Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

The Inner Italian Q & A: Piero Antuono

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One in an occasional series of interviews–with wannabe Italians or expatriate Italians–who try to “live Italian” wherever they are.

antuono

I was born and grew up in the shadow of the Duomo in Florence until, at the age of 30, I was imported to Wisconsin as a souvenir by my American wife, who was living in Florence. I remember seeing her one day crossing Piazza Santa Croce and thinking she was the cutest girl ever–and I still do. So here I am in Milwaukee. Next year will mark my 30th in the U.S. which means I’ve had three decades of training and working on the “bella vita.”

La vita é bella? Yes of course la vita é sempre bella,  but one needs to work at it and make sure that every day there are reasons to feel that the “…vita é veramante bella…” I think one needs to know how to pause (. . . in your head at least if you cannot otherwise) and appreciate the small things that bring Italy closer. Things which remind me I am not that far anyway, things which allow me to detach, disengage, slow down.  It can be a caffé at the right time, a quick call to a friend, reading the news or listening to radio from Italy. Working at a university, travel is something which happens and I make sure it happens enough so I can visit Italy and reset my system. The most important things are not things at all, but rather a state of mind.

Q: Living “Italian”. . . Is it a good lifestyle or the best lifestyle?

A: I do not think it is a good life style (living “Italian” in Italy is stressful.) I do not think it is the best one (I am sure there are healthier ones.)  I think it is the only one.

Q: Why?

A: Because to vivere “Italian” implies (as for other Mediterranean societies) many social interactions during the day. These casual extemporaneous connections–some good,  some bad–are the condiments that add some spice to life. Even superficial chats with strangers at the bus stop, at the newsstand, or at the market are opportunities to give an “emotional valence” to what would be otherwise  routine. Sharing personal stories and family problems with friends, colleagues, and neighbors is a way of lessening the burden. After all, the word privacy in Italian does not exist.

Q: What does “living Italian” in the U.S. mean to you?

A: Being able to switch. Switching from living the U.S. life in the U.S. to the Italian life in the U.S. and to the Italian life in Italy.  Accepting that change is inevitable after so many years in the U.S.  Switching can last seconds or days. The secret is to switch without becoming schizophrenic. Feeling out of place or misplaced sometimes is okay.

Q: What nurtures your Inner Italian?

A: Being able to talk on subjects with Italian friends without being considered critical, offensive, politically incorrect, crude, rude, or insensitive because of the different cultural values.

Q: What Italian movie, or movie set in Italy, do you most like? Why?

A: Tea with Mussolini. Possibly not a great film, but my mother had a small part in it at 82 years of age. The plot was reminiscent of her life in many ways.

Q: If you could live in one place in Italy for the rest of your life, where would it be and why?

A: Anywhere where olive trees grow.

Q: Last Italian meal. . .what would it be?

A: The company would be the most important ingredient of the meal. The setting would be the second. The food would be the third. And if I could do the cooking with my friends, I would be in heaven already.

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How do you nurture your Inner Italian? Share your comments.

Tuscany in Texas?

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I sniffed to myself when I scanned this morning’s Wall Street Journal “Relative Values” real estate column. A 3,700-square-foot house resembling a casa colonica with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and one powder room on 60 acres-in a development called the Vineyard at Florence-is listed for $5.5 million. “Hah,” said I, “if I had 5-and-a-half mil, I’d high tail it to Tuscany, not the Texas hill country.”

Since the aforementioned assets are not even a blip on my radar screen, I took a free trip to The Vineyard at Florence. Gorgeous scenery, fabulous amenities, 30 acres planted in vines  . . . what’s not to like?

The site explains that the developers are The Dionysus Group, LLLP, comprised of “members who share a desire to combine the best elements of life-community, exceptional living, natural beauty and wine.”

Guess they’re nurturing their Inner Italian-just like I am . . . albeit with much better funding.

Buon Giorno, Sole

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yogaGet in touch with your Inner Italian — practice yoga.

“Now we’ll prepare for Surya Namaskara. . . Sun Salutations. . .Buon Giorno Sole,”  says my yoga teacher Tina. While most yoga students would recognize the Sanskrit and English terms for this classic series of warming-up poses, this Italian nickname “Good Day, Sun” would surely elicit puzzled expressions. Tina, who could easily qualify for title of “the sweetest woman in the world,” is humoring me with the “Buon Giorno Sole” and we smile at the reference. She’s heard my story about Italy and yoga.

As with so many good things in my life, I have Italy to thank for yoga. I had been curious about it for many years but was always just a bit too busy to go to the effort to learn more.

