Monthly Archives: May 2009

Going Postal

30 Saturday May 2009

Posted by in Italian bureaucracy, Italian habits and customs, Italy, Uncategorized

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mailbox

Our postman was kind of grumpy and never returned our greetings.

BOO!

We have a new postman!

YAY!

He won’t bring us any mail.

BOO!

It does seem that Italy is conspiring to give us every frustrating experience we’ve ever read or heard about.  Crummy mail service?  Oh come on, that news is so old it’s no longer true.  Italian mail service has improved considerably, even in the few years we’ve been here.

Except for packages.  If someone sends you a package from outside the EU, heaven forbid, you are likely to be asked to pay twice the contents’ value in duty.

And except for when a new postman takes over the route.

We haven’t received a piece of mail in almost three weeks.  The Captain went to the Post Office and was told they couldn’t help him.  But the nice woman there gave him the phone number of the Capo della Squadra Rapallo.  He told Louis that probably there just hadn’t been any mail for us, because “I’ve checked your bin and there’s nothing there for you.”

Rosa across the street sings a different song.  “The postman doesn’t know where your box is,” she explained.  Gee, the kids that put firecrackers in it last week didn’t have any trouble finding it – maybe he could ask them.  Or maybe he could ask Rosa; or his boss at the Post Office; or, a novel idea, the man who delivered the mail until three weeks ago.  If he was a particularly  enterprising person he could get off his scooter and look down the stairs that lead to our house.  There he would see it, proudly green and red, and mounted as close to the road as possible – our mailbox!  (Because we live below the road there is no street-level place to hang a mailbox.)

I hear you saying, “Well, maybe you really don’t have any mail.  You don’t get very much, do you?”

You’re right, we get precious little – the odd billet doux from the IRS, perhaps a stray check or bill, and the envelope with a pair of CD’s in it that friends sent a while ago from the States which we’ve not yet seen.  It’s not much, but we’d rather like the chance to look at it ourselves.

The Captain is irritated.  He is about one day away from disgruntlement.  He is going to lie in wait for the post man and lead him by the nose to our box.

Meanwhile, we kind of wonder what may have happened to our mail…

Sgabei

25 Monday May 2009

Posted by in Desserts, Food, Italian habits and customs, Italian holidays, Italian recipes, Liguria, Uncategorized

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What do “Sgabei!  Gesundheit!!”  and “Who doesn’t love a party?” have in common?  This weekend it was San Maurizio di Monti.

Sgabei (it’s an odd word, pronounced pretty much the way it’s spelled) is a typically Ligurian treat that originated in the Val de Magra on the eastern end of Liguria, on the border with Tuscany. While it is not often found on menus, it is not an unusual offering at a Sagra, a local festival which often involves food and some other kind of entertainment or a sporting event.  Sagras are very popular – it’s a rare weekend when you can’t find a sagra somewhere nearby with its attendant food specialty.

San Maurizio, our little town, just held its third annual Sagra degli Sgabei.  Why Sgabei?  Well, it is a typical food, but also most of the other regional specialties had already been taken by other nearby towns – Santa has fritters, Camoglie has a huge fish fry (fish are cooked in the World’s Largest Fry Pan), and there are several Trofie al Pesto shindigs.  So, for whatever reason, the Comitato Amici di San Maurizio, the volunteers who work hundreds of hours to make it all happen, decided to make Sgabei the main draw of their Sagra.  In addition to the food there were two dance bands, one on Saturday evening, the other on Sunday.

There are always treats other than the signature dish at a Sagra, frequently porchetta, assado and usually some kind of pasta.  Our choices included Trofie al Pesto (also a Ligurian specialty) or Ragu, porchetta, assado, sausages, beer or wine, and of course the highly touted Sgabei themselves.

Assado has its origins in Argentina, where the cowboys would find themselves hungry and far from any source of food… other than their cows.  So they would slaughter a cow and eat it.  Assado is the part of the animal around the stomach – that is, not the guts themselves, but the flesh and muscle that holds them in.  It is marinated, cooked on a big rack near an open fire for about six hours, then sliced off.

sgabei assado marinade

Each Assado chef has his own secret marinade recipe, but it will usually contain at least thyme, salt, pepper, hyssop (which grows wild in the woods here).  My sources tell me that most chefs put something alcoholic in the marinade as well: grappa, wine, or…

sgabei assado

After all those hours cooking the meat is tender (sort of) and ready to be eaten.  A chef with a big knife takes slices from the side away from the flames, and voila – your Assado is ready to serve:

sgabei assado-1

They say that a lot of the tastiness of food has to do with the spirit and energy that the chef puts into the preparation.  That could explain why the Assado at the San Maurizio Sagra was so darned good:

sgabei assado cooks

They told me they are the best, and I believe them.

