Please don't call the cat a pumpkin

We managed to adopt a stray cat over the winter holidays, calling her Sunday in honour of the day she raced towards our open door and demanded milk. She is a contrary little thing who is cute and cuddly about ten minutes out of every day – in the morning when we get up and it’s time to eat, and in the evening when I get home and it’s time to eat.

Notwithstanding her mischievous and grumpy behaviour, we’re affectionate towards her anyway (especially my husband who thinks she’s just wonderful). Among my many silly nicknames for her, there is “pumpkin”. In Italian we say "zucca" and I have recently come to learn that means airhead or empty headed. My husband has asked me not to call her that, but I actually think it’s quite appropriate.

In the meantime, we had relatives come from Veneto for a day – Vicenza to be precise – which is famous for having been cat eating territory in the past. I am assuhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifred that where we live, in times of war, cats were a source of food as well. But it gave us 24 hours of demanding good feline behaviour on threats of handing her over to the “mangiagatti”, or “cateaters”.

Going back to pumpkins, I have been disappointed to find that in our area they're not used frequently for cooking and the one time I did buy a pumpkin, it tasted terrible. Sometimes when eating in restaurants I indulge in the pumpkin gnocchi or ravioli, but come next winter, I will have to find a decent supply because a Sunday roast just ain't the same thing without it (no pun intended on the cat - as long as she's a good girl!).

Photo | Flickr

About is like parsley: rice and parsley soup recipe

A student of mine recently reintroduced me to an Italian saying on food – “about is like parsley – it’s everywhere”. I had forgotten this expression actually existed – it’s unfortunate that a student I don’t particularly like very much brought it to my attention again.

In any case, you can use the expression with anything to make your parsley simile, meaning that the thing is ubiquitous. And for some reason, whenever I hear it, a vision of parsley soup comes to mind.

I am currently writing this on an extremely hot train from Milan after a day of traipsing around on an even hotter metro system. But really, parsley and rice soup is a light, almost refreshing soup that you can eat even in summer.

Ingredients for four people are 200 g of rice, 10 g of butter, 40 g of grated parmesan cheese, one stock cube, one bunch of parsley finely chopped (better if Italian flat-leafed parsley), one onion, also chopped.

To prepare, all you have to do is peel and chop the onion, brown it in a deep casserole dish with the butter. Add a litre of water and the stock cube and bring to the boil. Once boiling, add the rice and cook for about 15 min, stirring frequently. Finally, add the parsley and grated cheese, stir well and serve.

Recipe from Cucinare Meglio and image from Flickr.

2010 Italian vintage: hot or not?

The 2010 Italian wine vintage got off to a rainy start, at least around our parts in northern Italy, such that this year’s nebbiolo was looking awfully green and acidic there for a while.

The rain has been such that my father-in-law was congratulating himself on an early and booming mushroom season. When it’s good for mushrooms, it’s bad for wine, and my father-in-law is of that bizarre race of Italian prepared to risk his life for a fungus (every year in Italy someone is injured or even dies for picking excesses during mushroom season and from what I understand my father-in-law could be a prime candidate).

Luckily though, things have fined up and we have been having above-average temperatures for this time, which at this stage bodes for a hot 2010 Italian vintage. The weather has so far proved what my adopted Italian grandmother had predicted – a hot summer.

But it’s a long way in the alpine Italian regions from June to August and September and anything could happen between now and picking. In the meantime, it’s time to get out the white wine and rosé.

Photo | Flickr

Homemade pavlova: in Italy!

This post goes out to my Auntie Heather who was generous enough to furnish me with a copy of a recipe for homemade pavlova, which in turn comes from the mother of my Uncle Mal. Proving that homemade pavlova is a family affair.

It turns out that my Auntie Heather is a very generous cook who shares some of her kitchen secrets with an admiring but ignorant niece. These secrets will not be published in this blog for questions of intellectual property should we ever decide to publish a family cookbook.

One thing my aunt didn’t tell me, though, was what the hell cream of tartar is. An entire Google research project ensued, before I decided that Italians wouldn’t know what it is either, not having the baking tradition we’ve got, that I’d never find it here, and that it wasn’t essential to the recipe anyway (an arrogant assumption but that’s what I do when I find myself stuck; I decided not to substitute with white vinegar, though , a result of a second Google search “cream of tartar substitute”).

In the absence of passion fruit, which again the Italians have discovered only recently but are happy to mention and adopt in cocktails as a sign of being more cultured, I covered our pavlova with seasonal strawberries which this year have been marvellously sweet.

The homemade Aussie pavlova in Italy was a winner, despite it’s contorted shape (my aunt did a much better job in spreading it out over the oven tray than what I did) and I reckon this could be a crowd pleaser in the future as a quiet way of showing a foreign wife can do just as well in the kitchen as the locals. All thanks to the mother of my Uncle Mal and my Aunt Heather ;-)

As an aside, we managed to polish off all the bottles of moscato at our wedding (and we had overcatered!), but if you're looking for a sweet wine match, this is what you want - light, fragrant and fruity. Don't go with anything heavy or with botytris or you'll drown the delicate pavlova flavours.

