Sorrento

We were advised to make our headquarters for the Amalfi region in Sorrento, just south of Naples. It is a laid-back small town with southern Italian charm that dates back to Greek and Roman times. It has turned out to be a perfect location, on the beautiful bay of Naples with its steep-cliffed capes on either side. The picture I took shows where we had a snack behind the helpful Information Centre.


This is a town that caters to tourists, but really its appeal is not spoiled by them. It is a shopper’s dream, with a warren of narrow pedestrian streets filled with shops and cafes – even fruits and vegetables are displayed artistically.
We enjoy getting around using the many ferries to Naples, Capri, Amalfi, etc.

The combination of sights, food, warmth, good shopping and a great apartment are making this an unforgettable holiday. Rie

Rome tourist

We are in Italy with family, and the first few days we explored Rome. As you can see from the line-up in St. Peter’s square to get into the cathedral, even at this time in October there are still lots of tourists. Actually, it is a great time to visit because it is warm but not hot, and far less crowded than at many other times of the year. Finding it very expensive, however!

Rome is built on hills, and there are lots of steps everywhere and beautiful churches, as seen in this second picture.

Below, the Venetian palace took my breath away – a truly ‘monumental’ city!
Next we took the train to Naples, and from there to the beautiful town of Sorrento. I rented a lovely apartment [for 10 days] over the internet before our trip, and, with four of us, it is ideal: two bedrooms, two baths, living-dining room and well equipped kitchen - all less expensive that a hotel. More in next post. We are having a fine time!! Rie

Rie in Italy

I have flown off for a couple of weeks in Italy. A couple of days in Rome, and then down to the spectacular and historic Amalfi coast. Pictures to follow. Rie

Whole Brain

For a long time I have been interested in fact that our brain has two separate parts - the left and right hemispheres (see picture).

Growing up, I used to watch in fascination as my older sister, a budding artist, mixed oil paints on her palette. She would be painting a green bottle, and yet would mix up some purple and white that she then applied in a long streak to the image of the bottle she was depicting. When I looked for the mauve streak on the real green bottle, I found that if, instead of being aware of the bottle as an object, I just looked at reflections and light patterns, then I could 'see' what my sister saw - and there was that mauve streak. Later I found out that she was using her brain’s right hemisphere, and that I could switch into mine too, not just in the way I looked at things, but in my approach to situations or problems as well.

I'm told that geniuses always use both sides of their brain, but most of us have a preference. The left hemisphere specializes in analytical thought, facts, abstractions, structure, mathematics, logic, words, efficiency, science and technology, etc. Left hemisphere ability is the principal focus for what can be tested in school.

The right brain, on the other hand, tends to specialize in "softer" aspects like intuition, feelings, sensitivity, creativity, non-verbal skills, rhythm, spontaneity, impulsiveness and the physical senses. The right hemisphere perceives the entire view and can recognize patterns and similarities and combine those elements into new forms.

Apparently, by the time we are two years old, one hemisphere begins to be more dominant than the other. Both halves are in touch through a bundle of nerve fibers, and our hemisphere dominance develops until we are in our mid teens.

You can test which half of your brain is dominant and to what extent by just clicking on the word test. Answering this test will take about 10 minutes, and there is more background information to read after you finish it if you like. I found it interesting that my left hemisphere is 67% dominant - as you may have guessed from my posts so far.

My goal is to try to use both hemispheres of my brain when I am making decisions and dealing with relationships, or trying to see a problem from another person's point of view. Rie

Follow Your Bliss

'Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you, where there were only walls.' Joseph Campbell

That’s really good advice, and for some [and I am among them] it was easy to follow because we grew up knowing exactly what we wanted to do, and have never 'worked' a day in our lives because we so loved what we did. But what about those, like my granddaughter, a recent High School graduate, who has a number of talents but is not good enough or passionate enough about any one of them to know what her ‘bliss’ really is? It is obviously too early for her to make lifelong decisions. What to do?

One of my father’s stories was about a farmer who hired a worker to help during his busy time in the early spring. The man turned out to be a very hard worker and the farmer was delighted. One day he ran out of things for him to do, so he took him into his storage shed and asked him to sort the potatoes left there after the winter – into piles of those that were rotting, those that should be eaten right away, and the good ones. At the end of the day when the farmer returned, to his surprise he found the man looking dejected and with only a few sorted potatoes around him. When asked what his problem was, the poor man answered sadly: "I'm sorry Mister, but it’s them decisions that’s so hard to make."

