Piccolo di detalle

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I’ve figured it out: it’s a 9 to 1 ratio. About 90% of the time I enjoy working for a musically-talented, thoughtful and amusing family for 5 months as a side job for taking a break after college. Andrea and Cecilia are getting me back into playing the piano, which I’ve stupidly ignored for about 4 years, they are always recommending places to travel, and this Saturday night Cecilia and I are going to a performance at the Roman outdoor theatre in Verona. Can’t. Wait. Then there is the other 10% of the time when I want to pull out my hair and think get me out of here! That’s mainly when the kids whine, pout and cry if they don’t get what they want stat. They know they’re spoiled, and like two days ago, Gioia decided I was her mortal enemy (for no given reason), and now yesterday and today she is wanting to be with me everywhere and asking Cecilia how many years I’m staying with them. It’s all a mystery to me. But like I said, it’s 9:1.

Side note: Up until this week, the mosquitoes here were worse than in Wisconsin. Some days it looked like I had chicken pox from so many bites. It was a hot look, I know.

Aunt D said I should mention more about the food. GREAT idea because I didn’t realize I’d skipped over it so much. Every meal is prepared from fresh food. Cecilia and Andrea don’t have a microwave, which is so weird for a gal right out of college, but I kind of like it because I’m forced to make more of my food from real ingredients, no boxed stuff. We do breakfast simple here, mainly preparing fruit, yogurt, some biscotti and milk. For lunch and dinner though, Cecilia and I team up to prepare mainly a pasta or steamed/sautéed veggies with a risotto rice. The other night we made bread in their bread maker, and then pesto sauce with crushed almonds, garlic and basil leaves from the plant outside. Amaaay-zing.
There is no shortage of different kinds of cheese and meats that we add to our meals; they take up the whole top section of our fridge, I’m sure. The cheese are especially good… the Parmesan is bought in big triangles and we shave it directly onto pretty much any food.
I’m still getting used to putting olive oil onto everything. I’ve been told that the quality of olive oil is so competitively good throughout Italy that any Italian will claim that their region makes the best olive oil. Andrea and Cecilia told me this and then proved it.
The pizza is awesome and I don’t know if I’ll be going back to American pizza anytime soon, my favorite being the margherita pizza and the pizza vegetariana with “melanzanes” and asparagus. There is a great pizzeria a few houses away. You pay 3 euros (about $4.50) to have the chef prepare a margherita pizza (classic cheese and tomato sauce) right in front of you, and ready in 5 minutes.
And lastly, Andrea is always telling me to wipe my plate clean “Italian style”. Not that I haven’t finished the food on it, but that I have left some sauces that should definitely be wiped up and enjoyed with some bread. Then he passes the pot used for making the main dish of the meal around the table for us to wipe up the extra sauce with our bread, saying “now this is being true Italian”. I can live with that.

P.S. Today I made a whole pizza from scratch with Cecilia and also fresh grape juice! Katrina is getting crafty.. ;-)

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Comments

[Mom]

Food
So, Bug Can't wait for you tocome home and start cooking for us. That is cool that you're doing so much cooking! And playing the piano again! Love ya.