enchuseashtick. anthouwsjiestic.

my roomie makes me so happy. 

quattro baci per me. 

"molto bello addormentarsi con sorriso."

why i love italy: it could simply come down to the fact that they call family guy "i griffin." i couldn't help but laugh out loud when davide told me that. but then again, maybe it was more of the amusement that we were actually able to understand each other. he asked me if i liked the simpsons, i said i preferred family guy. he didn't understand at first and then he realized what i meant when he understood the italian title and laughed at the miscommunication - we're speaking different languages but saying the same thing. i communicate with him and his friends (with the help of the usually-wise-wordreference.com and the awful-but-sometimes-correct-google translator) in broken english and italian and occasionally - i can't help it - in spanish as if they might possibly understand me better in a third language. sometimes it is just single words, sometimes single words in random order, sometimes with ?'s to show i don't know how to conjugate the word correctly or .... to show i am hesitating and unsure how to say it correctly, sometimes it is my version of italian then immediately corrected with the aid of a website's translation, sometimes it's perfect italian. i'm desperately trying. they get the gist of it. they are relentlessly patient and i am forever grateful. it hasn't been that long, but i love trying to speak italian, deciphering and applying newly learned words, having some form of a two-way-conversing-intercambio-exchange and in the end...hopefully...some sort of comprehension. it's rewarding.

google translator: giorno ho uno parlerà fluentemente italiano

me: un giorno parlerò correntamente l'italiano

i am right. i think. 

have you heard? b-b-b-bird bird bird is the word. 

again! again! i love repetition. 

koninginnedag & festa dei lavoratori & saveurs de france

it was a very international weekend. full of celebrations:
Friday: holland's queen's day aka koninginnedag
Saturday: italy's labour day aka festa dei lavoratori
Sunday: france's regional flavors market aka saveurs de france

9:30

friday started with a wardrobe and basket full of everything-orange and strawberry-rimmed prosecco's. it was queen's day after all! after classes we had friends over for celebrations on the balcony, enjoying the warm spring air and the weekend after only two days of class. coughcough. then dinner at a local restaurant of just prosciutto di parma, parmesan cheese chunks, a small plate of pasta and torta dolce. i was not too hungry, but not too impressed nonetheless. but lots of laugh and friends made up for it. friday night continued to the pub where we met up with the italian ALMA kids, the american ALMA kids and the colorno creepers. too many festivities mean too many pictures, but lots of fun.

diana, catherine, and brittany 

italian ALMA friends

paul, from the other ALMA program, and arina. 

the parade...was very small. but so is colorno.

saturday, after colorno's festa dei lavoratori parade, we packed up some lunches for a picnic and rode our bikes to parma. it was a delightful spring day and we followed arina's newly-found bike path through the italian countryside past fields of green, scents of cow farms (aka animal sensations and fermented hay), beeaauutiful country homes i could only imagine who was lucky enough to live in them, long uncut grass that forebode seasonal allergies that would make me want to scratch out my eyes and scald my skin with hot water ( i diverge...) the po river running alongside of us, old churches covered in vines, abandoned farm houses, rows of vineyards...and despite the lack of feeling in my butt, the shoulder sunburn, and the sweat stains...it was wonderful. we met up in the parma park with some of the other students and we saw on the grass by the pond - right by the sign that said "do not step on the grass." appropriate. everything was closed for the holiday and like a typical sunday, we spent it with our new unisg family.

yes please.

                                         
                                  

sunday we were going to ride our bikes to fontanelatto, 22 kilometers away (it's nice not comprehending what that means exactly) to a french market celebrating saveurs de france in the castle, rocca sanvitale as recommended by lindsay. the weather was a little iffy and we weren't sure if it was worth it, or even physically possible, to bike there but as arina so logically said, "if it rains, we get wet." true true. luckily, diana decided that she would drive. it wasn't quite the adventure anymore, but "luckily" it did rain and the mercado francese was quite small, so driving ended up being the right decision. the town was adorable, with the castle in the middle of it, cobblestone streets, painted buildings with little cafes and stores under the archways - it was a little unreal like it could be right out of epcot's world showcase's italy. there were stalls of endless bread and baked goods, cheeses, salami's of all sorts, cookies, wines, homemade soaps, floral tea mixes, exotic mounds of spices....all overpriced, but still a nice rainy sunday excursion.

