Tag: Italian Village life

Italian Elections 2014 – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

by midgeguerrera, posted in Politics - Quirky Aside

This super long link will tell you what is now happening politically in Italy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10856075/EU-election-2014-Italys-Renzi-triumphs-as-comic-Grillo-loses-ground.html

I’ll tell you what I observed from my table in the piazza.

Sipping caffè one day and attempting to read Il Sannio, the local newspaper, I nearly choked on a headline.  Gli sconti per chi vuole spostarsi in treno in auto o in aereo (discounts for those who want to travel by train by car or by plane).  For folks to get back to their home towns to vote there are heavy discounts on travel!  There was a 60% discount on regional trains, 70% on national trains, 60% for travel by sea and the one that really kicked me in the ass – a 40 euro reimbursement for air travel.  Now my ticket on May first was a hell of a lot more than 40 euros but my niece in London could have flown over for the weekend for practically nothing.  Maybe they don’t do absentee ballots or they just like to have folks come home once a year.  This is definitely a good thing!

Another good thing is the short campaign season. I can’t find any on line resources to validate what folks have told me but it seems that candidates and parties can only campaign for one month.  Yeah!  No political BS for years in advance of an election.  Here, it is simply signs on the approved village sign boards and visiting folks in their homes.

This is the actor/comic Beppo Grillo's party.
This is the actor/comic Beppe Grillo’s party. He lost but had cute signs.

My landlord did get mail from parties but only one from each – not a thousand from each and no robo calls! How civilized.

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Notice the palm card – well 4 palm cards – with the X through the icon – in case you forget how.

 

What’s bad? A hefty percentage of the people I surveyed in Pontelandolfo were not going to bother to vote.  “Why – what does the EU do for me?”  “Politics – it doesn’t matter they are all the same.”  It was interesting for me to hear this laconic attitude.  Last year when the election was totally local it seemed like everyone in the commune came out to vote – and they practically did. When I went to the polls this year I was the only one in my district’s room.  Good news is I didn’t have to wait.  According to AGI.it – there was a nationwide drop in voters for this particular election:

(AGI) Rome, May 26 – Turnout in Italy for the European election on Sunday fell to 57.22 of percent of eligible voters from 65.87 percent in 2009, when polls also remained open on Monday morning. 

Here is some of the ugly.  One afternoon, I thought I was in Hudson County, NJ.  Men at the next table were listening to a recording on a cell phone and getting angrier and angrier.  They played it a couple of times – it was hard to eavesdrop with all that cursing but…  In a local race at a village whose name I didn’t catch, a candidate was calling people and literally threatening their jobs.  Being a middle aged white woman and obviously harmless, I asked what the men were upset about and they told me.  Some creep was calling older voters and telling them he would insure they lost their government jobs and never get another job unless they voted for his party.  My question was how the hell would anyone know who you voted for?  Paper ballots – you hand write a person’s name on paper ballots.  The villages are so small and there are so few folks that vote in a district that you can figure out who voted for you especially if they use the mark.  The mark?  You are told how to write the person’s name – I’m not kidding here this is what they told me.  Like, I’ll steal your cow unless you write me in as MiDge.  They tell the next old dude to write it midGe.  Since challengers get to review all ballots too……  This is pretty ugly. Uglier than anything I’ve heard of in NJ which can get pretty ugly.  How is that bridgegate scandal doing?

 

Yes, I voted. My dad ingrained that in my brain.  In Pontelandolfo we were only voting for the party who would send representatives to the EU.  We vote in the provincial high school – it is a specialty school for jewelry design.  Talk about good artsy vibes on election day.

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This picture was from last year’s election. Yesterday there wasn’t a line nor a policeman.

I went into district two, showed them my voting card, carta identita and like last year started to give them my passport when the election worker said “we know you.”  H’mm is that good or bad?  They handed me a pencil and a piece of paper.  Horrifying the pool workers, I started to put my mark right there and stuff the box.  I mean all you have to do is put an X across the icon of the party.  They pointed me to my secure screened space, I made my X and then stuffed the paper ballot in the box.  There are no hanging chads you literally make an X over an icon.  I am a good cittadini.  I vote early and often.  Look – I had my voter ID card stamped to prove it!

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See – I officially voted! Weeeeoooo!

 

 

 

How Many Bags of Fava Beans Are There?

