(This is a long post. Mind you, I had two hours to write this—you’ll read why—and three days to edit it while I was sick in bed. So, only read when you’ve got lots of sweet downtime, maybe with a cup of tea, or better yet, with a glass of chianti!)

Mi manca Roma—I miss Rome!

You’re going to think me strange, because I’m actually writing this from the San Francisco airport, worlds away from Europe, as I wait for my trip back to Los Angeles. It’s after two full weeks (and weekends!) of work. Sitting here, looking out at the tarmac as the planes lift off, I’m reminded of a post I’ve wanted to write.

And so, here we go.

I write this today because I’m an obsessively early airline passenger and there’s two hours to go before I board the plane, because this is the first chance I’m getting to blog about anything in over a week (well, two weeks now as of this posting), and especially because sitting in an airport at this ungodly hour reminds me of the early-morning airport wait before that flight to Rome early this year.

The trip deserves a post, maybe the longest one I’ll ever write, because it was actually in the Eternal City that I decided to start blogging. It was a trip of many adventures, but the biggest one for me wasn’t the fact that I was in Europe for the first time, not eating authentic Italian gelato in front of the Trevi, not even gaping up at the colors that had bloomed from Michelangelo’s paintbrush on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.

I imagine that my biggest Roman adventure was actually quite commonplace and would be ordinary to many people. But to a crafter who didn’t speak the language, it was big enough for me to decide to write about my crafting (and cooking) life. That adventure was when, one cold day in February, I worked up the gumption to buy some fabric, in a country I’d never been in before, from a man who didn’t speak a lick of English and was flirting with me the entire time, despite the fact that he was old enough to be my father.

The fabric store of my undoing was Bassetti Tessuti on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 73, Rome, 186. It’s Rome’s largest fabric store, with a fabled inventory that draws famous design houses, seamstresses and crafters to its labyrinthine halls of cloth. It maintains an extensive collection of fabrics (almost 200,000 types) in every imaginable weave, from Lake Como silk to Piedmont wool.

I first read about it on NYTimes.com a few months before I decided to go to Rome. Non-crafters won’t quite understand me when I say that my heart was in my throat when I read that article. It was short but rife with descriptions that spun pictures in my head. I imagined getting lost in the store, half-mad at all those walls of fabric. It would be the highlight of a life spent falling in love with cloth. It’s a fascination that’s grown through the years because it grounds me to a shared history with all the other crafters in my family, especially my grandmothers from both sides.

By the time I took the trip to Rome, I already had the idea to restart a fabric collection. Reading that article made me decide to hunt down the store and make sure I had time for it on my itinerary. I took along a Moleskine journal published expressly for Rome, with maps of the city and pages that I could be creative with (I got mine from Amazon). One of those pages had a part of the NYTimes article, along with Basseti’s address, stuck to it. (You can click on the image for a larger view.)

Below is a group of fabric swatches that I already had in my small collection, most of which I wanted to use for a quilt. I stuck them in the journal as well, to guide me in case there would be any fabric available at the store that would fit well in the quilt’s intended palette. A line from Madonna’s “Material Girl” makes this a pun-y entry in my Roma journal, because I’m silly that way.

(That journal was my lifeline in that foreign city. It had Italian phrases taught to me by my polyglot friend Via, addresses and funny notes like the one below from my brother—an art student—on “Dorking Out Art-Wise” in Rome!)

When we found the store, the friend who was with me probably didn’t know how nervous I was going into it, but really, I was beyond intimidated. I hid my anxiety by gorging on a cone of pistachio gelato, standing outside the store and licking furiously, feeling the nervousness dissipate with each mouthful of the divine sweet stuff. With the last bite, I had enough gumption to at least start making my way up the two flights of stairs from the ground floor to the Basetti main lobby.

I wish I could post pictures, but frankly, I was so nervous that I couldn’t take my camera out. So, I’m posting these, but credits go to Chris-Warde Jones at NYTimes.com. The store’s interior really looks like this, with bolt upon bolts of cloth and staff members at cutting stations, waiting for you to point to your choices so they can cut them to your specifications.

