concistoro

A few weekends ago the pope named 23 new Cardinals. This only happens once every few years and much of the excitement surrounding the event occurs because the Apostolic Palace is open to the public for the Cardinals to greet people. It was only the promise of entering the Sala Regia that motivated me to withstand what would be ravenous crowds. There is nothing more viscious or fearsome than a crowd of catholics approaching the focus of their religious fervor. There are usually regular line cutters in the line to go to the Basilica (Chris has proposed that they are in a real hurry to get inside because they need to go to confession). I knew I had to do something to ease my entrance into the Papal apartments, so I attached myself to a group of seminarians wearing their cassocks. They in turn attached themselves to a Bishop. Certainly we got in easier than most people--in line to greet Cardinal DeNardo we heard stories of dresses being torn and elbows being thrown--but it was no picnic none the less. At first things seemed fine. We waited at one check point in front of a gate. A crowd began to form behind us and despite the protest of the guards that this was NOT the entrance, no one budged. As soon as the guard was relieved by someone else, he allowed the bishop to shepherd his group through. I began to breath a sigh of relief since I was near enough to see the Scala Regia which leads to the apartments. It wasn't over yet though. Suddenly the guard behind us let everyone through. People ran up all around us. There was no respect for the line that already existed. People climbed around columns and ran up around the sides to get as close as possible to the front. It was as if a dam had burst and people were flowing into every available space. It only got worse when they began to let a small number of people through to the staircase. The crowd pushed forward and people began streaming over the barrier that formed the left side of the line. We were all packed in like a sardines. One of the seminarians started saying, "This is how people get killed!" I remembered the nightclub fire several years ago where people were trampled to death. My father had warned me about going to nightclubs where such an event could happen. Little did he know the Basilica of San Pietro was far more dangerous. Luckily just as the thought of being trampled to death entered my mind, the Bishop managed to get through and pull us along with him. Safely on the other side of the line, I could breath. I was about to head up the Scala Regia when I looked around..where was my husband? I looked back at the mass of people and saw him a few feet back. He and one of the other seminarians had been left behind. I waved but they couldn't get to the front. The two policemen holding back the line simply with their imposing presence just shrugged their shoulders in the characteristicly Italian way which means, "What do you want me to do?" Just then a group of people led by a flag pushed forward. People in the line began screaming in protest. The police quickly stopped them but luckily this created enough space for Chris to reach the golf cart parked at the front of the line. He and the seminarian climbed over it and freed themselves. Inside most of the people made no pretense about greeting any of the Cardinals and whipped out their cameras to capture the frescoes. We made our way from room to room. We paused to gaze out of the window where the pope had appeared for the first time in public after his election to the papacy. It was enough to help us forget the insanity outside.

la chasse est arrivee!

We just arrived back from Geneva which is located in the francophone part of Switzerland. We left the sunny weather of Rome for a freezing cold wind blowing right off of a lake. The old city was charming but austere as you might imagine one of the centers of the Reformation would be. Our first stop was to a department store to buy a scarf for Chris. It was so warm inside that we didn't leave for several hours. This wasn't tragic, because there isn't all that much to do in Geneva. We made up for our sightseeing laziness the following day when we spent hours at the archeological site under the cathedral. Remarkably, there is evidence of heating in the remnants of Genevoise structures there all the way back to the 5th century. There is obviously a long history of coping with the cold and I have to think that the cuisine, which focuses heavily on meat and cheese, is clearly necessary to provide an insulating layer of fat.

We had fondue our first night. As much as I love cheese, I am not keen on meals which are made of only two ingredients. The next night I was looking for more variety. After a few months of Roman food I was anxious to have a juicy steak. Roman cuisine features the spare parts of the cow, the so-called "Quinto Quarto" which translates to offal (the similarity of this word to "awful" is no coincindence in my mind). When I told my father this he said, "What do they do with the good parts of the animal?"

