Spicy

One of the unfortunate side-effects of this pregnancy has been the near-constant pain of fiery heartburn. This has been mostly kept under control with the blessed relief of doctor-approved Zantac, taken twice daily. But I still have breakthrough pain: mostly due to my inability to stop eating spicy foods.

I never realized just how dependent my diet--or, I should say, my cooking repertoire--is on the spicy foods. In the last week of meals, I have made:

1. thai green curry with shrimp, spicier than I had planned because the curry paste already had a lot of heat built in
2. rice and beans with chipotle chilis
3. burritos made with the leftover beans and extra (hot) salsa
4. fried rice made with the leftover rice and plenty of pepper flakes
5. this broth with soba noodles, to which I could not resist adding judicious glops of sambal oolek
6. home fries, with plenty of red and black pepper

I'm probably forgetting some. Each time, I dither about whether I should make the dish because I know it will cause (usually late-night) distress, but I still make it. Each time, I try to make the dish only a *little* spicy and still end up with some degree of fire. Why?

Also, I drink loads of cold water with the spicy meals and the midwife told me that drinking liquids with a meal can increase the effects of heartburn. She also told me that drinking water before bed can make things worse, but I can't help it because I'm continually thirsty, and can't stop drinking as much ice-cold water as I can get my hands on. Then there are the smoothies... because aside from the spicy dishes I keep making, mostly I crave cold, frosty beverages. I NEVER drink soda and I've even had a few cokes in the past weeks because the idea of a really cold one sounds so delicious to me.

Looks like I'm creating a fire-and-ice situation in my gut that is bound to end badly. Oh well, the Zantac takes care of most of the problem, and this all should go away once this kid is out and about and no longer hogging my personal gastrointestinal space.

In other news: my mom arrives today! I guess that means this baby is really supposed to make an appearance, and I'm actually going to be, like, the mother of an infant. Huh.

Christmas week in Maine, by the numbers

approximate hours spent in pajamas: 100

games played: 11
(Nerts, Oh heck, Catchphrase, Trivial Pursuit, Tick, Apples to Apples, Go Fish, War, Old Maid [these last three particular favorites of our 4-year old nephew], Bunko, Boggle)

types of sweets eaten: 18
(although not exactly countable since this involved ongoing grazing, there was: pumpkin bread pudding, apple crisp, chocolate sour cream cake, coconut macaroons, raspberry coconut bars, toffee chocolate bars, caramel chocolate nest cookies, mexican wedding cookies, date bars, butternut squash bread, banket [Dutch almond patties], puppy chow, maple pound cake, homemade candy [truffles, peppermint patties, caramels, and maple candy], french cherry pie)

entire containers of Tums chewed due to pregnancy/overeating hearburn: 1

bookstores or booksales visited: 6

books read and/or purchased: 9
(I finally got to read Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, finished but was disappointed by Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, and got a beautiful edition of Umberto Saba's poems, plus a bunch of small-town library book sale finds)

suitcases checked due to unwieldy piles of books on return trip home: 2

Christmas-eve candlelight services: 1

weeks pregnant: 34

airport delays: 0, thank heavens

sub-freezing walks on the beach: 1

snowfalls: 2

matching t-shirts donned for matching t-shirt photo: 15

Christmas plays performed: 1 (I was pregnant Mary)

stockings hung by the chimney with care: 15

moments I thought what an awesome family this kid is going to be born into: countless

Punkin'

I don't know if I can chalk it up to pregnancy cravings, or to my annual obsession with fall foods, or to the awareness that next year we may again be without easy access to pumpkin-flavored goodies, but I have been on a pumpkin streak over this past week or so. It helped that we ate out and cooked a lot, in the name of giving my parents-in-law a taste of a broad variety of American foods (items they had never eaten before this week: quesadillas, French toast, breakfast sausage, grits, portobello mushrooms, pecan pie, zucchini bread, dill pickles, jumbalaya, bagels, fudge, grilled cheese sandwiches, and yes, pumpkin-flavored things, with the exception of the pumpkin desserts I made last year for Thanksgiving).

The list of pumpkin foods I have eaten over the past week alone:

pumpkin cream cheese muffins
pumpkin spice doughnuts
pickled pumpkin salad with crunchy pumpkin seeds
spicy pumpkin soup
pumpkin cheesecake
pumpkin bagels with pumpkin cream cheese
pumpkin pie fudge
pumpkin ice cream (two versions)
pumpkin gnocchi with sage brown butter sauce (which I made from scratch!)
pumpkin bread pudding (this is the most delicious and easy dessert ever: it impressed my guests and I'm considering making another pan of it just for myself)

When everybody began to notice my penchant for nabbing any pumpkin item from every menu and making as much pumpkiny food as possible, they started to joke that we should name the baby (oh! the name debates! they are raging) Pumpkin, or Carabasseta (little pumpkin, in Catalan). It's not half bad, at least as a placeholder until we have a permanent name. Our little pumpkin baby, round and chubby and scrumptious.

Favas and kohlrabi

February hasn't done much for me by way of blog inspiration. I seem to be stuck in a rut. So sorry!

But the weather has been lovely, springy, sunny and good for my all-around energy levels and productivity (um, other than blogging).

As one more sign of spring in these parts, the fava beans have started to appear in the market. They come in long, knobby pods, and they are the fundamental ingredient in the Catalan dish faves a la catalana. I got to talking with the Mister's grandmother, and she promised to show me how to make them, minus the botifarra (blood sausage) that normally is another fundamental ingredient. (So fundamental, in fact, that when the lady at the market stall where she bought the beans smiled and asked if she was making faves a la catalana, iaia said no. I guess without the sausage, it's not really Catalan.)

Anyway, yesterday I accompanied her to the doctor's office, and after our little excursion it was time to make faves. We shelled the fava beans as well as some peas (she says the peas cut the acidity of the favas), then rinsed them and put them in a pot with a couple of roughly chopped tomatoes, quite a few whole garlic shoots (which also show up at this time of year), a few branches of spearmint (or mint, but spearmint is what she had growing on her terrace), plenty of salt, a pinch of sugar, and a bit of moscatel (she says anis--anise-flavored liqueur--is better if you have it). You don't add any water, as the beans and vegetables produce their own cooking liquid; only add a little bit if it gets dry. Covered, over a low burner, let it "xup-xup" (not sure how to translate that charming expression that evokes "soaking up" the juices; Catalan cooks use it to mean a slow simmer) for a good while, twenty to thirty minutes, I'm guessing.

The end result isn't pretty, but boy is it good. The silken beans are sweet and soft, and I pretty much ate until I was stuffed.

At which point iaia brought out the fish. (Despite my protestations, no meal is considered complete at her house unless there is meat or fish involved.) I ate leftovers for lunch today and they were just as good.

Here is a similar recipe, with pictures that are much better than any I would have taken, if I had had my camera, which I didn't, because the Mister has it, because he's in Bulgaria and promised me some photos.

Now the trick will be to see if I can replicate the deliciousness in my own kitchen.

Before that, though, I have another experiment to perform. Every time I go to the market, I've been trying to come home with one unfamiliar item--usually a vegetable I've never cooked before. Saturday, I spotted a lumpy green round thing that looked sort of like celery root or fennel but wasn't. It had shiny green skin like the stalk of a broccoli, and small stalks coming out of the top. I asked the market lady what it was, and she said it was a cross between a cabbage (col) and a radish (rave). Intrigued, I brought it home and consulted my trusty How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (Mark Bittman). Sure enough, his description of kohlrabi fit the bill. I should have figured it out in the first place, from the Catalan, col-rave : kohl-rabi (from the German, for cabbage-turnip).

I found some suggestions here for what to do with kohlrabi, but I'm not sure which direction to go...