My heart was on the verge of giving out as I stood there, overwhelmed, realizing that what the article said was true: Bassetti was THE Italian’s fabric hub, and nobody there spoke English. I timidly made my way down streets of silk and byways of brocade, around corners of chiffon. One alley led to another, and then another in a dizzying maze of colors and textures.

I stopped and had to take a long, deep breath.

And then I turned around, retraced my steps back to the entrance, down the flights of stairs and was back out on the street in under 10 seconds.

I was too chicken to do anything! I left without so much as a square inch of cloth. I mumbled an excuse to my friend who had been waiting outside. “Nothing matches my swatches,” I said. Which was partly true, because I couldn’t find any cotton suitable for quilting, and mostly that was because I was too nervous to actually look for it.

As we walked away, I heard my mom’s voice in my head (which often happens!): “Your trip to that store should be spontaneous. You go because you want to go, for the pleasure of it. Don’t let your swatches dictate the experience.”

And so, from across the street, as my friend withdrew some cash from an ATM, I looked up at the store, knit my brows, clutched my journal and declared that I was going back in. I marched my nervous (but determined) self back into Bassetti, into the belly of the beast, where I finally found a section with cotton bolts from floor to ceiling. Opening to the page in my journal with the Italian phrases, I called out timidly to a man with salt-and-pepper hair and flushed, red cheeks who had been regarding me quietly, with one bushy eyebrow raised: “Puo aiutarmi?” (Can you help me?)

His face broke into a slow grin, and the raised eyebrow turned into a wink. I was petrified. He ambled slowly over to me and mumbled something which I now forget. I just pointed to a bolt of cream cloth with tiny blue clubs on it (like the symbols from a suite in a deck of cards) and said, “Vorrei un metro, per favore,” looking down at my journal the entire time.

He glanced at it and bust out laughing. I joined him, collapsing in nervous giggles; his laugh was just contagious. He was so amused he was practically wheezing.

I was so relieved that I pointed out two more bolts of cloth. Most of them were simple printed cotton, but I’d never seen patterns like those in all my years of fabric sleuthing. Mr. Wheezy carried all the bolts to a long wooden table and started to cut them.

Over the sound of snipsnapping scissors, he raised his bushy eyebrows at me quizzically and asked, “Filipina?” I answered, “Si.” And then, he pointed to the cloth and with broad sweeps of his hands and arms, asked what I would do with them. I used my own hands to demonstrate a purse, a skirt and a blanket/quilt. He guffawed, suggested I buy more than a meter for the skirt print. I nodded a yes. I was fascinated that I was communicating with him, and not with a foreign language, but with sewing gestures as words!

Then, he asked, “Marito?,” a word I didn’t know. I looked at him skeptically, and suspected that he was asking me if I was married because the word sounded like “marital.” He held up his left hand and pointed to the ring finger, pretended he was hugging someone in the air and pursing his lips as if he were kissing an invisible wife. I laughed and shook my head, signifying a no. His eyes lit up. “Ahhh, (mumble Italian mumble some more Italian)…bella,” looking at me. I knew he was saying something about me being pretty, and I tried to hurry him, because all I wanted was to pay for my cloth and get out of the store.

After some more mumbling and more staring at me, he finally walked me to the front of the store to pay for my cloth. The sharply-dressed lady at the cashier was trying to explain something to me, but I had the most confused expression on my face that she probably took pity on me and decided to iron the matter out with Mr. Wheezy. He verified the amount, counted up my cloth, and handed it to me, making sure to hold my hands as he placed the bag of fabric in them.

And then I was out the door.

I looked down at all the fabric I bought. All very quiet, unassuming fabric, but all of which I love, because of what I had to go through to buy them. That night, back in my hotel room, as my big day drew to a close, I stared at my cloth once more and decided: I would write about that day. About how a love for fabric took me out of my self, and how it had reminded me that my creativity is only as rich as I’m willing to feed it—with new experiences, and people and places.

Here’s my loot from Bassetti Tessuti. Someday, the one with multicolored flowers is going to be my “Campo De Fiori” skirt. The nautical one will be book bags or totes with anchor appliqués for friends. The one with small blue chicks, a baby blanket for the friend who taught me to be brave with all those Italian words. And someday, the cream one with clovers/clubs, a quilt for my own daughter, who will fall asleep to the magical tale of how a girl with a curl found herself lost in the thick woods of an enchanted fabric forest (those velvet vines can be pretty scary!), and how she found her way out.

