Coronavirus diary: keeping busy

I did my best not to get bored. A part from working on my PhD thesis and my writings. I met my fellow writers online. It was exciting to have a chat on our pieces, exchange feedbacks and have the opportunity to keep in touch despite isolation. We met every four weeks and updated the Woking Writers Circle’s website with pictures and comments. We kept in touch on Twitter and Facebook as well trying not to lose track of what we were doing, suggesting each other new ideas on our experience of Covid-19, transformations, football, how we were at 20 and how our gardens go. I joined webinar events with Canada-UK foundation, online art classes, meetings, performances and lectures. It was a bit hectic at times. The Tate and V&A sent emails with engrossing links to articles and videos. It was a good chance to keep going and find new prompts for my creative life.

During the lockdown I also did a lot of crochet, knitting and sewing, starting new projects that made me feel creative and alive. I don’t know why but I mainly concentrated on purses and bags using both crochet patterns and some nice pieces of fabrics my daughter gave me some time ago. It was more the process than the final product that intrigued me, the opportunity to create something new, realise my product. I used buttons to close the bags as I ran out of zips at a certain point but then I placed an order for fifty zips on Amazon. Each time I finished a purse or a bag I sent the photo to my mum through Tania’s Facebook account (she is the carer’s who lives with my mum). Both Tania and my mum sent me back pictures of their work, crochet and knitting beautiful things, they did during the lockdown. I also made bags inspired by Japanese boro bags and a t-shirt for my autistic daughter Valentina with Leela, her favourite cartoon character, embroidered on the front. I put some things on Facebook marketplace (I am under Carla Scarano) and managed to sell some items, mainly Japanese things: haori, kimono and Japanese pottery. It was fun.

I am working on a poetry pamphlet, Negotiating Caponata. I was overwhelmed when I received the good news that it was accepted for publication by Dempsey and Windle

(https://www.dempseyandwindle.com/). The poems are about food and family relationships; some of them have been published in magazines such as South, The Blue Nib, London Grip and The High Window. My fellow writers of Woking Stanza and Woking Writers Circle gave me some good tips on titles and on how to improve some images. My daughter helped me too from Japan; she has a literary side she is not developing at the moment, as she is concentrating on fashion, but it is there. My poetry tutor Dawn Wood was very important in the process of redrafting. She has published her work with Templar Poetry and is a painter and a sculptor too (http://www.dawnwoodartist.co.uk/  https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/dawn-wood/) I trust her advice and feel very comfortable with her. I am in the process of proofreading my pamphlet with the help of Janice Dempsey who said it will be ready in July 2020. I am so excited and happy about it and am looking forward to having a copy in my hands and sending it to my family and friends. There will be a link on my website for Dempsey and Windle’s website once it is published.

I took part in a football challenge with the help of my husband on Facebook started by Greg Freeman. Here are the results of my research and some good pics:

Francesco Totti (born 27 September 1976), mainly played for Roma and the Italy national team as an attacking midfielder or second striker. He scored 307 goals with Roma and is considered one of the best players of his neration and Roma’s best ever player. His play is versatile and creative, he is a great leader and has sense of humour. He published several books of jokes playing on his supposed naivety and inexperience, here are some examples:

https://talksport.com/football/227738/francesco-totti-jokes-selection-great-gags-about-retiring-roma-captain-170504237780/

He is married with Ilary Blasi and has three children. Here is a video of his achievements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6VDGQ4xKX0

Forza Roma, Forza Lupi!

Gianfranco Zola (born 5 July 1966) is an Italian footballer who played as a forward. He played for Napoli and Parma, and then moved to Chelsea where he was assistant manager and then in 2008 manager of West Ham.  He was particularly good with his right foot. Zola was awarded The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2004 for his merits and was appointed best football player in 1997. In 2003 he was voted Chelsea's greatest player ever. He was born at Oliena in the beautiful island of Sardinia in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea but said he felt at home in London. Zola loved Covent Garden area, London Bridge and London’s parks.

His top goals here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfk-TaKe5NM

Zola is also a good pianist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opK2VIukC4w

Roberto Baggio (born 18 February 1967) mainly played as a second striker, or as an attacking midfielder. He was creative and gifted. He was named in the list of the world's greatest living players. He scored hundreds of goals in his career. He played for different Italian clubs: Vicenza, Fiorentina, Juventus, A.C. Milan, Bologna, Inter Milan and Brescia. Baggio is known as Divin Codino ("The Divine Ponytail") for his hairstyle maybe linked to his Buddhist beliefs. He had some accidents in the first part of his career which did not compromise his talent. He is considered one of the best Italian footballers after WW II.

