Tacchino!

What is a Thanksgiving Feast without the traditional honored guest bird, the turkey?

With our first guests coming into town, I was determined to make a dinner that grandma would be proud of. The first major obstacle was where to find a turkey. The meat counter here barely has enough turkey to slice for sandwiches, and there is no such thing as a freezer case, so lets just say that the Butterballs aren't lined up here like they are in the states. I was told that I would have to special order one from the butcher. Now, being a culinary novice and in a new town, I wasn't even sure where the butcher was, I knew the vegetable lady and the deli stand guy, but I did not have a butcher, or machellaio, in the Italian Rolodex. Since he seemed to at least dabble in the art of meat, I thought I would start off by asking the deli guy. After explaining why I wanted a whole turkey and not my usual supply of thin sliced turkey breast, he was quiet for a minute or two and then slowly leaned over the counter and said in a low whisper that he knew the butcher of the "presidente della republica"! In fact, this presidential butcher was right in my neighborhood, what luck! I wonder if the president of the republic ever likes a nice whole turkey. I wound through our little neighborhood a few weeks before Thanksgiving to find the special butcher and put my order in for a nice little Tom. Surely there would be other crazy Americans out and about demanding poultry? I found the little shop which I must have walked by a hundred times. I am not sure how I missed the window, as I noticed with a shiver 6 or 7 dead naked birds hanging in the window along with some other parts that looked eerily like they once belonged to something alive. It was certainly the right place for meat.

I had been forewarned about this process by some seasoned expats so I came with my list ready. You cannot simply order a turkey here in Italy. Here is what I ordered: Una tacchino interna, con ossa, e pello, senza testa e pulito, sensze interiora abbastanza per quatro personi. Basically, I had to specify that I wanted a whole turkey, with skin, without feathers, without a head, with the insides cleaned out, and enough of it for four people. I encourage all of you to try to order your turkey like this next year and see how much you look forward to biting into him when the time comes. It is truly a wonder that all Italians are not vegetarians.


With the turkey ordered I moved on to other necessities, I spent a large portion of three days trying to find a can of pumpkin (ironic after the Halloween pumpkin search), cranberry sauce and a potato masher. I wound up with two out of three and still no ideas on where to find a potato masher. By the time our friends Jamie and Wade arrived the day before Thanksgiving, I had an admirable collection of American food stuff. Then, a bit of Italy came seeping back into my red, white and blue day dreams. There was a mix up with the butcher. He was not able to a small turkey. He had a few birds in the creepy window display that were large enough to lead a foul revolution, but certainly too large to fit in my tiny oven. Disappointed and confused at his rapid fire Italian, we compromised and I walked out of the shop with my new Thanksgiving tradition: a Turkey Breast Roast... who eats the dark meat anyway?


In the end we had a wonderful holiday. Jamie and I hit up the local market to buy all of our ingredients fresh on Thanksgiving morning! We ended up with quite a feast. A rughetta, pear, walnut and pomegranate seed salad, fresh bread from the baker, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, asparagus and of course a pumpkin pie... which actually turned out to be more of a pumpkin torte. We still ate it. The best part of Thanksgiving in Italy... the men do the dishes!

Everything's Coming Up Roses!

It has been a truly exciting two weeks! All good things happening here in Rome, except for my lack of blogging. I will attempt to make up for this by posting numerous blogs in one night. Pretend that you read the following a over the past few weeks.

Ohio State beat Michigan which makes all well with the world. We have been showing our pride (and trying to bother the neighbors) by proudly flying our flag. So far, we have received only one comment on it, our neighbor wanted to know which squad it was for and guessed that we were football, as in soccer, fans. Our Michigan fan/guest for the game was very well behaved, as was Josh. There was much peace and harmony to go around. I attribute most of this to Ohio State winning and that Josh and I are probably much better fans than any one who rooted for Michigan could be. Josh showed his graciousness through a floral arrangement.

Forza Buckeyes!

Our first M*ch*gan week abroad. I spent a good portion of the week gathering the necessary materials for what is now a long standing tradition in our house, making candy Buckeyes for all of our friends in preparation for the big game. After many failed attempts in asking for paraffin wax and confectioners sugar, I took matters into my own hands and decided to improvise. I bought a variety of products that I thought looked similar to those I was familiar with stateside and let my taste buds to the rest. Josh even took a break from work to come home and participate in the tradition!


















