More permesso pain

As I first wrote here, I've been having some trouble with my permesso di soggiorno, the document that allows me to live legally in Italy. After my last visit to the Questura, it seemed that all was finally in order and that in a month's time, I would finally have my permesso. Well, that's not what happened. N and I went to the Questura for my appointment, only to be informed that it wasn't ready. The officer we spoke with told us to come back in a few days, but added that he couldn't guarantee that it would be ready then, either. N wanted to know if we could call beforehand to ask if it were ready. Apparently, "that's not possible!" N pointed out that we don't live in Caserta and that every visit there is 100km round-trip, that he has to take time off work every time we go there because I can't drive (without the permesso I haven't been able to get an Italian driver's icense) and that at seven months pregnant, I shouldn't have to stand on a line for hours on the off chance that my permesso is ready. Then officer helpfully suggested that N drive to Caserta first to check, and if the permesso were ready, he could return home to pick me up and bring me to the Questura to get it. N wondered aloud whether the officer were joking. In the end, he managed to elicit an agreement that they would call us when the permesso was ready.

I didn't want to get my hopes up, but they actually called a few hours ago to tell me that it was ready. So let's hope that between now and Saturday, they don't do something unimaginable like lose my file (for the second time.) I wouldn't put it past them, though. I was told that on Saturday I'll need to bring an Estratto di Matrimonio. That's the same document they asked for at my last visit, even though the day before I had been told that I already had all the documents I needed. N actually brought them an Estratto a couple of days after that visit, but it seems that it, too, has been lost.

Old Habits

Now that I've been here over a year, I've begun to revert to certain of my more American behaviors, ones that I tried to suppress in the interest of assimilation, which it seems was just not meant to be.

Just three examples:

I've stopped wearing slippers around the house. I don't know if I'll still be in stocking feet when December comes and the house is cold, but I'm sure that once the terra cotta tiles begin to warm up in the springtime, I'll be walking around with piedi scalzi once again. I can't wait until N's aunt notices me shoeless/ slipperless. She freaks out when I don't wear socks with my slippers. You know, catching cold and all that, even in the summer.

I've stopped hiding from N the fact that I don't dry my hair immediately after I wash it. I prefer to air it dry more than half way, then finish it off with some gel and the hairdryer so that it doesn't flip or hang in strange ways. It just takes too long to dry it when it's still wet from the shower and I have always hated rubbing my head to towel dry my hair. If you have hair that's any longer than a few inches and as fine as mine, it's a sure way to tangle it up.

This isn't the season for it, but I've decided that I'm not going to try to tan anymore. Before this summer, I had tried to go along with beach culture, using sunscreen, but formulas not high enough to keep me pale. I put up with the pink, then red, face I have for weeks before I turn golden. (I have never actually reached tan.) I buried my head in the sand about the alarming number of new freckles I'd noticed in the past couple of years, telling myself that they didn't mean that one day I'd sport my mother's somewhat dalmatian look. This year, I started out avoiding the sun out of fear of chloasma, and then one day, while looking at my pale face in the mirror, I saw finally saw roses and lilies again, instead of mozzarella.

It feels good being back to my old self again.

Love Thursday: Territorial

I began to notice it about a month and a half ago when La Piccola's movements became stronger and more consistent. She has a daily cycle of activity and sleep that changes from time to time, but there is one thing that has remained a constant. La Piccola needs her space. She responds to any pressure placed on my abdomen with an immediate flurry of kicks or punches, or both. If I lean forward in my seat, or squat down to pick something up from the floor, she'll give me a couple of one-two punches in my thighs to remind me that I'm invading her territory. If my waistband is too tight, there will be a barrage of kicks. When I lie down on my side, she's quite displeased if I forget to put a pillow under my belly. When that happens, the mattress is the real beneficiary of her little punches, but I feel them all the same. And then, if I rest an arm along my other side, I can get her hands and feet going simultaneously. That always makes me laugh.

