Good Things I've Eaten: Bruschetta al Tartufo

This was a piece of saltless, Umbrian bread. The bread was toasted, drizzled with olive oil and a generous dusting of salt. The bread was then sliced and buried with grated fresh, summer truffle.

Finding something better to eat will be hard.

Great Italian Words: Mangiare

Getting ready to mangiare at Nino's house.

Mangiare translates “to eat”, but used on its own, mangiare is a much more serious verb. In Campania, mangiare means to really eat: multiple courses, pasta, meat, fruit, wine, coffee, and a nap. If you haven't done that, you haven't really eaten.

Some of the kids in the pizzeria would arrive around six-thirty for the evening shift and start snacking on pieces of ham, walnuts, whole roasted sausages, french fries, anything they could get their hands on.

“Bernado, are you hungry?” I would ask.

“Yes, I didn't eat today.”

At first I took Bernardo to be lying: he is always putting things in his mouth, how could he go all day, all the the way until six-thirty, without eating anything. Then I realized, Bernado had eaten: sandwiches, pastries, candy, you name it, but he hadn't really eaten. He hadn't sat down to a full Italian pranzo and eaten until he could not eat any more. He did not truly mangiare, and his evening hunger was justified.

Nino, the owner of the pizzeria, put himself on a diet the first week of August. He cut out beer, bread, big meals at night, and ate less pasta at lunch. He claimed to have lost sixteen pounds the first week. He did look slimmer.

One night, when he sat down to eat, a co-worker asked him how his diet was going. Nino looked up from the fourteen ounce steak and big bowl of salad he was eating, and said with great sincerity:

“A diet is a sacrifice. You don't eat.”

Of course he was eating. He just didn't mangiare.

Great Italian Words: Asistemare (part one in a series)

Hands down, asistemare is my favorite Italian word. Like so many great Italian words, it can mean many, many things.

You can asistemare your bedroom when it is messy. When you arrive in a new hotel room, you might need to asistemare your things before heading out for the evening. Restaurant kitchens and pizzerias need some to be constantly asistamare'd. When you come home from the market, you need to asistemare the new things you've purchased.

If you had an employee or personal assistant who could asistemare anything, the world would be your oyster.

The adjective form of asistemare is even better. An attractive, well made pizza, with evenly distributed toppings could be described as a pizza "bella asistemata".

In looking for a definition of asistemare, I ran into trouble. I couldn't find the word in a dictionary. Turns out it isn't a word after all. The real word is "sistemare", which according to google translate means all these things: fix, place, arrange, accommodate, settle, adjust, fix up,

position, settle down, put in order, sort, smooth over.

I could have sworn everyone pronounces it a-sistemare, with the "a" in front. I like to believe asistemare is a real word. Such a great word, in fact, that no one dares to define it.

Good Things I've Eaten: Emilio and Francesca's House

Emilio and the Eggplant Towers.

I am standing outside, chatting with Emilio as he flips lamb chops and pork ribs on his electric grill. Another sunny, warm Sunday afternoon in the small town of Rotondi. The smell of the meat slowly browning and charred rosemary starts a steady grow in my stomach. We chat some more as the sun warms the back of my neck. It feels good to be outside. Most of my time this summer I'm in the pizzeria. I try to enjoy the moment, but I'm getting really, really hungry. I don't know if I can stand to watch Emilio cook his meat so slowly and meticulously. But then, some yelling comes from next door, and Emilio leaves the grill. More yelling. Loud voices could mean anything. Around here everybody always sounds mad at each other.

Emilio comes back with a plate of fried zucchini flowers and dough fritters his sister has made. Of course the flowers are from her own garden. Hot, crispy, light, salty, tender. I cannot imagine a better fried food.

Francesca calls from inside the kitchen. The pasta is ready, which means we have to come right now. Emilio pours chilled red wine made by one his friends. Francesca has made linguini with zucchini, zucchini flowers, and smoked scammorza. Lemon zest and basil brighten the smoky, creamy, earthy sauce, and of course, the pasta has the perfect al-dente bite.

