First Place - Mag Cover: Vienna Kids

In the May issue, of The Atlantic, Benjamin Schwarz writes a critique on Konner’s book. This little synopsis is great since it’s longer than War and Peace, and took about as long to write. Crossing multiple disciplines, Konner exhaustively explores the biological evolution of human behavior. The central paradox is: “The smartest mammals are the most playful, so these traits have apparently evolved together.

So, here is the thing – if you just play at whatever you like, you benefit from exercise, learning, and sharpening your skills. Furthermore, this encourages us to try new things and learn with more flexibility. Schwarz deduces (thank you very much!), “In fact, it (playing) may be the primary means nature has found to develop our brains.”

The reason this article jumped out at me is that Freud used to say that Leonardo da Vinci was the most child-like adult to have ever lived. In fact, there are stories of his playing, experimenting, testing, using his body for dancing, spontaneously singing, and playing instruments as the mood struck. His journals are peppered with quips, quotes and witty comments. He was a jokester. (There is the downside of being irreverent, irresponsible, and unreliable – the only reason “The Last Supper” was completed was that payment was withheld!)

This is one reason I created Da Vinci Capers eight years ago. I wanted to play more, experience the fun moments as when we were a child, or perhaps for the first time in our lives, hold a paint brush, or play with clay, or order a coffee in Italian… One day, I will tell you exactly at what moment I knew that Da Vinci Capers had to be created.

In the meantime – play away!

On NPR this morning, Barbara Strauch, Health and Medical Science Editor for The New York Times, told us about the research findings based on tracking people from the 1950′s and following them throughout their lives. Strauch said that we do have ‘little stumbles’, but she reassures us that we should not despair. The science concludes that starting around 40ish, our brain actually improves in a number of areas.

For example, white matter. I used to blame camping in the Grand Canyon and drinking water loaded with heavy metals for my little fatty white matter balls. But, no! “As we do things, as we learn things, the white matter increases and the brain signals move faster,” says Strauch. Thus, your brain sees connections faster, big pictures, assesses the situations at lightening speed – which she calls, “middle-aged wisdom.” Now, this is enough for me. But, wait! There’s more…

We can actually sharpen our brain by getting out of our comfort zone – take up a hobby like playing an instrument or learning a foreign language. Our brain is like a race horse (Kentucky Derby on my mind) – it likes to be worked. If you’re good at crossword or Sudoku puzzles, move on to something else. It must challenge the mind.

This is where Leonardo da Vinci’s Sfumato comes in – embracing the unknown and trying something you’ve never done before. Learning Italian, sculpting with terra-cotta, painting with oils, take up creative writing, learning how to use your new digital camera on a Da Vinci Capers’ trip!

We hope to see you in Boulder next month or in Italy this fall. Now, what adventure will we be doing?!

Tis the season...

All tomatoes are not all equal. They range from the one-dimensional sugary jumbo beefsteak, to thin skins with the perfect balance between acid and sweetness of the Neapolitan tomatoes.

What is it about this plump, juicy fruit that makes one wax poetic? The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda called tomatoes “the stars of the earth” which “grant us the festival of ardent color and all-embracing freshness.” Marcella Hazan writes that the tomato is “one of agricultural man’s greatest triumphs, one of the most glorious products he has ever grown.”

When I was 18 years old and head over heels for my now-husband, my first gift to him from sunny Florida was a box of freshly picked tomatoes. This didn’t seem strange to me – picked with love, packaged with TLC before making the long trek north of 2,000 miles. As a young university student, I’m sure he scratched his head. But those ‘stars of the earth’ won him over!

For me, the food in this region is the best in Italy. The sun kisses everything from lemons to basil; but, I haven’t tried the richly diverse cuisines of Sicily… that’s next.

Note to Alan Richman: I’ve been meaning to tell you, you are now the Da Vinci of Food Critics! Bravo!!

Learn more about our adventures in Italy with Da Vinci Capers ~ A Personal Renaissance Journey.

Ya all come back now!

Being an art object by eating ‘on display’, or eating within art by eating in the home of your food is a new twist for dining. For example, Ozu is a new Japanese restaurant this is inside a real aquarium. I just had to laugh. It’s as if I opened up a little neighborhood restaurant in a chicken coop and only served chicken dishes! (Sorry, Leona) Or, in a pigsty and served BLT’s.

Speaking of pork… now I will confess my story in this ethereal world of blogs about the time we arrived in Paris, tired and (speaking for myself) a little cocky with 2-years of French, ordered off the menu at this mid-priced restaurant in the 6th. I read, “porc” and thought “safe…” I skimmed over the ‘pied.’

Okay. Do the Parisians know about ‘You’re on Candid Camera?!’ As I approached this hoof with knife and fork, a wall of bitty bones rolled out on my lap! Besides being appalled, I wanted to know – where’s the meat? Shocked and forlorn, I begged for some of my husband’s salmon.

Moral – don’t be proud (or lazy)… open the dictionary or ask!

