by Maureen | Jan 2, 2010 | Christmas & New Year's Eve, Discoveries, Introspection, Journal, People, Photos
From my journal entry, New Year’s Day 2010:
I took off walking toward the Duomo at 4:10 today. It’s New Year’s Day. I needed to get out of the house and get my body moving. I decided to zig zag through the “neighborhood” on streets I’ve never seen before, rather than take the sure, known route.
Along the way, an old woman approached me while walking her dog. She had seen me from a distance blowing my nose in my hankie. She rattled something off fast. “Non capisco,” I said finally. “What do you mean you don’t understand!?”, she said in Italian. We ended up comparing handkerchiefs. (Hers had embroidered flowers on white linen. Mine was deep magenta with big, off-white polka dots) I said I had handkerchiefs from my “nonna”.
She stood there in her patterned, fleece pants, just-this-side-of-pajamas and commented on the large size of my coat buttons. “Yes. They’re as big as plates!”, I said. “We could eat off them!” We both laughed, then wished each other a happy New Year and walked on.
It was late afternoon, getting on toward evening. The light was dimming and I was walking where I never had before. But I knew my general direction, took the lesser roads and kept moving. The streets were vacant. Hardly a car. Not a pedestrian. But as I neared the area of the Duomo, a few more people appeared, a few more restaurants and cafés were open (no shops!) and the energy picked up.
This house was in a cozy, little area of narrow streets, just north-east of me. What’s its history?!
I came to another street corner and stopped in my tracks at the sight of the Church of Santa Maria and San Satiro on a site originally established in 879 a.d. Where did that come from!? Just one block off the main drag through town! I had never seen it before.
When I walked in, New Year’s Day evening, a small group of people was being led aloud in saying the rosary. I chimed in in English while I was there.
Heading for Monte Napoleone to see the window displays, I went north and to the east. The shops along that exclusive, narrow street are outside of my reach or comprehension. Actually shopping there is not a thought. My real goal was getting exercise and being out of the house, so I simply strolled and looked and shot a few photos until I got hungry.
by Maureen | Jan 1, 2010 | Featured Articles, Incredible Locations, Journal, Paris, People, Photos
New Year’s Eve. “Capodanno” they call it here. Fireworks are going off in the distance.
Having just come back from the energy of Paris, I don’t feel compelled to go downtown tonight, but will follow my tradition of spending the evening writing. Part of that act is the reflection on the past year, and for 2009 the novelty is in the last 6 months, since I moved here to Milano in June.
When I decided to move here, I very consciously wanted to have relationships. I wanted to form friendships and know people. I didn’t want to remain on the outside surface, as tourists do, but rather touch hearts and have mine touched. I left behind my treasured communities in Seattle, and came here where I had none.
Reaching this 6-month mark, I started to think about all the people I’ve gotten to know in big ways and small. I see people at school. At some of the stores I frequent. I’ve met some while traveling. And now, even see familiar faces while just out walking in the neighborhood. I’m creating what I wanted!
Allow me to introduce you to some of the many people I’ve either enjoyed a single, rich conversation with, or have had the pleasure to create a friendship with:
JUSTINE – Kenyan. I met Justine soon after I arrived and now I shop at that store a mile away just so I can say “hello” to her. Here she is cutting prosciutto for me.
EVELINA, BRUNELLO & GLENDA – Italian. These are the three I work most closely with at NABA.
PIOTR & EWA – Polish-German and Polish. We met in the summer when our tables were an inch apart and I was eating octopus. We’ve been getting together once a week or so ever since! Eva is a Pharmacist and Piotr is a retired conductor from Teatro alla Scala.
NARIN – Thai. Architectural faculty member from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
PETE & ERIN – Australian. We met on the bike trail in the morning, and they slept on my fold-out bed that night! They were biking around Europe for 6 months and relying on the kindness of strangers.
