Loosening up

Yesterday, I went out of the front door for the first time since March 11. It felt strangely normal and not as liberating or distinctive as I had expected. But, since we're finally allowed outside for exercise and other purposes, and it was a gorgeous day, it felt silly not to take advantage of it to go for a brief walk in the park.

There were very few people out and about, but it was clear that those who were there were happy to see others and have the chance to greet each other (usually staying well clear, however).

Today was shopping day. I did the usual routine of pre-ordering and having Michael go do the pick-up, but I did join him to help with bags coming from the shops in the piazza. I actually went into Antonella's shop instead of Michael's taking care of the paying! It was lovely to exchange even a few words. One still has to be hasty, as only one customer may enter at a time.

Umbria reported zero new cases today on a reasonable number of tests (I don't remember the exact statistics, but we've been well under 1% for a while). We haven't have any positives in Todi for ages.

We are still very cautious, and will be for a while. If the number of cases surge, they'll be deciding whether to reinstate the lockdown (which it is in everyone's best interest to avoid!). If all goes well, though, we will continue to see more people back at work. If we're really lucky, Umberto may even come back next week!

From our "upper terrace" (aka, the scaffolding). We love having
tea there in the mornings and watching the swifts

A bird in the park, not quite
sure how to handle unexpected human company

Another glimpse from the upper terrace

Love,

Alexandra

Shell Game

Just when you think you "get" everything about the place you live, something happens to remind you that your basic expectations can be completely erroneous. Last week, I asked Marcello (the local fishmonger, he of the disappearing fish shop) if he could get hold of scallops for me. Certainly! I just had to call to remind him.

And that I did. My mouth was positively watering at the thought of the little packet of mini-pieces of heaven that awaited me, particularly since he declared them to be "spettacolari" when I spoke to him yesterday morning.

Michael set off to do the shopping, and came back laden with the week's worth of fish and meat. While he went off to finish the shopping pickup, I started sorting and putting away. I was feeling in the various packets (meat and fish are nearly universally wrapped in paper here) to discern which were to go in the freezer for later this week, and which to go in the fridge.

And then I felt it: a grinding, scraping, hard sort of noise accompanied my prodding. Oh, no. Please tell me these aren't the scallops?

They were. Enormous shells (bigger than my hand) laden with the plumpest, juiciest scallops I had ever seen, each accompanied by a huge blob of roe. The trouble is, I've never cooked scallops on the half shell! I only know how to deal with the little mini-marshmallow-type blobs of protein.

Laid out on the cookie sheet

Yum!

I called Marcello, hastening to tell him that they were GORGEOUS, but what in the world was I to do with them? I Googled. I sent up a prayer. The thing was, these were so stupendous that I didn't want to mess them up...I felt really responsible for them at this point.

Turns out, they were completely easy. A little butter, bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, and throw them in the oven (having rinsed them thoroughly) and we had the most toothsome meal in rather a short amount of time.

Love,

Alexandra

P.S. I couldn't resist keeping some shells in which to serve condiments for future meals

Octopus Wrestling

Given that I'm making bread daily (and they don't go in much for packaged yeast here), I thought I'd learn more about natural leavening. And, goodness, am I learning a lot!

I have already killed one sourdough starter after having made some admittedly tasty things from it.

The most fun, though, has been learning new kneading techniques. It turns out that making bread from a levain (a natural starter that you keep in the fridge so that it doesn't sour) involves a LOT more water than a "standard" loaf you just churn out when you use packaged yeast. Creating a levain starts rather improbably by letting some apple peels ferment in water for a few days, and then mixing the (strained) water with flour. You add flour and water daily to the fruity-smelling glop until it is ready after about a week. To make bread with the levain, you remove some of the mixture and add it to flour, water, salt.

A standard loaf has a dough with some body to it, relatively unsticky. On the other hand, the levain-based bread is a lot stickier and does not enjoy being handled with heels of palms or that sort of motion we usually think of when we hear the word "kneading."

When you make a dough with the levain (per a recipe provided by my dear friend Angela), you end up with an ooze rather than a dough. It is sort of splooges out onto the counter (no additional flour), and you lift the whole bulb (or as much as lifts) and smack it down. When it is done repeatedly, you can increase your speed...which often results in the formation of "tentacles" that slap randomly over the counter in front of you: thick, luscious, sticky arms of dough to be removed and coaxed back into the body of the beast.

After a while, though, you have a homogeneous, relatively well-behaved mass of something that is silky smooth. It's so interesting to see the process.

The rising takes hours. And hours. And then a few more hours. If you're lucky, you remember to turn the oven on in time to put it in at the right point. If, on the other hand, you get distracted, you let it over-rise (a technical disaster, but the other members of the family have yet to complain) and then put it in too late -- feeling mildly guilty about it.

Regardless, you get a thick-crusted bread that is crunchy on the outside and has a great chew inside. That is the French peasant bread. I've also made baguettes, a natural-yeast "standard" bread, various other loaves, and sourdough. I have a new starter that is fermenting nicely and should be ready for our new sourdough loaf in just a few days. It, also, will probably be a similar process to the levain loaves.

