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.

La parruchiere

One of the saddest moments I had leaving New York was my last cut and color at Antonio Prieto. I felt as though I had finally ended a five year quest for the perfect stylist and colorist only months earlier. Brian was able to give me the perfect sweep of bangs that looked great either curly or straight. He even taught me how to make the cowlick in the front of my head work to my advantage. Michael got my hair the perfect rich dark brown shade on the first try. I had no idea how I could find a Roman replacement. Many people suggested asking people who have great hair where they get it cut. This sounds like a good idea, but in practice I didn't feel like chasing any people down on the street. Rome is a bit like New York were the number of people trying to ask you for money far outnumbers the people who have legitimate questions so people are unlikely to stop. Besides, what do you do about finding a colorist? You can't really approach someone and say, "Who covers your grey so well?" Instead I have been walking by salons and scoping out the clientel while they are in the chair.

Although my husband's parting with his stylist, Faith at John Allan's, was probably less emotional, it was still a great loss for him and his needs to find a replacement were more urgent than mine. The bar had been set high by John Allan's, the man's answer to the salon. With a yearly membership fee and a "no girls allowed" policy it is more of a club than a barbershop. The standard 'treatment' there begins with a beer. Along with a shampoo comes a scalp massage and a hot towel. During the haircut a manicurist files and buffs your nails. You finish up with a shoe shine and if you want, a round of pool. This is what I hear from my husband--I, of course, have never seen the marvels for myself. He went there every two weeks, though I'm not sure he really needed his haircut that often.



Not long after we arrived here, we wandered past a place called "Contesta Rockhair." My shaggy haired husband was in a pretty desperate state and he actually suggested going inside. We approached the desk, which like everything else in the place, was covered with graffiti. We asked the guy behind it, who was sporting a hairstyle straight out of the film Pretty in Pink, if we could get a cut anytime soon. He simply said, "No" and then gestured in the general direction of both the couch and the door. We didn't know what to do but we sat on the couch watching the stylists work with no idea how long we would be there. The music was so loud we had to shout at each other. We felt the urge to get up and leave, but out of desperation, we waited. Finally someone came and took Chris away to shampoo him. I didn't witness the shampoo but I'm sure there was no scalp massage or hot towel. The guy who cut Chris's hair suggested that his former stylist had left his hair too long because she was afraid of all the cowlicks he had. Cowlicks? I'd never seen any cowlicks... He proceeded to crop the hair closely using a comb that he would sometimes smack with the scissors in rhythm to the music sending little pieces of hair flying. He took a break now and then to kiss and fawn over various women who paraded through the salon, only sometimes removing the scissors from my husband's head during the sundry embraces. In the end it was a little short, but not bad considering what could have happened while he was distracted during the make out sessions.



The next day when we were making breakfast I noticed my husband, after a night of sleep, now had wings at either side of his head where the hair stuck straight out. Apparently the hitherto invisible cowlicks had been unleashed by the 'rock' haircut he had received. (I'm sorry there is no accompanying photo for this blog entry but my husband grew suspicious when I broke out the camera at 7 am and focused it on his head). I am still scoping out alternatives for us but just like the grocery stores, you probably have to try a few to find a good one. I just hope no more cowlicks pop up in the meantime.

la giacca miracolosa

I experienced one of the most embarrassing fashion faux-pas of my life with a purchase I made in New York, just prior to coming here. I was feeling like I had nothing to wear so I went to H&M to get some things that would be really "of the moment." I was with my husband, which is just as good, if not worse, than having no one else to help you. Without exception, he suggests that I buy whatever I try on because that gets us to the cash register and out of the store as fast as possible. Anything else could mean waiting in the store while I agonize over a purchase or worse yet, try something else on. I picked out a few things that looked really trendy. One was a cute little grey checked blouse with elbow length sleeves that ended in adorable bell-shaped cuffs. The collar was formed with an attached scarf that tied at the side into a bow. The trendiness of it was in the retro a-line cut. I think part of the reason I was drawn to it in the first place was that it reminded me of a shirt my mom once had. I wore it to work soon after that and the first person I saw in the coffee room stared at me with wide eyes. I started to feel a little self-conscious about my new purchase. I suddenly realized that the similar shirt my mother had was one she had worn while pregnant with my younger brother. After exchanging a few pleasantries I said, "I look pregnant in this shirt, don't I?" and my colleague said, without a second of hesitation, "Yes." She told me to look on the bright side, I could probably get a seat on the bus. I retreated to my desk and sent out an email to two of my girlfriends at work with "Help! Come quickly!" in the subject line. Caitlin was first on the scene with Joanna close behind. Drawing on our experiences trying on wedding gowns at Vera Wang we worked out a plan. We got some of those black binder clips from the supply closet and reigned in the voluminous fabric around my midriff. I felt a little silly walking around with binder clips all down my back, but I figured it was better than starting some rumors.

