No more student discount tickets

Turning 27 tomorrow is really not something I'm stressing or worrying about. However, I did just discover that the special reduced museum entry price for students is only for people 26 and under, which made me feel old and cheap because it really annoyed me. Especially when the three girls I've been exploring the city with are all 23-25. They've started calling me nonna, which is funny, but certainly gets some weird looks from passersby.
Last night we had another group dinner with Fabio, a soon-to-depart NYU professor, Rome native, and incredibly acclaimed food writer. He's going to the New School to head up their program, and he is so fantastic I may want to go with him, or at the bare minimum, stand outside so I can frequently "run into" him. Hosteria Del Bricco, on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, was fantastic, and home of the most amazing roast pork with herbs and ribollita. I cannot get enough of this bread soup. It's so simple - just broth, vegetables and this unsalted bread that is starting to get on my nerves. There was a tasting course of five different dips, one mushroom, one a roasted eggplant, one a spicy pepper jam, a chicken liver pate, and a pureed roasted garlic that I was tempted to eat with a spoon. At least they make up for the lack of salt in the bread by having such intensely flavored things that give it some life.
The pictures are of the zucchini flower farfalle, which contained two of my favorite things: pasta and zucchini flowers. I really do not understand why, in the states, they discard this delicate and beautiful part. It's such a shameful waste. The other is an incredibly well seasoned steak that we all fought over, under a bed of peppery arugula and juicy tomatoes.
Today was wonderful, as is any day that starts off with an artisanal chocolate tasting for breakfast. Dark chocolate, lemon peel and violet ganache might not be the breakfast of champions, but it was definitely a positive way to start the day. We all then got assigned a word then had to go and purchase the product from the Sant Ambrogio Market so we could have a picnic at Villa Ullivi. I had boar sausage, which was pretty easy to find, and the culture of a market like this is always amusing - the yelling, shouting, flirting. Old men with a wink and a smile give you "special discounts", handing you the precious paper parcels you've hunted for through the market. I also found 'ndjua. Enough said.
I can never get sick of looking at the colors, inhaling the produce, bartering and stumbling over Italian phrases and numbers as I stuff huge purple eggplants and crispy, bright fennel into my bag, realizing that in the dorms, we have no kitchen. Now I'm stuck with bags of veggies that I'm going to have to figure out what to do with. I'm sure the olive oil that I just pilfered from the cafeteria will play a starring role.
Tomorrow we have a wine tasting and then all day lectures. Then we are going back to the fantastic La Giostra for dinner - I'm ecstatic. Though I keep imagining if someone knocked on my door and offered me a cured meat and cheese platter, I would tell them to leave, I realize that I really, truly cannot stop eating such delicious food.
My roommate said she's going to have to teach me how to catch or do something athletic. Obesity may not sound so terrible in a perfect Italian accent, but it certainly wouldn't look so great.

Culinary School

It finally happened. I thought it would, but I was hoping I was going to be wrong. We were shocked, because everything about the Central Market was amazing. All signs seemed positive, as we happily plopped down at the little restaurant tucked in a corner, flanked by fresh butchers, vegetable vendors, heaping mounds of deeply colored dried fruits.
We had a bad meal.
The caponata was fine but oily, but Natanya's peppers actually caused her to ask if they were supposed to tasted carbonated. Fried eggplant was destroyed by a rubbery, thick layer of batter. The woman behind us had a disturbingly intense hacking cough that caused Pegah to actually get up and move. Unhappy, we pouted, left our plates, and immediately rectified the situation at the Apecius Culinary School.
Our class was split into two smaller groups, and our chef, Giuseppe, immediately set us to work chopping, rinsing and boiling. My onion mince was really impressive, and Chef, who is from a town by Reggio in Calabria, immediately recognized my background. He let me take charge on the saffron and white wine risotto, creamy and buttery with zucchini and their fresh blossoms sprinkled on top. He winked and handed me some scoops of gelato for his special "calabrian friend". Natanya and Jackie rolled out thin, yellow strips of fresh pasta - Chef was adamant about only using what was fresh and seasonal - and the pasta was formed into spinach, ricotta ravioli bathed in Pegah's tomato sauce. Chef admitted that my gram's sauce might be better (he was right, but it was still delicious), and we sat down to eat our feast, renewed.
After a pizza dinner with our guest speakers from earlier in the week, we made the mistake of following some other students to a club called "Central Park". Huge mistake. Our quality of life had been peaks and valleys all day, and this terrible place really ruined it. We quickly said our hellos and goodbyes, trying to leave after a half hour. Discovering the asinine policy of needing an "exit ticket", it took us about two hours to leave the clutches of the club and its almost comically rude door staff. It was like being on a hidden camera show. Having the next day as a free research day was much needed.
We toured the Uffizi in the morning where I made the embarrassing discovery of how little I know about Carvaggio. Lunch was a great surprise at Il Porcopino by the San Lorenzo market, with a fantastic house white, hearty ribollita, and a charming Albanian waiter. Dinner at Acqua al 2 was simple and overall pretty tasty - I'm hitting a proscuitto and mozzarella wall. I never thought it would be so difficult to find a salad. Or a plate of steamed vegetables. Anything green. My swordfish carpaccio was nice and thankfully light, but I'm spoiled after Scilla. I'm something of a pesce spada connasseur now, and it just wasn't the same. The best surprise was the discovery of a brewpub on Via Nazionale, that served 'ndjua, played Pearl Jam, and served seven "artiginale" beers brewed by a petite blonde woman. I was ecstatic. "Research" for my paper is, we all agreed, really fun. There are only two brewpubs in Firenze, this one having medaled several times in the Italian beer cup. I have to visit the second to do more "observational research" - I smiled at Natanya as we toasted our pints of Volpe and Honey Amber, salad or no salad - though we had a few rough patches, we all realized we are truly living la dolce vita.