This new year

Today is January 7. Tomorrow the children of Spain return to school. The Kings have come and gone, leaving presents in their wake. If the children have been naughty this year (as most have), they also left coal--sometimes made of sugar, but sometimes the real thing. (Our niece, in a fit of contrariness, insisted that she wanted to eat lumps of real charcoal brisket out of the hefty bag that she so eagerly unwrapped.)

But there's no room for more sweets anyway. Everyone's bellies are stuffed with turró (nougat and custard bars eaten throughout the holiday season) and polvoró (soft, crumbly round sweets) and tortell (the marzipan-filled and fruit-topped ring cake hiding a fava bean and a king figure, eaten on Epiphany), not to mention the stews and soups and meat and fish of the traditional neverending meals.

Barcelona has hit a cold spell, and we even saw snowfall last night. We ran out into the street and tried to catch clumps of the big, wet flakes. There was no driving to be attempted, since a little bit of snow snarls everything. So I spent one more night at my in-laws'. The Mister, meanwhile, was already on a plane to Brussels.

Which, I suppose, means that the holidays really are over. We had such a lovely week in Vermont. It was so hard to say goodbye to everyone again, especially the littlest. No sooner had we landed in Barcelona than it was time to ring in the new year, which once again we did at the Mister's grandmother's. This year, though, our nieces spent the night at our house, which was a fun treat for us and them. Then a big all-family meal on New Year's Day. Then a busy couple of days of shopping and wrapping presents and visiting with dear friends, and then Kings', which is like Christmas all over again. But it had to end sometime.

Today I trundled big bags of new goodies up to our cold apartment, and am now trying to warm it via space heaters. I am still wearing my coat, however, and making good use of my new fingerless gloves with clever mitten flaps, a gift from my sister-in-law. They come in handy for typing when one's hands are blocks of ice.

I feel a bit melancholy, as I always do after the bustle and cheer of the holidays. I feel daunted by the weight of what I want to accomplish this year, the changes I hope to see--from the very small to the impossibly huge--and the lurking fear of not being up to the challenge. Last night I had a hard time falling asleep, thinking of all the things that I want to do, all of the ways that I want to be better, all of wishes I have for our future. My project this evening will be to write them all down, little to big, practical to fanciful, and try to express some of the bigger ones in clear goals and prayers that can be my focus during this year, 2009.

Wow. 2009.

Aubergine

I have always loved the idea of eggplants--the glossy, deep purple skin, the pleasing shape, the heft of one in your hand. But I wasn't so much of a fan of them in practice, especially when they remain somewhat uncooked and you get that styrofoamy texture that I find so unpleasant. I had never been really successful in cooking them myself, not for lack of trying.

But caponata has changed my mind. I tried making it the other day, because I bought an eggplant (see above re: seduction of eggplant in the marketplace) and had all the other ingredients on hand (except vinegar, and the result when I substituted the brine from some good olives was so delicious that I will always make it that way). The Mister and I swooned over it. And I made it again today, even with a slightly unripe eggplant, and it still cooked down into this delicious soft yet sturdy concoction that I could eat it every day for a week. Now I am emboldened to learn how to make samfaina, which is a Catalan dish of eggplant and peppers that is very similar, also something between a sauce and a side dish.

It also made me think about the word eggplant, which is somewhat inelegant and prosaic, and how I prefer the British term aubergine, so rounded and soft sounding, like the vegetable itself. In fact, the word comes from the Catalan albergínia, via French, and the Catalans got the word from Arabic (go here to learn more about the word). It's a very mediterranean word for a very mediterranean vegetable.

A recipe for Ashley

Cran-Apple-Pear Relish

3 cups unsweetened cranberries (1 bag)
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced
2 pears, peeled, cored, and diced
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tsp freshly grated orange peel
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Then lower the heat, and simmer, uncovered, stirring often, until the relish has thickened and the fruit is soft (about 30 minutes). Remove from the heat and cool. Cover and chill completely in the refrigerator. Serve cold or at room temperature.

(Hope it's not too late, and Happy Thanksgiving!)

To market

Not to buy a fat pig, although tomorrow I will go to pick up my turkey, marking the first time ever that I will purchase a whole bird. Even before I started eating vegetarian, I never really bought much meat or poultry. And that period of my life lasted for just a few months, so even though I feel like a pretty experienced cook in some respects, I'm floundering when it comes to the Bird. I can't find a roasting rack in the stores, and I don't have the right pan. Internet consensus seems to indicate that I can place the turkey on top of root vegetables in lieu of the rack, but the dilemma of the pan remains. I'm not sure if I can just place it on the slightly-deeper-than-baking-sheet-depth pan that comes with the oven. Or will the juices overflow it?

Anyway, today is market day for all the fruits and vegetables. The Mister returned from Brussels yesterday, his coat pockets stuffed with bags of cranberries (can't find them here), which he bought for me at the last minute before dashing towards the airport. (His suitcase was also stuffed with many of my baking implements that were still in Brussels, including a rolling pin, potato masher, spices, and immersion blender. The security guys probably did a double-take on that screen shot!) So I can make my mom's cran-apple-pear relish today. Last night I made pie crusts, dough for the rolls, and spiced mixed nuts for pre-dinner nibbles. (It's internet recipes all the way this year, since most of my cookbooks are still in Brussels.) I also want to bake the squash, and roll and par-bake the pie crusts. I'm still up in the air about which green side dish to prepare. Beans? Brussels sprouts? Broccoli? Salad? It might come down to what looks the best today at market.

So I better get going. The excursion always takes a little while, especially because the ladies love to chat, and I spend ages wandering around the stalls and staring at all the fish and produce and olives and nuts and other goodies before I make up my mind where to make my purchases.

Although I might just wait a few minutes: Copland is on the radio right now, Appalachian Spring, and I want to hear it through to the end. Simple Gifts is such a perfect melody. Somehow just right for this American girl on this pre-Thanksgiving day.

Today I'm thankful for simple gifts: the colors and smells and shapes of fresh fruits and vegetables, and the colors and sounds and shapes of great music.

Odds and ends

Today November sun slants through the window onto the bookshelf. It's a little chilly in the house.

*

I am researching how to roast a turkey in a convection oven. It's confusing. I don't have a roasting pan and am wondering if I need to buy one. I probably need to buy a thermometer so I don't get everyone sick with an undercooked bird.

*

My voice teacher told me my voice is "too angelic." She says I'm hiding my real sound behind a church choir warble. She made me sound like a lady with blue hair. So my task this week in practicing is to let out a deep, belly-mellifluous "hey!", like someone I don't know just patted my rear end, before every warm-up scale. I wonder what the neighbors think.

*

The Mister's saint day present was: framing. We've had some things sitting around for a long time now that we wanted to get framed. One is a big 1950s Spanish poster of the United States, published by the State Department, and found in a chest of drawers made by the Mister's great-grandfather. Serendipitous. We love it. Each state has little pictures of its major exports or vacation spots, so it's full of great tiny details, like the kneesocks-clad Vermont hiker, or the one carrying sap buckets right next to the words "arabe de arce" (maple syrup), or the Iowa guy hoeing a cornfield over the words "maiz gigante" (giant corn). I'll take a picture as soon as we take the final step and get it actually hung on the walls.

*

The other poster was purchased from Tiny Showcase (you can see it here). I am so ridiculously tickled by this print: it's a "guide to fifty nine fields." It's a field guide! Get it?! Plus, I love the colors and the shapes, how it looks like an alphabet or something from a distance, and the captions for each field, like "beside the ghost houses," "eight makes the chorus," "forgotten things," "summer swallows learning," "wherewithal"... I could go on; they're all awesome. It makes me look at fields differently when I fly, studying their odd shapes and sizes from above.