My husband completed an amazing puzzle of 18000 pieces called ‘Evening Walk in Paris’, 276x192 cm. We had to clear part of the living room to fit the whole thing on the floor and take a photo. It was awesome!

In May there was the Eurovision Song Contest Come Together. I never miss this program and was disappointed when they cancelled it. However, I liked the way it was organised this time, re-proposing past shows and videos of hit songs, such as Volare, Save your kisses for me and Waterloo. The video clips of 2020 entries were a bit short but they gave you the idea of the songs. It was a lovely show with Mr Graham Norton at his best. The most moving and beautiful moment was when the different singers performed Love Shine A Light separately, here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_xmJcg1iBU&fbclid=IwAR247zHVwaf97peMwjFj36_qQxzbSiSq-YiwkrOAHlcPKY71O73oESAHbz0

I enjoyed it immensely and didn’t miss the competition, which doesn’t seem suitable at the moment, but appreciated the cooperation between the different countries and singers.

For Easter I made cards I sent to friends in the UK and in Italy and to distribute to neighbours. In my drawings, the flower pattern I used with a flower stamp my daughter gave me ended up strange. I decorated it with felt pens and coloured pencils and then I smeared it with inks and enamels thinking about the virus spreading and ruining people’s lives and families, killing by chance. I struggled to make a finished drawing as sketching provisional pieces seemed the norm in this uncertain period. I doodled as I needed to free my style in order to express my worries and anxieties in a world that is forced to become silent and still but bubbles beneath the surface. I made some loose sketches at the end and a comic strip inspired by the pandemic.

Can I go back to painting leaves, flowers and landscapes? Can I forget about the virus? It seems impossible at the moment, the obsession and worries are too present in my everyday life. At a certain point I decided to give up all my previous projects: cherry blossoms, kimono patterns, bunches of tulips, my daughter’s last fashion collection that I had sketched on my sketchbook journal in Japan. I put aside the many photos I had taken around the area where I live when spring blossoms bloomed in April’s gorgeous weather and the views of deserted streets and squares. I surrendered to my obsession eventually. I painted the scarlet, grey and blue mischievous virus again and again with bewildered pleasure.

The same happened with my poetry. Here is some haiku I wrote on my experience of distancing and isolation:

Isolation

Queueing at Sainsbury’s

quick chat at a distance

surrounded by blue.

Cycling against the wind

half an hour of freedom

roars in my ears.

Long days of stillness,

no hurry to reach

the end of the rainbow.

Time to chill out,

rest, unravel

circumventing passers-by.

Spring bursting

like a muffled bomb

inside my ribs.

The rainbow one was published in Covidioms, a collaborative poem sequence, documenting life under lockdown. The link to the booklet is on Poetry NI website is here: http://www.poetryni.com/covidioms.html?fbclid=IwAR0tr1-68jW1_7LFEIYFyoFsdQaiCEcpQPQIIKAPStfjoT1lNNizmjGo6hk

All poems in the anthology are great, some funny, some moving, all hopeful. My poem is number 88.

Some people say that this period is like in wartime except for the bullets and bombs. It is a suspended time where we are supposed to carry on in view of what would happen somewhere at some point in the future, but we are not sure when and where. Time for withdrawal and meditation which fitted with Lent time but carried on after Easter as well. A delayed time where we do not need to hurry, what we cannot do today we can do tomorrow. No weddings, no funerals, no beginning, no end. Brexit, Islamic terrorism and refugees’ emergency seem far far away.

On the whole it was a period characterised by stillness, sadness for the deaths but also an opportunity to thrive in creativity, find different ways of communicating, feeling alive in this unexpected crisis. Would everything go back to what it was before? To what we now call ‘normality’? Probably not. But who knows what will happen in the long term, in five-ten years. Maybe nothing, maybe more.

Coronavirus diary: recipes

I baked, cooked and experimented recipes extensively during the lockdown. It was a way to keep me busy and cheer me up making and eating good food. I mainly made new cakes, pastiera for Easter, bread, pizza but also jams. I prepared more elaborated meals with lasagne, gnocchi, pasta amatriciana and puttanesca. I have good neighbours with whom I exchanged recipes and cakes, leaving our things on the front door. I had a go at the Royal Easter biscuits as well, a fantastic recipe, but could not make them as beautiful as in the official pictures, here is the link: https://www.royal.uk/royal-easter-biscuits-recipe

Bread with olives

You need: 500 g of strong flour or bread flour; 200 ml of lukewarm water, one tsp of salt, 7 g of dried yeast, 20 pitted black olives and 20 pitted green olives, two tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil.