It's nearly impossible to turn down gelato and lardo

This villa is amazing. That is probably a redundant sentence, since I don't think it's common to complain about things such as villas. Such as, "Wow, that new BMW is great, but I just don't need one". No one says things like that, but I digress.
We had our first day of lecture, the first one being on wine and marketing given by the charming and incredibly fantastic Marchesi Diletta Frescobaldi, whose family has been producing very noteworthy (read: expensive) Tuscan wines for 700 years. She is a member of the 32nd generation of Frescobaldis involved in the family business. And I was impressed I can name my great-grandparents. She was fantastic, and actually joined us for what may have been the simplest Tuscan dinner she has ever eaten. The food was hearty and cheap, and the restaurant certainly did not have any Frescobaldi wines, but it was nice to meet someone who has a street named after them.
The other lecturers were more nutrition based, and full of endearing mispronounciations and lilting accents. Obesity doesn't sound as bad when its pronounced with a perfect, heavy Florentine accent. We then went on a tour of La Pietra, the main villa and former house of the Acton family. The 5,000 some pieces of art were interesting, but their decorating taste was abysmal. I didn't see any of the ghosts that are reported to roam the property, and the house is much less dramatic then NYU's acquisition of the property. Sir Acton was exhumed to ensure that the Princess claiming to be his illegitimate relative had no claim to the incredible land and the contents of the estate - among them, a signed first edition of Ulysses. The beautiful rolling wildflower gardens and blooming lemon blossoms are romantic and entrancing, and we have full access to them the entire time we stay here. I'm planning on doing a fantastic amount of sitting there when the lavender blooms in a week or so.
Today we went to Greve, a "slow" city, formed after a McDonald's opened by the Spanish Steps in Roma. Italy revolted, seeing this as a slap in the face of a country so proud of and known for having one of the most recognized and lauded food histories and cultures. They started the idea of "slow food", and Greve is a town with some beautiful butcher shops with aging proscuitto practically dripping from the ceiling, fish stands with shimmering and fresh and vegetables with colors so vivid they looked like they were painted.
Verrazzano vineyards in Chianti was one thousand years of San Giovese grapes over hundreds of acres of rolling hills. We toured their olive oil, balsamico and wine facilities. We had a tasting of wine and charcuterie (more lardo, and a fantastic wild boar proscuitto they make with the boar that roams through the fields) where Jaclyn, Natanya and I may have scared our professor with the amount of laughing that went on. It seems true that the people in Florence speak the most proper Italian. Everyone strings sentences together so correctly, and even when our tour guide was discussing something so simple as oak types, he made it sound like old Italian poetry. We came back into Firenze, got more gelato, bought some fantastic sunglasses for Jackie and my birthdays, had a little wine, and laughed even harder at Pegah's issues identifying the sights in town.
"What's that big covered bridge over there? It looks really impressive."
"Um, Pegah, thats the Ponte Vecchio."
I've actually lost my voice a little from laughing so hard and doing loud imitations of our professor and the comical Italian translations. Cooking school tomorrow should be interesting - going to see some of the sights Mr. Tibbets recommended - a few older churches and pieces of art usually overlooked by tourists. It's nice to have a later start to the day. I've been doing an insane amount of eating and laughing, but not so much sleeping. But no one comes to Florence to just sleep.

"Do you see the little villa in the background?"

So says my roommate a few minutes ago to her boyfriend on skype. I'm waiting to post all my pictures at once from the Chianti region and Greve tomorrow. Have to get up very early.
More a domani. I'm moving here.

