Pumpkin Pie, Crumbles and a Northern English Brew Can Make a Friendship

So. Somebody gently reminded me that it has been more than a while since we last posted anything at all.

It so happens that tonight, after about three years, I have finally managed to talk to a wonderful friend of mine, Michelle.

Michelle and I met back in the days when I had just finished my undergraduate college degree and I was about to move to Manchester for my post-grad work. She was a bubbly, borderline-crazy-curly-haired-ever-smiling-piercing-loving Northern English lass with a tall frame (not just compared to the borderline midget hight that describes me) and an incredible artistic talent. She had only just got engaged on the day we met and run towards me straight after the church service shouting and giggling. I loved her immediately. And immediately we hit it off and became super dooper close.. It’s funny how life is like a web of stories that intertwine and are linked in some way or another. Man: how do I love a complicated story!!! Anyhow. When Michelle and I met, the church we used to go to was pretty much an exclusively old folks club averaging a congregation aged between 60-90! The only young people in their 20′s were just me, her, her fiancé, the youth pastor (ya, ironic!) and another couple of former students from the local uni. Just a few minutes ago she was telling me that same church is now buzzing with children and loads of young families. And if people ask you how it all started we can share a secret with you: we had lots of meals together. Of course it is more complex than that, but the true essence of the matter is just this, that is to say that when a group of people sit around a table and eat together and converse and interact with one another and confront themselves with another human being about whatever something is bound to oil the wheels of social interaction, personal and spiritual development, broadening of one’s horizons, surpassing of one’s limitations and fears. They say one is only scared of what he does not know – if you therefore get to know them you will learn that that fear was unreasonable and perhaps to love what you used to be afraid of.

 

Coming back to food, Michelle and I together with the ever increasing gang had about a bizillion meals together – mainly at my/her house where I would be asking them: “So, what nationality shall I cook for you tonight?” – to which they’d be answering say “Brazilian, Italian, Thai, Indian..” – if that does not broaden one’s horizon, ah?

We eat, and laughed, and talked and became friends..the power of food!

As I am closing up, I would like to share a poem one of the guys who was part of this eating together program once sent me. Enjoy!

 

You could eat your way through the Gospels, so frequent are the stories about meals and parties. Apart from the intimacy of lovers, there are few human actions that bind people to one another more closely than what the Romans called a convivium, their word for a banquet that literally means living together. We drop our defences, feel grateful to the hands that have prepared the meal, we argue and discuss and quarrel and tease and laugh. But we stay at the table. It is there that children watch their parents and learn about living. From the marriage feast of Cana, to the Last Supper, to his post-resurrection breakfast on the shore of the lake, Jesus loved to eat and drink with his friends. And he used the imagery of the banquet for the Eucharist in which he leaves us his abiding presence. In George Herbert’s words:

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.
So I did sit and eat.

Saved by Food?

I am more than aware that my quotations of late have resembled more those of a 50′s housewife than those of a highly educated feminist twenty-something year old, but the truth is that there are so many interesting facets to life that one cannot simply label them as “cheesy” and discard them a priori into some pre-mentally-packaged box. One must explore life…especially if it is through food. As a growing teen I had a hell of a time adjusting to, let’s face it – me. I found it ever so hard to find my place in the world, to embrace who I was it, to fit in. I struggled so much than in an interminable vortex of self judgement (if the world was to be critiqued harshly, I had to be bashed twice as hard!), I became anorexic. It started off as an innocent attempt to get even more fitter than my athletic adolescent swimmer’s body already was by training at the gym three times a week. Three times became five, then six then twice a day every day. My steady diet became close to nothing at all. Often the menu read boiled mushrooms (no added salt) for lunch, leak broth for dinner, followed by a cup of apple vinegar until my stomach would hurt so bad I’d throw up even the 10 calories mushrooms. Despite all that crap happening behind closed doors, to the outside world I was bubbly, chatty, caring, smiley, straight As student, team player, piano playing, church going. I loved God with all of my heart. I loved people with all of my heart. The only person I did not love was me. Every time a problem arose, it would hit me as personally as a stabbing wound and crush my spirits even lower. It was a horrible time I hate even just to recall, let alone write about it so publically! Then it happened: I got better. I rose above my illness and became whole again, beginning to love my quirkiness. I was weird and it was fine.

I graduated senior high, moved away to another country, went to college, graduated, did some more growing. Every now and then it would hit me, but I stayed strong and it went away. Apparently that’s the way eating disorders go – you will never get rid of them, you will just learn to cope and live with them. Yet again: isn’t that the truth about all human downfalls? (and chronic desease). I then moved back – it was not as easy as I had expected it to be, but it was necessary for me to do some more growing. Then it got better, in fact, it got good. I finally had all that I wanted and more, except that, little did I know, even when you have all that you want you still have to work your socks off in order to keep it up – it’s a blinking marathon, not a vacation or a sprint!

