Yes, It’s cold and snowy in the lovely Italian city of Bologna. Some 18 inches of snow drifted down upon the city, smashing every meteorological record for the region. Gifted Daughter Lesley R., who resides in Bologna, reports that the Bolognese are puzzled. There are no snow plows. Few snow shovels. Some folks are trying to attack the drifts with brooms and the city is almost completely shut down. The photographs Lesley R. has sent show a bleak, frozen city and HG hopes that she is able to keep warm and full by stocking up from the few shops that have managed to open.
A storm in Bologna of all places has caused HG to muse about cold weather food. No, not the food prepared at home, but the food HG ate on the street or at lunch counters when the winds whistled from the Hudson, Harlem and East Rivers. During the Great Depression, little HG ate “Hot Mickeys” (roasted potatoes) shared with his buddies over an improvised wood fire in an empty lot. HG also bought, for a penny or two, hot sweet potatoes, chicken fat doused chick peas (“hayseh arbis”) that were served in a paper cone and the ubiquitous roasted chestnuts sold by street vendors. In later years HG favored the big bowls of steaming cabbage soup sold in bleak Ukrainian diners on the Lower East Side. Glorious Pho, a byproduct of the very inglorious Vietnam War, had not yet arrived.
But, the best cold beater HG ever had was on a chill December day in Bologna. This was a glass of espresso, liberally enriched with grappa, and topped with almost three inches of whipped cream. Virtually all of HG’s senses were warmed and delighted.
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