*

We are not having many bites for the ad we put up to rent the other apartment, now that it's fixed up again. This is worrisome, because it's been empty for two months now. Subtract rental income and add expensive renovation fees--not ideal. It's always gone like hotcakes before, and now it should be even better, due to brand-new wiring, newly exposed beams, and a complete paint job. Maybe it's the wrong season; I guess not many people are looking for an apartment in Barcelona in December. Anyway, if you have found your way here and are in need of an apartment in Barcelona (2 br, long-term, i.e., not vacation rental), leave a comment.

*

I have just three words for you: Pumpkin. Bread. Pudding. Go make this. I made it because I needed to use up some leftover pumpkin I was afraid would go bad, thinking I would freeze the dessert for a later date. Um, nope. I singlehandedly ate a good third of it yesterday, it was that delicious. And quite ridiculously easy. I left out the Bourbon, but it would probably be an awesome addition.

*

That is all.

*

Except for this: I am thankful for pumpkin bread pudding, and November sun, and books and breath.

Around the bend

Being in England got me in the Christmas spirit already--the brisk cold, and so many cozy shops smelling of cinnamon and selling rustic wooden ornaments and berry wreaths--but we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet!

I'm sad to be missing my family's celebrations this year. My sister is hosting for the first time and oh how I wish I could be there to hang with everyone, especially the adorable nephews, who are all three at various stages that make you want to monch on them. The oldest showed me a paper plate turkey that he made yesterday, complete with feathers. Which he then proceeded to pull off and pile on top of his head, with the most winningly sweet smile you ever did see.

But I too will be making a Thanksgiving dinner (a day later), to introduce the Mister's family to this concept. I already know they will find certain things strange: mixing all of the dishes on the same plate! sweet foods next to savory foods! sweet-sour cranberries! pumpkin pie! But I'm hoping they'll like it nonetheless. We don't have enough chairs for everybody, and we'll have to use those antique plates that came with the house and that are kind of small, but we'll make it work. By the way, I love how Thanksgiving is translated here: acció de gràcies, or "action of thanks," which is so lovably literal.

I have an appointment with the Mister's grandmother to go down to the Boqueria and order a gall d'indi ("Indian rooster," i.e, turkey), which I plan to make even if I don't eat it myself. Maybe I will. We'll see. The last time I was involved in preparing a turkey without my mother around was with my housemates in Oxford. The seven of us put on a Thanksgiving meal for some British friends, and I only vaguely remember how it all came together, although I do remember the good feeling after everybody ate and we were all splayed out on the couches.

And I'm still mulling over the menu, unsure of how much I can prepare ahead of time and how it will all come together logistically in my wee kitchen, and how much to make (it'll be in the evening, so I don't want to overdo it), but in any case I know it will be strictly traditional. For one's first Thanksgiving, one should eat: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry, squash or sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Right? It's just a question of which recipes to use, where to get the ingredients (the Mister may have to bring me cranberries from Brussels), and how to bring it all together. I'm smacking my lips already.

Today I'm thankful for the coming holidays, for food and family on two sides of the ocean.

Lavender and cinnamon

In September we attended a wedding up in the hills of the collserola. The wedding favors, sitting on our napkins when we arrived at dinner, were fat bundles of lavender and cinnamon. I ended up with a few extras, those of our out-of-town guests, and stuck them all in a pretty glass vase and put it in the entryway.

Now, every time I walk by, I catch a whiff of the bright note of lavender and the lower, spicy undertone of cinnamon. Who needs air freshener when natural aromatics like these can fill the air?


I've long been a lover of cinnamon. I still remember how disappointed I was when, as a little girl, I ate a big spoonful of the raw spice, thinking that it would be as delicious as the cinnamon candies I loved or the baked goods flecked with brown spicy sweetness. I think the Cinnamon Roll is one of humankind's better inventions. (My in-laws, when they came to the US for the first time, for our wedding, asked me about "those little spiral breads" at breakfast, in an awed sort of voice.)

As a child I also had a series of imaginary pets, ranging from horses to raccoons. They were all named Cinnamon. And I still hoard cinnamon gum from trips to the US, because I can't find it here. Most of my Catalan friends (the cuisine here is decidedly un-spicy) wrinkle up their noses when they try it because they find it too spicy. Not a problem, just means more for me!

Thus, it was with great excitement this morning that I woke up to discover I had won some Vietnamese cinnamon, whose superlative sweetness and fieriness Todd and Diane at White on Rice Couple had me drooling over. They say it tastes just like cinnamon candy, and has such a high concentration of essential oils, it'll spark when ignited! I've never tried this kind of cinnamon, and now I will have the opportunity to do so. Thanks, Todd and Diane!

15 and 68

We now have internet! It is fast! And it follows me wherever I go in the house!

To mark the occasion, I have yet another summer story, written while internetless and waiting be wired so I could upload.

***

We spent a week in Amsterdam at the tail end of summer holidays so that the Mister could improve his Dutch. His workplace pays for a certain number of days of language instruction, anywhere in Europe, and besides paying for the class itself they provide a small stipend, which covered lodging (since we looked for the most reasonable B&B we could find) and a portion of our food costs each day. So basically, we figured, we had a subsidized vacation! Of course, he had four hours of intensive classes every day, which left him pretty brain-numb by the time we met up again in the afternoon. But I got to spend my mornings in museums, strolling through canal-lined streets, dodging bicycles, and sipping coffees.


For me, many of the highlights of the trip centered around the redeveloped area of the oosterdok, the thin spit of land off the edge of the city, out by the train station. The new city library there is wonderful, rivaling the great modern libraries of American cities like Seattle and San Francisco.

(Portions of the Oosterdok visible in the background.)

We also spent our last night in town in and around the oosterdok, with a meal at Jamie Oliver's restaurant,15, and a concert at the brand-new Musikgebow.

Slightly wary of the celebrity-chef-restaurant phenomenon, and having read some negative reviews of the 15 in London, I wasn't sure the dining experience would be a home run. But I think the principal idea is a great one, teaching disadvantaged kids (15 each year, thus the name) how to cook, serve, and run a top-notch restaurant. Plus, I like Jamie Oliver's style of cooking, at least as it comes through in the books: sturdy, unfussy, fresh flavors.

We had to eat early, because of the concert, so the vast industrial-style restaurant was nearly empty when we came in. The kids who greeted us and explained the menu seemed totally enthusiastic about both their jobs and the food they were serving, even if they tripped over some of the English terms. There is only one option on the menu, the fixed-price four-course meal (although we could choose from two options for two of the courses), and it was entirely Italian, at least on the night we were there.

The verdict? Home run. Nothing overly complicated or hard to figure out--I imagined I could even make some of the dishes myself, if I had time and the right ingredients, and the menu even printed the recipe of one of the simple sauces. But that didn't diminish just how delicious everything was. I was especially enamoured of my silver mullet with braised greens and oyster mushrooms. Silky and hearty at the same time, the dish was so satisfying that I was disappointed to have tucked it away so quickly. The young sommelier paired our courses with some slam-dunks as well. (Sorry about the overuse of sports metaphors. Don't know where that came from.) Altogether a perfect way to end our week in Amsterdam.

Yet, we still had a concert to attend! We licked up the last spoonfuls of white chocolate ice cream and plum tart, then rushed over to the concert hall and scooted into our seats just as the lights fell.


The musikgebow is a sight to behold, with its huge cantilevered overhang, vast glass walls with views of the sea, and several beautiful performance spaces. Earlier in the week, when we had gone to buy our tickets, we happened to catch the tail end of a free afternoon concert in one of the foyer areas. Everyone looked like they had enjoyed it, especially those who snagged the big turquoise pillows out front. A friendly white-haired lady gave us a free CD of the highlights of the last ten years of the summer music festival, of which both the afternoon and evening concerts formed part.

