PART ll What you think my life in Italy is like vs. what it’s actually like… 

Being at the table. In the United States, I was raised that our table was a multi-functioning piece of furniture in our homes. Italians have a deep respect for the table. Meals rule the entire day. When you call to make any sort of appointment, the very first question is, “Would you like to schedule for before or after lunch?” then they’ll inquire about your name and contact information. 10 years ago, when I first arrived in Arezzo, all businesses would shut down for lunch and re-open in the late afternoon, including grocery stores. Now it’s becoming more common for businesses to stay open through lunchtime. Back then no grocery stores were open on Sundays. Slowly they introduced the idea of being open one Sunday a month. Today, almost every single grocery store has hours on Sundays. Pharmacies are still closed on Sundays, there is one that is open 24/7 that is on the other side of town. 

Setting the table as the meal is cooking in the kitchen, is a very nice ritual that Italians participate in daily. Gathering plates, bowls, cutlery, napkins, glasses, water pitcher, and most importantly the tablecloth. Once seated, prepare to take your time and indulge in the food, but also being in each other’s company, there will be no rush, a three-hour minimum. Italians, I have noticed, are always talking about food, even while we are eating a meal before them. Tuscans are very knowledgeable in the kitchen. One of my favorite questions to ask my Italian friends is “What would be your last meal?” My answer, of course, is like grabbing at every flavor imaginable, almost inventing a food genre of my own. I mean your LAST meal ever. Most Italians hit me with, “Pasta al pomodoro” (tomato pasta) and they think they are really splurging when they add “oven-roasted potatoes with rosemary and olive oil”. Literally, this is the answer I get 9 times out of 10. I’m always in shock, like whaaat?!?! I mean a man on death row in Texas asked for a human child as his last request! I never followed up on whether they honored it or not. I’m always torn between lobster, oysters, scallops, ceviche, phò, or all five, it would be my last meal after all. 

One of the rookie mistakes I would make at the table fresh off the boat in Italy would be getting full on the first course. Eating is a ceremony here, you start off with an antipasto that might include unsalted Tuscan bread and cheese, then the primo, followed by the secondo and contorno. Always ends with a dolce, amaro, digestiv, sometimes fruit and coffee. No one warned me that there would be loads of layers of food arriving as soon as you have cleared your first plate. At a neighbor’s house, I was proud of myself for not getting full on the antipasto, and watching my bread intake, I thought that the final course was being served, fish soup with rice. I finished and even had room for second helpings of the soup, as to impress my host. I had miscalculated, they had three other rounds of food that followed. I was the asshole that got full on the first course. I walked out of there feeling miserable and defeated, I had let down the hosts. I didn’t have room to try the other dishes that came out. I will never let this day down, I made a vow to myself and made it my mantra “Never get full on the first course!”

I also notice that if I’m with a group of Italians and we are a bit out of our element, like at a park, or in the middle of a field, or at a large body of water, and it happens to cross paths with a meal time, Italians will be apprehensive and want to plan ahead and have a backup plan of a makeshift table that we could assemble to honor our meal time. A picnic would not cover it. And plastic ware is almost insulting. 

On a Spring day, in 2014, around lunchtime, I invited a friend over to help me with a website. I was still trying my hardest to crack the Tuscan dialect. My friend, a beautiful tall woman, with platinum blonde hair, answered her phone. It was her mother, I could only hear her end of the conversation. She answered with “Ciao mamma!” From what I decoded, the mother was asking my friend if she was coming home for lunch. My friend replied by saying that she would stay at my house for lunch because we wanted to continue our work, we had found a steady groove and a nice fast pace. Her mother kept insisting whether or not my friend was absolutely sure or not. My friend said, “Yes I’m sure.” The mom called back and asked “Is this that American girl?!” my friend replied “Yes” The mom asked “Is she the one from California?! Is she vegetarian!?!?!?” my friend replied, “No Mom we are having wild boar ragù pasta from the butcher”. My friend hung up. The phone rang again, it was her mom. The mom asked, “Well does she have real bread?!”. My friend responded “Yes Mom!” and hung up. The phone rang a third time, and I heard the mother ask “Are you sure you don’t want to come home for lunch?! I can save you a plate” My friend said, “MOM!!!!! I’M STAYING HERE!”

Lourd mental note: Don’t get full on the first course, and try my damndest to break the stereotypes Italians have about Americans in the kitchen. Challenge accepted.  