Laughter and Tiramisu

Nothing is better then ordering a sambuca at the end of the meal, and having them simply place a bottle on your table and a few glasses. And then tell you to help yourself. "Have as much as you want," the owner smiled. He had bracelets up to his elbows - heavy silver bangles and skull rings. A harley davidson patch on his leather vest, and a disposition that made you immediately question his dress. Like a kitten in lions clothing, La Giostra, by Santa Croce, lived up to every bit of Florentine hospitality and more.
Walking in, we were greeted with complimentary prosecco and appetizers of chicken liver crostini, marinated vegetables - our big winner was the gorgeously seasoned potato cakes.
The burrata, cows milk cheese decadently injected with fresh cream, made me actually laugh out loud. I have never tasted anything so amazingly rich and addictive before, this soft, ribbony mozzarella-ricotta-joy all in the same cheese. Grapefruit, honey and pine nuts cleansed the palate, but Nat (my roommate) and I actually were dipping everything we could in the rich cream left in the bowl. Tuna tartare with blood oranges, and then a carpaccio of eggplant, zucchini and tomato really cemented the fact that I was not getting up from this meal without someone rolling me out the door.
The pasta followed, homemade and saffron yellow from the farm eggs used in the dough. One, stuffed with pear and peccorino, the other with artichoke and roasted tomatoes. Filet, ruby red rare with a balsamic reduction, then sea bass, flaky and drizzled with soft roasted tomatoes that gave in so easily to the fork. Tiramisu, loosely packed but heavy with mascarpone and worth every bite, unlimited sambuca, and laughter so hard we left tearing up.
The walk back was about 40 minutes, but much needed. Tomorrow is our first "real day" of class. Three lectures then a tour of the famous gardens.
It's so odd to have to sit in a lecture hall in a city like this. Having off again today after a 2 hour lecture was another blessing. Santa Croce never gets old, and as much as Roma has my heart, Firenze is really putting up a stubborn fight to steal it. I'm learning these endearing, twisting streets in this incredibly small and manageable city. Gelato isn't made with unnatural colors that trap your eye, but flavors that make you grin. Pignoli and Cannella? Anice? That's why this city is so famous.
For so long, I held to the contention that, in Roma, you can see everything you ever wanted to without ever going inside. The Colosseum, the Pantheon, the steps, the Navona, Trevi. It's all there and so amazing in its openness. Even a novice can navigate the tiny lanes and old, awkward stone steps.
I had always contended that this was Roma's advantage. In Fireneze, you have to go inside to see everything. Yes, there is the Duomo, Santa Croce, the Ponte Vecchio. Sta. Maria Novella. All breathtaking, but (besides for the Duomo) what I found most impressive was hidden in a quiet, shadowy corner. Even full of tourists, one can get a glimmer of solitude.
What I though was once a disadvantage I am now finding a blessing. It's a small city covered in crevices and dead ends that will get you confused and lose you, then give you just a glimpse of a North Star - a Duomo, a bridge, and again remind you - it may be small in kilometers, but it is so big in so many different ways.

Class absolutely cannot be bad in Firenze

Often, when I tell people what my masters program is, I'm greeted with questions such as "Oh, so you're a nutritionist?" or "...going to open a restaurant? ...going to be a chef?", and so on. It's then usually followed with an awkward pause, and "So...what are you going to be able to do with that?"
Which is fine. We all have to deal with questions we do not necessarily want or have answers to concerning our life decisions.
In Florence, however, simply saying you study food - gastronomia - is enough. It merits a satisfied nod, a "Brava!" These are a people who understand the importance of food, and they consider it a matter of pride that hits so much closer to home then simply saying it is a national obsession. It is all consuming, as important as breathing, and potentially as important as the impending World Cup. People in Florence are understandably boastful of their food.
Last night we went to a Hosteria by the market and were treated to a 9 course dinner of the traditional Florentine foods that were discussed in the reading. Wine and new friends (and a negroni or two) made for a great start to the program. The bread soups, minestra and ribollata, were simple, peasant dishes consisting of broth slowly poured over the famously unsalted tuscan bread with beans, tomatoes, and soffritto (celery, onions and carrots - the "holy trinity" of Firenze cuisine). Crostini with a parsley and caper pesto disappeared in minutes, but at about course 8, things started significantly slowing down. Dessert went almost untouched, except for the Vin Santo, which everyone gratefully sipped in something similar to relief that the meal was actually over.
Class today was at Villa Ulivi, across the sloping Tuscan fields dotted with olive trees like sharp green pinpricks. It's a hike, but deeply inhaling honeysuckle air and looking at the clear blue sky really gives you a nice perspective check on what constitutes an inconvenience.
We had a lecture on the history and production of olive oil, followed by a tasting. The oils got better as we went on, and though I appreciate the grassy, nutty qualities of beautiful green oil, tasting something that is almost entirely made of fat does get trying after a while. Not to mention I'm an absolute horror at making the appropriate slurping noise that distributes air and the fat to properly coat your tongue. I think the whole point was to make us look like idiots, slurping and sputtering. The girl behind me almost choked.
A few of the girls and I walked the 20 minutes to the Duomo. Like so many sights in Italy, it absolutely never gets old. It has been said so many times before, but pictures are an embarrassment to how insanely huge and spectacular it is. It consumes every part of your line of sight. Even when you turn your back to it, you just keep turning around to steal glances. It's an addiction.
We found a fantastic "deli" a few blocks north, off of Via Dei Servi. It was incredibly small, but panini and a few simple dishes were cheap and fresh - and it has been in business serving simple and delicious cibo since 1927. A dusty picture in the corner showed it had not changed at all since World War II, save for a few "flags" that would certainly not be appropriate now. A panino with mortadella, freshly sliced, thin as paper and mozzarella pulled from a ceramic bowl of milk drizzled with oil and balsamico was only 2 euro. Vino della casa was only 1. The six of us girls immediately decided this would be a regular stop, especially considering its proximity to an artisanal gelato store serving Tuscan oddities such as pignoli (pine nut) and anice (anise), along with the usual suspects made of fresh ingredients sitting promisingly piled on the stainless steel counters in the back. I stopped for one before getting my sandwich, and another immediately after. It was that good.
Shopping ensued - or rather, trying things on and not buying them, and then cocktail hour at out Professor's AMAZING apartment overlooking the Duomo. Fresh parma and melone, foccacia, tomatoes with olive oil from our NYU villa. Then, about 15 of us strolled to the Ponte Vecchio and had a nightcap at the Continental Hotel's rooftop bar, which had an impressive drink menu and some swanky white couches, in addition to having the most over the top elevator I have ever seen. I thought it was a sitting room. No one needs a couch like this in an elevator, especially one that only goes 5 floors.
But Firenze is a small city, with buildings that are built short and stout so that they bow to the Duomo and Medici castles and cathedrals that, rightfully, tower over the low buildings and shimmering dark river below. One of those views that just makes you sigh and smile.
Not a bad first day of class. And a beautiful welcome to my temporary home for the next several weeks.

