Seasons Greetings, Deuce

About this time last year, Giulio and I released our inaugural holiday greeting card. (I guess I say "released" because we were too miserly to have it either mass-printed or stamped.) Nevertheless, we pledged to make it our tradition to create a new greeting card of a similar nature every December, each time set against the most recent place we traveled. 

Unfortunately we totally dropped the ball on our tradition and forgot all about it.

In effort to reconcile our negligence, I begged my homeslice Megan Kalmoe to work her photoshop magic and scotch-tape our nasty selves into various cities in Turkey.

With that, it is my pleasure to present you with the most trivial reflection of her artistic genius, as well as to wish you:

PEACE & JOY

From our cold, black hearts to yours.

Love, Giulio & Liv

Which one is your favorite?

Thanks but no Thanks

Wanna see the saddest Thanksgiving dinner ever?

Eight naked pumpkin raviolis, in a plastic tupperware, aggravated by jail-cell lighting. 

Let me just clarify that I ADORE pumpkin ravioli (when prepared swimming in sage and brown butter and sprinkled with amaretti biscotti and parmesan) as much as I adore the quintessential Thanksgiving dinner: thick slabs of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. I also adore a robust dinner table with laughter and loudness and a high people-i-love to m² ratio. 

Unfortunately, my very sad Thanksgiving encompassed three very thin slices of prepackaged cold-cut turkey from the Pam, said bare pumpkin raviolis, and a date with my esthetician who kindly pointed out that "i tuoi baffetti sono cresciuti" (my mustache was bigger than ever).

I've pretty much spent the last month zipping in and out of Tuscany, splashing in Chianti, eating fried white bread, white pasta, white pasta with fried white bread, pane dei santi, etc. Indulgent behavior regretfully comes with a price, which is just to say I am currently ingrassata (fatter) and on a diet, hence my sobriety on a day I ought be consuming 6000 calories in a single sitting. The fun has officially run dry. 

But as a matter of lightheartedness, on the same day, Giulio came home bearing an opportunity for novel experience:

the influenza vaccine!

weeeee!

So instead of probing a turkey rectum, I got to administer my very first injection, and I did awesome. He didn't scream, I didn't inject into a vessel, and two days later he's still alive, not to mention practically FLU FREE. 

I am envisaging Thanksgiving this year the prequel to Natale as Giulio will be fulfilling his humanitarian efforts in the hospital on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I was thinking of fulfilling mine by dressing up as naughty santa and smoking a cigarette on the sofa.

Anyhow, I hope you had a decadent holiday weekend, unraveling from your normal hectic lives while engulfed by the ones you love, and that you also got a little chubbier. 

Buon Ringraziamento!

Halloweena

When I moved to Italy I spoke only English, Spanish, and some raunchy Hungarian. My dad  tried to provide solace (bless him) by (lying) saying I would be able to get my point across if I just added a vowel to the derrière of every word.

Halloweena.

Now, I have a confession to make.

Last week when I told you about Dolce dei Santi and posted those photos of the chocolatey thingamajigs, well... I didn't actually buy them at the pasticceria as one is supposed to do. I bought them (discounted, even worse) at the grocery store. Unfortunately this photo evidences an Italian gold standard exception:

In case you can't figure it out, there are three major things wrong with this photo:

1. Enormous hangnail (since manicured).
2. WAY TOO MANY INGREDIENTS. 
3. partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

While I am bored at best but more reasonably scornful of those with overly rigid eating habits, one thing I will absolutely not budge on is hydrogenated vegetable oil. It's chemically engineered to extend shelf life- a property that doesn't stop at the level of your body where it sits on the shelves of your arteries for more years than you will be alive to appreciate.

Anyway, I more or less stopped reading ingredients lists when I moved to Italy because food is faithfully fresh and standardized to house minimal constituents. On this unfortunate occasion however, I ate the dolce dei santi and only realized after the fact that I had ingested those hateful hydrogenated oils of death. Giorno dei morti in sooth.  

There was only one feasible solution to being exonerated of this heinous act: I would have to go to Siena, allegedly famous for REAL dolce dei santi, and find something of the authentic variety.

So we got in the car and drove to Tuscany.

Landscapes tried (and failed) to distract me from the nature of my mission.

So when we got to Siena, I ignored every beautiful edifice or rolling hill in favor of staying focused on the task at hand. I dragged Giulio in and out of every pasticceria we passed but NOBODY, not even one stupid bakery, had any flippin' pane dei santi.

Just as I had surrendered hope and was beginning to formulate my temper tantrum, I saw these:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and as I continued my survey of the display case, I also saw these:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This HAD to be what I was looking for, it looked near identical to what I had eaten the week prior. I ran inside and interrupted the baker, panting, and with a tone that conveyed obvious desperation:

Me: "Mi scusi. Questi sono dolce dei santi?"  ["Excuse me, are these dolce dei santi?"] (avidly tapping on the display glass).