Mix all the ingredient and knead the dough. Let it rest in a warm place for 2-3 hours covered with a wet tea towel. Knead it again and form small breads, then place them in a greased oven tray and bake at 200°C for half an hour.

Pane azzimo (unleavened bread)

You need: 200 g of plain flour (or self-raising flour if you wish to have a softer result), 150 g of wholemeal flour or other alternative flours (such as rice flour, buckwheat flour, hazelnut flour, or spelt flour), 200 ml of lukewarm water, two tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil, salt, one egg to brush the top.

Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough. Let it rest for one hour then prepare sort of round pancakes. Set them on a greased oven tray and make some holes on the top with a fork. Brush the top with a beaten egg and bake at 180°C for half an hour. For a sweet version add 100 of Demerara sugar instead of salt.

Panzanella

This is a simple and tasty recipe from Tuscany. It was also called ‘pan lavato’ (washed bread) as the main ingredient is stale bread soaked in water.  Originally it was the peasants’ lunch or poor people’s food made with bread and the vegetables they had in their garden, such as tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and basil. They also added salt, oil and vinegar.

To make panzanella you need to soak some bread in water, better if stale bread, and crumble it. Add the vegetables cut in small pieces, extra virgin olive oil, some drops of vinegar and salt. Mix and chill it for one hour before serving.

Flower biscuits with marmalade juice

I had some left over of marmalade juice from the marmalade I made in winter, so I decided to use it. But you can use whatever syrup you have and like.

You need: 300 g of rice flour, two eggs, 70 g of caster sugar, 150 ml of marmalade juice, 70 g of melted butter, 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda.

Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough. Let it rest for half an hour then roll it out. Cut the biscuits with a biscuit cutter (I used a sakura shaped cutter, that is, cherry blossom, I bought in Japan). Bake the biscuits on a greased tray at 180°C for half an hour.

Cake with marmalade juice

You need: 150 g of rice flour, 150 g of sponge flour, three eggs, 100 g of golden granulated sugar, 3 tbsp. of canola oil or sunflower oil, 150 ml of marmalade juice (or another syrup), two tsp of baking powder, one tsp of bicarbonate of soda.

Beat the yolk of the eggs with the sugar, add oil and flours together with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Whip the whites stiff and add them to the mixture. Pour the mixture in a greased cake tin and bake at 180°C for half an hour or forty-five minutes. Decorate it with melted dark chocolate and sprinkles.

Rhubarb and ginger jam

I found rhubarb at the greengrocer’s and couldn’t resist trying to make jam. I added ginger as I think the two flavours match well.

You need: 400 g of rhubarb cut in 2 cm pieces, 50 g of glacé ginger, 500 g of sugar, half a tsp of grated ginger, zest and juice of one lemon.

Grind the lemon zest with the sugar in a blender. Add all the other ingredients and set the mixture over a medium heat in a pan. Bring to boil and cook it until the rhubarb is soft. Store in clean jars.

Enjoy!

Coronavirus diary: staying at home

Just before the lockdown, my work at UCA Farnham stopped. My husband, I and my third son were all at home for four weeks they said, but I felt that it was an indefinite period that might go on through the summer. My husband was very busy teaching his lessons and meeting his colleagues online. My son, after a first period of cancellations of all activities, courses and meetings, had some online interviews. I concentrated on supermarket shopping at first. I did not have the intention of doing bulk storage or obsessing over panic-buying as I could find almost everything I needed, but I was bewildered when I saw the shelves almost empty at Sainsbury’s. No vegetables and fruit, no

toilet paper, no eggs and flour, no yeast, no passata and cans. I had some supplies at home for about a month but I felt uncomfortable all the same. Boz, the local greengrocer, had plenty of fruit, vegetables and eggs. I found flour and passata at the Italian Deli in Horsell and I luckily had yeast for our Sunday pizza and toilet paper for four weeks at least. I felt reassured. Food hopping food became my priority and only distraction as all the other shops were closed. I noticed that the clothes and home aisles at Sainsbury’s were deserted, everybody was shopping only for food. I visited the local Tesco as well from time to time for supplies of biscuits and sweets, and Morrison’s for plants as the plant nurseries were closed. I spent a lot of time cooking and baking both to have something to do and because being at home we ate more and more often. The most important moment of the day seemed to be the evening meal when the three of us met after our daily activities and partial isolation from each other.