When I saw that the menu at Cafe Papon, one of the oldest restaurants in Geneva, included filet, I was elated. Chris was a little concerned that his options might be limited since there was an extensive "Menu de Chasse" and he does not like venison. Apparently it is the season for hunting and the deer have arrived from Austria. Large signs at many of the restaurants in town announced "La chasse est arrivee!" Although he was tentative, Chris' fears vanished when we began our meal. For my first plate I ordered a salad with bacon, a warm cheese in a potato cup topped with rocket and little white things which resembled bean sprouts but tasted distinctly of onion. Chris also received a side of bacon with his pumpkin soup with truffle oil which was likewise excellent. We both ordered the filet, which arrived accompanied by two disks of sweet potato topped with roasted fall vegetables, a bowl of potatos au gratin and a little dense cake which resembled a biscotto topped with two mushrooms. It must have been the several glasses of Gamaret I had already consumed which gave me the courage to try the mystery "cake" inspite of the fact that I absolutely detest mushrooms. I was pleasantly surprised by the little white orbs which were dense and slightly gelatinous but melted in my mouth in a completely unfamiliar way. Given my inexperience with fungi it is probably understandable that I didn't realize at first that I wasn't eating mushrooms at all. My powers of reasoning were considerably slowed by the wine, but after the second bite I became a little suspicious of the strange food. I asked Chris what he thought it was and he swiftly replied, "Don't ask, just eat it." Needless to say, I didn't eat another bite and as soon as I saw that he had finished I called the waiter over and asked, "Que ce que c'est ca?"while gesturing to the remainder of the mystery food. The reply, in French, came through something like this owing to my poor understanding of the language: "Cow blah blah blah neck (waiter gestures to the base of the neck) blah blah blah spine blah blah blah" and then the final phrase which I understood perfectly, "If I had told you that before you wouldn't have eaten it."

I couldn't believe that after all of my efforts to avoid quinto quarto specialties in Rome, I had been tricked into eating some unidentifiable cow part (we are still not sure exactly what it was) in a perfectly innocent-looking Genevoise restuarant. I was happy when the plane touched down in Rome, where temperatures only reach freezing once every five years or so and you always know when you are eating the spare parts of an animal.

la nostalgia

If anyone was concerned about my last attack of hypochondria you will be glad to know that it seems as though I only have a common cold and perhaps a little tinge of homesickness. At the first sign of my symptoms I thought I should go out for provisions: Italian Vogue, tissues, and ingredients for a big pot of soup. Although we have been sticking mainly to an Italian diet here there is nothing like feeling ill to make you wish you were at home eating comfort food. I went to the grocery store armed with two recipes of American origin, knowing I might have difficulty finding the ingredients. Coconut curry shrimp soup was out the moment I checked out the fish counter; no raw shrimp. Just for fun I looked for coconut milk. The meager offerings in the Asian food section were soy sauce, low sodium soy sauce and rice noodles.


I was pinning all of my hopes on the chicken soup with cornmeal sage dumplings even though I knew that finding ingredients for dumplings would be difficult. The recipe called for cornmeal so I found the flour section and hunted around for anything with the word for corn (mais) on it. I found a little box that said 'Amido di Mais'. I had no idea what amido meant so I asked the guy stocking the shelves if it was a type of coarsely ground flour made from corn. He studied the box for awhile and then said yes. I should have known better. Most Italian men have only the vaguest understanding of where the kitchen is in their own house, let alone what goes on in there. Here it is completely common for men to live at home until they marry or in the case that they don't marry, forever. Not long ago I read an offbeat news column about an 80 year-old Sicilian mother who dragged her son, in his 60s, down to the police station for being disrespectful by coming home at all hours of the night. He protested that he had no respect for her because she rarely cleaned his room and her cooking was terrible. This is the long way of saying I had bought a box of corn starch.

