Thoughts From A Broad: Semproniano 9/1

9/1 –

I took a walk this morning with the intention of making it a power walk. I stopped to look at the time and temp sign outside the grocery store and I stare at the date:1 9. In Italy they put the day first and then the month, which I think makes more sense that the month, day format. I mean you usually don’t ask people “what month is it”, the most common question is “what’s today’s date”, and so it makes sense to me to list the date of the day first. But, I digress…

All I can see is that it is the first day of September. I leave here on the morning of September 5^th. I am bored out of my skull and lonely for friends and English and yet my heart is breaking at the thought of leaving here. I set out for the walk but it turned out to be a stroll along with tears flowing like the mighty Mississippi for reasons I can neither explain nor understand. I took lots of photos for my memory banks, here are just a few.

A pear tree – that grows tiny, delicious, little pears.

A fig tree growing next to a parking lot.

A olive tree.

Fancy hedge work

Grapevine and more figs.

My Internet office.

My Internet office view.

I stopped by Cinzia’s club for café and she could see that I was a little down so she gave me a happy cappuccino…

I’ve gotten into the habit of buying Aimone’s newspaper every morning at the Tabacchi shop. I can barely speak to these people but they seem happy to see me every day and hand me the paper before I can reach for it. And if the top one looks a little worn, they pull a fresher one from the middle of the stack. I make sure to always have correct change to make the transaction as smooth as possible. Today when I hand my money to the young guy behind the counter, he looks at me and says “bene?” (ok?) He’s never said anything to me before other than ‘ciao’. It threw me and I have to swallow just to find my breath. I forced a smile and said “Si – si, si, si, si… Grazie. Ciao. ”

It’s in the mid 60’s today, a big change from the 90+ temps of last week and everyone is bundled up like it is winter. I watch the young couple across the street step out of their casa wearing heavy sweat shirts and jackets and assume they are going some where on a day trip. Nope, they are just walking up to Bar Sport which is about a 50 yard hike. I sit on the kitchen balcony and watch as the people walk by, some are wearing coats, hats and scarves. I smile to myself thinking they would never survive a Chicago winter…

I hear commotion coming from Pina’s kitchen so I go to investigate and find her and Emilia making a tart. I don’t know if they call it a tart, but that is the best way I know to describe it. It’s for our lunch and is filled with ground green beans and cooked ground meat. Yea, I thought that too – but I’ve had it once before and it is out of this world delicious. (another taste bud miracle) I asked if I could watch and photo the session and they said yes. I so enjoyed just watching them together that I decided to actually film most of the activity, so I don’t have many still photos to share.

The filling is ground green beans along with a cooked potato, the cooked meat, a little salt, parmesan cheese and eggs.

The pastry is made from flour, water, salt and olive oil. Pina says it is like pizza dough.

The kitchen got a little crowded when Maria and Aimone’s sister both stopped in for a quick visit; Aimone’s brother-in-law is standing outside, talking through the screen in the kitchen window. And as I witness the interaction between of all of them, I have the thought that these are the moments I want to remember most - the moments in Pina’s Kitchen.

Everything happens here. Days start and end here. Family and friends find comfort here. Fantastic simple dishes are created here. The activity is nonstop. Even when the town is at rest, something is always happening in Pina’s kitchen. Whether it’s shelling beans, making salsa, making coffee, cleaning zucchini, making pesto, cooking food for 8pm’s dinner at 4pm, refilling the wine bottles, washing dishes, talking with girlfriends, refilling the olive oil bottles, yelling to the butcher across the street from the kitchen window and having food from the butcher or the bakery delivered via the kitchen window – something is always in motion here. It is one of my favorite places to be…

Maria comes by in the afternoon for a visit and brings me a one-liter water bottle full of homemade red wine. It is, by far, better than the bottle that I bought from the store earlier this week. It’s stronger too. This is the wine I wish I could take back to America but it would never make it through customs, so I just have to drink it here. Darn it… Maria and I have a small (poco) glass as she wants me to take a walk with her. She tells me I look good in my Rome jeans, I tell her I can’t breathe. She laughs and “Oh Madonna” and that I still look good. We take off out of town, pass the cemetery, pass the road to Sartunia and kept walking. We figured out ways to communicate and talked and talked and talked. Sometimes it was just a one word statement with lots of pointing and body language, but it worked and it was one of the best conversations I have had in town. I don’t know how far we walked. It was almost a full two hours from the time we left until we got back. Maria asked if could breathe better, I said yes but now I can’t walk. Again she laughs. She gets me home just in time for dinner and takes the heat from Pina when she goes on and on about the time. Maria just keeps teasing Pina until Pina breaks into a laugh and then kicks her out of the kitchen. Then she flirts with Aimone and makes him smile as well. She tells me she will see me tomorrow then leaves, then comes back just to give me a hug and say thank you. After she is gone again, Pina says Maria will be sad when I leave. I tell her I will be too. Pina’s eyes tear up so I shower her cheeks with kisses until she laughs.

