An Amateur Cook in Italy

I am actually a great cook - much to my surprise after years not doing much more than heating up the Breville. (By the way - I never realised that all the fat from the cheese that you over-stuff in those things (just me then?) runs out and collects underneath. That was NOT a pleasant surprise, who could guess that rancid fat could smell so bad?)

Since the boys were weaned, however, I really started getting into it and from my first Anabel Karmel experiences (lunatic woman, who on earth is going to spend three hours over a meal for a toddler, pur-lease?) started branching out. As I have acknowledged many, many times, Enrico is the chef in this family and that is the difference between us. He is a chef and I am a cook. I look stuff up on the internet, almost always, www.bbcgoodfood.com, all recipes infallible as well as delicious, with the comments that come afterwards the cherry on the cake, as it were. Or my old faithfuls, Nigella Lawson's How to Eat and the grandmammy of them all, Delia's Complete Cookery Course. I find something I like that matches the ingredients I have available and Jamie's yer uncle, dinner's ready. Enrico generally doesn't look at recipes. He is a savant in the kitchen and can throw things together - simple, basic, nothing flashy - and they come out delicious and perfect. He has a knack and a gift and I never stop being grateful for a husband who cooks. I have friends whose husbands barely toast their own bread, so the bonus of being able to say, 'do you fancy cooking tonight?' and having someone who actually enjoys the process is marvellous. He uses cooking as a way of relaxing and switching off. I use it to feed people and usually end up stressed myself in the process.

So arriving in Italy just when my wings were fledging in the kitchen, so to speak, was a bit of a shock. Italian supermarkets are full of great Italian stuff but very little in the way of anything more exotic or indeed that is not Italian. I missed bread - and still do, from the fantastic plastic bread that is the only thing to put around some crisp, meaty bacon and ketchup - oh and the bacon that goes with it - to wonderful poppy-seed, wholemeal, cheese, farmhouse breads, all of which are the only solution in certain sandwich situations. I decided to make my own when the boys first started at nursery and I had time on my hands. And blimey, do you need time. I needed around a loaf every couple of days, minimum, and making those loaves took up a fair chunk of my, theoretically free, time in the mornings.

They were generally tasty but I don't know what industrial breadmakers put into their loaves - whatever it is, I don't got it and they were usually a little on the dense side. Not the light, fluffy loaf I craved. Still not solved as the usual Italian loaf is made for bruschetta, but we have discovered a good bakery near E's office who do nice wholemeal and 'farro' bread - according to Wikipedia, it's an old-fashioned wheat variety - either way, it makes a tasty and moist loaf. From never really taking to them in the UK, I have also become rather fond of the wrap, for which I use a piadina, an Italian flatbread from the Romagna region, which is actually available all over Italy. When Enrico made his own one time, we realised why they are so delicious - one of the fat ingredients is lard, which takes them to a whole other level that tortilla wraps just don't seem to attain.

When Enrico and I were first together, one of our many points of difference was the fact that I can quite easily eat a sandwich and a bag of crisps or yoghurt for lunch and not think twice about it. For him, a sandwich for lunch is an aberration and only partaken in the most extreme emergencies. He is not a little chap - 6'1-ish I think, and not exactly of whippet proportions either and he does have a point when he says that it wouldn't keep him going till dinner. However - spread the bread flat, smear on some passata, a few leaves of rocket with some buffalo mozzarella on top and call it pizza: This can quite easily keep him going all afternoon. Every society has their own carbohydrate load and in Italy it's pizza. For us anglo saxons, it's a sandwich. We were watching a very good Roman comedian the other night in a TV special - his girlfriend is American and he was recounting coming home for lunch to see she'd made a toasted sandwich. He had us laughing in recognition at his horror and the thought of what his father would have said, coming home to the same lunch. It would have been assumed that the mother was having an affair that she had so carelessly and with so little time prepared such a lunch!