And it hit me again. Then two wonderful literary ladies came to my rescue.

Elizabeth Gilbert ate her way through Italy and travelled far east to mend her broken heart – I with her attempted to restore my soul with food, prayer and love. Then a bored stay-at-home-wife in the 1950′s discovered that what she loved and what she was good at, as trivial as it might sound, was food and became a household name, still revered today – Mrs Julia Child. These women do not know me and I am pretty certain they never will (poor Julia is not even alive any more!) but isn’t it astounding how, if only we are willing to share our brokeness, we can totally help someone else without even realizing it…miles away from where we are?

So a little memo for tonight, then I am off to bed: Let’s be honest about us. We are the only existing copy of ourselves!

PS: I want to leave you with one of Julia Child’s footage from the mid-60′s – please watch it with no pre-conceptions or arrogance, then replicate the recipe, then set a nice table even if you are dining alone and rejoice in the pleasure of life. It will bless you and transform you!

Pantelleria

The Southern Italian island of Pantelleria has been the destination of our latest summer holiday. Situated right into the Mediterranean sea 97 km south of  Sicily and 70 km north of Tunisia – yap, that’s pretty down south. Its location is indispensable to truly understand its essence: being in Pantelleria is like breathing, eating, seeing, hearing and living out your deepest impressions on what “Mediterranean” is.

Pantelleria is the perfect balance between the perfect picture of a Mediterranean island and its smells (eucalyptus growing out of volcanic rocks, rosemary, prickly pears, sweet grapes ripening under the scorching sun, bougainvillae blossoming, hybiscus flowers smelling like summer and capers that smell and taste and melt in your mouth ever so soft accompanied by the ambrosial sweet wine liquor made out of the zibibbo grapes, il PASSITO!) Don’t get me wrong: I am not a lush and I do not have a real taste for sweet things, let alone wines, but when you eat the “Ravioli Locali” (a divine fresh egg pasta made so thin you could probably eat it raw – filled with fresh cow’s ricotta cheese and mint) in a sauce made from sun kissed tomatoes just picked by a local farmer, cannoli stuffed before your very eyes with the most smoldering ricotta with just enough sugar to bring you to tears in a perfect marriage with the crunchy outer shell, and the zucchini so sweet and huge all into the cool breeze off the sea on the porch of your perfectly NATURALLY conditioned traditional rural house (the dammuso) at sunset..you can’t help but enrapture from your taste buds to your toe nails!!!

Ironically, the book I took with me to read is “Eat, Pray, Love” which I devoured together with the following food items as in ONE mere week V and I scoffed off:

• 2 kg of Pasta
• 500 gr of Ravioli
• 250 ml of Olive Oil
• 500 gr of Marinated Olives
• Uncountable Cannolis
• Lard Deep fried cow’s spleen in a bun with fried panelle (potato crochets)
• Grilled fish
• 2 x 250 gr pots of capers and olives capers
• 10 kg of Bread
• 8 Yogurts
• 1 Pack of Cookies
• 3 kg of Tomatoes
• 1 kg of Zucchini
• 1 kg of Eggplants
• 2 Eggs
• 1 kg of Grapes
• 2 kg of Plumbs
• 1 kg of Melon

Fresh figs waving at you as the North Eastern winds blow on your hot face whilst riding your scooter in the afternoon. We ate plentifully, prayed a lot (next post will be about the miracles God performed during the holiday from stopping the wind to finding us a gorgeous place to stay at 11 pm!) and loved very much. 

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Da Michele

We thought we would start our real Neapolitan Pizza evaluation from the oldest and undoubtedly most famous pizzeria in the world, “Da Michele”. Located in the very heart of downtown Napoli, in a little street around the corner from the central building of the Università Federico II, “Da Michele“-

It was recently featured in the movie rendition of Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love” – yes, Julia Roberts actually ate there!

Like every good Neapolitan girl who has friends coming to visit from all over the globe, I had been there a few times telling every time the same story about it being the oldest pizzeria, where in the name of authenticity they only make 3 kinds of pizza (Margherita, Marinara and Double Mozzarella), that they have had the same marble tables for decades where people are asked to share a table with other customers who they might not know, that you are never given tableware except from a fork, a knife and a paper napkin, etc..etc..

Nevertheless V had never been there, so we decided to take the plunge and actually go there together. See, for us it’s not unusual to go out for pizza more than once a week as it is a perfectly balanced meal – 60% is carbs, 25% protein, 15% fat – super fast and super cheap, what else can one ask for..oh, and did I mention it tastes delish? Any who! Off we went.