After dinner tonight, I clear the table, putting everything back in its proper place in the kitchen and pantry and even rinse the dishes before Pina finally tells me to stop. She tells me to sit and watch TV with her for a while in the kitchen. It’s a strange show that she watches every night after the news. It’s kind of like a variety show but it’s just a bunch of clips from previous shows. No new shows, just clip after clip after clip of old performances, some go back to the 60’s. Every once in a while there is an American performer on it and Pina always points out when English is spoken or sung. It is funny to watch as Italy has had similar performers to the American counter parts. In the late 60’s there is a married couple singing together – just like Sonny and Cher. There’s another clip of a man singing an old love song, while sipping on a cocktail and another guy trying to steal the spotlight by acting funny – just like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. And there’s a woman who acts and sounds like Barbara Streisand, and it goes on and on. It’s like they mirrored the American performs at the same time, looking like them, performing is the same way and some even sounding like them – just in Italian. The name of the show sounds like “a-tick-a-tick-a-tick”. Seriously. It’s funny when, at the end of the news broadcast, the newscaster says (in Italian of course) to stay tuned for a-tick-a-tick-a-tick. After we sit for about an hour, she kicks me out of the kitchen so she can do dishes and I can do whatever I do. So I came back here and worked on this and then turned in early as I am dog tired from this afternoon’s walk.

9/2 –

Oh no, it’s raining and cold out. Egads!!! I had coffee at Bar Sport, picked up Aimone’s newspaper and then I sit at the kitchen table and look out the window watching it rain. I can’t even open the window because it’s only in the mid 50’s this morning and Pina can feel the draft when I do. The woman’s got draft radar. If it is cold out and a window is even cracked open, she knows… Lucky for both Aimone and I, there is no thunder today, just rain. Aimone tells me it is going to rain all day long and tomorrow doesn’t look good either. Oh yippee.

After church, Pina had a feast of a meal and Emilia and her son Giulio joined us. I believe he is in his early 40’s. He is a very handsome Italian man with dark curly hair, big beautiful brown eyes and a scruffy beard. He is quick to smile and my ears jump to attention when he asks me a question in perfect English. ENGLISH!!! GLORY BE HE SPEAKS ENGLISH!!! He is professional photographer and lives in Rome. Pina tells him he has to talk English to me – she is so funny. As we all hang out in the kitchen, he and I talk a bit and at one point Pina tells him that all this English is confusing and she can’t understand anything of what we are saying. Um HELLO! Welcome to Lindaville! I tell him I can understand a good amount of what she says to me when we are alone but when in a group situation it is much harder. He tells me she uses a lot of words and it is hard for him to understand her and he’s Italian! He says she talks too fast and she ‘eats her words’. I’m not sure what that means, but I like it.

We sit next to each other at the dinner table, in the English Spoken Here section, and he translates things for me throughout the meal. He has a great Italian male profile - great alignment of his forehead, nose and chin. I think to myself that if I could draw, I would draw that profile.

For you foodies out there, today’s courses are:

Fresh pasta with ragu (meat) sauce.
Some kind of roast, I think it was fillet minon – it was pancetta (bacon) wrapped around bread and the fillet was inside of the bread. Served with roasted potatoes and salad.
Fruit.
Pastry.

Back to the translating – as I suspected the women talk a lot about food. Giulio is laughing at one point and tells me that Pina and Emilia are talking about a restaurant and Pina asked Emilia when she went there the first time, what she had, what did she have the second time, was it as good as the first time, what was her favorite, etc., etc., etc. I tell him that after breakfast, she asks me about lunch, at lunch we talk about dinner, at dinner she asks me about food for the next day. I tell him that I already know that I am to cook zucchini for Monday night’s dinner, which we talked about it during last night’s meal. I refer to Pina as the Mayor of Semproniano and Giulio tells me she is known in these parts for being a talker. I tell him that Aimone barely speaks, he said ‘yes, but when he does he uses only as many words as needed.’ He is exactly right. We laughed a lot at dinner. At one point after course two but before course three Giulio laughed because he heard his Mom mumbled something to herself about what she was going to cook for dinner that evening. He says this is just the Italian way.

I tell him about the blog and about the stuff I’ve been writing, I mention the salsa pictures and Pina eyes perk up. She understands that I am talking about my writing and the internet and she tells him that I took photos of the two of them making the tart yesterday. I told him I didn’t really take photos, that I recorded a film and I asked him to explain that to Pina and Emilia. He did so and then asked if he could see it. So I got my computer and showed them all the 30 or so minutes of filming. Giulio loves it and wants me to put it on YouTube. He said it is a real Italian kitchen and people would like it. He laughed several times, as did his Mom and Pina at what was said, their physical movements, and Pina’s entertaining way. He asked I send it him as well. I told him I need the recipe to post with it and he told me he will translate it for me and email it. He complemented me on my film making and I showed him some of the other photos from town. Some of which he said were very good. I took this has a tremendous compliment. This is the first camera I have owned in years and I rarely have my glasses on when taking photos so I’m not sure if they are good until I review them later.

It’s after 4p when they leave; we sat down to lunch around 1:15… Giulio and I exchange emails and I give him the blog address, promise to send him the tart making videos and they are off. I try to help Pina clean up but, of course, am shooed away. So it is back to my kitchen table to work on this entry and stare out the window and watch the rain.

Please be sunny tomorrow – please be sunny tomorrow – oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please be sunny tomorrow…

-News flash -

Pedro has decided not to return to America. He is staying in Semproniano. Turns out he’s got family here and they have a very nice place to hang out on the top of the bathroom mirror in Casa Pellegrini.

I can’t blame him. It’s a great spot in a nice home, his family is here, they have a cactus plant and it’s a short ride to the toilet… What more could a plastic man and his plastic burro ask for?

I’m grateful for him being with me on the trip. He has been a great companion as he has helped me to break the ice with people on more than one occasion. And when one starts getting overly lonely and is feeling sorry for oneself, it’s amazing how a little plastic man on a little plastic burro can cheer one up…

Here are just a few photos of my little friend.

Rome