Archive for the ‘life in calabria’ Category
weather you like it or not
In case anyone doubts the fickleness of the weather in Calabria, I’m going to show you a little of what it was like here on Thursday, November 1.
From the time I woke up that morning, it had been pouring, buckets and buckets of water, so I hadn’t paid much attention to the windows. But then, just as I was starting to think about lunch, a hint of sun glared through the balcony door.
Literally at that moment, P called me and told me to look outside.
11:45 a.m.:
I’ve seen a lot of rainbows here, but never one this low; indeed, that’s why P had called me–he hadn’t either. And where he was at the time, he was nearly at the start (or end?) of it–my little pot o’ gold!
11:47 a.m.:
To be clear, these views are from my balcony, off to the left. To the right there is the sea, or at least that’s what’s usually there.
11:56 a.m.:
We get a good amount of fog here throughout the fall and winter months, but I’ve never seen this much fog in the daytime. It rolled through quite quickly, though.
11:59 a.m.:
At this point I thought we were finally, finally in for some afternoon sun, and we did have a good couple hours of the stuff, but then I looked out toward where the rainbow had been.
2:24 p.m.:
And it rained the rest of the afternoon and was cloudy and/or rained Friday. As I type this on Saturday morning, there’s plenty of sun and not a cloud in sight, but I’m not placing any bets.
Today I am thankful for:
The sun and rain, the clouds and sky, the hail and snow, the wind and still air, the heat and cold–all of the natural weather elements that make the world go round, help our food to grow, make trees greener, and above all, keep life interesting.
Because who hasn’t gotten caught in the rain? Or the wind? Or the snow? It’s not always fun (although it can be!), but it’s always an experience. You just can’t help but feel alive when you’re getting pelted in the face with hail, can you?
And besides, sometimes it’s good to be reminded that the world does what it wants and we’re just along for the ride. Weather you like it or not. Hah!
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[tags]rainbows, calabria, southern italy, weather, nablopomo, 30 days of thanks[/tags]
Real Ghost Stories…Grab a Flashlight!
My friend Tui of Mental Mosaic has organized a Halloween-themed blog carnival, True Spooks 2011: True Ghost Stories.
Read on...Well I Love a Rainy Night, Such a Beautiful Sight
Ciao! I hope everyone had a nice weekend full of Internet connections!
Yes, we lost contact with the outside world (via computer) again on Sunday morning, and it lasted until yesterday evening–and this morning it has been so frustratingly slow to do anything. I’m not even sure if this is going to post when I’m done, but it’s worth a shot.
To be clear, I’m not complaining because when I called the Internet provider, they told me it’d be fixed by giovedì mattina–Thursday morning. Look at Telecom coming through early! Miracles do happen!
So what caused the outage? Well, they can blame this:
But in reality, we lost the phone and internet before the *big* storms came–and they were big. Huge. Scary in fact, and they lasted most of the day Sunday and yesterday.
No complaints on the rain either as it’s been so very long since we’ve had a good soaking, although I could do without the lightning and thunder. I think the pooches, though trembling, secretly enjoyed it all because it meant plenty of Mommy Lap time–Luna on the upper half, Stella on the lower as we stared off into the fog, clouds, and rain (no television allowed when there’s lightning!).
So, forced to stay inside, we did a little of this:
Which eventually led to this:
Those are pieces of one of our chickens marinated in olive oil, red wine vinegar, and Stubb’s Rosemary-Ginger Spice Rub (sent by my mom) and then basted by P using a brush made of his mother’s dried oregano. Yum!
Great family and food time aside, I also got *a lot* of other things done–finished all the translations that were piled up, completed another couple writing assignments, wrote a handful of blog posts, and ran a bunch of errands (in between the raindrops of course). I haven’t felt so accomplished in weeks!
I love the rain! Especially when it’s followed by this:
And, in case you’re wondering, now we’re back to this:
And how was your weekend?
P.S. Thanks so much for turning the last post into a wonderful discussion! You have no idea how happy it makes me when that happens.
I’m So Vain – I Probably Think This Post Is About Me
Last Friday, I was in the Marina thinking about how long I’d have to wait for a bus to get back up the mountain when I wandered by a hair salon run by the wife of one of P’s friends. I’ve never gone to her and, in fact, always felt a little guilty whenever I saw her because of it.
It so happened that two young guys from the village were getting haircuts there, and one offered me a ride if I wanted to wait. So I waited for them, figuring the bus would take much longer to arrive.
