BOLOGNA, OKINAWA

どうもうありがとうございました!

THANKS A LOT!

GRAZIE MILLE!

To all the kind participants at Saturday's cooking class 'Bologna - Okinawa' at Eigo Gym, the coziest private English school of Izumizaki, Naha!

Goods of Europa Vintage Okinawa for sale

It has been fun, also because the place has a perfect setting for cooking classes and the group has been extremely friendly and gentle. Together we made 13 eggs of tagliatelle by hand (my mom said I'm crazy...), plus a bathtub of friggione!

Special THANKS to Shinya-san, the owner of the school, a real gentleman.

Hope to repeat such an experience anytime soon!

PIADINA E MERCATO DA MAMMA LELLA

GRAZIE INFINITE al migliore ristorante italiano di Okinawa, Mamma Lella di Onna-son! Ieri lì, tra un'orgia di piadine fantastiche, abbiamo tenuto un piccolo ma succoso evento: piadine a go-go in cucina, mercato di oggetti vintage dall'Italia sui tavoli. Di recente ho inaugurato Europa Vintage Okinawa, una pagina FB di vendita di oggetti vintage importati direttamente dall'Italia:

www.facebook.com/europa.vintage

Cinque ore spese bene, non solo per fatturare, ma anche per portare un (bel) po' di atmosfera italiana in questo angolo del mondo. Sono venuti parecchi clienti abituali del pluridecorato ristorante, più qualche curioso attirato dalla pubblicità che avevamo fatto all'evento.

GRAZIE MILLE x MILLE to 'Mamma Lella' for hosting yesterday a very special event (Piadina & Mercato)! 

It has been great fun and I could eat two yummy piadine ('speciale' + 'Nutella'). Many thanks to the kind customers that bought Europa Vintage Okinawa's goods (following)!!!

A super THANKS to all Mamma Lella's team: SuperChef Eugenio, SuperEriko and SuperStaff - Genta-san and the new entry Sutepanie-san -, good people as much as the F4!

We enjoyed organizing and holding this little event so much that we decided to hold a similar one - but much bigger and somehow different - in mid December (most probably on Saturday 16th): a Christmas Italian Market and Fair, with Italian products, handicrafts, music, food and atmosphere. 

Where? At Mamma Lella's, mochirrron!

www.facebook.com/Mamma-Lella-Okinawa-762717593809032/

La cosa ci è piaciuta, così tanto che abbiamo deciso di ripeterla a metà dicembre (molto probabilmente sabato 16), quando terremo un mercato di natale all'ombra del Tricolore: cucina, oggetti vintage, artigianato, figatine natalizie, musica e forse lezioni di pasta fresca. Non escludiamo la partecipazione di qualche amante della FIAT 500 e delle biciclette italiane. 

Un grazie di cuore per ieri al fantastico team (F4) di Mamma Lella: SuperCuoco Eugenio, SuperEriko e il SuperStaff: Genta-san e la new entry Sutepanie-san, tutta brava gente di cui questo pianeta si può pregiare. GRAZIE RAGAZZI!!! Ci vediamo assieme a Babbo Natale!

LITTLE ITALYANATA AT TOP SECRET BEACH

TRENTA enormi sacchi di spazzatura, perlopiù plastica donata dai merdosi di mezzo mondo al santo mare: questo il prodotto interno lordo delle pulizie di pasqua, ieri, a Top Secret Beach. Una quantità immane portata dalle correnti marine e depositate sul bagnasciuga di una bellissima spiaggia per fortuna non ancora frequentata da orde cinesi o destinata - come tutto qui - alla cementificazione. Per questo, prima di giungere sul posto, abbiamo tenuto un solenne giuramento sulle nostre mamme, gatti, cani, figli: non riveleremo MAI dove si trova la spiaggia!

In realtà la cosa era nata come un'italianata al mare, ma considerando che di italiani a Okinawa siamo quattro gatti, e che il caldo sega le gambe ai più, e che la maggior parte dei girolami ha sempre impegni precedentemente presi, alla fine ci siamo davvero ritrovati in soli quattro passaporti italiani. Niente tressette, vino, gestacci. Però abbiamo fatto una buona grigliata dando pure da mangiare gli avanzi a un esercito di paguri.

After swearing on our moms, cats, dogs and children to keep the secret about the location, today we made a massive clean up of Top Secret Beach, a wonderful corner of Okinawa devastated by the garbage that too many dickheads of this poor planet drop in its seas.
The numbers: 9 super-heroes, 2 mini-heroes, 30 HUGE bags of assorted nastiness. The trophy: a full door of a fridge (made in Japan).

