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Home > What's New > Wise and Foolish Virigins
Wise and Foolish Virigins
Posted: Monday, September 22, 2003
By Peter Weller Tommaso, Catarina and I recoup after San Paolo's by inhaling all the proscuitto, cheese and Brunello on a bench outside the convent and I smoke my next to last robusto. I am really feeling like a foolish virgin at this point and figure I must get busy and haunt the streets for a tobaccaio (tobacco shop). But Catarina insists we make our way to the mind-blowing Romanesque Baptistry and its wealth of thirteenth century work, only five minutes away; right across from which is the Duomo in which is a cupola or dome, depicting the final Corregio masterpiece The Assumption, finished around 1530. Listen folks. Even if you don't dig art, you must feast on this. You look up into this dome to a staggering frescoed view of an ocean filled with the swirling dance of angels, clouds and the devout, seeming to stand, hang or fly from windows, walls and sky, all circling right up to the center point where Heaven opens in a blast of sunlight, drawing the Virgin right into Paradise. The opus is the true forerunner of the Baroque idea, lest you go to Rome and see the staggering churches there including the Jesuiti. The Baroque cats, not only would go off on the Renaissance with oval and curves and whatnot, but they would design and paint everything from artificial and real buildings, tombs, statues, angels, shadows even, all incorporated into one single eye feast of perspective. And yet Corregio beat them to the punch by 100 years.
Corregio has markedly induced a cigar hunt, so I bid adieu to Tommaso and Catarina until dinner. As this writer has already mentioned, Italy is not the choice locale for good stogies, as the remnants of a monopoly still prohibit most tabaccaios from retailing good Latin American stock. However, European Union pressure is slowly changing that. In the Strada Cavour, a lush promenade, I pass a young accordion player named Nando who sails through a Mozart sonata like a virtuoso, extraordinarily more competent than your average street fare. Indeed, three elderly local ladies stop by, drop serious loot into Nando's hat, applaud and call him by name. Pretty good gig, I guess, and popular with the natives yet. The maestro steers me to a small joint called Tabaccheria Numero 35. I'm thinking, "If the place has a number and no name, what can be behind that door?" And yet, at Tabaccheria N. 35, I meet a very pretty blonde who looks like a 40-ish version right out of LDFP's Virgin opus. Her name is Anna, and she holds no lamp nor balances a vase on her head. But the other beautiful item about the place is its coffee bar. I order an espresso and compliment her coffee, her establishment and her looks. (Italians assemble the most astute charm in a compliment). Sadly, she only has Romeo y Julieta Churchill tubos and the usual Monte No. 4 pack on hand. However, hearing the sadness and desperation in my voice when I say I am down to one last Bolivar robusto, she returns with "buona fortuna per te, posso dirti dove un grand tabacaio cigaro." (Good luck for you, I can tell you where you can find a great cigar store.) I am seriously smitten. She tells me to mention her name to the owner Fabrizio.
Off I go down the Strada, two blocks, to arrive at a modern store, all glass, steel and wood, named the "Cigar Club Parma", owned and operated by Fabrizio Melley, a man for whom the descriptive "terse" would be an understatement. His son, Filipo, compensates for Papa's economy with smiles and chat. Although Filipo recognizes me from flicks, Fabrizio doesn't quite believe that I write for Cigar Aficionado. So I am forced to drop two names. One is Andrea Molinari, a dear friend from Milan, an entrepeneur extraordinaire and owner of a private cigar club in his home town called CIGAIR. Andrea, whom I am to see the following night, also makes his own beautiful smokes in Nicaragua, grown from Cuban seed, called "OneOff". In the last two years, Andrea has brought the company and its product into world-class quality and I particularly love the double coronas. Fabrizio carries them, so I buy a box. However he is still not completely convinced that I am not some office boy from L.A. who wandered into his store looking for cannoli. So I drop the other name and his lights go on. I say I am a dear friend of "John," arguably the most noted connoisseur of a smoke south of Florida, and my cigar compano for years. (Several of our adventures have been chronicled in this column).
