The Flavors of Abruzzo

Orecchiette with Calabrian Pesto

Apr 14th, 2011

While I’ve been, as always, experimenting and trying new recipes, I haven’t posted any for a while, so I’m way overdue for a new one.

This is actually a dish I tried in Vasto at a Tuscan restaurant. And yes, it does seem rather ironic eating a supposedly Calabrian dish in a Tuscan restaurant in Abruzzo, but I guess it’s no worse than eating an Italian dish in a German restaurant in the US. Not that I’ve ever done that, but you never know.

When I ordered this I was sure it would be spicy considering that it was called Calabrian pesto and I’ve always heard how in Calabria the food is spicy. They say the same thing about Abruzzo, but it’s really a matter of choice. And I choose no. Let’s just say that I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out not to be spicy. My last venture into a spicy dish (Penna all’Arabbiata) left me with a rather unpleasant secondary effect. So, I’ll stick with non-spicy. Thank you very much.

No, rather than being spicy, this dish was creamy and flavorful. When I had it in the restaurant it included mussels, but I left them out in the home version. If you’d like to add them in, I would suggest steaming them until they opening, then adding them to the warm sauce before you stir in the pasta.

This is also a great recipe for kids (or adults who won’t eat vegetables) because the vegetables are cooked until they’re soft and then blended in with the cheese.

Ingredients

1 small eggplant
1 red pepper
1/2 onion
2 T chopped fresh basil
2 T tomato paste
small container ricotta
250 grams orecchiette (about 1 lb)
Olive oil (about 2T)
salt
pepper

Chop the eggplant, red pepper and onion. Heat the oil and add the vegetables and basil, salt and pepper, cooking over medium heat until they are soft. If the pan starts to dry out you can add a little water, but not too much since you don’t want them to boil. Add the tomato paste and mix thoroughly. Remove from heat and allow to cool for about 10 minutes while you cook the pasta.

Put the vegetables in a blender and puree thoroughly. Add the ricotta and blend again. If the mixture is very thick, you can thin it out with a little bit of the pasta cooking water.

Drain your pasta, mix in a large bowl with the pureed vegetable mixture and serve.

I don’t know how authentic “Calabrian pesto” really is. For all I know they’ve never heard of it in Calabria, but the dish is very tasty, so give it a try. And, if you have someone in the house who won’t eat vegetables, make it while they’re not home and don’t tell them what’s in it.

Posted in: Flavors, Recipes.

Language ramblings

Apr 8th, 2011

by Mary.

5 comments

When not spending my time cleaning up after a toddler, I try to claim that I am a Freelance Translator, which I do from my home via the internet. Of course, trying to find time to take care of a toddler, a man (they need lots of work), a house, translate and find time to sleep is like juggling five items at a time with one hand tied behind your back. And I’m not talking five innocuous items, like balls, which can’t cause any harm. No, I’m talking dangerous things like flaming batons or swords or something spiked and deadly looking.

Translating in itself is very challenging and interesting though and I enjoy it immensely. I’ve translated such a wide range of items, I couldn’t begin to list them all. Then comes the fun part when the client wants it translated in UK English. I don’t have a problem with it, especially since I’ve been buying most of my English books (for my reading pleasure) from a UK vendor so I’m used to the different terminology, and for those things I might miss, I have good old trusty spellcheck which catches anything that I actually spelled right and puts it into UK spelling. Things like colour, labour, flavour (of course, Dave mentions in his blog that I spell it wrong). Am I the only one who wants to say them co-loor, la-boor and fla-voor? Then there are the cheques (chequies) and programmes (programmies). Why do they feel the need to add extra letters to everything? Do they get extra points that way? And don’t forget those z’s. They must be changed to s – it’s not organization, it’s organisation.

I have to say though that when speaking I understand Brits much better than I do Southern Americans. No, I don’t mean South Americans, I mean people from the southern United States. I even lived there for a while and I still don’t understand them sometimes.

Years ago I was trying to arrange for merchandise transportation with a company in Alabama. (I was in Pennsylvania). Try as I might, I could not get in touch with the right person. I was told I would have to speak to a Mr. Mower and that I would have to call back. But every time I called back I was told that there was no one there by that name. Finally someone took pity on me and told me that there was no one there by that name but that I could speak with Mr. Mower. Of course, I told her that that was what I had already said, but finally got her to spell it. The name wasn’t Mower, it was Moore. How do you manage to say Mower when reading M-o-o-r-e? I guess the Brits add extra letters and the southerners add extra syllables. Who knows how a southerner would pronounce colour? I don’t even want to think about it.

