Archive for the ‘life in calabria’ Category
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]
Operation Sky TV: Completed!
This morning I watched Will & Grace.
In English.
For the first time in three years.
Then I watched The Gilmore Girls, or as they call it here, Una Mamma per Amica. And now I’m watching some Ben Affleck Christmas film.
I’m finding that the voices I used to find so familiar now sound a bit strange.
Must be…all that English! Woohoo!
Now, is it wrong that I’m rethinking our New Year’s Eve plans because I’d rather be home with my Sky TV?
I know this probably isn’t very exciting for non-expats, but for those who have been or are in my shoes, you know what I’m talking about. I don’t plan on abusing my Sky TV privileges (after at least a few days of gluttony), but it’s nice to have choices.
To put this in perspective, let me describe what my television experience was like only yesterday:
There are 6 main Italian channels, three owned by RAI and three owned by the Former Prime Arsehole Minister Silvio Berlusconi. To say that these channels are overrun with game shows featuring scantily clad “dancers” is just the sad, offensive truth. And to point out that both sets of channels have extremely political slants as to what is shown on the news and other journalistic programs is a gross understatement.
There are occasionally decent movies, but a good six times out of ten they are blacked out so we can’t see them anyway. And then there’s the fact that they showed Legends of the Fall on Christmas night. But we’ve been through that.
Other programming includes political and soccer/calcio debating shows–sometimes together in the same discussion, always loud and obnoxious. The art of letting one person speak at a time and then waiting for a response is not practiced on RAI, Canale 5, or Italia Uno. And then there’s all the soccer games, many of which are blacked out anyway.
On the other hand, I must be fair. I do give props to basic cable’s travel and nature programs. They aren’t National Geographic or Discovery, but they’re not bad. I’ve learned about many little-known Italian locations and a lot of Italian history because of these. And Canale 5 does a few “fiction” shows that I like, such as RIS, which I mentioned yesterday.
But the biggest benefit to having only 6 channels all in Italian was that it *really* helped improve my language skills. Without Italian personalities like Paolo Bonolis and Maria De Filippi (oh, I’ll still be watching C’è Posta Per Te and Amici even though Maria kinda scares me), I just might be speaking Italian like Paris Hilton.
And let’s not forget that by watching only Italian-language television, I was truly immersed in a major part of the culture; I wouldn’t even know who Paolo and Maria are if I wasn’t forced by RAI and Berlusconi to bring them into my world. That’d be like an American not knowing Rosie O’Donnell from Oprah. Unthinkable, I know.
Quite honestly, without this invaluable cultural knowledge, I don’t think I’d ever truly feel a part of what’s going on around here. For better or worse, television plays a big role in many cultures, and Italy is no exception. In fact, television is often one of the only things around which I can build a conversation–especially with those who would rather discuss how to clean my stove than whether gay marriages should be sanctioned by the government.
Ah, bridging the great cultural divide one satellite dish at a time.
So, in sum, I don’t regret that I’ve gone three years without hearing Larry King’s voice (which I did finally hear this morning as CNN reran his interview with the late President Gerald Ford) as it made me the expat I am today. No doubt about it–drowning in Italian television helped me grow. But now I’m ready for Animal Planet, The History Channel, all the Fox stations, and, oh, so much more.
Welcome to my world, Sky TV. Baby girl’s all grows up.
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[tags]sky tv[/tags]
A Virtual Tour of Badolato, Calabria
Why yes I do happen to have some photos of my village. Thanks for asking!
From a photo-taking point in the piazza:
The main street, or as we say, Il Corso:
La piazza:
A cute building on the piazza that I think would be perfect for an Internet café:
Above the piazza:
More interesting photos to appear here periodically.
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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