Paccheri con ragù bianco di coniglio, or pasta with rabbit ragù

 

 

In my American genes it is not even Thanksgiving yet, but I seem to already be doing all things Christmas.

 

I spent last week end helping my kids make decorations to bring to school.

Which would be ok if:

a) the elementary school project didn't involve making three different decorations using the five senses as inspiration. Which makes it a bit more complicated than dumping a bunch of glitter glue, loose ends from last year's Christmas ribbons and some cardboard toilet paper rolls onto a table* and letting your kid "freely express her artistic inclinations" (although I will admit that the huge Christmas tree they decorate in the entrance with the kids' work gets me teary every year and I am proud of the school's amazing Parent Association that funds great projects with the money they make selling one of the three decorations each child makes); 

b) I didn't spend the whole time I am picking glue out of my pre-schooler's hair and wiping glitter off the floor (and chairs, and table and the rest of the house) thinking why the heck they don't make them do their artwork at school since they don't exactly spend their days reciting Homer and solving equations.

 

 

 

 

This week end I will be helping my mother in law make her famous tortellini for Christmas Eve. I cherish family traditions and have noticed that with the passing of time it is getting harder and harder for her to make the enormous quantities of food she has spoiled her family with for so many years. I want to be able to help her, take some of the weight off of her shoulders; and I want to hand this art down to my own children and their families. I know I will be getting a bag to stash away in my freezer for our Christmas celebration with my family this year. But what I and my children will really be getting out of it are precious memories of these Christmases together, memories they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. I know I cherish the moments I spent with my grandmothers, even more so now that they are no longer here with me. 

 

I have been translating Christmas recipes for a website, sorting through hundreds of pictures of the kids for our Christmas cards and scouring the Internet for gifts because I swore to myself last year that I am never getting stuck in that last-minute shopping frenzy again.

 

But the truth is all I want to do is slow down and enjoy some turkey and cranberry sauce and think about all the things I have to be thankful for, because there are many. The first being my friend who is organizing a belated Thanksgiving get-together next week end for all us nostalgic expats.

 

Another one being all those things that make life easier. Like a recipe that can go two ways, depending what you are in the mood for. 

 

(If you were hoping for something a little more soppy, go here (I am also thankful my photography has improved a tad!) and here, to Thanksgivings past).

 

 

 

 

This is the "sliding doors" of recipes: a small twist of fate and you can get two entirely different meals out of it. A primo or a secondo as they would say here, a first course or a main course. I posted about the latter a couple of years ago. This time I took it a step further. 

 

If you follow the recipe until the meat is perfectly braised (in the link, I finish braising it in the oven, but the stove top will do fine. Just use less liquid for cooking) you will end up with a comforting dish of fall-of-the-bone tender rabbit meat to serve with polenta, mashed potatoes, rice or whatever other vehicle you have in mind to mop up every last drop of the sauce. If you read all the way to the end of the recipe, because like us, you cannot get through the week (or day) without a big plate of pasta, you will enjoy a delicate and delicious ragù. 

 

 

*Now I know that my grandmother's weren't just thrifty because of the Great Depression and the WW2... before being grandmas they were mothers of pre-schoolers and schoolers, which literally means hoarding every piece of crap a functioning person would normally throw away, because at some point you are going to need it for a school project.  

 

Braised red cabbage with pancetta, apples and balsamic vinegar, Jamie-style

 

 

 

Since I am on a roll about the kids these days (incidentally, since my post last week, my four-year old has been a sweetheart... maybe I should complain online more often) here is another thing I have noticed in my eight years of parenting.

 

A child's true development occurs in the bathroom.

 

First of all, it is uncanny how much time you spend sitting on bathroom tiles, on the toilet or on the rim of the tub as the parent of younger kids. You hear me, parents of the world, right?

 

Now, as a mother, you expect an in-depth analysis of all bodily-related matters in this scenario. You know you will find yourself discussing at length the size, differences, color, consistency of parts attached to, or recently detached from, your child's body. 

 

But that is not where it ends.

 

Children tend to be particularly loquacious whilst sitting on the porcelain throne.

Whether you like it or not, while they are taking a dump, you will get all the information about their day that they didn't volunteer earlier. When only a handful of hours before questions like "What did you do in school today?" or "What did you have for lunch today?" were met with silence or monosillabic answers like "Nothing/don't remember/know", in the bathroom they are suddenly all about communicating, sharing, extreme detail. 

 

What I however did not expect were the big questions, nonchalantly thrown in there between a gargle and a nail scrub.

 

A few recent examples:

 

"Mommy, what does I hate you mean?" (Your child has been having tantrums and telling you you are mean and that he hates you for the past two months and you have been trying not to take it too personally and then you suddenly realize that you do not have a clue about what really goes on in his head).

