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Whoops

I haven’t posted about any of my travels in over 6-months! Whoops!

So here’s what happened. I went to Istanbul last April and literally took over 1,000 pictures. Now I shoot with a Nikon D90 in camera Raw and like to post process my pictures, choose the best, add captions, put them in an album online. At the same time, write about my adventures in a blog post (90% for my own prosperity, but 10% in case anyone else enjoys it) and add a few of the photos relevant to the travel story.

I was so overwhelmed with the idea of processing those 1000 Istanbul photos that everything stopped. I still haven’t started with those 1000 pictures from Turkey, but I’m going to move past this block. Starting now I’ll write about and upload pictures from trips as I take them and try to back fill the last 6-months when I can.

In the next few days (weeks?) I’ll fill in recent adventures like the weekend Daniele and I just spent in Umbria with his cousins there. Also Ferragusto just past, August 15 is a holiday that Italians all take off from work and picnic– so fun! And we’re going to Umbria again next weekend; probably to Perugia where I expect to eat lots of chocolate. Daniele and I also recently went through lots of paperwork and I finally mailed in my petition to sponsor his fiance visa, so we can get married in the US. That’s a bit of a different kind of adventure, but I think I’ll record our experiences with it here just the same.

Cheers!

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Sauce versus Gravy

There are some Italian-American’s out there who have a thing for correcting people who say “sauce” and telling them it’s called “gravy”. It’s often accompanied by a (an even more grating) statement about how they say it that way because their family is Italian.

Before I get too ranty about this pet peeve of mine, I want to give a disclaimer. I understand how third (or so) generation Italian-Americans cling really heavily to their/our heritage. I myself have gone so far as to spend years re-learning the language forgotten in the generations in between and even re-emigrated back to the motherland. When our Italian ancestors first moved to America they were eager to become American and embraced the local culture, unfortunately not leaving much of the cool old stuff for the next generations.

Now, as for “Italians say gravy”. This is an absolutely preposterous statement. Italians speak Italian, not English. They say neither “sauce” nor “gravy” when referring to such things. If you are curious, the Italian word “sugo” translates closest. This word would be used for a tomato based sauce and anything of similar texture. Also for juice. There is also the word “salsa” which describes pestos and other thick sauces which you may want to add a little pasta water. Something like a pasta fagoli is actually considered a soup (zuppa) and the non-pasta elements are not distinguished with a different descriptor than the pasta, which should be a small shape (like a mini farfalla), by the way. Besides adding to the “soup” texture of the dish, the small pasta cooks faster which is important because it should be cooked in the rest of the soup. This process takes longer than cooking in boiling water. But I digress.

If you were to ask an actual Italian from Italy whether it is “sauce” or “gravy” they would be dumbfounded. Non-native speakers look to us native speakers for clarity on such acute differences. It would be like an Italian asking you which is the most American of two Italian words that mean almost the same thing.

So, is it “gravy” or is it “sauce”? I tend to agree with Merriam-Webster, Oxford’s British and American Dictionaries. But I think Julia Child put it best, “A gravy without meat is just a sauce.” Which makes “Red Gravy” just “sauce” and is why I get annoyed when someone corrects my calling it “sauce” with, “we say gravy, we’re Italian.” No, actually, it really is sauce.

If anyone guilty of this habit happens to be reading, I petition you to cease and desist. Besides having already established it is annoying, the claim of “Italian-ness” is unfounded, and the term is technically incorrect, I’ll present another reason. Our Italian ancestors came to America without speaking English and had to learn quickly with likely little resources. It is understandable they did not learn the language perfectly, maybe not even the correct term for something as everyday for an Italian immigrant as ‘sauce’. But it is a little more strange that their native-English speaking children would continue this mistake rather than learn the correct term. Then for these children or their children to take it further by insisting the wrong term is actually “how Italians say it”– that takes some coglioni (the expression works better with fegato / liver, but I didn’t think anyone would understand that). Therefore you should stop with this whole “Italians say gravy” thing because it pronounces your (and your ancestor’s) ignorance more than your Italian-ness also someday you and I may be at a dinner party together and you don’t want to unleash this rant in person.

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Hotels.com Rant

My mom booked a hotel for our upcoming New Orleans trip back in August (for October). She used Hotels.com who instantly charged her credit card and even went so far as to send an email saying there is no need to call the hotel, everything is confirmed.