not that we are ever deprived of bread, or carbs of any sort, but whole wheat, grain, brown, semolina, rye, whatever, is not found very often in emilia-romagna. even the pane integrale still looks white. so yes, we stocked up.

what i Miss #3

half priced drinks at harpoon willy's on a spring afternoon when it rains. hehe. naaaahhhh.

meet nora.

my new bike. 

here is a conversation i had with my parents over a long distance phone call on easter sunday:
me: < < describing easter in greece and all the food (and meat and meat and sweets and meat) we ate > >
my parents: maybe you should get a bike so you can have some exercise around Colorno.
me: yeah, i know, but a bike is so expensive, i don't know, i don't mind just running on the street for exercise...
dad: i'll buy you a bike for easter.
me: ooh...wow. it's still a lot of euro's, though.
mum in the background: just say yes! just say yes!
me: ok YES thank you !

so, partly or mostly, for my parent's fear of me getting fat while eating, i mean studying, here in Italy, i now have some mobility to get out of Colorno and to see panoramic Italy.

i love it. freedom never felt so free. or so satisfactorily healthy and green!

thank you, john and sheelagh. xoxo.

italian difference #8

time zones. i love the fact that my sister will call me in the morning when i'm either getting ready to go to class or waking me up on the weekend just as she is going home from her night out. 9 hours difference, it seems almost ridiculously inconceivable that we can be doing the opposite things at the same time - waking up and going to bed. although i may not be the most chatty or conscious in the morning, i love waking up to her telling me stories about her night. and i'm sure just as much as she loves me being the last one she calls at night :)

"and honestly...."

xoxo.

perspective.

…you, the privileged, the chosen, the pampered, with nothing to do but go to school, hang out, do a little studying, go to college, get into a money-making racket, grow into your fat forties, still whining, still complaining, when there are millions around the world who’d offer fingers and toes to be in your seats, nicely clothed, well fed, with the world by the balls.

‘TIS: A MEMOIR, FRANK MCCOURT

it's official.

Alberto: "congratulations, you are officially a member of Slow Food Italy." woo.

:o)

SLOW FOOD.

i love this photo. 

it's the perfect shot of the slow food logo in front of our university. bravo, limor, bravo. carlo petrini would be proud.

unfortunately, as we walked back to save this little snail from the middle of the street, a guy on a bike rode by, stopped his bike, stomped on the snail, and rode off.

the busiest day of the year in colorno, to my photographic delight.

Colorno is a sleepy, quiet town. on tuesdays and fridays a multitude of stalls fill the piazza girabaldi selling fruits, vegetables, electronics, various home goods, cured meats and cheese, roasted chickens, pots of herbs and can i say awful? clothing. but only until noon. also, at any time of the day you can find people sitting on the steps by the wall of the piazza or having a social cigarette outside the tabaccheria. but it's still a quiet life here. however, on sunday, the whole town seemed alive, packed with so many people coming to see the flower exhibition in the gardens of the ducal palace. everywhere you looked you could see people walking around with their arms full of flowering plants.

with no garden and no green thumb, i wasn't expecting too much and not too thrilled to have to pay 7euro to enter the gardens we can go into every other day for free! but i figured, this must be the biggest event of the year in colorno, it must be worth it. but, dios mios, i had a ball. i think arina, her friend limor from sweden and i walked around for at least 4 hours.