Il resto del medagliere (9 adulti, 2 bambine) era così composto: Giappone, U.S.A., Guatemala. Tutti ci siamo fatti un mazzo grande così, considerando che in spiaggia ci siamo arrivati a mezzogiorno, quando forse c'erano 200°C e zero ombra. Bruciati dal sole, ci siamo comunque rimboccati le maniche e abbiamo fatto il nostro porco dovere.

The whole thing was born as an Italian beach party, but considering that Italians in Okinawa are more or less quattro gatti, the crazy heat and the general laziness of human beings, we ended up picking up an obscene amount on trash, more than just drinking vino and making strange gestures. Even so, we made a yummy barbecue with also a lot of delicious fruits afterwards.
Four nations, this time, contributed to the cleaning, but not the two surfers that we met at the beach (surfing is cool, you know, collecting waste not so much). They didn't move a finger nor an arigatou.

Come al solito in queste circo stanze, i testimoni di passaggio (un paio di pescatori - principali smerdatori dei mari, seguiti al volo dai naviganti cinesi; immaginatevi quando smerda un pescatore cinese -; un paio di surfisti) non hanno mosso un mignolo per aiutarci.

Tutto, com'è giusto che sia, è stato corroborato da una grande quantità di bagnetti, anche per raffreddare le scatole craniche. Alle 18, fatta la foto di gruppo (trofeo della giornata: un intero portellone da frigo giapponese), ci siamo portati la discarica a casa. Sei ore sudate ma spese benissimo, che ci hanno regalato la dolce illusione di aver fatto qualcosa di utile per l'amata Okinawa.

In the end, tired and burnt (but very happy, with the feeling of having done something useful for Okinawa), we brought the bags home. I hope the sea currents will wait for some time before covering again this beautiful place with half plastic of the planet.
THANKS ありがとうGRAZIE GRACIAS to all the nice friends that today made this possible!

GRAZIE di cuore a tutti gli amici che hanno partecipato! 

SENAGA, BYE-BYE

Once upon a nice time, not long time ago, a beautiful, small and wild island by Naha’s airport. Senaga-jima – its name – was a holy place, in different ways. For some people it was an ancestors place, to be respected in harmony with nature. It was holy for the large stray cats community living there, far from the wheels of the city and somehow safe in the local forest. It was a holy place for the many clandestine couples that could have some romantic, boom-boom privacy by the road parallel to the airport landing field, especially after dusk (that road used to be pointed, here and there, by some liquid love contained in abandoned condoms). Senaga, for sure, was a holy place for me. Over there me and my dearest friends for some years held great birthday parties, yummy barbecues (once we even stole, with a certain success, some lamb to some bitchy ladies), sweaty frescobol - Brazilian beach tennis – games (in Senaga I even founded the F.A.O., Frescobol Addicts Okinawa, unsuccessfully trying to develop and promote this beautiful sport in Okinawa; but in Okinawa it’s too hot and people are too busy to make it grow). 

I loved the place so much to organize for at least two years some beach clean-ups (unsuccessfully, in Okinawa it’s too hot and people are too busy to make them grow). Local people, after boom-booming, or just after watching the sunset, loved to drop on the send not just liquid love but also beer (if only Okinawa had real beer) cans, wheels, ice-cream wrappings, lighters, bento containers, used diapers and, why not, whole bags filled with garbage. Sometimes, while we were picking up their nastiness, local people clapped their hands to us, as a gesture of approval (gaijin do strange things, you know), avoiding carefully to use the same hands to help and pick up their shit.

The beach, since ever, was a family, free place. Open to everybody, day and night, for huge picnics, families holidays blessed by hectolitres of beer, awamori and other happy things. Somebody played the sanshin, somebody brought a radio to hear other kinds of music. No-bo-dy would dare to come and bother you for such freedom. No guards, no life-guards, no stupid buoys to limit the swimming space. The sea water was not the cleanest of this planet, but still it was very nice to float into it.

BEFORE

NOW

ONE tree left: a designated survivor?

Then… one day the future… started. The huge hotel that dominates the island, famous for its onsen, gave birth to a wonderful project. And I began smelling the end. They sent some architect to Europe to study famous places as (if I remember well) Amalfi, Santorini, Cap d’Antibes. They came back to Okinawa with a vague, chanpūru-style project. A village for tourists that wanted to remind vaguely the architecture, the atmosphere and, above all, the money of those famous European tourism traps. Over a fourth of the island trees fell under the Caterpillars, and – I guess – many cats had to find another planet where to live. The Umikaji Terrace was born, with his white, cool, walls. Many new cute shops found a new business chance there. Initially I thought the village wouldn’t have a great success, but… time showed me that I was wrong. What once was a beautiful horizon line where to enjoy the natural show of sunset, soon became a work-in-progress line. The construction of the new, loooong landing field for the airport (more and bigger airplanes, more Chinese well educated tourist, much more $) became the new horizon. People continued protesting for the destruction of the marine environment in Henoko’s Bay – to make space for a bigger American military base -, but as far as I know no one said a word about the destruction of the marine environment in Senaga.