So, what about the famous Sgabei?  A secret: I don’t much care for them.  I’ve never been a great donut lover, and to me Sgabei is simply a torpedo shaped donut that’s been sliced lengthwise and filled with something – in the case of this weekend’s sagra either strachinno (a very runny cheese), cherry jam or Nutello.  No thanks, I’ll pass, though I will take some of that cherry jam.

For the same reason that the assado is so good, I’m sure the sgabei are the best this side of Genova:

sgabei cooking

Here’s what they look like before they’ve been stuffed:

sgabei

As Fred McGourty used to say, Highly regarded by people who like that sort of thing.

If you’re interested in reading more about other Sagras, hop over to Rowena’s blog and read her section called 100 Ways to Celebrate Italy (there’s a link about halfway down the front page on the left).  She’s up to 35, which is way more than we’ve been to.

I’d love to know more about the Sagra – what do they do with the money, for instance?  We assume it’s a fund-raiser, but for what?  And most of all, how can I get one of these great Staff tee-shirts??

sgabei kitchen

Gotta match?

21 Thursday May 2009

Posted by in Customs, Italian bureaucracy, Italian habits and customs, Italy, Uncategorized

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Tabacchi sign“Don’t forget to pick up some matches,” I reminded the Captain when he was headed out to market for dinner the other day.

“It’s on the list,” he answered.  But this was no guarantee that the matches would come home with the groceries, because it takes a special stop at a special shop to get matches; you cannot buy them in a grocery store or supermarket.  Or at a gas station or a restaurant.  In fact, the only place you can buy matches (fiammiferi – fee-ah-me’-fair-ee) is at the shop of the tabachaio (tah-bah-kaay’-oh), the tobacconist.

The tabacchaio sells more than just tobacco and matches.  As you can see from the sign above he also sells Lotto tickets, salt (sale) and Valori Bollati (literally stamps with value).  Salt?  You can buy salt in the grocery store now; I’ve never actually tried to buy any from a tabacchaio,  it might be fun to try.

But WHY??  Why can we buy matches only at the Tabacchi?  Ha.  It’s because the State still has a monopoly on the sale of matches (as well as tobacco).  Look under the Right cross piece of the T in the photo – it says Riv No. 14.  That stands for Rivendita – a resale point – and this is tobacco shop #14 in Rapallo.  Our friend Sandro told us that the number of such shops is limited in each town; which is to say that if you or I wanted to open up a new cigarette store we’d be out of luck.  One must take special exams to sell tobacco, matches, etc., and it is difficult and complicated.  No surprise there.

Sandro said, furthermore, that once you have your tobacco store you serve at the pleasure of the State; you must be open at certain times, according to a state-determined schedule. As in any monopoly, prices are set by the monopoly-holder.  The box of matches that eventually found its way to our kitchen carried a tax stamp,tax stamp on match box like the ones that come on liquor bottles in the U.S.  No doubt the State gets a nice profit from the whole enterprise; they get to set the price and to tack on a tax. One kitchen-sized box of matches cost E1.

Valori Bollati are tax stamps.  A document frequently needs a tax stamp before it can be presented.  For instance, when we applied for our permessi di soggiorno we had to attach a tax stamp for E 14.62 (I know, but that’s what it was!) to each application. Most applications carry a tax charge, and you get the stamp, the bollato, from the tabacchaio.  This is the same thing as the ‘application fees’ that US residents know so well.  The only difference is that there’s an added layer of inconvenience: you have to go to the Tabacchi to get the stamp, instead of just paying at the office where you’re filing your paper.

And the salt?  Turns out the State used to have a monopoly on salt, but gave it up in 1976, at the behest of the European Economic Commission.  Why the signs have not been changed in the intervening 30+ years is a mystery.  (Lotto has been around in Italy at least since the 1880’s, as this New York Times article explains).

It’s seems odd to an American, this business of a monopoly.  We have laws forbidding such things in the States, but here in Italy it is part of the government’s business.  The only monopoly I can think of in the US is the postal service, and even that has competition from FedEx and UPS. Other than taxes I can’t think of another government monopoly – can you?

You won’t find The Little Match Girl in Italy.  In fact, unless you go to the Tabacchi, you won’t find any matches at all.

Ouch

15 Friday May 2009

Posted by in gardening, olives, Uncategorized

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Last year was a banner year for olive oil production.  We got more than we ever had before, and so did a lot of other people.  Since last year was so good, no one had very high expectations for this year, which made this winter a fine time prune the trees.

