So... What Do We Want To Make For Dinner Tonight?

We love to cook. So we have a habit of asking one another this question each and every day. And I’m sure you think it’s kinda a stupid question to ask. I mean how hard is it to choose what you want for dinner, especially if you love to cook?

We live by an excellent grocery store, Di Per Di, and an excellent outdoor fresh market. Di Per Di carries everything an Italian family could want. Produce, cheese, yogurt, borlotti and cannellini beans, fresh and dried pasta in shapes only this region (Lazio) will eat, fresh and packaged bread, a huge salumi selection, meat, espresso and wine. Sounds adequate. Except, the supply of these items may run out at any given time and you never quite know when. The shelves on Sunday are as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard!

Italian’s have very precise dietary requirements. And they do not like to vary from their-oh-so historical, regional path. They will take the various seasonal ingredients listed above and serve the same dishes their grandmothers have been making for years and they are perfectly content.

They don’t care about the latest deconstructed dish, accompanying foam or choose-the-cuisine inspired sauce. They could care less about purple carrots, Asian pears or heirloom tomatoes – different varieties of fruits and vegetables are unheard of. They certainly don’t care what anyone else is eating. And they don’t even care what the other regions in Italy are eating. All they care about is eating their food.

I’d venture to say American’s eat as internationally as they choose. Our country is so large, it’s cost prohibitive to ship some items inland. However, the east and west coasts are blessed with having every ingredient at hand. And since we’re American’s, we demand to have every ingredient at hand. We’re very fortunate to have the desire and the ingredients to create dishes from all over the globe.

However, here in Rome, we no longer have that option. There are so many staples, fruits and vegetables we simply won’t see in Italy, that in America, we are accustomed to in our weekly trip to the Farmer’s Market or trip to the store. We wonder what it will be like in the winter.

Adding to our dinner dilemma, is the fact that many common ingredients are not available on a daily basis. If we see a cut of meat we like, we snatch it up, because it may not be available tomorrow, or the next day. If there is some fresh sage, we buy it, because we have no idea when we’ll see it again. And it’s no different at the farmer’s markets. A farmer may show up with the sweetest tomatoes one day, but not the next.

We’ve become accustomed to going to the market every day. After we began cooking, we served similar dinner courses as our fellow Romani. After a couple of weeks, it became tiresome. We don’t serve various cuts of salumi as a first course, as Italians do, ever. And as much as we love bread and pasta – we simply don’t want to eat it every day – or even every other day.

For our kids comfort and our own, we’re trying to cook our family favorites, but it’s hard. Some nights, we just come as close to a recipe for cashew stir fry as we can. Other nights, we’re serving salumi as a first course and following with a pasta. Thankfully, tomorrow is a new day. Then we’re sure to ask one another, “What do we want to make for dinner tonight?”

Patron Saint Specialist Needed!

I have to find out who the Patron Saint of mail delivery is. The Catholics have attached a Patron Saint to every noun under our shared moon, stars and sun! I need to go on a pilgrimage to their relic, or church, or hometown, and make a sacrifice or something.

Over five weeks ago, I methodically packed up four boxes to be shipped to Rome. When I’ve shipped items to family/friends internationally, via the US postal system, they’ve arrived in two weeks, tops. It’s been over five weeks since my husband shipped those boxes.

I filled them with, basically, toiletries. Shampoo has become a passion in our household. We all use a different brand with a different desired outcome – for color treated hair, deep conditioning, for an active lifestyle and for thickening. Naturally, I bought the big kahuna bottles to ship. Only one of those brands can be found over here. I’m known to be a bit fanatic about my family’s use of organic/natural products, so whenever they go on sale, I buy them in bulk - Avalon Organics Lavender shave cream, Crystal roll on deodorant, Tom’s of Maine Fennel toothpaste, Giovanna body cream… Good stuff, all worthy of shipment.

I also shipped a Brita water pitcher and three filters. I know the water in Rome is reputed to be the best in all of Europe, but it’s the hundred’s of years old water pipes in my apartment building I worry about. I sent vitamins and iron (the non-constipating [very important!] kind, since I developed anemia in my pregnancies). My son is allergic to shellfish, so I brought two EpiPens and packed two for shipping.

Cotton balls take up a lot of space, so I shipped those. I also packed a dozen bars of soap. I haven’t found a standard soap in Italy that I like as well as the soap we use in the States. The teen and pre-teen face are in need of extra special facial products –AND- us old people are in need of extra, extra special facial products – large bottles of those went into the boxes.

Nothing crazy. Just the basic toiletries a family of four will need over the course of a year.

Well, we received a notice three weeks ago from Italian Customs in Genova. They were in receipt of our boxes (YES!) However, before they would release them for delivery, they requested copies of the receipts for our various toiletries.

Why in the world would they want receipts? We, of course, have no receipts. Who would keep and travel internationally with an old receipt from Whole Foods?

