A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was “This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?”

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

“Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness.
They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia.
They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires.

Mermaids do not exist.

But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish?
They would have no sex life and could not bear children.
Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad.
And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side?

Without a doubt, I’d rather be a whale.

At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.

We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn’t enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies.
We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated.
Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: “How amazing am I ?! “

The story was accompanied by a photo of French model Tara Lynn (who is also in the second photo below).

I agree that the gym sign (if it ever actually existed) is in poor taste, but I think we’re going overboard here.

On one side we have the painfully, often anorexically, thin models and on the other we have the “plus-size” models who, I guess, are supposed to make us feel good about ourselves even if we’re smack-dab in the middle of the obese category.

Whatever happened to the average women? Why do I have to choose between this:

And this?

Why do we have to go from a size 0 to a size 20? (I don’t know that this model wears a size 20, I’m just throwing a number out there).

While anorexia is a problem, obesity is the far greater problem and both are indicative of a serious problem with food.

In my opinion, neither one is attractive or sexy. Say what you will, but rolls and rolls of fat are not attractive and neither are skeletons.

So, all hail the average woman. She may have a paunchy stomach or big hips, or maybe she’s got a little extra flesh on her thighs, but she’s not a caricature of a woman, she’s the real thing.

And while I know it will never happen, just once I’d like to see a fashion show with a woman who wears a size 8 or 10.

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Arrosticini are basically mutton on a wooden skewer, but don’t think of the traditional shish-kabob with big hunks of meat. The pieces of meat are actually very small so the arrosticini are narrow and tasty.

I guess it’s not too surprising that a mutton dish is one of the most famous regional specialties considering that Abruzzo has always been home to shepherds. Traditionally they were handmade by manually cutting the meat and threading it on the skewers interspersed with a bit of fat. Now they are made commercially and can be bought at any butcher shop in the area.

You can also buy an arrosticini form. You put the meat and skewers in then run a knife through the slits to make your arrosticini. This one does 225 arrosticini at a time and is rather expensive, but I have seen smaller ones.

Personally, I would never make them myself because it’s just too easy to buy them.

Arrosticini are best cooked quickly over hot coals, turning them once to cook the second side, then once again for a mere 30 seconds on the first side. Since they are so narrow, there are special arrosticini barbecue grills that are found everywhere here.

We love arrosticini so much that we often dig the grill out and cook them on the balcony. Why wait for a picnic? We’ve even been known to take the legs off of the grill, stick it in the fireplace and cook them there.

Luigi, of course, has to help his papa. As you can see, the grill is narrow and made so that the wooden skewers are not set over the hot coals.

The best way to eat them is sprinkled with salt, hot off the grill.

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Even though he did go to asilo nido last year, which is for younger children and babies, going to school for a whole day was new to him. The other first for him was riding the school bus which, as you can probably imagine, was really exciting for him.

Children’s lives are full of firsts: first tooth, first word, first step, first trip to the emergency room. Yep, we had that first this year too. And, of course, it had to happen at one of the worst possible times, the day before a holiday – in this case, Ferragosto (August 15^th) when everyone heads out to the country for a picnic.

The morning before the big day, O was busy getting our house in the campagna ready for our family picnic while I was home with Luigi. As I was out on the balcony hanging out clothes, I heard him start crying and came in to see what was going on. Here he had decided to stick his finger in a hole in one of his toys and when he couldn’t get it out he pulled as hard as he could. The finger was red and a little swollen with a small scratch on the knuckle and he was telling me all about how the bad truck got his finger stuck. I wasn’t too concerned about it since he was moving it around. I cleaned it and put some ice on it and he went back to playing. A little while later I noticed it was continuing to swell so we put ice on it again. But, the swelling wasn’t going down.

Thinking that maybe I should put some medicine on it, we took him up to the guardia medica later in the afternoon to see if I could put some kind of cream on it. Since he’s so young I didn’t just want to slather something on there without an opinion so I took the names of two medicines I have in the house and the doctor told me either one was fine, to just put a tiny bit on it – 3 or 4 times a day.

As soon as I got home, I put the medicine on his finger and right before we went to O’s mom’s house for dinner, I put a little bit more on since it wasn’t getting any better. While we were there, Luigi starting shaking his hand and telling me it hurt. I kept an eye on it and noticed that it just kept swelling and swelling so back to the guardia medica we went.

This time it was a different doctor, who suggested we take him to the emergency room (just what we wanted to hear! Ugh) since he was afraid that the small scratch might have a tiny piece of plastic in it that was causing it to swell up.

By this time it was 10 pm so by the time we reached the hospital it was around 10:40. The absolute only good thing that occurred during the emergency room visit was the fact that they took him in a bit early due to his age. The ER doctor seemed to think we were lying when we said what happened although I can’t imagine what in the world he was thinking happened. He kept yelling at Luigi to stop crying which, of course, only made it worse. Then he made me give Luigi a suppository for the pain which made Luigi ask, “Why are you doing this to me?” (Just what a mom wants to hear). After a very unsatisfactory visit with the ER doctor, with O becoming increasingly redder in the face and me worrying that we’d see the ER doctor on the floor any minute, he sent us up to the Pediatric department.

