Sacred and profane

This little fellow is a prophet who decorates the pulpit in our cathedral. For almost eight centuries now, he has looked watchfully over the churchgoers assembled below him and warded off evil by making le corna. It seems to me that the words pronounced from the very pulpit where our little prophet stands should be enough to keep any evil at bay in the cathedral, but perhaps Master Pellegrino, who carved this fine work of sculpture, figured that it's always best to hedge one's bets.

Thieves of Cherries

I suppose that it might just be some kind of cosmic justice for our own recent criminal activity. When we went up to Campo di Pere yesterday, we noticed that there were suspiciously few cherries on our tree's lower branches. We know from N's aunt that people do go up there to pick mushrooms and wild asparagus. A few weeks ago, she told us that she had heard talk of how Campo di Pere was abandoned. How should anyone know what condition our field is in, I asked N, unless they trespass on the land? The field is elevated and not visible from the road, or from the neighbors' plots. It all seemed very strange to us, because other than the tall grass that we had decided to cut only after the rains abated, there was nothing to suggest that the terrain was neglected. But now it becomes clear. It's much easier to justify stealing fruit from abandoned trees, isn't it? Of course N and I are furious, but he has told me that this was something that happened sporadically even when his uncle was still alive. The land is outside the center of town, and the chances of catching thieves in the act are slim. N's aunt had been after us to pick the cherries for the last couple of weeks, but we wanted to wait until they were ripe. Well, we've learned our lesson this time. As N's aunt would say, "Meglio acerbe a me che mature ai ladri." Better unripe for me than ripe for the thieves. We'll be more watchful with the other fruit currently growing at Campo di Pere:

White plums

Apricots

PearsAnd, of course, my favorite, the figs.

Now, the cherry theft has made me very angry. But I don't like cherries nearly as much as I like figs. Once July rolls around, and the figs are ripe, any thieves best be on their guard. To paraphrase Mr. T, I pity the fool who steals my figs.

What about my needs?

I first saw this on bleeding espresso, and then on texas espresso and from head to boot. I thought it was funny, and well, everyone is doing it! It's a Google search of your name together with the word "needs." The search results can be rather entertaining.

I tried it first as KC, but the results were repetitive and mostly had to do with sports teams and light rail. Apparently Kansas City has many needs. I've been there a couple of times, and thought it was a lovely city, so I was surprised to hear of so much discontent. Next I tried Karen, but it seems that many bloggers who share my name are much quicker on the draw than I am, and the first page of results was for pages written by Karens who had already done this. So I chose a number at random, and jumped ahead to that page. This is what I found. Prepare yourselves, it gets disturbing at the end. My comments are in italics.

1. Karen Needs to Grow Up! Like I haven't heard that before!

2. Karen needs to find a cave to live in. Well, whoever wrote that obviously doesn't read my blog. I already have a cave and I wrote about it here.

3. Karen needs to talk to the marktoids, or needs to make sure that a consistent message is put out. Okay, I'll get on that. Right.

4. Karen needs approximately two to three weeks to complete orders. Well, we all work at our own pace!

5. Karen needs to feel that the world is a safe place, and that people can be trusted. Is that so wrong?

6. Karen needs a sweatshirt or she'll get cold. I haven't worn sweatshirts since I was in college. And anyway, I'm not afraid of colpo di freddo.

7. Karen needs the diskette for announcement. Diskette? I don't think I'd have much success trying to insert one of those into my MacBookPro.

8. Karen needs to get out more. This is true, but unless my province puts in some light rail (one of KC's needs, see above,) there won't be many places I can get to.

9. Karen needs to invest in a thesaurus and learn a new work for "gazillion." Whoever wrote that needs to invest in a proofreader.

10. Karen needs to be re-trained, transferred, or outright fired--whatever it takes--to put a halt to her systematic killing of animals. How did they discover my secret?

