19 January 2010

Today was one of the rare occasions in which Punk went grocery shopping with me. While at the supermarket she asked if we could by gnocchi, since we did not have them in a while.
Once at home it was decided that gnocchi would be our dinner and she requested a sage butter sauce. Of course this would be a carb laden dish, so some vegetables would also need to be served. I opted for peas with onion and leek.

Ingredients for "Gnocchi Burro e Salvia" (for 2 people)
500 g of uncooked potato gnocchi
2 TBS butter
4 large sage leaves
sea salt

Ingredients for "Peas in Padella" (for 2 people)
2 cups frozen peas
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup thinly sliced leeks
salt, peppes, nutmeg and paprika
2 TBS olive oil
1/4 vegetable bouillon cube
1 clove of garlic, cut in 4 or five pieces

In a small saucepan, slowly melt the butter with the sage in it.




When the butter is melted, keep the sage in it and keep it warm (as by keeping it near a burner in use) while preparing the rest of the dinner.





Put the peas in a frying pan, cover with water and sprinkle with 1 tsp of salt. Boil the peas for 10-15 min, according to type of peas.
Drain the peas and keep warm.




Return pan to stove and sautée the onion and leek just until tender.










Return drained peas to pan together with the garlic. Crush the bouillon on top of peas and add a few TBS of water. Add spices to taste. Simmer slowly for 20 to 30 minutes, adding water by the TBS if needed.
(Notice the sage butter keeping warm in the background)







When the peas are almost ready, bring salted water to a boil in a large saucepan, over high heat. When the water reaches a fast rolling boil, pour in the gnocchi and stir gently. Gnocchi will be ready when they raise to the surface of the water, usually within 1 or 2 minutes (dry and older gnocchi, may take longer).









Use a slotted spoon to scoop the gnocchi out of the water as they raise to the surface, and gently rest them to drain in a colander. If needed, re-heat the butter over very low heat.
Scoop the gnocchi into warmed plates and pour the flavored butter over them. Sprinkle with Grana or Parmigiano cheese and garnish with sage leaves.
Add the peas to the plate, and enjoy your dinner!

Brightening up a Winter Day



Doesn't this make you want to cook?

Ratatouille is not only fun to say, and of course to eat, it is also fun to make. To gather up on your kitchen counter an earthy and colourful bunch of fresh vegetables, will britghten up the room as well as your mood! Since these are vegetables that you can find easily year around, it is a great recipe to brighten up a gloomy winter day.

Peppers, onions and eggplants are the core ingredients for this dish, but no other is really necessary or out of place and you can use your imagination and taste, as well as what you have on hand. Red and yellow peppers, zucchine and eggplant looked very good at the market yesterday, onion and garlic I always have in the house. There was a potato in my vegetable drawer, left over from the other night, when I scrubbed too many for my sautée; so I decided to use that one as well. I also had some sliced leeks and swiss chard stalks in the freezer, and figured I would toss them in as well.

Since I do not like my ratatouille to turn to mush, I cut my vegetables in sizable chunks, and have care to add then at different times, accordingly to how fast they will cook. I love the act of chopping vegetables, I find it relaxing and entertaining, pleasant to the touch and the eye. For this recipe it is not necessary to chop everything at once, cut what you need as you need it and it will keep you entertained throughout the preparation. You may also want to pour yourself a glass of wine or fix your favourite aperitif, to reward yourself with a sip during down-time. This, of course, is not vital to the recipe, but just a little treat I allow myself from time to time.

Here is the recipe for last night's Ratatouille:
1 medium eggplant
1 cup frozen swiss chard stalks
1/4 cup frozen sliced leeks
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1/2 red onion
1/2 yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 potato
1 zucchina
1 sprig of rosemary
1 sprig of thyme
a few sage leaves
olive oil
salt

Slice the eggplant and layer the slices in a colander, sprinkling with coarse salt.


Sautée the frozen vegetables in olive oil (swiss chard stalks take longer to soften).









Slice the onions and garlic and add to the pot once the swiss chard and leeks are lightly softened but not brown.







Sautée a few more minutes, on med heat, while you cut the peppers and potato.
Add these to the pot and stir gently so that all vegetables are coated with the oil. If the mixture seems to dry, reduce the heat and cover until vegetables release enough moisture.

Shake the salt off the eggplants, dry, cut in chunks and add to pot.








Slice the zucchina and add as well. Make sure you stir gently as these vegetables are very delicate.










Add fresh or dry herbs to taste.


Simmer until vegetables are cooked to taste, covering and uncovering and adjusting the heat as needed.