I knew I couldn't wear the shirt again, but I didn't have the heart to pitch it even though it was dirt cheap. I hate to waste things, and just like I always carry an umbrella to avoid being rained on, I secretly though the quickest way to pregnancy might be to throw it out. I harbored hope that I might be able to wear it with a sweater that had the right bateau neckline to show off the collar and bow, but flatten the paunchy part in the front until I needed it. I brought it with me to Italy where just like at home it has hung in the closet.

On my first excursion to pick out some Italian clothes I came upon a brand called "Comptoir des Cotonniers" in Rinascente, the big department store here. I tried on a black jacket and although it was the most expensive thing I've bought in years, I decided immediately I should make the investment. It has a bit of a swingy shape that is very current, but nothing about it is trendy. The cut is so perfect that although it isn't tight, it is incredibly flattering. It is that rare combination of unique and classic. It is made of some special cotton which the label warns you "should never come in contact with water." I guess it is no good in a rain shower but that is fine with me, I'll carry an umbrella whenever I wear it. The other day when I was preparing to go out in this jacket, I couldn't find the shirt I wanted to wear under it until I looked in the dirty laundry. I went through my closet twice looking for something else until I finally thought about the maternity shirt. I tried it on. I looked pregnant, but then I put on the jacket. The bow peaked out perfectly from the collar but the rest was hidden by the ultra flattering cut. It was nothing short of a miracle. When I called my husband to tell him I was running out and that I had finally found a way to wear the shirt that makes me look pregnant he replied, as any smart husband would, "I don't know which shirt you are talking about."

la vita della casalinga: parte terza

From the outset I knew there wouldn't be many who would take on the challenge to make ribollita with me and now I fear I may have lost my only participant, my brother. After reading my second post yesterday he expressed some doubts about eating "mushy" bread and even questioned the authenticity of my photographs! No, I did not download those pictures from the internet, I took them myself, in my own kitchen of the food that I made! Apparently he was expecting a really complicated and interesting variation on the second night. If this were complicated, then how would I have time to do everything else? Perhaps he was cranky since it took him so long to make the soup the first night he didn't eat until midnight. Or maybe he didn't have a very tasty product to begin with since he couldn't find any fennel at Safeway.

If any of you are still listening and have some ribollita left, then take the baked bread concoction and throw it back into the soup pot with the little soup that is left and heat it on the stove. Stir it up well to break up the slices of bread, serve it with a little olive oil and you have a ribollita. Bravo! By the way, this is the food of peasants, so if you haven't done so already, spend the money you saved on eating the same meal three nights in a row and get yourself some red wine to go with it.

With all the free time (and money) I saved making ribolitta, I did go shopping this afternoon. Since some people are suspicious of the photographs posted on this blog, I chose not to include a picture of tonight's meal (which looks very similar to last night's meal). Instead I am showing you the fruits of my labor today: purchases from Benetton, Rinascente and Zara.

P.S. If you haven't read the comments then you probably missed Heather's cautionary tale about going overboard with the parmesan rind. I, too, have felt the urge to just chop up a whole block of parmesan cheese and throw it in there, but you have to excercise restraint. When cooking the rind you will see the soup gets flecked with tiny spots of white cheese. Bigger is not better in this case since large bits will not integrate into the soup. To use her words, the ribollita was spiked with gooey "morsels" of parmesan. For the worm-a-phobic, those slimy bits in the soup could be quite disconcerting, and easily mistaken for something else, particularily if cabbage were also involved.

la vita della casalinga: parte seconda

Yesterday I posted the ribollita recipe thinking that the poor Newyorkesi would be suffering even more in the cold than we were here in Rome. I was very upset to hear my friends are wandering around in their shirt sleeves in 70 degree weather while we are freezing over here with our citrus trees next to the Mediterranean Sea!