But nothing was confirmed. By chance she calls anyway the night before we are leaving, and the hotel had never heard of us. And they are booked solid. Or course they are, it was a really cool hotel. An converted brewery, that included breakfast and wifi in the rooms, had a salt water pool, was right in the heart of the french quarter, and even greets you with a cocktail when you arrive. She had spent a lot of time researching the perfect hotel, because that part of the experience is important to us.

So what does Hotels.com do? They should make it right after taking her money but not booking the room, right? And letting the place she wanted fill up, while assuring her that they had made the reservation, right? Well, nearly everything in the center is booked, except the slummiest of places. A big chain hotel with a big tower building has free rooms, so they put us up there and cover the supposed higher rate of this hotel. Although this place does not include breakfast, internet, a cocktail, and the location is certainly not any better.

Why is this insufficient? Because we came so close to showing up to N.O. and not having a place to stay due to their mistake. Because we really wanted the cute boutique hotel we spent time choosing and booking months in advance for a more “New Orleans” experience and ended up with the farthest thing from it. Because our original hotel included breakfast and our new one is $15/person/day and Hotels.com refused to cover this extra cost. Because our original hotel included wifi and our new one is $15/day and Hotels.com refused to cover that extra cost as well.

So I will never ever use Hotels.com again and I think if you ever hear anyone mention them you should let them know they make terrible mistakes and then don’t make it right.

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Back to the USA

I have finished another 3-month stay in Italy. This was June, July, and August in Rome with Daniele. Rome is feeling more like home than NJ right now, and I’m pretty sad to leave. At least I have enough to do state-side these coming months that I think the time will go fast.

This seems like a good time to share my latest observations of Italian culture, educate, and other miscellaneous things.

(1) In the grocery story you generally have to pay for the plastic bags, thought not much. The bags will either be under the belt before the cashier (potentially free) or you have to ask the cashier. If you have to ask, you have to pay. If the cashier asks you something while ringing you up, it is probably if you want a bag.

(2) Also in the grocery store, customers weigh their own produce. Each type of fruit or vegetable, next to its name (and normally its origin) has a number. In the produce area is a scale, use this number to print a price sticker for your bag of produce. Also note, it is etiquette to use plastic gloves while selecting your produce and discard them after. They are normally by the plastic bags along with a garbage bin.

(3) The post office is always really crowded. That is because the post office in Italy is also a bank. Italians have to come here all the time to pay their bills. For example, If I were the electric company, I would not send a bill to your house, I would bill you through the post office, and you would go there to pay. When you arrive at the post office, you press a button to take a number. The buttons are P for people with actual “Post” business (almost no one), A for people with bank business, and E for people with checking accounts with the post office.

(4) I thought I knew all there was about making pasta already, not that it is the most complicated dish. But I have improved my technique recently with little things that I never thought made a difference before. Boil water in a thin pot (thick is for sauce), covered with a lid. This gets the most heat most efficiently to the water to boil faster. Use a bigger pot for spaghetti, it is barbaric to break the pasta in half. Keep the pasta pot covered after adding the pasta. This is especially important for ravioli type pasta that float and need heat above the water too, don’t cover completely so you can see before it boils over. I used to think I was healthier for not salting my pasta water, but now I am used to it salted, I can’t eat it unsalted. I worry about who I severed unsalted pasta to all those years. I only add a small amount, but it makes a big difference. You can also cook pasta in sauce. It takes longer, about twice as long, but the pasta has great flavor and is creamier because the starches remain in the dish rather than getting tossed with the water. Just add pasta to sauce over heat, add small amounts of hot water as needed, stir. It’s perfect for something like a pasta puttanesca or pasta fagioli.

(5) The correct way to store garlic is to refrigerate it. It is good for a long long time. Eventually, the part in the middle turns green and you don’t want to eat that part, but the rest is still good as new. To remove the middle, after pealing, cut in half lengthwise so you have two flat parts with a pointy tip and a part of the base. You should see a line of green from base to point (or not and your good). It flicks out easily with the front round part of a butter knife.

(6) How to pay at gelateria or bar. At most of these places, especially the busy and big ones, you will first go to a cashier, tell then what you want, pay, and get a ticket/recite. You bring that ticket to the counter to get your coffee or ice cream.