"I don't know John personally, but I have always wanted to meet him!," says Fabrizio. "Fulvio [Fincato, an amazing chap and proprietor of Rome's most elegant tobacco store] says he is the most interesting and astute of cigar aficionados!" That he is, I assure Fabrizio, and now the heavens of hospitality open. I score four boxes: Hoyo D.Cs, Epicure No. 2s, Juan Lopez No. 3s and another box of the blackest Bolivar Robustos I have ever seen. (Yes, all Cuban, and no, I do not bring them into the States but leave them in my digs in southern Italy.) Fabrizio is now so friendly, I note that his initial lack of enthusiasm was only due to impromptu shyness. Once warmed up, he is a delightful raconteur, and he personally accompanies me around the corner to a nouveau hip coffee bar that roasts its own beans, entitled Lino's. The café latte is so smooth and delicious, it smothers me to think how American chain coffee stores want to bring their burned and bitter commodity to Italy. The Italians uniformly do a light roast of a bean, and serve a ristretto (tight) small espresso that tastes of cream.
(A side note: There is no real such thing as a "dark Italian" roast. The tighter the coffee is extracted, the smoother the taste and the less caffeine. The longer and looser the water runs through the coffee, the more bitter the taste and the stronger the drug. This is why Neapolitans can down five or six a day -- even having one before they retire -- and not get the heebie jeebies. They cannot drink the drip grind American stuff, and most detest our version of espresso, too large and extracted from an overcooked, black and oily bean.)
An "adios" to Fabrizio and Filipo, and I return to the hotel for a quick nap before joining Tommaso and Catarina for dinner at "Ristorante La Greppia", recommended to me by the Italian gourmet critic and all-around culinary maven Faith Willinger. When Faith says, "Eat here", I eat here. She lives in Florence, ("dos" ughs), where one who is looking to light up can find a great smoke from at Tabaccaio Sotto I Portici in the Piazza della Republica.
Faith has advised me that the chef/owner of La Greppia, Paola Cavazzini, employs only women in the kitchen. Paola says "a man's hands are not delicate enough to handle the cuisine." I ask her if she has Parmaginino's Wise and Foolish girls back there working. She replies, "Certo! E di piu!" (Certainly. And more!) Whoever is working, it's a marvel. In this petite and elegant eatery, Tommaso, Catarina and I inhale ravioli with a concoction of eggplant and other things divine, accompanied by a Solaia '97 and a Sassachaia of the same year, all for very reasonable prices.
The dinner is served only by males (slaves?), and it is one of the best I've had in Italy in 22 years. The Hoyo D.C. on the after-dinner walk through the moonlit town, was only marred by a street politician loudly lambasting the American position in Iraq (Basta!).
The following day we hire a car to drive the 20 minutes to the tiny old hamlet of Fontanellato, in the middle of which stands a castle containing the boudoir of Paola Gonzaga (of the Mantua dynasty…stay awake, class!) On the ceiling of Paola's boudoir is painted LDFP's answer to Corregio's sexy room for Giovanna, the abbess at St. Paul's. The ceiling is a combo of… yep. Bamboo and nudes. It depicts the story of Actaeon from Ovid's Metamorphoses. (I trust you are remembering Jupiter and my girlfriend's shoes at this point, Students?) Actaeon desired to spy on the goddess of the hunt, Diana, and her hand-maiden while both bathed. Actaeon, a mere mortal with not quite the cloud or gold pizzazz of the quick-change artist, Jupiter, sneaked a peak and the girls caught him. And for that faux pas, Diana changed him into a stag, whereupon his own dogs killed him. Tough rap for a little eye candy. Strolling the small hamlet over a Juan Lopez corona gorda, I ponder how libido was only for the gods in these myths. All mortals got bludgeoned for fooling around. Tommaso, Catarina and I have a last three-way harangue on which piece of art was risqué. Back in Parma, I bid my friends adieu at their train to Venice, and make off for Milan where, on the train, I share a dining car lunch with an entrepeneur named Vincenzo Arcella, who heads a company named "Round" that creates marketing and events in Rome. Having finished 20th Century's The Order with Heath Ledger (it premiered this September 5), Vincenzo delights in telling me that he has created several events for films in the legendary studio, Cine Citta, where The Order was shot, and where I worked for MGM's Leviathan in 1989. After commiserating that cigars can no longer be lit in dining cars, we repair to the smoking car for two Juan Lopezes, which last until the train pulls into Milan.
