Carne Cruda
Okay, so this entry isn’t exactly next in chronological order, but I have all the pictures ready to go and can’t wait to tell you the story (and besides, it’s my weblog and I don’t have to go in chronological order if I don’t want to. mwah hahahhahaaha). Anyways…
A few weeks ago Carmela (of the circolo) invited us to go meat shopping with her. The special thing about this particular trip was that the market we went to was actually a local farmer’s house. They raise animals (all sorts!) and when they need money (or perhaps for some other reasons that remain secrets), they butcher one of their animals and sell it to the community (read: friends and family).
So, it’s 9:30 on a Wednesday night and we’re driving up one of the treacherous winding roads that weave through the Piemontese hillsides. These roads are actually two way streets, but there’s no way to tell until you see another car heading straight towards you (very skinny, no lines, barely paved). After a while we pull onto another road in even worse condition which turns out to be the farmer’s driveway. (It’s dark folks, electricity is costly here!).
I am seriously not exaggerating when I tell you that we were greeted by twelve barking dogs. (How many can you find in the picture at the top?) And I’m sure they had more somewhere else (in fact, there were two more strictly house dogs inside). The whole family greets us with Buona Sera(s) and kisses (when saying hello and good-bye everyone gets two kisses–one on each cheek, usually air kisses).
Ines
We go inside to their living room where they’ve set up a 10 foot table and a meat slicer. The table is covered with various and asundry cuts of meat (veal to be exact). Carmela (wearing orange in the previous picture) and the other woman that was there immediately starting picking which cuts they wanted and piling them in a big plastic bucket and some random bags. When they were finished there, Ines took us into the garage, where they had set up another ten foot long table that was also covered with meat and bones (note the nooses and wall of tools in the background).
We went through the same process in this room and when we were done making our selections the son (who looks unlike any 27 year old I’ve ever met) brought out the grinder and grinded up the parts we needed ground.
The Son & The Grinder
Then we headed back into the living room where he took out a big saw and started hacking though the bones we had chosen to take home for stock. Ines (the farmer’s wife) started cutting up the bigger pieces of meat we had chosen and tied them with string so we could more easily use them for roasts, etc.
When that was all done, we hauled all our purchases into the garage and put them on the scale. I was suprised to discover that the meat was not especially cheap.
After shopping they took us round back and showed us their sheep and goats who had just had babies the day before. This is by far the most memorable food shopping experience I’ve had here. I mean, I visited every open air market in a two hour radius last week, so I’ve got some shopping experience under my belt, but this night of meat…we just don’t have anything like this in the United States…do we?
P.S. For an update on my social life, see Roomies Around the World.
Catching Up
Okay, sooo far behind on my “daily” entries. I’m going to start at the beginning and work my way up chronologically. So, the week before I moved to Italy was filled with reunions and final get togethers. (In other words, I was partying a lot…). One such reunion involved long lost High School friends. We went out on the town in Batavia, where Julia Johanson was house sitting for the week. (Jules and I always had a lot in common in high school and it turns out we still both love to write and take take pictures, and even share a particular attitude towards dating in your twenties!) Sarah and Ryan, whose wedding I’m going home for in June, were also there that night–a fun time was had by all!
Later that week…okay actually the next day…was Saint Patrick’s Day! We (the cottage crew) met up in Buffalo for some holiday cheer and to get in our annual dose of green attire.
Grinzane, etc.
Ciao, Amici! Sorry I haven’t posted in so long! Lots going on here! Allora….the last time we spoke I was doing a stage at Grinzane Cavour, the castle in this picture. That was the week that Jay and Denise were in Verona at VinItaly, so I was walking two hours to Grinzane and two hours back every day (though some friends gave me rides a couple of times). I loved the walk (especially when it wasn’t raining) and learned a lot about the area by having to navigate on foot! (That second-to-last picture is of the rain jars I told you about earlier…).
Anyways, I learned quite a bit at the restaurant in Grinzane…how to make homemade pasta and sugo for tagliarine, a basic meat sauce with mirepoix and not too many tomatoes, bonet, a chocolate custard sort of like flan with amaretti cookies baked in, brasata–beef cheeks braised in dolcetto, grisini–thin bread sticks that are very popular here, plin–a typical ravioli that you pinch with your fingers (that’s why they’re called plin, which means “pinch” in Italian), and lots more!
My Italian friends complain because I only write about them and never about my own family, so I’m going to try and incorporate both from now own. To this end, here’s a half way decent picture of me and Phoebe, mia sorella. Taking a good picture of us is no small feat, and this is the first good one in about twenty years!