However, in this as in many things, I am going native. I now actually feel a little cheated if I just throw myself a sandwich together on those days that E's not home for lunch. I have caught the cooking bug and have grown to enjoy trying new things - and frankly, in the absence of ethnic or 'exotic' produce here, if I want something not Italian, I am going to bloomin' well have to prepare it myself anyway. Although I am now growing my own coriander, I don't have a chance in hell of getting hold of red or green curry paste, lime leaves, pak choi, and lemongrass but my English cravings are met by Marmite flown over from the UK (thank you, Joe, thank you Catherine) and I was utterly delighted with a pressie of a big tub of Horlicks (thank you, Loob!!). I am told there is a mythical place called Piazza Victorio in Rome where all of the 'exotic' ingredients can be bought but even the Indian man who has taken over Massimo the Grocer's shop hasn't been able to get hold of a bunch of fresh coriander for me. Little by little, though, I am sourcing things that initially I thought would be unobtainable - ground almonds (for the Bakewell Tart craving), creme fraiche, Gruyère cheese, I even found a place to get fish sauce for curries the other day, yay! So I live in hope that one day I'll be able to get a big bunch of coriander without the two month wait that proceeds it as it grows from a tiny seed. Cross fingers...

Things We Hear in Our House

These are phrases we hear all the time in our house. Feel free to add any I may have missed: I am sure that we are not the only ones....

'WHY do I have to repeat myself over and over again?'
'Did you hear what I said? Am I invisible?'
'I don't know why I even bother speaking, no-one listens to me'
'I said 'get dressed' HALF AN HOUR AGO'
'Sit still while you're eating'

On a theme:
'I don't know where you put it. Where did you see it last?'
And:
'If you'd put things away when you've finished them, you wouldn't keep losing them'
And:
'Well try opening your eyes while you're looking for it'

(Putting on shoes; taking t-shirt off alone etc)
'Why is it that you, at X years old, are not able to it while Y at (less) years old can?',

'You're not getting anything till you've tidied your room'
'No you can't have a snack, you won't eat your dinner'
'You had a drink of water before you went to bed. Now go to sleep!'
'I'll play with you in a sec once I've done this' (sound of computer whirring...)
'If you don't do X (eg put your pens away), there is no way you're doing Y (eg watching cartoons)'
'All these lovely toys and you don't appreciate them!! There are children in the world with no toys at all you know, they would be happy with just one of the toys you've got!'
Alternatively:
'Right, that's it! If you can't play together nicely, I'm going to give all your toys to the poor children who haven't got any. They'd appreciate them!'

'If he's teasing you, just don't go near him!'
'Giorgio/ Edoardo, LEAVE YOUR BROTHER ALONE'
'How would you like it if I did that to you??'
'I am SICK and TIRED of telling you - you don't bite/ scratch/ kick etc your big/ (or more usually) little brother!'
'You should think yourself lucky you've got a brother to play with!'

I am sure there are a zillion more. These just came into my head straight away, probably because they make up they make up about 90% of the things I say every day. And who said that being a mother is intellectually limiting??

Mother's Pride

E has a saying, 'Even a cockroach is proud of its offspring', which I think is a bit of artistic licence, to be fair, can't imagine that cockroaches really feel much other than rapacious hunger but that's rather beside the point. I am inordinately proud of my beautiful children, most of the time, but none more so than those moments when we sit down to lunch or dinner and the pair of them tuck in to whatever is presented before them without batting an eyelid.

I was reminded of this as last night, I made a chicken and pumpkin curry with wholemeal rice for myself and Enrico. Luckily - like father, like sons. He would eat a scabby dog if you told him it was a local delicacy. The boys, I swear, polished off more than I could have managed and declared it delicious. I know how fortunate we are, I also know it is something I have engineered right from the beginning. Giorgio was weaned purely on vegetables, broccoli and spinach and Edoardo's first baby food was avocado mashed with banana. Both of them were later introduced to other foods but even now will eat the veg before the meat at mealtimes. They will also eat sweets and chocolate and fizzy drinks - but not to excess, and I have often been in the absurd position of having to almost force-feed them cake because they've filled themselves up with the main course. They are also aware that this ain't no restaurant - if they want to leave the meal I have lovingly and time-consumingly prepared for them, then that's fine by me (er - apart from the fact that I will probably have to eat it myself as I can't bare to see good food wasted. That's not so fine by me). Just do not be expecting me to rustle up anything else till the next mealtime. Going to bed hungry? Shame about that, should have eaten your dinner, shouldn't you?

