A Fortnight Of Extremes

These past two weeks and some odd days have been the highest of highs and the lowest of lows that I've experienced in quite some time. One minute I am depressed or lonely or freaked out, and then my mentality can change in an instant and things have never seemed to exciting and blissful.

Yesterday I woke up sad and angry and confused, wondering what the hell I was doing here attempting to shower yet again without a shower curtain and peeved that my real estate agent thought I stole a knife from my previous apartment. What the hell? If I was going to steal anything from Italy, it would not be a knife. In any case, two hours later I ran into someone I knew, met a nice girl from Boise, Idaho, found a place with wireless internet connection, and made my very first Italian meal. Never been so elated in my life.

I suppose that every place I've lived, anywhere any of us have lived, we learn something. In LA I learned how to be alone from my family and become self-sufficient. In San Francisco I learned to love my own company, and how to entertain myself. (I also learned how to filet an entire salmon and what it's like to date an illegal alien, but those were peripheral really.) In New York I learned how to work towards a career goal, and I had my first serious heartbreak. I can only venture to guess what these next few months will teach me.

Last night I was feeling a bit blue when my older, wiser sister gave me a call. (Told you I'd put it in writing, Harte - WISER!)She was nice enough to realize that I needed to spill my guts to someone who was a native English speaker, and let me do so for the first 30 mintues. Straight. When we finally began a dialogue, she had some incredible insight. As many of you know, she spent a year living in Paris with my parents whilst applying to grad schools. She said she learned two things during those twelve months. 1) she became a patriot. 2) she realized that Los Angeles was her real home.

I can already relate to both of these things. I never realized how lucky, happy, proud I am to be American. Strange, considering who we have in office right now, but for the most part we are such a wealthy, healthy, powerful country. We're also incredibly paradoxical, but I'll get to that later.

Also, a few weeks before I moved here I discovered that my apartment building was going condo. I spent an entire Sunday looking at NY real estate with a friend who works for Corocoran, and at the time I was terrified of making such a commitment. Was I really ready to buy a place? In New York City? What if there was somewhere else I was destined to live? Living here, even though it's still fresh, has proven to me that I am a true Manhattanite (sorry Lia, Allison, etc. who are trying to persuade me to cross the east river - I'll never be a Brooklynite). This city is enchanting, seductive, and different. And they sure know how to make a mean cappuccino. But I know now that New York is my home.

Yesterday I had a very high high. After school I was determined to make dinner. Pasta all'Amatriciana is a Roman pasta consisting of the simplest ingredients (isn’t that the way the best food is made? Simply?): Pecorino, guanciale, tomatoes, and onions or garlic, depending on where you get the recipe. In an effort to feel like a true Italian, I decided to put my culinary degree to good use. I found a butcher that was open past 6pm in the Campo dei Fiori; incidentally, it was the same butcher where 30 years prior my mother got accidentally stabbed in the finger while pointing to a piece of bistecca. As the kindly butcher was slicing up the thick, white-and-red specked guanciale for me, he asked how much I needed. He seemed to read my mind because in Italian he asked me if it was for Amatriciana. When I told him indeed, it was, he asked if I knew how to make it. I told him (all in very rudimentary Italian, mind you) that I was going to try. He then asked how many people I was cooking for. Too embarassed to say one, I lied: 'For four.' As he cut and diced it he gave me the rundown of how he thinks one should cook the dish. Saute the guanciale until the fat is rendered out and it stanrts to turn crisp (imagine the best bacon you’ve ever had – on crack – and you get a sense of how smoky and fatty and delicious a cured pig’s jowl is). Add some diced red onion and let it caramelise for a while in the bacon fat. Despite the fact that my arteries were clogging as he spoke, I let him continue. If I understood correctly, I then had to deglaze the pan with a bit of red wine and add a can of tomatoes. After stewing that entire thick mixture together for at least 10 minutes, then the pasta could be added. It should be noted, however, that the pasta should be dried, not fresh, as the fresh pasta would never be able to hold up to such a heavy sauce.

Call me crazy, but the last time I went to Food Emporium in Union Square they had neither a) guanciale, or b) a knowledgeable butcher willing to share a sacred family recipe.

From start to finish, save for a minor smoke alarm incident, the entire dish took me 30 minutes. The ingredients were basic, as was my understanding of the dish, but somehow it turned out amazing. The onions were slightly more than caramelized, but they had turned smoky sweet rather than bitter and burned. The guanciale added some serious depth of flavor, giving a saltiness and smokiness that would have taken other meats months to cultivate on their own. The tinned tomatoes here are sweeter, fresher, and fruitier than any fresh ones I've had in the states, and the tart splash of red wine brought everything together. I was going to use whole grain penne, but it occurred to me that it may be sacrilege to do so here in Italy, so I stuck to the basic semolina. It was delicious and fulfilling and rewarding, like all good home-cooking experiences should be, and I was proud that I'd done it all by myself. When was the last time I cooked in NY? The people at Mizu Sushi know me better than my own family. They're on speed dial. I'm dead serious.

I find it amazing that Americans work work work as hard as they do, often coming home way past 8pm and rising at 6am, and yet we are comparatively a lazy lot. The modern conveniences of laundry, taxis, TiVo, drugstores, etc. have allowed us to adapt to a nice, pre-packaged, hygienically-wrapped existence. Gone are the days of chatting with your local pharmacist, getting recipes from the local butcher, and going for a walk with the family after dinner. While it drives me crazy that washing my clothes can take up to 90 minutes here, and there are no dryers anywhere, I appreciate that these people don't spend their lives trying to think of ways to make their lives easier. So while there are many things I miss from home, I finally understand that sometimes in life it’s important to stop and smell the pork jowl.

Tonight after school I sat at an outdoor cafe with wireless access. I sipped red wine under a tree next to a wall that dated to b.c.e. and chatted with the proprietors. Sure, my internet kept going in and out and I was unable to get any real work done, but I had tons of fun just being there. So I guess lesson number three, insofar, is to just be. To just enjoy the little things and not worry about getting everything done in a timely manner. Things will get done, they always do. And if they don't, they probably weren't that important to begin with.

A little apology to the people I was IMing with earlier; as I said above, I kept getting kicked off and this internet cafe I'm now in doesn't allow IM access. Also, some of you have requested an address for me. Please send all fan mail, love letters, marriage proposals, and birthday gifts (hint, hint) to:

Scuola Leonardo
Attn: Alexandra Chaden
Piazza dell'Orologio, 7
00186 ROMA
ITALY