There we didn’t get a much better reception at first until the doctor took a look at O’s face and saw he was about at the end of his patience. After several minutes of questioning and insisting that the scratch on Luigi’s finger was a bug bite (with me very forcefully saying that it was not), I finally mentioned that maybe it was the medicine that had caused it. It was not the first time I had mentioned the medicine. We had gone through the whole scenario several times with both doctors. Finally it was like a light bulb went off and she gave Luigi some medicine and a prescription to follow for a few days and we were headed back home.

All in all it was a very frustrating experience and not one that Luigi ever wants to go through again either.

There were two positive things though:

1 – The two visits to the guardia medica and the visit to the ER did not cost anything.

2 – The next day, the doctor at the guardia medica called me on the phone to see how Luigi was doing and find out what had happened – proof that there are still some people out there who care.

My poor little guy’s swollen hand

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We’ve spent some time at the beach, ridden an elephant and blown a kiss to a raccoon,

Enjoyed playtime in the park

Had some fun at the Ferragosto picnic

And Luigi even invented two new dishes:

Marshmallows and peanut butter (thanks to marshmallows from Lidl and peanut butter from my friend Rosemary) – and this kid has never heard of Fluff

And ice cream and potato chips enjoyed sitting outside at the local bar.

There were some disappointments and hairy moments though. Pinocchio didn’t show up for a show one evening in the square (horrors!). And Luigi had one of those “first moments” in life that I’ll talk about a later date.

But, now, alas, vacation is over, time to get back to work. It was fun, but all the more enjoyable since we can’t do it everyday so we get to relish the small amount of time we have to just relax and do fun family things together.

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We didn’t go all out and decorate a tractor or make a display, instead we dressed him up as a contadino and gave him his basket of goods to offer to the Madonna. The basket was full of goodies: wine, ventricina, salami, cheese, vegetables packed in oil and, of course, a loaf of bread.

Our neighbors also provided a small rabbit (yes, there are often live animals among the offerings), which I was glad to see was bought by someone for a pet rather than the other alternative. Luigi had gotten rather attached to the little bunny and I was afraid he would want to keep it.

Two contadini getting ready for the parade

After the long, hard trek up the hill with the gifts, every good worker deserves a ventricina sandwich.

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I’m often amazed by the differences between what counts as impolite here compared to back in the states and vice versa. For example, here no one seems to think twice about interrupting someone while they’re in the middle of a conversation. I have to admit, this has always been one of my pet peeves, so it never fails to get my blood boiling. No one here seems to mind much though.

I overheard a conversation at the beach today that illustrates the point. Two women were discussing the one woman’s move from Campobasso. Woman 1 asked Woman 2 about her house and every time Woman 2 would get two words out of her mouth, Woman 1 would ask another question or make a comment. If I were Woman 2, I probably would have just stopped talking and walked away or changed the subject to something that would give Woman 1 lots to talk about. But, Woman 2 didn’t mind, she just kept cheerfully talking away. Sometimes she started the same sentence over 3 or 4 times, but she kept plodding away.

The other strange thing is saying hello to people. It’s not enough to say hello if you catch they’re eye or they’re walking right towards you. No, if you see them standing next to the door to a shop or down the street, you need to shout a greeting to them. It doesn’t matter if they’re in the middle of a conversation or not, you’d better say hello and they’d better respond. I always feel bad distracting them from their conversation, especially if they give me one of those real quick “ciao, ciao” (in other words, I’m too busy to respond) kind of greetings. But I soon learned that just catching their eye and smiling isn’t enough. O would ask me why I didn’t greet someone and if I said I smiled at them he just looked at me funny. No, a smile and a wave only counts if you’re in the car and even then, you should shout ciao out the window if it’s summertime.

One time, at Easter, we went to church and were standing in the back because there were no seats left. A distant relation of O’s also happened to be standing there, not too far away from us. O went up and patted him on the shoulder. I was busy keeping Luigi in line, so I looked at him a couple of times to give him a nod hello and a silent greeting, but he was never looking my way. Afterwards, O seemed upset and wanted to know why I didn’t go and say hello to him. You see, that’s another one of those things. No one seems to care if they’re in church or not. If someone comes in they all have to say hello and may even start up a conversation.

The more time I’m here, the more I’m getting sucked into these new ideals. I find myself yelling ciao out the window and going out of my way just to greet people even though I saw them yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, and…. well, you get the idea. Now I might even get offended if someone doesn’t greet me when they’re walking down the street, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to interrupting conversations and talking in church.

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Last week we were planning a cool Sunday luncheon so I decided to make a roasted vegetable salad with the bounty I found at the market. While turning on the oven to roast vegetables may not sound like the ideal situation in the heat of summer, you can do it early in the morning before the heat of the day since the salad is eaten at room temperature.