Geometry

A section of the cathedral's thirteenth-century pavement

Love Thursday: One Year

Today is the anniversary of my move. I arrived here one year ago today, after months of preparation, the last three weeks of which were so exhausting that I slept, for the first time, for the entire duration of a transatlantic flight. I left from New York, the city of my birth, having returned there to say goodbye to my sister and brother, to bring N to the graves of my parents, and to see my city one last time before moving away, likely for ever.

N came to help me finish packing a few days before the departure. The two months that had passed between my last visit to Italy and the date of his arrival in the U.S. seemed unending. We had been through two-month-long waits so many times before but the last one was the most painful. Even knowing that we would never have to wait again was little consolation. My patience was completely spent. I hated my job, my courses and my students. I resented them because they represented the contract that bound me to that place, that kept me waiting for my new life to begin. If I hadn't been a professor, I thought almost every day, I would have given two weeks notice and walked away months before. (If I hadn't been a professor, I would remind myself, I probably would never have met N. And even if I had, how could I have made so many long trips to Italy, three months in the summer, one month at Christmas?)

The day he came to New York there was a huge thunderstorm. I saw it in the distance as I drove to my sister's house, at first marvelling at its color and size, and then dreading what it might mean for N's flight. At the airport, my heart began to sink as I noticed the flights on the board, one by one, being redirected to Boston. How would I find him, I wondered, how would he get by not speaking English, how could I wait any longer before seeing him again? For half an hour I watched the board, and then the skies cleared. The plane scheduled to arrive before his was allowed to land. His flight arrived fifteen minutes later. Then, after twenty long minutes, he came out from the double doors into the waiting area and I cannot write about the joy I felt because I haven't the words to describe it. We spent the days before our departure for Italy trying to put the last remaining things in order. I no longer remember how many things I left undone, or exactly what I left in my apartment when, the evening before the flight, we realized that we had to leave for New York. There were too many things to do there, and they were all too important to risk leaving them unfinished.

And so we left for Italy. My life has changed more in the past year than it had in the previous ten. I have spent twelve months alternately adapting and not adapting to my new surroundings. I miss America. I knew that I would, but I never imagined how much. Sometimes I feel a pain that pierces my heart so, I'm afraid to tell N, because I worry that he'll think that I'm not happy or at ease here. Or he'll want details, he'll want to know just what are the things that I miss. But I can't say; if I try to make a list, the things I enumerate never add up to the sum of my nostalgia. It's just a feeling, it's the love of the place. Not living the contradiction of existing in two worlds simultaneously, he cannot understand how I can be sad that I am not there while at the same time I am happy that I am here. He doesn't like that this is the price I must pay for the choice I've made, but I accept it willingly and happily, because I did it for love.

Full steam

Italians are serious about ironing. That's one of the (many) reasons why I'll never meet the housekeeping standard set by Italian housewives. I have never ironed bedsheets, towels, or underwear, and I never will. I do understand why Italian women iron all those things, though. Line-dried laundry is stiff, and ironing softens it. Very few households have clothes dryers, and I reckon that those that do, like mine, don't use them extensively because of the amount of energy they consume. Almost everything comes out of our dryer wrinkled, so it makes no sense using it to dry clothing, because it'd all have to be ironed anyway. (Fortunately, N seems unbothered by our wrinkled bedsheets.) I iron most of N's clothes, and some of mine. N needs neatly pressed t-shirts and jeans. I do not. I'm certainly not happy about all the additional ironing I have to do, but at least there's one good thing about ironing in Italy: il ferro da stiro a vapore. That translates as steam iron, but it's nothing like the so-called steam irons I used back home. That's our iron pictured above. It's attached by a cord to a base that contains a water tank and a heater. The combination of the big water tank and the powerful heater provides vast quantities of steam, meaning that even though I have more ironing to do than before, it doesn't take up that much more time. I wonder if these irons are only available in Italy, or if they're used elsewhere in Europe, too. Despite how well they work, I can't imagine them becoming very popular in the U.S., given how common dryers that don't wrinkle clothes are over there.