Benvenuti a Firenze!

After a rough morning - getting up at 5 am to get on a plane is never fun, especially after the continuous yelling from the Inter Milano victory - I'm finally in the process of setting in to live here at Villa Natalia for then next 3 weeks. I flew from Reggio to Roma, then took a gorgeous Eurostar express train to Florence, which all in all only took about an hour and a half. The NYU villa is only about 15 minutes outside of the main part of Florence, but it's not exactly an exciting, breathtaking walk to get there.
The villa on the other hand is magical. The rooms are exactly what you'd expect from dorm rooms, but with airy ceilings and overlooking a field of blooming olive trees. The big orange building is our dorm. Pretty standard, huh? :)
I have 2 roommates, but we have plenty of room to spread out (at least for now) and though there isn't any wifi, they do supply you with a ratty ethernet cord. At least it works.
Tonight we are headed to a local restaurant to taste some of the foods described in the assigned readings previous to the course - it will be delicious, I'm sure, but I'm even more sure that they are foods I have probably consumed in copious amounts already on the trip. It's a good thing it's almost impossible for me to get sick of carbohydrate or pork based products.
Oh, and there's an espresso machine in the lobby. I'm twitching already.

Reggio di Calabria: Home of the Strait of Messina and the Junior World Cup of Archery

Reggio is a strange city. Like a slightly nicer Newark with a grungier Seaside Heights beach, three times the horn honking of Bergen County on a Friday at rush hour and a 5 star, insanely beautiful view. It's definitely a strange place to wind up - a sort of transit destination. You're either going to Sicily, coming from a beautiful beach town and flying out via the smallest area in the world (which I am flying out of tomorrow), or you live in the smaller towns in the region and have come here to shop on the main drag. There is a beautiful 2 mile promenade that goes right along the sea, but it's apparent that they are trying their hardest to build the area up to increase their tourism - its new, and in a strange architecture that doesn't fit the shabbiness of the city.
Last night I went back to the Pirate restaurant to try the involtini de pesce spada - swordfish, thinly sliced, stuffed with mollica (the squishy bread inside), capers, olives, parsley, cheese and pepper. Then grilled, and squeezed with lemon and served with arugula. It was absolutely amazing - and the waiter, Stanzo, told me using mollica in cooking is very traditionally Calabria - it stretched the protein when times were tough. Which explains so much about the meatballs I was raised eating and now make myself - everyone thinks it odd when I'm adding squishy bread insides, but it is what I learned. A culinary tradition passed down from when meat was a rarity in Calabrian food.
Reggio was quite a trip, literally. The standard crowded train, the standard graffiti covered station. But this meat and cheese plate makes up for it - though I now feel guilty about eating every bite. Well, pretty much just the lardo. There is nothing more decadent then eating pure fat, draped like milky silk over a piece of crusty bread (lardo - top left, then a grassy gorgonzola, anon. cheese - 3 types - one was spicy and grainy and wonderful, ham, salame, sopressata, 'ndjua, bottom right, mortadella, proscuitto).
That made me smile. As did the archery junior world championships going on overlooking the Strait of Messina and Sicily. I cheered for Mexico, Rocio.
Bellisima.