One of the big differences between me and most of my Italian friends is the importance of routine at home. From the age of 4mths both boys have slept in their own cots then beds and very rarely, apart from illness, have spent the night in bed with us. For two reasons - once they get their grappling hooks into our bed, it's hellish trying to get them back into their own beds, and secondly - well, mum and dad need some privacy too. Not as much, frankly, these days, but I would say that's fairly typical of most older parents of young kids, honestly, that's what I tell Enrico, anyway. I need my sleep, dammit. Anyway - I have so many friends who still let their kids sleep in their beds. One of Giorgio's best friends is six years old and has never slept the night in his own bed. Enrico and at least two of his friends have called me 'Commandante' on more than one occasion (and if that's what they're saying to my face...) due to my insistence, particularly when the boys were smaller, on a strict feeding/ napping/ bath-story-bed routine. However, it's paying off now that they sleep 12 hours a night with rarely an interupption other than the odd pee or drink of water needed, and mealtimes are generally a pleasant affair conducted in a relatively civilised manner. Civilised as far as young boys can be, clearly.

A friend whose four year old sleeps between her and her husband tells me how lovely it is to have him there and he'll only be little once and we will miss them when they grow up and away and don't want cuddles from Mummy anymore - and I totally agree. Particularly as our younger son is a cuddly hot water bottle to sleep next to - the older one however being a sweaty, wriggling starfish. But although my reasons are also selfish, I believe that it's better for them too to learn independence and the absolute joy of sinking into one's own bed of an evening. Most of the time we still have the 'I'm not tired' argument, which when accompanied by sobs is the most evident sign of tiredness there is. However, once again, I think it's better for them in the long run to be given a routine to stick to - they can fight within the confines but there is a reassuring barrier there - and it's Mum, so don't even think about it, son!

Back to Life...

The stinking roiling heat is mostly abating now and the holidays are most definitely over - which means back to school time for our boys. State schools here have stupendously long holidays - from mid-June to mid- Sept, as a coping mechanism for the heat, I think. Any family who has any money or connection to family either in the mountains or by the sea clears off as soon as is possible and returns as late as possible. I had a peripatetic time, starting in late June with a visit to friends in the UK, then to the Dolomites then to Spain to stay with my parents. It meant that this year, I have not noticed the heat half as much and hence am (relatively) sane going into Autumn.

Private nurseries start back earlier here, as a response to parents returning to their jobs, I expect. So Giorgio and Edo have already started back at a new nursery this year. It is one of the hardest things to do, leave your children in the care of, effectively, strangers, and I struggled again with it after such a long time together. The problem for me is that there are no half measures. You can't just drop your child off for a couple of mornings a week, there is no structure for it. It is all - in our case 9am till 2pm - or nothing. I even thought of just not sending them this year. But then the thought of us all at home alone through the dark days of winter soon sent me scurrying back to the school gates. Which relates to another feature of life as a mum in our part of Italy - I am in a party of one here. Every other mum friend of mine works, so is obliged to send their child to nursery. There just don't seem to be stay-at-home mums around. If I go to the park during the day during school-time, by far the majority of carers there with the children are grandparents. A distant second are foreign mums - by which I mean, generally, young Romanian, Albanian etc mums. So even if I didn't send the boys to nursery - what on earth would do every day?? There are only so many trips to the same parks you can make and they need to play with other children. There are no playgroups, no music groups to speak of. They are starting with swimming lessons soon, so great, that's two hours a week occupied, what do we do for the other gazillion hours a week we are home alone?? If it sounds like I'm justifying myself, well, I suppose I am, but times have changed and little kids can't just go out in the morning with their bikes and roam around with their mates all day before heading in for dinner in the evening. It definitely would end up with one or both of them being scraped off the road below in a very short time, apart from anything, but also - what responsible parent doesn't know where their children are every hour of every day these days?

So the new nursery is lovely, a Montessori with different games and things to do on every table, a big room for painting and drawing, sand boxes, a big park with swings and slides and wendy houses outside. We are really happy with it and so were the boys at first... They went in with great enthusiasm, even with tears when they had to go home but as reality bites, that they are there for the duration, we've had the odd collywobble of a morning... As I walked out this morning past the nursery for very small children, all I seemed to hear was the little ones crying for their mummies. Mine had been given lots of hugs and promises of things to do when they get home and seemed happy, finally, to get down to some painting - but the sound of so many tears on the way out very nearly made me wheel around and go to scrape them up in my arms and leave and never come back. I am hoping that we settle into the routine happily, both me and the boys, and get used to the mornings away from each other again. Of course we will but in the back of my head, there is a little voice that says, 'they're only young once, what are you doing sending them to school already???'. I am also hoping that that little voice quietens down too once they get properly settled...