Community Togetherness, Castle Ghosts
So, Denise and Giacomo were supposed to come back from Verona today, but their power steering exploded! Everyone’s fine, but alas, they’re still in Verona.
I went clothes shopping with the circolo gang this afternoon (Carmela, Bea, and Giuseppe). Didn’t actually buy anything though.
There was a town meeting for Citt� Aperta tonight. Citt� Aperta is a local festival where the vineyards and restaurants invite everyone to come check out what they’re doing, and what their town has to offer. I attended and took diligent notes of what I imagined they were saying. The biggest topic of discussion at tonight’s meeting was the pullman car they’re renting for the day. There was much argument over which route the car should take, since it’s too big to fit through the town’s main streets (hellow, you can barely walk through the town’s biggest streets!).
Afterward the meeting I went back to the circolo for a gelato and to try and learn Sevens, the game all the old guys who only speak Piemontese play (yeah…good luck with that one, Shira).
I didn’t remember until I got halfway up my driveway that I hadn’t left any lights on in the castle (afterall, Giacomo and Denise were supposed to have arrived earlier that evening). After standing there for a few minutes trying to gather up the courage to walk through the pitch-black cortille, I decided to go back to the circolo and borrow a flashlight. (The castle is scary at night in the dark sometimes!!)
Well, I went back into the bar and the entire place looked up at me. Somehow they all knew why I had returned. (Maybe I have “chicken” written on my forehead in Italian or something).
To make a long story short, the entire circolo escorted me back to my front door. *laughing out loud* I didn’t even ask! While I was trying to figure out how to say “Can I borrow a flashlight because it’s dark and I’m scared” they all just got up and got their coats on!
I felt like such an idiot walking up the driveway again with a Piemontese entourage; but I’d rather be a safe idiot than a dead one. So I sit here writing this, thanking the darkness (that scared me earlier) for hiding the tears of happiness that this curious people keeps evoking.
Do you know what it feels like to be so completely embraced by an entire village?
I do; it’s wonderful.
A Religous Feast
I just got back from pranzo at the circolo (I know, I’m spending my whole life over there!). Beatrice’s English has really improven since we started singing “Miss Sue From Alabama” together (remember that hand clap rhyme?). She also knows one chorus of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”, which is absolutely hilarious to listen to.
To give you an idea of a low-key pranzo, here’s what we had for lunch today (always served separately in courses):
Bresaolo with Parmesan and olio
“Lasagne” which was more like what we would call fettucine with red sauce
Really thin breaded & fried chicken tenders with lemon
Asparagus with parmesan and olio
Formaggio
And apples (that Carmela, Bea, and I picked up at the farm yesterday) for dessert
Most people drank wine or vino-con-acqua with lunch, but a couple of the kids (who came down from the school upstairs) had Coca-Cola (good luck finding Pepsi anywhere around here!).
Don Matteo, Sinio’s priest, ate with us today (well, I got the impression that he eats there a lot, it was me that was the newcomer). Don Matteo is a little hard of hearing, so communicating with him is un po dificile. I tried to explain to him that I only know the responses to Mass in English, and attempted to ask him if there was a book that had the responses in it that I could borrow. I don’t think he quite understood me because he started reciting the Our Father in Latin…
Luckily, Giuseppe came home shortly afterwards and translated for me. They got out a book and tried to figure out which prayers I’d need to have for mass. This is where it got really interesting, because obviously some of the people at the table hadn’t been to mass in a long time and couldn’t quite remember how the prayers went. But, of course, they didn’t want to look bad in front of Don Matteo so they made it up as they went along.
Well, when the one person who had been to church argued that what the others were saying was wrong…mama mia! I don’t know how to describe this except to paint the picture for you: Half of the table was reciting the Padre Nostro to me (extra-slowly and extra-loudly in the hopes I would be able to understand what they were saying), while the rest of them were arguing about which prayers they use in everyday mass and screaming at each other across the table. During this whole exchange, Don Matteo was mumbling something (mostly to himself, because no one ever really listens to him). At the same time, Bea was trying to teach me a new card game, but I wasn’t paying a whit of attention to her, because I was trying to to listen to Don Matteo and show some respect for the priest — something that no one else seemed to be doing.
It was absolutely ludicrous, and yet, we were all communicating with each other– at the same time.
Most meals at the circolo have that same feeling of being just a-little-bit-out-of-control. But that’s part of what makes them so fun!
P.S. Bea is short for Beatrice and is pronounced Bay-ah, and not Bee. Likewise, it’s Bay-ah-tree-chay and not Bee-a- triss (like my former car).