Frijias make great ricotta

A little rain makes the sun seen to shine even brighter when it finally comes out. Scilla is beautiful today - about 70 degrees, bright sun and a light breeze blowing off the sea. I woke up to the sound of the ocean, and opened my eyes cautiously, saying a silent prayer for the sun that was amazingly answered. Not just because it is obviously more spectacular in the sun, but also, I still have all this wet laundry and I'm not about to trek to Reggio di Calabria with a bag full of wet clothing, though I do see the comedic potential in such a venture.
There were other people at breakfast today (or, morning piece of bread and cafe), which was exciting. Germans and Russians staying just the night before heading over to Sicilia today - they certainly picked a beautiful day for it. It's funny what curiosity a single American female arouses. I had to stop and give directions to three different groups of people today, mistaking me for a local as I chatted with the adorable old lady down the alley, who spends most of her day leaning out the window and yelling "ciao". She's probably about 4'11", with gray hair and wisdom and smiles etched on her face, and every day she says something to me that I absolutely do not understand. I smile and laugh and say Si, si. She probably thinks I'm an idiot. I met a couple from Malta, who, after a few minutes, realized that none of us spoke Italian, and wished me a great trip when I get to their country, as I walked them down the harbor to the spot they were looking for. The adorable French people I saw earlier just emerged from La Pirata, which I recommended they try. They just waved up to me on my balcony and told me it was "molto bene", and applauded, though simply saying so was not enough. As they walked away, I yelled "arrevederci!" at them as the woman looked up, and waved back, yelled in heavily accented French, "Ciao, bella italiana!". My heart just melted. People are so surprised to learn that I'm here, on purpose, for several days by myself. It's not as lonely as you would think - sometimes, especially for someone as talkative as me, it's important just to sit quietly and really see, instead of just taking a quick look.
Last night for dinner I went down to La Pirata, a small local place next door. The food was spectacular - anyone who even has a slight shudder when thinking about anchovies would change their mind in a second if they tried these.
The simply called "alici" on the menu were one of the best things I have ever eaten.
Fresh, huge anchovies - not a bit salty or fishy, and not a single thread-like bone, fileted, drizzled with olive oil, tons of pepperoncini and chopped parsley, with a squeeze of lemon...I literally ate every morsel, using my bread to mop up the intensely flavored oil that remained. As a main I had a local pasta called pacciere de pesce spada e melanzane. Pacciere, my comical waiter explained in broken english, means "slap" in the local dialect (we figured this out by his dramatic pantomime of slapping himself across the face several time) - and is a loose, round pasta as wide as a lasagna - like a floppy rigatoni. The sauce was slow simmered chunks of swordfish and soft pieces of eggplant with whole tomatoes, huge capers, meaty green olives, and just a hint of garlic and handfuls of fresh parsley. I ate it in a matter of minutes. I'm not normally a huge fan of fish and pasta, but the swordfish certainly holds its own in a dish like this - typical Calabrian food. It's simple and intense. Spicy and flavorful, it doesn't make apologies, only using -at most- 8 ingredients. Maybe we just overdo it so much in America with seasonings and cooking technique that our palates are numb from it all. Stepping back and eating simple food, prepared well, using fresh ingredients really lets each flavor shine.
Today, I walked up the cliff to the town center of Scilla to hunt down a bank and some lunch. It's beautiful and shabby at the same time - staggering cliffs and the sea in the background, combined with graffiti, crumbling, abandoned houses and stray cats calling for your attention. I found a small market where I bought some mortadella and some local cheese - soft, but with the piquant taste of a blue or gorgonzola - just without the marbling - and the signora literally made me take a piece of bread. Roaming around for the next few hours, I found that there are more fishmongers in this town then people on the street - but the fish, proudly displayed - are amazingly fresh. Clear eyes, shimmering, vivid skin, and the beautifully subtle smell of seawater. I found another store and stopped to buy a lemon - one as big as my hand. The men inside, in a mixture of bad french and italian (on my part) and bad english (on theirs) were charming.
Starting off, they commented on my Calabrian face, and after my usual amount of explaining, one of them mentioned he knows the Frijia's and Cirriani's in Curinga. He said, making muscle gestures, the Frijia's are very strong and make very good ricotta, as though the two are inseparably tied. The lemon, the owner insisted, was a gift from him to a beautiful Calabrian girl, and we chatted for almost an hour. Like a three year old, he made me repeat names in Italian of products in the store, and lamented the lack of Calabria food in New York (he has never been there, but he is certain there is no Calabrian food). He roared with laughter as I pushed my nose up in a snobby gesture when we were talking about French cuisine. They walked me back to the main street, wishing me buona fortuna with my studies, and a buon viaggio for the rest of my trip. "A good girl," he said, with a satisfied nod. Clearly, I was a little teary and grinning ear to ear as I made my way back down to Chianalea. You cannot make these priceless experiences up. It's like being in a movie.
Lunch was fantastic. I sat out on the balcony and with some bread from yesterday made a panzanella salad - chopped tomatoes, onions and parsley, dressed with salt, lemon and pepperoncini infused olive oil.
The mortadella and the cheese were more then enough, and I now have the makings for a simple panino for the train to Reggio tomorrow.
I sat on the beach for a while watching some crazy hang-gliders float above the rock like birds. Met an American (!!) doing business in Reggio. It was nice to speak English with someone, even for only an hour. Another man, Tony, and his son Matteo and nephew Rocco heard us talking English, and as they are from Niagra Falls, invited me to take the evening passeggiata with them. Everyone in Italy takes this nightly stroll around town, just walking, saying ciao to friends and relaxing before dinner. Rocco lives here, and Tony was born here but left to raise Matteo and his other children in Canada. Coincidentally, Rocco's family owns Bleu de Toi, the place I ate my first night. He explained a lot about the town - the giant cranes on the boats that the fishermen use to spot swordfish in the distance, and the lack of money in Calabria that leaves much of Chianalea in disrepair. Rocco said that when the fishermen are unable to spear any squid, they put little sticks of dynamite in the water and blow them out then catch them. Now THAT is modern ingenuity.
It's funny how so many Americans can trace their ancestry here, but when asked, "Where in Italy is your family from?", they shrug, attesting that it doesn't matter, they are Italian as they eat their "galamad" and "mutzarell". I'm so lucky I can be in an area that my ancestors were, and that even a few generations down, they still know that I am from here. Tomorrow, I go to Reggio, where my gram told me that her mother - my nonna - used to go shopping. It's thrilling to think you are walking down the same streets are your family did before you, and gazing at the same beaches and rocky mountains that they once did. Covered in cactus and scraggly brush, sprinkled with a few brightly colored wildflowers, the hills of Calabria are jaw dropping. But, as a testament and a poetic reassurance of the sturdiness of the people here - their stubbornness and "hard heads", their culture, its reassuring to see that even beautiful flowers can grown on the rock.
It's nice to know where you are from.