And someday, I hope to go back to Mr. Wheezy, flirt with him in fluent Italian, and buy myself a measure of fine Italian silk.

Thank you all for your healthy vibes. I am up, though not as much “about” as I want to be, but still. It’s the first time in days when I feel like I don’t have cotton for brains, and I’m glad to be blogging again.

To come back, let me start with a post full of thanks.

You know, I must say, all these years of having stuff lost in the mail has made me lose faith in the snail mail system. But these past few weeks have definitely proved me wrong. Look at all these wonderful goodies that came via post!

Childhood Yummies From  Malaysia

Mimi of Sleepless in KL read about my post on how much I loved Horlicks Malties when I was growing up. I was also bemoaning the fact that they weren’t readily available here in the US. A couple of weeks later, a package was handed to me by the office mailman. Thank you, Mimi, for being so thoughtful! I’ve had to ration these, by the way, because I can’t stop eating them!

A Creative Stash From Canada

My craft swap partner Leah sent a treasure trove of gifts. I love all the handmade jewelry she sent, especially the green bracelet because green’s my favorite color. And, AND, she sent FABRIC! They’re great additions to my collection, and I’m already thinking of ways to use them. Thank you, Leah, for all the creative stuff you’ve sent. I will DEFINITELY make use of those sewing machine needles, I was just about to get some!

My Prizes For Winning The Vampie

They came! If you remember that post about my Vampie win, the prizes finally came from Instructables.com: an Instructables robot tee and The Pie And Pastry Bible.

I was just about to see if the tee fit and to thumb through my new cookbook, but a pink teddy named Jenny beat me to it instead. (Though she looks kinda surly reading about pastry, don’t you think?)

Thank you all, and thank you Mr. Postman.

Sorry all, I’ve been in Sickville. The good news is that I’m riding out the tail end of this–whatever this is. My head feels like it’s stuffed with goo! I hope to be back before you know it, with posts on fabric, quilting and homemade Twinkies. Doesn’t that sound good? Check back soon! (Send me healthy vibes in the meantime, because being a goo-head sucks!)

So, remember that post where I explained how absolutely infatuated I am with fabric by Marimekko?

Guess what I found out as I trolled the web at 2 am in San Francisco (I was there for work) because I couldn’t sleep in my blasted hotel room?

That the famous Finnish textile-arts company has teamed up with Avon for these gorgeous, limited-edition face and eye palettes.

And that they’ve also teamed up with Manolo Blahnik for a Marimekko-themed line of shoes.

It may have been the wee hours of the morning when I unearthed these pieces of news, but my eyes were THIS BIG while I was reading them, and my heart was racing. It’s like, somewhere in the dungeons of that design house in Finland, someone had read my mind. (Well, except for that third shoe on the right. It looks like a cow sat on some pink bubble gum!)

…to the built-up stress from two weeks (and weekends!) on the road and on the go for work is to come home to crafting, with your favorite cheesy movies playing in the back, your sewing machine humming and the neighborhood cat staring at you from across the way like you’re the strangest thing it’s seen.

It’s been too long, all! There’s so much to write about, and cook about and craft about. Thank God I’m back, and just in time for Fall.

Any excuse to cook is good for me, even if it’s for my own birthday. Especially because it was for a picnic at the Hollywood Bowl, one of my favoritest places in Los Angeles. I’ve caught beautiful Easter sunrise services there, several Sound Of Music Sing-Alongs (yes, seriously) and an unforgettable performance by Dave Matthews Band a couple of years back, when LeRoi Moore still around. So, when I caught wind earlier this year that John Williams and the LA Philharmonic would be playing at the Bowl the weekend following my birthday, I decided that it would be a perfect way to celebrate another year in my life. I had already been to three other performances of his in years past, but still, I couldn’t wait to go this year. (Spoken like a true Star Wars fangirl!)

Going to the Bowl is always an exercise in decision-making: What should we bring to eat? A valid question with a million answers! Tradition calls for a packed dinner with beverages (they even allow wine) and an early arrival, so you have time to find your seats and settle in to eat and enjoy people-watching while the summer sun’s still out. We usually buy food from some place like Whole Foods or the Bowl’s own restaurant. But this year, I wanted to cook.