I wonder if these reactions are really conscious. I hope that they are. I like to think they mean that la Piccola already has a strong personality and that she knows what she needs and wants, and she doesn't hesitate to stand up for herself. If that is true, she'll be quite a handful as a child. But it also means that when she grows up, she will certainly make me proud.

Peas in jars

This is a post about peas.


When my younger sister DW was a baby, she had a plush toy that consisted of a long green pouch that zipped open to reveal three soft and smiling peas. I don't know how much she liked the pea pod, but it was one of my favorites, even if I, almost six years older than she, had little interest in playing with it. It's just that the peas were so cute. This remains my fondest memory of peas.

N's aunt likes to make gifts of food. The best gifts come from her garden: lemons, oranges, pomegranates, and figs. More often, she brings us produce she has bought at the supermarket, maybe a kilo of zucchine or eggplants, whatever has a special price when she finds herself there. By far, though, her favorite gift is food in jars. Often it's something she has cooked herself, invariably something that I don't like, prepared in a way that makes it even more unpalatable. The most memorable of these abominations was a jar containing peas so overcooked that they had become a paste.

After several months of quizzing N about whether we had eaten her culinary creations for dinner and hearing his sheepish "no" in response, she confided to me one day, "I think it's better to bring uncooked food here." As though I was the one who needed convincing. When she left, I rejoiced; I thought I had finally won the battle. Then, a few days later she came bearing another gift: three jars of uncooked peas. Sure, they were uncooked, but they were still peas...and in jars. Really, what compels someone to make a gift three jars of peas? I don't even know what to do with peas in jars, so I just put them next to two other jars of peas I'd found in the cupboard when I first arrived, and then I hid them all behind a big sack of semolina.

A few days ago, I decided to make gnocchi alla romana, and when I moved the sack of semolina, I rediscovered the peas. I was quite pleased that I had forgotten them for so long. I checked the expiration dates on their lids, certain that I would have to throw them in the trash. But I was wrong: apparently peas in jars last a very long time. I suppose that by now it's clear that I really don't like peas. The problem is that whenever I'm offered peas, they're mushy and have that hideous color that all green vegetables have after they've been conserved in a jar or a can or they've been cooked for far too long. When I find such peas on my plate, I cover them up with other things I haven't eaten. I have a suspicion that the aunt's pea paste started out as peas in a jar.

On our last trip together in the supermarket, N and I walked through the frozen food section on our way to the register. A bag of bright green frozen peas caught my eyes. "Look at these peas," I said holding them up to N's face. "Aren't they beautiful before they've been turned to mush?" Then and there I decided to that we needed to buy the frozen peas. My fond memory of DW's plush toy makes me want to like peas, and since I've never seen them fresh around here, I'll have to make do with frozen. Once I find a recipe that I like, I'll invite N's aunt and all the other pea over-cookers to dinner one night and serve them beautiful jewel-green peas, cooked just long enough. The mushy pea lovers will probably complain that my peas are undercooked, but if that happens I'll just open up one of the five jars of peas in the cupboard for them.

Anniversary

One year ago yesterday, N and I were married in our parish church, Santissima Annunziata. I didn't post this yesterday because we were too busy celebrating, despite the blustery and rainy weather. We still haven't received our photos, a whole year after the wedding (!) but our photographer did give us a disc of jpegs so that we could choose the photos for the album. Given that he's been so unprofessional to keep us waiting all this time, I have no qualms at all about posting a few of his photos on the blog, with my watermark, too.

Before the wedding, with the church in the background. I know the pose is silly!

The beginning of the ceremony. I was so disappointed to see how few people were in the church when I arrived. Then, when the ceremony was over, I turned around and couldn't believe how many had shown up during the mass.

A kiss on the steps of the church after the mass. We didn't kiss during the ceremony- I guess that's just not done here!

Making a toast at the reception.