I stuck to exercising, half an hour-forty-five minutes cycling per day and twenty minutes’ yoga at 6 pm watching the news. Despite my efforts, I gained two kilos though my target was to lose two, so I need to lose four kilos now. I think it was too much chocolate, biscuits and cakes. So, after a few weeks I made up my mind to reduce sweets to one piece of cake in the morning and only one biscuit or small piece of chocolate with my tea break in the afternoon. I also reduced my portions and am waiting for some results in the long term. During the day, I alternated my academic work on my PhD thesis to my writing (reviews, poems and articles) and to some paintings. I wished to develop the sketches I had made in Japan but my mind was obsessed with the pandemic so I gave up and painted coronavirus instead. 

In the end, I realised I tended to follow some patterns: academic work in the morning some writing, a short tea break at 11 am, lunch, watching Bargain Hunt and the news at 12,30-1 pm, sometimes a phone call to friends and relatives. Then more work in the afternoon, if I still had some energy and concentration, then cycling, setting up the dinner and I finally watched the 6 pm news while doing my yoga practice. After dinner I was too tired to do any more work so I watched TV and did my crochet or sewing. My favourite programs on the BBC are detective stories like Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Midsomer Murders, Lewis, DCI Banks and Scott and Bailey. On the Italian TV we watched the news every day at 7 pm, some history programs and Italian-style comedy films. I also like Bella da morire (drop-dead beautiful), a mini-series with Cristiana Capotondi who plays the role of a tough police inspector determined to solve stories of violence against women. On the Italian Paramount channel, they broadcasted Sherlock’s season four and five and Inspector Morse.

I spent much more time than usual on Facebook and Twitter posting pictures, thoughts, quotes and updates. It was a way to keep in touch with my friends as well, commenting on their links and putting likes. I also put some stuff on sale on Facebook Market place and managed to sell two items before the lock down: two sets of kangaroo shoes and a table football.

After two weeks the supermarket shelves were restocked though flour and yeast were still missing. Luckily I found some flour at the Italian Deli and made yeast with ‘pasta madre’ (sourdough) from a recipe my mother in law sent me. It took about two weeks to make it as it is a long process. I started with flour and lukewarm water I mixed and kneaded it, then stored in a warm place covered with a wet tea towel. I ‘refreshed’ it with more water and flour every 24 hours for five days then every 12

hours throwing away the upper part which is usually sour and crusty. When it was ‘mature’, that is, when it doubled its size and didn’t smell sour, I stored it in the fridge and used half of it to make pizza, leaving the rest in the fridge after refreshing it again with more flour and water. It worked, and I can use pasta madre for months maybe years. This is the way women made bread in the past when yeast was not sold in shops or supermarkets.

Of course we couldn’t visit my autistic daughter Valentina at Fullerton school near Doncaster. We skyped with her once a week and I sent her some parcels with sweets, clothes and our picture. Sometimes she was unsettled but other times she was cheerful and happy to see us.  We sent each other kisses and hugs through the screen. I also sent a parcel to my son and daughter in law in Leeds with Easter eggs, floor, Italian pasta, rice and two crocheted pot holders I made. The postage cost more than the content.

While I was at home, I stopped wearing earrings at first but still combed my hair. I wore my pyjamas until 9.30-10.00 pm then put on a track suit bottom and loose t-shirt. Then I decided to have a bit of improvement. I went back to earrings, three per ear, matching them with some nice tops with flowery patterns. I still kept the comfortable track suit bottom though, wore warm socks at home and combed and straightened my hair. I took off my rings after a while as my fingers had swollen from all that washing hands and kneading dough.

Going to the supermarket was the most exciting experience during the lockdown, so I put on a nice dress or jeans with a belt with a big buckle cowboy style and loose colourful shirts. I even wore make-up, bought new lipsticks and put them on at home. It was a way to cheer me up and survive in such a stillness. Some people in Italy called it a period of ‘emptiness and plenty’. The emptiness of streets and squares and the houses full of people forced to stay at home. The emblem of this emptiness in Rome is St. Peters’ square, deserted when the Pope speaks. But we need to face this emptiness looking at a better future that will be built on this vulnerability, constructing creatively, fiercely surviving despite the silent killer. It is excruciating to hear from the news how many people are still dying, especially doctors and nurses who give their lives to help others. I liked what the Pope and the Queen said during Easter time. They said what we all needed to hear in a direct essential way. I also like Tom Moore’s motto: tomorrow will be a good day. Hopefully.