I took me weeks to decide what to make. This was serious business! It was the first time I’d be responsible for the whole Bowl-eating experience, and it was for my birthday. I was nervous, but finally came up with the idea of making restaurant favorites, done Girl With A Curl-style.

The final verdict? Homemade Mac N’ Cheese, Chicken Nuggets and Steamed Vegetables. Dessert was actually store-bought! Those pink Hello Kitty packs are Choco Pies from a Japanese market. I love them. I decided to throw in some Dove dark chocolates, Baci and Perugina candy from Rome and milk candy, also from the Japanese market (if anyone from LA is reading this, the Japanese market is Nijiya on Sawtelle.)

The Mac N’ Cheese was fun to make, because I knew it would be portable and un-messy and would fit right into my whole packable, picnic-able dinner plans. I could tell you that I used low-fat sour cream and fat-free cheddar cheese, but my cooking is something I don’t lie about. And it was my birthday, so I decided to live a little.

The Chicken Nuggets were interesting because they’re actually baked, not fried. I’ve found that the best tools for a task like this are two sets of chopsticks, one for dipping in your wet ingredients, another for dredging in dry. You dip pieces of chicken breast into melted butter (I know! But it was ever so little, and really, you can also use yogurt, buttermilk or plain old milk!)…

Dredge them in the mixture of breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and spices (Italian seasoning, fresh thyme, salt and pepper)…

Lay them carefully on a rack that’s been sprayed with cooking spray and placed over a cookie sheet…

Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, and under the broiler for another five. These were perfect with the cheesy pasta and the steamed-crisp veggies. These Rubbermaid Take-Alongs with dividers that I packed them in were picnic-perfect (more so because I got them at 50% off!). This way, each person had a portion of the main dishes. (Veggies went into a Ziploc bag, for easy passing-around.)

I have to admit, though, my favorite part of the meal was stuff I didn’t make, these ice-cold Orange Cream Gourmet Sodas. (Parang Mirinda na hindi!)

Drinks went into an insulated carrier, and the foodstuff snuggled with cutlery and paper napkins into my FEED bag*.

The evening’s performance was awesome , with John Williams conducting the Olympic theme while huge screens showed scenes from the games. The Bowl was decked out in colored swaths of light, as we were taken from Indiana Jones to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, to a special highlight that included scenes from (sigh) Singin’ In The Rain. (Gene Kelly, I heart you.)

And yes, of course, the evening ended with an encore that included the Star Wars theme. And, like every year, the ampitheatre lit up with light sabers as the theme played. There were so many of them, and I tried to take pictures, but was way too excited to take any good ones. Geek much? (I LOVED IT!)

Perfect. Evening.

*The FEED bag, a World Food Programme project, is available in two sizes, a smaller one (above) at Whole Foods and a larger one from Amazon. The cost of your purchase of the smaller bag equals 100 meals for hungry children in Rwanda who don’t have access to nutritious food. The larger one equals meals for a full school year for one child. I have both and use them for everything, from plane trips to picnics!

A quick post to say hi and to report from the front lines: I’ve finally begun to work on my quilt. It’s what has kept my hands busy these past few days. I’ve been cutting and trimming and sewing and ripping since Friday last week. And truth be told, the project has kept my mind busy, too.

See, this is a quilt of many stories, some of which I hope to tell in the coming weeks as the quilt begins to take shape. Already, I’m itching to share the tales this craft is allowing me to tell. The words jump over each other with the rhythm of my needles, so much that I laugh to myself as I try to herd all of them into readable lines–they refuse to cooperate! I’m reminded of that article in The New Yorker on brevity, about how six words are all you need to tell a story. So, to start off my quilting project, and to invite you to follow the quilt’s progress over the coming weeks, here are six words that hopefully start off this quilt’s tale :

Threads tread on fabric; fables unfurl.

The quilt won’t be ready for a while, but here’s hoping I keep at it as much as you can. In the meantime, posts on food, fabric, crafts and cupcakes are in the offing! (Next up is a post on making restaurant favorites for a picnic!)