 

"Guess what so-and-so said yesterday? That he wants to go to whatshername's house and he wants to have sex with her". (SAY WHAAAAAAT??????? Sweetie, do you know what the word sex means? You do? HOW???? Can you tell me what you think it means? Yes, that is right to a degree. Honey, when your little brother goes to bed, you and I and Daddy will talk a little and you can ask us anything you don't understand or you are curious about).

 

 

 

 

Or the philosophical questions:

 

"Is there meat inside of us?"

 

"Can you touch darkness?"

 

(latest addition in Ikea bathroom over the week end)

"Are shadows boys or girls?"

"Shadows don't have eyes and a mouth, right? Just legs and arms...

 

Let's just say the bathroom has never been the same since I became a mom. 

 

But now, because I always tell my kids it is not ok to have bathroom-related talk at the table, let's change the subject.

 

You all know by now that I am not one of those super-organized bloggers who starts posting Thanksgiving menus in October and Christmas goodies throughout November and December.  I might throw in a recipe here and there, but usually, like today, it is just a happy coincidence.

 

So let's just say you got lucky today, because last week I happened to make a side dish I think would work wonderfully with turkey, ham, goose, duck or whatever it is you love to eat on the approaching holidays. You can keep it vegetarian by substituting the pancetta with toasted pinoli or by frying the onions until crispy (because it needs some crunch one way or another in my opinion). 

 

 

 

 

Recipe from Jamie Oliver

Polpo con patate in umido (octopus and potato stew)



This is the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... went a famous song in the early Eighties.

 

That is my story these days, the story of my blond-haired, blue-eyed baby who not-so-occasionally morphs into a little monster with tentacles, a spinning head and flying spittle.

 

I get that Terrible Twos sounds much more catching than Terrible Fours, but for me it has always been about the fours. And from what I hear and see around, it is not just me. So to hell with the Terrible Twos, let's get serious and discuss the Frightful Fours.

My daughter had a pretty bad case of them, much worse than my son's, but she had the partial excuse of a baby brother invading her territory at the time.

He, on the other hand, may be a little easier to handle (and I have a feeling this is partly because he is a boy, a more simple gender to deal with in general) but he has no such excuse.

 

Lately the constant "No"s and whining and defiant attitude have been eroding my soul like a slow yet steady trickle of water. I know this phase will pass, I know he is taking his first steps in becoming independent, I know deep, deep down inside he is still my sweet little boy. But let me tell you, he can be a real pain in the a** on the outside these days.

Unfortunately, there is not much you can do except breathe in and breathe out (after you have tried everything from ignoring to reasoning to time outs - because everything just makes it worse) until it passes.

 

So when it takes me 20 minutes to get his shoes on at pre-school because this involves ten minutes of cajoling on my part and crying and screaming on his just to get to him to his locker (the last time it was about me daring to kiss him on his ear when he ran into my arms minutes before), five minutes of him flinging said shoes off every time I get them on his kicking feet and another five of him opening and closing the velcro straps repeatedly because I did it wrong and I am mean... I breathe in and I breathe out.

When he constantly and very publicly refuses to sit near me anywhere, whether on a bus, a plane or in a restaurant, because he wants Daddy and only Daddy - even when it is logistically impossible... I breathe in and I breathe out.

 

Pasta e fagioli

 

 

I spent a lot of my childhood locked in a closet, a trunk, or with a soap bar stuffed in my mouth.

She, on the other hand, always got into trouble, even when it was my fault, because she was older.

 

I spent years following her around and copying her every move.

She spent years figuring out how to get rid of me.

 

I kept her up at night, whispering and making her sing along to songs from musicals. Evita, specifically.

All she wanted to do was sleep.

 

When we were very young we, or rather she, used to play this game where she pretended she was dying and would say goodbye to all her dolls and stuffed animals one by one, in tears. I sat and watched and sobbed, impotent. Finally, she went to her favorite stuffed animal and kissed it goodbye and then gave it to me and said: "my beloved sister, please take care of xyz for me, make sure nothing ever happens to him/her, keep each other company and don't ever forget me". This game made me spiral into a state of desperation and I fell for it every time, even if we played it at least once a week.

 

We fought like there was no tomorrow, I drove her nuts and she could be pretty mean to me. But we were always together, whatever side of the Atlantic Ocean we were living on at the time, no matter what our family nucleus was at any given moment.  Our lives changed pretty often, but we were a certainty for each other, whether we liked it (I) or not (she).

 

 

 

 

 

That is what being sisters means: you are blood sisters and soul sisters, a bond that can never be broken.

 

So sure, we had our differences.