Coronavirus diary: the beginning

For me, the beginning of the coronavirus crisis was in Italy where part of my family lives. On the Italian TV they have been speaking about Covid-19 since February. The government said that Italian people did not need to worry as the National Health Care (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale) was prepared to face it. When people started to die they said they were elderly or already sick people. But then the situation got worse and out of hand, especially in the north of Italy, in Lombardia. Here is an article I wrote for Woking Writers Circle giving my view of the situation in Italy, Japan and the UK: Coping with COVID-19 in the UK, Italy and Japan: a comparison

https://wokingwriters.wordpress.com/2020/04/15/coping-with-covid-19-in-the-uk-italy-and-japan-a-comparison/

Travelling to Japan at the beginning of March, I could feel the change. Airports were almost deserted and there were a lot of empty seats on the plane. There was a lot of space to stretch my legs and place my things. At the check-in desk they did not let me take my crochet stuff on the plane (apparently the hook was a problem), so I bought six water-soluble colour pencils at Düsseldorf airport where we changed plane and started to record images on my sketchbook, a sort of travel journal. I drew the Gucci bags I saw at Heathrow duty free shop centre, the Japanese masks of kabuki theatre from the intriguing ANA airlines safety video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=51&v=T0Zkey8LMHU&feature=emb_logo ) and magazine covers in Düsseldorf with Covid-19 headlines. Once in Tokyo, I made sketches of photos I took downtown and kimono patterns from the books my daughter had on her shelves. I especially liked the pictures on a book by Sheila Cliffe (https://www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/short-courses/stories/all-about-kimonos-with-tutor-sheila-cliffe-lcf ) where the author wears elegant old and new kimono. She adapted them to her taste with cleverness and expertise. I also made collage pieces using cuttings from Japanese brochures and magazines.

I could finally hug my daughter after a year. My eldest son was already there as we were supposed to attend the graduation of my daughter’s master in fashion at Bunka Gakuen University, but the ceremony could not take place because of the coronavirus emergency. We were there, and we celebrated the achievement all the same. Unfortunately, I had a terrible jet lag. I woke up at two or three at night hungry and sleepless. I locked myself in the toilet with a book or my crochet and waited to feel sleepy again. This didn’t happen until six or seven in the morning when the day began. I felt sleepy from the late morning throughout the rest of the day and fell asleep everywhere I sat down, in the underground, at cafés and restaurants. I couldn’t help it, my eyes closed, I leaned against my husband’s shoulder and had a nap.

The weather was warm, almost spring time and the sakura (cherry blossoms) were starting to bloom. We could not visit museums as they were closed for the pandemic, but we did a lot of shopping at Senso-ji temple and shopping centre and at Solamachi. I bought some beautiful kimono and haori (sort of jackets), Japanese ceramics and two books: The Pillow Book and selected haiku by Masaoka Shiki. My husband and son spent a whole day at Yodobashi Camera department store and Akihabara, places full of games, video games, anime and toys of all kinds and materials, from plastic to wood, paper, metal and fabric. Everything was so diverse, colourful and stimulating, I felt flabbergasted in such a profusion of creativity.

 

We took a trip to Mount Takao. Despite my jet lag, I managed to reach the top, 599 metres, and admire the beautiful view with layers of dark mountains against the blue evening sky. We took the easiest trail going up but going down my son opted for the hardest one across the forest. It wasn’t easy for me because my shoes had no slip grip but I managed to reach the end. Luckily the last bit had a cable car connection.

We had some problems with our flight back, as I explain in my article, but we eventually reached the UK safely. On the plane back home, I read The Pillow Book and the haiku. I also listened to relaxing music and watched Parasite, the film that won the best foreign film Oscar 2020. It was funny, cracking at first, but harrowing and hyperreal towards the end. I was mesmerised and shocked at the amount of cruelty that was so easily performed and the aftermath of it.

Back in the UK in the middle of March, I had jet lag again but it lasted only a few days. In Italy the lock down had started. We were supposed to fly to Rome for Easter but the flight was cancelled. All the events I had booked in the UK were cancelled as well and the conference I was supposed to attend in Canada was postponed to next year. My husband’s school was temporarily closed, so he started teaching online. I felt vulnerable, in an indefinite position of possible danger though everything looked normal outside. The weather was gorgeous; nature was inexplicably blooming as if nothing was happening. In Italy my family was all right though the death toll was getting higher and higher especially in the north of the country. And then the UK lockdown began.

