Blogger Blogspot Log-On Loop Solved

I have a rule of thumb: if my problem doesn't google, that means it's not a real problem; I've just been stupid somehow.

This one's an exception, and it's tormented me for years. Since the answer doesn't exist online, I'll put it here, where hopefully some people will find it via web search.

Problem
You can't log on to your blog at blogspot.com, only to the back end at blogger.com.

For example.
You choose the "sign in" link atop your blog at xxx.blogspot.com
You're brought to blogger.com, where you log on
You return to xxxx.blogspot.com, where you're still not logged on.
You repeat endlessly, but the problem persists. You can only administer from the back end at blogger.com, never from the front end at xxx.blogspot.com.

Cause
This log-on procedure - where you get sent to a different web domain to sign on - is non-standard. It requires one domain (blogger.com) to pass your log-on cookie to another (blogspot.com), which mimics malevolent behavior many browsers are smart enough to detect and avoid. In short, the blogger.com log-on cookie is not being applied to blogspot.com because Google never should have done it this way.

Solution
Turn off the browser preference that detects and avoids cross-site cookies/tracking. In Safari, go to preferences > Privacy and toggle off "Prevent Cross-Site Tracking".


Update: Ha! Now that I've solved the mystery, if I search for specific search terms from that solution, I do see that it's been noted elsewhere. Unfortunately, this is a case of "bland search term syndrome". Terms like "blogger" and "log-on" produce such a profusion of noisy results that searching is effectively useless. Only if you know the solution can you effectively search for a solution!

So do I leave this posting up? Honestly, it may be no more easily findable than the other buried citations. But I like "bland search term syndrome", so I'll leave it just for that.

Sfogliatelle Shootout in Naples

Indexing previous reporting from my 2019 Italy trip:
The Naples Diet
Lines in Italy Explain My Exasperation
His Dying Thought: Oh, right; this is how you die in Italy
The Surprising Truth About Real Neapolitan Brick Oven Pizza
The Surprising Truth About Real Sicilian Rice Balls
Marzipan, You Idiot! Marzipan!
Naples: Mistaking Soulfulness for Danger
Two Recent Glimpses of Ridiculous Death
Pasta Time!
Miscellaneous PIzza

You've surely seen sfogliatella, the popular crimped, shell-shaped southern Italian pastries stuffed with sweetened ricotta. Naples is their homeland (originally Salerno, actually, 50 minutes south), where the two most respected specialists (if you had to boil it down to two) are La Sfogliatella Mary and Antico Forno Attanasio.

Every Napolitano has a favorite, but sometimes it actually helps to be a tourist. How many natives have sampled both on the same day? I did, and it's the only way to get a true comparison, rather than foggily remembering through tidal pools of emotional memory. And if you do try both places side by side, there's a pretty clear winner.

La Sfogliatella Mary is in the breathtaking Galleria Umberto. It took a lot of fussy work to line up this shot on my fixed-lens iPhone to try to capture the sweep of it all, so please give it a few seconds of your time (maybe even click-to-expand).

Mary is a literal hole-in-the-wall, a counter built into the Galleria. Despite its diminutive size, the stand is mega popular, its customer queue choking pedestrian traffic in/out of the building's side entrance. But the counter ladies are fast, efficient, and tourist tolerant (they chuckled at my poor pronunciation and overall flusteredness - pastries have that effect on me - but also registered my chowhoundish gleam and offered me extra attention).

The most famous type of sfogliatella - the ones with the ridges - are sfogliatella riccia ("curly"), but there's also "sfogliatella frolla" for killjoys who want all the calories with none of the ultra-crispy pastry miraculousness. I'd normally never consider frolla, but, on my first visit, it was all Mary had left. And it was magnificent. That was the day I joined Team Frolla.

I returned a couple days later for Mary's riccia, and it was very, very good, though nowhere near as good as her homely frolla.

For completists, above is full documentation of all Mary's wares (click for full size):

Attanasio is a more impressive undertaking, a complete antique bakery offering a range of delights. A desperate crowd flails for pastry from the contemptuous vampires charged with grudgingly distributing them.


The scene inside was way too chaotic for photographs, but in a distant corner, I managed to get a shot of the sole capricious touch remaining from a lost happier era.

Apparently, they're required to post the ingredient list publicly. Here it is, in case it's of use for Sfogliatella scholars.