After a lot of sampling, i.e. eating the batter, to get things exactly right, our results were pretty accurate to our favorite Buckeyes recipe from Aunt Terry. Luckily, we still had a good supply of Jiff peanut butter from our last trip to the states. I'm not sure that the Italian version of peanut butter would have stood up to the test. We packed as many as we could in our tiny little fridge and carefully transported them to our offices the next day. I thought it was hard to explain what a candy buckeye was in Philadelphia! Try explaining to the Italians that your team is a bunch of killer nuts, but here, would you like to taste one? There was also much confusion about the peanut butter, a PB&J simply isn't a part of the Italian diet. Most of my Italian colleagues are convinced that I had somehow sweetened chestnuts, a very popular roasted treat here, to make the inside of the Buck's eye. I didn't even try to explain the part about the buckeye looking similar to the ocular of a strange four legged forest creature.





Although our traditions remain the same, this year in our new European digs we are having quite the global Michigan week, our influence reaching far and wide. Despite our absence from Philadelphia, my beloved friends kept our tradition alive by making their own candy buckeyes in our honor...thanks Kristin and Megan! Much to my dismay, their buckeyes turned out MUCH prettier than mine!

In the true spirit of globalization we are celebrating this game day in an unheard of way... we are going to watch the game with a Michigan fan, along with a couple of Italians who would rather be watching soccer (I refuse to call it football until the season is over). We'll see how it goes, this could be an important step to cultural acceptance and world peace.

Thanks to all of you who have emailed and called this week to show your spirit, Jessie, please promise you won't watch the game. Kristen, thanks for making the buckeyes! Jamie, good luck with trying to knit, drink and watch the game! In honor of new friends and old rivals, here is a little something that my very dear friend and fellow OSU alumnus, Matt sent me this week, the second verse to our school's fight song:


"We'll scatter to the east and west,
When college days are done,
And memories will cling around
The dreams of everyone;
We'll play the game of living,
With head and shoulders high!
And where in wear the spirit of
The Buckeye Battle Cry!"

"Ciao Darwin" - If This is the Evolution of Man, I'd Rather be a Monkey

Last night I was feeling a bit under the weather, a bit of a stuffy head and runny nose, so I decided to call it a night early (relatively anyway). I made myself a hot cup of tea and crawled into bed. I thought since I was being such a slug I would at least practice my Italian by watching some local TV. I flipped through some channels before I came upon one of my guilty pleasures, and found what looked to be like a beauty pageant. A perfect thing to snuggle down and watch when a girl isn’t feeling well, I can at least watch others be pretty and glamorous. I soon found though, that this was NOT an Italian beauty pageant. It was some sort of variety/show with two teams of competing women. Two women would be dressed up in different “costumes”, they would catwalk and strut across the stage in these costumes and more often then not strip down to some very skimpy skivvies by the end of their stroll. This was disturbing enough, then I realized that the audience was full of men with voting machines and after this display by the women, they were voting on which one they liked best. If that wasn’t enough to make me question Italian culture, I then realized HOW the women were divided into teams. There was a team of “donne bianche” and a team of “donne nera”… they were divided into black women and white women!! I had never seen anything like it, but the worst part was, I couldn’t stop watching!!

Still disturbed when I woke up this morning, I decided to look up the atrocity to see if I could find out more information. Here is what the show has to say about itself:

“CIAO DARWIN...the survival of the fittest! involves 100 contestants split into two equal teams of common stereotypes such as 'Fat vs. Thin', 'Daughters in Law vs. Mothers in Law', or 'City vs. Country'. Surrounded by a high-energy studio audience of the opposite sex to that of the contestants, the celebrity captains guide their teams through hilarious challenges testing bravery, style and talent. With interactive possibilities this fun-filled, primetime format has a proven track record as a ratings winner in the Saturday night broadcast battle.”


I also found a small clip of the show, be warned though, you may not want to open this at your desk, it is a bit…racey (pun intended), not to mentinon offensive and totally disgusting . I am not sure who is at greater fault, these women, the men, the television channel, or myself for watching it longer than 10 seconds.


http://www.video.mediaset.it/video.html?sito=ciaodarwin&data=2007/09/18&id=88&categoria=sfilate&from=email

I would say that I have jumped off the deep end...

EXCEPT I HAVE NO WATER.