ORIETTA – Italian. Concept researcher and trend forecaster in fashion and accessories. An instructor at NABA.
LYDIA – Swedish. Lydia makes the way smooth for NABA’s agents.
DOMENICA & PAOLO – Italian. They have the Spezia Pasticceria that creates those incredible pastries I’ve shown. They’re two blocks away from me, and we met when he did a search on the pastry shop and found my blog. They make the best pastries in town.
ANASTASIA, EMANUELE & ENCARNA – Greek and Spanish. Emanuale is the Consulate General of Greece. We shared a table and the dance floor at the Thanksgiving Dinner.
ENZA – Italian. Born in Sicily, raised back-and-forth between there and Australia. She and her husband own the corner grocery where I buy my water, and we chat.
TOMA – French, but has lived in Italy for years. He’s established in fashion and teaches at NABA.
BARBARA – President of the Benvenuto Club.
BRUNELLO – Italian. Vice President of NABA.
LILY & TOM – Irish. My cousins from my family’s historic homeland in Fermanagh County, Northern Ireland.
LEE – British, but she’s been in Italy a long time. Lee’s been working in fashion for about 30 years. She was my Fashion Design instructor in 2008 at NABA.
CIRO – Italian. A One-man Chamber of Commerce for the town of Casamicciola on the Island of Ischia.
SAM, PATRICK & MOMO – French and ? These three are fishmongers down the street from my hotel in Paris. Patrick, in the middle, speaks some Spanish, so between that and sign-language, we all had some laughs.
DAN – American. From Ohio University, working with NABA. Executive Director and Professor of Geography.
EVELINA & GLENDA – Italian, though Glenda lived in the U.S. for 8 years. These two coordinate the myriad details of the NABA summer and semester programs.
LUCA – Italian. We’ve discussed “Italian Design Methodology” and the differences in teaching methods between Italian schools and U.S. schools. Luca is NABA’s Design Program Coordinator.
DIMITRI & VERA – Russian. Architects, instructors at NABA.
ENIEL – Cuban. Moved to Paris 5 years ago and speaks some of 5 or 6 languages. Loves history and was my personal tour guide in Paris.
MADALENA & EMILY – Italian and Australian. Madalena lives in the mountains near Milano, and teaches Italian language courses. Emily is a student in my class.
AHMAD – Pakistani. Living in Venice and assisting his brother with his restaurant, “Noemi”.
FRANCESCO – Italian. Architect and instructor at NABA. He’s engaging and involved with the students.
GISELLA – Italian from Sicily. She has a Siciliano bakery just down the street. Sometimes I’ll buy little regional specialties from her.
HASSAN & SEBASTIAN – Iranian and German. We’ve been in Italian language classes together.
IDA – Italian. We met at the Benvenuto Club Christmas Bazaar, which is a fund-raiser for several local charities.
JAMES – British. He’s opened up a shop here selling textiles and is taking Italian language classes, too.
ROLANDO – Italian. We met on the train to the airport. I was on my way to Seattle. He was on his way to an EU gathering of parachutists from 10 different countries. He was in the Army in the mid-60s. He pulled B&W photos of his father out of his suitcase to show me.
MARZIA & FRIENDS – Italian (Sicily), Russian and ? Marzia’s on the right and after we had gone out for “apperitivi”, we met up with her friends at another restaurant. Marzia is also with NABA.
REMO – Italian (from the south). A Materials Engineer. We’ve had some good conversations and I sat in on some of his design classes at NABA and accompanied them on field trips.
OZDAN, SEBASTIAN & EMILY – Turkish, German & Australian. In this photo, they were doing a skit in our Italian language class.
NORM & JOE – Irish. My Guinness drinkin’ buddies in the far northern reaches of Ireland.