Attanasio's frolla were excellent, but not even close to Mary's (I think this comes through if you compare the cross-section shots). And their (ridged) riccia was more or less on par with Mary's. So, overall (and discounting the different friendliness levels) the trophy goes to Mary.

Except....

A couple hours north, en route to Rome, a totally unknown pastry shop in the little-discussed town of Aprilia makes possibly even better ones (arguably a tad less soulful, but so meticulous and assured and regal that they left me rapturous). Saxophonist Rinø Grimaldi scored a delectable tray of them from Pasticceria Tropicana, and they may be best riccia I've ever had. Thanks, Rinø!


Coming up soon in this series: lunch at the table of Mamma Grimaldi, Rinø's mom, who I've been scheming to meet for 30 years, and who didn't disappoint. If I can assign some homework in preparation, please have a look at the devastating Mamma Grimaldi photo essay sent in a couple of years ago by her other son, guitarist Andrea Grimaldi, a very old friend living near Barcelona. The three-part food porn glory begins here, and it will change your inner biology (not to oversell).


Next installment of my Italy trip: Desserts and Lodgings

Miscellaneous PIzza

Indexing previous reporting from my 2019 Italy trip:
The Naples Diet
Lines in Italy Explain My Exasperation
His Dying Thought: Oh, right; this is how you die in Italy
The Surprising Truth About Real Neapolitan Brick Oven Pizza
The Surprising Truth About Real Sicilian Rice Balls
Marzipan, You Idiot! Marzipan!
Naples: Mistaking Soulfulness for Danger
Two Recent Glimpses of Ridiculous Death
Pasta Time!


You can see all postings from my Italy trip, in reverse-chronological order, via the label "Italy".


I wrote about Neapolitan pizza here. Now let's do Rome (plus one extra Neapolitan place at the end).

Even with all the other ingestion, I ate an enormous amount of pizza al taglio (there's nothing like walking 7 miles per day to clear space). That's the rectangular slabs of room temperature pizza, paid for by weight. It's everywhere in Rome, though it represents only one layer of the local pizza universe (here's a good guide to Roman styles).

Pizza al taglio is even more prominent than slice pizza in New York, which makes sense because it's more food-like. Less of a mindless greasy snack, this is good bread with minimal cheese and thoughtfully prepared actually nutritious toppings like artichoke or squash or arugala. There are some standard configurations (particularly, thank god, potato), but it's not like the tyranny of shroom/pepperoni/meatball. Expect small surprises.

No one would consider this style of pizza an apt substitute for a full course dinner, especially not fastidious Italians - though, of course, it's done by busy people when they can't help it. Yet it can fill in that way far more effectively than the mindless cheese bomb of the standard American slice.

This underscores the difference in function: you know how the Mediterranean diet is about modest portions of simple foods? That's what pizza al taglio represents. It's essentially a tapa or mezza served, conveniently, on nice spongey/crispy bread. Paradoxically ordinary yet classy. And it's damned good even when found in otherwise unexceptional supermarkets. You just want this stuff around you, just in case, and, grazie dio, it is.

Here come some porny shots (they're even better if you click to expand):

We've started with solid, workmanlike pizza al taglio, nothing special, from MATREM Bakery-Pizza, Viale delle Provincie, 90, 00161, Rome.

Notice that potato pizza can be made with or without cheese (these guys do both, which is 1. unusual, and 2. why I'm there).

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Pizzeria Lo Spuntino Calabrese was a random find, not far from Matrem (and quite close to a great little beer bar, Malto Misto).

I'm not sure if there's any real Calabrian connection here; they just serve regular pizza al taglio, though particularly good. A solid couple notches better than the previous.

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I have outstanding food radar. I can say this without boasting, because I truly don't "own" the process. If I weightily suppose a given place is good, it might be...or it might not. But if my foot, out of my conscious control, slams my car's brakes and the vehicle pulls suddenly to the curb, that means whatever just flicked into my peripheral vision is a sure thing. And this process is surprisingly non-joyful. Often it happens when I'm horribly full, or in a rush to get somewhere. It's usually pure aggravation. The radar demands attention, not caring at all about my greater concerns. I am merely the slave with the mouth conscripted for followup work.