On the other hand if you are at a by-the-slice pizzeria you normally go to the counter first. You tell them what you want and how much, they weigh it if they are by-the-kilo and they give you the ticket to bring to the cashier.

Obviously if the place is really small and there is only one person working there and you are one of a few customers you order and pay with just that person.

(7) Slices of pizza are typical for lunch, while personal pies that are considered real meals are for dinner only. Italians will grab a slice of pizza for a quick lunch, but a sit down “round pizza” is only for dinner. In fact a restaurant outside the center normally wont even have the pizza oven going during the day.

(8) Americans more typically put all the food on the table at once. The advantage is that we know everything there is and the chef can sit and enjoy the meal, too. A full meal starts with a soup or salad then has a main course with sides, finishing with desert. A vegetable and starch are normally incorporated. On the other hand the full Italian meal starts with antipasto, then pasta, second/main dish possibly served with a contorno/side dish, then salad, then deserts (possibly also served in courses like nuts, pastries, and digestifs). The biggest difference is each dish is cleared between each course and you never know how much more food is still waiting ready in the kitchen. It’s wonderful, but very dangerous.

(9) Parmigiano-Reggiano is made with the summer milk. Grana Padano is the same thing but made with the winter milk when the cows are eating dry grass. Both are D.O.P (AKA P.D.O., D.O.C., C.D.O.) cheeses that can only be made in Italy.

(10) Almost no one in Italy has a drier. Which is great, they ruin your clothing anyway. But what about sheets and towels, right? Daniele passed me some of the wisdom of his ancestors in getting by without a drier. It starts with the spin cycle in the washer. You want get rid of enough moisture that you have a head start, but not so much you have wrinkly cloths. So while they are still damp from the washer we fold, pressing them flat, against the edge of the bathtub. We leave them there a few hours before they get hung up to dry. We have three cloths drying wracks. A small one inside on one of the wall heaters (for winter when it’s harder to dry outside), one on the biggest balcony, and one that hangs over the other balcony over our garden. The one that hangs over the garden is where we dry big things like sheets. We just fold them and hang them up. The next day fold them the other way, eventually they dry, it just takes a while. Every bed has two sets of summer and two sets of winter sheets so you can do this. Fun, right? Our clothing gets put outside and we just try to time laundry with the weather so they can have a chance to dry. I’ve used these racks for years for my cloths (I don’t like to put my cloths in the drier even when one is available), but I have been doing it wrong. I always draped each top over a different bar, but you need to use two bars per top. That way it dries folded over in a way that stressed the fabric less. Can’t believe I never thought of it!

Well, so long for now Italy. See you after the holidays!

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Italians want Starbucks

Italy is one of the countries I know that does not have Starbucks. Or Pizza Hut for that matter. Why would they want those chains when their coffee and pizza are so good, right? I have run into a few Italians who yearn for Pizza Hut, which makes sense. Even if you think Pizza Hut is gross (personally I enjoy it as a nostalgic indulgence), it really is its own thing and no Italian Pizzaria sells “pizza” like it. Same reasoning can be applied for Starbucks. Italians have cafes (or Bars, rather) with delicious espresso and typically a hearty dose of charm on virtually every corner. Why would they need a big chain coffee shop? Same answer, it’s just different.

Last night at a BBQ with about 15 Italians and myself I heard for the first time someone say how much they wish there were Starbucks here in Italy. Every region in Italy makes pizza a slightly different way– from the thick Napoli pies, to the thin ones here in Rome, to the ultra-thick focaccia-like pizza they make near Genoa, and so forth. While everyone insists their own region makes the best pizza, they seem more united on coffee. There are a handful of household names: illy, lavazza, danesi, segafredo. Almost all coffee here is one of these brands and the people are pretty much in agreement that Italian is the best coffee. Knowing this, I was really interested where this conversation was going to go.

Coffee is a strong part of their culture. In fact just earlier during dinner I had one of my favorite debates with Italians: “Why can’t I order a cappuccino after dinner?”. For those curious, it is a faux pas to order a cappuccino after morning hours. With some prodding, the best reasons for this I have been able to get are: “it is bad for the stomach”, “you can’t drink warm milk after a meal”, or “it just isn’t done”. I love bringing it up because they always seem to feel very strongly about it, but are never very sure why. Though you know what they say, “When in Rome…” so when I’m here in Rome I try to blend in and just get an espresso or mocchiato, both perfectly acceptable, and save after dinner cappuccinos for when I’m back in the States.

