The Vortex of Love

I met a man this month who sucked me into (his words!), "the vortex of love."

He is almost 70 years old, if my calculations are correct. And he is the most brilliant artisan, hand-hammering copper pans in his workshop in Montepulciano, a stunning hilltop town about 45 minutes south of here.

It was a blustery, foggy January day. The visiting Rosmarino and I drove up to the tip-top of Montepulciano and had a lunch of pici all'aglione and mindbendingly delectable linguine with white truffles, accompanied by a lightly beautiful Vernaccia. Should you find yourself in Montepulciano, you must visit the Mamma in the pearls and white apron at Osteria del Conte, at the top of the Piazza Grande.

Tongues dancing, we headed back out into the rain on our errand-of-the-day: to find Signor Mazzetti. Everyone knows that if you want to buy a copper pan, you go to Mazzetti. You spend more than you'd planned, but you buy a history, a piece of art, and the most beautifully hand-crafted copper you can possibly imagine. I have, I admit, coveted his work for years, and I had decided the time had come to invest.

As luck would have it, he was in his workshop. I poked my head in the door, telling him cheerfully (in Italian) that I was surprised he was in - it being January and much of the town ghostly deserted, in vacations. He waved me in: "it's a work day," he shrugged his shoulders as if to say, 'of course I'm here.'

I explained that I was so happy ... that I had wanted for years to buy a pot from him, and I was ecstatic to find him in the workshop, because I wanted my friend to see it. I know the actual store is 2 streets down, but I love the workshop -- the 'patina of age' of it all. The craftsmanship.

That was all the invitation that he needed. He launched immediately into the story of his family's business, operating since 1857 - gesturing overhead to the copper pots his grandmother had cooked in. He showed us the hammers and the large anvils, and multiple large-scale design sketches he had worked with. Displayed proudly in his shop doorway is a photo of him presenting one of his works of art to the Pope, who commented, "you are such an artist". Mazzetti corrected him, "I am an artisan, not an artist. An artisan has a history behind him."

The next hour tripped by on copper-colored wings, with him showing off details of his work and telling us his family's story, while he hammered for us little personalized 'pensieri' - souvenir copper discs to take with us. He looked at Rosmarino's platinum hair and dark, flashing eyes and called her a panther, a tigress. He looked at me and told me that my face was shiny and smiling and that, with a face like that, it was clear that I must be in love. I blushed, actually.

After more than an hour of stories and photos and eager translation of questions and answers, the lament of an artisan in a dying craft ('the young people don't want to do this,' listening to the hammering and stamping of copper, we parted cheerfully and eagerly, off to the actual store, to see his wife about my coveted pan purchase.

It's a deep, double-handled copper pan, larger and deeper than an average skillet. It can fry sausage, bake a dutch baby, handle risottos, stews, oven-baked chicken, perfect pork chops, or pastas. It is beautiful, a pan I will own for the rest of my life and eventually hand down to the next generation, my neices or nephews. A century from now, I would hope that someone still remembers the story of how it was found. When Blogger loves me again, I will post pictures for you.

The first meal I made in my pan-of-a-lifetime was my grandmother's stew recipe. I think that would have made Cesare Mazzetti very happy, I know it felt like absolute culinary perfection to me.

Tonight, I am cooking a spicy sausage and golden raisin risotto. Signor Mazzetti's 'vortex of love' (how he described it when he met his wife) will live on, through relationships that matter, and simple food prepared lovingly in his pan.

You have 10 months. If you love cooking, put something from Mazzetti on your Christmas list; you won't be sorry.

PS: the risotto turned out less-than-spectacular. But I don't blame the pan: overly broth flavored. But we recovered and had sex-in-a-bowl olive oil popcorn for a second course - all's well that ends well.

It's not just about oranges.

Girls weekend out, Beatrice and Rosmarino and me. Kicking around in the fog and the windy country roads. On our to-do list: Shop for food for tomorrow night's party. Refill wine bottles. We were very busy.

On our way home, we stopped at the local restaurant. It was crazy early, 6pm, and though they were closed, their door was open, taking deliveries. Since it was a Saturday night, I wanted to make sure we could get a reservation.

As I shook off the cold, there was a small group of people standing at the desk talking to the manager. I hung back so as not to be intrusive.

"Aaaaah! Where have you been for so long?!" A man turns around and says to me, kissing me on both cheeks - the standard greeting.

I hope that I only feel (but do not look) briefly confused.

"I have looked for you, but you have never been at home."

"Aaah, yes, well ... I'm mysterious that way," I respond.

