Archive for January, 2007

what’s cooking wednesday: calabrian style pan-fried chicken

A whole recipe without pasta! I told you it could happen. It’s nothing complicated, but it’s a winter staple for us around here. This week’s What’s Cooking Wednesday is Calabrian style pan-fried chicken.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, now’s a good time. Southern Italian cooking is famous for its simplicity. It’s all about taking fresh, quality ingredients that you always have on hand and combining them together so that you create something delicious but in which you can still identify the parts the made the whole.

The general eating way here, often referred to as the Mediterranean Diet, includes lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, moderate amounts of fish and poultry, little red meat, and a good amount of red wine, and is considered fairly healthy although not perfect. The biggest plus, though, is the heavy use of olive oil, which is high in monounsaturated fat, the type that doesn’t spike cholesterol. And this, as you know, is a very good thing.

So, without further ado, here’s this week’s recipe:

Chicken with Rosemary

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 large red onion, roughly sliced
4 cloves garlic
½ chicken cut into pieces
2 tablespoons rosemary (a few sprigs)
Salt and black pepper to taste

Put olive oil into pan large enough to hold chicken.

On medium heat, sauté onions until translucent. Then add garlic and cook until lightly browned. Add the chicken to the pan, seasoning all sides with rosemary, salt and pepper and coating with the olive oil. Turn until all sides are lightly browned.

Then lower the heat slightly and let it cook until the chicken is done, which should be about 45 minutes depending on the thickness of your chicken.

Be sure to turn it every so often to keep it moist and evenly cooked.

Note that if you don’t want pan-fried, you can use the same ingredients to bake the chicken in the oven, just use less olive oil.

Buon appetito!

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[tags]chicken, chicken with rosemary, chicken recipes, rosemary, pan-fried chicken, recipes, cooking, what’s cooking wednesday[/tags]


Navigating the Italian Health Care System: Part II

Last week I went for my annual gynecological exam. Yes, TMI, so if you’re weirded out now (or at some later point in this post), well, don’t come a-crying.

I made sure to show up first so as to get out of there before noon. This meant arriving at 7.30 for a 9 a.m. appointment. Why you ask? Well because everyone gets 9 a.m. appointments–first come, first serve with a lot of “who’s last?” questions as the next woman arrives. No receptionist really, although a social worker does sort of act like one, taking the little referral slips from primary doctors and directing traffic from behind a locked door. Really. I’m only partially sure she’s a real person.

Oh, I should explain. You have to get a referral slip from your primary doctor first, then go that morning to the main health clinic office and get it stamped (I told you Italians love stamps), and then go wait your turn in the GYN clinic. FYI, this is what I looked at for most of that time:

And this was my choice of reading material, had I not brought my own book:

I used my alone time to swipe a few interesting articles from the Italian magazines to be discussed in later posts. But by the by, if you think I was a little over-anxious by arriving so early, by 8.10, there were 3 women after me.

So I was called in first (yeah!), and the doctor did the usual exam taking all of 8 minutes. But then she informed me that I’d have to come back for the PAP test when the technician was there. Yes, there was someone else in the room with us as well, but apparently neither of them were capable of scraping and placing cells on a slide.TMI? Sor.

She also told me that she saw something that started with a “u” I think, and that I should go get an ultrasound at the hospital. She told me it was most likely nothing, that it was actually quite normal, but it’s better to get it checked anyway.

And so began my GYN circus.

Now I’m not going to scare you all with suspense–nothing is wrong. We’re just going to run through the process.First the GYN has to write a referral to go to the hospital. Then you can get your pharmacist (or City Hall official?) to set up an appointment via the computer. Well, the local pharmacist couldn’t do this for me because I’m a straniera — not in the sense that I’m not Italian, because I am, but because I was not born in this area, meaning my info isn’t in the computer.

Alrighty then.

So P’s parents were feeling especially hospital-y and offered to guide me through the maze immediately. Which was very nice, because if left to my own devices, I probably would’ve put it off for weeks, dreading further bureaucracy. I have a quota per week, you know. And it’s very low.

We got to the hospital and took our number to be served at the “make appointments” information window or whatever it’s called. We had number 90 and they were serving number 86, so it looked good–except that there were about 20 other people in the room apparently waiting for something.