We hadn't understood much about the concert we chose to attend, except that it involved solo arias and names of composers who caught our eyes: Salieri, Czerny, Mozart. Sounded good, right?

The first singer, the mezzo, came out on stage with a big number 11 pinned to her dress. A voice from the darkness starts to ask her questions (in Dutch). Some sort of faux-audition? The audience chuckles. She introduces her song, In questa tomba oscura.

By the time the tenor, the soprano, the bass, and the alto again have come out with different numbers on their chests and sung different versions of the same text, after a short interview, we are able to piece together what's going on: the singers are answering as if they are the composers. There are 68 known settings of this Italian poem, and the concert's sctick is that each composer is "competing" for "best musical setting of In questa tomba oscura," or something like that. (Everything is in Dutch, so it's not that easy to follow.) We have a list in front of us of 68 composers' names, which correspond to the numbers pinned on the singers.

At the first intermission, we were happy to see that there were free drinks for the public. We strolled out to the deck with our wine and watched the light dwindle. But by the second intermission, we were wondering if they were really planning to perform ALL 68 songs? To squeeze them in, they even performed in the lobby during intermissions. Now matter how clever and funny the dialogues (to Dutch speakers, that is), no matter how lovely some of the arias, weren't they nuts to do them all? Seems that they were nuts. And I'm pretty sure the interview gimmick stopped being funny after thirty songs or so, judging by the much-dimished laughter. Three and a half hours in, half the audience had snuck out of the hall. We finally succumbed as well, although as a matter of pride we would normally never ditch a concert. I suppose the thing went on for four hours, but I was glad we didn't stick it out.

68 renditions of In questa tomba oscura is just a few too many for one night. Although in retrospect, the Italian food and the Italian arias made for a harmonious pairing.

(Unrelated shot of a rainbowy Schiphol airport.)

Too sweet times two

It occurred to me after this weekend that I made the same mistake twice, once in Paris and once in Florence: I wasn't choosy enough about my street food.

The day we arrived in Paris, I was jonesing for a good crêpe. Dinner had been eaten, and I still hadn't had one; the situation was getting desperate. We were strolling the Champs-Elysées in the evening, and I decided to go for one of the little stands to the side of the avenue, even though I had my doubts when I saw that the crêpes were pre-made. Overcoming my doubts, I thought: it's Paris--all the crêpes are good, right? But sure enough, my lemon-sugar version was so terrible that I had to throw it away without finishing (which, if you know me, means that it had to have been really really bad): gummy re-heated pancake, too much sugar, not enough lemon to cut the sweetness. It was like eating pure, chewy, sugar.

By the time we had to leave, the next evening, I realized I still hadn't had a good crêpe. So as we headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and get a taxi to the airport, I stopped at a place near Saint-Michel, dangerously at the heart of the touristy area near Notre-Dame. But there was a line (not always a good indicator, especially if they're tourists, but still a positive sign) and the guy was making crêpes to order. Plus, the chocolate was pure dark chocolate, a bar broken up and melted onto the pancake, so I knew my favorite, the banana-chocolate version, would likely be good. It was better than good, it was delicious, a perfect harmony of fruit, bitter dark chocolate, and warm crêpe.

But I did not learn from my mistake. In Florence, after having dropped my luggage at the hotel, I was supposed to go find the Mister, mid-presentation, at the Palazzio Vecchio. But first I had to eat lunch. I ordered a slice of pizza just so I wouldn't feel guilty about eating only ice cream for my meal, because what I really wanted was a good gelato. I again made the mistake of choosing the first place that I saw, on the corner of the piazza in front of the palace, despite my misgivings about the gelato's rather insipid look. It's Italy, right? All the gelato should be good.

The coconut and melon flavors that I chose weren't horrible enough to throw away, but they weren't that great either. My idea of a good gelato is pure, intense, condensed flavor. It should bowl you over. But these were just overly sweet ice creams with a hint of coconut, a hint of melon. The coconut too pillowy, the melon too grainy, neither the texture nor the flavor made it special.

Fast-forward a day and a half. I still hadn't eaten a good gelato (although, thanks to the generosity of the conference organizers, I had eaten a delectable meal at Rossini). We were heading home from dinner, and in the morning we would be catching the bus to the airport, and I didn't think 8 o'clock in the morning would be a socially acceptable time to eat ice cream. So it was then or never, but my hopes were dim, since it was nearly midnight. Yet, we saw a glimmer in the dark, the warm colors of an ice cream parlour across the street from the Ponte Santa Trinita, and a line of Italians waiting to order their cones. A good sign indeed.

I ordered a small dish of the pear gelato, and it was heaven. Like eating a perfectly ripe pear, an explosion of fruit in the mouth, the cool, dense texture of ice cream. I could leave the city a satisfied gelato-eater.

So I hope my lesson is learned, next time I want to eat a city's signature sweet without trusting my better judgment. Go where there's a line of locals, where it's made to order, where the flavors are home-made.

Sardinian wedding

I want to write about last weekend's wedding, but it seems so unreal to me already, like I lived for a short time inside a novel--one that takes place seventy years ago, peopled with archetypal characters and elemental landscapes--but then I woke up, or the story ended. In the novel, I was a character myself; I spoke halting but lilted Italian with a tiny wizened woman who wore all black and a silver bun (the bride's mother), and I listened to the goats bleating and ate cheese made from their milk, and watched the moon rise heavy and orange over the fields while a bright-eyed boy in a black cap crooned Neapolitan songs on his guitar. But I was also reading the novel at the same time, I was the outsider who awkwardly observed, the foreigner drinking it all in, in order to remember as much as she could.

And because I want to remember it all, and since my memory is unpleasantly spotty, I need to at least get some of the key things down on paper (as it were).

One of those key things was the serenata. At nearly ten pm on Friday night, we arrived in little Alghero airport without a clue as to who was picking us up, what this person looked like, or how to contact him or her. To our utter surprise, the groom himself pulls up (on the eve of his wedding!!) in a tiny car and hurredly introduces us to the other passengers, and we zoom off into the Sardinian night. It transpires that we are smooshed in the car with the Neapolitan musician who will be helping the groom to serenade the bride and thus woo her to the altar (the wooing had I assume already taken place, but not the serenading). We drive over an hour, picking up other carloads of friends at several strategic points, until we are a caravan of some twenty five people, and after pulling onto roads that are increasingly narrow and tiny, we end up on a dirt road in the middle of the island, stumbling up the bride's driveway in the pitch dark, everyone laughing and shushing each other and hoping that no one heard the cars or seen the headlights. I am stumbling more than I might have because the stars are an inverted bowl of brilliance and all I want to do is look skyward.

There is a balcony, and when the singing starts, everything is just as you might imagine it would be. Lights go on one by one, the dog starts barking, heads poke out of windows and doors. Eventually the bride, laughing and surprised, appears, and descends to embrace her groom. With liberal kisses for everyone else as well. We all sing along with the last song, and I do too, though I don't know the words.

Everyone is invited inside and even though it is midnight, and no one has prepared for our arrival (the groom assured me it was all a surprise, a tradition from his part of Italy imported to her part of Italy), out of nowhere appear piles of paper-thin crispy bread (pane carasau), homemade salumi, cheese made from the bride's sister's goats, and bottles of wine. And huge heaping platters of tender almond cookies. Everyone lingers by the door, and back in the yard in the dark, the guitarist starts playing again. My husband sings along, and we watch the moonrise. I have never seen a moonrise. For the first few minutes as it quickly moved up over the horizon, it seemed as bright as the sun, but without the sun's brightening effects on the sky. He and I fall asleep on the drive to the hotel, forty minutes back over country roads.