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

Fava beans are sprouting in everyone’s gardens!  Yea, these protein filled little fellows make a yummy dinner.  Last year, when the fava beans kept gracing my doorway, it was the first time that I had ever seen a fresh one.  Well, maybe I did when nonna was alive and had the garden the size of a campo di calcio (soccer field) – but I don’t remember.

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Pods are really green giants!

Seriously, this is a question that merits exploration.  How many bags of fava beans are there in Pontelandolfo?  When people pop in after pranza for caffè they usually bring something to share – like what ever is growing in the garden or was baked that morning.  Now me, I like the “what was baked” this morning – no fuss, no muss, just yummy delight.  My neighbor, Zia Vittoria, has an incredible garden.  It is chock full of every vegetable you could possibly imagine – including fava beans.

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Bursting with protein the pods just wait to be picked, gifted and gifted again.

Yet, as other women pop in to visit Zia Vittoria, so do giant bags of fava beans.  H’mm when women visited these women they too brought fava beans.  One day it hit me.  What if there was really only a finite number of bags of fava beans and in any given span of two days the same 15 bags got re-gifted from house to house.

The bags stop here!  Well, when a bag appears on my door step I don’t re-gift it.  I say “guess whose coming to dinner.”  Last year Mr. Fava came often. The top picture is of my first bag of this season.  I pulled out the colander, a knife and a bag for the compost pile.  The sky was blue and I cheerily began popping beans out of the pod.

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Eat local and touch your food first.

So there I am shelling beans and wondering how I was going to cook them when my nipote (Italian for any kid in your family that you are related to and older than) popped by, reached into the bag, ripped open the pod and tossed the beans in his mouth.  RAW!  Who knew!  I was forced to try it – I mean I’ll taste just about anything.  The bean was sweetly good and obviously picked this morning.  I discovered that the day they are picked they are deleeeeesh as a salad – tossed with tuna or just a few slices of onion or whatever you can imagine.  That is also an abundantly easy lunch or dinner.

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If you can find the “zipper” these are pretty easy to open. Or stick the tip of the knife in the top and give it a slice. Then pop the beans into a bucket – just like a carnival.

I kept at the de-podding for a while.  My brain taking journeys back to the early seventies when with my long hair braided, I shelled beans, baked bread, grew sprouts and didn’t inhale.  It seems to me that it used to be fun.  This ain’t fun but it is worthwhile.

How many more are there? And why do so many giant beans yield one little bean dish?
How many more are there? And why do so many giant beans yield one little bean dish?

One of the things I remembered while I was mindlessly popping beans, was an article in the New York Times that I read last year. A snotty assed food writer had gone to Rome. ordered fava beans in a restaurant and was appalled that they weren’t peeled!  I had no idea what the hell Miss little anal retentive was talking about.  In all the homes I’ve visited for pranza, all the fava bean stew, soup, frittata I’ve eaten, no one peeled off the outer shell.  I was taught to par- boil the beans before creating the dish.  Apparently, after this par-boiling part you can take off the outer shell.  Hell lady, I just spent an hour popping pods and now you want me to spend two hours popping par-boiled beans?

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It looks like a nursery of wee ones nestled on a flannel bed.

I caved and decided to try it.  After boiling the beans and dumping them in the ever faithful colander, I burnt my fingers trying to pop them out of their little shells.  What?  Wait till they cool?  What a thought!  Ten minutes is the maximum of waiting time I give anything.  I popped a few and tasted them.  Damn, it did make a taste difference.  They tasted sweeter and less meaty than they do with the shells on. I looked at the bowl of about a pazillion beans and I looked at Jack.  He gave me the “are you crazy” look – no one here takes the shells off.  When in Rome……

Without skinning the par-boiled beans, I made a simple recipe.   First I sautéd a couple of large onions in local olive oil, toss in cubes of pancetta and let that all get caramelized and crispy.  I always buy un etto of cubed pancetta – 100 grams – so that is probably what I used.  H’mm, from all the veggie tops and pieces I had languishing around, I made vegetable broth yesterday.   I tossed some broth in the pan, added the beans, a dollop of red wine – this is Italy – and let it simmer.  That and crusty bread made a perfect “cena.”

What’s that outside my door?  FAVA!

Thank you Rachel for my present!
Thank you Rachel for my present!

First Stop – Bar Mixed Fantasy

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

The title grab your dirty little minds?  Sorry Charlies this is a story about – well not what you think.