You may serve the Ratatouille over freshly made polenta for a complete meal, as in the photo, or serve it as a side dish. Left overs are great for topping bruschetta.

Buon appetito!

Frustrations of the day

15 December 2009

I had an appointment to draw blood this morning for some routine tests.
I rode the bicycle to the place, it was cold, but it is such a nice ride: from my apartment along Viale Luzzati all the way to the walls of the city, then along the walls and along the river, through the little green area where all kinds of birds and even three funny goats play in the grass and the water; through the old city gate of Porta San Tommaso and right into the heart of city life as the Tuesday market was setting up.

The contrast with the new technology and the old bureaucracy is unnerving and ironic at the same time. You go in and there is the little number distributor so that everyone has to wait his turn in order, but there is a clerk handing you the numbers, as you are too stupid to get it yourself as you do at the supermarket (same distributor, by the way).
Every time you fill out a form they give you a ream of paper about privacy and all that crap, but as you hand in your urine sample and the paperwork with all your tests they allow the next in line to lean over the counter and look and listen to your business.

Now I have my number and my paperwork, so I sit and sheepishly wait until my number appears on one of the display on top of 5 or 6 doors disposed around the walls of the waiting room. Of course the numbers are not in order and every time a new number appears this annoying “beep” pierces your ears. It is close to freezing outside, but quite hot in the crowded waiting room, I am glad to see that a few windows are cracked so some air can circulate and hopefully dispose of some of the germs from all the people coughing and sneezing, so I think as I sit myself on a chair next to one of these windows, just as someone wearing a lab coat reaches over me to close it mumbling “so that you don’t all get sick”. What a modern medicine concept!

My number finally flashes on the display accompanied buy one more irritating “beep” and I enter a room with a few tables and chairs in front of them. I see a nurse behind one of the tables, I say a cheerful “good morning” and ask if I should approach, she nods. As I try to juggle my coat, my bag, my hat, my gloves, and the ream of paperwork, I hand the nurse the number (last time I was in a medical facility I made the mistake of assuming the numbers were just to help keep track of who’s turn it is, so once my number was called I just crumbled up the useless piece of paper and stuck it in my pocket.... I was scolded that I should hand it in because they somehow track them... For whatever useless statistic purpose.) I hand in the silly piece of paper with a smile and the nurse who still has not answered my greeting looks at a point around my chin and says snidely “I need the paperwork, Signora” then quickly moves her gaze somewhere behind my shoulder and adds “otherwise we are just going to look each other in the eyes”. It takes me a moment to process the information, I reach into my bag, hand her what she asked for, then proceed to sit, roll up my sleeve and stretch my left arm on the table. As she sticks the needle in my arm I hear myself saying out loud, very politely and still with the smile ( that is really just a reassuring device to myself since I have not eaten in 15 hours and I am terrified I will faint) “was the last comment really necessary?”. She looks me in the eyes for the first time and blurts “what?”. “Just asking for the paperwork should have sufficed” I say, “it is simply a matter of good or bad manners”.

Now I am getting light headed as she lowers her eyes and fills vial after vial with my deep red blood. No further conversation is necessary as she places a thick cotton ball on my arm and tapes it around my elbow. I leave the room, thinking what a difference a smile and a stupid remark can make in someone’s day. I decide to not let it ruin my, so I make eye contact with everyone in my way, smile and deliver a cheerful “buon giorno”.

I know, I am such a pain in the world’s ass!

On Love

11 December 2009

No regrets for loving! I am the love I felt, the love I feel, the love I give. To fall in love with love. To love! That is the essence. That is the truth. To love as the greatest achievement, the ultimate fulfillment. To live, I love!

From the first ghost I loved, a figment of my imagination, a man I created in my ingenuous yet fervid fantasy when I was still a child. The man with the marble gaze. To this man I gave a name, a face, even a voice; yet he was only an idea, an alibi of love... Only so that I could love!

From the first teenage flirts, even the ones who never new. Oh, I loved! Sometimes cautious of revealing it, as from a distance, fearful of the violation of my feelings, often alone, walking in the darkness, lost in altered dreams, but ever so intensely, so completely, so painfully I loved!

From the great passions of the senses, the deep desires of the flesh. The daring, consuming yearning of overcoming fears unknown. With every whisper, every tremor, the satisfaction of pleasures given. In temerarious abandon, in reckless transport, with skin, with soul, with heart, with longing.... I loved!

From the love that never lived, the never spoken love. A love that lives in memories of drives into the night, of half told parodies of life, of chords played to the stars, of hands afraid of soiling the delicate essence of pure love. The love that cold stone seals, that flowers just remind. So quietly, I loved!

