Nancy, Author at Itch.world

Nancy, Author at Itch.world - Page 19 of 20

A three-minute escape to Italy.

Tuscany, travel, medieval village, Italy, festivals, celebrations, customs, cooking, recipes, living in Italy, moving to Italy, visiting, visit, restaurants, language

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September 6, 2018 In Lingua, Live By Nancy

Furbo: clever like a fox. And my son.

Italians have this great word, “furbo.” It means sly, clever, fox-like, and is one of Tuscany’s most prized character attributes. A guy who is furbo won’t be able to get a permit for a pool but will join the community fire watch and offer to put in a reservoir in case a fire breaks out. And then build it in the shape of a swimming pool. That happens to be in his yard. (And we’ve met him. And he’s told us, in detail.)

I wasn’t expecting to use this vocabulary word when I was doing one of my most dreaded tasks as an Italian mother—parent-teacher conferences. There’s no schedule, just a block of time when all the teachers sit at desks in the classrooms and the parents stand in line in the hall and wait their turn.

If a waiting parent is particularly organized they will post a list so other parents can note the order in which they arrived. But mostly, you run from one classroom to another trying to hold your place in multiple lines while attempting to chat in Italian. (Another great word is “chiacchierare,” for chatting or gossip.)

And then you have to go in and talk to the teachers. One by one. And no one speaks English—not even the English teacher.

My sessions never take long. The average parent’s turn with a teacher is about 15 minutes. For me, it’s one. Every parent wants to be next in line after me.

When I went to Sebastian’s first conference at his new school, the basics were conveyed quickly, and were consistent with what previous year’s teachers have told me. “He’s smart. Doesn’t work had enough. Too much energy. But lovely.” This last round, however, he got two “furbo” ratings and one “Furbissimo.” (Italian adds this useful suffix “-issimo” to mean an extreme level of something.)

I was crushed. My little boy furbissimo? On the way home I called John, in shock, to share the upsetting news. He couldn’t have been more delighted. Our son was really becoming Italian.

September 1, 2018 In Live By Nancy

Spectacular spettacolo

Every August, in the Tuscan village of Anghiari, magic happens. For 10 nights in a row, a local square becomes the stage for a freshly-written play, part of a 23-year-old series called Tovaglia a Quadri. I love it because it is a highly improbable thing—that a village takes the time every year to create a fearless, sharp, witty, and poignant reflection of what it means to be a member of a small Italian village, in today’s world. Written by, acted in, and attended by locals.

Each year, the new production is a full-length musical, staged in a tiny square in town. The buildings around the square are used as sets, with actors popping in and out of windows and doors. In the middle of the square are long tables, covered with checkered tablecloths, where the nightly audience is served a three-course dinner. A new play is written every year—often mere weeks before—ensuring that the topics are current. The name Tovaglia a Quadri means tablecloth (tovaglia), with squares (quadri), but the word quadri also refers to a stage.

This year’s play was Ci Amazzon, which is a play on words of “ci amazzono”—”they are killing us”. It takes place a hundred years in the future after Amazon has won the latest world war, leaving a dystopian landscape of a village in which even the grandmothers are happy to have all their needs met online so that they don’t have to leave the house and talk with each other. It explores the tension of getting exactly what you want versus having fewer choices but a more engaged community.

Prior topics have included Anghiarixit—a referendum to gain independence from Tuscany —because, after all, what has Florence really ever done for Anghiari since 1441, when the Florentines bested the Milanese in The Battle of Anghiari, a crucial battle of the Renaissance? Another year the play provided a scathing and hilarious look at immigration with the villagers all eager to emigrate to Australia to start new lives and businesses, while being terrified of a black teenager who was found on the banks of the Tiber river. The villagers thought he was an African immigrant who fell off a boat in the Mediterranean and washed hundreds of miles upstream in the river. He turned out to be from the next village and had fallen into the river after a night of partying with friends. Another was about a World War II concentration camp located nearby.

The play has been happening every year for 23 years, and is the creation of co-authors Paolo Pennacchini and Andrea Merendelli. Andrea directs. The first few years were experimental, trying things like improvisational comedy. They wrote their first real plot in 1997, and the play featured a character talking about his memories. Paolo told me that in 2010 they decided to shift from looking at the past to try “to explain the things happening around us.” And the current hard-hitting format was born.

The town wildly embraces this annual tradition. There are 130 seats for each of the 10 shows and tickets sell out almost immediately. I went to buy mine the morning the tickets were available, arrived 15 minutes after the office opened, and found myself 66th in line. The entire process took hours!

I’ve noticed that many of the local businesses now sport “Ci Amazzon” stickers in their windows, taking the idea of the latest play into a lasting, physical reminder.

I can’t wait to see what they conjure up next year.