Traveling is always a tiresome adventure.  Though I am never sure why sitting in a plane for 7 hours; then racing through terminals for a connecting flight; then sitting on the tarmac longer than the next 45 minute leg of the journey; then waiting because the baggage didn’t show up; then cramming in a small car with luggage piled on top of me should be tiring.  But hey it is. 

So what is the first thing I do to decompress?  Here’s a hint, I learned this from my father.  Those who know me, know that the first place to go to decompress and get rejuvenated is the local watering hole.  Even better is to go to the local watering hole with a local.

Our ace translator, information maven and all around great pal, Annarita Mancini, accompanied us to Bar Mixed Fantasy.  Giuseppe, “Peppe”, Natale and his wife Antonella Lombardi are the owners of this local hot spot.  Open from morning till – well morning, Bar Mixed Fantasy is one of the bars that locals use as a home away from home.  Pontelandolfo has three bars and it seems like folks rotate between them but also have their favorite.  Annarita tells us that young adults meet at Bar Mixed Fantasy before going out to dinner and discos.  They often say they are just meeting for one drink but end up staying for a couple of hours.  Why?  Peppe and Antonella have great personalities and the thirty-somethings feel like they are hanging out with a neighbor – oh, they are.  Another youngun told me, ” Peppe acts like one our friends and treats us like family.”

We ordered our beverages of choice – no caffè for this crew – and sat in the bar’s back room.  (When I was but a wee thing, I remember sitting in the back room of Farley’s Tavern in Flagtown. Now back rooms are as extinct as dinosaurs.)  

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Back Rooms are where deals are made and secrets are shared.

Bar Mixed Fantasy has a large covered outdoor space, a tiny two table bar area and good sized back room. Customers sidle up to the bar and order.  You can stand and slug back your coffee or take it to a table.  Peppe and his crew will also carry your stuff to a table for you.  Remember, there is no tipping here.  We’ve left 50 centesimi on the bar only to have someone race it back to our table. I gotta say that is a hard lesson to learn.  We often start to tip and have a relative slap our hands and toss our money back at us.

H’mmm an Italian beverage in an Italian bar.  Heaven!  Peppe logged his wi-fi magic code into my iPad, we kicked back, checked e-mail and forgot about nasty TSA dudes, lost luggage and well just about everything. Papà was right – head to Farley’s Tavern – I mean the local watering hole.

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The back room even helps us village newbies learn more about our heritage.

This local joint is not just the requisite caffè/bar.  Karaoke nights bring in crowds to the comfortable back room – which also serves as a rosticceria/spaghetteria.  Antonella takes reservations for lunches “fatto in casa.”  Spaghetteria e cucina con piatti tipici locali. Think having lunch at your sister’s – if your sister was a great cook.  Alina Natale, Antonella’s daughter, when she is not dancing helps out.  Alina dances with the local folklorico company and studies classical dance. This trip a visit Antonella’s spaghetteria is on my hot to do list. 

Become their friend on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/giuseppepaparazzo/

Suddenly shouts fill the air.  Shit why are folks screaming?  Oh yeah, a bunch of guys are sitting around outside playing cards.  Playing cards is a very vocal sport.

After kicking around a ball – calcio is in their blood- little kids showed up for gelato. Francesco Natale, the mini Peppe, was one of them.  This cute fellow has a huge smile and incredible larger than life personality.  He can often be found playing calcio with the other village kids or sitting at a table playing scopa.  Bar Mixed Fantasy appeals to patrons of all ages.

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Last summer my extended family spent more than a few afternoons on the Bar Mixed Fantasy patio – only chatting of course.

What did I have?  Campari Soda!  Senza ghiaccio – neat.  Ah, I feel my blood flowing already.

A Typical Day – Video Blog Experiment

by midgeguerrera, posted in Any Day in Pontelandolfo

Yikes, these Apple products are cool.  I had no idea how to make a video blog of myself talking about Pontelandolfo.  Then I remembered, I had a Mac Air Book – or is that a MacBook Air – and I guessed there would be a way that was so easy a kid could do it.  So I called over a 5 year old Italian kid – who couldn’t read the English directions but pointed the screen of the lap top at me and said “Parli”.  So I did.  Let me know what you think of the Video Blog idea.  As an aging theater professional, it is easy to talk and talk and talk….