Tip Your Glass

Raise a toast. To all those reading this tonight have one drink to South America. After over ten months we are officially in our last few weeks and tonight is our last night in Soith America. We are jumping on a flight first thing tomorrow morning for the central American city of Panama. Cheers to SA, it's done us a solid...

Godfather-in-Law...

...A Love Story, not to mention our second guest post from none other then Sister Vickers, eh Caltigirone. Without further ado:

  Italy is sort-of a ridiculous country.  It’s a great place – don’t get me wrong – but there are so many things about it that feel like a scene from a movie or a cartoon.  People regularly speak with so much passion and animation that even a discussion of the weather appears as a heated argument to an untrained ear.  Women really do lean out of high windows as they clip their laundry to the line and call to their friends in the street below.  Often I see men walking with their arms draped around each other’s shoulders in a display of friendship.  Basically, everything that Hollywood has ever taught you about the country that’s shaped like a boot is absolutely true.  Sometimes it seems that all that’s missing is a soundtrack, but often enough there’s a fellow with an accordion playing it in the street.

  I moved to Italy this past July, but it wasn’t until the end of August that I realized I had moved here.  At first I thought I was just passing through.  My boyfriend and I had been living in Denmark for almost a year at that point, and we decided that we didn’t want to repeat the previous winter (record-low temperatures and difficulty finding work).  Luca, my sweetheart, is Italian, and he suggested we save up some money so we could get out of Scandinavia and head to his homeland in time to join his family on their seaside vacation; then we could just continue traveling south, aiming for warm weather and cheap travel.  It didn’t take much to convince me.  Within a few weeks we had gotten rid of everything except what fit in our backpacks and we pointed our thumbs south.

  What a world of difference from where I had been living before!  Fresh, amazing fruits and veggies; kind, warm people with big laughs; cheek kisses for hellos; warm weather that lasted well into the night; a sea that I could actually swim in.  There were considerably fewer people speaking English in Italy than what I had encountered in northern Europe, so socializing mostly consisted of lots of smiling and saying ‘ciao’ and ‘grazie’ and sometimes drawing things.  Still, the family embraced me, the food enticed me, and the weather enchanted me, and pretty soon Luca and I were talking about setting up camp in Italy for a while so he could finish his university degree.  I was happy with the plan except for one nagging problem: I had already overstayed my European visa so living in Italy meant living as an illegal immigrant in a country where the political climate of the past ten years is particularly unfavorable toward foreigners.  How will I find work?  Our savings won’t last long in a European city.  What will happen if the government notices my presence?

  [Insert Marlin Brando voice here:] “I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”  It was apparent that Italy had it in its power to either embrace me as one of “the family” or else make my life very difficult.  I had a choice:

  On the one hand I had the option to live as illegally in Italy.  I could struggle to make money despite my professional degree.  I could live in fear of governmental authorities.  I could have minimal access to medical care despite the program of socialized medicine that the citizens enjoy.  And I could be deported or jailed at any moment for no reason other than the wrong person taking note of my existence.  That’s a lot of inconvenience to deal with just for some fresh fruit and warm weather, but of course there was more than these temptations compelling me to stay in Italy.  There was also love.

  That brings me to the other hand: on the other hand I wore an engagement ring given to me by a sweet, handsome, shy, smart, good-hearted Sicilian boy.  I’d already spent a few weeks with his huge family and they loved me.  I’d already spent a few months with this boy and we loved each other.  So all we had to do was sign some papers and have a big party and all of my troubles would disappear.  I could stay in Italy or any other part of Europe for as long as I desired and I could have Italian citizenship in just a year and a half.  I could work and earn money as a professional which would be a relief from the tight-budgeted lifestyle we’d been leading.  I could have access to healthcare that even my own country didn’t offer me.  And I could have a big party.

  Let’s just say that I didn’t need a horse’s head on my pillow to convince me.

  So I’m now a married woman.  I’m Signora Caltagirone (though I haven’t legally changed my name).  I’m living in Pisa with my husband (ooh, it still feels strange to say that!) where he’s attending the university and I’m circulating my resume among English-language schools and international schools.  I’m planning the menu for my first Thanksgiving as a wife and I’ve accepted that it will probably include some sort of pasta.  There are moments when marriage feels entirely different than the life I led just weeks before, but in other moments it feels very much the same.  Really, very little has changed: I now have a sparkly ring on my finger, a lot of photos from a lovely party, and Italy’s enthusiastic blessing upon my existence.

