Tag Archives: Lecco

La Bottega del Maiale: A Salumeria in Lecco

This one’s for Carol & Steve, who went shopping in Boston and vlogged it.

La Bottega del Maiale (“The Hog Shop”) is a small gourmet food shop in the heart of downtown Lecco (Piazza XX Settembre) specializing, obviously, in pork products, but they also have a great selection of cheeses, wines, sott’oli (preserves in oil), sottaceti (preserves in vinegar), and many other wonderful things.

I didn’t try to subtitle the Italian conversation going on between me and the shop ladies. The manager gave me permission to film, but the younger woman at the cash register initially said, “Oh, no, no, no – don’t film me – I’ll hide under here [the cash counter].” I said, “That’s fine, I don’t film anybody who doesn’t want to be filmed.” Then I mentioned that my daughter is filming all her friends, and they’re all excited to be on the Internet. “Oh, yes, yes, yes, in that case it’s fine!” she said.

Towards the end you can hear me say:”I think they’re going to hate me for this” – referring to viewers from outside of Italy who will probably be salivating by the end of the video (as long as they’re not vegetarian).

Blues Brothers Come to Lecco

As part of a “youth happening,” the “BB Band” came to Lecco, complete with dancers. The music was live and very good, and the youth happening turned into an all-ages event with everyone enthusiastically dancing. Who says today’s young people don’t appreciate good music?

Summer Storm Over Lake Como

55 secs

There was a beautiful storm last night, off in the distance to the north. I recorded for about 40 minutes, then edited it down – I only worked through the first ten minutes or so before I got very bored of looking for the lightning in all that darkness!

Lecco Gospel

I borrowed a digital video camera from the office yesterday so I could experiment with video as a means of communication. I have had a video camera for years, but haven’t used it much because it’s analog, so everything I shot had to be painstakingly converted to digital before I could do much with it, and I never got around to acquiring a good encoder, so I was never happy with the quality. Digital is so much easier – attach the camera to the computer via a FireWire cable, and off we go. I haven’t even had to buy new software, as a combination of stuff I already had around has proved to be sufficient. Admittedly, I have more digital media software on hand than most people, thanks to my professional history.

So last night we went out to buy tapes for the camera, and then in search of dinner. We ended up at the Casa di Lucia restaurant in Lecco, where we had a very pleasant dinner out in the garden under a pergola covered in wisteria. As we were finishing our second course, we heard a lot of noise in the entry area, which eventually resolved itself into a gospel choir coming to sing for the diners. We had heard that there was a gospel choir in Lecco, but had never actually heard them. They’re quite good, though they could use some help on pronouncing English.

The lighting was terrible – already dark outside, and the singers were backlighted. The “backlight” setting on this Sony Handycam seems to make no difference at all. I tried Nightshot here and there (not in this clip), which made everyone turn green. In some parts of this clip, you can see the cooks working through in the brightly-lit kitchen through the window behind the singers. And I didn’t have a tripod, so this is a good example of unSteadicam! And the mike is the one incorporated into the camera, so you get all the background noise of the diners (Italians talk even during formal concerts…).