Everyone finishes their pasta. Emilio pours more wine. Then we eat the meat, salad from the garden, pecorino, and fruit from Emilio's trees. We sit back. My stomach is the happiest it has been all week. I decline coffee, we chat some more, and I eventually ride my bike to my apartment to take a nap.

I stayed with Emilio and Francesca for over two weeks when I first came down to Campania to work at the pizzeria. Even after I moved out, they extended an open invitation to always eat at their house, whenever I was available. Emilio even got mad when he heard that I ate a lunch or dinner by myself, “You should eat with us!” he would say.

Emilio and Francesca have to be the best invitation in town. They form an unstoppable culinary team. Francesca has all the recipes and techniques passed on from her mother and grandmother: homemade pasta, sweets, savory tarts, jam, sauces, preserves, you name it, and Emilio has spent a lifetime hunting down the best ingredients: he knows the best fruit and vegetable guy, meat guy, dairy guy. He has friends who make wine. He forages for mushrooms. He has planted fruit trees, herbs, and vegetables around the entire house. He even transplanted wild strawberries from the local hills and they flourish in his front yard and the sides of the house.

Highlights of my meals with them include pasta and soft-cooked potatoes baked in the oven with a crispy top layer of parmigiano and mozzarella, spaghetti with zucchini and shrimp, roasted towers of eggplant, tomato, pesto, and mozzarella, spaghetti with porcini and chanterelle mushrooms Emilio had foraged himself, and of course, homemade lasagne (Francesca woke up at seven that morning to make the pasta ).

Francesca's Lasagne.

The rare thing about eating with Francesca and Emilio, is how good you feel after the meal. Sunday lunch in Campania can be a suffer fest with all the courses and the culture of eating abundantly. But after eating with Francesca and Emilio, one feels nourished and refreshed, never stuffed and exhausted. They have a gift for serving exactly what the guest wants to eat and making their guests feel comfortable.

This hospitality extends beyond the table. From the first day I arrived, I felt like a relative of theirs, and within a week I felt like the third son (they already have two). The generosity and hospitality never wore out, even while it took longer than expected to get situated with an apartment.

These are good people. Very, very good people. The salt of the earth. It makes me wonder, to truly eat well, do you need to be a good person to begin with? Or, does eating so well naturally encourage warmth and generosity in people?

I think you can't separate one from the other. Good food must come from good people.

What I Have Written

I struggle with my writing. I feel guilty about not writing more, especially since coming to Italy. Rich, interesting experiences keep coming at me, and I have a hard time keeping up. I feel an obligation to record these experiences, process them, and have something to show for them. Writing isn't the problem; I just struggle to sit down and make myself do it. Sometimes I wonder if I even like to write at all.

Nonetheless, after a few months of being out here, I began to think that I should be a food-writer. I started thinking of ideas to pitch: “The Hidden Japanese Chefs of Piemonte”, “Talking Cheese over Bottles of Wine with Fiorenzo Giolito”, “Umbria's Undiscovered Wine Country”, “Cafe Val'Dostana: A Drink to Define a Region”, and this list goes on. New ideas for clever, topical articles came to me and stacked up in a mental queue before I had time to process them. Without as much as writing a sentence, I was staring down a new to-do list that would require hours of phone calls, researching things on the internet (which I hate to do), precise, technical editing, and of course, writing.

For at least a week, the ideas spun in my head, and I felt a sense of anxiety and impending failure for not turning these ideas into polished, 1,300 word submissions to online publications that I don't read or know about but surely need to hear from me.

I pushed through this anxious period, even did some light research on submitting freelance writing, and finally, the anxiety came to a rest. I realized that even though I could write all these articles, I didn't want to. I also realized that I would probably be writing articles that I wouldn't want to read myself.

With a new sense of peace, I went back to enjoying the crap out of my time in Italy: spending my free time working at a restaurant in town, throwing and attending dinner parties, riding my bike through storied vineyards, and in general, just soaking it all up. If I felt inspired and had the time, I wrote something in my blog, and left it at that.

