Saturday, August 30, 2008

I love Italy

What is it about Italy that I like so much? May be I will write a few of the things:

I like the blue sky that's free of smog and is crystal clear.
I love the smell of wood burning in the fireplace of my friends Stefano and Marvi.
I love the smell of steak grilling a few inches above the burning wood.
I love espresso in the morning with a dash of foamy milk.
I like espresso in the afternoon when I am invited to someone's house. I also like when it's served with anise cookies.
I love my apartment with the exposed beams and the hand cut tiles on the floor each one having a different pattern. They have the appearance of what the inside of a rock might look like if you could saw it in half.
I love my Italian neighbors who sit on the stoop at night smoking cigarettes and telling stories. They stop me and my wife before we retire and ask us about America. Sometimes they talk about George Bush and when they do their faces turn red with anger.
I love eating T-bone steaks at Da Dario's with french fries and a green salad. My kids especially like the big bowl of un-cut fruit that is presented after the meal along with a variety of homemade biscotti cookies. I dunk them in my espresso.
I love the hiss of the espresso machine. I love the sight of the dripping espresso and I really love the rich, dark crema that floats on top.
I love the bitter taste of it on my lips.
I love eating gelato early in the morning. My kids joke that I only let them eat ice cream for breakfast when we are in Italy.
I love the fact that we have no TV in our apartment. My kids don't love this!

Figs

As a kid the only the only figs I was acquainted with were the fig newton variety and even those I wasn't too crazy about, but after visiting Italy and then buying a home there I came to appreciate a FIG. The first ones I was introduced to were from my neighbor. She lived directly across the cobblestone road from me and when we would come home at night she would be smoking on the stoop. She brought my wife and I a plate of ripe figs and these figs were ready to burst. Their skins were peeling and the seeds were just about bubbling out. I took one bite and experienced that sensation that reminded me of my first beer. You want to really like it because you know it's cool, but the taste is a little too much. Figs were like that for me. I wanted to be a FIG eater because I knew all Italian loved figs and being an Italian WANNABE according to my children it was mandatory that I enjoy figs. I ate on and I eat on and each fig gets better and better.

My second real encounter with a fig or rather a bunch of figs came in the summer of 2006. I was with Franco( the husband of Paola) who I do our cooking school with. He told me to grab a basket and come along we needed to get some figs off the tree before they expired. We hopped in his jeep and drove over the rough terrain of his olive orchard to a spot where there were three giant FIG trees. A ladder was propped up against one of the trees, so I climbed to the top and peered across the land. In the very short distance I could see my village of Casperia.

All around me were figs. I felt like I was in a bee hive being suffocated by swarming bees. These figs didn't bite but they definitely were swarming and I started to pick and eat, pick and eat and by the time I got down from the ladder I felt intoxicated just like the time I drank my first few beers, but this time I was intoxicated with figs and with everything Italian.

My favorite thing is dried figs. I make them myself and I put them on ice cream or I eat them with blue cheese. I put them in salads. I like them on top of oatmeal in the morning.

Dried Figs

10 figs quartered
Non-stick spray

Turn on the oven to about 175 degrees. Quarter the figs and line a cookie sheet pan with foil. Spray the foil with non-stick spray and lay the figs on the pan. Place in the oven for about 8 hours until they are dried.