Photo | Flickr

My slice of the Dolce Vita

Living in Italy is hard. You can forget all your stereotypes of Tuscan villas and the Dolce Vita, because most of us living like Italians don’t enjoy many of the ideas people have about Italian life.

This is my protest post to all of those who think I’m a stuck-up expat living a European dream. You’re no longer welcome at home, and you’re not wanted in your new adopted country either; and you yourself start to wonder where you belong, fiercely creating a home for yourself while questioning how you come across to others.

I have found, once again, the reality of being a foreigner a tough one to deal with, and the future will never be as prosperous as “back home”. Australia is the lucky country, and most Australians have no idea just how fortunate they are. Many of my friends, rather than expanding their own world, do nothing but bitch about my supposed snooty bitching about my fantastic new life.

Aside from the riches we’ll never have, you find racism around every corner, self justification becomes a daily activity and you constantly struggle with communities that lack variety and hope and prosperity. You’re faced with the world’s worst television and sending your kids to inferior high schools.

It would be exaggerated to say I grimly married knowing this reality, but you do wonder what kind of love brings you to live in a place that makes life hard for you. And you hope you didn’t do it so you can eternally indulge in self-pity in the future.

It’s not all bad, of course. Some of the mono-cultural habits of Italy are just why I like being here. We also have a beautiful landscape (although that doesn’t get you a job and food on the table). And I sometimes feel like the struggle means that I’m making more of a home for myself and getting back to some values that I may have lost along the way in a life too easy.

Talking to an American colleague of mine last week, we wisely decided to turn these things to our advantage. In fact, she taught me a very good lesson, saying that dwelling on the tough things about Italy only makes it more painful for her to be here and not there. I talked of getting away from our capitalist tendencies and accumulation of wealth for wealth’s sake, and she mentioned just making your nest and sitting on it. However small that might be.

So here’s to my new married life and those kind of values – ragù on Sundays and attempting Aussie recipes at home with a lack of ingredients. Perhaps I should introduce myself to the not-so-mono-cultural ethnic grocery store in town....

Photo | The view from our flat at dusk in winter

Ragu on a Sunday for two

I am fast discovering that most recipes don’t cater for two people and such was the case this weekend on trying another of Armando’s gems, his version of ragù. Traditionally, for us Australians, this kind of dish would generally be called ‘bolognese sauce’ and would be made with mince meat, but there are actually many versions of ragù.

This particular version is more like a rustic, country-style version where you actually use chunks of pork and veal. The extra sauce can be used to do a first course of pasta with a touch of ricotta (we used Philadelphia cheese because I had forgotten to get ricotta when out shopping), which makes for a very tasty pasta sauce.

In the meantime, the ragù itself takes three hours of open pot, stove cooking but we ran out of gas so I can’t tell you whether completing the third hour in the oven changes anything about the recipe. It’s also not easy to keep the heat down on this, so if you have an electric stove, use it.

Otherwise, we finished with a very tender and fulfilling ragù that’s going on the list of our Sunday house specials. The slight touch of bay leaves and cloves gives just enough spice without being overpowering and the trick is not to under-do the tomato paste – it’s what gives the sauce its thickness. Any ideas for a food-wine match?

Wine for anniversaries and Champion's League finals: celebrating FC Inter

What a vintage, ragazzi miei! The grapes can do what they like in 2010 as so far I got married and FC Inter won the Champion’s League final, following its victories in the Coppa Italia and Serie A. In the future, my new husband and I will celebrate an anniversary on May 8th and memories of an emotional Inter victory on May 22nd.

I know of more than one sommelier and journalist who are die-hard Inter fans and I have yet to discover with what wine they celebrated the Champion’s League victory. I suspect the head of our branch of the Italian Sommeliers’ Association drank something very special.

We, on the other hand, in a sort of combined Italian-Anglo tradition (but don’t tell the Italians) stressed over pizza and later celebrated over beer. And then we joined the impromptu celebrations in the town, getting stuck in a traffic jam as people hit horns, played the Inter anthem loud from their cars and rang cow bells (nothing can ever make enough noise in a situation like this). It was bigger than the 2006 Italian World Cup victory when my husband and I were at the beginning of our love story.

Since we got married, we’ve got a few fine bottles of wine to keep and then drink, thanks to a dear friend of mine and a couple of purchases of my own so we’re well set-up for future reminiscing. And hopefully some celebrations should Inter ever make it a second time. None of its champagne, and most of its nebbiolo, but we can all celebrate in our own way. Thanks to Inter and, of course, “my Milito”.