JAN – Norwegian. He got talked into wearing a “Babbo Natale” hat at the Scuola Leonardo language school’s Christmas party.
by Maureen | Dec 12, 2009 | Cheese, Christmas & New Year's Eve, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Photos, Shopping & Markets
I have truffle breath. I’ve just “eaten my way across the country” without leaving Milano, and I sampled so many incredible foods, who needs dinner?!
It wasn’t enough to spend half a day at the Artisanal Fair last weekend, I had to go back and spend more time (and money) today. In 3 and a half hours, spent only in the Italian Pavilion, I sampled foods from every region of the country. I sampled truffle – tartufo – butters and truffle-flecked cheeses that made me swoon. I saw a white truffle the size of two fists, and black truffles to go with it.
There were infinite spreads of hot peppers, red onion, eggplant, artichoke and more truffles! I did side-by-side taste tests of olive oils of different ages, and levels of “fruttato” and “amaro“. Such differences!
(On this visit, I didn’t sample the jams and spreads, but last week I had bought some “Caffé & Cocoa”, “Hazlenut & Cocoa”, “Pistachio & Cocoa”, “Lemon & Cocoa”. Each unbelievable.)
I stopped at the licorice vendor with every form imaginable including silver-dusted. He had a bowl of licorice stems to show the origin, and gave me samples of pure, natural, STRONG, distilled-from-the-stem chunks of dense black licorice. After his booth, the vendor sampling thread-thin pickled fish knocked the licorice flavor right out of my mouth.
The woman at the booth selling Cinghiale, wild boar meat, was feeding me a whole dinner with all the samples she gave me, one from each type of cut and cure they offered. I even savored a shaving of cured wild boar lard, aged with herbs, melt-in-your mouth smooth. I was carrying around a 1 euro sample glass of chianti and it went well with the boar.
Of course, the pavilion offered plenty of things to satisfy a sweet tooth, but I’d rather photograph them than eat them. Sicilian Cannoli, rolled up and filled with sweet ricotta, look so appealing (but they’re MUCH too sweet for me). And the Torrone nougat is offered with a variety of nuts – almond, walnut, pistachio – and even tinted rosy pink with mirtilo, (much like a blueberry). One man had a hot cauldron in his booth, melting sugar to coat pistachios; he then worked them on cold slabs of marble, forming bars and cutting a sliver for samples. I did sample some deep, dark chocolates and had to bring home a box to add to the gift pile. They were too irresistible.
I bought a few Canederli, what I consider an Italian matzoh ball; they’re typical of northern Italy in Trentino-Alto Adige, where Austria is a neighbor. And last summer, when visiting L’Isola d’Ischia, I had purchased some Limoncello, but gave it all away; so today I bought a bottle for my own freezer.
After close to 4 hours in the Italian pavilion, I set foot in the French section of the European pavilion. I’m not sure whether I wish I had gone there first, or whether it’s a good thing I didn’t. The damask textiles made my heart rate rise as they always do, and I bought a lovely, blue tablecloth for my friend Ewa (that I met shortly after I arrived in Milano and still see almost weekly).
Milano’s Fiera Artigianale is perfectly timed to satisfy all of one’s holiday gift-giving desires! In addition to the foods (!) there are crafts, clothes, fabrics, and even an eco-home section. People come from all over the world both to browse and to sell. I think that one could spend a week and not see it all. With all the Christmas fairs, festivals and decorations, December is not a bad time to come to Italy for a visit.
by Maureen | Dec 8, 2009 | Christmas & New Year's Eve, Featured Articles, Journal, Photos
It was about 6:30 on a Sunday evening and I thought I was merely going to a champagne-tasting I had been told of. As it turned out, I came up out of the subway into a massive, standing-room-only crowd that filled the Piazza del Duomo in the center of Milan. Mini hot air balloons, about 2 feet tall and flame-fueled, were rising in the sky above the crowd and up over Milan’s jewel cathedral and the seemingly-just-as-tall, towering Christmas tree. Someone was filming the crowd’s responses and the video was being replayed on the building-sized, digital display facing the piazza. It was an energized, electric moment.
