Peas-a

Last Tuesday I took a day trip to Pisa, for work. It was so beautiful! The city straddles the River Arno, and is made up of little streets and parks and absolutely teeming with students. (The University of Pisa is huge, relatively.) Tuscany is amazingly warm and sunny compared to Bologna, and I actually got a tan on my face from walking around. Sorry to say, because I know how cold it’s been on the East Coast.



I was lucky, because I had enough time to do some exploring. Before leaving for Pisa, I planned to visit the Piazza dei Miracoli, which is the site of the leaning
Tower. But I felt skeptical, mostly because I’ve seen so many pictures of it, based in a plate of spaghetti or something equally cheesy. But the Tower, and the Piazza itself, are gorgeous. The area is comprised of a big green field on which you can see the Tower, the Duomo (main cathedral) of Pisa, and a domed building that I think is the Baptistry – all dramatic and oversized. They’re made out of carved, embellished white marble and look like three huge white cakes sitting in the grass. The best part is that I approached the Piazza from a back street, enclosed by houses, until suddenly the street opened up and I was in a small square adjacent to the big grassy Piazza. There was the Tower, leaning in the distance. It looked fake! So, what made it special was that it was actually real. I took off my shoes and socks and lay in the grass in a tank top. It was really that warm.



Since going, when I’ve told other Italians how much I loved visiting Pisa, I’ve gotten mixed reactions. My colleagues from Florence say that it’s nothing special and there’s nothing to do. This may have some undertone of regional competition. Everyone I know in Bologna agrees with me and says that Tuscany is just beautiful all the time. I never know whether to just laugh at all the regional prejudices I hear every day, or to actually try to pursue these topics with people. Today, for work, I went to Forli, which is in Emilia-Romagna, like Bologna, but it’s in the Romagna part (these distinctions are still lost on me), which means that people from Forli are somehow markedly different from those in Bologna in manner and culture. (Keep in mind that the average train ride between Bologna and Forli is 30 minutes.) Of course I wouldn’t be able to see these differences, being a foreigner myself.

On the food front, I had a triumph on Saturday: I cooked a my own version of ragu (Bolognese sauce, to us), with no Italian assistance, and it was met with approval by a dinner table full of Bolognese Italians! As I wrote a few weeks ago, Italians are very particular about food. This would be exponentially worse with a ragu, because in everyone’s grandmother has a recipe, which is better than this or that restaurant, which is not as good as the ragu of the aunt of so-and-so, etc, etc. As dinnertime approached, I was in a state of terror. Why was I cooking the regional specialty for a people from the region, when I didn’t know what I was doing?

The idea of the dinner arrived like this: on Monday I spontaneously invited some people, who are slowly emerging as friends, for dinner on Saturday. I had no idea what to make. Still on Thursday, no idea what to make. On Friday I decided to go with a pasta sauce I’ve made before. For which I did not have the recipe. I racked my brain to remember what it was, and instead remembered how good the dessert was for said dinner in the States (banana pudding, not made by me). I went to the supermarket and bought ingredients at random, remembering only that the cookbook told me to cook the sauce for as long as possible. And, in the end, I cooked it for four hours. I think that did the trick. It ended up really thick and, I hate to say it, but meat fat makes it taste really good.

If you’re interested, this is what went into the sauce: ground beef, ground veal, and chicken-turkey sausage. Browned together. And then I put in an onion and a clove of garlic that I’d sautéed separately. Pepper, salt, and paprika (I like putting paprika in everything). And then two cans of stewed tomatoes, not from Coop. And it sat there, cooking, for four hours. At the end I put in some large-ish amount of lemon zest and parsley (I really was making it up as I went). Lemon zest: highly recommended. It’s really yummy in pasta sauce, if you like the taste of lemon.

I also made a great mistake, which was buying a type of tagliatelle (flat spaghetti – the only thing you eat ragu with here!) that is thinner and less broad than usual. And it was actually preferable, because it was easier to eat, and more tender.

Anyway, we ate everything. And Massimo, whose grandmother’s ragu has deity-like status for him, told me that he hadn’t had such good ragu in months. I’m sorry if I’m bragging. I was so proud.

Next on my list is to learn how to cook something else! Hopefully with real measurements and a recipe. (Photo below I took in Venice.)

Venice-style Mardi Gras

Carnivale. Venice.





I tried to describe it as Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but that’s not really right. Also I’ve never been to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Anyway, imagine Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but with the sun beating down while you try to walk down the street, and you can’t, because there are too many people trying to walk down the street at the same time as you, in the same direction. A very small fraction of them are wearing masks. The rest are wearing cameras and ice cream.

There’s not much else to say about the Carnivale itself, because it was more of an experience of anxiety and claustrophobia than joy and celebration. However, I’ve been told that the real way to celebrate Carnivale in Venice is to go to exclusive Venetian parties with Venetian friends. Next time.

