NEW YORK

Looking at the surroundings, NY, it seems that the ancestors decided to build it in the ugliest swamp in America.

This is the view from the train to New Jersey.

The redemption was knowing how to make it swarming and lively to the point that 20 km of Manhattan land became insufficient to contain all those who wanted – and want – to come there. The city has increased in height, it is “packed”, without spaces, with streets where the buildings rise “side by side” ..

Like flies and mosquitoes, we humans are attracted to light. Like flies and mosquitoes, we get trapped in them.

The surrounding environment – and also the internal one – does not make me suppose, yet NY is considered a “foodie town”, between cities where you eat better in the United States … .. yet there are restaurants at Km 0 and “farm to table “.

 North of NY in the Hudson River Valley, there are still traditional farmers, who observe the cycle of the seasons. They are “poor”, or so they are described to me, because their plot is small and because the harvest season is short. Here you can find zucchini and “squash” in summer, aubergines, berries, some corn on the cob; there are some honey producers – who do not let their bees go to specific flowers, as happens in Italy, but who then vary their honeys with other flavors – adding ginger, lavender, lemon and more; there are small farmers and small good cheese productions. I believe it is one of the few areas from which small producers can reach the various farmers’ markets in NY. In summer. Because this is the situation there in winter

And anyway, considering the distances – even if everything seems close on the maps – it seems risky to define a food “km 0” or “farm to table”.

And then, the “American style”, where do we put it? The style of everything and even more, of the “paired” combinations, of the invention “by force” that does not resemble simple creativity at all.

This was the impression I received the first time. I have not heard the electricity of “New York”. I ate the least bit well in any place.

Then I went back. Once and another. I land there every time I go to the USA. The excuse is that NY is the first stop, the closest point and the stop serves to “unload” the jet leg that gives me headaches, dizziness and nausea. That’s true, but the real reason is that I want to stop over in NYC from time to time. Because in the end I felt its electricity.

Indeed, I felt it from the first time, when I left it. Until I let myself go, until I let go of my critical sense and my judgment. So I started hearing and enjoying the New York buzzz.

Can’t explain. Many have tried it, writers, singers, directors. Perhaps it is the energy of all those who have lived here and have made it what it is: from pioneers to carpenters who, in a famous photo, have breakfast on a table hanging in the void by the Empire State Building; from the gangs that still grip the side streets of the center (just turn the corner from the famous fifth street and find yourself in a smoky alley from crime movies), to the windows of famous brands; from the apparent calm of Central Park, to the lights of Time Square.

What is it that attracts? It’s not the skyscrapers, the crystals, the neon …

it is this “buzz” that passes through the body and that charges you. The energy of the people, that of before and that of now.

Well! I also had to change my mind about food: you can find it good.

But it is not for all budgets, unfortunately……..

Marcella Ansaldo