August 31, 2018 In Lingua, Live By Nancy

The art of obscenity

Last winter, my Facebook feed was overwhelmed by contagion. Scanning the posts, it was clear that an alarming percentage of my American, English, and Italian friends were sick with the flu. And while I felt for them, the thing I really noticed was how differently friends from each country talked about their illness. Americans were sure to share details, for instance, “I’m dying. Never been this sick. The stuff I’m coughing up is GREEN.” The Brits were, well, British. “Been in hospital for 10 days. A bit under the weather.”

But the Italians… They were all about the balls. (And not the balls one uses to play sports.) Balls are a vital part of talking about a wide range of subjects, but they turn out to have a special place in capturing the suffering that comes with the flu. A female friend posted: “Ho due palle gonfie di ste teste di cazzo … Va a finire male me lo sento.” It means: “I have two swollen balls thanks to heads of dicks. This will not end well, I can feel it.” Italians love to swear, and Tuscans are known to be particularly bold and colorful. I’ve found grandmothers to be particularly impressive.

This phrase has uses beyond illness, and it also is frequently used to express “I am annoyed by these stupid people.” I highly recommend using it under your breath during the next meeting you are in when someone is annoying you. You have equal rights to the phrase whether you’re a man or a woman. I’ve recorded my son Sebastian saying each of these so that you can get it right.

Interested in dabbling in Italian testicle-based phrases, but need something a little lighter? You could try “che palle” meaning “what balls” or “how annoying.” (It’s also the name of a chain of arancini (fried rice balls) shops in Sicily.

Other phrases you might want to know:

“Mi hai rotto le palle.” meaning “you have broken my balls.” This is used in response to a distinct action that has happened.

If what is bothering you is more ongoing feel free to use “Mi fai girare i coglioni,” “You have twisted my balls.”

And the ever useful “Tu sei un coglione.” “You are a ball.” (Yes, it’s singular.) A bit softer as it is commonly used, more like “You are an idiot.”

Ready to expand your ball-adjacent Italian vocabulary? Try “a cazzo di cane,” which means “like a dog’s dick.” It’s used frequently to describe a job done badly.

More on the Italian obsession with balls at a later date. Just a friendly reminder. These are not my words. I am a mere reporter, aiming to be as scientific as possible, in linguistic matters.

August 24, 2018 In About, Live By Nancy

Mostly out of control, nearly all the time

I’ve always been a bit of a control freak, thinking that if I can get the most in-depth information, take my vitamin D3, get the “best” teachers for my kids, walk 10,000 steps a day, and have just the right black cashmere sweater, that I may be able to slightly control life’s path. So stupid really, but inescapable for me.

Moving to a small village that seems to operate in its own dimension and century, navigating another culture, getting along in a language I barely speak, all these things have not only blown away any illusions I had of control, but have made me realize that I can function quite well in life having basically no idea what is going on around me most of the time. And that, in some ways, is a tremendous relief. Because I have to trust those around me to an astounding degree. Maybe it’s part of what has drawn me to stay.

The way we ended up choosing our village set the tone for this shift. When we decided to have a one-year family adventure, we didn’t do a grand tour of villages to check out the schools, talk to locals about expat life, and look at possible housing choices. Quite to the contrary, initially we were set on a major European city with a well-connected airport and lots going on culturally. Partially to reassure ourselves (and we thought better justify to our clients) that our year abroad would be “worth it”.

But the kids kept asking for more of an adventure (as did our hearts), so we decided to find a choice that was as different from our lives in Berkeley as possible. And it turned out true adventure for us was a small village, in Italy, a country that we had never been particularly romanced by, but had citizenship in through John’s grandparents.

We scoured the internet for year-long vacation rentals and found it—a beautifully restored apartment in a mostly unrestored convent from the 1600s in a small Tuscan village. And we decided, sight unseen, about the village, and place to live. And moved. And let everything fall into place. Which it did beyond what any amount of careful planning could have yielded.

It was one of the first times I found myself surfing the wave rather than thinking about how to surf the wave. And one of the oddest things of our new life was that, leading up the one-year mark, when we had to find another place to live, we never had a family discussion about whether to stay or go—all of us were coming into ourselves in such profound ways that it never even came up to go back to our old life.

And it keeps unfolding—this not being well-informed or on top of anything, but feeling like that’s the right thing. And that is at the heart of Itch, the spirit of adventure, leaps of faith, amazement, struggle, failure, and joy.

August 21, 2018 In Chow, Recipes By Nancy

Potent plant potion: elderberry syrup

Elderflowers grow like weeds here. Weeds that have huge thorns and become 30-foot trees while your back is turned. Good thing they have gorgeous white flowers that are delicious to make into elderflower cordial. (I’ve heard they are also good to fry, like acacia flowers.)