Baker: "No. QUESTO è pan co' santi". [No. THIS is pan co' santi"] (pointing at something entirely different, boring, comprising only fruit and nuts)

Blech!

[my thoughts: you must be joking/mistaken]
Me: "E queste?" ["And these?"] (pointing to original heroic chocolate/powdered-sugar thingies)

Baker: "Questi sono Ricciarelli"

Me: "Prendo tutti i due." [I'll take both]. 

In sum, the REAL pan co' santi bored me out of my mind. On the other hand, the Ricciarelli far exceeded both my expectations and my experience with the dolce the week prior. (Now I'm really not sure what that stuff was, but I do know that somebody got very confused). Ricciarelli and Pan co' Santi are indeed both Tuscan specialties; the latter is specific to Ognissanti, the former, to Christmas. Per my research, Ricciarelli is almond-based and was popularized in the 14th century by Ricciardetto della Gheradesca upon his return from the Crusades. 

Nevermind all that because, then THIS happened:

Let me introduce you to THE Fiorentina, more affectionately known to my fellow Americans as the T-Bone Steak. That slab of meat weighed almost one full kilogram, and Giulio ate every morsel down to the bone. The photo below was not staged to exaggerate either the degree of demolition cast unto that steak or the concomitant expression on Giulio's face.

Though there wasn't costume, trick-or-treating, or pumpkin carving, roadtripping through Tuscany on Halloweena could eventually prove a new, equally nostalgic tradition. 

Dolce dei Santi

Like most faithful Americans, I'm a bit of a Halloween zealot. Not so much because of the overcompensatory skanky female outfits, but rather for the prospect of finally receiving that mythical razor blade in my carmel apple. Though the holiday is not celebrated with an equivalent enthusiasm in Italy, what it lacks is costume it makes up for in:

DOLCE!

I am mad about dolce. Like, -eat it alone in my closet- mad. So when I saw this Pane dei Santi and said to myself "I'm just going to buy this as a matter of blog fodder", my conscience knew I was lying. 

In Italy, November 1 is All Saints Day or Ognissanti and November 2 is Day of the Dead or Giorno dei Morti. I guess the belief is that the dead return to the living the night between November 1st and 2nd and remain with the living until the Epiphany in January. The dolce is an offering made to the recently resurfaced and is known as Pane dei Santi or Pane dei Morti; it's a tradition that apparently originated in Milan but has since become a devoutly practiced ritual of Tuscany. Anyway, I did not bake this myself, nor do I particularly care to investigate how it is prepared, but I can tell you it has a distinctly dense, cakey texture, boasts flavors of chocolate, nuts, citrus and spice, and that there isn't any left.

Holiday 1, Best Of

Giulio and I just returned from two weeks in Turkey. It's an extraordinary country with a broad range of things to do, an impressive history, stunning landscapes, delicious food, and welcoming people.

In honor of this blog being dedicated to my ineptitude in Italy, I've decided to refrain from featuring the blues and greens of the glittering coast, the reds  and oranges of the fiery sunsets, or the deep purples  of harvested eggplants, and instead  share with you the less conventionally appreciated moments of our travels.

Let me first just say that on day three I barfed twice in a random kebab shop in Uchisar, and on day six we both almost crapped our pants in Pamukkale.

Now.

hiking Love Valley: one can easily discern the reason behind its romantic name.

unfortunately we were only able to sample the peanuts

oh no, no no

they really did look genuinely fake

wonder if I can get a discount if I buy the onions in bulk?

why bother with natural beauty when your girlfriend is a FOX!

giulio's observations: five waiters, one cup.

bullying: their collective burst into vindictive laughter when Giulio dropped his keys

shark bait: a clandestine attempt to woo me with honeyed words in the two minutes G was gone for a bathroom break

lunch pairing of fermented vegetable juice to accompany Bosphorus street sold fish sandwich, purchased after forgetting my seeing glasses/mistaking it for pomegranate juice. 

SURPRISE!

(Did I mention we almost crapped our pants in Pamukkale?)

Ok, but seriously, GO TO TURKEY.

Fresh Pages

My brand new British Passport arrived which means I don't have to go through the Permesso di Soggiorno/Dolce Visa process again! What a relief. 

Just one thing, can someone please explain to me the purpose of this:

Admittedly, I left it on for a little while because I felt ridiculous following such sorry instructions (recurrent thought: "why'd you put it there in the first place?") But I finally caved and peeled off "this label", which left me feeling micromanaged for almost a week. 

The Smoked Goat

While I tend to prefer complaining, I've decided to shake things up a bit and start with some *happy* news. After a summer of seemingly endless studying and feeling generally useless, I have finally passed all my exams and am now officially a third year medical student.

