Food

Roberta took me Friday to a government building (I followed along blindly) which reminded me of the RMV; we are starting the permit process for staying for the year.  While we waited, I asked Roberta about politics and her favorite food.  (I'll get to politics another day.  I've been listening to too much U. S. news this week with the Kavanaugh hearings.  Troppo.)  Roberta is Italian, grew up in Viterbo, married a Brit and lived there for many years, then returned to raise their son in Viterbo.

"You mean, any food?" she asked.
I narrowed it down to dinner.
One favorite was too tough, so I requested three meals she loves.

"Well, pizza, of course," she said.  "We Italians love our pizza."

As our kids can tell you, there's pizza croccante, which they say is the same as pizza bianca.  Folks eat this for breakfast or a morning snack.  It's basically crispy pizza dough with yummy oil and salt.  At school, the kids buy it for 50 cents for snack.  I like it with scrambled eggs (not an Italian dish at all.  Italians don't eat eggs for breakfast).  There's pizza rosa, which has sauce but no cheese.  The most popular pizza in our house is pizza margherita -- crust, sauce, mozzarella.

"Melanze e ??????"...in other words, eggplant and something I couldn't understand.  After she finished her description, I said, "So eggplant parmesan?"  "Yes," she said.

Her next meal was rabbit.  She said, "I don't even usually eat meat, but this dish is delicious.  Oh, it's so good."

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The boys and Hannah have tried cingiale.  In the Asterix comic books, Obelix can eat three wild boars for dinner.  The kids love Asterix; hence, they are enjoying cingiale.  This morning on my run (when I run around the walls or up and down random streets outside the walls, I listen to my music -- many from my sister's playlists) and I laugh thinking about friends at home; I jog along at a speedy ten minute mile, proud of myself for getting out there once a week, and I think about these friends, this couple who run 10k's with barely any training, marathons with no trouble) I saw a sign: cingiale crossing.  And there was the picture of the boar crossing the road.  Late Saturday afternoon we drove to Lago di Vico for a mini-excursion, some nature time.  Daniel found a sign that warned of cingiale.  As we headed back to the car in the dark, we told the kids to make lots of noise to keep any wildlife away.  "Why?  What's here?!" they asked.  "Oh, we don't know, but in Prospect Hill at home we'd do the same thing if we were there in the dark."  The myth of the Calydonian boar was becoming a little too vivid as we got through the dark up to the parking lot, kids screaming loud.  (Thank you, kids.)

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When we got off the bus in some town near Terracina, the director told the students, "Be back to the bus by 3pm.  That gives you enough time to eat lunch and to wander around and see this town a bit if you want."

Two hours? I thought.  I could eat a sandwich and get a gelato and be back on the bus in thirty minutes.  What are we going to do with all this time?

Rather than go off by myself, I followed the other teachers.  An Italian colleague had gone ahead, found a restaurant, and gotten the owner to open up another room for the group of us.  We sat in this small room, the owner pulling the wine from a shelf right there on the wall behind my chair.  He took orders, walked outside and around the corner to the kitchen where his wife was, returned later with many plates of cacio e pepe -- a Rome specialty my colleagues told me.  It's not as good anywhere else, and now we're close to Rome, so it will be excellent here, they told me.

At 2:45pm, we were on secondi piati, and still minutes away from dolce.  The director sent a message to the students saying to postpone ETD to 3:15pm.

The next evening for dinner, we ate finely sliced meat -- I am inept here in describing the food as an Italian or food connoisseur would.  There were potatoes and prociutto and caprese and melanzane and this melt-in-your-mouth meat.  There was wine and a chocolate cake that hid warm gushing chocolate in the middle.  There was the after-dinner drink.  Then the coffee.

Food is everything.  There is no embarrassment about eating or talk about being hungry really.  It's just time to eat and to eat well often.  There is a pride in the food and in sharing one's dish.  It's quite beautiful.

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At home we eat turkey bacon and turkey sausage: here we eat sausage and porcetta.

At home we drink tea: here we drink tea, cappuccino, latte macchiato (warm milk with a drop of espresso), espresso/cafe.

At home, I'll eat Kind bars and saltines and Trader Joe's dried fruit and Arnold Palmer for lunch: here I eat leftover pasta and salads.

At home, we eat Joe's O's (i.e. Trader Joe's cheerios) for breakfast unless Daniel's cooked for us: I've traded Joe's O's for Noi Voi's Honey Loops (store brand at Emme Piu), and everyone other than Connor and me eats Daniel's cooked breakfasts.  Or, on a special day, we grab croissants (the typical Italian breakfast).

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Mary has been experimenting with her baking and cooking.  She began in September with her cupcakes.  This past week she made stuffed zucchini and pasta for dinner and biscotti for dessert.

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I wonder, Will the kids want to change our Waltham Christmas Eve dinner tradition from the Chateau when we return?