6.10 Being Italian Lessons

Today was our cooking lesson with Giovanna, Frank’s cousin, in Borla. Easy enough to find – it’s just beyond Trinita, where we had the wonderful lunch the other day. Mamma was concerned that we’d get lost and not find it since my directions were “2km past Trinita”, but I’m starting to get used to these rural roads: there are VERY few forks where the two branches are equally well-travelled and well-maintained, so just stay with the main road and you’re pretty nearly always right. (When Steffi showed me the “quick way” to the river beach last summer, THAT was a route to get lost on, since you had to know whether to take the main road or the squiddly road three separate times.)

We started with sauce Bolognese. These seemed a little dumb to me as I, and americans generally, thought Bolognese was just tomato sauce with ground beef in it. Oh no no no! Onions, carrots and garlic must be sauteed first, then the meat (she recommends a 2:1 mix of beef and pork) must be browned until dry, then the tomato sauce, then the WATER, then the simmering for 90 minutes or more to get the flavors to come together. Not difficult, certainly, but not what I was expecting. The porcini sauce was also easy, though I had never used porcini mushrooms before. They only show up in the US dried, so you have to soak them overnight, then keep the water, being sure to pour it off slowly since a lot of gunk from the shrooms will be in the bottom. Recipe calls for panna di cucina, a little box of cream the consistency of yogurt (sliiiiideSMUSH), which I’m not sure how to duplicate at home. Oh well, for the next ten months I don’t have to. We also made tagliatelle and capelli d’angeli. She has a restaurant-sized pasta machine, so rolling it out went really fast – much faster than my little tiny machine from days of yore. We also made ravioli with ham and ricotta filling. She showed us how to fill, fold, and cut the ravioli very evenly, and the girls did very well making it. When it came to be my turn, I started up doing exactly what she’d said…and she yelled at me. “Not that way! What are you, left-handed or something? THIS way!” “Er, uh, actually, I AM left-handed.” Pause. “Well, okay, then do it that way.” Awkward. But hilarious.

Once everything was made up we had a typical Italian family lunch. It was just going to be the four of us and Giovanna and her husband, but then her twenty-year-old grandson turned up demanding to be fed, and then one of her sons. Fresh pasta is better than dried, in case you were wondering. All the vegetable ingredients for the sauces (including the mushrooms!) came from their farm. Now, with lunch, we drank their homemade wines, one white, one red. They asked the girls if they would like wine. Aurora was a little horrified at the thought, but Elise was excited to be among the grownups. I said she couldn’t have much, as alcohol is hard on diabetics, but a small glass with a big meal is not a problem. We were offered coffee with smabuca after lunch, but not being a big licorice fan I did not partake. In the end we at all the tagliatelle that we had made, but brought home 2 trays of ravioli, one of capelli d’angeli, and 2 bottles of the white wine. Need a pasta maker now, sigh.

But the groovy day was not over yet. Emanuele invited us to go to Castell’Arquato for a bit, then to a festa near Piacenza. I didn’t fully understand what he had in mind, but hey, festa, we’re all invited, he’s driving, sounds good to me. We hadn’t gotten up to the castle when we came before, so it was definitely a thing on our list to do. We walked up to the piazza of the castle, which he told me had been the castle set for the movie Ladyhawke. The festa was starting soon so we didn’t go inside, but he said the inside was very interesting.

The festa turned out to be a pirate themed thing. Lots of people dressed in terrible pirate costumes, and one guy dressed as Jack Sparrow who was amazing – had all of Johnny Depp’s body language DOWN. Unfortunately, Elise starting having panic attacks in crowds, and Aurora got all bent out of shape that we were only giving Elise any love and not her. Ugh.But once we got some food in them (Emanuele was SO forbearing – I was completely embarrassed by their behavior!) they improved. We went down the the field where there was music, and the girls danced together so sweetly. Then there was a re-enacting of Pirates of the Caribbean II, which was a little weird but entertaining. I went to one of the pirate/gypsy fortune tellers, who told me that getting a PhD from UMassBoston was a bad idea, and that I should get a new job instead. Okeydokey.

The date of the festa is to commemorate Aloisa, a Visconti princess, whose husband went off to war and betrayed her. She killed herself out of grief on this day, and her ghost supposedly shows up sometimes. But she only appears to people who are in terrible trouble. Her appearance is supposed to signify an improvement in the situation of those who see her. Odd little thing: there’s a statue of her in one corner of the garden, and she looks to be about 4.5 feet tall, positively cartoonish. But maybe that’s why the captain husband blew her off – thought she was weird-looking.

7.10 Since Elise is in dire need of winter clothes, we decided to have a look at the Fidenza outlet mall, where all the top brands have stores. Yes, excellent prices on Dolce and Gabbana, Ferragamo, etc. 40, 50, 60% off. But nothing humans can ACTUALLY afford, since all that stuff starts life at about 800E anyway. Then we wanted to take a peek at the Armani shop, just to look, and the BOUNCER told us there were already seven people in the shop, we could wait until they came out. Way to ensure that I never buy anything from Armani, dude. The Italian versions of Target and Kmart were just about ½ mile away (including H&M), and we found things. For decent prices. That she liked. This was better. I tried on a few things, but definitely need to get skinny – Italian sizes generally don’t go up to as fat as I am, sigh.

8.10 Second and fourth Mondays are market days in Pellegrino. I always go for vegetables and mortadella and whatnot, but today I stopped in at one of the clothes stalls, and found some very cute things for me at decent prices, unlike at outlets! Got a purple lace T-shirt-and-sweater, an orange sweater dress, and a navy blue sweater with flower embroidery. Since I finally know how to pronounce caciotta and my Italian is getting better, I asked the cheese man his name. It’s Aldo. He had some frozen fish in a tub and I asked what it was. Merluzzo (cod). I’m willing to try a new fish, but cod we’re pretty tired of J Aldo said, “This guy is the one to ask about fish!” and introduced me to the fishmonger, Ianni. Ianni opined that it was time for coffee and since he and Aldo were going, I should go too. So they bought me coffee, and I’m pretty sure Ianni asked me out. He might be as much 35 but I don’t think so. Seems there’s a festa in Fidenza tomorrow, and he said it’s a big deal since it’s San Donnino, Fidenza’s patron saint. So obviously he said I should go. And if it hadn’t been a school night I totally would have. They say I paid too much for a house in Beso. Probably right, but what do I know.