So, we had our last bank statement faxed to us. We circled the places where we bought our toiletries, blacked out the personal info and faxed it to Italian Customs.

We received notice that our documentation was adequate (?), BUT, they were waiting for the official Italian Customs Doctor, to return from holiday, to sign off on our boxes.

Our toiletries require a Doctor’s sign off!

So we wait. Our supplies are dwindling away, bit by bit, day by day. Time to research those Patron Saints!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my family! Today, is my big brothers birthday. Happy Birthday Ted! However, most importantly, we are receiving our Sky television hookup. We’ve been in Rome for a month and we’ve only had access to a handful of local Rome television channels. For me, this hasn’t been a huge problem, but for my family, this has been a very huge problem!

The word has been: The man who lives in the Penthouse apartment on top of our building works for the Italian State Department and he is currently based in the Singapore. So, we’ve been waiting for his family member to provide access to the roof for the Sky technicians to install our mini satellite dish.

Today, the owner of our apartment, our housekeeper and a Sky technician (he has great tattoos all over both arms! Oh, and now I can see he has some on his back, above his underwear that has Pimp printed on the waistband, and NY printed on them – they’re hanging out!) have showed up to install our Sky TV. This will make my family very happy.

I don’t really watch television. When I sit down, with time to waste on a television program, there’s rarely anything on that I want to watch. I never really got into reality television (my life has been plenty, thank you -and really- how much of those shows are reality?) I’m too busy to watch a series – I’ll miss the next week because I’m at a PTA meeting or hosting a dinner – then I’ve missed too much and have no idea why someone is doing something. I don’t find the situational comedies comedic. And I don’t care for the majority of the cooking/adventure eating shows. For news, I read the New York Times and local paper, and catch CNN online. My brother keeps me updated with the obscure news via Facebook, so I’ve been good to go.

My family watches television. My husband watches MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News and the ESPN family of channels. My son loves the ESPN’s, but also still watches Nickelodeon with his Comedy Central. He also watches the History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery and the like. My daughter eats up all of the teenage angst shows sprinkled all through the cable channels.

Sadly, I no longer receive The New York Times or local paper. I can read them online, but it’s just not the same. Even with my brother’s thorough updates, I’ve felt cut off from the rest of the world. I’ve struggled this last month staying informed of current events. Especially with the passing of Patrick Swayze.

So I’m thankful for our birthday gift of Sky TV!

Weekend Trip

We knew it was time for a weekend adventure. We walk everywhere in Rome, we don’t have a car. While the kids are in school, we go to museums and churches – because we know there’s no way they’ll go with us. However, we felt we needed a weekend with some wheels beneath us to explore the countryside.

So we pulled out our stash of magazines and maps. My husband knew of an ancient Greek temple in Paestum. We located it on the map – about an hour and a half south of Napoli. Good! An area we haven’t been to yet. We went online and read a bit of history of the area, found a hotel in nearby Agropoli, and booked a car. We’re good to go!

Because of the Autostrada, the drive to Agropoli was a fast one – about 3½ hours. To enter, each car takes a ticket from a toll booth, which is marked with your location. The Autostrada is usually two lanes, but around the larger metropolitan areas, there are more. The slow traffic (large trucks) drive in the slow lane on the right, the fast cars drive in the middle lane and the very fast cars drive in the very fast lane on the left. If a fast car is in the very fast lane, they get over quickly when a very fast car comes up on their butt. It’s not like American highways at all! There’s no grandpa who drives slow in the fast lane because he pays his taxes and will drive in any lane that he damn well chooses. If you are not very fast, you get over. I love it! When you leave the Autostrada, you pay your usage fee at a toll booth. It cost us 14 Euro to drive from Rome to Salerno.

We pulled into a service area along the Autostrada for diesel and had a slice of pizza at the Autogrill. These service areas are great! They have cash machines, restaurants or “fast food”, bathrooms, and gas stations. Everything you need to take a break from the road. One stop we were at was like a Target – they had slippers, clothing, music books, games, etc.

Hotel la Colombaia is located in the hills behind Agropoli. To see gorgeous and realistic photos of the hotel, go to, www.lacolombaiahotel.it. Thankfully, my husband wrote down directions, so we found it pretty easily. We were greeted by Luigi, a molto gentile manager. Molto gentile, in Italian, means very kind. He gave us our room keys, let us know where his room was, in case we had any difficulties.

In the morning, we walked out of our room into a garden set above a beautiful swimming pool. In the distance is the sea. Agropoli is a coastal town. We went down to the outdoor cabana along side the pool, for a blue sky breakfast. Honestly, we could have stayed there all day and forgotten the Greek ruins. However, we are in Italy for history and adventure, so Luigi tells us the best places to go for our day of sightseeing. We let him know we’ll join him and our fellow hotel guests for dinner.