If you ask any Italian they will happily explain to you the difference between an espresso or cafe (interchangeable), cafe mocchiato, cappuccino, americano, cafe corretto, cafe latte, and mochaccino. I think when I was living in Milan someone new explained it almost every day of my 3-month stay. And when I left I was drinking on average five shots of the stuff a day. They will also eagerly tell you how many coffees they have had that day (like asking a US college student how many beers s/he had last Friday). They love drinking it. They love talking about it. At the first mention of Starbucks, the crowd started buzzing about all the fun “american” or “long” coffee drinks (coffee can be long or short depending how much water is in it) and drinks with caramel or that you can walk around while holding. This is something I miss, as much as I love the Italian espresso and the “at the bar” experience here, there is something nice about having a warm coffee in your hand on a cold day to sip on while walking. But this is something they just don’t have here and it never occurred to me that they wanted. In the US, anything that anyone wants– it exists, twice, and you can get it delivered.

However, it wasn’t the coffee that was really being praised in the end. Those who had ever stayed in a Starbucks while traveling abroad agreed how nice an atmosphere the place had. They liked the free wi-fi and that you could stay as long as you liked, reading, studying and no one bothered you to buy something else or leave. This is truly the opposite of the experience you would get in a bar (cafe) in Italy. Here you pay a different price to sit down (seriously). In fact the group decided that if a Starbucks did open here, it would go out of business because it would become too Italian and wouldn’t pull off the same effect.

Anyway. I thought it was interesting.

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Pinoli Nuts

Hearing Pinoli (or Pine) nuts came from trees that grow all over the place was almost like hearing there was a money tree. Or an avocado* tree. Pinoli nuts are so delicious, and versatile, and expensive– I can pick them up off the ground?!

*This reminded me of a conversation I once had in San Francisco: How many avocados would you have to eat per month in California to offset the higher rent by the lower avocado prices?

Pinoli or pine nuts come from the Mediterranean Pine Tree. Our boring Christmas Tree type Pines make different cones without nuts. Typically a big ol’ pine cone or “pigna” falls from the tall trees. If you get to it before any little kids it should be FULL of black, filthy nuts. You can bang the cone around to set the little nuts free. The cone may have some sap, but the nuts WILL be covered in this black dirt-powder. Gather your haul in a bag and bring them home.


(Mediterranean pine cones with a few pine nuts still inside)

Now run some water in that bag to rinse the dirt off a little. Do it a few times. They don’t need to be perfect, you’re going to toss the shells. You just want it clean enough to handle them without getting black fingers yourself. So far this has been the fun and easy part. Leave them out to dry somewhere and gather your strength for the last step.


(Daniele showing me how to clean the pinoli nuts)



(My Pine Nut harvest in a basket to dry out for a few days)

What you have now are Pinoli nuts in their shell. That is a really hard shell. The only way to crack it is between two rocks or with a hammer on a rock. I tried using a wood cutting board and (1) I dented the board and (2) I wasn’t getting a clean crack, damaging the super soft nut inside. But any smashed nuts you’ll just have to eat.


(My Pinoli Nuts! All done and about to become pesto!)

The fresh nuts have a stronger taste than the store bought ones. I love it. When I cracked one open for my friend Fabienne she spit it out and said it tasted like sap. She actually seemed pretty scared from the experience. Now maybe she got a bad nut, or maybe it’s just not for everyone. More for me =D

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Pesto Day

Daniele’s Mother makes pesto a few times each summer, when her and Daniele’s basil is growing. This time I helped. We harvested all our basil in the morning and brought it over. Then theirs. It was a lot. Antonietta determined it was three batches worth. First we washed the basil by rinsing it in one side of the two-sided sink, then the other, and repeating until clean. Then we spread them out on the kitchen table to dry on clean dish towels. Then I grated the parmigiano and romano cheeses while she got her blender ready and chopped the garlic. She eyeballed all the measurements, but I guess when it’s all delicious, it’s hard to mess up. We had bought most the pinoli nuts, but Giulio, Danile’s father had also gotten some fresh ones from the trees outside their apartment.