Free oranges and wet laundry.

Italy has it nailed with shoes, wine, food.
But America has clothes dryers. And hair dryers. I guess they just don't like to dry things in Italy.
It's been raining on and off in sheets all day, but oddly, when it's not raining, it's bright and sunny, which means I have been doing a comical dance routine with my laundry and the clothes line all day. I hand washed literally everything I have worn, including my coat (not terribly smart), and as I walked past the pier into town to find some lunch, it started to pour.
I came back and everything was sopping wet, and I have now taken my laundry inside and outside about 4 times, no exaggeration.
Lunch, though, was a really fun treat. I saw a man in a little golf cart driving around my fishing village, the back piled high with huge oranges and lemons. I picked out a few, and asked how much they were, and with a smile he shooed me away. "Basta, basta", he laughed, literally pulling my hand out of my purse. "Manga!". So, thanks to a kind old citrus farmer, I had the beginnings of my lunch.
The rain let up as I walked through the grotto through the famed Rock of Scilla that lets out in town, and I saw this beautiful shrine with an old statue of the Virgin Mary and some makeshift vases filled with fresh flowers and candles recently lit, glowing red in chipped glass jars. I looked at the statue, and the plaque, "La Madonna del Mare". The Madonna of the sea. I followed her gaze out to the foggy sky and the deep sapphire sea, framed by the hard, jagged rock of the grotto. It didn't look like much walking up, but when you turn back and look, it's the perfect place for the Madonna of the Sea. Quietly watching sailors navigating the fabled rocks and enjoying the spectacular view.
As I went past the deserted beach, I found another man with a similar golf cart and a more extensive selection of produce. I picked up a huge bunch of ruby colored tomatoes, some sprigs of flat leaf parsley, a few red onions (dirt and roots included). Just a euro. Fantastic.
Then, the small store by the train station. I was looking around, aimlessly, and the store owner (your standard, charming old Italian man) said the magic words, "Salami? Cappicola? Frommagio?"
Si, si, si grazie!
I got a few pieces of cappicola, which was wonderfully fatty, and some frommagio of undetermined origin. It was soft, thinly sliced, and a little smoky. For a total of 2 Euro, I now had lunch, and feel significantly less guilty about having another dinner out (the places around here are pricier then Tropea - I think the other places only open in the "on" season). A squeeze of fresh lemon, a drizzle of oil (from the store by the Grotte), a glass of local wine and a orange, speckled blood red on the inside and candy-sweet for dessert...
And the 2 books I still have to read for class on Sunday. Oops.

il dolce far niente...

Imagine you took a town the size of Princeton. Then cut it in eighths. And then again.
Now you have an idea of how big Scilla is.
It's the train station, a "main street", which is endearingly laughable, and the place I'm in, the old fishing village called Chianalea. As someone who did spend a good amount of their life considering art as a career choice (like political science, bartending and food studies were wiser. Discuss "laughable" amongst yourselves), I can't help but fall in love with it here. It seems every door was painted knowing it would peel just so, every window would fall open at that perfect angle. I saw five old men with shock white hair sit in a freshly painted blue rowboat for 6 hours today and just talk, contentedly watching their grandchildren fool around with a soccerball.
A word every ten minutes, gazing at the horizon. Not smiling, not frowning - just sitting, in quiet, looking at the warm reflection of the sun across the aquarium blue water in their large rowboat that smelled intoxicatingly like the fresh coat of bright orange paint that had been applied.
The boat was sitting on land.
They sat, lifelong friends in a boat going nowhere, perfectly content to do just that all day.
Ahh, the sweetness of doing nothing.
I laughed, as I did when the menu at dinner tonight promised, in the english translation "fresh calamarians". I'm sure my mother recognizes this incredibly nerdy Star Wars joke, but that is really what it said.
The restaurant tonight, down the one bumpy, shadowy lane from the Grotte, was amazing. Built over the water, like everything else in this town, I discovered the joy of swordfish carpaccio, and the sadness that "OFF" bug repellent is, in fact, not repellent at all to those crafty Italian mosquitos.
The carpaccio was amazingly fresh, with thin slices of lemons that were bigger then american grapefruit, garnished with generous olive oil, fresh parsley, oregano and pepper, and a beautifully dressed frisee and radicchio salad. Mi secondi was a homemade pasta with a silky tomato and eggplant sauce (how DID they get that texture?) that yet again proved my theory that there are, in fact, opiates in homemade Italian pasta.
No matter how full you are, you eat the whole thing. And consider ordering another.
It's a serious problem.
Before dinner, I went to the "Last Stop Bar", appropriately positioned at the curve in the road before the town turned to the car free zone, and the owner had an insane collection of vintage vinyl Beatles and Janis Joplin on the walls. "Castles in the Air" came on, and he played the whole record.
His wife looked just like Yoko Ono.
I wasn't about to investigate that further.
But it was slow, I was the only customer, and I asked, in bad Italian (which, at this point I am fluent in. Read: not Italian. BAD Italian. Significant difference), if it would pick up - if business would get busier. He grinned at me - ecstatic. "No", he said. "It will stay like this until July".
Talk about a different work ethic. We, as Americans, complain when we have too much to do, and too little. Here is this man, completely content to just sit and smoke cigarettes, look at the sea, and listen to his old records.
Bellisima.