  I still shake my head when I walk down the street and pass a row of Vespas parked in front of the gelato shop, or when I hear a pizza chef signing as he tosses dough, or when I glance up at the world’s most famous architectural debacle swarming with tourists wanting to be photographed “holding it up”; I still laugh at true-to-life stereotypes of this land but when the laughter finishes a loving smile remains.  There’s a reason Italy shows up in movies and TV shows so often: the daily life of this place is wonderfully entertaining!  And as ridiculous as this country is, it’s the place I’ve chosen to call home.

Italians´ Make Good Food, Better Weddings

Jet setting to Italy for a week has its consequences, primarily the unfortunate byproduct called jet-lag. (1) Combined with a wedding, lots of out-of-town visitors and a side-trip, i had little time to do on-the-second updates.  Apologies, but alas, this chronological annotated timeline will have to suffice (with accompanying photo journey).

(1) I'm not sure I really believe in this myth of jet-lag.  Proper planning, meaning more or less plane sleep, based upon an analysis of difference in time, arrival time and activities upon arrival should negate any real effects...oh, and lots of coffee, if necessary.  This is to say, I'm using jet-lag as an excuse.  Live with it.  At least you get photos.

Nov. 1, Mon:
Exit Bogota.  Enter world of pre-packaged food, free Coke, plugged ears, and bad in-flight movies starring Nic Cage.

Nov. 2, Tues:
2+ hours sleep, 3 hours in Madrid, arrive Milano 5 hours late.  Jesus Cristo, this is what the first world looks like.  Clean.  Meet Hi-Mae (my sis) and Assunts (ex-step-mom) at train station.  Sister loves, LOVES my Aaron Burr chops.  To Casanate con Bernate.  Food from Angela sparks something deep and sweet inside me.  First good cheese since Argentina.  Sharp provolone, peppered goat chhese, Swiss and fontina.  Whooof.

Nov 3., Wed:
Meet my Italian Aunt Lucy for first time IN Italy.  She's happy, I'm happy.  We eat speck, salami and padona.  More happiness.

Nov. 4, Thurs:
Get tour of Gussola, my cousin Simonas bakery/store, eat prosciutto de Parma. Aunt Lucy and Silvano are crazy, they want to spend three extra hours with ME, so they drive me to Lucas family's home.

Nov. 5, Friday:  
Wedding one day away.  I'm called to duty in unlikely ways.  Apparently my inner seamster (seamstress, in masculinity) shone thru.  Jaime's dress maker asked me to sew some fluff.  Success.  Dinner at a pizzeria.  Gorged.  Happy belly, happy Jason.

Nov 6., Sat:
Wedding.  Gorgeous.  Jaime looked Beau-Ti-ful, like Audrey Hepbburn classic, if classic was spelled cissal (it's backwards).  Made jokes about the mayor, who was marrying Luca and Jaime, being the head of the locale fascist club.  Good times.  Went to dinner.  10 course meal, approximately. Wine, all-you-can-drink (note: this is basically status quo for every meal in Italy).  Then to Bardello.  More food, more wine, more dancing, more ceremony (this being the circle ceremony: hippie-dippie, vow-filled happiness).  And most importantly a happy Jaime and Luca, like palpable happy--the best kind.

Nov. 7, Sun:
No church.  Just a mild hangover.  Lunch. Tortelli stuffed with prawns, zuchini and something else tasty.  Tiramisu.  Sister and me grocery store time.  Gelatto.  Contented.

Nov. 8, Mon:
7am flight.  No sleep.  3am wake-up.  2am lasagna de Gina, because I could (Gina is Lucas Nona, there was leftover lasagna from dinner on the counter.  Everyone was sleeping.  I ate, guiltily, sneakily, stuffing my face an hour before waking my sister to drive me to the airport.  No regrets.). One hour drive tirns into 2.15.  Airport one hour before departure.  Tutti Bene.  Ate my way through Italy, a wedding and two families homes.  Success.     