That's it. That's the happy news.

There were many a moment in the fray when I thought I wouldn't live to claw my way out of this twisted cistern that is my mind in medical school; but alas, I am finally off-piste and on-vacation. I spent the first night drinking tequila and then the next three full days lying on the couch eating cereal and (milk)chocolate (the horror) and watching reality television, which was more than sufficient for me to sense myself having arrived at the tail end of a wicked shame spiral. Now I've moved on to other things I enjoy like cooking, catching up with friends, and planning mine and Giulio's holiday. It will be our first proper trip abroad together and I'm curious to see how our relationship will fare without the possibility of commiseration, because frankly, that's what we enjoy and that's what we do best.

To celebrate Year 2 coming to a close, Giulio came home with a decent bottle of Champagne. It was a little premature/optimistic because at the time I still had two more exams to complete, although I suppose he figured whether by celebration or misfortune I would have been drinking anyway. Sharp man. There was only one problem, but it was a very big problem:

the friggin' champagne was in a headlock!

What was later explained to me was this: Giulio went to the Pam and checked out using the self-service aisle. He forgot/couldn't be bothered to ask the attendent to remove the neckbrace. When I demanded he propose a plan to get rid of it, he said he was going to "take it to the hospital and find a tool there to saw it off." I'm not joking. 

"Oh really?" I asked, as my left eyebrow soared to the sky. "And do you forsee this happening in the break room or in the OR?"

"I dunno".

"Do you have the receipt?"

"No". 

So two weeks came and went and in the meanwhile I passed my exams. Giulio's attitude was still laissez-faire and my champagne was still in full nelson, so I decided it was time take control over the situation and break free from the shackles of this pharmacological-free antabuse myself. I had no tools except for my eyelash curler and a broken milk frother, so I knew I would have to use my wits and not my manual skills/brawn to get through this one. And that's when I planned a mass manipulation at the Pam:

I would go in there and ASK them to take it off.

As I was concerned, it (manipulation) was the only realistic possibility considering I had no proof of purchase. The first thing I considered was my outfit. Normally when I go to the Pam I look akin to the bums that are the very reason behind these anti-theft devices; so I knew I had to change my look. I put on everything expensive I owned (as if to imply I didn't need to steal a bottle of champagne)- black silk pants, a Prada shirt (covered in lint but still the best I had), and my Movado watch. Then I brushed my hair and put on a little lippy. I was looking RICH and probably famous. 

I picked up a couple of other items including goat cheese and fabric softener. It was all part of my plan (what criminal eats goat cheese and prioritizes their clothes being snuggly soft?). I was all set and ready to execute my plan. I purposefully picked the checkout lane immediately next to the self-service lane so that I could point to it easily, using it as a jury-style visual aide during my defense. Everything had to be seamless. As I was standing in line, I also made a point to make eye contact with the security officer and then offer him a tasteful smile- something that goes a long way in a city with vestigial levator labii muscles.  I  needed reinforcement from every angle, so every angle was getting free smiles today. 

As I stood there waiting, I rehearsed over and over again exactly what I would say. I didn't want my Italian to be perfectly spoken because I figured they might give me a break for being foreign and/or dumb (I recalled Giulio telling me about a time in San Diego when he purposefully drove through a red light in Pacific Beach during the middle of the night, got pulled over by a cop, then calculatedly spoke with a thick accent and poor english while explaining that they "didn't have traffic lights in iiitaly". The cop let him go). I would do something similar. I would tell them exactly what happened, ensuring a careful balance of confidence and desperation: "il mio fidanzato ha comprato questa bottiglia là, e,  uh, dimenticato questo parte." - ["my boyfriend had bought this bottle there (while pointing at self-service checkout), and, uh, had forgotten this (pointing at security device)]. It was genius.

Then it was my turn. The clerk scanned my items and gave me my total, and that's when I flawlessly recited my line: "il mio fidanzato ha comprato questa bottiglia là, e, uh, dimenticato questo parte." I even placed the "uh" in the premeditated place which I was admittedly a little worried about scrambling up.

The woman looked at me and said "Ma, tu non hai il scontrino?" ["but, you don't have the receipt?"] to which I nonchalantly replied: "no", and blinked once.

So she called over her colleague-friend who was the self-service checkout attendant wearing far too short of shorts. My clerk explained the situation to her, prompting Signora Short-shorts to look over at me and say (with her bubblegum smacking head cocked to the right): "Ma, tu non hai il scontrino?". and once again I nonchalantly replied: "No". Then together they summoned the check-out clerk from the next lane over, who rotated around in her swivel chair in a huff,  was quickly debriefed on the situation, and then looked up at me and said in her raspy voice: "MA TU NON HAI IL SCONTRINO??" (she wasn't actually mad, just speaking very loudly) to which I again responded: "No". Then she stood up, grabbed the bottle from me, wrapped her fat hands around it, looked at me/my Movado, then back at her cronies and said "Ma, questa é FREDDO" ["but, this is COLD"], really emphasizing the "freddo" part (at which point I interjected a very eager "Siii!")  