Yesterday, a very sad day for me, I visited Senaga after months I hadn’t been there. Shock is a light word to describe my feelings. The public beach is gone, surrounded by fences and signs that remind you that now is only a cool place for lounge lovers. Lounge lovers that, for an adequate amount, can sleep in cool trailers by the cool barbecues. Do you have the dream to bring your own barbecue here? Your barbecue is not cool, so… The beach is literally, physically gone. The enlargement of the airport drained the sea, blocking the tide. Before you could swim, now you can walk into mud for half kilometer before touching the sea. No more picnics, no more frescobol, maybe also no more stray garbage and no more car-boom-booms. Certainly no more stray cats. At the moment was was left of the natural island is been taking care by another kind of CAT, more with the face of a Caterpillar. I wonder how many months it’ll take before the very last tree will be gone. What used to be a nice lawn by the baseball field became a concrete parking lot.

HALF BEACH: GONE

Sometimes we used to go to Senaga also to collect some coins to help the local community of stray cats. We supported several TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) sterilization projects in the island, with the precious help of one friend and with the support of three shops that hosted our donation boxes. Now that the shining future has arrived in $enaga – no more nature, no more cats -, we decided to retire our boxes and to put them somewhere else. Somewhere else where money is not considered the main target of life.

THANKS a lot to all the nice people the helped the poor cats until today, and THANKS a lot to all the friends that filled up my Senaga-memories with very happy moments. To the others (the ‘developer$’) I can just say: may your karma give you a stray cat life along the Route 58th, the next time you’ll visit this poor, sad planet.

TASTE OF OKINAWA

Bella giornata ieri al bar-ristorante-scuola di cucina 'Taste of Okinawa', un nuovo (cinque mesi di vita), fantastico locale alla fine della galleria commerciale nel centro di Naha. Di solito 'Taste of Okinawa' ospita avventure culinarie focalizzate sulla cucina locale, per stranieri e/o per giapponesi che parlano l'inglese. Li portano a spasso al mercato di Makishi, dove stanano gli ingredienti tradizionali (avete visto come sono bravo e non ho usato la bestemmia 'tipici'?) dell'arcipelago, li comprano, poi via tutti di corsa a cucinare e masticare. Ieri è stato il loro battesimo per la gaijin-cuisine, grazie anche alla collaborazione collaudata con Giovanni Il Formaggiaio, aka John Davis - The Cheese Guy in Okinawa.

Come al solito Giovanni ha prodotto ed esibito miracoli, tra cui la sua ultima creazione, il 'Ryukyu Crown', fantastico formaggio indipendentista. La mia lezioncina di cucina, però, ha avuto come guest star il suo formaggio affumicato, per me il migliore del mazzo (e migliorissimo di qualunque altro formaggio affumicato che io abbia mai mangiato in cinquantun annetti di vita terrena).

Hanno partecipato perlopiù simpatici americani e un paio di vecchia amici indigeni. Assieme abbiamo fatto appena SEDICI uova di maltagliati (farina di semola, what else?) e UN CHILO di polenta. Qui, quest'ultima, è un oggetto esotico, non apprezzato da tutti (come in Italia), però ad alcuni piace molto, anche perché - nonostante la noia di doverla mescolare per un'oretta - nel momento in cui la si versa sull'asse di legno dà la sensazione del parto. Di avere fatto Qualcosa.

THANKS A LOT to all the nice people that today came to our little event 'Italy+England = Okinawa' at 'Taste of Okinawa' Cooking School in Naha! It has been a real pleasure cooking for you using the amazing cheeses of my dear friend John Davis, 'The Cheese Guy in Okinawa' (my mouth is still having several orgasms after trying his last creations). A special どうもありがとうございました to Tomoaki-san and to his gentle wife Lauren, owners of the supercool 'Taste of Okinawa' bar, restaurant and cooking school (my Dream: a beautiful day to have a kitchen and a dining space like yours at home...), as well as to my wife Satoko for the always very precious help.

CIAO!

Ringraziamenti di rito: a Tomo-san e alla moglie Lauren, per aver ospitato questo mini-evento nel loro fighissimo locale. A Giovanni, per i Suoi Formaggi che anche se dio non esiste in Essi si manifesta. A Satoka, per il suo solito, indispensabile aiuto. A Elizabeth Lopez-Castro per molte di queste belle foto. E, last but not lust (...), al tassista che ci ha portati - me, Satoka, cento pentole - al luogo della sfida, nonostante la pioggia battente. 

みんあさんどうもありがとうございました！