The Flavors of Abruzzo

Let me say this in no uncertain terms. I hate bugs. They give me the willies.

Up until recently, the bugs that bothered me the most were spiders. Notice I said – up until recently.

It was the spring of 2006 and I had been here in Italy for two or three months. Since our apartment wasn’t ready yet (there was someone else living there until July), we were staying in a small temporary apartment.

One rainy night, I got up to go to the bathroom and,passing through the hallway, happened to look down the two steps that led to the front door. What I saw made me scream, “Che c%$*o è?”

While I was kind of proud of myself for not screaming it in English (after all, I was only here a short time), I was afraid my suspicions would be proven correct, and they were. When O came out of the bedroom and saw it, he picked up his slipper, smacked it very hard, opened the door and swept it outside. Then he turned and said, “it was a scorpion”.

I think my voice got a little high and screechy when a repeated, “a scorpion?”.

He assured me that they weren’t like scorpions in America. If they sting you it hurts, but it’s like a wasp sting since they’re not particularly venomous. Of course, I’ve decided not to test that theory.

I’ve gone almost three years without seeing another scorpion, but I’m wondering if the rain makes them come out. We’ve been having a very rainy spring after a couple of years of drought.

I was horrified the other night to see one on the wall by our garage. We’re on the fourth floor, so I don’t expect to see them in the house (oh please no!), but I wasn’t particularly happy when I saw it down there either.

This one was relatively small (about the length of my pinky finger), so the picture is a little fuzzy since I wasn’t getting any closer to it than absolutely necessary. The first one I saw? Well, let’s just say that I saw it from a distance of 4 meters without my glasses (I’m very nearsighted), in the dark (just outside streetlamps for illumination), and I already had a pretty good idea what it was before O confirmed my hypothesis.

Even though my astrological sign is Scorpio, I feel no affinity for these “little” buggers.

I’ve found that cooking chicken can be challenging here in Italy. The Italians don’t have the same fondness for chicken breast that Americans seem to have. At least O doesn’t. He’d rather have the legs or thighs.

I have to admit, if not cooked well, chicken breasts can be dry and tasteless, but despite the fact that I’ve cooked them numerous tasty ways, O would rather have the other parts. Of course, this works out well because I prefer the white meat.

Oh, he’ll eat the chicken breast if I smother it in some sauce or fry it in beer batter, but that’s not a healthy alternative. So, other than just roasting a whole chicken, what’s the solution?

How about Pollo alla cacciatore – or Hunter’s Style Chicken

There are actually several different recipes for this, some use peppers and some add black olives. In fact, next time I’ll probably make it with peppers instead of carrots, just for a change.

Here’s the recipe I used:

1 whole chicken cut up
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 carrots, diced
1 onion, diced
3 stalks celery
2 cups canned chopped tomatoes
1 spike of Rosemary
Pinch of Nutmeg
1 tablespoon of chopped parsley
½ cup red wine
salt
Olive oil

For the best flavor, leave the skin on the chicken, you don’t have to eat it, but it adds flavor to the dish.

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken pieces and sautee, turning to make sure all sides get brown, then add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, salt and rosemary and allow to cook for at least another 5 minutes. Once the onions are translucent and the carrots and celery are starting to soften, add the ½ cup of red wine (and be sure to use red, not white, wine) and allow to evaporate.

Add the tomatoes and the pinch of nutmeg, cover the pan and lower the flame to medium, allowing it to cook for another 30 minutes. Check it every once in a while and add water or chicken broth if the mixture seems to be drying out.

Once it is cooked, add the parsley and serve hot.

Oh, and be sure to have some bread handy for sopping up the sauce.

Macedonia was an ancient Greek kingdom. Today’s Republic of Macedonia was once part of Yugoslavia. But, what in the world does that have to do with fruit?

I have no idea why, but Macedonia here in Italy is a type of fruit salad. And no, it’s nothing like the canned fruit cocktail with the mushy grapes and yucky maraschino cherries.

This fruit salad is made up of whatever fresh fruit you can get your hands on and it’s all cut up in very small pieces – we’re talking almost minced.

This version I made with watermelon, mango, banana, pears and apples. The difference in textures is very pleasant when the fruit is cut small. You don’t eat one piece of fruit at a time, you eat a spoonful at a time of mixed fruit.

Macedonia is often made with strawberries and I like it with kiwi as well.

Give it a try, just cut up whatever fruit you have on hand in very small pieces, and add a couple of drops of lemon juice to keep it from discoloring.

Some people (O in particular), like to add a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top. As much as I like gelato, I personally am a macedonia purist and would rather have it by itself.

The other day one of the local business owners stopped me to show me some old documents he had since he knows how much they interest me.

Being the descendant of emigrants to America, he particularly wanted to show me an old book of poetry that included a poem about the Emigrants.

The book was old and the cover had long been torn off, but he keeps it safely tucked away in a box so that it doesn’t get ruined any further.

The poem was written around 1914 in semi-dialect, but no author was mentioned.

I’ve translated it as follows,

Whenever I think about those who emigrate to a new country, I am always amazed at those brave souls who, often with only a few dollars in their pockets and speaking only a couple of words of the language (if any), dare to try to start a new life elsewhere.

I don’t like Italian cakes. There, I said it. I admitted it openly and can’t take it back.

The cookies and pastries are great, but the cakes leave a lot to be desired – at least in my book.

You see, here cake is usually made out of pan di spagna. And, although it’s translation is usually given as sponge cake, it’s a much drier and denser version. In fact, you can find it cryopacked and ready to use in the supermarket (UGH!)

That may seem strange until you realize how cake is made here. Basically what they do is take the pan di spagna and soak it in some kind of liqueur, then layer it with pastry cream. It’s not that bad, but it’s not my idea of cake.

