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Posts Tagged ‘pasta’

Buona Sera

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on June 3, 2024| 9 Comments »

We are finally here in Italy, touring the country again with Marco and Claudio, but this time from their home in Viareggio. We awaken to church bells and cafe Americano in the garden. Flowers are blooming amid buzzing Vespas and even the sidewalks are arranged like quilts. A baby girl, Bianca, was born next door the day before we arrived and so her front door is festooned with pink ribbon.

We stroll just a few blocks to the Ligurian Sea where the sand is not too hot, yet. Only the Pumpkin has jumped in the gentle waves. We visit ancient cities and discover small, Bronze Age statues of people in a province of Lucca. Castle walls surround this whole town in Tuscany, as if to say we value every one of our people, not just royalty. Art is everywhere.

Did you know that because of the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), Jews brought the tomato to Italy?

Of course we are learning to cook the traditional food. Yesterday we made green lasagna noodles with two different sauces – a Bolognese and a Bechamel. The grands are enjoying the desserts, tiramisu and bignes, like profiteroles only better. Today Bob and I finally ordered a pizza for lunch on the Promenade, but it was like no other with fresh prosciutto and funghi.

If I were to define happiness, it would be now, this time with my whole family. Watching the Bug fill tiny ravioli while the Pumpkin works the dough through a pasta machine. Sitting on the sofa with Pietro, the truffle/rescue dog, and discussing design with Kiki over an Aperol. Walking in the rain with the Bride and Groom, and suddenly the Rocker takes my hand.

And Bob, forever mi amore, celebrating today our 45th Wedding Anniversary by doing laundry and caring for me. This cold I brought with me has turned into an infection. It’s OK. It’s life, I guess even this virus wants to survive in this beautiful country.

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Being Afraid

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on October 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »

It’s Halloween. Some people like going through haunted houses, dressing up with ghoulish makeup, and tricking you into handing out candy. Perfectly normal women become sexy French maids. Not me. I won’t watch horror movies or anything with zombies. In fact, I was watching a trailer with Ralph Fiennes in LA that caught me off guard – what appeared to be a cooking contest turned into something else entirely. I closed my eyes.

Did I say LA? Yes, Bob and I took a short, stealth trip out West to see the Rocker and Aunt Kiki. We flew in to see their finished home perched on a hill. It was so sweet to sit and talk, watch Cooper’s hawks gliding above us, and play backgammon. We didn’t Go Go GO! Instead, Bob taught them how to make pasta from scratch. I found myself looking around, at their beautiful home, at the amazing life they are building together in California, and catching my breath.

Kiki came home with her studio’s new coffee table book, so I immediately ordered mine. The living room on the cover is divinely inspired…. “Shamshiri: Interiors.” I’m lucky to have such an outstanding designer daughter on speed dial! Then we went for a seaview walk hike and I saw my first wild coyote.

The coyote is a medium-sized member of the dog family that includes wolves and foxes. With pointed ears, a slender muzzle, and a drooping bushy tail, the coyote often resembles a German shepherd or collie. Coyotes are usually a grayish brown with reddish tinges behind the ears and around the face but coloration can vary from a silver-gray to black. The tail usually has a black tip. Eyes are yellow, rather than brown like many domestic dogs. Most adults weigh between 25-35 pounds…”

https://urbancoyoteresearch.com/coyote-info/general-information-about-coyotes

It actually did look like a skinny wolf. I wasn’t afraid of the coyote, but I understood why my son’s cats must stay inside. They are predators and usually hunt rodents and rabbits, not people. You’re supposed to make a lot of noise if you see one, and indeed this guy looked at us, turned around and slowly sashayed away. I could picture his text bubble: “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

We’re back in Nashville and luckily I bought tons of candy before we left. Our new/old house is in a neighborhood of young families. I didn’t count last year, but I hope I don’t run out of treats tonight. There’s a skeleton waving from my front porch rocking chair and that’s the extent of my spooky decorating skills this year. After a week that’s seen another mass shooting in Maine of all places, and more and more anti-semitic rhetoric on social media I’m feeling enraged – but I guess that’s better than fear.

I will not let fear dictate my behavior.