Scilla is heaven

This is the view from the back balcony of the B&B I just got to in the small fishing town of Scilla. Granted, it was a bit of a hike (ok, it was awful, 2 miles uphill and no one was there when I arrived), but it was worth every aching step.
I'm staying an extra night. I actually did a crazy happy dance as soon as I saw the view.
Scilla is named for the famous monster of Greek mythology that turned from a beautiful nymph into the beastly 6 headed sea monster called Scylla, hence the name of the town. The giant rock in the picture on the right in the rock of Scilla, in essence, the sea creature. The origin of the phrase, between "a rock and a hard place", it was nearly impossible for sailor to navigate this narrow straight between the rock of Scilla (one sea monster) and the rock of Charybdis (the other sea monster). Getting too close to one rock meant you would hit the other rock and so on and so on. The town in situated just north of the colder water straits of Messina, which means it enjoys more favorable water temperatures in the summer - about two hours from Sicily (or Sicilia in Italian, just to make things even more confusing), Scilla is a huge beach destination like Tropea.
Just a little bit more interesting history. Who doesn't love a good sea monster story??

Mi Amico Mimmo

The old man who works on the beach for the hotel and I have now become friends. His name is Mimmo, and he looks like he has spent his entire life working feet from the sea - like a tough old fisherman, but I'm certain he is much younger then the lines on his weathered, tanned face would lead me to believe. Today was actually beautiful - sunny, no wind, and warm enough for Mimmo to put out the beach chairs. He set out a chair for me, and brushed it off with a broom, and then as the sun went in and I shivered, he ran into the hotel and came back with a big blanket for me. Then, he handed me a bunch of beautiful mother of pearl shells, one that he drilled a hole into so it could be made into a necklace - at first, I didn't understand he was giing them to me as a gift. Potentially one of the sweetest gifts I've ever been given, and certainly one I will always remember.
Last night I ate at L'Uvo, and the woman who runs the place was a riot - she caught me taking pictures of my plate of fileja (the local pasta - its made by rolling the pasta around a long pin, and then cutting it into inch long pices that look like hollow caterpillars), pepperoncini, garlic and oil, and insisted on giving me the menu, a card, a napkin with the name of the restaurant on it, and some other papers. Then she showed me her cat, happily lounging outside, eating a bowl full of beautiful silver anchovies. The food was delicious and so simple. Four or five ingredients at the most, and insanely cheap. A glass of wine, an insalata tropea, and the pasta dish all cost only €8.
Insalata Tropea is seen everywhere - essentially just a simple house salad, what really makes it noteworthy is the quality of ingredients. The tomatoes are ruby red and warm, and the sweet onions that Tropea is so known for are so sweet you coud eat one like an apple.
Lunch today, more pizza at L'Arca de pizza. Pizza alla diavola seems to be the local thing - the ever present pepperoncini, olives, cheese, tomatoes, basil and anchovies. Delicious, but the American in me cannot make it through the whole thing using a knife and fork. I give up halfway and start eating it New York style. The little blonde girl with her family at another table was fussing with her pasta, which prompted the fiesty owner to gesture ''Manga! Manga!'' (Eat! Eat!) at her. The German family looked confused, but to anyone who was raised in an Italian family, that phrase and gesture evokes warm childhood memories.
The place was full at lunch, and the German tourists are doing very little to adapt to Italy. It borders on rude.
No, it's rude. I'm being too nice.
They (as a whole) make no attempts to speak any Italian. The couple next to me at lunch today was getting annoyed at the poor waitress who could not understand their loud German and broken English. And here I am, feeling terrible that I keep bungling the pronounciation of ''bichhiere'' (glass)...but I think I've got it. The Germans don't even make an attempt. AND why would you come all the way to this charming town by the sea in the middle of nowhere-ville Southern Italy and drink German beer???
Tomorrow, Scilla. I'm insanely excited for it - the place I'm staying, le Piccole Grotte, is an old fishermans house, and the whole village is right on the sea. Scilla is named for the rock a few meters from the village in the sea, famed in mythology and served as a lookout point for the village for centuries. I just like saying the name. It would be a great name for a cat. No cars allowed - which should make getting my growing suitcase and collection of southern Italian treats to the B & B difficult. I wonder if someone will take me out on a boat...hmm...
Vorrei andare...barca? haha. I have a feeling a rowing gesture will be making a comical appearance in my day tomorrow.
The pic is beautiful Tropea on a cloudy day.
Ciao!