Around town

A short photo tour of Sessa Aurunca. Some day I'll give some historical background about the town and its monuments, but for now some photos will have to do.

View of the church of the Annunziata, with Monte Massico in the distance
(Yes, it's the same picture that's in the sidebar, but now you can see it bigger!)

Castello ducale in Piazza Mercato, which has sadly become a car park

The duomo and its piazza, which has sadly become a car park

A colorful abandoned house in the medieval quarter

City gate, left, and tower, right, from the old city walls, both at twilight

Excavation of the Roman theatre outside the walls

Medicate me

The cure for an otherwise insatiable chocolate craving:


I ate a couple of these and la Piccola really started kicking. I hadn't eaten brownies in six months, and it just became too difficult to abstain any longer. Sometimes it feels good to be so bad. I found the recipe for these brownies in the New York Times not that long ago. There were two others printed in the same article and I meant to try them all, but I still haven't gotten past this one. It's adapted from a recipe in Chocolate: From Simple Cookies to Extravagant Showstoppers, by Nick Malgieri (Morrow Cookbooks, 1998.)

Fudge Brownies

16 tbsp. butter (8 oz. or 225 g.)
8 oz. chocolate (225 g.)
4 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour

Preheat the oven to 350° F (175° C.) Grease a 13 x 9" baking pan and line it with buttered parchment paper. Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a small, heavy saucepan, then allow the mixture to cool slightly. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, then add and whisk the salt, sugars and vanilla. Whisk in the chocolate and butter mixture. Fold in the flour until just combined. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until shiny and/or beginning to crack on top. Allow to cool completely in the pan on a rack.

Notes:
If you like walnuts in your brownies, add 1/2 cup chopped to the batter just after folding in the flour. I prefer not to do that because I prefer the flavor of my brownies to be pure and unadulterated chocolate joy.

The recipe uses the U.S. system of weights and measures.

If you make these brownies, do not feel obligated to share them with anyone.

Enjoy!

What's in a name?

As soon as we found out la Piccola's sex, N and I decided on a name. Neither of us thinks it's ideal, but for different reasons. For me, the problem is that it's not Italian, and it has a sound that most Italians cannot pronounce. I have the misfortune of having two names that begin with letters not in the Italian alphabet, and all it does is complicate my life. I imagine our daughter having to spell and explain her name (and suffer comments about how strange it is) every time someone asks for it. I wonder if she'll come to hate it. It was my mother's name, and it means the world to me to give it to our daughter. Fearing that the name would be too unusual to N and his family, I (reluctantly) suggested that we translate it into Italian. N disagreed, reasoning that if we're to name her after my mother, then she should have my mother's name.

N likes the name, and has even begun to call her by it, which I find a little unusual, but it seems to please him. Still, I can tell that he is uneasy about it, because in deciding to give la Piccola my mother's name, we are flouting his family's naming tradition, a fairly common one in southern Italy. A couple's first son and daughter are given the husband's parents' names. Successive sons and daughters may be named after maternal grandparents, or not. Even before I became pregnant, people would tell me how our children would be named. As an American, I found that presumptuous, and as I feminist I found it sexist. Who are they to tell me what names I must give my children, I wondered, and why is my husband's family so much more important than mine?

I did know about the tradition before N and I married, though I thought it applied only to sons. When were fidanzati, he spoke of how important it would be to him to name a son after his father. I understood completely: I felt the same way about my mother's name. It was pride in family's tradition that motivated him. For me, it was intense devotion to the memory of a mother lost too young. I agreed, even before we were married, that were we ever to have a boy, he would have N's father's name. Seeing what it meant to N, I happily ceded to his wish. Now that we've discovered that our first born will be a daughter, N has done the same for me.