Yeah well, I don’t know if they were all stranieri, i.e., clueless, or what, but 87 popped up, and literally, in stunning rapid fire succession, so did 88, 89, and (bam!) 90. Apparently those in between 87 and us didn’t react quickly enough, so Happy Button Pusher just kept on pushin. Fine by me.

So HBP turned Behind The Window Guy said they could take me immediately up in the GYN department, and that would be 46 euro please. Ugh. I was hoping for somewhere around 25, but fine. If it wasn’t my gynecological health, I probably would’ve thought “Now there *better* be something wrong!” but we women don’t joke with these things.

See, basic health care is free, but you have to pay for the extras through what they call “tickets,” using this word in English. It’s kind of funny to hear them say it, although all humor is lost when handing over an orange-colored bill. That’s a fifty for those non-Euro-inclined. They say you can get these expenses reimbursed on your taxes, though, so my receipt is in a safe place.

Anyway, we headed up to the GYN section and promptly joined the line of 5 women already waiting–many who had probably been there since their 9 a.m. scheduled appointment so I couldn’t really complain. There was my longest wait of the day, so I thought I’d take a picture in the meantime, which we’ll get back to later:

Here’s a view of the entrance, er, exit to the operating room:

As you can see, we’ve settled on a charming puke green theme with just a touch (too much) of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Moving on.

I won’t bore you with the fact that even after I was called back for the ultrasound, I had to stand and wait in another hallway for a half hour, shifting back and forth from foot to foot, puppy dog-looking into the eyes of everyone in white that passed only to be greeted with lowered (shameful, I say) heads. I got back there eventually.

And then the fun began.

The doctor was awesome, but first we had some ice to break as I’m sure he thought I was an idiot when he asked why I was there, and I didn’t remember anymore. I *did* know the word that started with a “u” when I left the clinic, I swear, but so many hours had passed. Should’ve written it down.Or, um, maybe the doctor should have?

This doc was forgiving, though, as he inserted the Eye on a Stick, as I call it, and shouted to the nurse the measurements of my uterus and ovaries–and (this is so cool) showed me that there was an egg sac in my left ovary ready to explode. Yeah, you moms have your babies in the womb pics, but do you have a nearly exploding ovary in your files?

I even got to keep the pictures, which I won’t post here on some very sage advice. But, you know, if anyone’s interested. . . .

So everything is fine and in working order, should it be called upon, but as usual, it was an experience. And on the bright side, I really liked the doctor at the hospital even though he was a man. Ladies, I know you hear me on this one.

Now, back to the hospital pics. The reason I thought to take the first one was because of what had been going on in Italian news at the time–Hygiene Scandal Hits Italy’s Biggest Hospital. Perhaps some thought I was joking when I said there was paint peeling off the walls when I got my health card?

Joking aside, this is serious stuff.

Some Italian hospitals, often in the south, have deplorable conditions–and we’re not just talking about paint. Many places aren’t stocked with certain medications because it’s too expensive. Seriously.

From what I’ve read on a certain Expats site, this includes epidurals for pregnant women, which apparently you must reserve in advance, but then may not even receive if someone more worthy (?) comes along. There are also an extraordinary number of C-sections performed in the south, and many are apparently unnecessary but are done in the doctors’ pockets best interests.

Then there are the types of hygiene problems discussed in the above article–dirty floors, problems with waste disposal, little to no protocol for cleaning used instruments. It’s scary stuff folks, and it’s exactly why the public health care system needs more funding and why that funding needs to end up in the right places, or alternatively, simply not in the wrong ones.

Italian citizens already subsidize the care through their tax euro, paying some of the highest taxes in Europe. Unfortunately, the health care system doesn’t reflect this. Aren’t we in an industrialized, 1st world (kinda) nation here? Shouldn’t our health care correspond?

There’s no reason that socialized health care can’t work, but in Italy, there’s a lot of work yet to be done. I know it’s already been addressed in the Italian media, but fellow expats, does our particular interest group need to call Striscia on this one too?

Let’s talk.


sunday scribblings: chronicles


We’ll get there eventually, but let’s link arms and walk together for a moment.