Recipes for a tasty Easter break plus yeast tip

Despite shortage of supplies because of the panic-buying caused by coronavirus emergency, I managed to find some products at the supermarket that prompted new recipes. Eggs and flours were out of stock for a while, as well as toilet paper, but I had some limited stock at home so I could have fun and mess about in the kitchen as usual. Yeast was a problem at a certain point but my mother in law told me to use a tbsp. of lemon juice and a tea spoon of bicarbonate of soda instead of dried yeast to make pizza. The result is not exactly the same but good enough.

I experimented with Morello cherries and coconut flour making cakes, biscuits and panna cotta. Here are the recipes:

Morello cherries biscuits

You need: 250 g of self-raising flour, four tbsp. of canola oil or sunflower oil, 100 g of golden caster sugar or Demerara, 50 g of morello cherries, one egg.

Soak the cherries in some liquor mixed with water. Beat the egg with sugar then add the flour and canola oil. Finally add the cherries plus part of the liquor. Let the dough rest for half an hour then roll it out. Cut the biscuits with a biscuit cutter (I used biscuit cutters inspired by Easter shapes) and place them on a greased tray. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180° C. if you wish you can decorate the biscuits with melted chocolate, icing sugar and coloured sprinkles to make them look spring-like.

Panna cotta with morello cherries

You need: 500 ml of double cream, 250 ml of milk, 150 g of sugar, 50 g of morello cherries, one sachet of vanillina or some drops of vanilla essence, 13 g of gelatine leaves.

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water and the morello cherries in liquor mixed with water. Cook the cream plus milk, sugar and vanillina on the hob until it boils. Remove it from the hob, squeeze the gelatine leaves and add them to the cream mixture and blend it in a blender. Finally add the morello cherries and pour the mixture in a slightly greased Tupperware container. Chill it for three hours at least before serving.

Donut cake with morello cherries

You need: 100 g of rice flour, 150 g of sponge self-raising flour, two eggs, 80 g of melted butter, two tsp. of baking powder, one tsp of bicarbonate of soda, 80 g of morello cherries, 130 g of golden caster sugar; to decorate: strawberry white chocolate and sugar flowers.

Beat the yolks with the sugar, add the flour, the melted butter, the baking powder plus bicarbonate of soda and the cherries with the liquor. Whip the whites stiff and add them to the mixture as well. Pour the mixture in a greased donut tin cake and bake for half an hour-45 minutes, or until it is ready, at 180° C. When it cools, microwave the white chocolate and spread it on the top then decorate with sugar flowers.

Coconut cake

You need: you need: 150 g of coconut flour, 200 g of sponge self-raising flour, two tsp of baking powder, one tsp of bicarbonate of soda, four tbsp. of canola oil or sunflower oil, three eggs, 150 g of icing sugar, 80 g of glacé ginger, 200 ml of coconut milk; to decorate: apricot glaze, coconut flakes, sprinkles.

Mix the yolks with the sugar, add the flours and the oil, plus the baking powder and the bicarbonate of soda. Then add the glacé ginger and the coconut milk. Pour the mixture in a greased tin cake and bake for half an hour-45 minutes, or until it is ready, at 180° C. When it cools, spread some apricot glaze on top and sprinkle with coconut flakes and coloured sprinkles. A perfect Easter treat!

Coronavirus outbreak

Keeping busy: reviews and workshops

The development of Covid-19 in the past few weeks worried me because of my family in Rome. Luckily my mum is fine and my sister too. They stay at home as schools and shops are closed except for supermarkets and pharmacies. They are following all the rules the Italian government has recommended. I contact them through WhatsApp and Facebook every two days. My mum is lively as usual. Speaking of coronavirus regulations, she mentioned Mussolini’s motto, obbedire, credere e combattere (obey, believe and fight), with a belligerent stare. I had a good laugh as it sounds quite exaggerated and funny in coronavirus context. My sister is all right. Her school is closed and she is teaching distance learning at the moment. Her husband works in a hospital and is in contact with people infected but they have strict measures to follow and protect themselves from the virus. I cancelled my holiday in Italy during the Easter break and am planning to visit Italy but not before the summer. It will be hard not to see my family until July or August but the emergency is too serious, hopefully it will pass.