Life can involve many hard decisions, but the message we can all take is that if you are conscious of your feelings as you go through your days, you can get to know yourself pretty well. When you are doing something that you find ‘turns you on’ and you are good at, be aware that is the sort of thing that could be your 'bliss'. Another important indicator in knowing yourself is being conscious of the kinds of things stored in your memory that you can recall easily. They too are a strong indication of what your real interests are.

Then there is always University to expose you to new possibilities - but going that route can be an expensive waste of time unless you are eager to learn and willing to study. Many young people just out of high school are neither of these. Their brains don’t fully mature until they are about 25, and they can easily succumb to the distractions of socializing, sports and dating. Failing can shut doors permanently, so the best decision may be just to not make a decision.

My advice to young people like my granddaughter is that life is for a long time, so just relax, and as you earn a living, find out what you truly love doing. Then as soon as you can, make a leap of faith to 'follow your bliss', and trust that, as Campbell says: 'the universe will open doors for you' to a richly rewarding life. Rie

Memories & Emotions

I was writing about some of my earliest memories today, and found I had almost none before I was school age, and even then they were very few and far between. Amazingly, the incidents I do remember are there in every particular. The first vivid one was when I was 4, and my father was racing up the stairs very excited - the only time I ever saw him like that. He made us all look out the front window at a new car, a Buick ‘roadster’ he had just bought. I even remember the thick yellow wooden spokes on the wheels and the rumble seat in the back! It would have been 1929, before the crash.

As I wrote in an earlier post, we only seem to remember events when our emotions are aroused, and for me that includes times when I am learning things I'm interested in. It turns out that in those cases, organs deep in the brain are affected and play a vital role in searing those lasting memories into our brain. But what’s going on with all the memories we completely lose?

Basically memories are made as signals run through our neuron brain cells and cross gaps [synapses] between the cells to make a pathway or network that you can trace at will to bring back the memory. But the brain needs energy to keep the connections in that pathway viable. Our brains actually use 25% of the total energy our bodies require, so if we kept adding to and maintaining all the pathways formed, we wouldn't have any energy left to do anything else! Evidently our brain solves this problem when we are deeply asleep. That's when the connections in new networks are weakened. If we haven't thought of an ordinary event for a day or so, we soon lose all memory of it. I can’t even remember what I had for lunch three days ago - can you?

But what if you need to remember something for a while - like the lines in a play or facts for an exam? Studies have found that it is best to revisit something we need to remember often, spacing the time between reviews over longer and longer periods – for example once an hour, then every few hours and then daily. If you naturally tend to do that anyway, you probably are confident that it works, and so you relax and do well in exams. I'm told it even works for those normally terrified in front of an audience! Rie

You be the Chef

If you're wondering how that chef at the Waldorf Astoria could have come up with the idea of using mayonnaise in a cake, this post will explain and give you some clues so you can be a creative baker yourself.

First, our chef would have known that mayonnaise is a mixture of oil and vinegar [an acid] that is made into an emulsion by stirring vigorously with an egg. Used in a cake, the only other ingredients you need are flour, sugar, salt and something that releases bubbles to make the cake rise. If you check, you’ll see that our Waldorf Astoria chef used baking soda. He would have known that if you add acid to baking soda, it reacts giving off lots of bubbles of gas. Most recipes call for baking powder, which is just baking soda mixed with some powdered acid that is activated by adding water.

The trick in baking cakes is to trap the gas bubbles while the cake is cooking. If you guessed it is the egg that does that, you were right! You know that when you cook an egg, it solidifies, so in the cake the bubbles released by the soda and acid get trapped by the egg that solidifies around them as the cake bakes. That’s it! Now all you need to know are the quantities of ingredients to put in a cake:

Flour - 2 cups or more depending on Size of Cake [SoC].
Sugar - 1 cup, or about half the amount of flour. Anything sweet will do, like brown sugar, but be careful with honey, corn or maple syrup, molasses etc.
Fat - ¼ cup melted butter or oil or shortening. My mother, of Scottish descent, used beef suet!
Egg - one or two depending on SoC.
Baking soda – 1 ½ teaspoons depending on SoC.
Acid - Here is where you can let your imagination go!. Acids are sour, so you know that lemon, orange, lime, pineapple or tomato juices will work. Yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, etc. are really creamy in cakes, muffins, pancakes etc.
Water - add if necessary to make the batter just loose enough to be fairly easy to stir.

Use common sense and experiment. Lemon or lime juice need watering down, and adjust the amount of sugar depending on taste. Tomatoes need spices but make a wonderful cake. I’ve linked some recipes to online to help you get started.

Be creative, have fun and learn from your mistakes! Hopefully your experiments will be good enough to get eaten. Rie