***

The next morning, again to our surprise, the groom appeared at the hotel at the appointed departure hour, this time wearing a blue suit and a shirt with brass bells at the collar. Someone handed him a bouquet of red roses. A long line of cars gathered, and bedecked with ribbons, honking all the way, we drove to the bride's village. This time we rode with professors from Naples, and all of us were puzzled when we passed the town hall, where the wedding was to take place, and continued to the same house we had visited the night before.

It turns out that the groom has to show up to collect the bride Sardinia-style, and receive a blessing from the family--the equivalent, I suppose, of a girl's parents/father walking her down the aisle. The roses were to convince her to be whisked off by the bell-rung boy. While we waited for her to appear, the guests mingled about and enjoyed a lavish spread of more of those delicious cookies and a tableful of others, including cloudy almond meringues, and coffee and moscatel and fizzy Italian aperatifs. When I walked into the house I was surprised to see a row of five elderly figures seated on a couch, every one of them in head-to-toe black clothes: four women with severe buns in their silver hair, and a gentleman with a cane and cap. They reminded me of the pictures I'd seen of the Mister's great-grandmothers (black clothes and black kerchiefs on their heads, every day) or of Italian women in the 1930s. It took me some time to realize that one of these ladies, whom I assumed were grandmothers and great aunts, was in fact the mother of the bride.

When the bride descended the stairs, to thunderous cheering and camera flashes, and accepted the bouquet from her intended, he brought her outside, where her mother waited with a plate of rose petals and rice. As we all watched, she recited a blessing, flinging rice and roses over their heads, and smashed the plate at their feet. (More plate smashing was to occur throughout the day: at the town hall after the wedding, and at the hotel before the reception.)

The wedding itself took place in the town hall, a square unlit box with humidity-warped, faded 1970s travel posters on the walls. But the warmth and joy of all the participants filled the room, and the judge (who wore a red sash) made it clear that this bride was a well-loved daughter of the entire village. She is, in fact, the youngest and prettiest of six children, including five other beautiful sisters and one brother, who has severe mental retardation, but who raced around all weekend embracing everyone and hooting out his excitement. He was a part of the merry hubbub, gently watched over by all.

The main focus of the reception, back at the hotel, was the food: no less than fourteen (fourteen!!) courses, and when we studied the menu on our table, we knew we had to take it easy so that we wouldn't miss out on tasting any one of the regional foods. We ate an abundance of seafood, fried antipasti, two kinds of pasta specialties (one of them was gnocchetti, which despite the name are not like potato gnocchi but are smaller curled shells that look like gnocchi), delectable clams, big plates of raw carrot, celery, and fennel (I was skeptical, but these were surprisingly refreshing in the middle of a long meal)... Now I can barely remember it all (I meant to bring home one of the menus but failed to grab one when we left) but I vividly recall the first of three desserts (not including the piles of cookies everywhere): seadas. These are pastry pockets stuffed with pecorino cheese, fried, and smothered with the local honey. Absolutely amazing.

We ate, and ate, and ate. For over five hours, just eating. And talking, of course. Across the table from us, a woman who works at a national archive seemed nice enough at first, but as the evening wore on, got increasingly too-friendly, woozily telling M. how beautiful I was and liberally dispensing cheek-smoosh kisses to everyone who got near her. While we all crowded around to watched the bride and groom cut the cake, I felt someone grab my tush and thought it was the mister because he was behind me when I turned around. But HE had seen, as he walked towards me, that it was Mrs. Too Friendly. Eeek!

Despite this unfortunate incident, I was charmed to pieces by the other company, especially Stefano the singer who had led the serenata the previous night. He was upset that the DJ wasn't letting him play often enough (although he had already regaled the bride and groom several times), and with his injured air, his guitar and smile, he was the classic picture of the underappreciated artist. He and the Mister got to talking about politics, and it turns out that his views are somewhere in the idealist-Marxist-anarchist range, anti-institutional and pro-equality. Somehow this was entirely of a piece with the music and the self-absorption, and I felt that I had just gotten to know one of the people I read about for my thesis on 1930s Spain: the tragic artist, the anarcho-idealist. Lofty pride and political conviction, softened by the romantic strumming and the twinkle of humor in his eyes.

Hours of eating, one spectacular espresso, and a bit of dancing later, the Mister and I decided to retire to our room, thinking that the party was winding down. After a good two and a half hours, we came down to take a stroll, and the party was still going on, our friend Stefano slumped on a bench and strumming melancholy melodies on his guitar into the night air.

***

I'm going to stop here, but in the next installment, I describe the events of the day after, which in some ways were even more fable-like than the wedding itself. Oh, and I should mention that the pink dress was perfect! I was perhaps even a bit more gussied up than some guests, but as I said last week, overdressed is better than underdressed.

Blogging retroactively

Because I don't have brilliant ideas for blog posts at the moment, and by way of fleshing out the story of my stateside visit (retroactively filling in the gaps of those not very bloggy two weeks, especially for the benefit of my grandparents, who like to know what I'm up to--hi, grandpa and grandma!), I shall make post-trip comments on my pre-trip lists. As you shall see, I did a remarkably good job of accomplishing everything. That is the purpose of lists, and that is why I love them.

This was the to-do list:

Admire some pregnant bellies: We managed to get together with my sister-in-law and a dear high school friend, both named Jen, both pregnant, in a Mexican restaurant (see below--multitasking!) in Boston. Neither knew the other was pregnant, and it was fun for all of us to catch up. Also, regarding this note: upon arrival in Vermont, my dad, eager to detect some baby envy, immediately grilled me as to what exactly I meant by admiring pregnant bellies. Will I be getting pregnant any time soon? Ah, now there's a question.

Cancel a credit card: Even though I had to listen to a series of other possible credit card offers, at least they gave me the (exorbitant!) annual fee back. Also regarding the credit theme: In college I cosigned a loan for a friend who has no family. Hadn't thought anything of it for eight years, having completely lost touch with her. Now I discover that she has not been paying her bills, and that this can affect my own credit, informed thusly by several loan people who kept calling my parents' house. Not terribly fun news. And how on earth can I find her and beg her to pay her loan and not wreck my credit?

Solve the case of the missing Pottery Barn comforter delivery: In the category of best customer service ever, we went to see the people at PB to ask them about a wedding gift (I bought it using gift certificates) that never arrived, almost TWO years ago. According to their records, it had been delivered two days after the order was made, but they STILL reimbursed us for the whole amount. I LOVE American customer service!

Watch one of the nephews walk and listen to the other one talk, shower with as much auntly attention as possible: This was the principle activity whenever they were around. The little guy is walking like crazy, always with this grin of sheer joy on his face, joy at his self-propelled mobility. The older little guy is at such a vividly intense stage right now. We had Spanish lessons, and danced, and I taught the kiddo some cool moves like the crabwalk. One fascinating world-of-the-imagination thing that he has being doing lately is that he has some sheep, but he lost them. So he's always asking people, "Where are my sheep?" "Does mommy have my sheep?" "Do you know where my sheep are?" This is all very serious business, and you have to help him in his mission to find the missing sheep. He's like a little boy bo peep. This of course fit in nicely with the Easter theme, although I hope that it didn't mess with his mind that we had solid chocolate sheep for dessert on Easter and bit off their heads in due course.