Love,

Alexandra

Weirdest Palm Sunday Ever

This year, we were still in lockdown, so we weren't able to hold our traditional Palm Sunday Mass, which starts either in the Piazza or on the terrace in front of the church. We then process with olive branches into the church to celebrate Mass together.

Not this year.

Instead, I was in my pyjamas at the kitchen table, watching a livestream feed of our parish priests in the bishop's chapel. Not quite the same thing. I'm pretty sure that Easter will feel pretty empty, but I really treasure the fact that we can see our sweet priests' faces every week!

We're continuing with the daily bread baking. I'm experimenting a lot with rise times, ratio of flour to water, kneading amount, bake time, and so on. It's so interesting to see how the same apparent mixture (starter, flour, water, oil, salt) can result in completely different breads. Tonight's was really good, and yesterday's sourdough was spectacular, although not a "traditional San Francisco" sourdough by any means.

Oh, and we did manage to eat just fine last week, even at dinner. This week, I think we'll be eating two weeks' worth of food because I may have overcompensated.

Love,

Alexandra

The New Normal and Little Missteps

We are still in lockdown, and feeling so grateful that we are in our home in our community. We don't feel isolated at all, funnily enough. In some ways, I've had more intensive contact with friends and loved ones over the past weeks than I usually do: we are all at home at the same time, after all!

While we are doing just fine, our hearts bleed for those on the front lines of the crisis. New York state now has more than twice the per-person rate of infection that Italy has, and they are experiencing the same devastation. We feel like Cassandra, predicting doom, and seeing denial and wishful thinking. It does appear that the press has finally caught up with the situation in the US and the UK, and that people there are starting to realize what a strain the illness can put on a healthcare and economic system. We've found this to be an interesting site that really helps interpret the numbers:
https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/

In the meantime, we had a bit of a funny thing happen: this week, I did my meal planning and the shopping list that is the natural output of the meal plan. Michael did his marathon shop (once again, the lists were sent ahead when possible so that Michael just had to pick up the prepared bags), and only that afternoon did I realize that I kind of forgot about dinner.

Our general eating plan is to have the heavy meal at lunchtime, and then a very light meal (soup or whatever) at dinner. Clearly, my brain had decided that that meant I didn't need any ingredients for the week at all! We've had a good laugh about it, and last night I cobbled together corn chowder. Tonight is spelt soup. It'll be an interesting week culinarily speaking, that's for sure!

Love,

Alexandra

Love in the Time of Covid-19

Eleanor and Matthew were married yesterday! Everything about it was in keeping with the general peculiarity of current circumstances, so thank goodness we’ve all retained our collective sense of humor...as well as joy in their love for each other.

The wedding was originally planned for May 2 in Matthew’s home town in Minnesota. I had been working on Eleanor’s dress since before November (off and on; it entailed various try-ons, which meant they had to wait for trips to the US), but decided in January that I needed to get a move on to finish it up “because you never know.” We had the lining fitting sometime in February, and I kicked into high gear at that point because it was becoming increasingly clear that we would probably not be able to travel to the US in May. 

Michael and I had private doubts about travel within the US in May, but didn’t want to alarm others.

Things got real about two weeks ago, when the CDC recommended that all “non-essential” travel be curtailed. At that point, Eleanor and Matthew had to make some hard decisions. They had already been pondering how they would feel if their elderly relatives came down with the coronavirus at their wedding, so it was a difficult but inevitable step to call off the wedding as originally planned.

And then, all the schools in North Carolina were closed and lockdown looked imminent. 

Last Thursday, I finalized the dress (having worked nonstop for nearly a week), and we got it shipped off express to the US. It arrived a day earlier than promised, Monday afternoon rather than Tuesday! By good fortune, it fitted quite well, so that part worked out. 

Eleanor and Matthew kicked into high gear at that point. They went to the county offices and got a marriage license that day. They contacted the church immediately, begging for an ASAP wedding. Since Masses have been severely restricted, even that would require diocesan approval. Fortunately, they had long since finished their marriage preparation and all the other paperwork required. The priest was very supportive of the situation, but needed to convince the church. By Tuesday morning, the church was on board, but needed to convince the diocese. Wednesday afternoon, the diocese gave permission...for a wedding on Thursday morning!

With less than 24 hours to plan a wedding, pretty much all the fussy details that every engaged couple and possibly their parents obsess over went by the wayside. Music? Whatever the available pianist felt like playing would be great. Flowers? Let’s see what we can pick up at the few grocery stores that are open (and actually, their guests were kind enough to bring Eleanor a bouquet!). Guests? Well, we’re only allowed 10 people including ourselves. With the wedding coordinator (mandatory, per the church), priest, pianist, technician (who would be taking care of streaming), the happy couple, and one of Eleanor’s colleagues who was kind enough to be a photographer for them...there weren’t too many options for fretting over a last-minute guest list. Jenny, Eleanor’s dear friend and roommate, served as maid of honor, mother of the bride, florist, baker/caterer, and more. We are so grateful for all she did during this period. In addition, the couple who worked with Eleanor and Matthew on marriage prep were able to come! Done. 