There were two ceremonies. The first in city hall with the mayor (decked out in an Italian flag sash and all) and one with just family and friends at Luca´s parents restaurant. This was taken in the beautiful park outside of city hall. The first picture of the newlyweds on a benc.

There were also two feast. The first took place at a family friends restaurant, the second at Luca´s parents restaurant, which also entailed dancing, singing, toasting, speeching, more eating, caking and an abundance of other fun activities.

Not all wedding all the time, I had the pleasure of visiting my Italian Aunt (half sister of my mother) in Gussola, about an hour outside of Milan. This is Lucy, her husband Silvano and myself. I stayed out there just one short night, and I´ve promised to return for no less than fifteen days--Lucy would accept nothing less. Her hospitality, as with Lucas´ parents was astounding.

Lucas´parents live in Casnate con Bernate, just a few minutes outside of Como, Italy. We took a couple of field trips into the city. This shop left my mouth watering. I think I weirded out the owners by standing and oogling for five minutes, my strangeness climaxing by taking a picture of their ravioli spread through the window.

The elderly in Como love their bicycles. Every which way you turned they´d be pedaling around town.

An evening view of Como from the Bardello, Lucas´ parents restaurant.

Lake Como as seen through this happy couples eyes. The Italians I came across were incredibly nice. I was trying to take this picture across the street and someone stopped their car in the middle of the street, gesturing or me to take the picture as others were honking their horn at him to move on.

What appears to be the remmanants of some ancient stronghold/castle/prison in the middle of Como. I didn´t go very many places in Italy, but the ones I did visit seem to be these strange juxtapositios of modernity and antiquity. Not something we see much in California.

A mildly extravagant house overlooking the shores of Lake Como.

The happy couples´first post-matrimony walk in the park adjacent to city hall.

A lipstick malfunction averted. As I was taking this Jaime asked if I was photoing for the blog. Apparently I was.

The Cataligirone clan (I probably misspelled that). Salvator (or Boss), Jaime, Luca, Angela and Mirko.

The women Cataligirone.

You are not allowed to take photos in supermarkets in Italy either. so, Jaime slyly snapped a photo with me and a giant Mortadella. The selection of cheese and cured meats would make any vegan disgusted, but for me it was like a whole new wonderful world.

Uncle John heckling me, or perhaps it was the other way around...

I only got one pizza when I was there, which was a shame. A sea of mushrooms, sausage, cheese and onions.
Either an Italian or Danish tradition, or perhaps both, with the first visit to the bathroom of the bride/groom the opposite sex jumps up and forms a line to kiss the bride/groom before the other returns from the bathroom.

Cutting the cake. I think Jaime made Luca eat his piece of fruit tart, though technically not raw.


Family de Jaime.

And lastly, the night before the wedding a true Italian heart with tomato sauce, crust and all.

Zona Cafeteria

The view from our cozy, country hostel.

Here is the shortened, abbreviated, devoid of facts history of coffee. The stories generally involve either a boy in Ethiopia sometime in the pre-1000's finding a herd of goats full of more vigor than normal, putting two and two together (plant + goat = BAM = coffee) and voila, we have a future 21st century success story. Or, the other story goes that instead of a boy, it was a man. But anytime you take the discovery of something so general, you tend to get the Hiriam Bingham Boy syndrome. Coffee was probably discovered before (or after) one of these events and by a multitude of people independently, but alas, we like a good (or at least personal) story, which is probably why the boy story tends to precede the story of the man and why Wikipedia says that the stories don't appear in writing until sometime in the 16th century, giving more credence to the view they are simply a stories.
What does seem to have some truth or at least general acceptance--which passes for truth more often than not--is that the origins of the coffee plant are in the vicinity of present-day Ethiopia. You might even be able to extend that grossly large zone to the horn of Africa (making it grossly larger and more inaccurate, though the inaccuracies of just Ethiopia as the primer growth zone might be inaccurate in of itself), but since this is really devoid of facts anyways, that would probably be just fine. More importantly than the above is that coffee does seem to have first been roasted, then mixed with water and drank somewhere in Arabia and the first coffee shops probably somewhere in Turkey (Starbucks thanks you, I do too, but Seattle, you're--as a friend of mine might say--on my shit-on-your-counter-list). Globalization, trade, colonization and deliciousness eventually spread this dark little bean across the world entering into the beloved Colombian (read: South American agrarian) culture somewhere in the 1700's.

