I'm writing this post from inside the restaurant of the Ca'Lattis Agritourismo. Carla is snoozing in one of the two cushioned checkered chairs by the screen door, but blearily jumps up every few minutes or so to check on the marmalade she's got bubbling away in the kitchen. In the two and a half weeks I've been here, I don't think that woman has ever had a moment of uninterrupted rest. I suppose that's what happens when one is fortunate/unfortunate enough to have one's job be an extension of one's home-life.
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| This is where I take my afternoon siesta |
The afternoons have been swelteringly hot lately, and as the midday meal is the most abundant (and irresistibly good) of the day, Anthony and I spend a good two hours after lunch in a vegetative, heat/food induced stupor. He goes off to collapse in his caravan, and I either take a nap next to Carla in the second checkered chair, or wile away my brainfog by writing some rather abysmal addition to one of my many plays that are all "just about there." I probably should be off napping in my caravan, but the screens meant to keep the offensive mosquitoes out of my cluttered little trailer find it much more convenient to rest on my pillow than on the windows where they belong, thus letting in the swarm of oh-so-eager blood thirty mongrels lurking just outside. My description may sound a bit over the top, but I do believe I'm underselling the mendacity of the typical Italian mosquito. In all my years of eluding the loathsome buggers, I've never been quite so outwitted. These mosquitoes are called "tiger mosquitoes", and they have all the speed, sneakiness, and devious cunning of the animal after which they are so aptly named. They are completely unavoidable. During my morning runs, they would keep pace with me, forcing me to always run just a bit faster. During yoga, they'd always land on the part of my body where the particular pose I was practicing prohibited me from promptly swatting them. They wait by the door of my caravan, in the shower, and the multiple bites on my ass are proof as to their exquisite timing when it comes to stalking me on the toilet. They also seem to be able to turn on and off the characteristic high-pitched "Bzzzzz" at their leisure. They turn off the volume during the day, thus becoming an absolutely lethal, unavoidable enemy, but at night... at night they torment me with the damning "Bzzzzz" that will not let me drift off into the sweet slumber I so crave after a long day of scooping poo and schlepping snails. In the cover of darkness, they "Bzzzzz" away, knowing full well that my mad, crazed flailings are in vain and delighting in my miserable predicament.
I hope that the mosquitoes in Ireland are as stupid as those in Spain and as few as those in Antarctica.
The workload over the past few days has been lovely. It's leveled out at a happy medium of more than I did with Lesly, but less than l did the first few days of Anthony's placement here. Also, as Laura has admitted me into her glorious wonderland of a kitchen, I've been relegated to chopping and washing tasty fruits, vegetables, and seafood as opposed to wading through six inches of duck muck and digging out fenceposts. And while I didn't complain about the fenceposts, I'm very, VERY happy to be a part of the bustling kitchen that always smells of meat, herbs, and has a bucket of tantalizing fresh tomatoes at my disposal.
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Laura's fried fish. Straight from the Po. |
Anthony and I worked a very late night on Saturday, so we were allowed all of Sunday to enjoy ourselves. We took the opportunity to bike an easy fifteen miles on two of Piero's old, rickety, knee destroying bicycles to a local beach. Laura packed us a lunch for the outing; sandwiches for Anthony and tomatoes, meat, and fruit for me (which I ate promptly upon arrival). I started reading one of Mark Twain's travel memoirs, and Anthony headed out to the sparkling, warm, gentle water of the Mediterranean. After reading a few witty chapters of Innocents Abroad, I proceeded to nap for far too long and soaked up a great deal too much sun. I returned to Ca'Lattis in such a state of blistering sunburn that Laura called me a "Pepperoni", to which I hung my "rosso" head and dolefully resoponded "Si. Tropo sole. Sono pepperoni."