In the meantime my son is somehow learning all sorts of accents. He says the word bell like a southerner (bay-ell) and “what’s missing” like an Italian (what’s-a meess-een). At least he says the word color correctly which is more than I can say for my dad. (With his Philly accent it comes out keller).

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Musings.

Cough Syrup and Chicken Soup and Tissues, Oh My!

Mar 10th, 2011

by Mary.

No comments yet

These have been the three most common items in my house in the past 3 months. It’s been a really rough winter illness-wise. Fortunately, it was nothing major, just a little bronchitis and the common cold, but enough to really disrupt everything.

My instinct is to blame it on daycare (asilo nido here in Italy). Luigi has been enrolled since September and maybe that’s what’s causing the constant infections. It seems like every time I turn around he has another cold, sometimes with a slight fever and sometimes without. He’ll be fine for a week and then it starts all over again.

Of course, I keep him home from daycare on those days, but unless he has a fever, he’s still raring to go like any other day so I have my hands full keeping him occupied (leaving me very little time to get anything else done).

Then comes the dreaded day when I realize that I too have caught whatever it was and leaves me marveling at how he was so zippy during the day when I feel so miserable.

Hopefully all these colds this year will mean that next year when he goes to preschool he’ll be less liable to catch everything…… One can always hope anyway.

In the meantime, I’d better stock up on vitamin C and hope that spring comes soon.

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Parenting.

Blocked what?

Mar 5th, 2011

by Mary.

7 comments

I have to admit, there are some things here that really make me wonder. And, while I’m sure that we Americans probably have our own set of crazy ideas and superstitions, I can’t help but scratch my head at the Italians sometimes. I could understand it if it were someone who had only ever lived in a city like Milan or Rome, but when I hear these things from local people, people who live more in contact with nature, it really surprises me.

The other day O brought home a car magazine. You know the kind, it has pictures and descriptions of all the new cars and how much they cost, plus some articles comparing different cars and giving some advice about driving. I was idly leafing through it the other day as he was talking and I noticed a small article that looked like it might be interesting. As soon as I read it though I said to O that it was just a load of horsebunky (OK, maybe that’s not exactly what I said, but close enough) and I wondered aloud how someone could actually publish such a thing.

Basically the article said that you should avoid going outside in the cold weather after eating because it could block your digestion. What this has to do with cars, I don’t know, but supposedly this is a common thing that happens if someone goes out in the cold air or drinks something cold after eating. I’ve even heard people say that you shouldn’t eat cold watermelon in order to prevent the dreaded digestion block. I then usually ask why it’s ok to eat gelato out of the freezer and not watermelon out of the refrigerator but I’m told that it’s different somehow.

I, being the sensible person that I am, claim that it’s not true, but then O asked me how I could possibly deny its existence when Italian medical doctors were the ones giving the information. My response to that was to ask why it only happens to Italians. As I said to him, I have never, in my entire life, met anyone who suffered from blocked digestion until I came to Italy – no one in school, none of the numerous people I’ve ever worked with and none of my neighbors or friends in the various places I’ve lived ever complained of it. Does it just happen to Italians? But then again, it can’t be a genetic thing because I knew quite a few people of 100% Italian descent who lived in America and never suffered from it. Is it something in the air?….The water?….Inquiring minds want to know.

Obviously, I had to go online and research the problem and it is apparently taken quite seriously here even though I could find absolutely nothing about it in English. Apparently the belief is that if your body is busy digesting food and you go out in the cold, eat something cold (except for gelato, of course) or drink an ice-cold drink, it stops the blood flow to the stomach and causes major problems. I even know someone who said this happened to them and the doctor even pronounced “blocked digestion” to be the problem. I decided not to comment.

Of course there are other maladies that occur here such as the dreaded “colpo d’aria” and the “cervicale” that it can cause, among other things. But, that’s for another day.

So, what do you say? Is there anyone out there who has ever suffered from the dreaded “blocked digestion”?