The other kind of cake they have here is a mille-feuille or napoleon cake. Basically thin layers of eclair pastry with pastry cream in between. In other words, it’s not a cake, it’s just a giant pastry.

I couldn’t possibly give Luigi a cake like that for his birthday. We ordered a Saint Honoré cake for his baptism, but for his birthday we had to have a real birthday cake. At least, that was my feeling. So, I decided to make the cake myself. Well, two cakes really – one toddler-friendly cake and a cake for the adults.

Of course, it doesn’t sound like a big deal. After all, every mom makes birthday cakes for their kids, right? The only thing was that we were having a party at the local restaurant with around 20 people, so I had to make a big cake.

The next problem was deciding what kind of cake to make. A while back I had seen a Devil’s Food Cake with Chocolate Ganache frosting on David Lebovitz’s blog. It looked so delicious and I knew it would definitely be something out of the ordinary here, so that’s what I decided to make. In fact, two weeks ago I did a test run of the cake and it was delicious.

For the big cake though, I tripled the recipe and made it in two large lasagna pans then cut it in the shape of a number 1. OK, so I’m no pastry chef, but it’s not too ugly.

I did have to stop some people from trying to give some to Luigi. You would think that it would have been obvious that I didn’t want him to have chocolate. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made him his own cake, right? Seems obvious to me…

For Luigi’s cake I wanted something simple yet tasty and not too sweet. So, I decided to use the recipe KC (The Shock of the Old) did for her daughter’s first birthday. The only change I made was that I used cinnamon instead of ginger.

Luigi certainly liked it. In fact, we couldn’t pull him away to take pictures.

Happy 1st Birthday Luigi!

Recently, I was surprised and honored to receive the Honest Scrap Award from Karen at The Shock of the Old.

The award is given by other bloggers who consider a blog’s content or design to be brilliant. The awardee must then post ten honest things about themselves and pass the award on to other bloggers who fit the bill – in other words, whose blog is brilliant.

In order to avoid writing some trivial facts like “I’m afraid of spiders” which, while true, isn’t all that interesting, I had to think about it for a little bit.

So, without further ado, my list of honest things:

-I used to love to read fiction, but over the past 3 years my interest has waned significantly. Since these past 3 years I’ve been truly happy with my life, I wonder if I was just trying to escape. I still love to read, but choose different subject matter now (when I have the time).

-When I dig deep into my memories, the earliest thing I can remember is being in my crib and my older brother trying to climb up to see me.

-My dreams have always been rather vivid and often strange. Once when I was 12 I dreamed that I had a child, but when I went to the nursery to see it, there was a litter of puppies instead. I used to think it was prophetic since for a while there it didn’t look like I would ever have children.

-I have a hard time asking anyone for help. It’s not that I don’t want to ask, it’s just that it never occurs to me to do so.

-Sometimes I wonder if I changed one thing that I did in the past, what part of my life today would be different?

-One thing I really envy is the ability to chit chat. I have never been able to just start chatting with someone that I’ve never met before. It takes me a long time to warm up. People that have that talent always amaze me.

-There are way too many things that I find interesting. I could sit and read about history, philosophy, science, etc. for hours.

-It really annoys me when people watch television while they’re eating dinner.

-I could sit and watch my son sleep for hours. It’s even better when he falls asleep in my arms.

-Although it took me a while to get to this point, I can honestly say that I am truly blessed and happy.

And now, my list of winners:

Annika at Dove mi porta il cuore
Judith at Think on it
Martha at Roam to Rome
A Tuscan View – from Umbria

I snapped this photo the other day and can’t believe how incredibly big Luigi looks.

While he is 31.5 inches tall (slightly above average), the angle has a lot to do with it.

OK, it’s not the White House, but our castle – which also happens to be the town hall – also has a rose garden.

Even though I’ve been here for over 3 years now, I still make mistakes when I’m speaking Italian. The most common one I make is mixing up feminine and masculine nouns. Something that can really get you in big trouble – take my word for it.

Another mistake I make, though less frequently,  is putting the accent on the wrong syllable. No, I’m not talking about the written accent mark (‘), but the actual stress put on the word when you’re talking. When the written accent mark is there, it helps a lot as in metà (half) – pronounced meh TA – or in meta (destination) – pronounced MEH ta.

For the most part, it’s pretty easy to figure out where the accent goes in Italian. Basically, when there’s no accent on the end of a two letter word, the first syllable is stressed – as in the example of meta. But, every once in a while you run across a word that trips you up.

You may be asking, “Where is this all leading and what does it have to do with food?”

After a heavy lunch the other day, O and I decided to make a nice, light Insalata Caprese for dinner. Insalata Caprese is so-named because it comes from the island of Capri.

Capri…. How did you read that? Did you mentally pronounce it Ca PREE or did you say CAP ree? You see, in Italian it is actually pronounced CAP ree. Although, I have to admit that Ca PREE sounds so much more exciting. Ca PREE brings to mind summer vacations, sandy beaches, fashionable tourists and sitting outside sipping espresso.

But, I’m not one of those language snobs who insists on correcting other people’s pronunciation when they are saying a foreign word, so feel free to say Ca PREE. In fact, when speaking English, I’ll join right in.

To make Insalata Caprese all you need is some good mozzarella, some nice red juicy tomatoes, oil, salt, oregano and some fresh basil leaves. It’s simple and delicious. (And no, not everyone puts oregano on it, but we like it.)

O put this salad together (I sliced the mozzarella).

Slice the tomatoes and salt them. Slice the mozzarella. Then layer the two in a platter, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with oregano, then top with a few fresh basil leaves.

Serve with some crusty Italian bread and you have a nice summer evening meal.