Nothing could be easier really. You can use any vegetables you like. In fact, fennel makes a nice addition if you can still find it. It’s best to group like vegetables together for the cooking phase. Peppers and onions usually take the longest, followed by eggplant and zucchini. My version went like this:

Ingredients
1 medium eggplant
2 small zucchini
8 shallots
1 cup cherry tomatoes
4-5 cloves garlic
2 large red peppers

Preheat the oven to its hottest (not broiler) setting.

Line a few cookie sheets and a bowl with aluminum foil.

Clean and core the peppers, removing any seeds and cut into large chunks. Place the pepper chunks skin side up on the aluminum foil. Peel the shallots and garlic, clean and slice the eggplant and zucchini and wash the cherry tomatoes. Divide them up between the trays and sprinkle with a little olive oil, remembering to keep the like vegetables together.

Put the trays in the oven and keep monitoring them to see when they’re done. Each vegetable will take a different amount of time. The time will also vary depending on how thick the peppers are and how thick you sliced the other vegetables. If you have doubts, open the oven and poke with a fork to see if the flesh is soft.

As each vegetable gets finished, add it to the bowl lined with aluminum foil and cover. The vegetables will actually continue to cook a little bit and the flavors will mix nicely. Once all the vegetables are cooked, cover tightly with aluminum foil and allow to sit for a few hours. If it is going to be several hours until you eat, put the bowl in the refrigerator once it cools off but remember to remove it from the fridge about an hour before you eat because you want the salad to be at room temperature.

Shortly before you are ready to eat, remove the aluminum foil and mix the vegetables together well. The juice from the peppers should make the salad nice and moist, but if you’d like, add a little more olive oil. Salt to taste and serve.

Nice crusty bread goes really well with this salad. In fact, if you grill the bread you can spoon the salad onto it like bruschetta. Oh, and if you limit the amount of olive oil you use, it’s low calorie too – an extra added bonus!

Enjoy!

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Now he’s this little boy.

Watching your children grow is a bittersweet experience. There are days when I wish I could just stop time right now – now, when he’s old enough to start making jokes and play tricks but when he’s young enough to want to still cuddle with Mamma every once in a while.

With every new development I see these sweet days slipping away and I wonder how much longer I have to enjoy him wrapping his arms around my neck and telling me he loves me. How much longer will it be before he starts pushing me away, when he no longer wants hugs and kisses from Mamma and Papà? When he no longer depends on us?

But, even though in some ways I wish he could stay this age forever, on the other hand I can’t wait to see what he’ll become. Every day he shows new abilities and talents. Which ones will he develop? What path will he choose?

As the years unfold he’ll change and grow and while the sweet baby who slept in your arms is enchanting, a mother’s reward is surely in seeing your child grow and mature.

I’m sure I’ll find that he’s just as interesting at 5, 8, 12 and 15 years old.

But I’m really enjoying 3 years old right now.

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You see, before having a child, I “knew” certain things, which later turned out to be a lot different from what I had always believed. One of those things was that you should never sleep with your child. Then I did some research and let my instincts guide me and we started co-sleeping.

It was never my intention to do so, but started when Luigi had a cold. Then he was going through a period where he was waking often and it was just easier to have him sleep with us.

Reading about it supported my instinct that said that it was not a bad thing. Plus I enjoyed waking up in the morning to him snuggled up against me. Then we spent a little while playing before starting our day.

We bought him his own bed and bedroom set last year for his second birthday, but except for naps, he wasn’t interested in sleeping in there… Until last week that is. One night he informed me out of the blue that he wanted to sleep with Winnie the Pooh. So off we went to his bedroom where he snuggled up with his favorite bear, Eeyore, Piglet and Tigger.

I’ve been replaced by a bunch of animals.

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Do you remember what it was like before your child was born? Oh the plans and ideas. I pretty much had the first three months figured out ahead of time. Nothing there really surprised me. It was later that I got surprised.

My mind was made up. I was going to be a soft-spoken parent – until my almost 3 year old toddler started getting into trouble like standing up on the arm of the sofa and moving chairs around to reach forbidden things or thinking it was a good idea to wave a glass of orange juice around. Yeah, that’s real funny….

The biggest surprise though was time. I though for sure that the period when my time would be most taken up with baby care was when he was still an infant. Feedings, diaper changes, etc. I was sure would take up the majority of my time.

Then I realized that the most demanding part was when he was old enough to want to play and crawl around.

And then I realized that it was when he started walking and could get into more trouble.

Now I realize that the time is now, when he’s old enough to figure out how to get into even more trouble. I had visions of him quietly playing with his blocks or his cars or some other (preferably) educational toy while I took care of things. HA! He may do that but it lasts for a grand total of maybe 15 minutes before he’s either into trouble or demanding that I come play with him.

Of course, I am determined to enjoy this time while it lasts and as much as I may complain about not being able to get anything done, when we’re playing together and he’s laughing, there’s nothing more important in the world. Plus, in September he’s off to daycare for a full day and I’ll probably be wondering what to do with myself.

Well….

Maybe….

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