Somewhere during this brief exchange, I realize that the handsome bespectacled man with the sparkly smile speaking to me is the the fruit and vegetable man, who makes deliveries every other weekend in the area ... whose acquaintance I have made before.

We chat briefly, courteously: "did you have a good holiday?" "yes, me too."

Franco, the restaurant manager, greets me - I ask him about a table for 830, tell him we will see him later. As I go to leave, the a-ppealing (pun intended!) Fruit Man says to me ... 'come with me ... "

Out the door, he gestures to me and I follow him to to his open truck, sitting in front of the restaurant. As I walk past, I flash a smile at my girlfriends in the car ... (as had he before me, they informed me later).

He jumps up into the open back of the box truck, and grabs a plastic bag, putting in handfuls of the freshest and most beautiful of oranges and clementines that have come up from Calabria, in the south of Italy.

He tells me that he would love to offer me dinner sometime, when he is 'cleaned up' and not working. I laugh and gesture at my own sloppy hair and jeans and say that I have also been working today... and I respond enigmatically that I'm sure we will see each other around soon.

I smile brightly and am effervescent in my appreciation for the gift of fruit. I giggle a moment, as I have always been worried about getting scurvy. Today there is no danger.

I jump in the car, and the girls are already giggling at me. "I KNEW you were working some sort of magic!," exclaims Rosmarino

"I think I just got us dinner, breakfast AND a date," I joke in reply.

"I was just asking Beatrice what it says on the side of his truck...", says Rosmarino

The response became the punchline for the evening ...

"it says he has a good salami".

I may never see him again, but we're still sitting here laughing.
Damn, the girl's still got it.

So many stories

I know, I know. It's been a few days. I'm sorry. Trust me that even in the hustle of the first week of the year, there are stories backed up against stories in my brain, all clamoring to be told to you: Christmas day lunch at Il Cavalieres! Wine Tasting with the Cutest Farmboy In all of Tuscany! The Befana - the 'witch of the epiphany' who brings stockings for all the boys and girls on 6 January, officially ending the holiday season ....

but, alas, they are all photo-stories. And for reasons totally bewildering to my technological peabrain, for DAYS now, cranky Blogger website does not want to accept my photos. So, for now, I must regale you with the only non-illustrated story I have:

The Efficiency of the Italian Medical System.

(I don't blame you if you've just clicked over to someone more interesting, really.)

Actually, though - last week was a FASCINATING experience. Without making this into the 'blog sharing too much information about my medical woes,' let it suffice to say that I had no other choice than to go to the Siena hospital last week.

I had called the doctors office and explained - in awkward Italian - my issue. The secretary said, "oh, no. For that, you need to go to the hospital. Let me transfer you." A woman at the hospital answered the phone and made an appointment for Friday at 930 am. I asked her where I should go. To the best of my understanding, she said, "Building Eight-Four? Floor Minus Five. Room Number 7."

Which I'm sure, to anyone who had BEEN to the hospital and spoke Italian, would have been crystal clear. I was in a fog. But I vowed to just set off early and get it figured out.

The Siena Hospital is HUGE. And you can't park anywhere remotely close to it, even if I knew where it was that I needed to be. (A small prayer of thanks sent up to the heavens that it was a sunny clear day.)

After wandering vaguely, quite of my own accord (nod to A.A.Milne!), I realized my error... It turns out that it's "LOTTO four" - which I guess means, Lot 4, which I had interpreted as L'otto four -- meaning The Eight Four. And LOT four means, apparently, building four. So, okay. Building four. I'm in. Elevator, Floor Minus Five. And I see a sign marked 'secretary' for the department - so I go in, to make sure I'm somehow in the right place. Indeed! All I have to do is sit outside door number seven, and at my appointed hour, magically, they will call my name.

And they Do! And I enter! And it's a closet-sized room (think, dental exam room). With three people - a Dr. and two nurses - already inside, the Doctor sitting at the computer.

"Where is your request?" (they ask).
"Pardon? My what?"
"Your request" (waving a red form at me.)
"Oh, I'm sorry - I don't have one. I'm a foreigner with private health insurance, not the state system." (hoping that makes it all better.)
"But how did you make your appointment?"
"I called???"
"Well, we'll do the exam the same, either way. Take off your clothes."

(no pleasantries, no inquiry about what SPECIFICALLY I was there for, no polite - "go ahead and get undressed and I'll discreetly leave the room, the dr. will be with you shortly". Just - "take off your clothes, now, and make it quick, this system runs on time...")