Rebirth in the garden

When we first began work on the garden a couple of months ago, we pulled up everything but the wisteria and another plant we couldn't identify. It was located against the wall of the house, and it had obviously suffered during the construction: many of its dry, grey branches were covered in cement. (How did that happen, I wonder? Just what were those workmen doing in the garden?) I didn't have much hope that the plant would survive, but I decided to leave it where it was, a least for a while. I removed as many of the dry and plaster-covered branches as I could. A week later, it was sending out new shoots, and just a few weeks ago it began to flower. Now I know that it's a philadelphus, and very fragrant one. I like that because it's a beautiful plant to have in the garden, and because its name reminds me of one of my favorite cities, Philadelphia.

Love Thursday: Wisteria

I.

Of all flowers, wisteria is my favorite. I remember the first time I ever saw it, about a dozen years ago, on a May visit to Longwood Gardens. I had heard of wisteria before then, and even seen pictures of it, but that superficial familiarity couldn't have prepared me for the Wisteria Garden there. They were fully in bloom and the air was thick with their sweet fragrance. Bees buzzed in a frenzy around the flowers, ignoring anyone who drew close. I loved the graceful form of the plants, shaped into trees, and the delicate cascades of flowers. I loved the leguminous form of the individual flowers and their juxtaposition of lavender with the yellow spot at the center. From that day on, the sight of wisteria has always been enough to make me smile, and I cannot pass by its flowers without stopping to smell them.

II.

When I was younger and naive about Italy, I dreamed of moving here and living in an idyllic country villa. Lazio was a likely choice: I wouldn't have wanted to be too far from Rome. The villa wouldn't have to be too large, but I knew I wanted white-stuccoed walls, terra cotta roof tiles, and at least one room with a vaulted ceiling. Most important was the garden, and in the garden, a wisteria arbor, where I would pass carefree hours enjoying the good life. I suppose I thought I'd find a job teaching in a study abroad program. I'm not sure how that would have left very much time for il dolce far niente. Graduate students, I think, are not known for their apprehension of reality. As I grew older and less naive about the realities of living in Italy, I realized how unreal this dream was. Disappointed, I turned my attention to more practical matters like writing a dissertation, finding a job, and then teaching. I came to think of Italy only as a favorite place to visit, but I never stopped wanting a wisteria arbor.

III.

I first came to this town two years ago, to spend the summer with N, whom I had met in Rome only months before. Until then, I had been to southern Italy only twice, on day-trips to Pompeii and Naples from Rome. Despite N's description of the place, I didn't know to expect. I knew that Campania would be different from the other regions of Italy that I had seen, but I never imagined that the town would look they way it did. I saw houses built of tufa blocks, sometimes partially covered in plaster peeling from the walls, sometimes not covered at all, with every window opening onto a terrace, and wildflowers so prolific that they could be found in the strangest places: the rain gutters of houses, sprouting from the façades of otherwise imposing buildings, and atop the domes of churches. The house itself was not as rustic as N's description had suggested, and I hadn't imagined it quite so tall. As we parked the car before the little garden that runs alongside the house, I noticed a leafy vine climbing the fence. Looking more closely, I saw that it was wisteria, and then I noticed, within the mass of green leaves, two or three bunches of flowers still blooming.

IV.

This year we finally got around to cleaning up the garden. There wasn't much that we could do before now, because we were waiting for N's brother to convert the attic storey into an apartment. We knew that workmen would use the garden as a place to mix concrete and dump construction debris. Earlier this spring, broke up the several inches of concrete that they had spilled onto the ground, we pulled up a forest of weeds, and N affixed wires from the fence to the house, creating a grid to guide the wisteria over the garden. As we weeded, we began to notice wisteria coming up here and there, around the perimeter of the garden. It has already started to crawl along the network of wires, the beginning of an arbor.