Reason 4,436,223 why I'm in love with Italy

'ndjua.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of tasing this regional Calabrian delicacy, it is a pork based salami like product, with the addition of unique Southern Italian spices - pepperoncini, orange peel, clove, cinnamon. And, as an added bonus, it is spreadable. The name is (allegedly) an Italian ''bastardization'' of the similarly flavored, spicy andouille sausage. I could care less about the name, all I can state for certain is that since my arrival in Calabria on Saturday, I have eaten 'ndjua for every meal. I had antipasto locale everywhere. It's usually just 'ndjua, bread, oil, a wedge of soft cheese, tiny calabrian black olives the size of peas, funghi misti, and some sundried tomatoes. I had pasta bathed in a light tomato sauce with 'ndjua crumbled in it. The best pasta I've had though, the waiter came up with a plate of fresh anchovies, still moving, salt water glimmering on their bodies. They were chopped up, glimmering silver in a bowl of spaghetti with pepperoncini, capers from the etoile islands just off the coast, olives, fresh basil and fresh squeezed tomatoes. Grassy, green olive oil was drizzled generously over the top, with shavings of ricotta salata, and crunchy toasted bread crumbs mixed in. Food always tastes better when you see it before it actually becomes your dinner.

I don't know how I'm going to carry the homemade 'ndjua I purchased from a man named Gianni for the rest of the trip. I am starting to have visions of my juggling suitcases, trying to climb on the tiny local train to Scilla on Wednesday, with an 'ndjua draped around my neck like a scarf. I have no shame about that, I just don't want my clothes to start to smell like pork product. I do have another 6 weeks after all.
Maybe I'll do what my great grandmother did on a trip to Italy. Picking her up from the airport, my family was surprised to see her bulky form in a coat. She had sewed the homemade sausages from our relatives into the lining of her coat - throwing them out was simply not an option.Tropea is - big shock - beautiful. A centuries old city built into jagged cliffs overlooking a sea with more crystal shades of blue then I have ever seen. The pictures I'm taking almost look doctored in some way. When I am able to upload them, you will see. The water really is that blue.
Unlike the beach towns in the north, though, Tropea is beautiful in a different way. There is graffiti everywhere, and Calabria is a poor state. Buildings are crumbling, and others covered by scaffolding - not a sign of new construction, a local told me, but a precaution that the crumbling building does not fall on someones head and kill them. It almost even more beautiful to me because of this. It's like seeing someone so good looking its almost not real, and then noticing their crooked nose, or chipped tooth. The beauty becomes more pronounced when there is just a little ugly to bring it out.
My hotel is, literally, right on the beach - a series of clean, whitewashed bungalows with wild roses and cactus growing on my red clay front stairs. When the wind is not whistling through the charmingly chipped, dark green shutters, the soft sound of the ocean is heard just a few yards away. Unfortunitely, for reasons I'm blaming on that stupid volcano, the weather has been incredibly windy, and I think I am starting to convince myself I can still hear the ocean even when it's pretty much just wind.
All I have been doing here is walking around town. It's not a big town, so one could make an arguement that all I am doing is walking around in circles, but that's not so different from what I usually do at home. I stop, have an espresso, walk some more. Try and come to the internet cafe. It's usually closed. Stop, have some lunch (today, pizza alla diavola - 'ndjua, tropea onions, capers, tomatoes, and mozarella). Walk some more. Go take a nap (yesterday, I was abruptly awakened by an insane cacophony of horns, whistles, yelling and screeching tires. I walked out the front door and confirmed my thought - typical Italy, it was a Inter Milano football victory related impromptu parade - one of the most ragtag parades I have ever sen, but still fun) Walk back up the 227 stairs from the beach hotel to the old town above. Write a little, say hi to the old man on the corner who keeps trying to talk to me. I tell him, ''signore, mi dispiace, non parlo italiano''. He stops, ''Ahhh'', and considers this. Regroups, and continues his thought in Italian. This has been a daily exercise in comical futility. He is sweet though, as is everyone in this town. They all stop to talk, and ask where you are from, ''turista?'', ''di dove?''. The seem satisfied when I tell them that my grandparents are from Curinga. ''Ahhhhhhh'', the waiter at lunch yesterday said, and walked back to the table his family (seriously. He was sitting and eating Sunday lunch with them and kept getting up to wait on people) was sitting at and telling them.
After dinner, I usually go and have a negroni at the cafe on the corner. The man who works there is Polish, and finds my accent amusing. And here I was convinced I had successfully beaten the New Jersey accent. He speaks Polish, Italian, English, Russian and French. ''That's all?'', I joked, and he pouted in response. ''I'm learning German too,'' he protested, as I tried to explain I was kidding. I thought sarcasm would translate better to a man who knows 5 languages...After that whole pizza for lunch, I can't say I'm so ready for dinner. It's insanely cheap down here though. An espresso is .80€. A .25 pitcher of wine is about 1.5€. Lunch today- a whole pizza, a bicchiere of vino rosso della casa (usually cirò), and a sorbetto was only €8.5. Insane.So, Wednesday I go to the port village of Scilla (pronounced She-lah). It's even smaller then Tropea, and I have to take 2 local trains to get there. The train is gorgeous though - it goes right next to the sea. Alas, it is very slow for a multitude of reasons. The train here took about 10 minutes at each stop even though there was no one getting on and only myself and 3 Germans on the 2 car train (seriously - it must be smaller then the Dinky). I looked out the train window, and sure enough, the conductor stopped at every stop, turned off the train, walked over the tracks and smoked a cigarette. I didn't even mind the delay. It was just so perfectly Italian.
A presto!

P.S. my spelling might be a little off - still adjusting to the italian keyboard.