Antonietta blended each batch into perfectly-smooth green deliciousness. Then it was poured in what I would call plastic dixie cups, they call disposable espresso cups. We freeze them and each one can be thawed for the perfect “for two” serving. Or cut in half for a simple “for one” meal.

We have to leave our little babies here to freeze. They transport better (safer) once they are in solid / frozen form. But this is enough maybe to last a year, and now I know the secrets!


(Antonietta making pesto)

More photos are in my Summer Rome Album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111221349198606775660/20110608Roma

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International cell phone forwarding

While traveling internationally I make calls back to the US. Even more important I want to receive calls made to my US number. It is a little complicated, so for my own memory and anyone else who may be interested, here is how I do it. Or if someone knows a better way– even better!

In the US I have a dataplan with Verizon. It happens that I have a Android Droid 2 on a family plan. That is my normal setup for when I am in the US.
When I leave the US for an extended period, I get a SIM card for the county I’m staying in most of the time. I stick that in a Nexux One. Being in the two-phone club makes me feel cool and them both being Android based keeps all my contacts and everything important all synced together.
I also deactivate my Verizon dataplan. With Verizon, you have to port your number to a non-smartphone to have a plan without data. In other words, numbers on smartphones must have a dataplan, and numbers on dumbphones cannot ever have dataplans. So to deactivate my dataplan, right after I leave the US, my mom enters the following on an old Motorola Razr. This ports my number to the Razr and deactivates my dataplan. It’s the same as if the Razr was a new phone I was activating.
Activate a phone on Verizon:
Turn off the old phone
Turn on the new phone and enter the following
* 228 [SEND]
(Call connects)
Select option 1
Enter my phone number
Enter account password/PIN
(Phone programs itself)
If there is a problem, will be connected to customer service.
If there is a big problem, Verizon customer service is 1-800-933-0204
I also want my calls forwarded to a place where I can get them. What I do is forward my Verizon calls to a Skype number. I have purchased a Skype Incoming number which I guess works out to be $6/month. That is a phone number I own from Skype where I can receive calls.
Verizon will forward calls to a US number for free, mostly. It just uses one ‘minute’ for each call forwarded and SMS can not be forwarded. All the SMS from the time away will be piled up on the dumbphone. I forward my Verizon phone number to my US Skype number (interesting, this is the number people see on their caller IDs when I call them). This can also be done from the phone.
*Note, activating a new phone / dataplan can not be done while call forwarding is active. So change phones first, then set up forwarding.
Activating Call Forwarding on Verizon:
Dial *72 [Number want to forward to AKA Skype number] [SEND]
(Want for beeps)
Done.
Interesting pitfall I found out first time through this. When my phone is off, it goes straight to voicemail. When it goes straight to voicemail, it does not “ring” which seems to be a critical part of the call-forwarding-process. So the dedicated dumbphone has to be left plugged-in and turned-on in the US. I don’t think it ever actually “rings” but it needs to be on or calls will just be sent to your US phone voicemail.
Now I have all my calls going to Skype. I have a US Subscription that covers all my US originated forwarded calls and any US calls I make for $6/mo.
Once my calls are in Skype I pretty good control over them. I can answer them in the Skype application (either on my computer or my phone) for free (no more than the monthly fees I already mentioned). Or I can have them forwarded on to my local cell phone number for the Skype rate in that country. In Italy, Skype charges $0.30/min to call cell phones. It is free to receive calls on cell phones in most of Europe, so there is no double paying.
I don’t always keep the Skype application running on my phone because it drains the battery. I always load it up to make a call to the US. If I don’t have it running, I will still get my calls, just at that 30 cents per minute more.
Setting up call forwarding in Skype:
From the Skype application
In the Tools menu, open the Options dialog
Under the Calls section on the left menu, find Call Forwarding
All the options to configure are there.
This gets me set up to receive calls sent to my US number right from my local cell phone and a fixed monthly rate. Now, fixing it all for when I want to come home.
I mentioned before, a new phone can not be activated when call forwarding is active. So before I arrive home, my mom enters the following code into the dumbphone that is currently hosting my US number.
Deactivating Call Forwarding on Verizon:
Dial * 73 [SEND]
(Wait for beeps)
(There will be a message on the screen)
Done.
Now in theory, the moment my plane touches down I can reactivate my smartphone with the same code used to change phones just after my departure and it will reactivate my dataplan. Every Verizon person I talked with always promised it would. Except the last person I talked to, when I said it never has, he admitted it probably never would. So I call them up from a land line when I get home and get things working again. Still trying to fill in this missing piece to get my phone working right from the tarmac.
Skype will still be forwarding to the international number. No rush to reset that, since I only use this number for this setup. But I change it to forward to my US number when I think of it, just in case someone has saved the number when they saw it in their caller ID and tries to reach me using it.
In summary, I deactivate my dataplan and forward my US number to Skype and then to my local cell when overseas. I don’t pay for my dataplan when I’m gone, but I pay for credit on my local cell, Skype Subscription and Number. This makes it possible for me to pick up my phone and call home and for anyone to call up my regular old US number and I can answer the call in Italy on my Italian cell phone without either of us paying more for the call than if I was still in the US. I just don’t get text messages until I come back to the US. Also if someone is brave enough to leave a voicemail with my Italian cell phone carrier, I am often unable to retrieve it– but hey its 2011, why are you leaving me a voicemail?
It is a little complicated and not super cheep, but it is important to me to be able to get my calls as someone who is self employed and traveling long-term. I’ll be heading back overseas again soon, so any suggestions for improvements are welcome!
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Back to Rome