When I first saw that “chronicles” was the prompt of Sunday Scribblings this week, I wondered what in the heck I’d write about.

I first thought of The Chronicle, a large part of my daily life many moons ago during college. I never worked on the paper, although looking back, I wish I would have, so I could’ve written about that internal struggle–not having the confidence to pursue writing earlier. Eh. Another time.

Then I thought fictionally, and imagined a middle-aged woman cleaning out her deceased father’s apartment with whom she never had a close relationship–figuring out what to keep so as to chronicle his life for the next generation when she, in fact, had no idea what kind of life he had. But then I realized that I scribbled about death last week, and also wrote about my deceased grandmother a few days ago, and well, I’m just about deathed out.

So then this morning I went up to the piazza for my morning cappuccino and was greeted with this scene:


And I thought about writing of this woman chronicling her life through the items she makes. In years past, it was very common here for a young signorina to make all of her own linens for her house, embroidering and whatnot. I imagine that as time goes on, many women crafted more things with their hands–scarves, blankets, linens for children–that if taken together would chronicle a given woman’s life. But this would end up being about death too, wouldn’t it? So let’s call these my photos for “chronicles.”

So I’m thinking there are just so many different ways to chronicle a life, which led me to this:

I’ve always loved writing. Yes, composing, but I’m talking about the physical act of putting ink to paper and forming letters, then words. I used to play with my handwriting all the time, often copying the style of a favorite teacher, making the M in my signature all different ways. One of my favorite M’s was stolen from a framed picture in my room that had my name written in cursive and proclaimed what little girls are made of.

I used to love writing so much that one day when I found my mom’s handwritten notes from nurses’ training, I decided to write them over. I was probably about 10 years old, so of course I had no idea what anything meant, but that didn’t matter. I loved writing, and so I got my looseleaf and favorite pens and went to work.

I remember struggling to read my mom’s handwriting, an odd mix of cursive and printing–so not allowed in a structured 10-year-old’s mind. “What’s this Mom?” must’ve driven her crazy. I don’t know how many pages I ended up copying (I’m guessing not many because I bore quickly), but I do remember imagining myself in a big room, surrounded by other people my age, furiously scribbling as a talking head in the front used a lot of words with many syllables.

Yeah, I was a geek, so I actually fantasized about being in school, but more than that, I see now that I was channeling a part of my mom’s life that I’d never be able to experience. I was able to sit there with her, writing words I wouldn’t understand for another 10 years. All because she didn’t chuck her notes.

Fast forward many years, and you know what? I, too, still have all my notes from college and law school. And perhaps I flatter myself to think that someday, someone might be so inclined to recopy them just to feel closer to me, but for what it’s worth, they’re there. I went three-hole punch happy and man, what a chronicle of that stage in my life I’ve made.

I have journals, letters, and scrapbooks from those years as well, but the academic experience was undeniably a big part of my development too. Who knows what was occupying my thoughts as I learned about evolution, the development of the prison system, Tennyson, Whitman, Yeats? Granted it was most likely Cute English Boy, but I could’ve had an interesting thought here and there. Maybe.

Someday, if I’m so inclined, I can find out. And so can future generations, if I manage to keep track of everything. And as an added bonus, we can even trace the development of my handwriting, which if you’re curious, has ended up looking a lot like my mom’s weird mix of cursive and printing.

I still do that M from the picture though.

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[tags]sunday scribblings, chronicles, handwriting, old notes[/tags]


fancying up the donkey

In response to yesterday’s post, one of my favorite bloggers, The Other Girl, has gone on the record as wanting donkey (or small goat as the case may be) rings on her dream home.

Now TOG (we’re t h i s c l o s e , so I can call her that) is a girl with some major coglioni, but I realize that some of you out there just may be too shy to admit your desire for The Rings–this post is for all of you as well.

Below you will find the proper installation of said gadgets lest you be the laughing stock of your neighborhood because of some half-assed hook ups.

Context people. You know what I mean.

See them there on either side of the door? These people thought ahead and smartly planned for more than one donkey; you’d be well-advised to do the same as I think you’ll find that one ass is hardly ever enough.

Plus I hear that symmetry is in this year.