A few more things about being in Italy:
The television is bad. Very, very bad. The sexism of this country shines through the scantily clad women hosting the many nonsensical Italian gameshows. Also, Italians are infatuated with the idea of the American West, so there is a constant stream of bad American Westerns playing in the background of every major meal; making me long for the first few days of my stay here when the television was broken. These soap opera-esque Westerns are trumped only by an important soccer game (which has caused me to become a bigger soccer fan than ever before). As the Western films have been dubbed in Italian, their silliness is exponentially increased. I spent the other night watching a drama dripping John Travolta wax on in Italian. It was pretty dreadful.
Since I last wrote, Anthony has earned Laura's approval to enter the kitchen. He demonstrated the greatness or his desire to join the culinary team by slicing open two buckets of fish at their gills and slurping their guts out through these tiny gill holes, in a manner reminiscent of some ancient Egyption mummification technique. This method of gutting leaves the head attached to the gutless fish, so you can pop it into the fryer as is for an aesthetically pleasing whole fish. Anthony did a marvelous job of this, but regardless of Laura's approval, Piero refuses to let Anthony into the kitchen whenever guests are present. Apparently he doesn't want the guests thinking that just anyone can go in and out of his kitchen. This strikes me a little odd, because he has absolutely no issue with me being in the kitchen when guests are present. But I'm a lady, so I guess that's where I belong.
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| Fresh from the Po |
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| Anthony earning the keys to the kitchen |
I have now eaten chicken feet, some strange chicken stomach muscle, chicken heart, snails, and cortecchino (a sausage made out of a pig's nasty bits). If only my fifteen year old squeamish self could see me now.
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| Boiled chicken feet |
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| Snails, polenta, and sausage wrapped with rabbit |
The music here is still very American. The only time I get to hear any Italian music is when I'm in the kitchen with Laura. If I go to any public place, I'm bombarded with a stream of bad American country and pop such as Brittney Spears. At least they haven't found a way to dub it yet.
The animals have more rights here in Italy than they do in the States. This means that pounds can't just euthanize animals willy-nilly, but it also means that neutering your pet is a more difficult process. The abundance of slinking cats and scampering kittens in every corner of Agritourismo Ca'Lattis is ample evidence of these animals' rights to keep their reproductive organs intact.
Conversation here... is always interesting. When Lesly was here, we'd sit around after dinner and have rather tedious, lengthy conversations via google translator. When Anthony arrived, we had tedious, somewhat awkward conversations via Anthony. Now that Anthony is gone (he left yesterday afternoon -- I've spent far too much time on this post) I've resorted to a lot of mime and strange noises. It's like a big game of charades all the time, punctuated by the few words of Italian I painstakingly butcher now and then. I'm much better at listening than speaking, though, and can occasionally grasp the underlying theme of entire conversations. I can understand Laura better than Carla, Carla better than Piero, Piero better than Angela, Angela better than Aldi, and Aldi... well, I can't understand Aldi at all. Where it gets a little comical is when I stop just listening and we all try to have a conversation around the table. Carla can understand me better than Laura, Laura understands me better than Piero, Piero understands me better than Angela, and Angela and Aldi don't understand me at all. Piero will say something to me that I don't understand at all. He'll turn to Carla and ask her to repeat it to me. Carla will try to repeat/translate Piero's bit of conversation, and I'll still be horribly confused. Carla will turn to Laura and ask her to try. Laura takes a deep breath, asks Piero just what it was he wanted to say again, and uses very slow, simple words to communicate Piero's comment. I'll understand something of what Laura said and try to respond. Laura won't understand my response, so she'll turn to Carla and ask what I said. Carla will ask me to repeat myself, and then she'll translate what I said to Piero.
Who never seems to be quite satisfied with the outcome.
I've also learned that Italian is a VERY diverse language. Anthony studied Italian in college and lived in Rome for half a year. He speaks fluent Italian, but still had a hell of a time understanding Laura. Why? Because of all the dialects. When I think of dialects, I think of different regions of a country wherein pronunciations for various words differ. When Italians think of dialects, they think of whole words that are completely different. Rovigo has its own dialect, and while being similar to Italian, is most definitely not Italian. Laura has lived in Taglio del Po all of her life, so her dialect is very strong. Thus, it came as a bit of a shock to me that I'm not even learning Italian during my stay here. I'm learning the Rovigo dialect, which has more French mixed in than standard (if there is such a thing) Italian language.