Last night's dinner

I suppose it wouldn't be very nice of me to post a list of one hundred of my favorite foods and then not provide any recipes. I do plan on posting quite a few of them, but it's a long list, and it'll take me a while to work through it. For now I'll start with the spinach and cheese strata, from a recipe that I found in the February 2003 issue of Gourmet. No one ever taught me how to cook, so almost everything that I know about cooking I learned from reading other people's recipes. (The remainder of of my kitchen knowledge is based on intuition, and whenever that failed, experimentation.) Gourmet was an important resource for me when I first began to cook in earnest. As I prepared for my move to Italy, I realized that I couldn't justify shipping all the magazines I had collected over the years, so for several days, I read through them, clipping the recipes I loved best. This was one of them:

Spinach and Cheese Strata


10 oz. (285g) frozen spinach, thawed
1 large onion, chopped
3 tbsp. (40g) butter
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
8 cups (225 g) cubed bread
6 oz. (170g) grated Gruyère
2oz. (60g) grated Parmiggiano reggiano
2 3/4 cups (650ml) milk
9 large eggs
2 tbsp. Dijon mustard

Squeeze the spinach to remove excess water. Cook the onion in butter until soft, then add 1/2 tsp. salt, the pepper, and the nutmeg. Cook for another minute, then add the spinach. Stir and remove from heat.
Spread a third (or a half, depending on the depth of your pan) of the bread cubes into the bottom of a buttered gratin dish. Spread a third (or half) of the spinach and onion mixture on top of the bread cubes, then cover with a third (or half) of the grated cheeses. Repeat, ending with the cheeses.
In a large bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, mustard and 1/2 tsp. salt. Pour evenly over the strata. Refrigerate strata, covered, for at least 8 hours.
Preheat oven to 350˚F (175˚C.) After letting strata stand at room temperature for 30 minutes, bake for 45-55 minutes. Let stand five minutes before serving.

Accompanying the strata last night were grilled eggplant rounds and insalata di pomodori (chopped tomatoes seasoned with salt and oregano, and dressed with olive oil.)

Some notes:
The frozen spinach I've found here isn't chopped, which makes mixing it in with the onions difficult. I usually cut the spinach into smaller pieces with kitchen shears before adding it. I've never tried the recipe with fresh spinach, although I have considered it. My intuition tells me that it would be best to wilt it first.

I really love onions, and especially the taste of onions cooked in butter, so I always add more than a large onion to this recipe. I use one large and one small. I wouldn't want to overdo it!

I have a hard time finding gruyère around here (much to my chagrin.) I refuse to substitute the ubiquitous and insipid Emmental for it, so I've been forced to try several different cheeses. Last night I used an asiago stagionato. The strata was tasty, but didn't compare to the ones I've made with gruyère.

The classification system for eggs here in the EU is different than that in the United States. Eggs classified as large here are larger than large American eggs. Or so I've read. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the source of that information. I used only six eggs last night, but they were very large.

I increased the pepper to a whole teaspoon. Both N and I like pepper very much.

Enjoy!

100 Things...I like to eat

My version of the popular meme.