Get certified copy of marriage certificate so stupid Spanish consulate will finally be happy with our paperwork and give us a Libro de familia: There are a lot of good reasons to be from a small town, and this is one of them. Instead of long lines and a huge embassy and bored people and red tape, we just waltzed into our little clapboard town hall and asked for a marriage certificate copy. The lady there, the one who does everything, asked me how Brussels was, and if I had gotten my absentee ballot for the primaries, and if I knew so-and-so, who is living in France. Five minutes, ten bucks, and a pleasant conversation later, I had my copy. If only things were this easy on the Spanish end of things.

Eat Mexican food: I ordered burritos and tacos and black bean anything every chance I got, even at not-exactly Mexican places. And we made quesadillas and taco salad, and I was happy.

Eat mom's food: I'll say. She made some of her classic dishes, and we all were super happy. She and I pored over cookbooks and food magazines and more than once, when one of us said, "Ooh, we should make that!", the other one had already bookmarked it in her head.

Drive back and forth between Boston and Vermont a bunch of times, soak in beloved scenery: Besides the trip up to Vermont and back to get to and from the airport, the Mister and I just made one fast trip, and crammed it all into two busy days. But I just love that drive, the views from the highway, the way the mountains welcome you as you travel further north, how the snow goes from nothing to little islands of snow in shady spots below trees, to full blown white coverage.

See some snow: Lots of it! We had some fantastic snow/slushstorms for the driving, which made for slippery roads and slow going, but we made it all in one piece. And it was worth it to see all the snow. And we went sledding! What's winter without a good slide down the hill in a flimsy piece of plastic? Infinitely better if a two-year old is sitting in your lap and you're both screaming and laughing.

Shop: Um, I'll say. Due to the fabulous exchange rate at the moment, the Mister and I were like pigs in slop. I am embarrassed to say that I got FIVE pairs of shoes, effectively doubling my footwear wardrobe. This should last me for at least a year or two. (Remember, I have yet to find a shoe store in Europe that carries shoes in my size, so it was kind of a necessity.) But everything was such a good deal with sales, and then with the exchange rate it was crazy cheap. The Mister bought two beautiful suits at one of those suit warehouse places, lots of dress shirts and ties, and blazers and pants. Clothes-wise I got a few things, including jeans, an adorable velvet blue coat lined in polka-dots, and a dress that hopefully will work for one of the weddings we'll go to this spring and summer.

Rifle through my things in my parents' basement, soak in beloved books (and snatch a few for expatriation): It's always kind of bittersweet to do this because I end up wanting to take all my books back with me. This time, besides a few that I grabbed for thesis purposes, I decided to take Anne Carson's translation of Sappho, If Not, Winter. I love that book and I can't wait to read through it again. Besides that, my parents gave me a bunch of novels to read, and I bought a good pile of books at our favorite Burlington used-book store. When I got back to Brussels, and stacked up all the books I had carried with me, I was amazed I had been able even to lift my suitcases. Oh, and the pile includes a Vermont cookbook, from which I have already made two recipes involving maple syrup and craisins, which I also carried back in my suitcase.

Hang out to the max with family and friends: As should be evident by now, I did lots of this! It was amazing to have the whole family together on Easter weekend, and just as fabulous to have my parents to myself during the week after Easter.

Celebrate Easter: Easter at our little white-steepled New Englandy church is so beautiful, and since I hadn't been to that service for years and years, it was especially nice to be there. My mom directs the choir, and it speaks volumes of her skills that a motley crew of singers from the church, including the requisite warbly old ladies and off-pitch "operatic" tenors, can sound as good as they do. In fact, they sounded fantastic. Plus, as always on Easter, there was a brass quartet, and at the end of the service, anyone can go up and sing the Hallelujah chorus with the choir. I sang with them, and just couldn't stop smiling as I watched my husband take pictures, familiar faces beaming from the pews, and a certain little two-year old who was stretching his mouth as wide as he could in imitation of our oval-mouthed hallelujahs.

Cheese for dinner

Fondue is the ideal winter meal, if you think about it. The bread and vegetables you spear with your slender fork are just excuses to consume as much of the hot gooey cheese as you can wrap around them. Raclette, too, is really a fancy way to eat bubbly cheese straight from the grill. It's grilled cheese without the bread.

So you can imagine that there were no complaints from me when we had melted cheese for dinner three out of four nights this week: Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. Kind of excessive, I know, but it happened completely by accident.

You see, we have a brand new fondue pot (I bought it to make cheese and chocolate fondue for the Mister on Valentine's day), so when we decided to get together with friends on Saturday and were tossing around ideas, we suggested making fondue. It tasted so good, we almost collectively licked the pot. (And, showing up with two of the darkest of dark chocolate cakes in this country of chocolate, they asked us to help them choose their wedding cake for dessert! It was the showdown of showdowns, Marcolini vs. Wittamer, and we were not unanimous in our preference. At least, however, the bride and groom shared the same opinion.)

Then Monday night, we went over to another couple's place to watch the Zapatero-Rajoy debate, and guess what? They had their raclette machine all fired up and ready to grill us some cheese. (Now that I think about it, politics was another constant across all of these meals. The Spanish elections are coming up soon, and of course everyone has an opinion--and wants to know what I think--about the Clinton-Obama showdown. They also want to know: what the heck is a superdelegate? what is the difference between a caucus and a primary? why are Americans so neurotic? Hmmm, now that I think about it, cheese and politics is probably a perfect pairing.)

Meanwhile, we had long been planning a surprise party for a friend who is leaving the country, and the plan included two raclette machines coming over to our house on Tuesday night. They showed up, right on time, with a dozen people in tow, and our friend was very surprised, and we ate plates and plates of cheese. The gigantic salad I made to accompany the cheese? Still in our fridge.

Which is good, because we will need plenty of green roughage to make up for all that inadvertent consumption of cheese.

Local explorations

Yesterday's peripatetic combination of activities left my feet aching, but my brain (and tummy!) satisfied. We saw several areas of the city we had never explored, and ate at places that have long been on our to-do list.

In the afternoon we took a visit to Tour et Taxis, a gigantic exhibition space and urban center. (Check out the website, which with its electronica vibe, seems to try to be promoting the thing as some sort of nightclub.) The building itself is breathtaking, although it is located in the midst of a wasteland of derelict structures, seedy warehouses, and piles of trash. It's not exactly a place you'd end up wandering around in, which is why we had never been before.

Two exhibits are going on at the moment, one a Star Wars extravaganza, and the other called C'est notre histoire (This is our history), about the history of Europe over the last 50 years. I suppose you can imagine which one we were there for, but it was a bit depressing to walk past the long lines, teeming with children and adults, to the ticket counter for the Europe exhibit, which had no line whatsoever. "History, schmistory!" they seemed to be saying. "Let's go look at light sabers!"

Still, the European history exhibit was truly impressive. The concept itself is massive in scope, with an astounding array of historical moments, people, countries, and topics to cover, but the gigantic exhibition space and well-thought-out distribution of information were equal to the challenge. I loved that contemporary artworks were interspersed with the historical events they respond to, and that the quotidian (a reproduction of a 1960s home, for example) could dialogue with the monumental (an American and a Soviet warhead, pointed at one another, dwarf you as you walk between them). Of course we ran across the inevitable dull bits, such as a large diagram trying to explain how the various European institutions work, involving a lot of arrows. Even the Mister and our two friends, who also work at the Parliament, just shook their heads at it. But overall, well worth the three-plus hours we spent wandering through the galleries.

Stomachs grumbling, we walked to Ste-Catherine, the area of town known for its seafood, and strolled up to the little outdoor seafood bar called Mer du Nord, eating our fill of fabulous tapas-like dishes, a perfect late lunch/early dinner. We stood there for hours, and ate--quite literally--everything on the chalkboard menu: fish soup, perfectly delicate oysters, grilled scampi, shrimp croquettes, sea snails (whelks), battered cod fillets called Kibbeling (such an odd name!), grilled scallops, and plenty of rounds of white wine. Slightly chilled, but happily stuffed, we walked around the corner to Café Frederic Blondeel, where we sampled some of the fabulous chocolates and little tarts along with our coffees: there's always room for chocolate, right?