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The Family Food Issue

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on June 21, 2023| 2 Comments »

While Grannie and Grampie Camp was in full swing, I discovered that our progeny do not have any food allergies… or peculiarities. In fact, they eat anything and everything with gusto. One day Bob thought our sage was looking big and beautiful, so he put on his my apron to make pasta (from scratch) with Brown Butter Sage Sauce. This is a recipe we’ve repeated time and time again since traveling to Tuscany. Mind you, it’s not written down anywhere – Marco and Claudio must store millions of menus in their minds!

“It’s a matter of timing,” Bob said “you have to start the pasta water first, and finish by adding the pasta to the sauce with parmigiana.” Don’t forget, he actually made the pasta first! Then he presented me with a written essay. Needless to say, it’s heavenly:

SAGE SAUCE:

450 gm Pasta

150 gm butter

A good-sized handful of fresh sage leaves

1/2 cup of grated parmigiana/ and another 1/2 – 1 cup for finishing

Salt and pepper

“Put the pasta water on to boil (with a big pinch of salt). While it’s heating, get a very large skillet (large enough to hold all the cooked pasta after it’s cooked). Put 150 gm of butter and the sage leaves in the skillet. Add salt and pepper to taste (the cheese has a lot of salt so be careful). As soon as the butter melts and begins to bubble, turn off the heat.

When the water comes to a boil cook the pasta. Add a ladle of pasta water to the sage and butter skillet. As soon as pasta is done, drain and add to the skillet. Toss the sauce with the parmegiana until you have a thick, creamy, buttery sauce. Serve with a sprinkle of cheese on top.”

Bob

Now you know what dinners may look like at our place, I thought I’d go through a typical camp day with y’all. A big breakfast favorite is my French Toast, and the secret is shaking a little cinnamon/sugar into the egg mix – also about a teaspoon of milk. Then you can only top your creation with REAL maple syrup, or maybe Nutella… oh, and some fresh strawberries or blueberries on the side.

My general rule of NOT making lunch also applies here. Panera is always a good choice with the Grands, but we learned that a favorite Nashville restaurant also serves lunch – Jaspers. After a rainy morning trip to the Frist museum, we swung into Jaspers which has a whole room dedicated to games! Shuffleboard, PacMan, Air Hockey, Basketball… you name it they’ve got it. A veritable wonderland for kids!

Alas our camp days are over. The Bride and Groom returned from a trip to Northern Ireland yesterday. I know, I know, Northern Ireland? But the Groom was presenting his research paper to an international audience of critical care doctors to great acclaim! His study can also be found in this month’s New England Journal. If any of our Irish cousins are reading this, I apologize since they had no time for a visit to County Mayo.

And about the aforementioned pasta dish, we hardly had enough for the VA Grandparents, since the Grands seemed to love it! This was us at the Frist Museum.

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Gee 7 Birthdays!

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, tagged , , , , , , on August 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

I call us the Christmas party babies – the seven family members who celebrate their births during August and September. The Rocker almost always had a beach party in August; I remember painting a hundred rocks gold for a Dick Tracy treasure hunt one year. The Bride’s party, in September, was a bit easier rounding up (or rather down) a guest list since school had started. We could invite her whole class instead of the whole beach club. This was before Evites and cell phones people!

And today is Bob’s big day. Happy Birthday to my honey.

Bob is now officially older than dirt, um me, for a few weeks at least. He’s been celebrating early, recreating our time in Tuscany last year, by making pasta with Ms Berdelle’s vintage pasta machine. We figure he’s got the ravioli down, which is a good thing since our local Italian market was just demolished to make way for progress. Will this new chef be able to recreate Lazzaroli’s goat cheese and pear ravioli? He’s already perfected the classic spinach and ricotta.

And I must admit Bob’s fettuccini this week, paired with our home-grown-home-made pesto, was bellissima!

What to get the man who wants nothing? I married a guy who defined “Minimalism” long before it was cool. Every few years we go into a store to buy him the same number Levi jeans he’s been wearing since I first met him 57 years ago! No wait, he needed a new alarm clock this week so he tried battling it out at Target with incoming Vandy students. He lost. Only two small travel clocks were left on the shelf. So he gave up and drove home in a huff, reluctantly searching the evil Empire of Amazon.

Which only reaffirmed his opinion of shopping.