During the “getting ready” morning, we held a video call so that we could enjoy the process of seeing Eleanor bustling around working on her bouquet, makeup, and so on. It was really lovely, and while it was not the same as being there, it was certainly great that we were able to participate in that way. 

The rest of us were blessed to witness their wedding from wherever we were, streamed remotely. I think five or six countries were represented, and lots of different locations within the US. 

Oh, and reception food? Delivery pizza! 

In our house in Italy, we raised a glass to them after the ceremony, and sat down to cake and our virtual reception: so many kind people wrote to us that we really felt as though we had the chance to chat with many of our intended guests. The major deficit, honestly, was we missed out on the opportunity to see Matthew’s family; realistically, though, receptions are such busy times with lots of small talk. We’ll look forward to visiting them at some point when global travel is permitted again, and we’ll have a better chance of having longer conversations and really get to know them in a much more intimate setting!

That said, later in the evening, the happy couple set up a video conference with siblings and parents. We were so happy to have our virtual after-party! It was a great, relaxed setting, and although there were the typical challenges of these sorts of calls with technology and so on, it felt really warm and loving.

The beauty of it all, though, is that they’re married. This was the desired and intended outcome. They are clearly meant for each other, and we are so, so very happy to see our daughter with such a lovely husband.

Love,

Alexandra

Life Under Lockdown, week 2

Or is it week 3? Time is starting to blur, but I haven’t set foot outside our front door since March 8. We are so very thankful to be in our lovely house and no longer in the rental apartment; the environment in which we find ourselves makes a huge difference.

As mentioned before, Michael is the only one allowed out (one designated member of the family only, and we designated him), and that is only to do our weekly food shop. This involves my calling/emailing/texting/messaging our various shopkeepers a list ahead of time so that they can go ahead and have the entire order ready for pickup. Since only one person is allowed in any shop at a time, this helps reduce our load on each of the stores, and is one of the small ways in which we can help. Although it sounds fairly simple to most of you, since many will do a “weekly shop,” this requires pretty extreme planning on my part. If I forget anything, we just have to do without. There is no running to Kroger on your way home to grab a gallon of milk.

At the same time, Michael has to take out the week’s recycling, which we collect in our front hall.

This week went really smoothly, except for one small item: our local agent for the natural gas provider called and asked if we would read our meter, since the meter readers can’t go out and about as they normally would. That wouldn’t have been a problem, but for the fact that the scaffolding is covering the meter box! Thank goodness it’s only our meter in there that’s active. I called her back, and we decided how to handle it (basically, we figured out a likely consumption for the past 2 months, and we’ll be billed on that amount). No biggie.

For exercise, Michael is doing his Stairmaster routine: every morning, he jogs/walks up and down the stairs to his office. We have other, better (wider and less steep) staircases, but they’re all above other people’s houses and he doesn’t want to be completely annoying. Fair point. I’ve been doing mini-workouts (high-intensity interval training, found easily on the web), which are pretty friendly to housebound people. Other people get more creative: Michael was telling me about one guy who ran a marathon on his balcony! It took him 6 hours, because he couldn’t get his speed up between laps. One of Michael’s running mates did a “triathlon”, of which he made a video that he posted on their group: he “swam” across the living room floor (lying on a skateboard, doing the strokes), then “biked” on his child’s tricycle, then ran. So, yes, people are getting creative and pretty silly.

I’m making bread every day. For the first time, I’ve made sourdough from a starter I created. It’s something I’ve always been a little afraid of, but it actually was delicious tonight. It wasn’t very sour, though, so maybe I need to let it ferment further. A good thing, since there’s no room in the fridge. Tomorrow will be a standard bread, but I’ve made oatmeal/seedy rolls, “normal” bread, flat breads, tortillas, and sourdough. It’s been a lot of fun getting back into it. For years, I haven’t needed to (the bread you can buy here is plenty tasty), but now that we have to have a week’s worth, bread that goes stale in a day is not quite the thing.

We play games a lot. Long strategy games. I’m knitting up a storm, but I’m ready to start back on my next sewing project. I’m up to page 50,000 in my 61,000 page compendium (no, it’s not really that big: ebooks always have silly quantities of pages because of the typeface and how much they can fit on a page). And, yes, cooking always takes up much of my day, since I make essentially three meals a day for four people. I also spend a fair amount of time on phone calls and messaging, keeping up with friends and family, and lending an ear when needed.

Life is peaceful, because we are so very fortunate, but we are extremely mindful of the suffering that is going on “out there” and are trying to do our part to prevent the transmission of the virus. Todi now has five positive cases (one of whom was already under watch, since he’d been in contact with another known case). We remain extremely impressed with our local volunteer squad and the medical system as a whole. They are performing wonders.

Love,

Alexandra