Month: June 2022

Italy Writers Rock!

by midgeguerrera, posted in Any Day in Pontelandolfo

Now Midge, shouldn’t that be “Italian Writers Rock?” Hmm, well it could be but then it wouldn’t be the creation of the energetic Wendy Ridolini. Wendy lives in Bisenti, Abruzzo and is committed to helping authors find their voices, get published and market their work. She is the visionary behind the September Creative Writing Retreat in Abruzzo and Sunflower Publishing which provides editorial and business publishing solutions. Her by-line as a book critic can be found in a variety of English language Italian magazines. How come I didn’t know about these magazines! Why haven’t I been subscribing to Italy Inside and Out, Abruzzissimo magazine or Lucca news.org?

Wendy Ridolini looks easy to talk to, I thought, and she was!

Wendy goes out of her way to identify authors who live in Italy and/or write stories set in Italy. Are you wondering how we met? She found me! WHAT? How can a critic and podcaster just find you? Gulp, I guess that means I am an author who lives in Italy, writes stories set in Italy and blatantly self promotes anywhere I can! One day I received an email from this women, Wendy Ridolini, I didn’t know telling me about herself. She produces the video podcast Italy Writes and was asking if she could interview me about my book Cars, Castles, Cows and Chaos. Wow! I googled her and saw all she did and who she wrote for and sent back a resounding YES! The “Harriet the Spy” in me had to know why me. The easiest thing to do is just ask. So I asked Wendy how she found me. This is what she said,

“Things just appear in my Facebook feed, you just somehow popped in there. What worked for me was the title Cars, Castles, Cows and Chaos. This must be a crazy woman who wrote a crazy book because it had a crazy title. I had to meet her.”

I guess all those totally silly TikTok videos and instagram posts really worked! The evening before the interview my PR pal Kathy, via FaceTime from New Jersey, made sure my room was set up, the lights were good and the large poster of my book cover was prominently placed. Being anal, I refreshed my aged brain with the answers to questions that I thought Wendy might ask and went to sleep feeling prepared. BOOM! RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! CRASH! Cripes what is happening to our house? Those were the sounds that woke me up at seven A.M. the next morning. The destruction workers that my landlord had contracted to pull down the tottering garage attached to our house and more specifically my office had started.

“TODAY!: I shrieked, “it has been months and they are starting today??” My theatre head kicked in and almost overcame my memoirist panicking head. I raced all over the house searching for a small space that didn’t rumble and tremble. Pal George in the Netherlands got the hysterical FaceTime call – “Does this room work – how does it look – &^^%#,” I said before I said hello. We settled on a small closet sized space with no electricity. The only light on my soon to be made up face was from a window. It had to do. Finish reading, then watch the video and tell me what you think.

Turn about is fair play so a week or so after that interview, I called Wendy to get more information about her writer’s workshop. I love the camaraderie of being around other writers and was trying to figure out if I could go. (Sadly, when I saw the dates I realized I was already booked on a Viking River Cruise.) The all inclusive price for the workshop was so cheap, that I have to keep my eyes open for next year. Rates are based on the room size in the lovely Casa delle Rondinelle in Bisenti, Abruzzo. The cheapest price for single occupancy is £1150 or if two people share the room £625 each. That’s $1403 and $762 dollars – for room, food transfer from the Pescara airport, workshops with super authors, yoga classes, Italian language class, one on one sessions with editor Amy Scott and more goodies.

Wendy has assembled a sterling group of authors to conduct master classes. She said, “There is nothing like talking to someone else who has been on a journey and discovering it may have taken months and years to get that book out there – and that could be inspiring”. Quoting the distinguished author Sue Morecraft, “Forty years to become an overnight success!”

Some of the featured authors include memoirist Cathy Rentzenbrink and short story author Katherine Mezzacappa – shh don’t tell – she writes under a bunch of names – including erotic fiction – then again, why shouldn’t she! Midweek, Angela Petch will do a workshop on research for a historical fiction novel. Elizabeth Buchan, who has worked both sides of the table – first for publishers and then as an author – will share her unique experience. I give up! There will be numerous guest authors in different genres. What a fabulous week and I can’t go. To find out more –

Click Here for WRiter’s Retreat info

I asked Wendy for her back story. How did she get into the author business. Turns out is it the family business. She and her husband Duncan Watts moved to Abruzzo in 2009. Wendy taught English and life was lovely. Then Boom Crash snd Shake the enormous earthquake that leveled Bisenti totally destroyed their home. Her husband wrote an account about the destruction of houses during an earthquake in Bisenti. They put a caravan in the olive grove and lived there for several years. It was there Watts wrote his first book, Olives and Earthquakes.

Wattspeare, as Wendy calls Duncan, writing away in the caravan.

Wendy edited the book and got it ready to launch. Duncan loved writing so much that he kept writing, under the nome di plume – Jack Lench. Zap, Wendy was pulled into the publishing business. I love this so much and I have so much experience now on self publishing, I wanted to do this for a job! A career was launched! Things are working out, the Caravan may feel lonely because they left it behind an moved into a fabulous home.

Wendy’s next interview is with Rhys Bowen! I am soooo jealous! I’ve read everyone of Bowen’s book. Wendy will be talking to Bowen (Janet Quin-Hardin) about “the Tuscan Child” and “The Venice Sketchbook.” Can’t wait to hear that interview.

Ci Vediamo!

Midge Guerrera

PS. Speaking of authors – check out what I’ve published this past year. Plays published by Next Stage Press (a new one comes out in July) and Cars, Castles, Cows and Chaos by Read Furiously. Happy reading.

Cinghiale, Wild Boar, in my Kitchen.

by midgeguerrera, posted in Food - Eating In and Out!