The first hint is “GET THERE EARLY!” – we got there at 7-45pm and got in about 15 minutes after we had been given our waiting number (96). By the time we got served, ate and got out it was 8.30 pm and the numbers they were handing out were up to 186…do your math I’d say!

Once you walk in the two small rooms the pizzeria is made of are rather basic – white walls plastered in squared tiles, old marble floors, well used and cracked marble tables, sturdy wooden chairs. The bathrooms are to die for…not. They are actually to “die by”. Terrible. However the Spartan nature of this place makes it feel incredibly authentic and somewhat cosy. As soon as you sit down, most likely beside a total stranger, you are asked to place in your order (pretty easy job really considering they only serve the three pizzas above mentioned and a selection of water/light beer/soda for drinks!). The pizzas arrive straight after – they look huge, smell amazing, taste even better.

Unfortunately the quantity of mozzarella on top of the pizza is not a lot (and the quality is not, to our taste, the best as at Michele’s they believe true pizza is actually made with fiordilatte instead of buffalo mozzarella which is actually much more flavoursome).

Overall the pizza at Michele’s, on deeper analysis, is in our opinion, no longer the “best pizza in the world”. We got the impression they have started to apply a “budget policy” directed to making as much money as possible by cutting down on expenses (even the staff must be paid very little as they are always asking for generous tips!) on the top of having become a bit of a “tourist hotspot”, thus losing a bit of its unique charm.

The other issue we had with Michele’s pizza was with its digestiveness. The dough was undercooked and it ended up fermenting into our digestive tracts making it an unforgettable experience for not all the right reasons.

On a scale from 1-10 we feel the pizzeria “Da Michele” deserves, to date, a meagre 6. 3/4. This vote represents some sort of reprehension: Michele’s used to be The Best, now it seems to have lost its soul to a much less exclusive product. Get back to your roots, Michele!!!

The Truth About Pizza

Pizza is nowadays considered to be one of the most widespread and appreciated fast foods in the world. Deep pan – fried – American – Italian style made in Germany – even “Pizza Burgers!”.

As we are from Naples, Italy – the capital city of Pizza we believe it’s our God-given right to be competent about this DOP product of our land. We have eaten so many pizzas in our day and a while back we decided we had to compile a list of the best pizzas, our favourite pizzerias and the parameter by which our decision is made.

First of all we examine the Pizzeria.

The parameters are as follows:

1. Location - some true Neapolitan pizzerias are astounding because they take you to a part of town that is truly authentic or that is inevitably part of a particular quartiere. The evaluation of the location also includes ‘how to get there’ – which we feel is particularly important especially if you are visiting.

2. Climate – Naples can get super hot and humid in the summer and now, thanks to global warming, we are getting increasingly colder winters – hence we do enjoy a nicely air-conditioned room for the correspondent weather.

3. Bathrooms – nobody likes to wash their hands in a dirty sink! (underestimation, clearly!)

4. Service – politeness of the serving staff, cleanliness of the restaurant/tableware

5. Prices – Pizza is a cheap to make meal but the quality of the ingredients is key. The price has to be reasonable.

6. Popularity – years of travelling and eating out has taught us the golden rule that “the more you wait outside of a restaurant, the better you are going to be eating” – especially if even the locals wait in line!!!

With regards to the actual pizza, here are our parameters:

1. Friability (crispiness) – no matter what your individual tastes are with regards to pizza, there is a certain equilibrium between crispiness and softness in Neapolitan pizza dough that makes it absolutely perfect.

2. Digestibility – we all love food. What we all don’t like is that horrible feeling of fullness and nausea that may accompany you after too stodgy a meal. A good pizza should never leave you feeling like that!

3. Freshness and Quantity of Ingredients – we want good quality dough as above, good tomatoes that are not sour, amazingly juicy buffalo mozzarella cheese, quality olive oil in the right amount and fresh basil that smells delish and tastes even better! Yum!

4.”Thickness” – this is a weird parameter my boyfriend has about a pizza’s depth. From what he explained he believes a pizza has to be thicker around the borders and thinner in the centre whilst keeping an overall evenness and thinness – (to be better explored)

Well, now that the boring descriptive part is over, we can’t wait to tell you the WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT REAL PIZZA!!! (if not all, at least our!)

Enjoy and have a great day!

 

You Say Goodbye, We Say Hello!

Hi! or should we say “Ciao”! and welcome to our travel log!

We are a young Italian couple of food and travel enthusiasts and this is our blog where we are planning on sharing our experiences (bad or good) and suggestions regarding the places we visit and the things we most enjoy – hoping you’ll have as much fun reading as we do spending time together! Enjoy! (“,)

Iv&Vi xx