croissants, pickles, and a film fest on neapolitan island

9 am: fabulous coffee: dark, aromatic, bone-shatteringly strong. and blissful (buttery, rich, crisped up in the oven) croissants directly from france. the english channel or la manche as the french call it, is only 4 kilomenters from our home and sometimes the farmers, bakers, cheese-and-salami makers take the ferry and set up market stalls. occasionally i even get a glimpse of a legendary "onion johnnie", that is, a french onion-grower on this bicycle, draped with strings of onions, selling directly from his bike. Today: no onion johnnies, only fab croissants.

list of things to do:
x organize food for my daughter's party in new yorks catskills in two weeks time.

x finish column for san francisco chronicle (all about fantastic trip to poland, eating, drinking, and dancing, then eating some more; recipes include chic little pickley borsht and summer squash in sour cream with pickles and dill. i decided to focus on pickles; it is, for anyone interested, international pickle week, though truthfully i ALWAYS focus on pickles, i love them so!)

x swim my daily hour--i'm headed to napoli, campania, home of the buffalo and their beautiful mozzarella. i gotta be swimming for dear life, cause i'll be eating that gorgeous juicy-milky cheese within minutes of the plane landing.

x deal with shoes: do we think that red nineties pumps will go with a kind of retro fifties shimmery green sheath and my mother's old mink stole for a film festival on the isle of capri? what i really mean is, do you think i can get away with this slightly eccentric colour/style for our islands of the bay of naples film festival.

the fabulous stanley tucci--huge crush!-- will be our guest and i'l like to not look like my whole outfit cost me 21.99 (which it did--thank you Ross Dress for Less).

for more info about these islands of wonder and our cinema-inspired menus, visit www.isoledinapoli.com (i'm hoping to feast on the timballo at les barrique on the isle of ischia, the timballo filled with "everything good", inspired by Stanely Tucci's BIG NIGHT!)