’s a picture of a presepe entered in a presepe competition in Pontremoli done by grade school students using only pasta shapes. It sits on a bread paddle. I think. It brings a smile anyway. Click to see it bigger. How many pasta shapes can you see?

So, I know I’ve been somewhat discouraging with this post, but hey, come and visit the Lunigiana some time. Friends have fixed up a kinda neat 17th century monolocale as a vacation rental. It’s a big room with a great kitchen and sleeping loft called Podere Fiana.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I get to have some real turkey, one of Armando’s, that doesn’t have a breast so large it couldn’t walk around proudly. I don’t know about you, but porn star turkeys are about the last thing I want on Christmas.

Sometimes it’s the little things that make a holiday a good one. Hope yours is all you want it to be.