Orange - you either love it, or hate it!

That would have been the end of the story if my husband didn’t return home from a business trip and say, “Little loud, huh? Reminds me of those drapes you made the first year we were married.” Then, we both burst out laughing!

My God – he was right! Double-digit yards of orange flowers made into long flowing drapes. Another: I saw, I liked, I made. They were truly ugly and after forty years, we still get a laugh out of them!

But, this got me thinking, what is it with the color orange? My very first clothing purchase was an orange plaid kilt, not a small print – it had huge squares! My mother, “Ummm, that’s nice…”

I think back, I have had so many orange purchases. Just two years ago, while doing a Da Vinci Caper’s trip in Vernazza (Cinque Terre), I saw a small version of my first purchase – literally! A tiny orange kilt that you wore over jeans. Since I wasn’t in a ’0′ any longer, my nerve waned and it ended up in the ‘give a-ways.’

I thought that I either have really bad taste or this new awareness could unlock a personality trait and could explain my eclectic behavior. So, I did a search:

Orange – It stimulates enthusiasm and creativity. Orange means vitality with endurance. Orange is the color of joy and creativity and promotes a general sense of wellness. It provides emotional energy that you can give to others, including compassion, passion and genuine warmth.

The nice thing about this kind of research, you can skip over more negative comments, like, being flamboyant, fickle, and orange is representative of “gluttony.”

I decided that next to red and berry, I love orange. In fact, I’m now dreaming of my next car – a tangerine mini-cooper, with a black convertible top. Let’s see, what does mean: “The message you send by driving an Orange vehicle: Fun-loving, talkative, fickle, and trendy.” I guess that’s me!

Does your color match your personality?

P.S. Anyone interested in a great orange carrot soup recipe?! Just let me know – it’s the best!

Sicily

As one native Sicilian friend recently told me, “Sicily is the keystone to Italy.  You must go to Sicily to understand Italy.”  In 1787, Goethe did not mince words, “To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all. For Sicily is the clue to everything.”

What is the clue?  I don’t think it’s her art or cuisine. The Renaissance – the masters of art and science – was birthed in Tuscany.  And the gastronomy of each region rivals the next as well as their wines.  I think the clue could be the Italian intensity for life that is so strongly felt in Sicily, and moves up the boot to Naples and into Rome.  It is the can-do flame that ignites curiosity and imagination.

As Francine Prose deduces in her wonderful book, Sicilian Odyssey, “…one quality that seems dependable, immutable, endlessly available, I’d say that is was intensity.  For nothing in Sicily seems withheld, done halfway, restrained or suppressed.”  To expand -  they live their life on their sleeve – no reticence, hesitancy, fear or embarrassment of their actions.

This shedding of self-consciousness is what we call, Sfumato in Da Vinci Capers – embracing the unknown – something that is really difficult for most of us, but so liberating and fun.  This is why we are creating an adventure in Sicily – to capture some of that energy we know propels the engine of creativity.  Not just sight-seeing of  old  ruins – but to create a new story- your story.   Your new cultural and art experiences are the weft threads to weave into your  personal tapestry.  Your sailing  journey around Sicily with Da Vinci Capers will be like Odysseus’ journey, except you make the weaving – not Penelope.

But, according to David Kirby, whether you eat beef, chicken, lamb or duck (actually, he didn’t say ‘duck’ – I just included these feathered friends because of memories making duck tacos – from ducks that Dick Cheney shot!  This is a true story! Stay tuned)…  in any case, Mr. Kirby’s point in his recent book Animal Factory, is that if you are going to eat meat, practice eating meat from sources other than “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations” (factory farms) or CAFOs.

In Kirby’s  recent article, 6 Baby Steps Toward a More Sustainable Animal Diet, he breaks it down in practical steps.  For example,  shop on a Monday and buy organic meat with a red-tag discount sticker (something I never do since I have a phobia of getting food poison), or start with one food at a time.   I really do want to rest my head on my pillow with a clear conscious and do what’s morally right.

This issue must be weighing heavy on my mind.  Just two nights ago, I had a nightmare of  soy cakes lined up in a row.  They were huge, like mattresses.  I jumped on them like a trampoline.  On some, I bounced high, on others I sunk into the white sponge.  I was exhausted when I woke up.

Although Leona would flap her wings like a cheerleader,  I’m just not ready to become a 100% vegetarian.   Does organic Kobe beef steaks ever have those little red-tags?  Did those cows think they were going on a round-the-world cruise and ended up in a Texas meat-packing plant (a CAFO)?

Perhaps I should jump for joy for soy!

This little vignette is from my imagination after reading the New York Times Magazine (Dec. 13, 2009, pg 42) article on “Gourmet Dirt.”  As with wine tasting, Laura Parker, goes one level deeper – that is, smelling dirt in a wine glass (with a little water to release vapor molecules) while eating meat and vegetables from that very same campo.