In Costa Rica I decided for sure I wanted to go back to Italy as soon as possible. The police in Rome had explained to me I had to wait six-months to come back with another tourist visa (i.e. just come back and get a passport stamp on arrival). Or if I wanted to come back sooner, I would need a work or student visa. At the time I was a little annoyed to find this out, because this is for the whole EU. I don’t know if a work visa is even possible for someone self-employed, so I went off researching student visas.

Last time I went on a tourist visa, but the San Francisco Italian Culture Institute, who gave me my scholarship to study Italian in Rome, had encouraged me to get a student visa. They told me that the rules had changed and now student visas are even for people taking language classes not just for university students like it was before. Unfortunately I knew less than I do know and when the paperwork didn’t come threw in time I just blew it off.

Based on these experiences, I figured I would find a language school in Rome, enroll in part-time classes, secure a student visa, and stay in Rome for a spell. The first thing to do was to contact the Italian Consulate to make sure I was on track.

Immigration is handled by the Italian General Consulate in New York City (Newark does not do visas). They insisted I made an appointment (I had to call at $2.50 per minute) and come in person to ask my questions. The women I talked with fortunately fell into the portion of Italians who think it is just adorable that I try to speak their language. “Americana” she called over to the woman at the next window gesturing at me and smiling. It was a little discouraging at first, as she gave me the impression I would have to be a university student to get a student visa. Then we realized I had an incorrect understanding of the six-month rule. It is not that I have to wait in the US for six-months after exhausting my time in the EU; it is that I can stay in Italy/the EU for three-months in any six-month period. That means the six-months started when I arrived in the EU, not when I left. It actually makes much more sense this way. And even better, this means I would be clear for arrival as of February 25th instead of May 23rd. I was pretty excited.

I wanted to go immediately. The only real commitment I have is my cousin Corrine’s wedding May 7th as well as any bridesmaid events beforehand and a few family parties. The family parties I have been missing for years, so that was not much of a problem. I did however, feel terrible for missing the bridesmaid stuff. But there was nothing to be done for it. I wanted to go and the only alternative was to sit and wait at my parent’s house in New Jersey for two months, and surly something else would come up in that time. So it was decided, I would leave immediately and come back just in time for the wedding; that works out to just over two months in Italy.

I bought my ticket with Continental points. There is no markup for buying last minute and I don’t really want them laying around with the United merger happening. After that the major things to do were pack, die my roots, and file my taxes. My appointment with the Italians was February 17th, I flew out 7 days later on the 24th. It was a busy week.

And now here I am, exactly six-months after I arrived in Le Cinque Terre this past summer. I’m living just north of Rome in a beautiful two-bedroom condo with two balconies and a garden and my Romano. Daniele made one of my favorite things for lunch, gnocchi with pesto. We also had fresh ricotta and salad and wine. It was only a little weird that it felt like 6 AM for me. Then I had a nap and he went to work, but he left me a tomato and buffalo mozzarella salad in case I got hungry. So far pretty good.