I was already planning on substituting regular milk for buttermilk, which I knew did not exist in Italy, and although I didn't know it yet, regular flour for cornmeal. The most essential ingredients, baking powder and baking soda, for which there could be no substitutes, were no where to be found among the tiny selection of baking ingredients. I have often wondered why the pickings are so slim there, but I was told by an Italian that the bakeries here make such fantastic desserts no one bothers baking at home. I was about to give up on my soup when I remembered that I had seen baking soda in the aisle with the wine and liquor. I decided I would just double the baking soda if worse came to worst. When I arrived home and lamented the difficulty I had finding ingredients at the store, the porter suggested I try a store called Castroni. I decided to put off my recipes for another day until after I had visited this specialty food store.

I had a morning trip to Castroni all planned out when I woke up with half of a fat lip. By the evening the swelling had gone down and I was getting a bit stir crazy so I decided to give my red spotted face a heavy coat of concealer and run out. A foodie paradise, Castroni is packed from floor to ceiling with shelves full of every kind of ingredient imaginable. I went through the entire store carefully planning all the meals I could make now: falafel, chicken tikka masala, tempura. Maybe it was the sight of Heinz ketchup or maybe it was just the idea of being able to eat the kind of variety of meals we had in New York, but I started feeling a little homesick. It was then that I noticed the encyclopedic collection of liquor which included Southern Comfort. Chris and I usually begin the evening with a cocktail and our most recent craze before departing New York was for Old Fashioneds. When we were home to visit my parents shortly before our wedding, my father shared his secret recipe with Chris, an act which assured me my husband-to-be had been accepted in to the Watson "circle of trust." Southern Comfort goes even further back in my life than our premarital cocktails however. Although my parents never maintained an extensive liquor collection, there was always Southern Comfort on hand and I was introduced to it at a young age. I could swear, although I couldn't possibly remember this, that my parents rubbed it on our gums when we were teething. Without mouthwash on hand, my father used Southern Comfort to treat any minor mouth irritations we had. Despite his emphatic order to rinse and spit it out, I usually swallowed it. Southern Comfort was also the key ingredient in a tasty cough syrup my mother made according to a recipe given to her by my ancient pediatrician. I often feigned coughs so she would make it. With home remedies composed of Southern Comfort, is it any wonder I became a hypochondriac?

I was taken over by feelings of nostalgia and began filling my basket haphazardly with American products. I finally came back to my senses and put somethings back. I returned home with everything I needed for an American meal, including the Angostura Bitters for the Old Fashioneds and Baking Powder for the dumplings in my soup. After a cocktail and a bowl of soup I was feeling better. I was almost delighted at the onset of my cough the next day; the perfect excuse to whip up a batch of cough syrup! I stopped short of gargling with it when my throat got sore -- it's far to expensive here to use as mouthwash.

ipochondriaca

Anyone who knows me well is aware that I am a hypochondriac. When I was young I was certain I had any ailment I heard about. My condition has only been exacerbated by the information available on the internet. I am constantly googling my symptoms and I am immediately drawn to the worst possible disease indicated by them.

Two years ago I had a simple but persistent cyst which developed on my wrist. My father suggested smacking it with a book. I went online and was convinced I had rheumatoid arthritis. Just before my wedding in June I had a bad stomach infection. I was certain it was e. coli after doing a little internet research and recalling that I had eaten a medium rare hamburger a few days earlier. It turned out it was a very common bacterial infection.


Yesterday I woke up with a slightly scratchy throat and a few red spots around one eye. I decided to wait to see what else would happen before running a google search since I've found you have more success with three symptoms than two. The third and most unusual manifestation of the disease presented itself this morning when I woke up with half of my upper lip swollen. One whole swollen lip might look nice and pouty but instead I look like I had a collagen injection gone wrong. My husband backed away fearfully when I tried to kiss him goodbye this morning. I have some lip gloss that is supposed to make your lips plump up a bit so I applied it to the unswollen side but they didn't plump quite enough to make me look presentable for the outside world.

A day at home will give me plenty of time for my internet diagnosis. With this combination of symptoms I have turned up a number of frightening possibilities already. It is possible that this is an allergic reaction to a new blanket of ambiguous fiber content on the bed (horsehair?), but I'm betting it is caused by something more serious, like Granulomatous Cheilitis or a nasal septal abscess.