“Oh Holy Night”, a Christmas song I grew up with, was being broadcast out over the piazza; it would have inspired tears if I had let it.
“Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!”
I saw the local police clustering, and then moving together through the crowd. A procession began a swath through the people and I asked someone who it was. (Of course they responded in Italian and I forget what they said.) Moments later, the crowd roared happily as the lights on the tree were illuminated for the first time. The stained glass windows of the Duomo were backlit from within, and it was all magical.
The tree was covered with 100,000 lights, and white pointsettias.
And I had just happened to have shown up at the right moment! There’s something wonderful about popping up out of the subway tunnels into the midst of pleasant surprises.
DECEMBER 8 UPDATE:
I just read that the floating lanterns are intended to be “luminous symbols that spread the Peace, Hope and Love of Christmas”. The Christmas Tree, guy-wired to a number of surrounding buildings, is 164 feet tall, the biggest Christmas Tree in Europe.
“L’inaugurazione ufficiale del Festival della Luce e l’accensione della città prenderanno il via domenica 6 dicembre alle ore 18.00 attraverso un grande evento di apertura in piazza Duomo con il lancio delle ‘lanterne di luce’, simboli luminosi che diffondono nell’aria del Natale la ‘pace’, la ‘speranza’ e l’‘amore’.
I tram di luce, con la loro scia luminosa, daranno il via alla manifestazione. Come scenografia, i fiori luminosi trasformeranno Piazzetta Reale in un prato verde di luce. A seguire l’accensione del grande Albero di Natale, il più alto abete luminoso d’Europa – oltre 50 metri – illuminato da centomila lampadine ad alto risparmio energetico – e l’illuminazione della Cattedrale attraverso un progetto firmato dai light designer Castagna&Ravelli in collaborazione con la Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, che dall’interno rivela lo splendore delle sue vetrate.”
http://www.comune.milano.it/portale/wps/portal/CDM?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/wps/wcm/connect/ContentLibrary/per+saperne/per+saperne/led/led+show/lo+evento+milano%2C+citta+di+luce/speciale+led_led+show_evento
by Maureen | Nov 29, 2009 | Discoveries, Introspection, Journal, People, Quips
One of my cousins just wrote to me and asked, “What are the highlights of your time in Milan… so far?”
I’ve been mulling it over all day. Hard one to answer. I think the highlights have been mostly little things, little bright moments or little challenges surmounted. Many a gorgeous sight and delicious meal, yes. But also the small communications, triumphant in my limited, but growing, Italian.
A week or so after arriving in June, I was given only an address and told to go apply for a “codice fiscale“, an official financial code. I googled the location, took the metro, arose out of the subway and walked 20 blocks or so to a huge, government building. I entered and somehow figured out where to go, which long line to stand in, what to ask for, what to do with the papers the guy gave me, where to wait, how to know when it was my turn and what desk to approach when my number came up. I answered her questions, in Italian, thanked the woman and walked out with my stamped paper. I could now get a bank account.
After having been here for one hot month, I wandered off to find the Antiques Market in the art district, Brera. I browsed for a bit and in a while it was time for lunch. The restaurants in the very narrow lane had their chalkboard menus posted. The octopus kept enticing me, so I stopped at the restaurant offering it and was seated outside. The neighboring table was one inch away. How can one not talk to people that are sitting just one inch away? Ewa and Piotr are Polish and Polish/German and have been in Milan for 30 years. We talked for 2 hours in a blend of English and Italian; I lost track of what language was being spoken at any given moment in our conversation. Four months later, we are still getting together at their home once a week for practice of both English and Italian. Ewa feeds me well each time and our friendship is deepening. Last week we spoke of women, relationships, work and independence… all in Italian.
