Archive for the ‘life in calabria’ Category
Picking Truffles in Calabria: Another Homeless Smurf
On Saturday afternoon, P and his friends went hunting tartufi (truffles) in the mountains that surround us. Other than a ton of rainbows, the sprouting of delicious mushrooms is another great side effect to all the rain we’ve been getting. While normal funghi hunting, e.g., for porcini, occurs in the fall and winter, our black truffles are just getting good around this time.
Ah, yes, I should point out that we only have black truffles down here as the white, expensive, sacred ones are further north in more famous white truffle country.
So how did we do? Well, no luck on the tartufi this time, but P did find a rather unique ‘shroom that he brought home for me. Have I mentioned he’s always bringing me something?
This is actually a porcino, well out of season, and just cute as a button (about that small as well). So if you want to start up a collection or something, it would seem that we’ve just created another homeless Smurf*.
And you thought Gargamel was nasty.
*In Italian, the Smurfs are called “I Puffi.”
From Wikipedia: Italian: puffi (singular: puffo), the name has been reinvented from scratch because in Italian language the “schtroumpf” or (in Italian spelling strumpf) reminds speakers of the Italian word “stronzo,” literally meaning ‘piece of excrement.’ Note that the dialect word ‘strunz‘ is even closer to ‘strumpf.’ The fantasy name “puffi” is derived from the word “buffi” (singular: buffo, as in opera buffo) a word meaning at same time “funny” and “strange.”
what’s cooking wednesday: rosemary rabbit and roasted potatoes
Let me start by saying I know rabbit probably isn’t a common dish for many of you, but we eat it all the time as P’s parents raise the little guys for food. You could easily do this recipe with chicken, though, so please don’t be put off by the bun’.
This week’s What’s Cooking Wednesday will mark a first around here as I decided to post an entire meal–mostly because once I put a plate together last night, it looked so darn good, I couldn’t resist.
So, here we have rabbit with rosemary, roasted potatoes, garlic bread, and salad with red onion. Let’s take it from the top with all the ingredients you’ll need for everything.
1 rabbit cut into pieces
6 medium potatoes (serves 2-3 people)
salad greens
6 cloves garlic
olive oil
rosemary
white wine vinegar
salt
black pepper
peperoncino
1 red onion for salad (optional)
Oven-Roasted Potatoes
First preheat the oven to about 400°F (205°C). Peel and cut the potatoes into wedges, and put them in a baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and season them with black pepper, peperoncino, a few sprigs of rosemary, and a generous amount of salt. Don’t be afraid of the seasonings here; it takes a lot to overseason potatoes (except with the peperoncino, depending on how hot you like them).
Put them in the oven, and just let them do their thing. Every now and again, give them a shake and turn them around a bit. They should take about an hour and fifteen minutes to roast, and if you want them crispy on the outside but soft in the middle (how I like them but P doesn’t), it’ll take a little longer. The other option to shorten cooking time is to raise the heat from the get-go.
Let the potatoes sit for a few minutes before you eat as they are extremely, extremely hot out of the oven. Bet you knew that.
Rabbit with Rosemary
If the rabbit (or chicken) isn’t cut into pieces, that needs to be done first. P’s in charge of all things bunny around here, so he does this, and I have no tips to offer. Although a lot of people marinate the rabbit, we don’t, and I really like it better this way because you taste more of the rabbit and less of the seasonings, but to each her own.
Put a generous amount of olive oil (5 tablespoons) in a frying pan and sauté 4 garlic cloves on medium heat until lightly golden brown and then remove.* Add rabbit pieces, seasoning with black pepper, peperoncino, salt, and rosemary sprigs. Once one side of the bunny is browning, flip, and let the other side brown as well.
Turn down the heat to low, add about a half cup of white wine vinegar, and let rabbit simmer for another fifteen to twenty minutes or so, or until the inside is no longer pink. If your rabbit is sucking in all the liquid too quickly, add some hot water, but only if absolutely necessary.
*For a special treat, add some pancetta/bacon to the garlic at the beginning; this adds a great smoky taste.