My Tuscan Countryside home. Reading the previous words, you could come to your own conclusion of a cozy, rustic, home outside of the city center, with trees, green grass, a few chickens, and vineyards as far as the eyes can see. Those things might be true, but let me clarify the reality of a “countryside home”. We first rented a studio apartment, very small, one bedroom and one bathroom, that was it, the rent was €380. For €20 more we could get a top floor (I called it a penthosue, all stairs and no elevator), one bedroom, huge livingroom, attic room, large kitchen and dining room area with full appliances, including a full size fridge. Most Italian homes have refrigerators the size of my beer mini fridge back in the States. However, if you want to get out of the loud, bustling city center, you can consider going about 20 minutes in either direction and find pure solitude and gorgeous skies. Most asking prices for a country house range from €350 to €500. It would still be modest enough, that you would feel like you wouldn’t suffocate, but very charming in the way that certain things are “comes as is” meaning, no upgrading the tiles, windows, window screens, doors, kitchen cabinets, stove/oven, radiators, light fixtures, water heaters, wood burning stove, or anything that requires additional costs to the landlord. My countryside home was constructed in the early 1200’s if not earlier. My kitchen only had one water facet handle. Yes, that’s right, only cold water! You could imagine all of the new curse words in Italian I had learned and tried out in the winter months when I had to hand wash dishes from the three meals a day we would consume. Or I could use the electric kettle, which used up a lot of electricity. Or boil water, but we had a propane tank that we had to use wisely because it would run out quickly. Or opt out to have a pot of water on our wood burning stove. Many of you guys from the US would consider this “glamping” I endured this lifestyle for six years!!! I had both of my children in this “ancient way of living” environment. We would bundle up and wear all of our winter clothes INDOORS, made hot waterbottles for our beds during the night, chopped our own wood, fed the fire all night long, and mainly just prayed for an early warm springtime. We had our own vegetable garden and bartered with other neighbors for eggs, bread, and firewood. During the pandemic this lifestyle had fully prepared us, we had both lost our jobs, and had to carry on raising a small child being absolutely frugal and learning even moreso to be resourceful. Often times we found ourselves trying to figure out which bill was more important to pay first. We most certainly never went out to eat, every meal was at home or at a neighbor’s house in our little town of Meliciano. This was like my N.Cleveland st neighborhood, in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Anything of value in my home at this point was a hand-me-down from our dearest retired expat friends. Anytime they decided to upgrade something in their home, they would gift us the outdated items, including dishes, towels, sheets, furniture, pots and pans, and whatever was taking up too much room in their pantry. We were more than grateful. One day I was working in Florence, I saw a box next to the dumpster early that morning, I looked inside and it was an expensive brand of dishes including pasta bowls and plates. I brought the box to the trunk of my hand-me-down car, that was gifted to us when my first son Adrian was born. I remember being teary eyed and feeling so lucky that I was at the right place at the right time. This same dumpster I walked by would be a place that I would often find amazing pieces of furniture, mirrors, baby clothes, shoes, instruments, plants, luggage, and computer bags. The best way to describe this would be, when you go to garage sales in the very wealthy neighborhoods in America. Yard sales, or garage sales aren’t a thing here, but you adapt.  

I bet most of you guys that knew me back in the United States, imagined that I lived in a comfortable home, with up to date plumbing, great appliances, heating for the winter, wonderful insulated home, matching cutlery and stemware. None of the above was close to the truth, I collected small nutella jars, amongst other jars that would become my drinking glasses. And some hand-me-down spritz glasses that I would improvise as wine glasses, especially with the horrible lighting the livingroom/dining room provided. Plus the flatware I found on the streets in Florence. I did not have a dishwasher or a washing machine. Read that again. I would load tiny car and my tiny human with as many clothes, linens, towels, and rewashable diapers and made my way to the laundromat to spend a few hours washing and drying every article of clothing we owned. The little bear cub I brought along would be entertained if I plopped him infront of those industrial sized dryers, he would just stare from the comfort of his car seat that I found on the side of the road. The other houses managed to have a washing machine, but incase you weren’t informed, dryers are not a thing in Italy. I remember once telling my Nana that I didn’t have a dryer, and she said “I could never live without a drying machine”. Most Italians here find them extremely wasteful. I also enjoy the smell of laundry that has dried outside in the sunshine. Winters are hard with a baby and no dryer. It takes a week or longer for ONE load of laundry to dry. But you learn, and you adapt. 

Lourd, you must have regular upscale dining experiences, mingling with members of high society…

For a great amount of time we lived without internet. Blessing and a curse. I wasn’t able to be intouch with my tribe back in America, but I learned to lean on my Italian community. In our small town that had 89 inhabitants, was a Neapolitan family. We befriended them and hung around our other smaller surrounding villages. One of the most well known towns is called Ponte Buriano. So if you can picture Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, behind her is a unique stone bridge. This is the town with the bridge that the inspiration for the painting comes from. Once a year, they shut down traffic on the bridge and held a dinner gala event. They had tables on the bridge reserved for ticket holders, I don’t recall the cost of a seat at a table there, but I know that it was well out of our price range. They are provided with a live concert, piano, opera singer, maybe some strings. Even to approach the entrance of the bridge was being reinforced to avoid any distractions from the non ticket holders. We were walking around with this Neapolitan family, in our minds we were dressed up. The man had a gelled back black curly mullet, and a pressed white dress shirt tucked into his jeans and black boots with a matching belt. His wife was a robust Romanian, dyed blond hair, with long shiny finger nails and costume jewelry. Sam, my husband, had just put on whatever was at arms reach and ran some fingers through his “blonde hair”. I wore a plain light green dress and white cardigan, with leather sandals. As we approached the bridge, on either side they had giant incased flames, with a bouncer turning away anyone without a golden ticket. We were sent away, we went over to the little mom and pop market with the other locals of the town, just watching the wealthy dine in their privileged seats with expensive wine and wine glasses. We all pulled up plastic lawn chairs and passed around small plastic cups. These plastic cups were not your typical red solo cups, they resembled the plastic cups they hand you when you are taking a urine drug test. We all poured the contents of a warm Moretti beer amongst ourselves and other locals from Ponte Buriano. I remember thinking to myself “man I bet people back home would never imagine me hanging out with Neapolitans, sharing lukewarm beer in plastic piss exam cups, being rejected from the local red carpet event” The best way to describe Neapoliatins, would be like a clever version of a redneck, that other Italians insist that you shouldn’t trust them. But what I have realized is that it comes in handy to have one in your back pocket in the long run. I have heard Italians say “Neopolitans are the type of people that will ask you for a cigarette, while they have a pack of their own”. I personally don’t have a problem with them whatsoever, I just don’t understand when they start speaking amongst themselves, but I’m not alone, other Tuscans don’t understand either. 

Stay tuned for next time when I cover Italian weddings, birthday parties, and the fashion statements. If you have a topic you would like covered send me a message!