The clusters of little white flowers turn into these tiny, so-dark-red-they-are-nearly-black berries, which I’d heard are perfect for making into elderberry syrup. This year I decided to make my own, inspired by one of my favorite food writers, French expat David Lebovitz.

The clumps of berries were easy to gather, but it took much longer than I’d planned to get the little buggers off the stems without the stem coming along for the ride. (And you do need to be very careful about the juice, as it can stain nearly anything.)

But it was worth the effort. The result is as close to a magical potion as anything I’ve ever made: thick, gorgeously colored, and characterized by a very unusual, nearly magical taste—not quite bitter, not quite floral—, totally delicious.

So far I have served it over a friend’s roasted peaches and cream, mixed into sparking water and ice, and swirled into prosecco with a little lime. I’m going to try it next over fruit and vanilla gelato.

I followed David’s recipe, and it was easy. The amount of berries in the photo was almost exactly the amount called for in the recipe.

August 4, 2018 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

Rooster ring tone

There’s the most fantastic rooster who wakes me up every morning. So ready for the stew pot, partial cock-of-alzheimer’s, partial been-out-too-late drinking. Indescribable call. So I decided not to try, but to go one better.

One Sunday morning around 5am I decided to track him down. Armed with a mic and recorder I drove down to two different chicken coops in nearby fields and stealthy, like the fog, sneaked around until I heard my mystery rooster.

He is now properly recorded, and turned into a ring tone because I wanted it, which means that at least one of you probably does too. And no roosters were harmed in the making of this post.

August 4, 2018 In Roam By Nancy

Hot water

An odd corner of Tuscan life is “taking the waters.” Italy is studded with terme, (natural hot springs), all along its length wherever underground water chambers meet volcanic activity. And in Tuscany, terme are particularly abundant. These springs can be undeveloped, rough swimming holes or elaborate resorts, and everything in between. A few that I’ve been to even have a kind of Italian-Wes-Anderson mid-century-modern vibe with all the strangeness that you’d expect with that particular combination.

One day a friend took my husband John, our kids, and me to Terme San Giovanni, about a half hour east of Siena. The views from the pools and from the lawns and sun beds that surround them are of a perfect Tuscan landscape. The five cascading swimming pools here start with a covered kind of temple-to-the-water where 39-degree celsius (102-degree Fahrenheit) water emerges from the mouths of marble gods, then descends through the other pools, getting cooler at each plateau. The water is uniformly white from its natural mix of sulfur and magnesium sulfate. It has so much of the stuff that you can pick it up in your hands from the bottom of the pools like mud and plaster it all over your skin, which is supposed to be something good to do.

But that wasn’t what John was noticing. Turns out while I was pondering the effect of sulfur on one’s pores, John looked around and realized that we were surrounded by scantily clad, buff and beautiful 20-something Italian men and women prancing about.

John tapped me, and I wiped the white goop out of my eyes and looked around. We were, by a wide margin, the most modestly clothed bathers in the terme. It turned out we’d happened to arrive for the Friday and Saturday spa nights when the place in open until 1am and features “Romantic bathing under the moon, surrounded by candles, with a dinner that is never banal, in an intimate atmosphere.” Intimate. In case you didn’t get it already.

I started to worry, but then remembered something I’d read on the website, something that seemed odd at the time, but made more sense now. Foremost among the rules was “Evitare Effusioni Pubbliche”.

I will use the literal translation here: “Avoid Public Effusion”.

In addition to the baths, there is also a hotel, and restaurant by the pools (which I did think was good, but may have borderlined the “b” word). Terme San Giovanni also has a spa, which judging by my massage, has pretty fabulous treatments.

To visit a Tuscan terme is to embark on an unusual adventure. Don’t forget that you’ll need rubber flip flops and a fabric hair cap, as you will at all Italian pools.

August 2, 2018 In Live By Nancy

Big cheese

Growing up in the United States, I somehow missed out on learning that there is an Italian sport that involves rolling cheeses. My first clue that my sporting education might not be complete is a photo on the wall of one my favorite workers’ lunch restaurants. In it, the chef is holding a large wheel of cheese. He’s poised to throw it, much as if he were about to roll a bowling ball.

My next brush with cheese rolling happened as I was driving down a Tuscan backroad on the way to the grocery store. I noticed a group of men—including the chef— standing together, looking very serious, all well-armed with large cheeses. I’d like to say that I instantly pulled over to find out more, but wasn’t brave enough—they were having such a good time among friends that it like intruding, and I’m not yet confident enough about my Italian.

The third time I spotted a cheese in play, it was a solitary man, practicing his cheese roll, and I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. I was with my fluent daughter, and she owed me one because I had just picked her up at the horse stable, so “we” found out when the next competition was happening and asked if we could come and film.