Despite this, the poetry environment I regularly attend in Woking area is very busy, though a bit affected by the pandemic. There are monthly readings at The Lightbox the last Thursday of the month and at The Keep in Guildford the first Monday, plus occasional readings and showcases at the Poetry Café in London and at Cranleigh Arts Centre. Then there is the Stanza group at the Maybury centre on the third Tuesday and the Woking Writers Circle meeting on the Third Thursday. I try to attend every event but sometimes other things overlap and I feel so tired in the evening that I prefer to stay at home. Attending poetry readings fuels my writing as I cannot always read the same poems so I need to write new ones. At a reading, Dónall Dempsey gave me an exercise book some time ago; it belonged to his sister. It is called Aisling, visions in Irish, and it is inspiring me to write with its turquoise cover spotted with bright leaves and the ruled pages.  At the moment I am mainly writing about cooking connecting it with family relationships and states of mind. I also published a few poems here:

What I was leaving: https://thebluenib.com/what-i-was-leaving-carla-scarano-dantonio/

Good Friday: https://londongrip.co.uk/2020/02/london-grip-new-poetry-spring-2020/#scarano

My proposal on The Testaments by Margaret Atwood has been accepted at the conference organised by Accute in London, Ontario. I will attend the conference and present my paper in June, exciting! For the occasion, I decided to spend the whole month of June in Canada. I am planning my journey which will be focused on my research on Atwood’s work but will also give me the opportunity to have a holiday and see my Canadian friends again. I am planning to stay in Toronto for two weeks and study at the university libraries. I will also meet some Atwood scholars at the Department of English Literature at the University of Toronto. After Toronto, I would like to go to British Columbia and will probably meet my friends Pam and Crystal who live in the west. It will be a stimulating experience that will add material to my thesis and to my life journey.

The PhD research is going well. I have four chapters now and am going to complete the fifth chapter soon. I have also part of the introduction done. The maximum word count is ninety thousand words plus or minus 10% leeway. I have about seventy thousand words at the moment, so I think I only need one more chapter to write and complete the introduction plus conclusion. I believe that I will have a good draft by the end of summer. I should end by 2020 or the beginning of 2021.

 

Family things are going well too. My daughter Valentina is moving to Surrey at the end of March. My other daughter has just graduated at Bunka Gakuen University in Tokyo, an exciting experience that gave me the occasion to re-visit Japan. my youngest son is getting ready to spend three months in Nepal with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) and my oldest one, who just came to Tokyo as well, is having his good time with his wife in Leeds. Luigi and I stick to our routines and have a bit of fun from time to time visiting museums and exhibitions and going to Southbank concerts. Here are some exhibitions I visited and reviewed:

The Outside and the Inside: https://wokingwriters.wordpress.com/2019/11/20/the-outside-and-the-inside/

William Blake: https://thebluenib.com/fearful-symmetry-william-blake-as-an-artist/

Bacon and Freud: https://londongrip.co.uk/2020/01/bacon-and-freud-the-school-of-london-review-by-carla-scarano/?wppa-occur=1&wppa-cover=0&wppa-album=171&wppa-photo=3129

David Hockney: https://wokingwriters.wordpress.com/2020/02/26/david-hockney-ways-of-working-the-lightbox/

I also reviewed a few books and wrote some articles, here are the links:

Writing in second language: https://thebluenib.com/writing-in-a-second-language/

Carol Coates, The stories they told her: https://londongrip.co.uk/2019/11/london-grip-poetry-review-carol-coates/

Peter Keeble, Passengers and other poems: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#label/The+high+window/FMfcgxwGCtQsQMxLQLKhRnTvfwDDprXr

Richard Hawtree, The night I spoke Irish in Surrey: https://londongrip.co.uk/2020/01/london-grip-poetry-review-richard-hawtree/

Anne Stewart, The last parent: https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=98663

Kaitlyn Purcell, ?bédayine: https://www.thetemzreview.com/scarano-dantonio-purcell.html

My review on The blue boob club by Daphne Milne will be published on South 61.