Having lingered over our meal and our dessert, it was already nearly 8 pm, and time for a concert at the Botanique, a huge greenhouse-cum-concert space. I had never been inside, so it was fun to see the place, and the concert was pretty great (with the exception of the opening act, an experimental electronica group). Even though my aching feet kept complaining (am I now too old to go to concerts without seats? I found myself incredibly annoyed at the people pressed around us, but it wasn't their fault), Vinicio Capossela's music was just strange and energetic enough to keep me from tumbling over. Ragtime, circus, western ballads, latin rhythm, folks songs: the music was wonderfully weird, the lyrics literary and mythic (Medusa, anyone? Rime of the Ancient Mariner, anyone?) and all of it a spectacle: a different jacket, hat, or mask for every song, wacky instruments (including a toy guitar and a toy piano with real candles), and Monty Pythonesque video projections.

Home again, jiggety jig, to put up our feet and watch Lost before bed. A more satisfying day I couldn't have invented if I had tried.

Napoli

Monday we returned from Naples, the city whose favorite sport is crossing the street. Skills required: motorcycle dodging, traffic-light defying, and split-second timing. No scaredy-cat scurrying allowed; you are supposed to move like a stroll in the park, calmly and fluidly. The officially sanctioned unisex costume is a black poofy jacket with a fur-rimmed hood, sunglasses, and a telefonino clamped to your ear. Bonus points if you are a waiter carrying a covered tray of miniscule espressos as you weave in and out of moving vehicles.

The piles of trash that I predicted before leaving, amazingly enough, were nowhere in evidence, apart from the to-be-expected urban dumpsters. Our taxi driver told us they shipped the refuse out to the suburbs. In fact, everything was cleaner and more charming than I had remembered. The impressions I had held of Naples (based on two short visits, once a brief stop in 1998 to meet up with my father and a tour bus full of opera buffs, and another in 2006 which amounted to two taxi rides and a short walk before heading to Procida) were chaos, crazy traffic (that hasn't gone away), dirt, dark alleys, oh, and did I mention the chaos?

But I was pleasantly enchanted by Naples during this visit. I wandered around by myself while the Mister and his boss were in a marathon stretch of philosophical discourses (in Italian) on the topic of socialism. Of course, I stuck to stretches of the map that were well-populated, and only in the daytime. But the buildings, even the crumbling ones, are beautiful, eyefuls of architecture to scoop up and savor. I spent hours in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, the number of visitors practically outnumbered by museum staff (in general over the weekend we saw very very few tourists, which is just how I like it).

Although a portion of rooms were closed for restoration, it was a satisfying visit with discrete sections: the most intricate and astounding of Pompeii's mosaics, an exhibit by a contemporary artist named Luca Pignatelli whose work I just fell in love with, the Gabinetto Secreto (the over-18-only portion of the museum featuring sculptures, paintings, and objects with "adult" themes--by today's standards, all pretty tame and sometimes giggle-worthy), the contents of the Villa Papyri in Pompeii (scrolls and wonderful bronzes), and finally, a temporary exhibit of the 19th-c British painter Alma-Tadema, who recreated scenes from Pompeii and other Roman cities in the lush, romantic, idealized Victorian vein. A nice touch: the artefacts (sculptures, furniture, lampstands, etc.) that show up in the paintings were presented at their side.

Also adding to the "I heart Naples" effect: food, of course! Both Thursday and Friday the folks from the two conferences we were there for took us out for delectable meals. As the Mister points out, these people seem to see conferences as a pretext for the real event: long, delicious hours dedicated to eating and conversation. Our dinner Thursday night was at least six courses, and I was able to converse with the guy who is a French professor sitting next to me. (By the way, I SO want to learn Italian. That will come after French. It's almost there, I can understand it just ...almost, but speaking is a disaster.) Friday, we fully expected to be on our own for lunch, but when M. asked for restaurant recommendations, he got the "are you crazy, of course we're taking you out, I absolutely insist" series of gestures that only an Italian could produce. They didn't even know I'd be there, but it was taken for granted that I would be invited, as well as, it seemed, whoever else happened to hang around after the end of the conference.

That hospitality, by the way, is the other reason I am enamored of Naples. Forget the mafia, forget the chaos: these people are incredibly generous. After the Friday lunch, we all tramped over to a beautiful gilt bar for coffees, and because we had asked about Napolitan desserts, a girl we barely knew bought us three plates of pastries and cakes. Just to try. Because those desserts represent her city. Then on Sunday night, when we came back to the city to catch the plane in the morning, we stayed at the B&B of a Brussels friend's mother. The place was palatial, the views amazing. We expected to get a reasonable rate, but we did not expect this: she insisted that we pay her nothing. And oh, the kisses and smiles and embraces and fond farewells of people you have only known for an hour or two.

But can I go back to the food for a second? SO delicious, and even in "fancy" restaurants, really reasonably priced. We followed some New York Times restaurant recommendations that were spot-on (Amici Miei and Da Ettore), and ate in a restaurant called Brandi, where the pizza is said to have been invented. There, we were regaled with guitar-accompanied Neopolitan songs, and a woman who seemed to be a friend of the restaurant (not connected with the two guitar guys) sang O Sole Mio: she was a trained opera singer, without a doubt, and her voice was AMAZING.

The Centro Storico, the gothic city, was beautiful but a little scary, too. I was always glad to be with the Mister after nightfall. And we stuck to well-lit streets; some of the dark lanes were positively medieval. But I really enjoyed it, because it reminded me of Barcelona's Barri Gotic, without all of the tourists (ps to the one British couple we saw: is it TRULY necessary to wear hiking boots and safari vests? When I'm guessing you didn't set foot outside of the city?). Stepping into what seem like your average neighborhood churches you discover elaborately gorgeous interiors. Every corner seems to have a few Roman marbles stuck into them. Towers and convents appear out of nowhere. And we dawdled endlessly in the warren of bookstalls behind Piazza Dante, purchasing what turned out to be our only souvenirs of the trip (not counting wine and limoncello purchased at the airport): books, of course! (Most of them unrelated to Naples: an English novel, a Catalan-Italian edition of Catalan women poets, and a gorgeous French coffee-table book on Provence for only five euros.)

The one drawback of our trip: we seem to have picked the only winter weekend where Brussels was warmer than Naples; turns out that in our absence, Belgium had experienced record-breaking February warmth and sun. In Italy, the air was downright cold, with a frigid wind. True, the golden sunshine drenching everything did much to warm us, mentally and physically, but we were shocked to experience such a chilly weekend. M's boss didn't bring a coat, and he was freezing the whole time. I wore a scarf and gloves, and wished for a hat, especially at night, and especially on the island of Capri, where the windward side of the island was positively gelid.

Ah yes, Capri. I haven't even gotten to the two days we spent there! But I'll save that for another post (photos, too!). For now, I'll just say that it was actually pretty nice coming back to (a sunny) Brussels. When I stepped onto the streets of this dear Flemish city, in comparison to Naples, it seemed downright tranquil, slow-moving, spacious, and tidy.

Green bananas

I mentioned in my last post that I bought some lovely free-trade bananas a while back. Problem is, "a while back" is over two weeks ago, and the bananas were still as bright green and rock hard as the day I picked them up.

A little research on the web revealed that sometimes, bananas just don't ripen, and will go bad without going through the stage where they get yellow and nice to eat with breakfast.