Our first stop was Paestum. We knew there was “a Doric ruin”, but what we found was an ENTIRE Greek town, founded in 600 B.C. (over 2,500 years old), in ruins! It was awesome! We walked all through the town, walked right through homes, businesses, theatres, a mini colusseum (2/3 of it is still underground) and walked around the three Doric (Greek) temples. There are still beautiful, intact mosaic floors in some of the homes! Truly amazing!

What was interesting about this town, which we learned in the museum across the street, was that the town was in ruins for over 1,000 years and was rediscovered in the late 1700’s. That’s why so much of it is well preserved. Also, they didn’t have one burial area outside of the town – where looters could easily dig up funerary items (coins, vases, jewelry, armor, etc.) Their burial areas are all over, right in the town (kinda creepy!). Many of the tombs have been excavated and placed in the museum, but I’m sure there’s plenty more. Another point of interest - we were able to walk though this town, but it is only about one-fourth the size of the actual walled city. There is plenty more to excavate, but I’m sure it would be very expensive to do so.

We were so blown away/overwhelmed by Paestum, we were there for over three hours, so we all decided we were done “exploring” for the day. We drove up into Capaccio for lunch (we overheard a guy telling a family to go for lunch there) at Ristorante Il Giardino di Bacco. It’s a huge complex, built on a hill overlooking Paestum, so the views of the rolling countryside and sea were incredible. However, we were the ONLY people there for lunch. This place can easily hold a couple of hundred. We all enjoyed handmade pasta with the local tomato sauce, which wasn’t salted.

Historically, the Romans placed a tax on salt. The northern tribes refused to pay the tax, so they left salt out of their bread and other recipes, only using it where most needed (meat preservation). The southern tribes paid the tax, so to this day, their recipes contain salt. Also to this day, the bread in the north is without salt. Anyhoo, I was surprised there wasn’t salt in our sauce.

After lunch, we went back to La Colombaia for some pool time and rest before dinner.

Dinner was delicious. We began with a local, yellow melon served with prosciutto. Then, we tucked into our pasta with the local sauce with a bit of pancetta. Fortunately, our hotel provided Parmesan to add a bit more flavor, which we all appreciated. A mixed green salad followed (the carrots were so sweet!), then the much anticipated, mozzarella di bufala with tomatoes.

Campania, the region we were in, is the home of the most prized Water Buffalos. The milk of the Campania Water Buffalo, is highly revered in Italy. It is considered most pure (many dairies are organic), high in nutrition, and smooth in taste. The dairies produce mozzarella di bufala as well as many other cheeses, ricotta, etc., for the entire country and abroad.

We luckily, happened upon Caseificio Capodifiume – an organic dairy. We bought four small ovals (one oval serves four easily) of fresh mozzarella and three different varieties of cheese – one is aged and smoked, one contains spicy red peppers and the other is rolled with prosciutto and green olives. These yummy cheeses will not last long!

On Sunday, we enjoyed another gorgeous, leisure breakfast, then our son played in the pool before we checked out. We highly recommend Hotel La Colombaia! The rooms are spacious, spotless and very inexpensive. Luigi said their area is not well known to tourists (shocking!) so their prices are lower. We would definitely like to return, as there are other historic sites in the area as well. We drove down into Agropoli, took a few pictures of a tower erected for St. Francis during his southern pilgrimage, hopped onto the Autostrada and returned to our very modern life in Rome.

Calcio

The Stadio Olimpico is a nice stadium. You feel a bit packed in, when sitting where we were, in the nosebleed seats and the steps are rather steep - however, the view of the match was perfect. The blue section across the field is where the owners, politicians, journalists and other highly protected spectators sit. They only serve hotdogs (with ketchup and mayo), water, beer, Coke and stale popcorn. Needless to say, we went to dinner afterwards.

Please excuse the angle of this photo. It was the best way to show you what took place after Rome lost to Juventus. For safety purposes, the Juventus fans were held in their section -not allowed to leave- well after the balance of the fans had left. And let me tell you, they were having a grand time of it! In unison, they were singing, they were chanting, and they were dancing with joy. Obviously, I've never seen anything like this before!

In anticipation of the Roma soccer match.

We Arrive in Rome

It took no time at all to unload the van, however, many trips up the lift to the apartment. Only one of those giant suitcases would fit in the lift. Notice the parking available on the street... only in August. If we arrived today, I have no idea where our taxi would pull up.

We created quite a stir among the taxi cab drivers. With our driver and van, came a lot of other Italian drivers opinions, suggestions and waving of the hands.

We had 4 carts piled high with 14 large suitcases and 9 carry-ons. Everyone was staring at us as we walked through the terminal!

Current Italian Loves

I love listening to the church bell announce each hour.

I love the deep aroma of espresso.

I love strolling along the cobblestones.

I love the peacefulness of churches.

I love watching the life out my windows.

I love the ritual of the outdoor markets.

I love having time to explore.