Olives love to be cut back.  In fact, the more you cut off, the more they seem to like it.  Our friend Richard, who has taken a course in the care of olive trees and is therefore our guru for all things olive, tells us that olive trees can move more than 30 meters over the course of a century.  Frequently when a trunk gets thick or a tree goes too long without tending, the contadino will simply cut down the tree several feet above the ground.  A new mirror-1shoot will shortly grow on the side of the remaining trunk, and that will eventually become the tree.  After a time it too will be too old, will be cut down, and will produce another – it’s kind of like looking at yourself in a mirror, in a mirror – the images recede seemingly forever.  So too the olives march away from the original tree. (It’s harder to take a picture of this than I imagined.)

Which put me in mind of  Macbeth, who was told by an apparition in Act IV Scene i,

Macbeth shall never vanquished be
Until Great Birnam wood to High Dunsinane hill
shall come against him.

I guess if he’d lived in Italy instead of Scotland and Birnam wood was full of olive trees, it really might have arrived finally at High Dunsinane. But it would have taken far longer than the time Macbeth had available.

How bad can an olive get?  If left untended they can grow 20 or 30 feet tall.  Frequently vines and other opportunistic plants will attack them – though nothing seems to actually kill an olive tree.  Here’s a picture of a group of trees up the road from us which haven’t been touched for years, and which are bound up with ivy:

unpruned olives

pruned-olives

This is what some of our trees look like in their pruned state.  Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?  But you can see the younger one to the right of the older one in the foreground.  It’s on the move!  Looks like it’s headed for our neighbor’s property.  But he pruned his trees this year, too, so maybe eventually some of his will arrive on our land, and it will be a fair trade.

One Year and Counting

10 Sunday May 2009

Posted by in Blogging, Uncategorized

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Il Pellegrino kitty with Portofino in backgroundA

A year ago I posted my first blog entry. Though I’ve frequently strayed from the stated purpose of this blog in the ensuing months, the reasons for starting it have never been far from my mind. It has become the lens through which I view life in our beautiful adopted city, and whenever something interesting happens I think, Aha! Something to write about.

I’ve learned a lot over the course of this blogging year. I’ve learned that the people you thought would read your blog aren’t necessarily the ones who do, but that there are lots of others who will read it instead. I’ve learned you can make new friends through a blog, friends you might never meet in person, but to whom you nevertheless feel a connection because of shared interests or circumstances. I’ve learned that lots of people are shy about leaving comments. And I’ve learned one of the great advantages that blogging has over traditional publishing: you can change and correct earlier posts, as I did this evening on the Captain’s Baked Bean recipe (changed the cooking time).

I’ve learned a curious technical fact: if you want to really boost the readership of your blog all you have to do is post a picture with a provocative title, or one that might receive frequent searches on Google. I learned this by posting pictures called ‘Niagara Falls,’ ‘Supermodel’ and ‘Glass of Water.’ Hits on the blog soared, but they were not coming from people who were interested in Life in Italy, I think. I changed the file names of the first two photos, and blog hits returned to normal (over 18,000 pages looked at in one year, but I have to confess that over 1,000 of them were for the Supermodel photo – she is now called simply ‘woman’).

I’ve learned that people love to look at recipes online.  The page that has received the second most attention is the Captains Rolled Stuffed Pork Roast.  Over the last year The Captain and our friends have all gotten used to my whipping out the camera and taking a picture of whatever is being served.  It’s not easy to take good food pictures.  My two role models (or is that roll models?) in this are are Rowena, who ‘scribbles in the chestnut forests’ of Lombardia in her blog Rubber Slippers in Italy; and Michelle, who writes her Bleeding Espresso blog from the other end of the country, down in Calabria.

And last but not least, I’ve learned that you can never go wrong with a cute cat picture.

Thank you for visiting Expatriate in Rapallo, for reading and commenting.  I love hearing from you.

The Best Thing We Ate This Week – Meat

07 Thursday May 2009

Posted by in Food, Italian habits and customs, Italian holidays, Uncategorized

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May 1st is Labor Day all over Europe, and it is a great big holiday in Italy.  Most stores are closed, and everyone celebrates, if not in a Labor Union demonstration or parade, at least with a picnic or BBQ.

Friends invited us to a ‘grigliata’ – a grilled meats festa – and we agreed faster than it takes to say the word (greel-ye-ah’-ta).  They weren’t kidding when they said ‘meat!’

elenas-le-donne-b

Oh, there were a few vegetables, most of which were used to make the spiedini, what we think of as ka-bobs.  But by and large the meal was about Meat.  Grilled Meat.  And it was the best thing we ate this week.  Pictured above are sausages, sottofilette di vittelone (cutlets of not-still-veal not-quite-beef), some other kind of beef cut, cubed pork for the spiedini, costine (pork ribs), and, just visible at the back of the table, one of the two salami we consumed.  The meat was cooked over a wood fire, which gave it a smoky flavor in addition to the usual BBQ charred flavor that is so good.  And that’s the only recipe for it I can give you.