Two months ago, while out riding my bike along the canal, I stopped to shoot a picture. At my feet in the grass was an empty coin purse (save for a personal note from 2004) and a ring of keys: apartment, office, mailbox, coffee machine, bike lock and others. Fortunately, one of the “keys” was a digital fob for a bank account; press the button and it generates a new, random number for bank account access. I took the keys home and they sat while I wondered what to do with them. The likelihood of finding the owner?! Slim, but I couldn’t bear to just throw the keys away. Friends couldn’t suggest much. One night, I approached a young, local policeman at the street corner, but I didn’t have the keys with me. He said to bring them to the station or give them to any officer I saw in town. Days later, I had the keys and was glad to see another policeman; when I told him the story, in Italian, he said there was nothing that could be done. I was disappointed, but had one last idea. I took the keys to my own bank, because I, too, have a digital key fob. If they could tell me which bank used the particular fob that was on the lost key ring, perhaps that bank could look up the ID number on the back of the fob. “Of Course!”, my bank teller said, “It’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena“. He looked up the address of the nearest bank office, and I set off walking. I waited for the bank assistant to finish his phone conversation. I explained about the keys, he punched numbers into the computer and called the manager over. They talked, checked various screens on the computer, and picked up the phone. Both the manager and assistant shook my hand as the call connected. After who knows how many months, the guy was getting his keys back, and I was elated.
Like I said, the real highlights have been the little things that amounted to big triumphs. The difference between being a tourist and being a resident is interaction and relationships, and the key to that is language. It pleases me to have built my Italian up enough so that I could HAVE these interactions. I can actually get to know people. THAT is my greatest highlight!
by Maureen | Nov 28, 2009 | Introspection, Journal
The other night, lying wide awake at 4:00 a.m., I realized I heard nothing except my own breathing. The relentlessness and menu of sounds around here, makes silence rare and startling. It’s been almost 25 years since I’ve lived in an apartment, and I’ve never lived in such a city environment. This has been an adjustment.
When I first arrived in June, jetlagged and wanting to nap, it was impossible to sleep because of the almost-rhythmic machine moan that I couldn’t identify. It made me climb the walls, exasperated. What in the world?! I thought maybe someone above me had a commercial sewing machine. That sound was a constant intrusion and seemed to run all day, all night. I finally asked the building porter, and he told me it’s the water pump. …Sometime in the course of these last 5 months, I noticed that it’s about 7:00 in the morning when the water pump comes on, (and, yes, it does run ALL day but not at night).
My first floor apartment is directly above the same concrete, dungeon room that houses the water pump. This is where all the building residents sort and dump their garbage and recycling. The glass and metal door has its own, particular sound. Bottles falling on bottles, however, make a sound that is nothing unique but it sure carries into my apartment.
And the couple above me! I hear their lunch preparations and their daytime, Italian soaps on TV. I hear the rush of water through the pipes when they shower, turn on the faucet or do laundry. I hear their heated voices and the creak of what must be a spiral staircase that matches my own. The worst is the sound of her shoes. If she doesn’t have railroad spikes for heels I’d be surprised. Her footfall has an insistent, forceful impact, and when she leaves her apartment and comes pounding down the stairs, she echoes throughout the building. (They do not, however, seem to have any sort of a love life.)
There’s the chatter of people standing just outside my bedroom window having a ceaseless smoke. There are motor scooters and the electric courtyard gates opening to allow cars entrance. There’s the buzz of someone unlocking the main door. Just four buildings away is a berm-elevated train track; surprisingly, the train’s infrequent passage is a mere whir. Now and then, European sirens approach and then fade.
This is the audio backdrop within my Milanese apartment. I’m accustomed to my long-time home in Seattle in very quiet surroundings, where silence is the standard. I’m used to being awakened by birds, not water pumps and spike heels. What’s surprising to me is how I’ve adapted …and that I have! I stopped “hearing” the moaning pump and I can even nap right through it now.
by Maureen | Nov 23, 2009 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Meals, People
What a really nice group of people! I enjoyed a Thanksgiving Luncheon today with the “Americans in Milan” (AIM) group from the larger Benvenuto Club. About 70 people gathered at the Hotel Gallia for conversation, company, charitable fund-raising and a turkey dinner. We finished the evening, 5 hours after we had begun, by dancing to American 70s and 80s pop/rock. We were too warm to put our coats on; we had had fun.