This time I instinctively jumped off a bus en route to a lunch rendezvous (in a great place, and I was running late) at my first glimpse of Da Simone, a generic, shiny, crappy, commercial-looking little pizzeria which my conscious brain found eye-rollingly mundane. Sure enough, it was the best pizza taglio I found in Rome (I see that a Yelper agrees). Good potato croquette, too, 'cuz you can never have enough potatoes.

No exceptional flavors, or surprising toppings, and nothing artisanal in the least. It was utterly The Usual...but so, so, so soulful and satisfying that it left me in a reverie, actually shifting my state of consciousness. I was like Bugs Bunny in the "Ether" episode.


The interior is lit with oppressive glaring lights that tinted my photos yellow (other photographers have made out better). But, really, there's not much to see. Pizza al taglio always looks great, and this is unexceptional pizza al taglio....but the greatest unexceptional pizza al taglio, crafted by wizards.

Ok, just one more from the ultra pedestrian Da Simone:

At front left of this photo I stole off the Google, I call your attention to the pizza of potatoes with - I'm gonna say - clams, plus an economy car. Those whacky Italians will put anything on a pizza (seriously, look at those potatoes, though).

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I also hit Formula 1, a grimy, cheap, beery old-school student hang-out known for pizza with fiore di zucca (fried zucchini flowers) and anchovies. Thin crusted and round, I assume this would be considered Neapolitan, but it's almost too unpretentious for classification. I suppose that most Romans would consider this simply "pizza".

It does fit my (shocked and disoriented) description of Neapolitan pizza: great balance without the slightest refined touch. Just a dandy, well-honed, and ultimately simple-minded way to serve bread.

Click the Yelp link for lots of great photos from this place (do not miss this one). My kind of joint!

Also, is it just me, or does the place's interior strike you as sort of the ur-pizzeria, the grandfather of every pizzeria association you have in your head? The archetype, or the Platonic Form, if you will?

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Culinary bounceback is a thing. One of the most authentically Chinese things you can order is Ovaltine, embraced over there for a couple generations to the point where if you ask for it in a Hong Kong bakery/cafe, they'll be shocked by your insider knowledge of Chinese culture. Similarly, spaghetti and meatballs, entirely an Italian-American dish, has bounced back to the motherland, where people love the stuff (and why shouldn't they?). Ignore anyone who tells you it's "not a real Italian dish", because it sure is now.

Similarly - at least I think (this is all theorizing-in-progress) - I size up Naples' Pizzeria da Concettina ai tre Santi as upscaled diaspora Neapolitan pizza bounced back to Naples (see my exposition of how I was disabused of the notion that real Neapolitan brick oven pizza was any fancy artisanal thing).

Pizza menu, above (click to expand).

Margheritissima ("extreme margherita"): fresh piennolo tomato, buffalo mozzarella, basil and 4-year-old parmesan

Having zoomed in a bit, you can see that even this uber-shmancy pie is as glurky and primal as Da Michele's, at heart.

Cetarese: san marzano tomato, piennolo tomato, black olives, capers, anchovies, white garlic, basil, oregano and extra virgin olive oil.

This was a whole other thing; one of the best things I ate on my trip and among the great bread experiences of my life.

Also, am I nutty for being reminded of Chicago deep-dish...or, at least, Trenton-style tomato pie?

Italians still carve marble! My table number was custom chiseled!


Next installment of my Italy trip: Sfogliatelle Shootout in Naples

Pasta Time!

Indexing previous reporting from my 2019 Italy trip:
The Naples Diet
Lines in Italy Explain My Exasperation
His Dying Thought: Oh, right; this is how you die in Italy
The Surprising Truth About Real Neapolitan Brick Oven Pizza
The Surprising Truth About Real Sicilian Rice Balls
Marzipan, You Idiot! Marzipan!
Naples: Mistaking Soulfulness for Danger
Two Recent Glimpses of Ridiculous Death
Pasta Time!


A special treat: a freebie look at the Roman pasta overview in my app, Eat Everywhere (which guides you, on-the-fly, through meals in any type of restaurant; it's like having an insider coach you through the cuisine):

Roman kitchens remain obsessed with the city's storied pasta magic tricks. Elsewhere, they might have faded into a tradition that only old folks remember, prepared uncompromisingly only in one certain restaurant. But I'd bet you could find bowling alleys in Rome making hyper-careful carbonara or arrabiata putting NYC's finest to shame.