If any of you were sweating in your kitchen over a pot of hot soup last night rather than grilling, you can now begin to truly reap the rewards. Like most things, soup tastes so much better after a day in the fridge. For tonight, this is all you need:

bread (hopefully bought and sliced up yesterday and now a bit stale)

some very thinly sliced red onion

a pot of left over minestrone

Provided you have a bread knife, this won't take too much time and will leave you free for other housewifely pursuits, like museums visits, spa appointments and shopping. Unfortunately, like everything else, cutting up bread is a labor intensive process here since we don't have an actual bread knife. Our apartment came equipped with a huge knife with a blade of equal dullness to the safety scissors you used in kindergarten which simply creased, rather than cut, your paper. It squashed everything we tried to cut: bread, tomatos, even pancetta. They say dull knives are more dangerous than sharp ones. I can see why since the knife slipped off a carrot yesterday striking my finger. The blade, if you can call it that, pinched my fingertip against the cutting board resulting in more of a bruise than anything else. My knife is now so dull it has surpassed the dullness of danger it seems. The easiest solution to this problem seemed to buy a new knife. I wouldn't have even known where to go to get a knife sharpened in New York after living there six years. Little did I know that I was often passing by just such a place on a regular basis. I had been wondering what an excercise bike was doing in the street, but yesterday as I passed by I saw someone come out of one of the shops and mount the bike. I even stopped to see this guy begin his "work out." It turns out it was a grindstone powered by the pedals.

Anyway, before I had been enlightened to the bicycle method of knife sharpening, I made a purchase from the 99 cents store (which in actuality, I reminded myself, is more like a buck fifty store with the exchange rate as it is) that ranks right up there with the caffettiera I bought at "Top Sound." I found a knife that had the word "tomato" cut out of the blade. For some reason, the obviousness of the knife's purpose escaped me. I thought it would work a bit better on bread because it is serrated, but as you might imagine, the cut-outs in no way add to the strength of the steel which merely wobbles back and forth like a plastic knife on the crust and really, on almost anything BUT a tomato. My husband has started tearing a chunk off of the bread when he wants some which leaves me with a loaf that looks like it has been gnawed on. This means at least one more cut is necessary to even out the surface before you even begin slicing! Even with these hurddles to surmount, I still had plenty of time to go shopping today and have dinner on the table in time.

Layer your thinly sliced bread on the bottom of the pan and drizzle with olive oil. Add a few of the onions and then pour some of the soup over top of it. Continue layering up the bread, olive oil, onions and soup. (I only got two layers which seemed to be plenty) Top it off with a little more soup. Make sure there is some room at the top because it expands as it cooks. It is good to leave a little soup in the pot for tomorrow, by the way. Put your casserole, covered, in the oven at 350 degrees or so for about 20 minutes. Uncover the casserole and let it brown up a little on the top - about another 30 minutes. Serve drizzled with olive oil and if you like, a little parmesan. Buon Ap!

la vita della casalinga

I once knew a woman who had spent several years doing whatever she wanted after her husband sold his business. I asked her what she did all day. "Mostly shopped," she replied. This was probably a poor model for what the life of a housewife is like but it did make an impression on me. When I found out we were moving here I thought of her and pictured my life being sort of the same with a few museum visits and salon appointments thrown in to the mix (just for variety). People asked me what I was planning on doing when we arrived here and I would say with pride, "I'm going to be a housewife, aren't you jealous?" The reactions were rarely what I had predicted. To me, being a housewife meant my life, as it was in New York, without the work or the school. It was a brutal realization that your house actually gets dirty if you have the free time to clean it. Far more discouraging is the fact that simple tasks take twice as long to accomplish here. Doing laundry used to mean taking two loads down to the laundry room once a week. Now, with our petite little washer and no dryer, laundry is a constant occupation between the two hour cycle and hanging everything up to dry. Thanks to FreshDirect, grocery shopping was strictly an internet affair for me in New York. I planned a week's worth of meals, placed the order and tipped a delivery man who showed up with boxes full of food. Now that I have to carry everything to the top of the hill and am now buying all of the water we drink (Roman tap water is so full of calcium we live in fear of kidney stones) I make several trips per week.