Is this our next big rage, matching animal to pen?  “Earthy, peppery, citrusy…”  I better get the word out to Leona and friends!

Illustration by Mr. Bingo

As I sit in an upscale Cape Town hotel, I look out my window to see blue sky and sunshine.  But, it was only 12 hours ago that it was raining horizontally.  Today’s headline in “Cape Times” reads:  “City flooded as rivers spill over.”  Over 1,000 people in the “informal areas” – the poor Capetonians living in shacks – spent a cold and soggy night.  Unlike San Diego, this area seems pretty violital -  one minute sunshine, the next torrents of rain.

Extremes are not only in the weather – the gap between the rich and the poor is huge.  In Cape Town, I can feel it: safe inside the hotel – not safe within a block.  This is not an exageration.  Even where we are located at the “Waterfront”, the safest tourist spot.

As the city prepares themselves for world attention in the 2010 soccer games, Cape Town is trying to reshape its reputation as not being crime-ridden.  “As with any big city, one must be aware…” is what they say at the hotel.   The second breath is to offer you a taxi (I see 11 outside my window waiting), or take their shuttle ($5 each way).

Let’s see… two days ago I spoke with a burly fellow from Sydney who was visiting the “Waterfront” and suddenly had a shoulder pressing on his with the hot words whispering in his ear, “I have a knife.  Give me your money.”   Keeping his cool, the Sydney fellow said, “If you want your money follow me.” As  he proceeded to a more public area – the front of a small hotel – he turned and threw him R10.  The robber just looked at him with total confusion and anger in his eyes. ( R10 is about a buck!)  The Aussie just arrived and was still sorting out the exchange rate in his head!  So, he threw down a R100 bill (around $12) and said, “Go with God!” even though he has never uttered these words in his life! And, he left! 

Not to bust their bubble of having fun and friendly folks, but the story over working out on the treadmill this morning was about a gun-wielding man also at the Waterfront last night…

Ah… one year to go.  I think I’ll be home in sunny and safe Boulder.

Read more on our great trip on the “Garden Route”, Prince Albert, the wine capital of South Africa – Stellenbosch and a place called, “Boulders”, where Leonina frolics with the African Penguin!

(Pictures coming…)

As I packed for our African safari, I decided in the last minute to throw in my red Maryjane Crocs.   I remember reading that we will be standing in our socks on the seats of the jeep to view the animals and that slip-on shoes would be ideal for quick maneuvering!

Shoes became a topic of conversation from the first day of our trip.  Everyone walked everywhere all day.  Where were they going?   People were walking with baskets, water jugs, even tables and grills on their heads.   They were walking selling their wares or herding their goats.  They pushed carts and pulled carts.  Some wore strapped sandals, some canvas tennis shoes, many went bare-footed.

Along the road and in the fields,  we saw the bright plaid robes of the Maasai tribe in the distance.  Their shoes were made of motorcycle tires!  You would pick the tire you liked (new or used) and they would cut it to your size and put straps on it while you waited!  These must serve them well since they walk about 20 miles a day on these tires!  (Michelin – take notice!)

Then we went to the Bashu Primary School in Arusha, grades one through seven – 767 children in all!  We visited the upper classrooms where they were studying English.  We sang songs to each other and created small groups for Q & A.  Despite gaping holes in their uniforms, most of them smiled from ear-to-ear.  Joice wants to be a doctor, Adelina a teacher.  They were incredibly positive and seemed determined.

Then we learned that there is no money for lunches so the children must walk home for lunch.  This means two round-trips every day to school for six days.  It is  not unusual for them to walk five miles a day.  If the distance is too far to go home for lunch – they just don’t eat.

This is when I thought of Crocs for these students.  They don’t wear down, they are comfortable, bacteria-free and great for the monsoons.  And, if we can figure out how to get more money for lunches, desks, pens and yes, new sweaters…

On the last day of our trip, we visited Charles Laurent.  Charles was only eight years old when we began to sponsor him though Compassionate International.  He is now 18 years old!  We regularly receive letters and knew that he just passed a major exam, and  was also selected to play on a soccer team in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania’s political capital).  Charles wants to be a civil engineer – a great choice.  He and his mother live in one-room (the size of a bedroom) -  corrugated steel roof, mud walls, no kitchen, and no bathroom.  Very clean and very sparse.

When we arrived with the translator to their home, Charles beamed and his mother sat and started weeping.  Our support seems so small, yet means so much.  Then, I noticed that the mother did not have shoes!  She wore a beautiful dress, a necklace, her hair pulled up and pinned,  but no shoes.

By now, shoes were such the conversation that our guides told us that people desperately needed shoes and pens!  I thought of my red Crocs.  I washed them beforehand and tucked them in my back-pack just in case they fit Charles’ mother.  Sure enough, when I pulled them out and she tried them on, I felt like I was the prince in Cinderella! They fit perfectly!

Thank you Crocs for your wonderful shoes – they were made for walking!

Shoes:  Photo album