So suddenly, my Saturday afternoon project became "make something edible out of green bananas." I had no idea if this was even possible, but again, the internet to the rescue. (It's gotten to the point where, last night, my husband, who is skeptical of my reliance on google to answer any unanswered question, suggested that I would someday be driven to google "What to do when your husband thinks you google too much.")

I discovered that green bananas (distinct from plantains, although some recipes use them interchangeably) are, indeed, a legitimate substance for cooking, especially in southeast asian cuisines. You can make soups, salads, curries, and fries out of them, or just cook them up with some coconut milk and enjoy.

I opted for this recipe, which calls them "green banana kebab" but are basically little fritters. It suggests boiling the bananas in their skins, but suggests an alternative, microwaving them for 6-7 minutes. This I did. They came out steaming hot, and fell out of their skins like sweet potatoes, but less sweet. They were starchy and bland-tasting. Boy, handling a familiar food in a way that feels and smells and tastes completely different from how you usually prepare it creates a considerable cognitive disjunct!

Once I started mashing them, though, I realized they were still way too hard, so I popped the peeled bananas into a pot of boiling water for about ten minutes. (Again with the disjunct: BOILING bananas just felt so WRONG.) They still came out dry and starchy when I mashed them, but at least they weren't hard. I added some soy milk because the bananas seemed way to unlikely to merge together to form little cakes.

At this point, I was still pretty sure my experiment was going to be a disaster, but I have to say, quite proudly, that the finished product was tasty, spicy, and delicious with a little ketchup. If I hadn't been wrangling bananas for the previous hour, I would have guessed they were made from potato. I'm not sure that I would make them again unless I had the green banana problem, but to aid anyone out there who is looking for a green banana recipe, here's what I did. Oh, and I'm calling them beignets, because the Belgians seem to call any fried frittery thing a "beignet." And I am a fan of alliteration.

Green Banana Beignets

(adapted from Mamta's Kitchen)
makes about 16 fritters

Ingredients:

6 very green bananas (not plantains)
1/4 cup (or more) unsweetened soy milk
1 red onion, finely chopped
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 green onion, green portion finely chopped
2 teaspoons coriander
1/2 teaspoon spicy chili powder (or more to taste)
salt to taste
vegetable oil for frying
one egg, beaten
bread crumbs (I made mine out of a dried baguette, grated in a box grater)

Instructions

1. Boil bananas in their skin until tender. Or, prick with a fork and cook in a microwave on high for 7-9 minutes.
2. Cool, peel and mash bananas by hand or with a masher. Do not use a food processor.
3. Add milk until bananas will hold together when pressed.
3. Add onions, ginger, garlic, all the spices, salt and mix well.
4. Form into small round patties.
5. Heat a couple of tablespoons oil in a frying pan.
6. Dip each piece in the egg, one at a time, roll in bread crumbs on both sides, and fry in a non-stick pan. Cook four at a time in a medium pan, and add more oil between batches.
7. Fry all beignets, until golden brown and crisp on both sides.
8. Serve hot, with chutney, salsa, or ketchup, plain or on a bun.

Can be kept in the fridge or frozen. Reheat in a medium-hot oven.

Dilemmas and quandaries

Having just finished Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma, I'm hyper-aware of the hidden costs of the things I buy and eat. But the book, while it was illuminating in many respects, and well-written, leaves me with just as much of a dilemma as ever when I shop. Perhaps MORE of a dilemma, because it has made me question what I too often before took for granted: organic? great! Plop it in the basket!

Pollan's useful distinction between "industrial organic" (the kind of organic that relies on the traditional industrial market processes and [inter]national supply chains) and local organic (grass-fed cows, multi-species farms, local supply chains) has made me question some of the claims of organic foods. Is that chicken really free-range or does it just live in a giant, smelly, chicken shed with a tiny door where it can spend five minutes on a little patch of green grass?

Throughout the book there are tantalizing hints that the situation is better in Europe: stricter regulation of the term "organic" (here it's "bio"), closer ideological ties among farmers, fresh-food markets, and consumers, and greater pride in traditional foods and cuisines. At several points in the book, Pollan mentions some absurdly poisonous or otherwise detrimental product or method that is allowed in American processed food, and then, to underscore its toxicity, points out that it is outlawed in Europe.

This cheers me up. For a long time after I moved here, I missed places like Trader Joe's and even the variety of organic food and vegetarian products that one can find in any regular supermarket in the US. But on my own at first, and then after reading Pollan's book, I started to realize that I was lucky to find fewer processed corn-based items (do I really need a cereal aisle that stretches as far as the eye can see?) or even industrial-organic processed foods and to find more local produce and artisanal breads, cheeses, etc. Here, the markets happen every day of the week and the local supply chain has never really been interrupted.

That said, I still find it a confusing juggling act to go shopping. I find myself balancing the relative importance of health (eat lots of fresh fruit, even if it's not in season?), organic, and local claims. Is it better to eat the non-organic local tomato? Or the organic tomato that's been shipped farther? Is it better to eat the local tomato that's packaged on a foam tray and wrapped in plastic, or the tomato flown in from Spain that is unpackaged? Oh, and not to mention habits: I like to eat a banana every morning. But the bananas have to fly across an ocean to get here! Is it better if they are free-trade organic bananas? They still have to gobble up a whole lot of fossil fuels to get to my fruit bowl.

Earlier this week, I stopped at a grocery to quickly grab some things for dinner. While I noticed that the lettuce I put in my basket was Belgian, my thought process for the grapes that I picked up was: Ooh! grapes! I haven't had those forever! And these look so good and tasty! We can have fruit for dessert tonight! When I got home, I noticed that the (admittedly delicious and sweet) grapes were from South Africa. Again, aaargh...the fossil fuels.

Another example. I sent away for a free guide to local and organic merchants and markets, which promptly landed in my mailbox. I read that the Monday market just up the street hosts one of the farmers known for his great organic produce. So I went there, and the man was charming, and I felt so great buying from him! The zucchini was beautiful, the potatoes wholesome and friendly.

Then I spotted some kumquats and asked for a couple hundred grams. The guy was surprised that I asked for such an unusual fruit and said so, asking if I was familiar with them. I said I was, and that I liked them very much. I was so wrapped up in the little charming conversation and the effort involved in speaking French, that I didn't stop to consider: kumquats--an Asian citrus fruit--in January? Who knows, maybe they are in season and were grown locally, but I didn't ask. My French limits my endeavors in this respect, sometimes. I barely was able to express the elementary assertion that yes, "I like kumquats."

And the dilemmas extend from food into the realm of other products and purchases. Pollan's principles could probably apply to organic clothes just as well. I look at purchases in terms of the packaging I'll have to end up throwing away.

I bought organic clothes (50-70% off!) for the first time in my life the other day. I'm betting that organic cotton is better for the environment than regular cotton, having avoided that much more chemical fertilizers and waste runoff with crops that are grown organically. But as Pollan's book convincingly shows, the organic industry is still just that--industrial--and as such includes hidden costs of transporting goods far and wide, and isn't necessarily better for the soil (due to aggressive plowing and the dominance of monoculture). But for clothes, what other options are there?

I also wondered why organic clothes are A) always yoga-style tees and comfy pants and sweats and B) in light "earthy" colors? It's not that I don't like these options--au contraire, my favorite clothes ever are comfy swingy yoga pants, and my favorite colors are peaceful blues. BUT, why should the organic clothes option be limited to these kind of clothes? Shouldn't we be able to buy, say, organic dress pants and structured jackets? Organic dresses?

Anyway, you're probably tired of reading by now. My own head hurts. It's frustrating that it's such a struggle to live in this world in a way that does the least harm to the good resources we've been given.