I head for the Four Seasons, and then off to an evening with Andrea Molinari at Montecristo, possibly that very last cigar/restaurant open to the public in the western world. It's run by Gianfranco Fielis, a charming and very polite fellow whose unique countenance and voice might conjure up the boatswain of Long John Silver. There is, to boot, a mural of Gianfranco on the wall that strikes me of Great Expectations. His is one of the best fish joints in the city. I make it a habit not to eat fish inland, including in Paris, but most great Mediterranean fisheries send their product to Milan daily, so that city is the exception to my rule. Montecristo is a winner. After exchanges on Fabrizio, our mutual friend, "John," the virgins, Parma's ham and cheese -- all during a feast of langouste -- Andrea and I puff away on one of his One Off torpedoes and then speak about the lousy state of the dollar, my cue to head for the States the following morn.
My flight detours me to Amsterdam for four hours. To pass the time, I take the 15-minute train ride from the airport into downtown and the absolute most beautiful tobacco store in the world, "P.G.C. Hajenius", managed by Eelco P. Huizinga. Sales chief Hans Sijmons comps me a Partagas Lusitania that I light up in the back room coffee store; where, thank the gods and virgins of mannerism, the espresso is Italian.
The smoke lasts a long walk around the town as I visit locations of a film on which I'd worked. The film initiated in London, carried me to the rich cigars and ambience of the Grand Place of Brussels, Amsterdam's storybook canals and gingerbread houses, and finally to Paris and days by the Seine. Whereupon, after those three enchanting weeks I returned to London and parted company with that production under creative differences, only to travel to Florida to film something new and wondrous. As I wander Amsterdam I recollect, "now Florida has its share of great smokes." It also has ham and cheese, even dolphins; alas no church walls adorned with diaphanous blondes. Gee, maybe the Epcot Center should…nah.
AT A THEATRE NEAR YOU!!
The Order
distributed by 20th Century Fox
Starring Heath Ledger, Mark Addy and Yours Truly
Written and directed by Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Payback)
Produced by Craig Baumgarten
PARMA
Ristorante La Greppia (Michelin 1 star, all cooks female. "Men's hands aren't gentle enough," says Paola)
Owner/chef: Paola Cavazzini
Via Garibaldi # 39A
Parma, Italy 43100
Tel: (011 39)05 21 23 36 86
Tabaccheria N. 35
Owner: Annarita ("Anna")
Via Cavour #39/A
Parma, Italy 43100
Tel: (011 39)05 21 23 77 49
Cigar Club Parma
Owner: Fabrizio (father) & Filipo (son) Melley
Via Farini # 18c
Parma, Italy 43100
Tel: (011 39)05 21 28 93 04
Lino's Coffee Shop
Owner: Angelo De Rinaldis
Bartender: Marco
Via Nazario Sauro #4a
Parma, Italy 43100
Tel: (011 39)05 21 23 57 21
Accordian Player
"Nando"
Corner of Duomo Promenade
MILAN
Montecristo
Owner: Gianfranco (father) & Federico (son) Fielis
Via Giuseppe Prena #17
Tel: (011 39)02 349 50 49
Andrea Molinari
"OneOff" Cigars
CIGAIR Cigar Club
Via Molino delle Armi #5
Tel: (011 39)02 89 42 00 89
ROME
Round Marketing and Events (Servizi manifestazioni culturali)
Contact: Vincenzo Arcella
Tel: (011 39)06 70 45 24 20
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