And so, I disrobe in front of them quickly. And while I'm laying on the exam table, the Dr. begins the exam, and the nurses are barking questions at me: "Birthdate? City? Local address here? Family history of problems? Any medications? Last menstrual period?"

(THAT one threw me for a loop and sent me into a giggle fit. I didn't know the word for 'menstruate' in Italian. So the nurses asked the Dr. to translate into English. He didn't know the word in English, so he started to explain it to me, and then ... PANTOMIMED to be certain I understood. Oh, the hysteria of it ...!!!) Then he made idle chatter about how he had family in San Diego, he had been there once for a month.

Exam over, not 10 minutes. Despite the speed, the doctor was kind, spoke slowly, patient, reassuring, explanatory. Everything I've ever wanted in a doctor. I got dressed as he returned to the tiny desk with his computer and printer. He printed a copy of my ultrasound photo, printed a page with a descriptive diagnosis, signed it all with a flourish, and it was packaged into an envelope for me. And he handed me a red form and a 'questionnaire for foreigners'.

"Go with her to the payment booth, to make sure it's okay" he instructs the nurse.

At the payment booth in the hallway (something like a tollbooth, with the teller behind bulletproof glass), after waiting in line behind three people, I am told I need to go to the office of foreigners, floor minus one.

But when I get to floor minus one, there is nothing. I ask a secretary there. She has no idea. I retrace my steps to the tollbooth and say I must not have understood. She says, as if I am mentally retarded: 'It's the big ticket payment place! At the entrance! Near there! Go to floor Zero, Follow the orange line."

(I would like it noted for clarity that the previous directions I got were 'floor minus one' and said nothing about ORANGE LINE)

Elevator: Floor Zero. Sure enough, there's an orange line painted on the floor. Following it leads me through a rabbit warren of TWO AND A HALF BUILDINGS, down hallways, across suspended walkways. It ends at a door. I go through the door, and ask the first kind-looking woman I come across, "Foreigners' Office? A woman named Sabrina? Can you help me?"

Oh, yes. (bless her!) She takes me down a set of dark stairs. Past a bank of 10 bank-teller windows with digitized numbers flashing above them and a crowd of people clamoring waiting to win their turn at the bulletproof glass. We go out the door, into an underground tunnel/parking lot, and around the corner where there is a glass doorway with closed blinds and a tiny buzzer marked 'Ufficio Stranieri'.

She pushes the buzzer, and we're in. Down another 2 hallways, where the fabled Sabrina sits in a four-desk shared office the size of my tiny kitchen.

I wait 5 minutes for Sabrina to get off the phone. She looks at my papers, and says, "I don't know why they sent you here, you just need to pay."

"Okay, where do I pay?"

"Just outside the door, the ticket windows".

Aaah, YES. The DMV-come-inefficient bakery system. With easily 70 people crammed into a glorified hallway waiting for their Keno-esque numbers to be called, for the privilege of paying their medical bills.

I sigh deeply, and push the button to generate my automated number. A laser-printed ticket tells me I am 589.

I look up at the call board: We are on 542.

oh, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

My crowd-hating self in enclosed spaces is already starting to itch. I have my diagnosis, my reassurance, in my hand. (YES, this is the third time I've debated just walking away - what would they do to me?!?!?! How would they find me??)

I cannot stand here for an hour waiting to pay my bill.

So I take a deep breath. Retrace, as if by feel, my steps two-and-a-half-buildings away, back to the original tollbooth, where I had seen her collecting red forms and money.

I wait in line, still three people long, but better than 40! There is a prominent sign on the tollbooth - "THE OPERATOR WILL TAKE A MANDATORY 15 MINUTE BREAK DURING OPENING HOURS". (and I'm *sure* that it will come to pass, just as I step up to the window, she will close for break, perhaps out of spite.)

Which would have made the story funnier - but, no coffee break. I tell her that I hadn't actually *needed* to go to Sabrina in the Ufficio Stranieri, and she had sent me back to pay. She is nonplussed. She punches my red form magically into the system, and ... voila ... a bill for 54.75 Euros. I pay in cash. She prints and signs the receipt with a stamp and a flourish (flourish abounds here.)