1. Pizza Margherita in Naples
2. Spaghetti all’amatriciana, the way N makes it
3. Mozzarella di bufala from Mondragone
4. Prosciutto crudo S. Daniele
5. Prosciutto with mozzarella di bufala
6. Prosciutto with melon
7. The yellow melons that are white on the inside and sweet as sugar
8. Comice pears
9. Pears and parmiggiano reggiano
10. Winesap apples
11. Apples and cheddar
12. Roasted potatoes, crisp and brown on the outside, soft inside
13. Potato gratins, especially with leeks and gruyere cheese
14. A pizza with potatoes, pancetta, and caramelized onions
15. Strips of steak with arugula and onions
16. A salad of bitter greens with orange sections
17. A spinach and cheese strata
18. Grilled zucchine
19. Fried zucchine
20. Roasted squash of any kind
21. A gratin of zucca mandolina (a type of squash) with montasio cheese
22. Apple pie, double crust
23. Brownies, made with brown sugar and 8 oz. of chocolate
24. Chocolate, either milk or dark, at least 2 oz. every day
25. Lemon sponge
26. Banana bread
27. Biscuits made with parmiggiano reggiano
28. Cherries eaten while picking them from the tree
29. Fresh figs, five, eaten one right after the other
30. Braised carrots with some butter and a little bit of honey
31. Fried eggplant
32. A salad of baby spinach leaves
33. Freselle (a hard bread softened with water) with tomatoes, olive oil, and oregano
34. Pear gelato
35. Thumbprint cookies with raspberry jam
36. Oatmeal cookies made with currants instead of raisins
37. Black and white cookies
38. Taleggio cheese
39. Chocolate shortbread
40. Flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce
41. Petit-fours
42. Tagliatelle ai funghi porcini
43. Apple sauce made of apples cooked in orange juice rather than water
44. Breaded and fried chicken cutlets
45. Mashed potatoes
46. Gnocchi alla Sorrentina
47. Fried zucchine blossoms
48. Pork pot roast, braised with lots of onions
49. Grilled steak dressed with a little garlic butter
50. Roast turkey, with gravy
51. Stuffing with bits of apple and sausage, with gravy
52. Onion bagels
53. Braised fennel
54. Insalata caprese
55. Tagliatelle al ragù
56. White peaches
57. Red grapes with seeds
58. Fresh pineapple
59. Coconut pineapple cake
60. Blood oranges
61. Clementines
62. Raspberries
63. Blackberries
64. Blueberries
65. Apricots
66. Meatloaf stuffed with bread and cheese
67. Meatballs simmered in broth
68. Pork chops smothered in onions
69. Almost anything smothered in onions
70. Onion soup
71. Chicken soup
72. Fried dim sum dumplings
73. Chicken in garlic sauce
74. Spring rolls in Thai restaurants
75. New York pizza
76. Polenta and sausages
77. Eggplant parmigiana
78. Roast chicken seasoned with rosemary
79. Bacon
80. Marzipan, covered in dark chocolate
81. A cheeseburger with bacon and barbeque sauce
82. A pulled-pork sandwich
83. Borek, a savory Turkish dish made with fillo dough
84. Pancakes served with caramelized apples
85. Risotto with parmiggiano reggiano
86. Risotto with pancetta and leeks
87. Risotto al Barolo
88. Risotto with bits of sausage
89. Supplì
90. Zucchine frittata
91. Ham and cheese quiche
92. Foccaccia, oily, salted and thin
93. Apple muffins
94. Fried boneless chicken breast, juicy and just browned
95. Simple pizza rustica with tomatoes and garlic
96. Fresh young green beans, barely cooked, with parmiggiano
97. Grilled tomatoes with blue cheese
98. Soft pretzels in New York
99. Tortelli di zucca (pumpkin ravioli) in a little butter or in broth with some almonds
100. Butter cookies

Imitating the Ancients

This is a fine example of spolia located at the entrance of the bishop's palace here in town. For those of you unfamiliar with the term spolia, I first discussed it here. Above the entrance portal is a classical lintel surmounted by a medieval blind, or closed, arch. The lintel is late Roman, and seems to have come from the theater across town. Its decoration consists of spiralling grapevines growing from a kantharos, two facing panthers, and male and female theatrical masks. (Click on the image for a larger view.) Beneath the sculptural frieze are two rows of decorative motifs, the upper one a pattern of acanthus leaves, which is imitated and repeated along the edge of the medieval archivolt above. Beside the acanthus, various animals stand facing the center of the arch amid spiralling vegetation, similar to the classical panthers and grapevines beneath them. The medieval elements likely date to the twelfth or thirteenth century. The ancient relief, despite its theatrical masks, is well suited to its new religious context, given the symbolism of the grapevine in Christianity. What is most interesting about this particular instance of spolia, however, is the attempt to harmonize the style and subject matter of the older and newer elements to create a fairly coherent ensemble.