To pick the smallest nits, I'll note that Rome whips up metric tons of every pasta shape and recipe you've ever heard of (up to and including beef chow fun), but while local chefs would opt for suppoku rather than produce a flawed version of the Roman classics, the rest is just...pasta. So if you're craving more than the traditional peasant recipes, you're on potentially shaky ground. Unless you opt for the small but impressive local magic tricks, magic will not be assured.

I'd already had state-of-the-art spaghetti cacio e pepe in, of all places, Norwalk, Connecticut at Bar Sugo. Roman friends have pronounced these photos fully worthy:

Pepe Verdea
Viale Gorizia 38, 00198 Rome

Rigatoni alla gricia

I also tried a special, "Straccetti di pollo carciofi e testun al barolo", strips of chicken and artichokes with paper-thin shavings of barolo wine-crusted hard cheese.

This struck me as the quintessential case of a chef coming up with a way to move excess provisions. Dude probably had a poultry backlog, and while the dish was good, it was simple, and without 1200 years of honing to inject magic, tastes like it's missing something. Pretty, though!


Osteria da Fortunata
Via del Pellegrino 11, 00186 Rome

Strozzapreti carbonara

These guys really put the "carb" in carbonara. Not sure this super thick and clunky pasta works for this purpose. I agree with my Roman friend Paola, who prefers strozzapreti with tomato, oil and basilico.

Also, a nice simple artichoke dish. It was the season.


Hostaria da Settimio

Via di Val Tellina 81, 00151 Rome

Bucatini all'Amatriciana

Sometimes when you try an authentic version of a dish hard to find good where you live, there's a surreal deja vu. It reminds you of mediocre or even awful things you've tried that were influenced, way back, by the wonderful original creation you're finally getting to try. So I'm going to do name-drop two culinary abominations prodded into my memory - junior high cafeteria spaghetti, and canned "Beefaroni" - but I need you to understand that I am not criticizing this dish.

The first time I tasted Memphis dry rub barbecue, I finally understood what Wise barbecue potato chips were referencing. Which is not to say that Memphis barbecue is as crappy as a mass-market potato chip. It's just that I tasted it long after I'd ingrained Wise's dumbed-down version.

Similarly, amatriciana is great and conveys deep sentiments. But, through no fault of its own, it seems to be the spiritual grandfather of some of the worst culinary banes of my youth. None of them are called amatriciana, nor were they prepared by people familiar with the word. But the connection is obvious. Perhaps this closeup might jar similar associations:

I'm glad I had this. It redeemed years of disgust and disappointment suffered in institutional lunchrooms. Also (further above): trippa ala Romana and the famous Jewish fried artichokes. This restaurant is considered quite a serious find for non-touristy, highly disciplined cooking in an informal setting at a fair price. But I found the food merely proper, and lacking soul.


Then on to Naples' more free-wheeling pasta scene, unchained from Rome's preoccupation with local classics.


Tandem Sedile di Porto
Via Sedile di Porto 51, 80134 Naples

Paccheri ragú alla Genovese

Tandem is an unpretentious little place with a short menu. They know what they're good at, and excel at the house specialty. It's essentially a two-trick pony, turning out configurations based around two varieties of ragú, Neopolitan and Genovese. A proper ragú is a hell few modern chefs would tackle, involving hours of braising. Tandem makes no shortcuts, and the result is calibration-level ragú. I chose Genovese, and it was properly melt-in-your-mouth and (authentically) almost embarrassingly oniony. Any North Indian customer would be moved to proclaim "Dopiaza!")

Also: a sturdy, smartly-prepared cut of maiale nero, the legendary Calabarian black pig (a fine deal at 18 euros).


Mimì alla Ferrovia
Via Alfonso D'Aragona 19, 80139 Naples

Spaghetti frutti di mare

Also: octopus.

This is an old-school, old-guard place, complete with waiters in tuxedos and snooty xenophobia toward sneaker-clad Americans. The cooking showed echoes of past grandeur, but it's all gone a bit soft (in places still at their prime, waiters have better things to do than study customer footwear). I'd been recommended the linguine frutti di mare, and while it wasn't on-menu the day I visited, the chef kindly offered to whip it up if I was okay with spaghetti in place of linguini. It was the latest of many lessons that pasta shape is critical. This really needed linguini.


Next installment of my Italy trip: Miscellaneous PIzza