SUM TOTAL OF MY (hopefully one and only) ITALIAN HOSPITAL EXPERIENCE:
Exam time: 10 minutes.
Miles walked: easily 2.
Number of times I was going to just bail out and leave: 4
Number of times I wondered why I'm so compliant: 3
Time spent waiting in payment or question lines: easily 45 minutes. Could have been doubled if I had actually stayed in the "ticket window" system like a good sheep. I've decided that Italians aren't lazy or patient - they're just -- resigned that 'this is how it is'. At the end, I fought the urge to follow the orange line back over to the mystery ticket windows and tell them all that the tollbooth in Building Four, Floor Minus Five, had no wait - like Elliot in the movie E.T. with the frogs he released --- "ESCAPE! Go Now!!"
Clean bills of health: 1: Reassuring. Priceless.

Just one

I had given a lot of thought to the idea of making resolutions this year, and decided against it.

Resolutions can get overwhelming, too many intentions and not enough action. Recycle more! Be more patient! Go to the gym! Call my grandparents more often! Leap, the net will appear! This year, maybe it can be enough to live every day as if it were the last. Asking about everything - "do it now, what are you waiting for?" ... or, "is that really so important"? It seems like all those other resolutions and intentions would work themselves out if I really truly valued each day like that. That was the spirit with which "if not now, when?" became my motto, many years ago, and it is truer than ever today.

And yet, as I sat late last night (well, okay ... early this morning) with champagne-induced tears streaming down my face - swallowing hard, reflecting on change and fear and putting one foot in front of the other, which is sometimes all we can do ...

I did make a resolution.
Just one.

It is a response to a wish from The Man of Many Nicknames - whose quiet, gentle voice calms me when I am anxious, encourages me when I am uncertain, challenges me to think, teases me when I am pouty. It was he who said to me softly, kindly: "I just wish more people could see the side of you that I know."

He's right: what I love most is that I am a better person with his influence, and ... more people should see that side of me. This year, I resolve to do just that.

Traditions

When we were kids, New Year's Day and Superbowl Sunday were the two days in the year that football was ALWAYS on in our house. That's not to say that it wasn't on at other times, but without fail - those two days it was the absolute center of activity.

Mom would magically produce a giant spread of enormously fattening food, including 'snippets' (buttery sesame toasted triangles of goodness), scoopy fritos with warm homemade chili cheese dip, sausage & cheese balls, spinach dip in a bread bowl ... and we would eschew any sort of proper meal for the day in favor of snacking our way through the spread. For two kids whose life revolved around the five fruits and vegetables a day and well-balanced meals eaten at a dining room table, these 'food-holidays' were eagerly anticipated, and I know as adults both my sister and I have carried those food traditions forward.

Dad, for his part, would spend the morning putting together a large grid on posterboard of 100 squares, a pool for the games. The board would get passed around, and we'd all initial our random boxes before the drawing of the numbers. Strategies varied - some spread out their initials deliberately, covering as much space as possible. Others flung caution to the wind, decorating more artistically the board with random initialing.

There would be a big flourish of drawing the random 0-9 numbers for the top and bottom, and which team got which side of the grid. The number-picking was always split evenly by the children. I'm sure there are five different ways to work football pools, but that was always the way our family did it. Prices were put on the squares (I vaguely remember it being $.25 when we were younger, and increasing to $1. as adults?) There was a smaller pot for the score at the end of the first three quarters, and a larger for the final.

Even if we didn't care a whit about who was playing, we'd all pick teams to cheer for in each of the games. None of us, in childhood or adulthood, had ties to a school that ever made it into one of the major bowl games ... (Hell, I graduated from a school that didn't even HAVE a football team!!) and so for those of us who didn't know a damn thing about football, decisions were made on totally arbitrary criteria: my friend went to college there! I've been to that town before! I like their mascot! Purple is my favorite color!

There are 365 days in a year, and yet some of my very happiest memories of my family's home were made during those two days a year.

I find myself spending New Year's Day 2007 in a country that thinks 'football' is soccer ... and where a good spicy bloody mary is hard to come by. So instead, I haul in more firewood, and use the first of the year to clean out stacks upon stacks of old files (why does the bank feel it necessary to send me a SEVEN PAGE STATEMENT every month for an account that has 200 Euros in it?!? Better yet, why did I feel obligated to keep them?!?!). I take advantage of the quiet to finish cleaning and storing the last batch of sun-dried fennel seeds that I harvested earlier in the fall. I cook lentils, even though I don't really like lentils, because lentils on New Years' Day is a good luck charm here. And I wear red underwear. (I'll take all the good luck I can get.)

But today, truth be told, I know that I would trade absolutely anything to just ... be curled up on a couch, watching the Rose Bowl game. And I'm not really even a that much of a football fan, but ... Hey, I have friends who went to Michigan!

Thought for 2007

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.” – Marian Wright Edelman