 

She was reserved and kept her feelings deeply buried inside.

I was a chatterbox and wore my feelings out in the open, for the world to see.

 

She was popular and loved to socialize.

I was goofy and painfully shy when it came to my peers.

 

She loved being out there, doing stuff, away from home.

I got really homesick and hated "doing stuff".

 

When we went our separate ways in the summer, I sometimes had to concentrate just to breathe without her. I spent the first part of my vacations away from her crying. One summer we were reunited in London after more than a month apart, me back from the States and she back from a great time at summer school. I was happy, I felt safe again. She hated it, because "seeing you means my summer is really over".

 

But despite our differences, we shared a lot.

 

Bizzare and embarassing memories, for example. Like soaking our wash cloths in hot water and then scrubbing our limbs until they were raw and red, because her seven year old self said it would get rid of germs; or almost falling into a canal on the way home from school when we had just moved to Venice and were experiencing our first acqua alta episode.

 

 

 

 

There was the time in New Delhi that we bought a really cool embroidery set at a street market and were so anxious to try it out, that we cut some fabric from the back of the luxuriously thick curtains of our hotel room while our mother was in the bathroom. She, by the way, just found out about that when we all reunited for my grandmother's memorial service right before Christmas. We had the whole family laughing hysterically with some of those anecdotes, and I'm telling you, it was so good to mix tears of laughter with the tears of grief.

 

 

 

 

And then there was the time we were in a hotel in Salzburg and had such a bad fight that we almost wrecked the hotel room (am I the only one noticing a recurring theme here?). Our mother had gone out to a ball and gave her two teenage daughters some money to get some food and watch a movie in their room. Next thing, the younger sibling was flying across the room and knocking down a lamp and some other decor in the trajectory.

 

 

 

 

If you ask our husbands, they both have stories of their first encounter with the "other sibling" that involves some kind of the physical evidence of fights prior to their arrival. Maybe, and I am neither confirming this piece of information nor denying it, something along the lines of being kicked in the stomach or an arm being twisted and bruised.

 

What can I say? We have had a passionate relationship and have pretty much gotten the fighting out of our systems. Now we laugh together like with nobody else. That initially loud, then totally mute kind laughter that encompasses your whole body and leaves you feeling tired and revived and rejuvinated, all at the same time, when it stops.

 

We are sisters and if I hadn't gotten her, I would've chosen her. She is the reason I wanted another girl, but now that I am blessed with a boy I hope every day that my kids will feel that way about each other when they grow up.

 

 

 

So here is to sisters, and to mine especially, who is about to land here any minute.

 

As the last weeks of cold weather envelop this part of the globe, here is a dish some of us won't be able to enjoy for much longer,  while others on the other side of the globe will just be getting into the mood for. Italian comfort food at its best.

Porcini mushroom barley soup (zuppa d'orzo ai porcini)

Here is a list of things I will not do at the beginning of this new year:

1) I will spare you my 2011 review post with photos and links to favorite recipes. YAWN. Was that me or you? My point being, I will not bore myself or you (at least not intentionally), so let’s just make a pact: you are more than welcome to browse around this blog whenever you feel like it and put key words into the search box if you are looking for something specific and I will keep linking to past posts here and there so you can discover some "hidden jems". This however doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the many review posts out there, I did. I just can’t be bothered.

2) I am not going to describe what I did and did not eat this holiday. First of all, because I pretty much ingurgitated all life forms present on this planet in the past weeks, animal and vegetable (or fruit in the form of fermented, liquid grapes), so making a list would be pretty unnecessary. Secondly, because you are probably sick of hearing that voice (be it in your head or in every post you have read in the last week) whine "I am sooo full, I ate too much, I think I will explode". Come on, really, you know you loved gorging yourself silly, you could've stopped any time, so just shut up and stop complaining already! And last but not least, because you don’t really care how many friggin' slices of smoked salmon, panettone or turkey I ate, since it is not your tushy that will expand a size as a result. Wait, is that a chocolate-covered-marzipan-Christmas-tree-shaped lump of cellulite on my right thigh or am I just seeing things?

3) I will not write a bunch of NYE resolutions because you just recently read my Thanksgiving list of what I am thankful for and you are still recovering. This is another win-win situation (see point 1): no stifling yawns on your side and no promises to live up to or public failures to admit to for moi in December 2012.

4) I am not posting a 120 calorie detox recipe made with goji berries and seaweed to make you feel better/less guilty. What I am posting is a recipe that is healthy (it includes most food groups: grains, healthy fats, vegetables, protein, dairy), comforting (because it is after all the height of winter for many of us) and easy (you probably don’t want to slave over a meal now that the cooking marathon is finally over). This dish is served in varying forms pretty much all over the Alps and can be made as a vegetarian or even a vegan dish by leaving out respectively one or two ingredients at most.