Note that the entire rabbit portion of the meal will probably take about forty-five minutes, so you can try to time it with the potatoes accordingly.
Garlic Bread
About five minutes before you will eat, you should put the bread in the oven. You can use a fancy broiler if you have, but I just used the heat from the potatoes and set the oven on its lowest setting for the bread.
Use thin slices of preferably Italian bread, and smear on a little butter or drizzle a little olive oil, depending on your taste. Peel a couple of garlic cloves and cut in half; use the halves to rub onto the bread.
Put in the oven, and remove when toasted to your liking–a light golden brown is usually good.
Salad with Red Onion
OK, you probably don’t need instructions here, but for the sake of a complete meal, I’ll describe what I did.
Wash the salad greens and tear into bite size chunks. Cut a red onion into chunks and mix with greens. For the dressing, drizzle olive oil and white wine vinegar on top and then add salt and a pinch of sugar. Toss salad and serve.
And there you have an entire meal, ready in about an hour and a half from start to finish.
Buon appetito!
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[tags]rabbit recipes, rosemary, roasted potatoes, potatoes, salad, red onions, garlic bread, cooking, what’s cooking wednesday, recipes[/tags]
top o’ the morning to ya!
As I type this at 2:30 in the afternoon, it’s raining. Hard. Again.
But it was an absolutely gorgeous morning, and for the first time in a (too) long while, I went out and about and took some photos.
First, some of Luna Balloona.
Chillin’ in the piazza.
At attention.
Her response to “Work it girl! Bring the sexy back!”
Also known as the over-the-shoulder-come-hither.
Now, other nature.
A precocious fig tree that already has most of its leaves; village in background.
And, last but certainly not least, the first wild daisy that I’ve seen this year.
Even when it’s raining, may you always walk in sunshine.
–paraphrased Irish proverb
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[tags]dogs, figs, daisies, flowers, calabria, southern italy[/tags]
a different kind of malocchio
I’ve written about the curse of malocchio, but yesterday at 4 a.m., I experienced a much different kind of “bad eye.” I woke up with a literal one that was tearing, burning, itching, and just being a big ole pain.
Needless to say, I couldn’t fall back asleep–did you notice that I posted at 5:30 a.m. yesterday? Yeah, you probably won’t be seeing that again unless the eye strikes back.
So after posting, I woke up P for work. He asked if I wanted to go down the mountain to the doctor. Nah, I said, we’ll see how it progresses.
I don’t like the doctor, but I really hate going here, where it can take hours of sitting among a bunch of sickies before I’m seen only to get news that I could’ve gotten at the pharmacy, where the pharmacist diagnoses you and sells you whatever he thinks you need. No thanks.
A few minutes after P left for work, he returned and told me that he had two different volunteers in the piazza that would take me to the doctor if I wanted. Again, no. Let’s just wait and see, I said.
So once I was sure the pharmacist had arrived in the village, I ventured out for some medical advice; he usually rolls in around 9:30, but to be safe I waited until 10. And wouldn’t you know? A line of people.
I, of course, kept my sunglasses on, so I got even more stares than I normally would, as oddly enough, young people don’t often hang out in the pharmacy in a village where the average age is somewhere around 65. After a few minutes and a gasp from the pharmacist at how bad my eye looked, I got some drops (the famous collirio for fellow expats) and was on my way.
And then more fun began.
First I ran into P’s sister-in-law who diagnosed me as having pink eye, which I had thought was a possibility as well, but she seemed particularly concerned because “My how your face is swollen! You look terrible!”
Then the clerk in the tobacco shop (needed to get tissues) seconded that emotion, and told me (in a speech that lasted no less than 15 minutes) that her two daughters had just gotten over pink eye.
Alrighty then. Moving on the grocery store, which is about a ten second walk down the street.
On the way, I was stopped by three different elderly women asking about my eye. I was wearing sunglasses, by the way, so they hadn’t actually seen a problem, but the word had clearly gotten out.
And then inside the grocery store, the clerk also diagnosed me with pink eye, although another customer thought I had just gotten something in it, like a mosquito, he said. I hadn’t thought of the mosquito angle, so I thanked him for his ingenuity.