The good Lord has been having a hearty laugh at my expense, as of late. When I flew into Italy, figs were at the top of my list of things to try to eat all the time. I had all sorts of grand plans regarding finding a fig tree with its overburdened branches overhanging someone's fence and sneaking off every morning to breakfast on a few of the succulent fruits. Alas, while I was able to enjoy some superb figs with Svetlana in Bologna, I have most certainly not been able to find any figs overhanging a local fence. There were no figs at the supermercato, no figs in the fields, and not even a smidgen of fig ice-cream to be found at Roxy bar. I was quite devastated by this unforseen shortage, and for the first few days of my visit, I refused to face the seemingly undeniable fact of there just not being any figs in this part of the world. After two and a half weeks, however, I resigned myself to the fate of a figless stay on an Italian farm. But, the good Lord loves a laugh, so a couple of days after I'd stopped looking under the leaves of every tree in Taglio del Po (about five, give or take), some tourists bike through with an entire basket filled to the brim with figs. Unfortunately, these irreverent hoodlums had left the basket in the back of their sunbaked car for an entire afternoon, thus spoiling the entire batch. I was promptly comissioned to carry the dripping basket of fermenting figs to the ducks. To their credit, the ducks did demonstrate the proper amount of enthusiasm upon receiving such a delectable treat.
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| Fichi! |
The next day, Carla's parents came back from their stay in Padua with Carla's sister. They pull into the driveway, pop open the back, and what should be sitting atop the precariously stacked suitcases but TWO baskets of figs? I was elated. Surely I'd be able to eat at least one of these bit sized pieces of heaven. So I waited for the figs to make their appearance with dinner, but was dreadfully disappointed by a figless fruit salad. I have never been so angry with a canteloupe in all my life. The next morning, though... the next morning, I got what was coming to me. I appeared for capucchino at eight thirty, per use. I went to the back of the restaurant and grabbed my breakfast apple, eyeing the seductive baskets of figs longfully, but refusing to steal the forbidden fruit. Carla brought me my capucchino, saw the lone "pomo" upon my plate, and asked, "No fichi?"
To which I promptly bolted to the back of the restaurant and grabbed four. I ate two on the way to the table, so when I sat down Carla thought that I had only grabbed two. She said, "Due?" and headed back into the back room for more. She brought out an entire platter of figs and set it in front of me with the maternal word "Mangi!", to which I've never so readily complied. However, I ate far too many fichi that morning. And the next morning. I ate so many fichi that I suffered from a terrible migraine headache last night and had to head to bed early.
But I think God laughed enough, because today has been absolutely idyllic.
I woke up bright and early and biked down to Medea's (the cheese woman) house at seven o'clock. The weather was perfect, the dogs didn't follow me, and I actually felt quite refreshed after my migraine induced full night's rest. Laura met me at Medea's at seven thirty, but the loquacious cheese woman's brother had just finished milking the sheep, so she told us to come back in an hour. While we waited for Medea to cook her brother breakfast, Laura and I biked the three hundred meters to her tidy apartment, where she proceeded to make me a capucchino and introduce me to her vegetables, ducks, and meat grinding/sausage making machines.
Warm sheep ricotta and whey is a delicious drink, by the way.
When Medea found out that I'd be WWOOFing in Ireland after Italy, she gave me five euros and insisted that I send her a postcard. I told her that five euros was far too much for a postcard, but she refused to give me change, telling me to buy a postcard for her and a cappuccino for myself.
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| Carla and Laura discussing the price of mozzarella |
Have I mentioned how much I love Italians?
I ate the figs on the bike ride home, fed the animals, scoured the garden for melons, tomatoes, and eggplants, and then spent the rest of the morning helping Laura in the kitchen. I'm now drinking an espresso and writing you as I wait for my abundant lunch to settle before I practice yoga.
It's been a wonderful day.
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