That's when the yellow-shirted security guard marched over, obviously pleased to finally exert some authority in the supermarket. Now I had three women in white smocks and a splash of yellow surrounding me, and things were beginning to feel dicey. I was certain in this moment that my plan had backfired and that I was on the brink of being arrested or at very least, catalyzing another episode of Pamania. But then the security guard, the same one I had planted a smile seed with earlier, did something surprising. He walked behind the teller booth, grabbed the bottle from the clerk's fat hands, forcefully jammed the bottle neck into the noose remover, handed me the freshly liberated bottle, and said "Vai!" before anyone could protest. And I scurried off.

When Giulio came home that evening I could hardly wait to share the good news.

"Honey! Look in the fridge!"

(Giulio opens fridge, looks around) "O! You got the thingy off the wine. How'd you do it? Just ask them to take it off?"

"Well, yes."

"But it was a mass manipulation wasn't it? I am so proud of you."

And together we Let Freedom Ring. 

The DIY Cappuccino

I am not addicted to coffee, but I do drink a cappuccino every morning. I could also quit if I wanted. Actually, I am 100% certain that coffee makes me absolutely tired. But I love the taste. The texture. The smell. The ritual.  And in Italy, the cappuccino is liquid gold. Sweet, unadorned. buttery, not burned. creamy, never frothy. It's simple and it's perfect. And there is ONLY ONE SIZE. Small.

There is a law in Italy that caps the price of coffee at one euro, so long as a patron enjoys it at the bar. Coffee shops (locally referred to as bars) buzz in the mornings, and the sound of clinking ceramic cups has ignited a new reason for classical conditioning and nostalgia in me.

While some bars do accommodate a sit-down breakfast, the people you find speaking far too loudly whilst decadently seated spread-eagled in their chairs (especially in overly beautiful piazzas) are typically tourists. Poor, poor tourists who have no idea that they are about to be charged eight euros for an espresso. (true story). The one-euro law is abrogated the moment you sit you're greedy little ass down at the table.

Once in a while if I'm feeling a little self indulgent (ALWAYS), I'll have a marrocchino after lunch (or whenever I feel like it). The marrocchino is similar to the macchiato, only  much more flamboyant.

or THIS!

So anyway, Yarden -my professional friend, study buddy, gym partner, roommate, and hair braider- privy to my predilection for full-fat foamed milk, bought me this:

TA-DA! It is what you think. A hand-held, battery operated, spinning, buzzing, vibrating -MILK FOAMER- . Boy do I love Yarden. And this. In fact, it became such a sensation to me that I decided to share in its delight with the rest of the world by documenting its uber functionality herein.

milk straight from the teet tastes best

It is worth mentioning that my handheld milk foamer has been foaming milk beautifully since the moment it landed in my mug. And it spins very fast.

But when I turned it on this time, it looked SAD. a bit ill, a little wonky.

Desperate for my homemade, lessthanoneeuroseatedcappuccino AND a successful documentary, I proceeded to use it anyway. But what resulted was bona fide disappointment:

YUCK. a disgusting, watery, frothy, diluted "cappuccino". Terribile, as they say, and anticlimactic as ever.

Which brings me back to my usual one-euro, always standing, ceramic-clinking,

thick

ass

foam.

Conservation

...pontificating over the shamefully wasteful attitude of our world. 

sorrow in the city. Milano.

P.S. I Love You

Homegrown

I'm up to my eyeballs in final exam preparation, and this explains the recent deficit in updates. I haven't had any time for socializing or exploring, much less blogging. Some days I don't even go outside. Come to think I think of it, I can't even recall the last time I brushed my teeth. Creative spirit abandoned. The point is, I could be anywhere in the world right now and I wouldn't even notice the difference- I've got an appetite for myopia and all I see are permutations of multi-syllabic, latin-rooted words printed in far-too-small font on a far-too-large page. (If I'm lucky, there's also a graph which, although seldom makes any sense, really suffices to space out all those unintelligible sentences.)

But where there's desperation, there's hope. 

Yesterday, while cruising around my apartment (trolling for food in any random crevice), I paid attention to a few snapshots of my currently bitter existence- snapshots that served to remind me that I actually live in Italy and that there is actually a little warmth left in my soul.

homemade bread wrapped in iconic red and white 

breadsticks or grissini 

heirlooms and romas, straight off the vine

homegrown fruit: plums, peaches, pears, and apricots

Now back to the benzos...