These are decisions that the two of us have together made about our future children. But we are surrounded by people who believe that this isn't something that is just between the two of us. So it happens often that when we announce that we'll be having a girl, we are instructed yet again that the baby will have N's mother's name. I wonder if it makes him as uncomfortable as it makes me. He doesn't say, but understanding how deeply culture permeates identity, I am afraid even to ask. I wonder if I should give in, if I'm being selfish, if cultural conformity trumps my emotional attachment to my mother and my belief that we should be free to choose our children's names. But if I ever suggested not giving her my mother's name, N would refuse. He understands that this is something that I cannot give up if I am to remain who I am. I only wish that his understanding were shared by those who would put their culture on me like a straightjacket if they could.

The problem with persimmons

Hachiya persimmons with uva fragolina

I love the taste of hachiya persimmons but they're inconvenient. Last week, N's aunt gave us a crate of them, but about a third were so overripe that they were inedible. They were already split open and oozing. This seems to be a habit of hers, and I sometimes wonder if the reasoning behind her gifts of fruit goes something like, "Hmm, what can I do with all that stuff that's fallen from the trees?" This time, though, there was a good number of salvageable persimmons, all of them fully ripe. That's good because hachiya persimmons can't be eaten until they're fully ripe, but it's also bad, because one person cannot eat ten pounds of persimmons in the time that it takes them to rot.

I've long been in search of a recipe that would solve the annual persimmon problem. This year I made a bread pudding that was absolutely delicious but tasted nothing of persimmons, despite the three pounds of them that I pureed for the recipe. That's why I'm not posting the recipe here. What's the point of a persimmon bread pudding that doesn't taste like its star ingredient? That seems to be the flaw with most hachiya persimmon recipes I've tried. Now I'm just going to puree all that I can't eat and make freezer pops. (If I were feeling motivated, I would make ice cream. But I don't feel like clearing enough space in the freezer for the barrel of the ice cream maker.) I'm completely out of ideas. Anyone have any recipe suggestions for persimmons?

Keeping holy the sabbath day

Last Sunday, N and I went to mass in the cathedral (left,) even though our parish church is only about one hundred meters from the house. We hadn't been to mass in months, for various reasons, including laziness, but to be honest, our parish church hasn't made it easy. Even though we live so close by, we have no idea of the mass schedule (or even if there is one.) The mass times are never posted, which wouldn't be too much of problem if they didn't change so often. And then the bells don't help at all. On Sundays, they ring at 7:00 and 9:15 in the morning, at noon, and at 5:00 in the evening. But there are no masses at 9:15 or noon. We had been going to mass at 5:00, but then one week, there wasn't one. We went back at six. There was no one there. Sometimes the bells ring at 4:15 instead of 5:00, perhaps those Sundays mass is at 4:00? Who knows? I'd like to tell the parish priest that a great way to make sure that people come to mass is to make sure they know what time to come, but I doubt it would make any difference.

I've noticed quite a few differences between mass here and back in the U.S., but I'll just mention the two most striking ones. The first is the way the collection basket is passed around. At all the Catholic churches I'd been to back home, teams of ushers in the aisles would hand baskets to the people seated in the pews, who would then pass the baskets amongst themselves. At the end the ushers would collect the baskets and dump all the offerings into a larger (usually bucket-shaped) basket that would be brought to the altar. Here, one person walks around the pews with a small basket covered in a red cloth with hole in the top large enough to drop some coins or maybe a folded banknote in. Despite the theft protection offered by the cloth, the basket never leaves the collector's hands, which means that the collection is slow going and that the Agnus Dei is often punctuated by the clinking of coins. The second big difference I've noticed is that no one here forms lines to receive the Eucharist. As soon as it's time to receive the host, everyone stands up races to the altar. I realize that lines are not much appreciated by Italians, but one would think that being in the house of God would call for slightly more dignified behavior. The first time I saw this, I wanted to stand up and yell, "Have some respect people, it's the body of Christ!" But now I've grown accustomed to the Eucharistic mob scene and have decided to interpret it as zeal for the Lord.