I did have a memorable experience with Lucia's mother, who accompanied Massimo and me back to Bologna on the train. I should preface this story by explaining that older Italian women tend intimidate me in venues like the bus and the supermarket, where they will easily push me over with shopping cart/pocketbook/whatever to get where they're going. I've always been on the receiving end of this aggression. However, when teamed with Lucia's mother, I found that this older-lady determination is very helpful at getting things done.

The Venice train station during Carnivale was an absolute nightmare. The crowds were so thick that it was impossible to walk or really do anything at all. To make matters worse, for some reason the trains running between Venice and Bologna seemed to be some of the most chaotic. So, on Sunday evening, Anita (Lucia's mom), Massimo and I arrived at the station with five minutes to spare, because our vaporetto (the boat version of a bus) was late. Massimo took off to get tickets, and Anita proceeded to plow through hundreds of people, tightly gripping my arm, and yelling "excuse me" - sometimes only after she had pushed people out of her way. It was great. I felt like I was seeing the world from a new perspective. Of course, we missed the train anyway, because it was too full. So Anita and I plowed off to another train, and eventually we all ended up on our way.

The most interesting food I’ve eaten this week: a mint popsicle colored olive-green with spinach dye. It was not delicious! I actually couldn’t finish it. It was very strange, especially the flavor, which wasn’t the mild sweet mint of mint tea, but a very strong, stinging mint, like toothpaste. So, an olive-green toothpaste flavored popsicle. To make matters worse, it arrived in my office at work the way most of the food does in Coop – in unmarked packaging, as a food sample, looking very suspicious. I never realized, before, how nutrition info and brand names legitimize packaged food and make it seem recognizable. In my office, the fridge is full of food, but it’s all yogurt and cheese and popsicles that are unmarked. I’m still not used to it. Anyway, I didn’t finish my popsicle. And usually I can eat strange things, but the toothpastey sweetness combined with the knowledge of the spinach (though there wasn’t any taste) just made it unappetizing.

And, I have learned lots more during the tremendously intellectual exchanges that constitute my Thursday evening English lessons with Andrea. Last night he taught me a saying: Donne e motori sono joie e dolori. Women and motorcycles are joy and pain. (Needless to say, he has a motorcycle, and most of our "conversation time" consists of motorcycle discussion.) We also dedicated a good chunk of time trying to figure out how to translate "Just Do It", so that he could understand the meaning of his Nike apparel. I said it was something like, "do it without thinking too much". How would you translate the word "just"? Any suggestions are welcome. I'll let him know next week when we try to tackle the conditional.

I'm not being totally fair, because Andrea is really a terrific, perceptive guy with a great sense of humor. He proudly declares that he's only read three books in his life, because he prefers car and sport magazines. But he'll then add that his mother weeps about this, because she has so many books that she had to build a library in her house. He thinks this is very funny. I don't know if he'll ever be reading Shakespeare, but at least he's started to read about sports in English.

Cat in the Sink

This is the view from the terrace in my room, from one side. The other side is prettier but I haven't taken a good photo of it yet.

Also, I really don't want to turn into an obsessive cat person, but I couldn't resist putting up these photos. Spilo is so odd. Here is a selection of his daily activities: eating plants, vomiting up leaves around the house (and on my bed), staring people down, snoring, heavy breathing while walking, coughing like an old man, and sneezing balls of snot down the stairs.



Yesterday he climbed into the sink, for unknown reasons. I think it had something to do with the new cutting board I bought, though that's also inexplicable. But he was trying to get to the cutting board. Anyway, he had some very happy moments in the sink, and I took photos. Today he's on his way to Venice on the train with Lucia. She thinks that he'll be happier in a new environment.

I learned a new English tense last night. Present perfect (I have read three books this week, I have given everything away). Technically I know it, and I certainly use it, but I don't know how to talk about it. I had to teach Andrea what it was without knowing how to explain it. I also told him that the past participle of forget was forgot. When it's forgotten. At the end of the session he asked if we could spend next week's class doing review. I need it, too.

And this is an old photo of Bologna around Christmas. That oblong is one of the two towers that are the city's landmarks. The other one broke in half because of poor building techniques.

Secret Agent

This week I performed a taste test! This is by far one of the most interesting things that I can do at work. On the first floor of the Coop building, there’s a lab, where all sorts of studies and tests are carried out. One of the cool things about working at a company that runs supermarkets is that product testing involves food. I’ve already been given my share of free samples, ranging from pillows to detergents to canned mackerel (still uneaten).

Basically, it works like this: four identical products, from different stores, are assigned random numbers. The tester (me!) receives each numbered product with a corresponding form that asks me to rank flavor, quality, etc. I was testing apples (Renettas, which are a traditional Italian baking apple), so the questions were also about tartness, juiciness, and crispness. Cool, right? Afterwards the lab manager told me that I had ranked the apple from Coop’s major competitor, Esselunga, first. And I ranked Coop’s Renetta last. Oops.