And then I felt guiltier and guiltier about never going there for my haircuts the longer I sat there.
So at the last snip, I worked up all the nerve I had and asked Giovanna if I could make an appointment with her and made a decision on the spot to not only cut, but color. I’ve never colored my hair before (some highlights, yes, but not in years–and not in Italy), but the little white ones were really just starting to annoy me far too much.
Plus my birthday’s coming up, so I thought I’d treat myself to some “me” time and count this as my present to myself.
Now you’re all dying to know how it turned out, right? Well humor me anyway.
Yesterday morning I looked like this:
Now I look like this:
I love the color, love the cut, and now I even have some private English lessons lined up as a result of finally going to see Giovanna. Turns out she wanted to ask me about them the previous day I was there but was too shy to ask. Seems we have at least one thing in common.
And? You want to know how much it set me back? Wash, cut, color, and style (including blowing out my not-so-straight-hair)?
Come on.
Guess.
Thirty euros ($42).
Happy early birthday to me!
what’s cooking wednesday: pasta all’amatriciana
Just in time for our cooler, rainier autumn days, today’s What’s Cooking Wednesday is simple, stick to your ribs goodness–Pasta all’Amatriciana, so named because it hails from a town called Amatrice, outside of Rome.
What follows is our interpretation of this recipe in my house. We use penne instead of the traditional bucatini, but we do use pancetta arrotolata like most recipes for this call for. Oh and we add just a touch of garlic.
What’s pancetta arrotolata you say? Well, it’s just rolled pancetta, and it looks like this:
You can read more about it here, but now I’m going to tell that we, lovers of all things spicy, don’t actually add any of our wonderful peperoncino to this dish–we just buy the spicy pancetta instead. See that reddish orange tint inside the rolls? That’s hot, and by that I mean piccante and not Paris Hilton-y.
As a substitute meat, you can use anything similar–we also prepare this recipe with Calabria’s most famous salami, soppressata, or even capicollo (and then add peperoncino). Just keep it chunky and spicy, and yum.
We’re lucky here in Calabria since its tradition of curing meats dates back to the days when Greeks first colonized this area–we’re talking B.C. So yes, they know what they’re doing, and the results are always fabulous.
For those of you lucky enough to be near an Italian market, do make the effort to seek out some of these meats. They’re great in antipasti and also as ingredients in a wide variety of dishes.
Like many Calabrian-Americans, we always had soppressata in our basement in America–my grandfather (non-Italian!), father, and brother would make them and we’d dig in for a Christmas-time treat. Sliced reeeeally thin with some fresh bread is my favorite. Anyone else?
Interestingly but not surprisingly, the local butcher who provides the spice mix to make the “soupies” as we called them (among Calabrians, “soppressata” becomes “suppressata,” and Americans love to make little nicknames, right?) has origins in Isca, which I wrote about yesterday.
So you see, I was also lucky in America.
Pasta all’Amatriciana
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 garlic clove, diced
100 grams pancetta arrotolata,
unrolled and cut into bite-sized chunks
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
1 can peeled tomatoes
500 grams penne pasta
water and salt to boil pasta
grated pecorino romano cheese to garnish
First put on the water to boil for the pasta, and then chop all your ingredients as described above.Put olive oil in skillet and heat on medium. Add pancetta, and let cook for about five minutes, until the pancetta renders its fat. I know, yum, right?
Then add the onions and cook until translucent. Add garlic and parsley and let cook for another minute or so.
At this point, your water should be boiling, and you can add salt and the pasta to the water (or do this whenever your water *is* boiling after this point).
Now add the tomatoes to the skillet. You can run them through a grinder or roughly chop them first depending on how you like them. You can also add some of the pasta water to thin out the sauce a bit; I usually use about 1/4 cup.Let the sauce simmer for about 1o minutes or until the tomatoes taste done to you. You can add salt, but do so sparingly because the pancetta is salty and you’ve also added salted pasta water.
When the pasta is just short of al dente, remove, strain, and combine well with the completely cooked sauce, still over medium heat.
Once the pasta has absorbed some of the sauce and become fully al dente, remove and serve immediately. Garnish with grated pecorino romano cheese.
A note:
Don’t worry if your timing isn’t exact the first time you make this–it’ll get easier the more you make it, which is only more incentive to keep pancetta in your fridge.
Buon appetito!
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[tags]pasta, pasta all’amatriciana, pancetta, pancetta arrotolata, cooking, recipes, what’s cooking wednesday[/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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