To the man I chose as my husband, the coronation of my dream of love, the realization of all my fantasies. The love that brought sunshine even on rainy days, the love that made me whole, that taught me to share my love, to feel and crave another’s love. The love that smiled at me, that made a family, that brought our children, made me a mother. For the first time out in the sun, I loved!

To the love that overflows my heart for my children. The untamable, un-drainable and yet so soft and tender love that only a mother can feel. A love so fierce that can make one fight a giant or lift a mountain, yet so delicate and ethereal to silence a baby’s cry with just a smile. The most unconditional, un-choosing, all-forgiving love. So selflessly, I love!

To the love I feel for you, my friend, so far and so uncertain, so ephemeral and gentle. When I close my eyes and reach my hand to yours that isn’t here; when I treasure every word, every giggle, every sigh, to create a memory in my mind of what may have never been. When I yearn and fear, and cling so strongly to the ground of cruel reality. So desperately, I love!

Ironies of Life

20 October 2009

I used to joke that when I left my mother’s house to live on my own I had a backpack and a sleeping bag, while the last time I moved it took two moving trucks!
Well, this last time I was down to two suitcases and a small backpack. All I could carry on an airplane without paying extra.

I rented a furnished apartment, so I don’t even have to deal with furniture. My mother’s left me her “good dishes”, but I never took them with me, because I was afraid they would get broken. I do need them now, so I went to my oldest brother’s house to pick them up and guess what? Four of the dessert dishes are missing, and the lid of the soup dish... Oh well! There’s still more than I need. I got the good silverware too, that I had left at my father’s house, and the food processor that I did not bring overseas because of the voltage difference. A friend gave me some nice wine glasses, coffee cups, breakfast bowls and a caraffe. My youngest brother gave me a very pretty caraffe, two salad bowls, a doormat and some clothes pins he won at a benefit auction. I got a TV, a vacuum cleaner and a table cloth from my stepmother, and a set of steak knives. Daughter had a desk and a clothes hamper at her old place. I also got some sheets from my mother’s stash that my oldest brother does not need. So I could fit all of my belongings in a car and bring them to my apartment to start my new life.

I found a few liquor glasses, tea cups, beer mugs and a corkscrew at the apartment, luckily the landlord provided some blankets as well. All I had to buy were a pot and a frying pan, a colander, a cutting board, a salad spinner and wooden spoons. There are a few more things I could use, but they will have to wait.
My dad bought his wife a new car, so I get to keep the old one! That is one big expense I don’t have to worry about.

I really do count my blessings and thank all the people who helped me, especially my father who is always reminding me to let him know if I need anything.
The great irony in this is that I am poorer than I have ever been (when I first moved on my own, I at least had a job), but I drive a BMW and if you come visit you will eat with solid silver and English porcelain! If there will be food.... Is yet to be determined!

Friends put it into perspective

19 October 2009

Ever wonder how much the people around us influence the way we see ourselves?
How their lives, their choices, their troubles and their success weigh on our own self-analysis?

I had dinner with some friends from long ago. Three girls I grew up with. We lived our teen years together, shared the joys and woes of the first crushes, and learned true friendship from each other. We all got married, eventually, at different times. We all lived very different lives, chose different careers and lifestyles. We all have children. My marriage is over. One girl’s marriage is in deep crisis. The other two are leading happy and rewarding family lives.

We all eat together, we talk about the past, the present, about our children, our dreams, the way we used to be. Are we really changed? How have we changed and why? Why do some people go through trouble in a marriage and somehow are able to make it through, while others just quit? Did I quit? Did I give up on my dream? Did I stop fighting?

At one time in my marriage I felt trapped. I felt stuck. I felt that I had given up on all my dreams. What dreams? I had so many! Or did I? My family was my dream, the biggest one, the most exciting one, the greatest dream I have ever had. The dream of Love. A love so great, so strong, so powerful and oh! so beautiful! A love so real, so pure, so all-encompassing... a love to lose oneself in it! A love so unbelievable I don’t think I could have dreamt it!

The love above it all, the love that makes everything else seem unimportant, the love that poets strive to write about, the love that fills the heart and soul and body, the inebriating love that makes one feel alive! Was that not what I dreamed, little more than a child, alone in my room, listening to music and writing poetry, gazing at the stars? Was that not the love I yearned for, tearing my soul in the bliss of loneliness?

Did anything else matter then? Did I dream of a career, of an education, of a social life, when, coming home after a night of excess, I would bury my face in the pillow, in the darkness and dismay? No. I dreamt of a man with marble eyes, drying my tears and holding me in his arms....

So WTF!!??!! What was it that I felt slipping away? Is there anything else?