Love Thursday: Making peace

If my father were still alive, today would be his seventy-third birthday. Even though he died not very long ago, I can't imagine what he would be like at that age. When I think of him he's always somewhere in his fifties, as in the photo on the left. He and I never got along, partly because we were alike in all the wrong ways, and partly because I was a disappointment to him. That used to make me angry, and for years I lived with that anger, tearing me up inside, until in my late twenties, I realized that it was time to let it go, and I did. Now, as I look back on my father's constant criticism of me, I realize that it was actually motivated by love. Some parents are so fixated on their idea of what's best for their children that they fail to understand that success means different things to different people. My father was disappointed because he knew that I'd never live the life that he had imagined for me. He didn't realize that for me to be happy, I needed to live a life of my own imagining. This is an unfortunate, yet understandable error for parents to make with their independently-minded children. I like to think that with the wisdom of old age, he would have come to realize this, and that seeing me happy in the choices I've made, he would be satisfied, and finally proud. Actually, I am certain of this.

One of my fondest memories of my father involves a door knob and too much hand lotion. Once, just before he was about to leave the house, he put some lotion on his hands. He tended to exaggerate in things like this (for example, when he cleaned his glasses, he'd spray them a dozen or more times with Windex before wiping them off,) and this time he squeezed far too much lotion from the bottle, given that he was wearing not only a long-sleeved shirt but also a blazer and a raincoat. There was nowhere for the extra lotion to go, as he would have had to undo his cuffs and roll up his sleeves with very slippery hands. My sister and I watched him for a minute or two as he rubbed his hands together again and again, and were already holding back our laughter when he went to the door and tried to turn the knob. Knowing that laughing would have infuriated him, we looked at each other desperately as we tried to hold back any outburst. I can't remember how long he tried to open the door, but it seemed like an eternity. He wiped some of the excess lotion from his hands with a paper towel, but even that wasn't enough to open the door, because the knob was slippery from his previous attempt. Finally he grabbed another paper towel and used it to turn the knob. After he closed the door behind him, my sister and I laughed so hard that we cried. I love this memory not because it makes him seem foolish, rather, as a tender reminder that he was only human, it makes him dear to me.

La Grotta, Campo di Pere

At the southern edge of Campo di Pere, there's small cave with three chambers. N likes to think that it was a nascondiglio, or hideout. I find that the fantastic explanations I invent for mysterious things are always proved wrong, so to avoid disappointment this time, I've decided that the cave was a depository or simply a cool place to rest for the people who worked the land. I have to concede that N's claim is supported by the fig tree that obscures the entrance:Let me say, however, that this particular fig tree doesn't seem very old, and besides, in the winter time, it does not do a very good job of covering up the giant opening in the rock.

The largest chamber is the first one. Small niches and shelves have been carved into two of its walls. One of them, oval-shaped, hosts an old bird's nest. I tried to photograph it, but it was far too dark in that part of the chamber. But if you look closely at this view, you can see a small niche carved into the upper right of the back wall:The second and third chambers are much smaller than the first, and can be entered through two arched openings in the right wall of the main chamber. One is visible above, the other, nearer to the cave entrance is visible below:In the smallest of the three chambers, there is an entrance to a tunnel made short and narrow by a pile-up of stones:
It leads in the direction of the tomb, and N, entering the tunnel as far as he could without any means of lighting the way, noticed some light off in the distance, so there is likely another entrance elsewhere on the property. Next time we go to the cave, we'll bring a flashlight with us so that we can explore the tunnel.

Early May, Campo di Pere

Some of the things currently growing at Campo di Pere:

Figs,

Grapes,

Cherries,

And I hope, for this little guy's sake, a new tail.