I am busy knitting long long scarves for my daughters and my daughter in law with a nice soft wool I found at Hobby & Craft’s shop. I am also making bags with fabric and crocheted purses to sell at fairs (http://www.carlascaranod.co.uk/?Readings_%26amp%3B_Fairs ) and I am working on new

paintings for spring exhibitions. I gave up embroidering poems at the moment but would like to go back to it as I started a new one some time ago with the famous phrase from The Handmaid’s Tale: Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum (Don't let the bastards grind you down), in red on a white cloth. I am currently working on a round shaped canvas depicting a painting that combines mandala motif with red autumn leaves. I chose acrylics for the final pieces but I am still working on several drawings using mixed media to find the right composition and colours. The piece will be a mixture of abstract and figurative painting and should convey engagement to a centre in both a loose and controlled way. Maybe too many ideas to fit in one painting.

My Canadian interests brought me to read more books on Canadian culture and literature. Besides Atwood’s work. I am reading Indigenous literature such as the book by Kaitlyn Purcell I reviewed for The Temz Review, an online magazine in Ottawa (https://www.thetemzreview.com/scarano-dantonio-purcell.html ), and the amazing novel Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese. It is the story on an Indigenous boy brought up in a farm by a foster parent he calls old man. The boy feels the land around him as if it is alive. He knows how to hunt and survive in the wilderness merging with the environment. His biological father, on the other hand, though brave and passionate with adventure, is ruined by alcohol and debauched life. Cultural and physical deprivations mark deeply the father’s life in contrast with the son’s dignity expressed in his simple life despite his young age. The boy wishes to take care of his father in his final days though the father never took care of him. In the novel, the presence of the woods, the land and the animals strikingly combines with humans in a harmony that is not necessarily peaceful but it shows the acceptance of both life and death, fight and surrendering. The tone is factual at times, especially in dialogues and in the descriptions of the work at the farm, and lyrical as well, poetic in some parts. A sense of profound empathy with nature develops throughout the novel; this shapes the Indigenous identity and fosters their dignity whose source is in their own land.

A different novel is Fools Crow by James Welch. It recalls the world of Plains Indians’ life before they were almost wiped off by the diseases brought by Europeans and the slaughtering carried out by the American army.  The attempt to maintain the memory of how this world was and why it is still so relevant for the Indians’ identity is at the core of the story. They show a very different mentality compared to the aggressive and exploiting-targeted western view. The land, intended as plants, animals, rocks and whatever is part of it, is at one with humans, according to the Natives. The land cannot be dominated but acknowledged and understood. Indians are sort of protoenviromentalists and their point of view, which colonisers thought was naïve, is now revealed as visionary in today’s global scenario. The Indians rituals, beliefs and hunting practices are evoked and described in the novel, an epic of a past world that faded and needs to be remembered in storytelling, that is, in language, to maintain its power and ensure identity. The story is centred on the rise of White Man’s Dog who steals horses at first, then becomes a warrior renamed Fools Crow, as he fooled the Crow chief making him believe he was dead then he killed him. The stories are about war, love, revenge and survival. They form the legacy of the Indigenous peoples and testify to their resilience.

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga is a reportage of true stories that happened between 2000 and 2011 in Thunder Bay (Ontario) where seven Indigenous students went missing and were eventually found dead. They lived in a residential school far away from home and suffered persistent casual racism and deprivation that brought to their deaths. The government seemed absent or complicit in its indifference. The white western culture and the Indigenous people are depicted as distant one from the other. This unrelenting attack to Indigenous lives and culture, which started with the arrival of the first European settlers in North America in 17^th century, is considered a cultural genocide. It was a real persecution to prevent transmission of Indigenous identity and values. The White Man annihilated them culturally as he could not destroy them completely physically. In Talaga’s work, testimonies mix with dreams, prayers and accusations. She reports that the abuses of residential school (a story that seemed to belong to the 19^th century) lasted until the 1960s and the last school was shut down in 1996. Suicides due to deprivation and abuse are still common in Indigenous communities. Young people disappear, especially girls. Five of the seven students’ bodies, the ‘seven fallen feathers’, were recovered in a river. Talaga remarks that:

Indigenous communities continue to lack the basic necessities of life, including clean water, safe housing, working fire trucks, basic health care, and access to education.

The inquest for the seven deaths began in October 2015 and ended in June 2016 but, according to the author, the families did not have any explanation about their children’s death. The jury said that four of the seven deaths were ‘undetermined’ and the other three were killed but they did not know exactly what happened. It seems that Indigenous people are considered second class victims for the police; so, the Indigenous peoples of Thunder Bay often use social network, such as Facebook and Twitter to spread stories of assaults. However, the author mentions some improvements, such as more control due to the installation of CCTV cameras and more funds have been assigned to the high education of the area.

Enthralling readings I enjoyed thoroughly.