Friday, May 9, 2008

Galvanina Fruit Water



In 1901,Galvanina began bottling water.

From the heart of the rock. In the heart of Italy.

The snow and rains that fall copiously on the Northern Apennine Mountains follow a long path through deep rocks and uncontaminated underground channels, on a slow but steady journey of over two years, until Galvanina Mineral Water flows pure and clear from the summit of San Lorenzo Monte near Rimini, a hill known locally as "Paradise".

At first this water, sold in glass bottles, was limited circle of local aristocratic families.

Since then more and more consumers have come to appreciate Galvanina Mineral Water. Year by year the area of sales grew, until the water was distributed throughout Italy.

By 1989 Galvanina Mineral Water had reached every continent of the world, from Africa to Asia and from Australia to the Americas, becoming today one of the world's best-known and appreciated waters.

My favorite is Orange Tangerine.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

First Spritz


Neighborhood: Bucktown/Wicker Park
1914 W. Division St.
Chicago, IL 60622-3146
773-384-8150


When I was eight years old, visiting my grandfather in Chicago, he descided that I should for a steam. I was not sure what it meant, but I new it was something older men did and I was curious. We went the to the Division Street Baths.

Why I love the Place

As I grew older and read Saul Bellows work, I recognized the bathhouse. “ And down in the super-heated subcellars these Slavonic cavemen and wood demons with hanging laps of fat and legs of stone and lichen boil themselves and splash water on their heads by the bucket. There may be no village in the Carpathians where such practices still prevail." Being of Hungarian background I knew I was a not a Slavonic caveman, so I must be a wood demon.

I also began to realize that I had sat beside Saul Bellows and listended to him shoot the breeze about baseball and broads. I had also sat beside Reverend Jesse Jackson and his son. Milton Friedman, John Belusui, Russell Crowe and others are also known to show up there.

Description
You go into the front door, go to the desk, pay your fee, and receive a towle, a decency cloth, and a pair of sandles. You go to your locker, put away you cloths, wrap yourself in the cloth and decend down the stairs.

In a tiled entrance, there is a cold pool and showers. The hot pool was not operational last time I was there.

You go through a steel door and there is a brick lined room, with wooden benches. in the corner of the room there is a brick oven in which granite boulders, approximately the size of watermelons, are heated to extreme temperatures by gas jets; hot water is then thrown on the rocks by the customers as desired. When this happens, the water instantly evaporates, creating steam inside the oven and heating the brick enclosure, thereby raising the air temperature in the room.

This method provides a much dryer heat than common steam rooms. The bathers sit or lay on three-level tiered wooden benches, which allow for dramatically different temperatures at the various heights. Cold water is provided by taps located under the benches - when overwhelmed by the heat, a bather may dump a bucket of frigid water over his head while still in the hot room, or may step outside to use the cold pools.

Several attendants are usually on hand in the hot rooms to give a plaitza or "rub"- a scrubbing with a handheld birch broom or a bundle of leafy oak twigs. The customer receiving this will lay naked on a sheet, usually with a towel over his face, and be scrubbed thoroughly, front and back, then doused with cold water to remove the soap. This is an additional service which costs ten dollars.