Tomorrow the Love Bug turns 7! I think she grew 3 inches this summer. I was lucky enough to have Nana Camp extended another week because she came down with an ear infection and persistent fever; unlucky for her, she missed her first week of second grade. We played games, watched Disney channel, painted with water colors, and once we even ventured out to the Farmer’s Market. So even though I wanted to give her a new bike for her birthday, she told me she wanted another American Girl Doll.

Now I hate, really hate to sound old, but when I was young we got ONE doll and lots of different clothes. That doll would even cry and wet her diaper! Sometimes our mothers would even sew the doll clothes, and if we were lucky we had a doll trunk or a wardrobe to keep everything nice and organized.

But the Bride had lots of Barbies growing up since her allergies only allowed for plastic toys. The price differential however of a 1980s Barbie and an almost 2020 American Girl Doll is off the charts. My effort to convince the Bug that she only needed one doll was futile.

We’ll have a small family party tomorrow, highlighted by my 3-layer carrot cake, the Groom’s favorite. She has already had a class party shared with one of her school buddies – now why hadn’t I thought of that?

How is it possible Labor Day is right around the bend? We’ve been thinking if the Second Coming returns from the G7 with his proverbial foot in his puckered mouth, we may have to reinvent ourselves and go back to work. I could always try selling my necklaces and Bob could start a pasta food truck! Here are my birthday babes learning all about honey!

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What’s in a Drone?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I was watering my herb pots yesterday when I heard a distinct whirring sound, even Ms Bean was looking up. I knew the sheep were still in Tuscany, and so is Bob! Because as I write now, he is cleaning a vintage pasta machine our neighbor gave us; did you know that you cannot allow water to get into the steel gears? Google told us!

“Now I’m gonna make some spaghetti,” Bob said.

It’s difficult to write in the middle of an open concept townhouse. But back to the strange sound in the sky, I looked up to see a drone whizzing by and even though I was dressed in yoga/gym appropriate clothes, I felt distinctly vulnerable. Taking cover under the porch’s roof, I watched as the drone hovered very close to my herb garden – the parsley, pineapple sage, rosemary and thyme seemed to cower in technological despair.

I know that some realtors use drones for their sales, and even Google Earth may deploy one, or Amazon might start delivering small packages. Drones can bring death in other countries, or a new iPhone to our doorstep. In my jet-lagged state, I felt invaded. Can privacy honestly be a relic of past generations? Will that smart phone we palm become an imbedded portal to our brain, teasing us with targeted advertising all the time?

On the nine hour flight home I watched two movies and finished one book on my iPad. Maybe I was feeling twitchy because the book was Dan Brown’s latest, “Origin.” The acclaimed author of “The DaVinci Code” brings back to life the Harvard symbologist, Tom Hanks, whoops, Robert Langdon. Set in Spain, of course there’s a beautiful woman engaged to a prince but the most unlikely new hero is an AI named “Winston.”

What I find interesting in today’s context was the Loyalty (with a capital L) Winston the AI displayed to the scientist who built him – I had to ask myself, can a machine demonstrate loyalty, or can people write a code for that? The book revolves around the age-old argument of science/evolution vs religion/creationism and taught me more about Gaudi and in particular, his unfinished cathedral The Sagrada Familia, than I ever needed to know.

“Where are we from and where are we going?” is the central theme of the book, and as I watch the debate over Kavanaugh and the idiotic tour of North Carolina by Mr T asking about Lake Norman because he has a golf course there, I’m wondering the same thing. This president considers loyalty to HIM as sacrosanct, he doesn’t give a fig about where our country is headed or how our allies are increasingly isolated. And his followers seem to be OK with his contradictions, calling themselves good Christians while $260M is moved away from cancer and HIV/AIDS research to pay for the care and custody of 13,000 immigrant children – with 1,500 children HHS could still not locate!   https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/20/politics/hhs-shifting-money-cancer-aids-immigrant-children/index.html

When I asked Italians what they thought of Mr T, they said they liked him UNTIL he started separating children from their families.

Hate and Fear are powerful motivators, but I have to believe that Love is the best by far. So my New Year’s resolution is to spread some love around, like a drone flying overhead, surreptitiously. I will turn the other cheek, so to speak. We will make ravioli, and work to register voters and pray for a miracle in November.

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