Two blog posts in one day, an unprecedented treat, but I simply had to share how this nightmare continues. The two workers toiled, sweated and cursed at each other (I have been learning a little Italian) from 9am to 1:30pm. Finally they declared their work finished after asking me for one of my kitchen pans to put beneath the big new tank because it is leaking, "solo una po'acqua senora" the men assured me, it was only leaking a little, surely this baking pan would do just the trick. My 80 liter tank would be warmed up and ready in just one hour. After they left with their two buckets of tools and dusty boots, I surveyed the damage, I have two holes in the bathroom wall. No worries, they did a fancy job spackling them and discarded the leftover spackle in my bathroom sink to dry and crack. It will be a nice project for me later to scrape it off with my bare fingernails. There is dirty water everywhere as they used every drain, including the toilet to dump the old rusty water that was in the broken heater. Finally I have a nice sprinkling of plaster, paint chips and dust (some of it was there before) throughout the entire apartment. There was only one thing to do... leave. I could hope that when I got back it wouldn't be as bad as I imagined.

I went out to lunch and returned an hour later. It was as bad as I had thought. In the meantime, it looks like Charlie has managed to walk through every pile of dust and now there are paw prints trailing in and out and on top of every visible surface. There is only one thing to do, start scrubbing. So, I drag out the sweeper and promise myself a reward of a nice, long, steamy hot shower after I am finished. This is when I think that it might be a good idea to resoak the plastered sink in hopes to remove it in a weakened and wet state. I flip on the faucet and out rushes a hiss and a few drips of water. It is then and only then that I remember seeing something posted on front door of our building, so I trot downstairs with a sinking feeling, because I know that I know what it says. Sure enough, it is a warning that the water will be turned off to the entire building for the entire day.

At least the lights are on and I can see that the house is dirty and that I am now filthy and that the water is not even a stream.

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

And light there is in our humble home. What a luxury. After one day of living like a Pilgrim, you would have thought I was without electricity for a year. I am a material girl living in a material world, and I need appliances and electrical comforts! Now that we have switched back from daylight savings time, dusk and darkness arrive promptly on the Roman skyline at 5:00pm. I had the romantic notion that I would by candlelight but 45 minutes later a was on the same paragraph with a monster headache. I then remembered smugly that we have a gas stove, I wasn't ruined yet, I may have to do it in the dark, but I could still make food! Who needs a toaster or a microwave when you have the power of gas! Again 30 minutes later, a raging headache, and now I had wet feet. I had opened the refrigerator to take inventory of what wonderful things I might make, only to be shocked with the gushing of freezing water all over my socked feet. My refrigerator had spend its day without electricity defrosting itself and slowing creating a mini hoover dam in my crisper drawer. Finally I had enough, patted the cat on the head to wish him luck (he can see better in the dark after all) and left the house to go forth and enjoy someone else's sweet electricity... I went to the movies.

Our electricity was restored on Monday, but only at the sacrifices of another important modern comfort, our hot water heater. Apparently our boiler exploded sometime during the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, knocking out our power completely. After a good hour of fumbling around and sticking screw drivers into sockets and making a general mess of plaster as he knocked about on all my walls, my friendly building technician delivered the bad news. Our hot water heater died a brilliant death and could not be fixed. Sure enough, I spotted a tale tale water spot in the ceiling where the poor boiler had made his last stand. We would need a complete replacement, which would take at least two days. So after this experience of what life must have been without electricity, we now know that the Pilgrims must have had an awful stench, no one wants to take a cold shower in the middle of November!

The two maintenance men are now in hour two of project "acqua calda" and so far no old water heater has come down from its perch, let alone the new shiny one gone up. I am starting to get the feeling that they intend to just leave the old one to rust in its former home until the end of time. In the meanwhile, they have been hammering large holes in the wall knocking plaster and bits of paint everywhere.

This morning as I longed for a hot shower I amused myself with prose:

Ode to Water Heater

Without you we shiver in the cold dark marble,
I miss the sight of your glowing red light to match my glowing red skin.
The dishes are left shuddering after their chilly bath.
Nothing is the same, without you.
Oh, Water heater.

In the Dark

...literally. We awoke this morning to find we had no power in our apartment. Of course there is no emergency line to our landlord. There is certainly no way any bonafide Italian utility would actually answer the phone, much less fix the problem. We spend the mid morning and afternoon out at the zoo enjoying the daylight, but dusk is approaching fast... what am I to do? No Internet, no TV, no lights! Yikes.