And...I wish you all a very Happy New Year! May 2012 be all you hoped for and thank you for following me into the new year.

Ingredients

500gr pearl barley

dried porcini mushrooms (small to medium sized bag)

100gr smoked pancetta or bacon

2 small or 1 large carrot

2 celery stalks

1 small onion

1 or 2 garlic cloves

5 cups ca. of vegetable stock

a handful of chopped fresh parsley

olive oil

Parmesan cheese

pepper

Pour enough olive oil into a pot to cover the bottom. Soak the dried mushrooms (a small bag will take you a long way) in a bowl with hot water, making sure you just cover them. Cut the garlic into large pieces (or mince it if you like a stronger flavor) and prepare a roughly chopped mirepoix with the onion, celery and carrots and cook until toothsome. I bought pre-diced smoked pancetta but you can just as easily chop up slices of bacon or ham if you have them handy. Cook with the vegetables until golden brown and then add in the barley, letting in toast in the hot oil for a couple of minutes. By now the mushrooms should have softened so you can squeeze out the excess liquid, making sure you do not discard it! It will give to the soup extra flavor. Roughly chop the mushrooms, add them in with the rest and pour in the soaking liquid and about 5 cups of water, depending on how thick and hearty you like your soup. Simmer for about 20 minutes, until the barley is cooked through and serve with a drizzle of olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, chopped parsley and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Skip the Parmesan cheese and/or the pancetta if you are making a vegetarian or vegan soup.

Chicken (or why not turkey?) pot pie. On Thanksgiving and giving thanks

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and as much as I would like to celebrate it with those I love spread around the world, it is just any other day here. F and I will go to work, my kids will go to school, we will get home way after dark and with very little time to cook dinner, let alone roast a turkey. F has soccer night and although he very kindly offered to cancel it to spend the evening with us, I didn't have the heart to accept. After all, the kids go to bed at 8:15, especially on school nights, and he only gets back after 7:00. So even if I had been extremely organized and planned a menu ahead (which I didn't), there is actually no time to make a big deal. Normally we celebrate with our American friends on the week end but this year we have a wedding in which F. is best man, so it just won't be happening.

Thanksgiving Day Parade - NYC 2009

The first and most important thing about Thanksgiving (yes, together with the food of course, I know!), however, is stopping to think for a moment about what we are thankful for in our lives.

Italians do it better

It was 1987, Madonna had short, peroxide blond hair and she was telling her Dad in song and dance that her poor but fantastic boyfriend, the one her widower-father-who-raised-her-by-himself had warned her all about, had gotten her pregnant. You of course remember her t-shirt (if you don't or were not even born in the fabulous Eighties, I will pretend I am not at all jealous and checking my  crow's feet right this minute and suggest you watch the link above for some real pop culture history) and how it boosted Italians' reputation worldwide. Now of course I could confirm or deny this statement since I happen to be married to an Italian, but I am a lady and this is a food blog, so I will abstain from this kind of information.

I can however vouch that when it comes to making a cup of hot chocolate, Italians do do it better.

But I must digress and explain a few things.

First of all, in Italy you go to a bar to have hot chocolate. An Italian bar being a very different concept than a bar pretty much anywhere else in the world. It certainly serves all sorts of alcoholic beverages, but it is first and foremost a coffee sanctuary, the place where the average Italian has his/her breakfast, traditionally a coffee with a brioche (an Italianized version of a croissant). But don't think for a second you can go in and just order a coffee. This action requires expertise. The coffee can be anything from a caffé espresso, ristretto (a concentrated espresso for those who do not like watery and weak espresso, hah!), lungo (a watered down version of espresso for those who don't like strong and creamy espresso), decaffeinato, americano (a large cup of black coffee, just like those Americans are always drinking in movies),  macchiato (an espresso with a small drop of frothy milk), marocchino (a sort of miniature cappuccino in a small cup with a sprinkle of unsweetened cocoa powder beneath the frothy milk and another on top), corretto (for those who need a shot of grappa/acquavite in their coffee to get going), d'orzo (barley coffee, for healthnuts and people with gastiritis or other ailments who just cannot kick the habit), cappucino, cappucino decaffeinato, shakerato (the Italian version of ice coffee, an espresso shaken with sugar and often a dash of coffee liquer served in a martini glass) or a latte macchiato (a large glass of warm frothy milk with an espresso into it). While I am doing this, I will go as far as to tell you that if you are Italian, you never order cappucino after 12pm (unless you are having a late breakfast after a night out on the town) and you do not sprinkle cinnamon (cocoa powder is allowed) or put whipped cream on your cappucino .