But once I made plans to leave Italy, another flash of anxiety washed over me. Nearly a year and a half had gone by, time filled with the richest experiences of my life, and I've hardly written anything down. When things got busy between graduation and a pizza-internship, I went over four months without even posting to my blog. All the great meals, recipes I could have jotted down, notes on places I've visited, wines I've tasted: all this could have been recorded. I hear of cooks who travel for just a few months in Italy and come back with notebooks full of recipes and ideas. Did I blow this great opportunity by not writing it all down?

Perhaps. Without a doubt I've had some world-class experiences. Many of these experiences would be the highlight of any two-week trip to Italy, and I'll forget most of them.

Lunches better than this have gone completely unrecorded.

I am jaded and spoiled. I'll admit that. But more than anything, I'm lucky. Lucky to be out here long enough that it doesn't feel like vacation anymore. I no longer feel the need to write down everything. I can walk by ancient churches, charming old men, and quaint fruit and vegetable markets without even thinking of reaching for my camera. Life has even felt normal. Being comfortable with the language and a work environment, at times I've forgotten that I am in a foreign country. I don't beat myself up for not taking better notes. Instead, I feel thankful to be fully immersed to the point where I no longer feel like an observer.

I'll remember all the best things anyway. The richest experiences will be impossible to forget. And I bet, if I had my face in a notebook the whole time, I could have missed them.

Good Things I've Eaten: Bernardo's Tiramasu

I don't like Tiramasu, and I don't like Bernardo.

I have worked long hours, in cramped, very hot spaces with Bernardo all summer. Now I realize he must have been raised by a family of wolves, and adopted by an estranged aunt, who made a deal with the owner of the pizzeria to have him work there to gain people skills.

He is seventeen but acts seven. He constantly smokes cheap cigarettes, drinks plastic cups of Coca Cola, and eats loose fragments of salami and sausage whenever they come his way. He is always sniffing his nose, as to retain loose boogers, and very time he walks behind me, I cringe in fear that he'll grab a big fistful of my buttocks. He is big for seventeen, and wields the strength of a man-child in unpredictable bursts that usually involve lifting his co-workers into the air .He never washes his hands, and always takes too long to do everything. The owner has told me Bernardo is “special”, “badly educated”. I think some higher power has sent Bernardo to me as a lesson in patience.

Tiramisu. To me, the soggy layers of stale, espresso soaked ladyfingers and mushy whipped cream, dusted with cocoa powder and chocolate shavings represent everything wrong with Italian restaurants in America. It is one of those menu items that sells so well that no one ever stops to ask, “Is this actually any good?” It has become dish so trite and common place that every pastry chef resents having to make it, and therefore stands no chance of making it well. I had given up on Tiramisu, and I can't remember the last time I actually ordered it, or ate more than two bites when it ended up on the table at a pre-fix dinner or banquet of some sort.

But then, on a night when the owner of the pizzeria organized an impromptu staff party at two in the morning, after white wine, fried calamari, roasted shrimp, and pasta, Bernardo surprised us all with his Tiramisu, and it completely changed my mind.

Bernardo proudly revealed a deep, ovular dish he had been hiding in the walk-in refrigerator for the whole evening, and from it served heaping spoonfuls onto small plates that quickly made their way around the table. Bernardo's Tiramisu had a height and chunky rusticity that immediately set it apart from the boring squares or triangles usually served at restaurants. I knew I was in for something good, and wasn't disappointed. The flavors of espresso, bittersweet chocolate, rum, and tangy mascarpone cheese were married perfectly. The ladyfingers were soaked just enough to be fully soft but not soggy. The dish was cool, refreshing, and airy, yet full-flavored, satisfying and decadent.

The success of Bernardo's tiramisu can be best described by what it wasn't. It wasn't too sweet, too liquor-y, too coffe-y, or too anything. It was just right. Bernardo had nailed it, and we all had to admit it.

Although I still won't order Tiramisu at any restaurant, I haven't given up completely on the dessert. Bernardo has proven, that not only is he more than a useless lunatic, that when made just right, Tiramisu can be a very, very good thing to eat.

The whiz-kid works his magic.

I Pazz' Sono Fuori

Michele: Sabato's friend, co-worker, and my unofficial Neapolitan dialect tutor.