Posted in: Uncategorized.

Conversation issues

Feb 18th, 2011

by Mary.

6 comments

I’ve always been convinced that I’m not a very likeable person. When I was a child I wouldn’t talk to people and, according to my parents, if anyone talked to me I was quite adept at throwing them a look that would stop them in their tracks. I don’t know if it was really shyness or merely basic distrust of just about anyone.

Of course, that carried on into my teen years and beyond. Oh, I had friends, but I was just never good at socializing. I’m still not to this day.

Oddly enough for someone who has difficulty communicating, I worked as a manager for years and was actually quite good at it – if I do say so myself. You see, I don’t have too much trouble communicating if there’s a script, so to speak. As a manager, you know what things you have to communicate and when. But, out in real life, that’s a different story.

I’ve always been envious of those people who could strike up a conversation with anyone – the ones who know just what to say and when to say it. Instead, I’m the kind of person who sinks into that awkward silence. My mind races, desperate to come up with something catchy to start a conversation, but by the time I come up with it, the moment has passed because I keep rejecting all my ideas.

I can remember as a child actually wanting to have contact with people, but being so afraid of being rejected or laughed at that I would automatically shun any attempt that people made to get me to open up. Other kids in school actually used to think I was “stuck up” or being snobby. It’s laughable really.

Oh, I’m a lot better now – as long as someone else gets the conversation going. But, I’m still what I would call “conversationally handicapped”.

As you can imagine, my transition to Italy would have been a lot easier if I had been the free-talking type. As it was, not only could I not think of anything to say in Italian, I couldn’t think of anything to say period. Oh, to have the gift of gab…

So, whenever you’re stuck in an elevator, on an airplane, or in any kind of situation with the silent type, try to strike up a conversation. They may just be “conversationally handicapped” and you might find that they have a lot to say once you get them started.

Posted in: Me, Miscellaneous.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Feb 10th, 2011

by Mary.

7 comments

I know I’m in a food lover’s paradise, but there are some things I still wish I could find easily here in Italy. Now, I’m not talking about things like peanut butter or tastykakes, even though there are times when I would like some. No, one of the things I had really started to crave that was almost impossible to find were sweet potatoes.

Oh, you can find what they call “patate americane” which are grown mainly in the Po Valley, but believe me, they’re not the same. First of all, they’re grayish-white inside and they also have a really strange texture. Definitely not the sweet potatoes that I was looking for.

I previously said that sweet potatoes were “almost impossible to find” because just recently I was lucky enough to find them, not once, but twice at the grocery store. They come from Egypt, surprisingly enough. Now I had never connected Egypt and potatoes before, but you learn something new every day.

The first time I found them, I purchased six potatoes, took three and roasted them and the other three I put in a jar of water apiece where I’m trying to root them. If all goes well, I may be able to grow some real sweet potatoes right here in Palmoli.

After my lucky find, I was sure that I would never see any sweet potatoes again when, lo and behold, I went back to the store a few weeks later and saw some more. I stocked up once again and sat thinking about all of the good things I could make with my treasured orange tubers.

In an attempt to combine the Italian with the American, I decided to try to make sweet potato gnocchi. The only thing I was worried about was the fact that sweet potatoes are not as floury as regular potatoes and I didn’t want to have to go overboard with the flour and ruin the flavor.

As it turns out, after adding my set limit of flour to the potatoes, the dough was still way too soft and sticky for the usual gnocchi procedure of rolling it into logs and cutting it. So, some improvisation was required.

I happened to have some single-use pastry bags left over from when I made Luigi’s birthday cake and they saved the day. Since there was too much dough for one bag, I filled two bags up as I set my big pot of salted water to boil. Then, once the water was boiling, all I had to do was cut the tip of the bag off with some kitchen scissors then steadily squeeze the bag, cutting off pieces one at a time with the scissors and letting them fall into the boiling water. It worked like a charm and my sweet potato gnocchi were absolutely delicious. I’ll definitely be making these again whenever I find some sweet potatoes. I dressed them in a butter and sage sauce and sprinkled them with grated parmigiano and pecorino romano.

This new gnocchi method is also making me think of other recipes since it actually turns out to be a whole lot quicker than the roll and cut method.