When moving to Milano, I had vowed NOT to come here and spend time with a bunch of American expats. That wasn’t what I was looking for. But in checking out the Benvenuto Club, (“Benvenuto” means “welcome”) I found women representing 40 different countries and a broad age range. They have a social focus and offer a wide array of activities. I decided it was one way to step into community.
Though “Americans in Milan” sponsored the luncheon, it was open to non-members as well. The crowd was quite international. At my table were (let’s see if I get this all right…), the Consul General for Greece and his wife; a Japanese/Bolivian woman and her Italian husband and daughter; a Spanish woman; an Italian woman and her daughter (who went to school in Colorado Springs for a year); and another Italian woman. I guess I was the only American at the table.
We started with Milanese aperitivo of finger foods and prosecco. After milling about, meeting new people and enjoying conversation, we all went into the dining room to our first course of saffron/mushroom risotto and squid pasta. (VERY traditional American Thanksgiving table offerings!) THEN came roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans and carrots. (Pout. No sweet potatoes.) It was all very nicely prepared and tasty.
For dessert, we had just-right slivers of apple pie with hazlenut gelato and pumpkin pie with whipped cream! It was pretty darned good for being half a world away.
As soon as our dessert forks hit the plates, the dance music started up and the floor was filled with people from all over the world dancing as one big group and being quite silly. (Dancing to “YMCA” from 1978! I’ll be humming it all night.) I had never met these people, and yet we were all at ease and having fun.
After dancing up a sweat, I stepped out on the balcony for some fresh air and watched clouds of starlings circle over “Milano Centrale“, Milan’s Grand Central Station, at the left in this photo.
These are pretty impressive figures glowing and towering above Centrale’s main entrance!
Out for a breath of cool air. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
by Maureen | Nov 17, 2009 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Ireland, Journal
One thing that I brought back with me from my time in Ireland this year was enjoyment of traditional Irish Soda Bread! Here in Italy I’ve been on a constant lookout for dense, moist, flavorful bread with some nutritional value. So much of what I’ve found is white, light, fluffy and dries out in a day. Believe me… I check every bakery I walk past, and there are many!
I did finally find a “delicatessen” offering foods of the Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy. (This area is along the northern border of Italy, adjacent to and influenced by neighboring Austria.) When I first walked up to the streetside-window of this deli, I thought they should be ashamed of themselves for displaying pastries such as they have. How dare they! But I went in, glanced around and hit the jackpot. They offer dense, multi-grain seeded breads of lush, flavorful varieties. I bought several hunks and walked a mile home. (You can buy a quarter loaf of bread, or less!)
So I’ve been on a mission, and my family back home has helped out. I just received packages full of baking soda and baking powder, brown sugar, measuring cups and spoons, (a few sewing supplies, which have nothing to do with this story)… and today an oven thermometer arrived from my big bro.
Today was my maiden bake-off. In 5 months I’ve never used my oven! I found a recipe online (waiting for my girlfriend to send me her real, traditional Irish recipe). I bought white flour and some sort of flour I can only guess about. I faked the buttermilk with some vinegar and made a mess in my kitchen. (Ahh, I’ve been missing that!) Soda bread is not yeasted, so it goes together quickly and easily; just don’t overwork it!
It cooked in about half an hour and looked beautiful through the oven window. Hot out of the oven, I had a slice with the first butter I’ve eaten in 5 months. (Truth be told, I picked the butter brand because I like the tin it comes in.) The next slice I ate with soft Italian goat cheese. Mmm. I could top it with some sliced tomato, too!