Our contribution was a little odd: the Captain’s Boston Baked Beans. We first served them here a couple of years ago and to our astonishment our Italian friends adored them.  They join Meat in getting the nod this week for best eating.  The recipe is here, or over on the right underelenas-ls-beans Good Recipes.  The beans go splendidly with Meat, especially with the grilled sausages that our friends served.

To the right of the bean pot are some fava beans, which are planted in November or December and harvested about now.  They are served with a fresh cheese called Primo Sale.  Fava beans fall into the same category of eating as, say, our Thanksgiving turkey – they are required to be eaten at a certain season, but not everyone adores them.  They are put out on the table as you see them here, and you just unzip them and eat the beans inside.  They’re good in a raw-beany kind of way, but five or six at a sitting is sufficient.

An unexpected treat was a small grilled cheese called Tomina, about three inches across and an inch high.  Our friends put it on the grill and cooked it until  it was slightly brown outside and almost gooey inside.  Cheese (Brie, to be exact) is one of my desert island foods, so I was really impressed with the grilled approach.

For whatever reason my picnic plate kept taking on the appearance of the Italian flag – here are two iterations.  Maybe I’m becoming Italian after all!

elenas-baked-cheese-fava-tomatoes-wine

The first one shows the grilled tomina in addition to one of our hostesses and another guest. The second one looks kind of lame, but the salami was soft and full of flavor. That’s the teeniest little piece of primo sale cheese, and you can see what an unzipped fava looks like too.elenas-salami-primo-sale-fava

It was one of those meals that started early and ended about four hours later. As ever with an Italian meal, it is about the food; but it is also about the conversation, which was wide-ranging and interesting. A good time was certainly had by we two Americans. When we left we felt that we might not eat again until June. But we have.

The Animal Fair

02 Saturday May 2009

Posted by in Animals in Italy, Customs, Photographs, Rapallo, Uncategorized

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In the US we are accustomed to  big annual State Fairs.  Held on sites that are specifically designed for the event, complete with permanent buildings for various types of entries, they boast everything from First Aid demonstrations to tractor-pulling contests, from pot-bellied pigs to pots of strawberry jam.  Frequently they are more carnival than agricultural, featuring as many rides, races and vendors as there are prize bulls, perfect pies and large pumpkins.

The American county fairs are much more numerous and much smaller in scale.  For instance, in Connecticut this year there are thirty-two small fairs scheduled, mostly in the autumn.  These fairs emphasize animals and produce, with fewer rides and midways.  One thing that is common to both the large and small fairs in the US is that there is always competition involved: who has the tastiest cream pie?  The largest unblemished tomatoes?  Whose horse can drag the heaviest sledge?

The agricultural fairs here in Italy tend to be more like the county fairs in the US.  They focus on a particular theme and stick pretty close to it.  For instance, we recently attended the Fiere del Bestiame e Agricultura in the Santa Maria section of Rapallo (Animal and Agriculture Fair). the-scene-along-the-river2 It is a small fair, held along the banks of the  Torrente San Maria, and it is always a delight.  The big tree and shrub fair comes to Rapallo in January.  This April fair is for buying chicks, ducks, turkeys, geese, goats and sheep; for buying flower plants; and for dreaming about a new piece of equipment for your farm.  It also gives the local woodsmen a chance to compete in various wood-cutting skills, felling temporary trees and limbing downed trees (this is the only competition I’ve seen at an Italian fair yet).

chain-saw-comp-timber

Like every fair in Italy there are also ‘bancarelle’ (stalls) selling food, fabric, hardware and jewelry.

cheese-for-saleOne of our favorites is the man who sells a sweet wafer from Tuscany.  The machine that makes the wafer is so complex, the product so simple.  It reminds us a bit of an elaborate tortilla-press.  Best of all, the vendor gives samples of his product, a delicate, slightly anise-flavored treat, Tuscany’s sweet answer to the potato chip.

tuscan-sweet-machine

tuscan-sweet-chip

I’m crazy about the animals.  The goats and sheep always look like they’ve just heard a very good joke, but they’re not going to share it with you.

sheep

Some of the chickens look annoyed, especially those wearing feather skirts, and some simply look foolish.  The bunnies are adorable, and are always mobbed by small children who want to pat them.  Baby fowl of all ilk are sweet when they’re fuzzy, yellow and young.  If you’d like to see photos of a few more of the animals, click here and select slide show.  The one picture I wanted and didn’t get was of the bee-hive between two sheets of glass, so you can see the hive being built and all the bees buzzing around.  Come to think of it, I saw a similar display the last time I visited the Addison County Fair in Vermont.  Bloomin’ Onion, anyone?