This is the view from one of the bridges that I cross in the bus on my way to work. It's very pretty when there's daylight and sun! (Two rare things here during the winter.)


Speaking of putting my foot in my mouth, I spent this Thursday’s English lesson talking to my overachieving student, Andrea, about cars. It’s extremely expensive to own a car here, which I discovered after he made me a detailed graph of all the costs. So, trying to contribute intelligently to the conversation, I told him that I had heard that Fiats are bad-quality cars. But guess what? He works at Fiat, and he didn’t think that was very funny. He forgave me, though, and gave me a ride to the train station in his 1971 Fiat 500. It’s really that small. The car is entirely non-electric (mechanical?) and all its features (as in, headlights, heat, windshield wipers) are turned on by an actual switch – like a light switch – on the dashboard. And the motor sounds like a blender. Have you ever been in a car and felt extremely fortunate with every moment that it continued to drive? That’s how I felt. But Andrea is very proud of his car. It has an important history, too. It was the first car that Italians were able to buy after World War II, and it carried them long distances on honeymoons and vacations for the first time. Apparently, it can be seen as a symbol of a recovering postwar economy and populace. This September Fiat is bringing out a 2007 version. (Excuse any lapses in historical content, because my only source is Andrea.)

And, finally, it’s getting easier to speak Italian. I don’t mean that I can actually speak it (and I make mistakes all the time), but I can finally understand little comments and keep abreast of lunchtime conversations. It’s still very difficult to say what I want to say, but at least it’s feeling more like a process is taking place in my brain, and less like a constantly embarrassing and frustrating experience. It’s really amazing to see how intuitive language is. Expressions and gestures are so important, and carry as much (if not more) weight as words. Well, to Italians they are. So I’m very lucky in that respect!

My language triumphs are teeny tiny compared to those of others. Especially the people who sing in my choir, some from Cameroon, Turkey, or the Czech Republic, who speak four languages (and can sing in many more). It’s really humbling to meet so many people, on a daily basis, who speak so many languages – often motivated by economic need – when I have so often felt constricted by my choice to learn just one more. (The operative word being choice, because I had one.)

Meanwhile, Carnivale has begun here. I hope to see some of it. It’s very hard to get objective advice on where to go. My colleagues at work recommend the small towns near Bologna, where there are parades and candy thrown in the street, but my roommates will only go to Venice for Carnivale. No one agrees, and everyone has regional preferences. We’ll see what happens.

Coffee With a Crust

This weekend I finally moved upstairs into my roommate's old room, which has a terrace and sun through the windows and is pretty much perfect. It has a view of red shingled roofs. It's like some Italian cliche bedroom and I feel very lucky to have it. We spent most of the weekend in a flurry of moving and cleaning, but things are settled now and a very nice Dutch girl, Mirelle, is living in my old room downstairs. To welcome her on her first morning, one of the cats threw up next to her bed.

Yesterday, Massimo (the male half of the couple that owns my apartment) took me on a gastronomical tour of the pasticcerie of Bologna. (A pasticceria is where you can go for coffee and pastries and little sandwiches.) Lucia is studying like crazy for her law and notary exams, so to fill the void Massimo likes to spend his time going to pasticcerie, of which he has many favorites. We actually stopped at six or seven places, but only ate at four, and he tried to show me the entire range - from super posh rich Bolognese to the hole-in-the-wall that makes the best pastry crust in the city. The posh places were a little intimidating, probably because Bologna really is a very wealthy city. One of them, called Impero, has a specialty made from orange, cornmeal, and egg yolk. Sort of like fruity cornbread, but VERY eggy. It sits like a brick in your stomach.

My favorite was a place that specialized in coffee. The menu had pages and pages of different coffees - chili pepper, cinnamon, nut extracts, vanilla - and the owner had covered one of the walls with diplomas and certificates of his coffee education. I had a creme brulee-cinnamon cappucino. The owner actually burned the top of the foam with a torch so that I could crack it with my spoon. Pretty cool.

Massimo's favorite thing to do, other than eat sweet things, is analyze and criticize Italian culture. He comes from a mixed background belief-wise - partly super-religious Catholic, partly super-liberal Socialist: he identifies as a Protestant, but reveres his Socialist grandmother, who apparently had two vocations - cooking and politics. Massimo likes to say that the major problem with Italian culture is that Catholicism has made everyone into conformists, and that they are cursed by the fact that they don't have the ability to achieve satisfaction through hard work. (He, on the other hand, works so hard that he's given himself a heart condition.) Stuffing myself with pastries and listening to his dissection of Italian culture made for a very entertaining Saturday afternoon.

This is an old photo, from my layover in Amsterdam on the way home for the holidays. But I like it anyway.