The morning was rounded out by a phone call from P’s mom (who doesn’t live in the village, but rather down the mountain) asking me if I wanted to go to the doctor. Again, I resisted the invitation, and I didn’t even think it was strange that she knew I had an eye issue.
Instead, I squeezed some drops into my eye, causing ridiculous burning for a few seconds and finally some relief, and then called the school to tell them I wouldn’t be teaching today. They, incidentally, hadn’t heard of the Great Eye Debacle yet, so it was good I called.
More drops and many cold compresses later, the eye was mostly back to normal by yesterday evening–much to the relief of the village, which sent some representative questioners this morning when I took Luna for a walk.
As for the eye, I’m not sure if it was a quickly traveling virus or even, say, a mosquito, but it seems to have passed, and I am left with only photographic reminders of all the annoyance. Because of the horrible pain, I was up for the sunrise yesterday, and that didn’t turn out to be a bad consolation prize.*
Unfortunately the weather turned cloudy and rainy soon thereafter, but you wouldn’t know it from the way the day started.
This from the balcony:
And this from my kitchen window as the sun traveled through the sky:
*Excuse the crookedness factor please. I was only working with one good eye, you know, and even that wasn’t so good since I didn’t have my contacts in. I’m virtually blind with uncorrected vision.
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[tags]eye problems, sunrises, calabria, life in calabria[/tags]
Love Thursday: Flowers Dried with Love
I’ve read that it’s bad luck to have dried flowers hanging around the house because they are a symbol of death–although that idea seems to be eroding a bit, proving that even ancient Chinese philosophies can be guilty of old wives’ tales.
Maybe I’m taking a risk, but I love flowers in any form, and I don’t see any reason why you can’t still enjoy them for what they have become.
Overlooking my house’s only staircase is this wrought iron structure. I started hanging bunches of flowers on it about three years ago, although there still aren’t very many bouquets. This is because most of the flowers I receive, buy, or pick can’t be dried as they’re too fragile, but see those yellow ones? Those were my very first International Women’s Day mimosa.
And although it’d be romantic to say that the big bunch of roses in the upper right corner were from P to mark some special occasion, it’d also be a lie. P’s more of a pick-flowers-on-the-go kind of guy, which suits me just fine–I don’t do well with fresh roses as I’m slightly allergic (my mom is full allergic). Plus I’m more of a wildflowers kind of gal anyway.
The roses you see were actually found in a rubbish bin near one of this village’s thirteen churches. Only one of the churches still operates regularly, but for every church, there is at least one woman who opens it up weekly, cleans it, and puts in fresh flowers, candles, prayer cards, etc.
When I saw those roses, still mostly alive although admittedly past their prime, outside one of the smallest and best hidden churches, I marveled at how much care goes into beautifying something that only one other Being sees–that one other Being being the whole point of having the church.
And the little bouquet of red in the middle? In this village, we have many immigrants from Africa and Colombia as well as Kurds from Turkey and Iraq. Just after I arrived came Helen, a nine-year-old Ethiopian girl who had come here with all the men in her family; at that time, there were no other immigrant girls or women (although now there are, as many have rejoined their families).
Both of us hungry for some female companionship, we forged a friendship, taking walks, picking wildflowers, drawing (I keep a stash of colored pencils for children guests, well, and me), and learning Italian together–she much faster than I. One day when I answered a knock at my door, I opened to only fresh air. Then I looked down and saw a small bunch of roses lying on the doorstep. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Helen’s head popping back behind the corner.
When I was thinking of a Love Thursday post, I thought of these dried flowers and how even though some may simply think of them as dead and ready for the rubbish bin, I keep them as reminders of times past–good and bad, but mostly good.
Either way, every bunch has a story.
Only as I was taking this photo did I realize that there happens to be a big heart in the middle of the iron structure, so maybe (hopefully) even under Feng Shui principles, that counteracts the death vibes.
Yes, of course I had noticed the heart there before, but you know how sometimes things around you become so commonplace that you don’t appreciate their uniqueness anymore?
Guilty.
But I like to think I’m getting better.
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
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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