Celebrating Spencie´s birthday with a ¨Feliz Cumpleaños¨-marked Aguila. (Though I do not recommend this beer. Colombia´s other two beers and the ever-popular, easily available Budweiser, are much more tasty.

Which brings us to our current situation, Colombian coffee in the Zona Cafeteria. Colombian coffee has done marketing wonders. The man, the donkey, the legend: Juan Valdez has to be one of the most recognizable symbols of the coffee bean in the world. He brought a pre-Starbuckian world into its coffee-own, paving the way for the future uber.com/consumption of the late 90's and continuing through the 2000's. Which makes it no surprise that a) we decided to visit the coffee region of a country famous for it's coffee (the second most famous exported crop-derivative in Colombia, in fact) and b) that we toured a coffee plantation. (1)

(1) c would be that we also went to a small, organic family farm instead of a large, industrial chemicalized farm, but it didnt really fit into the context of my a, b, c's.

The following is what we saw, slurped and sort-of understood from our guia de cafe.

This is a banana tree. Apparently banana trees are (at least for an organic farm) immeasurably helpful for a coffee farm. They provided shade from the sun, food for the farmers and help to replish the soil of some of its nutrients. Our guide informed us most coffee farms utilize banana trees. He listed off a few alternatives, but none contained all three of the benefits which banana trees supply.

Free coffee at the end of our tour of Don Elias. They were incredible cups of joe, fresh, straight out of the roaster, and completely organic. Our only complaint, they were drip-coffee strong in an espresso-sized body. We could have used a tad more coffee considering they had plenty at their beckon.

Our guide grinding our just-off-the-oven coffee beans. This farm is part of a collective, which means they don´t have their own industrial-sized drying, roasting or grinding facilities. They simply sell their first crop of the year to the collective (they harvest twice a year) and keep the second harvesting for themselves to drink (our guide says he has 6-7 cups a day) and sell to tourist at completely bloated rates (us, for example). They sell the coffee beans to the collective shucked from their shells, but still wet.

Since they aren´t distributing massive amounts of roasted coffee, they simply roast the beans ov´r an open fire, in a pot. Our guide said they simply layer the bottom of the pot, put a cover on it and roast them for an hour. Listo, ready to grind and swill away.

This is their grinder. Not exactly Starbucks-like, but efficiently hand cranked and owning to an exponentially more tasty coffee.
This is their drying tent. The beans on the ground are almost dry. The guide said if it is warm that it only takes about a few days to dry the beans, but if it is damp and cold (which if our visit is any indicator, is about 85% of the time) it could take upwards of eight days. Not exactly the Juan Valdez method of coffee production, but a nice family farm with great organic coffee.
Beans. Dried, but not roasted.
I believe the english name for this is hopper. It takes the unshucked coffee beans, then shucks them. The beans then have to sit in water for no more than 24 hours, for reasons which were un-understandeable to me.

Part of the Beth Takes Pictures of All South American Dogs That Are Cute Series. I think this is number 342, a conservative guess.
Who knew, apparently coffee plants have flowers too. It´s the romantic coming out in the coffee plant.
Unripened coffee beans on the plant. When they are ripe they turn bright orange and red, at which point they are harvested.


Quick rundown of plants. This farm utilizes two types of plants: the Arabic strain and the Colombian strain (which must be some derivative of the Arabic strain since that is where the plant originated, but I digress). Our guide said the Arabic strain produces for 20 years while the Colombian strain produces for only 10 years. However, all-else-being-equal the Colombian plant is supposedly much more resistent to plagues, disesase, etc. Thus the diversifying of the plants within the farm. Once those times are reached, the farm can cut the plants off (like pruning roses) and grow them anew for another 10 years and 7 years, respectively. At the ending of these periods, the plants go through menopause and are no longer...fertile.

More beans.
And, lastly, me, walking through the coffee farm. Because what good post wouldn´t have a picture of me with a dumb face on...