Balsamic Vinegar and other Luxuries

Italians buy less processed and packaged food than we do, preferring fresh and natural ingredients. They don't sacrifice quality for quantity. After watching Italian waiters toss salads with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, I stopped buying bottled dressings and started to buy cold pressed extra virgin olive oil even if it was more expensive. But I thought any balsamic vinegar was fine.

Then a friend sent me a bottle of better quality balsamic with instructions to use it sparingly. "Use it on strawberries," she said. "Something special."

I first tried it with Al's favorite dish, insalata caprese, buffalo mozzarello with tomatoes and basil. It was delicious. But when this balsamic was gone, I frugally went back to my regular and inexpensive brand.

Then we went to Modena, the Italian home of real balsamic vinegar. We learned that authentic balsamico is made from grapes and aged like wine in barrels and that some specialty varieties sold for over $100 a bottle. And we enjoyed tasting the local version on salads and in sauces.

Back home, I read the label of my standard brand and found it didn't even have grapes in it but a list of other ingredients including caramel coloring. I forgot about bargains and treated us to a $10. bottle of balsamico produced in Modena. According to the label, its single ingredient had been aged in wood casks for ten years.

Sometimes you do get what you pay for. We pour balsamic vinegar sparingly on salads and realize that a little adds plenty of flavor and makes simple ingredients taste special rather than ordinary. I could easily spend equal dollars on a couple of boxes of snack foods that would be gone quickly, but our balsamico lasts many weeks. A seeming luxury has become a necessity for us in bringing Italy home.

John Grisham and Donna Leon: Reading myself to Italy..

This spring, before we went to Italy, I read "Playing for Pizza," an atypical John Grisham novel about an unemployed professional football quarterback who gets a job playing for an Italian team. No murders or courtroom drama here...except for when the American gets help beating traffic violations from the judge in Parma who just happens to be on the team! For a couple of hundred pages, I was transported to Italy, eating great meals with Rick and friends, identifying with his learning to settle into the culture, to relax and enjoy the simpler moments of life. Reviewers said the plot was a means for Grisham to revel in writing about Italy, a focus I enjoyed.

I also started reading the well-known Brunetti series, by mystery writer and Venice resident Donna Leon, and once again was transported to the city of islands. Her stories show the darker side, violence and corruption that might exist beneath the visible beauty of the old city. But when Guido Brunetti walks past churches and across bridges, down narrow streets along the canals, I enjoy feeling that I am walking right beside him.

I plan to keep an eye out for any and all novels set in Italy. Reading them is a fast and inexpensive way to bring Italy home, at least in imagination.

An Italy-like experience at the Post Office

A couple of weeks before Christmas, I walked into our local post office at what I thought would be an uncrowded time and saw a line that stretched to the door. A glance at the counter showed me that of four stations, three were marked "closed," probably for agents to take a midafternoon break. Only one postal worker faced about thirty people, most carrying packages.

Many times Al and I have waited in line in Italian post offices and I've noted the settled and good natured spirit of those who wait, a very different attitude than we hurried Americans, who see time waiting in line as time wasted.

As I looked down the line of people who had many things to do at this busy season, I felt sure that everybody would be complaining about bad service and the sorry state of the U.S. postal system. I expected to hear (as I had before at other times in this same post office) complaints about the missing agents, and even hostile comments to the lone woman at the counter, about the unacceptable lack of service and customers' wasted time.

Amazingly I was wrong. Maybe it was the spirit of the holidays, but, as I waiting for nearly an hour, instead of hearing complaints and anger, I saw people settle in with acceptance and good humor. A few people talked quietly into their cell phones or texted. A couple of mothers with babies in strollers struck up a conversation. A young man and woman in front of me chatted casually until they found a business topic of common interest and became engrossed in talk. Instead of conveying hostility toward the lone methodical agent, customers seemed to empathize with her situation and make a point of being friendly when it was their turn.

Impatient as I myself had felt when I saw the long line, I relaxed too, and enjoyed imagining the whole experience from an "Italy in Spirit" context. Maybe it was the spirit of the holidays or maybe we Americans are becoming more mellow. But, when it came to waiting with patience, I could have been in a small town in Italy, except that we were all speaking English. Maybe this spirit will last beyond the holidays.

The sound of a Vespa....

One recent weekend morning Al and I sat outside enjoying pleasant weather and the rare leisure to enjoy our coffees while we read the papers. We sat in companionable silence against the background of bird songs, music playing on the cafe sound system, and occasional traffic noise in the distance.

Suddenly we heard the abrasive grinding start up sound of what we thought was a leaf blower, unfortunately a familiar sound in our city. The sound jarred us out of our reverie.

As Al and I began to discuss the negative aspects of leaf blowers, we suddenly saw a Vespa pull from the parking spaces on the opposite side of the cafe. Instantly we reinterrupted the noise (same startup gunning, same machine sounds) as benevolent, as we association them with something Italian.

We now visualized the motor as a replacement for a big car engine, an environmentally better option. We fanticized about our part of the city becoming like Italy, with Vespas lined up outside of restaurants and cafes, young men and women locking their vehicles and swinging their helmets as they strolled toward a restaurant. We relaxed back into our morning peace, romantically perhaps, associating the abrasive sound with our Italian experiences.

Starbuck's, Italian-style

I have to admit that I get my afternoon coffee at my neighborhood Starbuck's. Yes, I'd rather go to a more Italian style family owned cafe. But we have to use what we have.

This Starbuck's feels more personal than many. The young men and women who work there greet everybody who comes in. By now they recognize me as "a regular," one among several of us who arrive at this time of day. Nods of greeting among customers who are otherwise strangers seems a step in community building. We have in common only having gravitated toward this shop because of its culture of quieter music and outdoor ambiance.

So most afternoons I go there to read, write or just look around. It's the closest I've found to an Italian experience closeby.

Still there are differences.

Italians don't walk the streets with coffee cups in hand. In Italy the alternative to take out is to drink one's espresso or cappuccino standing at the counter. But another option, although costing a bit more, is to sit at a small table and a waiter will bring your coffee. Either way you have a ceramic cup and saucer and a little spoon, nothing cardboard or plastic. We don't see mountains of trash in the bins since cups and saucers are washed as they are used.

My Bringing Italy Home approach is to request the for here option at Starbuck's. The staff member seems happy about my more environmental choice, pulls out a ceramic cup for me and even warms it with hot water before making my caffe.

I also avoid ordering anything to go even though that's the default order in America. As another customer said to me one day, "If I can't sit down for a few minutes and enjoy it, I don't come." He would be very comfortable in an Italian cafe.

Bringing Italy Home

Discovery of another culture can become a passion. Starting in our empty nest years, my husband Al and I have traveled to Italy every spring for more than a decade. Our love for this special country and culture, for its villages and cities, mountains and seacoasts, for its food and people and lifestyle, along with our enjoyment of our time there together, just the two of us, resulted in my writing the book Passeggiata: Strolling through Italy.

After many years of repeat visits, we have learned to bring lessons in living Italian style home with us. Each spring we renew our Italy experience for a couple of weeks, but the rest of the year we have to work at ways to keep in touch with what we enjoyed.

We eat Italian food, follow Italian news stories, go to local festivals and watch Italian films when the opportunity arises. More important, we try to follow the daily rhythms that we observe in Italy and savor moments that remind us of being there.

After repeated immersions into the sights and sights of Italian life, we have come to see wisdom in the accepted attitudes and values of this old culture. Though life in America is a sharp contrast to Italy, we are learning to savor life the rest of the year and to remain Italian in spirit back home.