To make your own batch:

Ingredients

Gnocchi
3 lbs sweet potatoes
2 eggs
1 T salt
3.5 cups flour

Butter and sage sauce
4 Tbs butter
1 tsp salt (if you’re using unsalted butter)
7-8 sage leaves, chopped

Grated parmigiano and pecorino romano cheese

First, steam or microwave your sweet potatoes, but don’t overcook them. You want them to be at the point where a knife will poke through, but with a slight bit of resistance.

Allow to cool until you are able to peel them without burning your fingers, put the peeled potatoes into a large bowl and mash with a hand masher or pass them through a potato ricer.

Mix in half of the flour and the salt. Add the eggs and stir, then add the rest of the flour and mix thoroughly.

Allow the dough to set for a bit as you prepare the water and butter sauce.

Set the water to boil and put the butter in a large frying pan set over low heat to melt. You’re basically going to prepare this ahead of time so that you can dump the gnocchi in as they cook. Once the butter is almost melted, add the salt, if necessary, and the sage leaves and stir as the butter continues melting. When the butter has completely melted, remove from the heat so that it doesn’t brown.

When the water has reached a nice rolling boil, get your pastry bags and scissors ready. Scissors work better than a knife here because of the stickiness of the dough. Cut the tip off the bag and, squeezing steadily, cut off pieces about ½ to 1 inch at a time, depending on how big you want your gnocchi. Gently stir the pot every once in a while so that they don’t stick together.

As the gnocchi cook, they’ll float to the top. With a slotted spoon, remove the floaters and dump them in the pan with the melted butter, stirring gently to coat them and then pushing them off to the side to make room for more. It’s really important that you stir them gently or they will start to smash.

Once all your gnocchi are cooked and coated, spoon them onto the plates, sprinkle with cheese and enjoy.

Posted in: Flavors, Recipes.

Nutella Salame for World Nutella Day

Feb 5th, 2011

by Mary.

2 comments

Another year has gone by and we’re once again celebrating World Nutella Day. Plus, it’s the 5th Annual World Nutella Day. We have something in common since just yesterday I celebrated my 5th anniversary of being here in Italy. Therefore, I definitely have a reason to celebrate.

For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with World Nutella Day (is there really anyone who isn’t?), it was created by Sara Rosso of MsAdventuresinItaly and Michelle Fabio of Bleeding Espresso to celebrate the chocolate hazelnut creamy spread.

As I was trying to come up with a worthy Nutella delight to make for this year’s celebration, we happened to go out to dinner with friends and were served chocolate salame for dessert. Here, I thought, is the perfect thing. All I had to do was adapt a regular chocolate salame recipe to work with the soft consistency of Nutella.

Ingredients

10.5 oz of simple cookies such as animal crackers or vanilla wafers (I used Oro Saiwa but they’re not found much outside of Italy)
2/3 cup of butter
1 cup of Nutella
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 egg yolks*
¼ cup powdered sugar

As you can see, I did not add any extra sugar since I think Nutella is more than sweet enough to begin with.

Allow the butter to warm up to room temperature so that it becomes softer and easier to work with.

Break the cookies up into small pieces. Some of them can be crushed, but you also want some slightly larger pieces to give it the salami look.

Cream the butter, then add the Nutella, vanilla and egg yolks.

Mix the Nutella mixture into the cookies. Then, roll into a log, wrap in parchment paper or plastic wrap, squeezing tightly as you wrap it up, twist the ends and then wrap again in aluminum foil.

Place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Remove from wrapping and roll in powdered sugar. At this point you can use a sharp knife and slice it up to serve or you can rewrap it and store it in the refrigerator.

I made three salami of about 3 inches in diameter using this recipe. You can make them thicker if you like but you will need to refrigerate them for longer before slicing. If you don’t want to use them right away, you can also freeze them, pulling them out to defrost in the refrigerator a few hours before serving.

* Yes, this recipe uses raw eggs. You can omit the eggs if you like, but the flavor and consistency will change. Please remember, whenever making something with raw eggs that is not going to be cooked later, you must be sure to use the freshest eggs possible and make sure the yolk does not come in contact with the egg shell.

Posted in: Recipes.

Grrrr

Jan 31st, 2011

by Mary.

4 comments

I growled at my son today. Yes, growled. It sounds horrible, doesn’t it?