Love Thursday: Flowers for Babbo

Last week, N came home bearing these flowers. I knew that after work he had stopped at his aunt's house to fix her furnace, so I guessed immediately that they were from her garden. "These flowers are for Babbo," he told me, "for his picture." I thought it very tender that used the word babbo, which is equivalent to daddy in English, because more often than not, he uses the word padre when speaking about his father. I put the flowers, whose stems had been cut rather short, in a jar with some water, and placed them near the photograph of N's father. I can't remember that we did anything similar in my family. We brought flowers to the graves of our loved ones, but never placed any before an image.

The practice reminds me of my favorite quote from Leon Battista Alberti's On Painting (1435):

"Painting possesses a truly divine power in that not only does it make the absent present, as they say of friendship, but it also represents the dead to the living many centuries later..."

Any classicists will have spotted the reference to Cicero; postmodernists will be ready with a critique that plays cleverly with the words absence and presence. I spent a considerable amount of my former, academic life contemplating Alberti's claim about the power of images, and while I understood it intellectually, it remained remote to me emotionally until now. I suppose it's because I chose to focus on the reference to Cicero, and what he says of friendship, as an example of Alberti's humanism rather than as a key to something else. In friendship, and by extension, in love, we keep those who are absent from us in our hearts, and while we feel their presence there, we gaze at their images, and seeing them and feeling them so near, they are real and present to us. Love was the key, and now I understand.

Cose nostrane*

This is what N brought home from a caseificio, or cheese maker, in the nearby town of Mondragone a couple of evenings ago. Arranged from left to right are mozzarella di bufala, cow's milk ricotta, and provola affumicata (a smoked cow's milk cheese.) The mozzarella was some of the best I've ever had: flavorful, lightly salty, and creamy yet compact. N and I are so spoiled by the high-quality mozzarella available around here that we are wary about eating it outside of Campania. We think that much of the mozzarella available elsewhere in Italy bears only a passing resemblance to the real thing. I now shudder when I think of the "fresh mozzarella" I ate in the United States.

Here, mozzarella is eaten most often on its own. You put a ball of mozzarella on your plate, hold it in place it with your fork, and slice it, all the while trying to keep it from slipping around. (The latte, or milk, that oozes out as you slice it doesn't make it easy!) Sometimes mozzarella is eaten in an insalata caprese, sometimes with prosciutto crudo. I like it both those ways, but when the mozzarella is excellent, it needs no accompaniment. Sometimes N likes to grind pepper over his mozzarella after he has cut it into slices. I like that too, but most of the time I find the pepper distracting.

The problem with mozzarella is that it does not keep. Refrigeration alters its taste and texture, making it what N and his family call molle, soft and mushy. N always buys a kilo, even though we never manage to eat that much in one day. Next-day mozzarella may not be good on its own, but it's just fine cooked. I use it for pizza or in pasta sauces; it's especially good in a tomato sauce with eggplant. But that evening, when I asked N whether he'd like to have pizza the next day, he suggested that I fry the mozzarella instead. When I asked him how, he said "with eggs and breadcrumbs." For a moment I imagined a very strange yet intriguing mozzarella frittata, but then I realized that he meant to bread the mozzarella and then fry it.

The next day, this is what I did: I sliced the mozzarella and drained it in a colandar, and then I dredged the slices in flour to make them less slippery. I dipped them in some beaten egg, covered them in breadcrumbs, then repeated these last two steps. I fried them in olive oil (about one-quarter of an inch in the frying pan) until they were golden on both sides. This is what I came up with, and I don't think they look so bad for a first attempt:


They were really quite delicious. N tells me that this is a common way of preparing mozzarella here, but I'd seen never it before. I doubt that these fried mozzarella slices are to be found in restaurants. They're much too casarecce, or homestyle, but that's what makes them so good.

*Cose nostrane means "our things," in the sense of things typical of a particular region.