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[tags]donkeys, donkey rings[/tags]


yes, another meme

You know, I always did like filling out surveys, so it’s no surprise that I can barely contain myself when I see a good meme.

Yes, folks, here’s another–this time courtesy of Karla at Tales of a Texpatriate. As always, if you want to play, please leave a link to your meme in my comments so I can find you.

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was your first thought?
I don’t remember looking at myself in the mirror today. Obviously if I did, it wasn’t notable.

2. Do you read while you’re in the bathroom?
Not really in there long enough to even bother to bring anything, so no.

3. What’s a word that rhymes with “fit”?
Skit.

4. Favorite planet?
I’m really fond of the Earth for obvious reasons, but I’ve always been partial to Venus as well.

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list?
P, and that’s because he gives me un squillo when he’s out and about so I can call him from the home phone (much cheaper). Fellow Italian residents, I know you hear me on this one.

6. What is your favorite ring on your phone?
I don’t have anything special, but I do like the tango one.

7. What shirt are you wearing?
Two actually. A long sleeve v-neck in navy blue (3 euro at the local market) and my weekend hoodie (5 euro at the market). Bonus info: the matching pants were also 5 euro. I’m a big spender.

8. What were you doing 20 minutes ago?
Washing dishes.

9. Name the brand of shoes you’re currently wearing?
Some sort of Ugg-like slippers from Australia that P’s aunt sent our way. Comfy as all get out.

10. Bright or Dark Rooms?
Bright if I’m doing something that requires light; dark if I’m doing something that requires dark. I’ll leave it at that.

11. What do you think about the person who posted this survey?
I’m enjoying getting to know her through reading her blog.

12. If you’re in a room with two beds, which one do you sleep in?
The one farthest from the door.

13. What were you doing at exactly midnight last night?
Watching the end of an episode of Lost (Season 2–the one where Locke refuses to press the button so Desmond breaks out the Safety Key).

14. What was your last text message you received on your cell?
Last night from a woman for whom I translated a power point project; I sent her an email but forgot to attach the translation. Duh.

15. How do you like your eggs?
Any which way really, including in purgatory (speaking of Lost…).

16. What’s a word/phrase that you say a lot?
Stereotypical but “Mamma mia!” And also to Luna, “Vuoi uscire?” (Do you want to go out?)

17. Who told you he/she loved you last?
P, this morning.

18. Last furry thing you touched?
Luna balloona.

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days?
If vitamins count, 3. Otherwise, none.

20. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
Even though it’s all digital now, I do have about 5 really old rolls of film that I should get developed before all color is lost.

21. Favorite age you have been so far?
I always thought 24 would be cool, and then it was just OK. I guess I kinda like wherever I am at any given moment.

22. Your worst enemy?
Personally? Can’t think of any. I’m a non-confrontational Libra after all.

23. What wallpaper do you have on your desktop?
The close-up of Luna from this post in block formation (there are 4 of her).

24. What was the last thing you said to someone….
Va bene.

25. If you had to choose between a million dollars or to be able to fly?
You know I’ve never had a flying dream that I can remember? I had one where I sort of hopped from roof to roof, but that’s as close as I’ve gotten. Ahem, gimme the cash.

26. Do you like someone?
I like most people most of the time. Mostly.

27. If you could punch one person in the face, who would it be?
I don’t want to be investigated by the FBI or anything, so I’ll plead the Fifth.

28. What is the closest object to your left foot?
My bag of teaching materials.

29. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be.
I’d like to be able to eat whatever I want and not gain weight or, more importantly, health problems.

30. If one thing about you could always remain the same, what would it be.
My ability to roll with the punches; humor is often involved.

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[tags]memes[/tags]


Michelle KaminskyMichelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived. 

Calabria Guidebook

Calabria travel guide by Michelle Fabio

Recipes

 

Homemade apple butter
Green beans, potatoes, and pancetta
Glazed Apple Oatmeal Cinnamon Muffins
Pasta with snails alla calabrese
Onion, Oregano, and Thyme Focaccia
Oatmeal Banana Craisin Muffins
Prosciutto wrapped watermelon with bel paese cheese
Fried eggs with red onion and cheese
Calabrian sausage and fava beans
Ricotta Pound Cake