When I left Italy in March, I’ll confess it wasn’t so much a graceful departure as a beeline to escape. I was tired of fighting bureaucracy in the Living Museum, missed the bustle of a proper city, and had eaten so much cured meat that my sweat stank with lactic fermentation. Italophiles may weep, but I’ll say it anyway—I was totally over Italy and ready to abandon la dolce vita forever.
So you may have heard that the state of New York legalized gay marriage last Friday. Thirty days after the bill’s signing, homosexual couples will able to marry in NY, MA, VT, CT, NH, IA and DC.
The city’s annual Pride Parade was scheduled for Sunday, just two days after the historic passage. Cue thousands of signs being printed with the proclamation, “Thank you Governor Cuomo – promise kept!” A few marchers made not-so-subtle jabs at California’s repealed Proposition 8.
“For this puzzle, each answer will be a 7-letter word. I’m going to give you the first and last letters, and the middle 5 letters will be an anagram of the word ‘inset.’ If you think you know the answer, yell it out. Ready? F, S.”
“Fitness!”
“D, T.”
“Dentist!”
“J, G.”
“Jesting!”
“Ok, this next combination has two possible answers. D, Y.”
“Destiny—and density!”
I scribbled furiously. All around me, the best puzzle solving minds in America were gleefully shouting out answers. Meanwhile, I could barely keep up recording the answers on paper. Clearly, my brain was missing some wiring in the verbal juggling department.
After football, one of the greatest past-times in Italy is bemoaning the state of Italian politics. After all, there is nothing quite like the mixture of sheepish chagrin and amusement one feels when hearing that class-act Prime Minster Berlusconi has been caught with yet another outrageous quip, like “I am a man who works hard all day long and if I sometimes look at some good-looking girl, it’s better to be fond of pretty girls than to be gay.” (You can see the news conference here…and hear the resulting applause from the audience.)
Serious Eats links to the above map of food-by-state produced by the hard working folks at I Can Haz Cheezburger, which is actually a lot more interesting than I had anticipated. Sure, lots of the chosen foods are obvious regional specialties or major crops associated with the state (MA clam chowder, Idaho potatoes, Georgia peaches), and then there are the lesser-known items coming from the (let’s be honest) lesser-known states. Michigan and pasties, is there a large population descended from Yorkshire miners in Michigan? Arkansas and jelly pie, an item invented out of the necessities of poverty, like Indiana’s sugar cream pie? And Colorado’s Denver omelette looks an awful lot like a burger to me, rather than fried eggs folded around diced ham, onions and bell peppers.
Publication forthcoming in the January 2011 edition of the UNISG newsletter
The discontent arrived in fits and starts. Mere days after arriving in Italy, I stood crestfallen at the market, valiantly searching for a bunch of cilantro. Piles of parsley surrounded me, a taunting, isomorphic reminder that I was far from home. The bulk bins were swollen with cannellini beans and lentils, but there was nary a sign of black beans. In the baking aisle, I combed the shelves for baking powder. Instead, thin packages with florid photos of cakes touted the ammonia-based leavening agent inside. Skeptical, I stifled my frustration and went home to yet another meal with pasta.
No cranberries. No pecans. And forget the canned pumpkin. Celebrating America’s most foodie of holidays while abroad certainly poses its challenges. But by jove, we were going to try our darndest. The email was sent out to the class: “The 4th Thursday of November is a national holiday in the USA, a day originally to remember and celebrate the hospitality that the Native Americans showed the pilgrims during their first winter. Without the Native Americans sharing their knowledge of native crops, of squash, corn etc, the pilgrims may not have survived. (Whether the Native Americans may have later regreted this generousity is another story.)” A list of suggested dishes was provided, with the invitation to choose one and bring it to the Thanksgiving potluck. Without giving it too much thought, I volunteered to make the stuffing. After all, the StoveTop version takes six minutes to make; how difficult can this possibly be?
While all my stateside friends were partying for Halloween in scandalous, ironic and/or terrifying costumes, a couple of my classmates organized an event with a decidedly more serious tone. Dia de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead) is commonly celebrated on November 1 in former Spanish colonies, coinciding with All Saints Day in the Catholic church. For the occasion, Caro and Rae organized a gathering that combined traditions from their respective countries of Ecuador and the Philippines. Most interesting, you could see how Spanish missionaries were able to integrate elements of Catholicism with indigenous practices of ancestor worship.
We were in France, and by god, I was going to get some Asian food.
Before your jaw drops off in horror (sacre bleu!), let me back up for a minute and explain my mad logic. The UNISG masters students had arrived in Lyon, a land of fine haute gastronomie…and the third largest Chinatown in France (after two enclaves in Paris). At lunch, we had just gorged on a stunning French meal, accoutered with boisterous grand chefs, wine, and healthy doses of cream and butter. The University was allotting us a stipend of €15 for dinner, which does not go a long way in Lyon. Besides, I was itching for something chili and umami-laden. According to Wikipedia, Lyon’s Quartier Chinois could be found in the city’s 7e arrondisement. Our hotel clerk had marked “Le Guillotière” on the map, and armed with that knowledge, we set out to search for the best bowl of pho in Lyon. It might not have been French food, but it was at least French colonial food?