OK. I’ve established for myself how readily I can have the hearty bread I’m looking for, but I’ll have to start finding friends that like it, too. Either give half a loaf away each time, or conjure a half-recipe and make just enough to last three days.
Next, I’ll start experimenting with grain content and other variations. Mmm. A grilled soda bread sandwich with bresaola and gorgonzola? Perhaps.
by Maureen | Sep 2, 2009 | Ireland, Journal, Quips
I know. Long time no post… I haven’t posted much in the week since I got back from Ireland even though I have a hundred ideas of things I want to write about and post photos of! Oh, the images! Stone Circles, Malin Head, Crana Knits, Crockawaddy Glebe, Thatched Roof Houses, Old Stone Buildings, the Fermanagh Tour, Grianan Ailigh, Distant Cousins, Great-Grandma’s Birthplace…and “The Road to America”! (And all of those things mean nothing until I actually SHOW you!)
And then there are the 7 HUGE muskrats I saw along the canal the other day when out for a ride. They weren’t river otter at all like I had originally thought. There was one granddaddy muskrat twice as big as my head!
The “Italian Contemporary Society”, “History of Design” and “Italian Language” classes at NABA have to be wedged in there somewhere, too! The Fall 2009 Semester began this week and it’s great to see people back on campus, and to see Milano lively again. It got awful lonely around here in the month of August.
But, you know…there’s such a thing as WORK! First things first.
by Maureen | Jul 18, 2009 | Cheese, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Shopping & Markets
Sweet or Savory? Based on appearances, these little cracker/cookies could have gone either way. Unfortunately, I was in the mood for a little, sweet cookie, so my stomach overruled my mind.
Wandering around the grocery store, of course all the labels and packages are in Italian. How do I know what I’m looking at and am about to buy? Word derivations and synonyms! Every trip to the grocery store requires “pattern recognition” and a willingness to be exploratory with language.
Take this label for instance… (I should have read it more closely at the store, but like I said, I WANTED these to be sweet!)
The following is a reenactment of the mental hoops I jumped through when reading the ingredient list on this cracker label:
Fette – I had just learned that word so I could order bresaola. It means SLICES.
Pane – Like pan, in Spanish, it means BREAD.
Croccante – Kinda sounds like CRACKER, doesn’t it?
Semi – Semilla, in Spanish, means SEED
Zucca – Like zucchini… must mean some sort of squash, and I see PUMPKIN SEEDS.
Farina – Isn’t that what “Cream of Wheat” is called? OK. Ground grain. FLOUR.
Frumento – Who knows. Skip that one.
Formaggio – I know that one well: CHEESE
Emmental – Hey, it’s EMMENTALER CHEESE, with milk, salt and something, something.
Semi di Zucca – There’re the pumpkin seeds again, 8%.
Semi di Girasole – Sole is sun, and I see SUNFLOWER SEEDS.
Semi di Lino – Lino is linen. Linen comes from flax. Ahh! FLAX SEEDS!
Sesamo – Whew. An easy one. SESAME SEEDS.
Sale Marino – Sale is salt. Marino is marine. Easy. SEA SALT.
Agente Lievintante – Looks like “levitating” to me. OK. LEAVENING AGENT.
Bicarbonato di Sodio – Easy again. BICARBONATE OF SODA (BAKING SODA)
Estratto di Malto d’orzo – EXTRACT OF ORZO MALT (Whatever that is.)
Pasta Acica (Farina di Segala) – More flour of some sort, but it’s so far down the list that it’s a minor ingredient.
No where did I read the ingredient Zucchero – SUGAR! Like I said, I was trying to convince myself that these were sweet and ignored all evidence to the contrary. Upon getting these home, I was surprised to taste a snappy, stout, seeded cracker with a hard toasted cheese layer on top. Likely one of my new favorites, but NOT when I’m looking for dessert!