the flowers were gorgeous and fragrant,

the garden decorations looked artistic not tacky,

we tested our honey-tasting knowledge on hundreds of samples,

we sampled and bought creamy DOP cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves,

we chatted with a chocolatier from near venice who invited us to come visit,

we ate and introduced limor to torta fritta, salumi mista e sparkling vino bianco in plastic cups underneath the trees that reminded me of munich biergartens, 

we made promises of planting and growing our own plants and vegetables on our balcony

we tried on floppy flowery hats, 

exotic spices and sprays & teas of herbs promised us cures for every disease and ache,

scented soaps sought to quench the aroma in the air where the fresh flowers couldn't, 

we lay in the grass and watched children run around - uncreepily- then seasonal allergies scratched my entire body and tickled the back of my throat and nose,

we fell in love again with antica corte pallavicino where we sampled salami and fontera sparkling red wine and promised to visit (via biciclettas nuovas) on sundays when it sounds like they have a farmers market and then compared our store bought eggs, garlic, and asparagus to the ones we bought there,

i'll take two please.

stalls sold antiques furniture, house goods, and vintage dresses and jewelry that looked like they were straight out of an anthropologie catalogue,

we bought foccaccia genovese to try because the sign said it was a slow food presidio - obviously we had to - meanwhile, a bride and groom were having their wedding pictures taken in the garden amongst the hundreds of people - i'm sure much to the photographer's despair,

if i wasn't on a student's budget i would've bought all the products to try and if my camera battery wasn't blinking on low, i could've taken a hundred more pictures.

while sitting in the airport waiting for our delayed flight, those few who had access to internet via iphones checked their email and read that alberto had sent us an invitation from ALMA to attend "the first major exhibition dedicated to the world of pasta" at the Pasta Trend in Bologna which would include a lecture called "Pasta in the history of the Italian Cuisine and the history of Pasta." Gualtiero Marchesi, the first Italian chef awarded with 3 michelin stars and the most famous italian chef who took italian cooking out of the home kitchen and into "nouvelle cuisine" as well as the professor Massimo Montanari. the catch: the bus was leaving at 8am from Colorno. that did not sound appealing whatsoever after a week away in Calabria. i knew however, if i didn't go, i would be very unproductive. luckily, i was used to waking up early. i was so happy samara decided to wake up and go too - we got to the bus in the piazza a couple minutes before 8 and found only the bus driver there. slowly, a couple italian boys boarded the bus, all lively and talking way too fast in italian and staring at us and wondering who we were i'm sure as samara and i looked at each other, laughing with confusion and amusement. two hours later we arrive in Bologna, with looks of bewilderment as we have no tickets, no italian profiency and just follow the group. but they are sweet and tell us to follow them. we join a lecture that has already started, and tutti italiano. samara and i laugh again. luckily, there is a powerpoint presentation that the lecturer, Massimo Montanari, followed along pretty well so i was able to keep up - although squinting at times with my deteriorating eye sight - and took notes in english what i could understand and write down quickly, in italian of words to look up later that i wasn't sure of and in spanish that combined the two languages. the history of pasta, from what i understand, was quite complex and fascinating. i enjoyed the challenge of understanding the lecture.

autograph from marchesi!! :)

i will include some notes below but they will probably not have any sort of linearity or rational comprehension:

• Marco Polo describes lasagne from a trip to Asia in siglo XIII parla cosa che conosce molto bene - talks about what he knows very well - there are 2 parallel stories from the east and west so it is impossible to know the origin of pasta
• there were two ways of using pasta - bread/foccaccia which more or less rises with dry heat and peppe/polenta which is a miscele di farina cotte al calorie umida e acqua - mixture of flour cooked in moist heat.
• pasta as we know it (flour and semolina cooked in water) was impensabile = unthinkable. il seme divente radice - seme si sviluppa e diventa -> the seed becomes the root, the seed grows and develops until it becomes a new tradition
• pasta secca/disidrata viene pasta bollita/reidratata
• technology follows traditions and modifies innovations - dry pasta allowed for industrial and commercial vocations - nuovo produtti sviluppa - new products develop = new way of eating => strumento nuovo per un cibo nuovo = forchetta/fork becomes functional and necessary for new culture of pasta
• new types of pasta: miniaturrizione (no longer large lasagne sheets but lunghe (spaghetti) corte (macaroni) larghe e stratte) e ripiena (stuffed like tortelini - a modern product)
• pasta connected the south and north of italy (unified politically in 1861) and was also a grande metafora for cucina italiana - infinite variante, valori di fonde condivisi - infinite varities that shared the same basic values -> important theme of identity in italian gastronomy.
• pasta "piccola" <- sfoglia "grande - was an obvious transition to go from large sheets to cut out pasta
• pasta ripiena <- lasagne e torte - cross 2 traditions as meats and fish used to be stuffed.
• tradition si fonde sulle innovazioni, invention si fondano sulle tradition = tradition blend innovations, inventions are based on traditions.
• pasta cambia status in 1630 when it became necessary for surival - the change coming from the impoverimento of people and the price went down thanks to machines, pasta then became more of a side dish, contorno, to meat and Marchesi invented the ravioli aperto (open ravioli)
• l'uomo e cio che mangia - man is what he eats - sicily was the first culture si afferma la cultura della pasta - pasta is an italian id - tutti production, preparation, consumption are all characteristic elemtns of culture but destrulturare un piatto tradizionale = destruction of identity?

