Italian Carbohydrate Observations.

THE BREAD (Il pane): The best. My host-mom makes it fresh in her little machina - we get white, wholegrain, olive (my personal favourite), brown. muesli (but somehow I can't manage to find the stuff for breakfast??), fruity...the works. It's delicious. Served with every meal in a huge wooden bowl at the centre of the table to be cut (with a USELESS, unserated knife), but not in slices - rather, chunks.


On occasion, she will buy fresh rolls from the Esselunga bakery - my GOD, this bread is next level. Croccante on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. And the FOCCACIA. I hate to break it to you - but the real Italian foccacia is unbeatable. I know that you think your local bakery makes it the best. It doesn't. Italian bakers do. Soz.


The main PROBLEM with this whole bread situation is the conservation of said crispyness and softness and fluffiness (or lack thereof). Italians have no concept of ziplock bags, or even just covering the breadbasket to keep the freshness in. So, basically, we have one day of amazing fresh bread, and then 3 days of stale, rock-hard, nostalgic-of-day-1 bread. Hence me eating about 3 rolls on day 1. Carbo-loading so I can avoid the stones the next few days.


Now, with bread, comes toast. I love me some toast. Toast with margerine and pickled gherkins. (Is that double pickled?)(Don't hate it till you try it.) Toast with flora and marmite. (Wow. I miss marmite.) Toast with anything really. (Except butter. Or fishpaste. Vom.)  Italians don't eat toast. Their equivalent is a "toastie" - basically a toasted cheese and ham sandwich - no alternatives. My family owns an awesome toaster too, one with handles and adjustable width and shit...but they never use it! I remember on our Europe trip in 2007, my mother was considering bringing one of these toasters home in her suitcase.


Its gotten to the point where bringing out the toaster from the top cupboard is such a mission, that I just settle for no toast. Also, they don't eat margerine. Or marmite. Or pickles.


PANINO MAN: Panini are wonderful. There is a bergie in Bergamo who thinks so too. Every time anybody passes him, he begs for money for a panino. Do-gooder mission of the year: buy the oke a panino.


CAKE FROM A PACKET: My mom is a wonderful baker. She abhorrs box-brownies or pre-mixed pancake powder. Trust, she taught us well. At school, I used to bring about 50 cupcakes to school when a friend had a birthday, and they were always gone within 10 minutes - as was the extra tuppaware of icing I used to bring (Gabi Stein has no skaam in sticking her fingers in there. And then in her mouth. 52497 times dipping.)


My host-sister had some friends over for dinner the other night, and for dessert, pulled out 2 packets of cake batter - shop-bought (#GASP), poured them into a cake tin, baked it, pulled it out and dusted it with icing sugar. It was damn delicious, I will tell you. The thing is - Italian bakers don't bugger around - this batter is actually made from scratch - it has eggs and butter and milk in it, too, and an expiration date. So, technically, it's like making it from scratch. Right?


However, when her friends said, "Hmm nom nom, complimenti, Luci", I couldn't help but defend the packet's honour. I couldn't let her take the credit.


PASTA: There is a myth (mostly enforced by my mom) that Italians eat their pasta with a spoon - you curl the spaghetti strands into a big spoon with your fork, and eat it that way. In fact, Italians probably eat their pasta in the most unattractive, childish way - cut it into little piece before eating and then eating it with a spoon in small mouthfulls. They stab their penne, rather than scoop it onto the fork-tips like us South Africans have been taught. Some superfancy Italians use the side of their bowl (ALWAYS a bowl for pasta) to curl the strands around their fork (note: no spoon included) - don't underestimate this process: it is hazardous to the bowl, your clothing (depending on the stain-potential of the sauce), your ears (that scraping sound grillllllsss me), and also, your dignity.

Regardless of all my complaints: the pasta, bread, pizza, gelado, pretty much everything - is better here than it is wherever you are. Trust.

tranquilla.

People always ask: What do you think of Bergamo?

As not to offend them, I do my best to explain that I'm a big-city girl, but that the people are very nice. Simpatici. Gentili.

Because I haven't posted in a while, I thought I would do the past few weeks in a couple of installments: This is Milan.

I had an amazing opportunity to go to Milano for almost a week, celebrating Purim with the Rabbi and Rebbetzin's family as my main motivation. (There are NO Jews in Bergamo.)

I'm hardly religious, but there is something about being Jewish, or perhaps just having a passion or belief shared by others, that creates a common thread that makes it so easy to communicate with people.

I met an Australian girl at the Purim service who was studying at university in Milan - we became obsessed with each other considering that she was one of the few English speaking people I could relate to in Italy, and the fact that she understood all my South African idiosyncrasies because half the Aussie population is made up of South African Jews.

Besides being super excited about my new NBF, when we did the whole Facebook-friend-request thing, one of our mutual friends was a Sir Josh Benjamin, one of my good friends from back home: they had done a SAUJS project together at some point. Get what I mean? Conneckies. A random South African Jew and random Australian Jew meet at a random shul in Milan.

After Purim, I met up with the other exchangers in Parko Sempione with our boxes of... grape juice...and we had a little picnic :) After which, I did the whole Shabbos vibe - I lit candles, said Kiddish, we drank Shabbos wine (that's TOTALLY allowed) and ate challah. It was great.

Hmm. Abercrombie and Fitch. The store in Milan has topless male (sorry, Aluf) models  walking around selling their products. Wow, I just realised how inappropriate that sounded. Their Abercrombie and Fitch items of clothing. The store for which they work. They take polaroid pictures of you at the front as a momento. Honestly, the girls could have spend hours in there... picking up hideous (in taste and in price) items of clothing, feigning interest, just to stay longer. The manorexics utter an Americanised "Whatsup". ITALIAN IS THE SEXIEST LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD. WTF do you think you're doing saying "whatsup" to me!? Say "Ciao, bella" or something that is reminiscent of hotness and your washboard abs. 'Whatsup'. Pff. What is this?

Saturday night was FINALLY time for my first discoteca!! Proper the most exciting moment of my life. We ended up going to Magazini Generali - no Vardi, not General Magazine. General Warehouse. And... it was gay night. Don't misunderstand me - this is not a prejudice issue... its just that... I miss men.

Turns out not all guys at gay clubs are gay. Want to know how I know this? (Going to be very censored because my parents read this. PG.)

I was walking around with my friend Mel (see above, right), when an EXTREMELY good looking guy, with what we assumed was his partner, wearing a supertightwhiteTshirt (that's how tight), approached us and asked, in Italian, if we were lesbian. Definitively shaking our heads, I realised neither of us knew how to ask "Are you gay?". I went with "We like men." Because of the loud music or language barrier, something was lost in translation, and the guy just proper kissed me. When he pulled out, just one word: "Capito?"  (Understood?)

No, buddy, I don't flipping understand. If you wear a T-shirt that tight, and hang out with a guy the whole night at a gay club, and have perfectly groomed hair, then HOW. WHY. I just... I just don't understand.

At the end of the night, some speedo-attired men entertained us with a little dance/R-rated show. Funzies.

Overall, an amazing week with some amazing people. Can't wait to go back to Milan :)