As is appropriate with cheese rolling, my search came full-circle when I interviewed the chef—whose picture hangs in the restaurant—about the basics of the sport. I was surprised that he has only been participating in this sport for three years—so for those of you who think “It is too late for me to learn to roll a cheese” there is hope yet.

Each team of two has a large, flat, hard cheese between them (could be pecorino, asiago, or parmigiano; but all the teams have to use the same kind.) They attach a leather strap around the cheese, which creates a sort of handle, that enables them to launch the cheese, rolling it down the road. The team who cheese goes the farthest with a predetermined number of throws wins.

Cheese rolling is an all-day sport. The day we came out to watch, they had been out rolling cheeses since 8 in the morning and would be doing so until about 7:30 in the evening, covering around 9 kilometers on foot.

Cheese rolling dates from Etruscan times (the local tribes living here pre-Roman times, whom Tuscany was named after). It’s even included in the Federation of Italian Traditional Games and Sports (figest.it), an organization that holds competitions and publishes the rules for about 15 ancient games like, tug of war, cross bow shooting, darts, and very obscure games like morra, which dates to the ancient Egyptians. (For a lovely little blast of morra: https://www.facebook.com/MorraMarche/videos/978697128831911/)

In cheese rolling there are five different weight classes—cheeses ranging from 1.5 kilograms (a little over three pounds) to 25 kilograms (55 pounds). Hurling a 55 pound cheese down the road takes serious training and muscle!

My favorite part is that the rules specify what to do if your cheese breaks during competition. First feed the spectators cheese, then you can replace the cheese and carry on.

Our chef friend says they always serve the cheese after it has had its moment of competition and that it is particularly delicious. The rules dictate that, after the competition, the winner provides everyone else with glasses of wine. But victory is sweet after all, because the victor gets to keep the cheese of the defeated.

July 10, 2018 In About, Best Of By Nancy

So I find myself…

…sitting in a house that’s somewhere between 400 and 800 years old in a Tuscan village thinking about what to do if I meet a wild boar again while taking a walk, business development for the company I run, what one more year in an Italian high school will mean for my teenage son, and what to have for dinner—all at the same time.

We are almost six years into the adventure of responding to a deep, unrelenting urge to change our lives, an itch, if you will, that inspired our move to Italy—enrolling the kids in the local school (where they started off not speaking any Italian), working with clients all over the world from our homebase in this Italian village, and finding our way in a new life.

Friends, understandably, ask questions. “Do the kids feel more Italian or American, and which parts of their attitudes come from which culture?” “What do the locals think of you?” “What do you actually do all day—don’t you get bored? ” “Where can we go in Venice to escape the crowds and see real neighborhoods?” “Where should we get dinner in Florence?”

So lately I’ve discovered a different kind of itch—a desire to answer these questions and more. Hence the birth of Itch, my notes about food discoveries, language insights, surprising cultural moments, and ideas for adventures in Italy, shared as we live them, weekly.

I invite you to come along for the journey and share with like-minded friends.

July 9, 2018 In Live By Nancy

The race to be—exactly—on time

I don’t know a lot about races, but I do know that in most, being fastest is key. So I was surprised—and delighted—to discover that the path to victory in our local vintage Vespa race is being very, very punctual. The winning strategy requires finishing the race to the correct hundredth of a second of a specified time. How do you do it? By adhering to the speed limit the whole way.

(As you could well imagine the Italians adore going the speed limit and do so on every opportunity. On a nearby, well-used road the speed limit just dropped from 70 to 50 kph prompting a local firestorm of opinion. A TV station described local drivers as being beset by “panic and rage” at the reduced limit—really? “Panic”?)

For this vintage Vespa race the art of winning is in the precision and preparation. Routes can be tricky, and are often on windy, steep, and even unpaved roads. To add to the challenge, all the Vespas are old—only certain storied racing models from the 1950s and 60s—and likely to break down. Inspired by their rides, some participants pride themselves on using only time-keeping and navigation technology from the period of their Vespa.

This all leads to some very interesting finish-line maneuvers to burn through those all-important seconds if one is slightly too early.

Watching it for the first time, I thought that surely, this was a race like no other. But digging a bit deeper into the world of vintage “racing” I realized that this style of rally is actually pretty common. But the story of this particular rally stands out as one of determination and resurrection.

Our local Vespa repair shop, which sits just down the road from the finish line, has been in business since the 1950s. It’s run by the son of the original owner, who has been racing—and fixing—Vespas since he was three (check out the pic below).

He remembers seeing the race go by when he was a kid in the 1970s but then it stopped. Two years ago he decided to revive the race and got over 50 riders to participate from all over Italy. I can’t wait for next year’s race to see how much it grows.

The lure of the Vespa is a deep one for Italians, and for reasons I wouldn’t have expected. More on that later.