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!” Or in this case a cinghiale – wild boar – with tusks. With the horse, the proverb meant – don’t start looking at his teeth to see how old it is. With the wild boar – I didn’t give a tinker’s damn how old it was as long as I can cook it. (Notice I slipped in another anachronistic saying. I’m in a literary frame of mind.) Wild boar is one of my favorite carnivoristic treats. (I just made the word up.) What is she rambling on and on about? Anybody heard from Jack? He needs to make her a martini.

I had a great day! A pal who is an ace hunter brought me a precious gift. Il collo parte del corpo del un cinghiale! The huge neck of a wild boar, cut up into precious meaty neck bones. Determined to make a sugo that would make my nonna proud, I went to work. Did I know what I was doing? I didn’t have a clue. When one doesn’t have a clue, it makes sense to ask a professional. Our local butcher, who makes great porta via, take away and cook at home pre-spiced and prepped meats, was just the person to ask. I asked him how to cook this monster neck. He looked at me quizicaly. “Do you really think you will like it?” I know I will like it. Every time I eat cinghiale at someone’s home or in a restaurant, I adore it, love it, want more of it.

Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com

Cripes, some of you are now sobbing for the poor wild boar whose life ended so abruptly. Here is the reality. Cinghiale are now becoming so prevalent that they are traveling through the streets of Rome waiting to take a bite out of a vegan tourist. The poor member of the pig family are mean buggers and seem to love to chase you off your own property. They no longer have many natural predators – I haven’t a clue why – and are over running Italy. My Texas cousins just told me they have the same problem there! If it were up to me, entrepreneurial young hunters would work out a deal with the country to hunt them, create great sausages, dried meats and meals with them and sell them to folks like me. Or if being benevolent, give the meat to the poor.

OK, we no longer feel badly. This particular cinghiale was observed harassing a family’s dogs, cats and young children. Now his neck is mine to cook. I was told, and being an A type personality, also read at The NY Times Food website, that I must marinate the boar in red wine and mirepoix. (That is a very fancy word that I always forget and ask my chef friend Kathy for. )

I chopped up in my food processor a very large onion, two fat carrots, two stalks of celery and celery greens – mirepoix. Into the largest stainless steel bowl I had that would fit in the now empty refrigerator went two bottles of really cheap local red wine and the mirepoix. (Actually, Annarita and Jack drank some of the wine and said it wasn’t bad. It cost €1, so a buck a bottle and not bad is a good deal. No one told me to fine chop the vegetables but it made sense to me.) I stirred it, added fresh ground salt and pepper to the mix and pored it gently over the cinghiale waiting to bath in another equally large stainless steel bowl. Why did she use a stainless steel bowl, you ask? My grandmother used stainless steel bowls for everything. There must be a reason. If you know, please leave a comment. The very drunk refrigerated boar languished in the marinade for about 14 hours.

The next day, I rough chopped onions and garlic. This was tossed in EVO – local olive oil of course – and sautéed. Wait, I forgot a step. The butcher said brown the bones first in a separate frying pan. Brown them until there was no liquid coming out of them. This really happened. Maybe wild boar drink a lot of water or like sponges soak up the wine. It took a while to brown them and a lot of liquid was released. When it stopped running, I added them to the big sauce pot and sort of browned them again with the onions and garlic.

Looking at all that red wine, rich with blended mirepoix, I had an epiphany – that was quickly collaborated by The NY Times cooking app. I tossed some of the wine blend into the pot and continued to turn the meat filled neck bones until that liquid had dissipated. then I just started making my grandmother’s sauce.

Yes, sauce – rich tomato sauce. In Flagtown, New Jersey it was sugo – sauce. (In case “gravy” insisters look it up on Word Reference, sugo also means gravy made with drippings from meat – NOT SPAGHETTI SAUCE.)

After cutting my hand manually smashing a can of peeled whole tomatoes into a mush, I tossed them in the pot. Not my hands, the squished tomatoes. Don’t worry, I switched hands and bled on the side until the tomatoes were in the pot. I used two giant cans of whole tomatoes, two big bottles of plain tomato sauce, and three normal sized cans of crushed tomatoes. As my grandmother did, I rinsed out each can with about a half of can of water and tossed that water in the pot too. Boing, it hit me – I had been saving the rinds from the great local cheese. Why not throw that in too? So I did. Also floating in the pot was diced basil, oregano, salt, a pinch of hot pepper flakes, and a big handful of fresh parsley. In honor of my Aunt Cat, I didn’t chop it up. She always left it untied and whole.

The enormous pot simmered on the stove for approximately 6 hours. I cooked it until the meat was falling off the bones. The odor wafting through the house made me sing, dance and think about a play based on spaghetti sauce. When I couldn’t stand waiting another nano-second. I turned off the flame and using a spider – not the insect – that basket thing on a long handle – pulled up all the bones. To visually enjoy these delicious morsels, I gently laid the succulent meat encrusted bones on a white platter.

Waited four minutes and then burnt my fingers pulling the meat off the bones. YUMMMMY! The meat now shredded, I set aside to top the pasta.

Time for a reward! The spider crawled back into the sauce pot and retrieved the parsley! Like my Aunt Cat, I ate each green piece reverently and with joy! Parsley’s vitamin K is important because it helps blood to clot so my cut finger would stop dripping and contributes to bone health. Ironic hey? I’ll be eating those boar bones next.

I can honestly say, this was the best sauce that I have ever made. There are no pictures of the tagliatelle pasta doused in sauce and topped with strips of meat. There are definitely no pictures of my guests smiling as they slowly chewed, tasted and sighed. I always remember the picture after we have scoffed down everything on the table. If you can’t get wild boar, think pork neck bones! Enjoy.

Ci vediamo

MIDGE

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