Rattle Those Pots

October 10, 2004

Buon giorno, tutti!

Tanto Viaggiare (Lots of travel)
We’ve been CTYs (Crazy Traveling Yanks) lately. Two weekends ago, we visited Siena and San Gimignano. Both were great, although I preferred Siena. One highlight in Siena was Thom climbing all the way to the top of the bell tower in Siena’s central piazza (while his wife sipped cappuccino and people-watched on a piazza café patio below). He reached the top when the tower bells rang, but seems to be hearing without too much trouble. We also had a lot of fun exploring back streets and watching locals go about their everyday routines. The city was just beautiful, and the surrounding hills were stunning…about as stunning as the city’s specialty pastries we stuffed our faces with while puttering around.

This past Friday, we woke up at 3:00 am to catch a 4:30 bus for a school trip to Parma. The criminal wake-up time was worth it, though. First we toured an absolutely enormous factory where certified parmigiano reggiano is made. The plastic coats, shoes, hats and masks we had to shuffle around in notwithstanding, the tour was fantastic. You should have seen how enormous all of the vats are that hold the cheese as it goes through its different stages! I had no idea about that, or about how many complicated, technical steps were involved in the entire process. We also got to see the fellows make ricotta, and the samples of both were much appreciated by a hungry crowd.

After the cheese tour, we traveled to Parma’s center, and enjoyed exploring back streets in our curious way. We sat outside for a prosecco (sparkling white wine often served as an aperitivo) right before lunch, and got the biggest kick out of how many people were tooling around on bicycles in work clothes. Men and women in suits and dress shoes pedaled back and forth, along with several nuns perched on bikes, and a bunch of “ladies who lunch” who carried dogs in their big, cushioned bike baskets. One judge who passed us even carried his big black robe by his side while he pedaled by!

It was especially entertaining when people’s cell phones would go off while they cycled along; they would just keep pedaling while shouting “Pronto!” (typical telephone greeting). I’d be worried that I’d crash into an oncoming scooter or pedestrian, but it all seems to be second nature to them. Little kids sit on tiny bike seats situated in front of the bike riders, not behind them, like we have in the U.S. And the kids on the bikes even have plastic play cell phones! They lean their heads way, way back to try to watch their parents on the phone as they roll along, and then mimic them. These are all memorable sights for us.

After lunch in Parma, we had a tour of one of the prosciutto factories, which was interesting, to say the least. As long as I kept myself from thinking of the pig in the movie “Babe,” I did well. Basically, the factory produces enormous banjo-shaped legs of prosciutto, which are the hind quarters of what must be pretty sizable pigs. We didn’t have to witness the actual slaughter, but saw all of the other steps. It was mind-boggling to see some of the production rooms; The building where we were had 150,000 legs of prosciutto—and this was far from the only prosciutto factory in Parma! Thom kept making “Charlotte’s Web” jokes about “poor Wilbur,” which gave us all the heebie-jeebies.

After the tour, our hosts treated us to a “tasting,” which wound up more closely resembling a small feast. They had an enormous table set up and continually carved close to an entire leg for us over the course of an hour, served with sparkling wine and fresh breads—mmmm, tasty! Everyone was still full from lunch, but we just could not stop eating it. On the ride home that night, though, we passed an enormous truck carrying at least a hundred pigs, and could hear the squealing through the glass and over the motors. Poor little fellas must have received word about what was in store…

Yesterday (Saturday), Thom and I took the train up to Bologna for a quick visit to an American expat doctor there (everything’s fine, just follow-up from our physicals before we moved). I don’t think we could have been more shocked: the doctor, Stephen Williams, relocated to Italy six years ago with his wife, who is Italian. Well, as it turns out, Stephen Williams not only moved to Italy from Old Town Alexandria, but had lived around the corner from our house on Gibbon Street, just a few houses away, literally, on Royal Street. He had also been born and raised four blocks from where our first house was on Prince Street. How funny to meet someone across an ocean who had been a regular at all of our same neighborhood haunts, parades, etc., and who had a much longer history there than we had. Small, small world. He was very gracious, and took us on a tour of Bologna, pointing out all sorts of hidden sites along the way, and sharing all sorts of related city stories and history. (Allison, you’ll get a kick out of this one—the same Bologna building whose balcony was used in medieval times to read the sentences of condemned criminals is now…the Bologna Chamber of Commerce.)

One of the things we’ve noticed when we travel is how completely different each city is. While Florence, to us, seems a lot more like a “mini-New York,” Parma is, to us, a lot like Amsterdam, and parts of Bologna remind us of our Paris trip a couple of years back. Very, very interesting. We’re still trying to figure out where to visit during fall break in a couple of weeks.

Vita a Scuola (Life at School)
We actually have our first midterms this coming week, which seems unbelievable to us. It’s crazy how fast this seems to be going. Our written tests are this week, and then practical exams in the kitchen are next week.

We’ve developed a funny little habit of repeating the recipes from class each day at night once we’re home, which is a good way of reinforcing each (and correcting whatever we might have missed earlier). It’s also a good way to get to eat more of the dishes we really liked, which of course doesn’t hurt. I enjoy all of the dishes, but am one Stronia Felice (Happy Idiot) when I get going on making pasta from scratch…

Sociale Vita (Social Life)
We continue our outings and trips to wine bars with our Old People group (and a couple of youngster crashers) from school, and are having much fun. Last weekend, we hosted our first party at the apartment (just 10 of us altogether). We asked folks to bring a bottle of wine they’d tried here and liked a lot so everyone could sample different vini, and then had several dishes to pair. Part of the fun is how varied the group is—one fellow is from England (Slovenia transplant), one gal from South Africa, another from Scotland, a guy from the Philippines, and a few yanks from CA and NY. Such different perspectives and such entertaining ways of expressing things! The party itself started at 9, and ended, uh, at 5. (Oops.)

That’s about it from here, but more soon. I hope everybody’s doing well!

Tanti baci,

Jen