The one redeeming aspect of being a housewife in Italy is having all of the ingredients for great Italian recipes at your fingertips (or in my case, at the bottom of your hill). Today I am making my favorite Tuscan recipe, Ribollita. Ribollita means, "reboiled." To make a true ribolitta is a three day affair and I have only ever gotten as far as two days. I decided that I am going for the real deal this time and I hope some of you will join me. I know I have been bad about blogging, but I promise you three continuous days of posts if you make ribollita with me. I can also promise you a rewarding food experience. The great thing about ribollita is that although it takes a bit of effort the first day, you can eat the finished product for three days with a little variation so there is a nice pay off. The first day you make a minestrone. This takes the most work but don't get discouraged, it's going to get easier. First you'll need to pick up a few things. Don't worry, this can all be carried by one person in one trip:




3 Red Onions



1 bunch of Leeks



3 medium Carrots



3 medium Potatos



1 bulb of Fennel



2 ribs Celery



3 cloves Garlic



1 bunch of Parsley



Thyme (fresh (6 sprigs) or dried (1 and 1/2 teaspoons))



2 cans Cannellini Beans



Low Sodium Chicken or Vegetable stock (2 small cans) or the equivalent in bouillon cubes



One can 28 oz can of diced or crushed plum tomatos



Dry white wine



One Ciabatta or loaf of crusty bread



Parmesan (ungrated, with the rind)


The Ribollita purists are now saying, but what about the cabbage? It is true that cabbage is an essential ingredient in a Ribollita. The first time I tried to make it here I went to the store and marveled at the cabbages and finally asked a woman which one was used for Ribolitta. It's called Verze. You can look it up in the dictionary if you decide, after reading the rest of this blog, that you still want to get some. So I picked out a head of the verze admiring the lovely lacey leaves. After peeling off a few outer leaves I found the cause of the pretty perforations, a little green worm inside still munching away. Sadly, I had just recovered from another traumatic worm incident. At the tender age of eight I was eating a picnic lunch in the great outdoors, our front porch in Warren, when an inch worm descended into my lunch box. It took years before I could eat outside again. Not wanting to risk another set back I have decided not to purchase cabbage in Italy where they seem to be concerned about pesticides. To me, the psychological trauma is far worse than ingesting some chemicals. But anyway, if you decide you want to be authentic and have no fear of vermin and/or live in an area liberal with pesticides, add some savoy cabbage to the list. To be ultra authentic you should use black leaf kale, but you will probably have trouble finding that in a grocery store, especially in the states.

Now the purists are saying, "Fennel? Wine? There is no fennel or wine in Ribollita!" That's true but they make it taste good, and both are generally vermin free.

Drain your Cannellini beans. Mash up one can of the beans in the food processor or with a fork and put them aside. Chop up your vegetables beginning with your onions (use two and put one aside for tomorrow), leeks, celery and garlic. Sweat these in the bottom of the pan in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Salt them and cook them over low heat - this is a sweat, not a saute - you aren't trying to sear the taste into the veggies, you want to draw it out. Once your veggies have softened, add the other chopped veggies (except the parsley), the diced tomatos and their juice, the thyme and 2 cups of dry white wine and some stock - generally two small cans of stock plus one or two more cans of water. Add the Cannellini beans - smashed and whole. Don't worry if it looks a little thin. You also want to add the rind, and just the rind, of the parmesan. If you have planned ahead and have saved the rind from your last wedge then add that. If not, just chop it off your new piece and throw it in. This is where the brave will throw in 1/4 of a head of shredded cabbage. Cook this for an hour and twenty minutes. Taste it and adjust the seasoning and just before taking it off the heat, add the chopped parsley.


Enjoy a bowl of the soup for dinner tonight with a little parmesan grated on top. Don't go crazy though because you need some for tomorrow. I plan to keep you in suspense as to the next incarnation of your leftovers, but I will tell you that you will need some stale bread. Slice up at least 1/2 of your loaf of bread thinly and let it sit out over night if necessary. There won't be much work to do tomorrow, especially if you have your bread sliced up tonight, so go ahead and go shopping.