You see, this smart, sweet, adorable 2 ½ year old has a terrible vice. He hits me when he’s angry. It’s usually in a situation where he wants to do something and I say no. Then he raises both hands and brings them down on the top of my head or the bridge of my nose or some other painful spot. He’s been doing it for about a year now.

Some of you are probably saying, “My child wouldn’t get away with that, I’d put a stop to it right away” while others may be empathizing with me, having gone through or going through the stage.

Where did it come from? He’s certainly never seen us hit each other and I’ve been very careful not to let him see TV programs with any sort of hitting or punching in it. And since it started before he went to nursery school, he didn’t pick it up there.

It may sound overly dramatic, but it really breaks my heart when he does this. He’s a truly affectionate and giving child, but when he gets angry there’s no stopping him. Of course, I’m the main recipient of his physical violence because I’m basically the person who says no all the time. Somehow, it always comes back to Mamma.

Believe me, I’ve read everything on the subject and have tried every method I can think of. There’s the soft method of taking their hands and saying “we don’t hit” or “it’s not nice to hit” and guiding their hands to touch nicely, etc. That didn’t work. I’ve also tried telling him it hurts and pretending I’m going to cry. Then I tried the ignoring trick and if he hit me I pushed him away and wouldn’t let him near me. Next it was the angry Mamma, as I loudly stated that he should not hit. I got desperate and tried slapping his hand, followed by a discussion of how much it hurt, just like when he hits me, but that didn’t work either. Then last night, when he hit me on the bridge of the nose and almost knocked my glasses off, his Papà (who never says no) even gave him a pat on the bottom. None of this affected him in the slightest so today, when he hit me once again because I told him it was time to stop playing and take a nap, I bared my teeth and growled at him. While it probably won’t change anything, it certainly startled him. Now the poor kid will probably have nightmares about Mamma growling at him.

Oh, and he eventually comes over, says “sowwy Mamma”, gives me a kiss and says “Mamma happy now”, which, of course, makes Mamma feel even worse about yelling or ignoring or growling, as the case may be.

I know as a toddler he’s learning about emotions and self-control. We’re also working on helping him calm down so that I can understand what he’s saying when he’s crying. So, I’m hoping that once he learns that lesson he’ll also be able to control himself better when he’s angry.

In the meantime, Mamma will keep trying to teach him that hitting is not acceptable and keep telling herself that she’s not the worst Mamma in the world.

Posted in: Luigi, Parenting.

Time to make the sausage

Jan 14th, 2011

by Mary.

10 comments

One of the things I like best about living here is how tied we are to the seasons. Everything should be done at the right time – and that includes making sausage.

O and his family would usually buy a whole pig (years ago they raised it themselves), have it slaughtered and make sausage, sopressata, ventricina, etc., but that tradition stopped the year after I came. The first year it was because it simply never got cold enough and cold weather is important for the pig slaughter. In fact, friends of ours did make sausage and the like, but it just didn’t turn out right. Then, in the years after that, there was always something else to do.

This year, we went and bought some sausage and were so disappointed in it that we decided to make our own. While we didn’t buy a whole pig, we did buy the meat, spices and casings and made it ourselves.

Given how few and how simple the ingredients are, you would think that it would be easy to find good sausage everywhere. Unfortunately though, that’s not the case. Many places skimp on the ground red pepper because it is somewhat expensive. That leaves the sausage rather bland. Plus, some places we bought it from had obviously not taken the hard, lumpy fat off – and that really grosses me out when I eat it.

I can’t give you exact measurements of how we made the sausage because O’s mom just measures by eye. We did buy a little over 9 kilos of pork shoulder and a little over 2 kilos of pancetta. After trimming off the fat that we couldn’t use, we ended up with 10 kilos of meat. The fat didn’t go to waste either because my mother-in-law used it to make strutto (lard). Make a face if you will, but if you want a great pie crust, strutto is the way to go.

The funny thing was that I weighed the ground sweet red pepper after we finished with it and found that she had used exactly 100 grams. Is that a good eye or what?

