Archive for January, 2007
Love Thursday: One Touch Can Opener
When Karen at Chookoloonks started Love Thursday, which has since moved to only photo form, this is what she had in mind.
Well, I’m taking the concept a little beyond expressions of love to encompass anything and everything that I love, makes me happy, makes my life easier, whatever–something that when I look at it, I feel warm and fuzzy.
And today, I offer you something that I truly love:
Yes, this thing really works the way they say it does. I see some disappointed reviews on Amazon, but I’ve been using it every day for about a month now, and I’ve had zero problems.
You put the One Touch can opener on the can, press the button, and can literally walk away and let it do its thing until it stops–by itself. Then you the lid of the can lifts off with the magnet on the underside of the gadget, and oh my goodness, how I love not struggling with the cheap handheld can openers that I’ve been subjected to here.
And it’s battery-operated, so no power adaptor/converter issues to boot!
But I don’t only love the One Touch for what it does. I also love it for what it represents. I’ve been bitching about the awful can openers here from about the second day I got here, and this here One Touch was in one of my many Christmas boxes from my mother.
Once again, Mom answered the distress call. Big time.
And that’s love folks.
Happy Love Thursday!
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[tags]one touch can opener, love thursday[/tags]
Changing Skies
Yesterday afternoon as our beautiful, sunny January day
was taking a turn for the nast:
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[tags]clouds, skies, calabria, weather, ionian sea, southern italy, stormy weather [/tags]
What’s Cooking Wednesday: Linguine agli Scampi
Last week I teased your tastebuds by suggesting that maybe P’s linguine agli scampi would be this week’s What’s Cooking Wednesday featured dish.
And here we are.
This is a very easy recipe and looks pretty classy when it’s all finished too–as well it should for the price of prawns these days. And probably all days, but I only know about these, so I’m limiting the generalization.
Linguine agli scampi (Linguine with prawns)
(serves 4-6)
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 6 whole, peeled cloves garlic
- 8 cherry tomatoes
- 20 prawns
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 1 1/2 tablespoons parsley
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- peperoncino to taste
- linguine
- salted water to boil linguine
1. As this sauce only takes about a half hour from start to finish, go ahead and put your water on for the linguine before you start doing anything else. Wash and cut tomatoes in half and put aside.
2. Put the olive oil in a pan on medium heat and sauté garlic until just turning light golden brown.
3. Now here it gets a little complicated. Put everything else in the pan. Yes, add the tomatoes, prawns, wine, salt, peperoncino, and most of the parsley (save some to garnish).
4. Cover and let simmer for about 20-30 minutes.
As you can see, we cook the prawns as they are, heads and all. If you’d rather shell them first, by all means, snap off their heads, devein if you must (shouldn’t that really be a hyphenated word?), and get on with it. The recipe is still going to go pretty much the same, but be careful not to overcook the fish (thereby completely losing your prawns in the sauce).
5. So while the sauce is just about ready, drop your linguine in the boiling water and cook till al dente. In the meantime, take the prawns from the pan and put aside. When the linguine is done, add it to the pan (the sauce will be thin) and mix well.
6. Serve each dish with a few prawns and fresh parsley on top.
Buon appetito!
Happy New Year! Buon Anno!
OK, let’s try this again.
I depressed even myself with the last post, but since then, I figured out why I couldn’t see my squares. Something to do with needing RPG coding to agree with Firefox (I sound at least a bit tech savvy, don’t I?). While I was in there fooling with my template, I decided to play around with my squares too.
So did anyone happen to notice that my squares are now textured?
And an added bonus! I’m going to try to make the best of a slow connection…and make it earn its keep by posting my darn pics. I’ve already been waiting for about an hour for these babies to get into Photobucket, but I’ve been keeping busy doing other things–like preparing for some sort of oral exam tomorrow for a translating/interpreting job.
Why yes, I do feel awful. And yes, I did call to tell the interviewers that. They don’t care. In their defense, it’s a job with a governmental branch, so this is like a pool of candidates sort of thing. I didn’t think they’d reschedule the whole shebang just for me, but it was worth a try.
But more on that tomorrow after I accidentally infect the interviewers at the health agency.
And, by the way, it’s now hailing outside. Yippee!
Now I present to you the last few hours of 2006 spent eating, drinking, and laughing in a hole in a medieval village in Italy. One of P’s friends used to have an enoteca (wine bar/shop) below one of the town’s bars, but now he just uses it for get-togethers like the one we had the other night.
I *love* the atmosphere here–it’s underground and yet so warm from the textured yellow walls and earthy accents. Don’t mind the “Terranova” bag, though. I didn’t think it was appropriate to ask the hostess to move it just for a picture (even if it was to be seen on the Internet).
To kick off the evening, a toast among the boys;
I’ve never seen an Italian woman join in these things.
Luckily I’m not really Italian.
Salute!
Then most of these boys left and it was just close friends and family around the table.
You can tell it’s early because there’s not even wine on the table.
But it arrived soon enough.
As did the antipasto:
tuna caught by Mario (guy in the blue sweater above on the left);
fresh pecorino cheese;
capicollo;
and, my favorite as you can tell from the portion size,
octopus salad.
And il vino flowed.
Then came the first dish–baked, stuffed cannelloni and shells.
And finally the traditional New Year’s Eve good luck dish–cotechino and lentils.
Please don’t ask what the cotechino is made of.
Then I’d be forced to look it up, and I know I don’t really want to know what I ingested.
Just know that I immediately felt the “luck” coming on.
Um, then a couple hours later, it was midnight.
Buon 2007!
And that’s all you’re going to get photographic evidence of.
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[tags]new year’s eve, calabria, cotechino, lentils [/tags]
And So Begins 2007…
I’m really trying to look at the positive here. But it’s getting difficult.
As I’m writing this, I’m not online and haven’t been for two days. Why? Because sometime on New Year’s Eve our phone service went out—which means no dial-up connection to the Internet either.
So, we’ve had no phone. For New Year’s Day. For all the calls and Happy New Years that we would’ve exchanged with family and friends (cell phone calls are expensive!). For connecting with the blogging world to which I’ve become so attached in this last month.
Incidentally, the first day of the new year ended up being the first day I didn’t post since I began my blog.
Is that a good start to 2007 or what?
On the positive side? It’s not just me without the phone; the entire village is without service. No, I’m not wishing misery on others. This is a sheer numbers game. The fact that the entire mountaintop can complain, means, theoretically, that Telecom should get to the problem sooner, right?
Humor me.
The other thing bringing me down as the new year rises is that I’m sick. Dreaded influenza sick. I thought it was just a little cold and then yesterday afternoon I got all achy and high feverish, which, according to page 93 of the issue of Family Circle my mom sent me, means real live flu and not just cold.
So, my friends, I’m achy and Internetless.
Happy 2007 y’all!
Of course since you’re reading this, we now have our phone back. Yes, the dial-up connection is so S to the LOW that I could handwrite this and mail it to everyone before it gets posted, but at least it’s something.
I also had plans of lightening the mood a bit with pics of our New Year’s Eve as we partied in ignorant bliss not knowing that we’d be cut off from the outside world for days, but dial-up says unh-uh. Not now.
And another thing–I’m not sure why I can’t see my cute little squares at the top of the page as everything on my template is exactly as I left it a few days ago when I *could* see the cute little squares, but I don’t have the energy to play right now.
I think it’s best if I just go watch The House of Carters or something. Those Crazy Carters are always good for a laugh (I learned yesterday).
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[tags]telecom italia[/tags]
Michelle 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.
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