pasta pasta pasta.

ok so maybe that doesn't all make sense and it isn't everything that i took notes of. when marchesi talked, i could understand the gist of it and caught certain words like pomodoro crudo vs cotto, pasta fredda is a sapore/flavor differente and pasta as an antipasta or contorno is impensabile (unthinkable as a side dish) and the four types of pasta have different sensations and use different utensils - spoon, chop sticks, fork and spork.

pasta products galore.

after the lecture we wandered around the fiera, which was a pasta trade show, with pasta machines, dried pasta, fresh pasta, tomato sauces, different flours and wheats, olive oils...tutti pasta!

i want one of these in my house.

melt-in-your-mouth-soft handmade pasta with fresh pesto genovese - so delicious and totally worth the scratchy back of the throat allergic reaction.

the bus ride back - surprisingly not tired - was great speaking with the ALMA kids in a confused mix of english and italian - they were all so sweet, trying to speak english as well as helping me with my pitiful italian as i try to communicate in spanish instead. they are only here for a couple more months before they go off on their stages in michelin-rated restaurants around italy for 5 months so hopefully before that we can become friends in this tiny town, i can learn italian, they can teach me some culinary tricks and cook for me :)

we survived.

tiny little airport. access to the gate without going through security. horrible postcards of places that don't resemble the calabria we saw in any way. handsome blue-eyed security men. 16 different passports. italian food magazines. iphone videos. yolk heads. delays delay delays. even with the hour and a half flight delay for our hour and 45 minute flight, and then at least two hours in the bus back to colorno - it definitely beats sitting on a bus for 20 hours. 


we were happy to be back in colorno. our house, in the middle of the street. 

smelling fresh wild fennel.

bus enjoyment: watch a video of jules and his sisters on a family vacation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6sqJn0rWFQ&sns=em

calabria is full of contractions. from the floral hills to the sandy seaside, the landscape switches its characteristics only within a few kilometers of each other. there are beautiful houses painted in an array of colors, quaint sleepy towns situated in impossibly rocky hill sides with fantastic views contrasting to innumerable incomplete houses and construction zones. the people are beyond friendly, hospitable and incredibly proud of their culture and historical traditions but at the same time try to get away with not paying house taxes by keeping some of it unfinished - it only seems to ruin the beautiful country surroundings. i have never seen so many varieties of different flowers and plants growing in one area - yellow edible indonesian cresss, red poppies, purple ones, pink roses, orange and white blossoms all sprouting from long green grasses while large artichoke plants cover the side of the street and fresh fennel (which the prongs always seemed to be a speciality in portsmouth) are everywhere  you look and then right next to all this lush vegetation are prickly cacti i would've associated with dry, arid land. it is one of the poorest region in italy, surrounded by basilicata and scility, but rich in vegetation, rare typical regional products, culture, history, tradition that all need to be preserved. within all these various contexts, the calabrian food in its entirety can be understood and appreciated. 

arina took these last 3 - purple and white - flower shots.