The ingredients

Pork shoulder
Pancetta
Ground Sweet Red Pepper (Paprika)
Ground Hot Red Pepper
Fennel Seed
Salt
Casings

Now, you may be wondering about why I said that all pig butchering is done when it’s cold. The reason is that the meat needs to sit in a cold area for a few hours before it is ground. In fact, when we went to the butcher to buy the meat, he thought we wanted him to grind it for us and told us that he couldn’t. Since it was freshly butchered he said it would just turn into soup. Of course, we wanted to do the grinding ourselves so that we could select the meat the way we wanted it, so that wasn’t a problem.

Off we went with our large hunk of pork shoulder and took it to my mother-in-law’s house to let it rest in a cold room. Later that afternoon we went back and cut it into pieces for the grinder.

After grinding, it was time to add the pepper, salt and fennel seed.

Like I said, O’s mom used 100 grams of sweet red pepper. But she added it several times, mixing it in by hand after each addition. In between she also added salt, fennel seed and hot red pepper – again, mixing after each addition.

Then the meat was left to rest again. We placed a small plate upside down in two large bowls and then packed the meat on top. The reason for that was so that if there was any excess water in the meat it would drain out. Then she sprinkled some more paprika liberally over the top of each bowl and it was time to let the meat rest again in a cold area.

In the meantime she took the casings, which had been packed in salt, rinsed them out real well and let them sit in a large bowl of water with a few orange skins added in.

The next day it was time to make the sausage. O always uses a hand grinder with the blade removed to pack the sausage. He said he tried the electric one once and the sausage flew halfway across the room. So, we took turns at the grinder while his mom made sure the sausage was packing well into the casings.

Before we did that though, we had to taste it so we made a hamburger out of a handful of meat and grilled it over the hot coals. This was to make sure that it had the right amount of salt, of course.

And voilà, 10 kilos of sausage which we then hung to let rest for a few days.

I have to say, it was the best sausage I ever ate. Next challenge….. ventricina … or sopressata ….or ….

Posted in: Abruzzo regional recipes, Flavors.

Off the treadmill

Jan 10th, 2011

by Mary.

2 comments

It’s hard to believe that five years ago I packed everything up and moved to Italy. Contrary to what some may think, it’s not that I feel that time has gone by so quickly. Quite the opposite. I feel so at home here that when I think back to the date and realize it’s been only five years I have to stop and wonder… Is that all the time that has passed?

Coming to Italy wasn’t just about physically changing locations though. It was an entire life change for me. I left the “treadmill effect” world behind. Yes, my income dropped as did my number of possessions, but life has so much more meaning now.

Although I said I “packed everything up”, I really didn’t. You would be amazed at the number of things I left behind. At that point in my life I decided that I just didn’t need those things anymore – and oh, how liberating it was.

Up to then my life had been full of working and spending. I always wanted the newest thing and every new gadget that came along. So, I had a food dehydrator, a crock pot, a toaster oven, a fancy stainless steel retro toaster, a wine cooler, one of those gadgets for waxing your hands and feet, a foot massager, a nail buffer, various exercise gadgets and, well, the list could go on and on. Did I use them very often? Not really. I could have lived quite well without them. Plus, I had subscriptions to satellite TV and, of course, I had to go see the latest movies. Then there were the car payment and the mortgage on the 3000 square foot house that was full of things to be dusted and/or stored until the day when I might find a use for them. All of these things I purchased were supposed to make me happy. But it comes as no surprise that they didn’t. I was a slave to consumerism and kept getting more things that were supposed to bring me the happiness that I was so desperately seeking.

Then things changed. In 2006 I left most of it behind. I packed up the bare minimum, some things I didn’t want to leave behind for sentimental reasons along with my computer so that I could work, and shipped some books over on the slow boat(although nowhere near the shelves and shelves of them that I had at the house). The closets and drawers full of gadgets were left behind and I learned to live minimally. And you know what? I liked it and I still do. Now when I go to the store I talk myself out of buying things instead of into buying them. OK, to be honest, I would love to have a Kindle. But the important thing is that I don’t base my level of happiness or my own worth as a human being on material goods.

The evenings spent playing together or the days when we get together with family and friends for a few laughs and some conversation, those are the things that make me happy. Walking through town with my son and stopping to talk to the other people who live here, watching him play with his papa or hug his grandparents, singing and dancing along with him and so many of the daily events that we often take for granted are the very things that make me smile and be thankful for where I am today.

Posted in: Me, Miscellaneous, Musings.