They have saying here, that in the mental hospital, one guy looks to the other, and says "The real crazies are outside", or in Napoletan', "I pazz' sono fuori." I'm starting to think it might be true.

I've been here almost three weeks, and although I haven't done any real work aside from washing dishes occasionally, these three weeks have left me exhausted.

Everyday, Sabato, the man who is hosting me here, picks me up from the hotel, but I have difficulty interpreting Naples time. Sometimes we say 9:30, and he calls me at 10:15, and asks me where I am. One morning, we had set 9 as the start time, and after consecutive mornings of 9 being 9:15, 9:30 being 9:45, he shows up at 8:45, and I feel bad because I have just gotten out of the shower, and he has to wait for me.

Everyday, Sabato shows up in a different car. Sometimes he is driving his own vehicle, a Fiat Multipla that has seen better days. Other days, he is riding shotgun in one of his friend's cars. Once I leave the hotel, I have no idea what will happen. I have learned to make myself ready for anything. I always pack layered clothing and wear comfortable shoes.

Some days are completely calm. We run a few errands and eat lunch with one of the two grandmas that live nearby. I nap on the couch, watch some Italian TV. We run more errands, and his wife comes home from her job as a Chemistry professor and makes dinner. These days are rare.

One day he picks me up with the master pizzaiolo who will teach me to make good pizza. We drive up a windy road to a mountain town called Agerola. Here they make the best Fior di Latte and Provola di Monaco cheeses. We visit a cheesemaker who takes us down to the cellar to see his rare aged cheeses. They all seem to be arguing about something, but that is just how they talk here. We have a coffee and listen to the pizzaiolo's "special CD" on the way back. He turns the volume up when "Forever Young" comes on.

One day we visit Faella, one of the oldest pasta factories in Gragnano. We greet the owner Mario Faella, age 96, dressed in a three-piece suit. He doesn't want Sabato to pay for the two boxes of pasta Sabato is trying to buy. Somehow, Sabato gets them to accept his cash, and we leave. Sabato often doesn't pay for goods and services around here, and when he does, he always pays cash.

Sabato gives me an impromptu lesson on tomato sauce.

Another day, he picks me up and we stop by at the house of one of his artichoke farmers. We see the farmer's wife cleaning some sort of scrawny red carcass over a bucket of water. The daughter has her mom's wide-set eyes and plays listlessly with dusty toys and sticks. The nonna is dressed in black and with her protruding chin and craggy face, looks like she could cast spells on all of us if she wanted two. We pick up two boxes of artichokes and leave.

The same day, we eat lunch at Sabato's mother-in-law, "Nonna Chiara's", house. She has a garden the size of two tennis courts out back, and her son, Giovanni, tends to it on the weekends. She makes hand cut Candelle pasta with tomato sauce from the garden. Then we eat a stewed hen from her chicken pen, salad from the garden, charcoal-roasted artichokes, salame and prosciutto Giovanni makes every year in January, and whole grain, twice cooked bread from her wood oven. Someone murmurs something about dessert, and Nonna Chiara scoots out to the chicken pen for eggs. In twenty minutes she has a warm lemon and raisin cake on the table.

In these three weeks, I've been through extremes of discomfort, isolation, and pure joy. Discomfort from sitting in on family arguments and being force-fed unnatural amounts of food. Isolation from not speaking dialect (I really can't understand them). A moment of pure joy: Sabato and I make my first pizzas together in his wood-fired oven. We take out my first effort, a gorgeous margherita, and he says, "Get your camera. Take a picture. This is your first pizza, and it's beautiful." He slices it in half, and we eat it folded in half "portofoglio" style, like a true Neapolitan. We make a quick toast, drain a small glass of beer, and run back to the oven to make pizzas for the rest of the family.

My first pizza.

It hasn't always been fun. I have to be honest about that. Nineteen days is a long time to have no independence, and to basically follow a person around, waiting for the next thing to happen. There have been times I've wanted this to be over, but every day I understand that it is important that I came. Before I start making pizza's full time, I'll at least know a little bit about the people and the place that invented my favorite food.