Then, several years ago on a research trip to Italy, I stayed for a few weeks in Rome with Anna, a delightful mother of three who was, of all things, a yoga teacher. She spent hours in the bedroom working on her lesson plans and traveled up to Florence once a week to study for her certification.

I was intrigued. It seemed so exotic to me that Italians could be into yoga. From my unenlightened perspective, the two seemed worlds apart-Italy the epitome of sensuality and yoga the height of asceticism. But as my visit ran its course, yoga people kept presenting themselves quite unannounced. Iris, a charming and knowledgeable arts and culinary guide, mentioned how restorative her Iyengar practice was. And Jo, an author and cooking teacher, shared that she and her husband of many years practiced yoga with a teacher who came several times a week to their grand old apartment in the heart of Rome.

Wow. Good things do come in threes. Meeting this trio of beautiful, talented, vibrant women was my invitation to enter this ancient practice of unifying body and mind, the sensual and the ascetic. These days, practicing yoga helps me to be calm and centered, living fully in the moment, savoring all that comes my way. Come to think of it, that’s a very Italian way to live.

What activities help you stay in touch with your Inner Italian? Leave a Comment and share.

Say Ciao to Your Inner Italian

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Dolce fa niente…it’s sweet to do nothing.

Dolce fa niente…it’s sweet to do nothing.

Envying the simple, yet rich, life in Italy is nothing new. Shakespeare, who understood that location is the thing, set All’s Well That Ends Well, Much Ado About Nothing and many of his plays in this luminous land.

Five hundred years later, the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun” defined the dream for millions in the new millennium. The adaptation of American Frances Mayes’ best-selling memoir begat caravans of tour buses chugging up and down Tuscan hills. The pilgrims fantasize about  life in Cortona, Montepulciano, or San Gimignano populated with flirtatious dark-eyed shopkeepers, sunflowers by the armload, and languid afternoons at a caffè. There are no sick kids, overdue bills, cold rainy days, PMS, or arguments with your partner.

The allure of this ideal is quite simply irresistible-even to natives. My Roman friend Anna, who comes from an aristocratic family in Emilia-Romagna (and, from my perspective, has a pretty enviable life) was even given a translated copy of Under the Tuscan Sun by her mother!

The bad news about this fantasia all’italiana is that few Americans, Italians, or anybody else for that matter, can afford an ancient stone house like Bramasole. Fixer-uppers start at three-quarters of a million dollars. The good news is that imaginary Italian real estate is free. [Read more…]

Hunting for Porcini

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Dried porcini are easy to reconstitute and add intense mushroom flavor to many dishes.

Dried porcini are easy to reconstitute and add intense mushroom flavor to many dishes.

My youthful encounters with wild mushrooms did little to prepare me for Italian porcini. The fungus of my childhood is the puffball (Calvatia gigantea). Every year at summer’s end, dozens of these absurd orbs ballooned in the grass of our front yard in central Pennsylvania. My dad picked piles of puffballs and proudly lugged them into the kitchen, where my mom sliced and seasoned them, dipped them in flour, and hauled out a cast-iron skillet to fry them in homemade lard. Thank goodness for the pork fat. If those puffballs had any flavor, they were keeping it to themselves.

Years later, I tasted fresh porcini (pronounced pohr-CHEE-nee) and my appreciation of wild mushrooms was drastically, permanently upgraded. It was autumn at a country restaurant in Tuscany. The cook cleaned one just-picked fungo porcino, removed its stem, drizzled the saucer-sized taupe cap with fruity extra-virgin olive oil, seasoned it with salt and the wild herb nepitella, and grilled it over a wood fire. He served the mushroom alone on a plate, which made it seem really special.

I bit into the juicy flesh. It tasted like meat from the earth—complex, rich, and woodsy. The body was substantial yet tender. Truly this was a mushroom so exciting, it deserved to be called wild.

[Read more…]

In Italy, Wine Is Food

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Brunello di Montalcino

Brunello di Montalcino

By Walter Sanders

Spend time in Italy, anywhere in Italy, and you’ll soon see that wine plays an integral role in Italian life.

It is poured at lunch and dinner. You may occasionally see a morning cappuccino being chased with a glass of delicate vin santo. Wine is enjoyed as a pick-me-up at bars and cafes during work breaks. Parents, good parents, even offer it, cut with mineral water or soft drinks, to their children to accompany a meal.

I now perceive wine in Italy as a food. No, even more. Remember the food groups pyramid? Italians would probably name wine as a food group and put it near the base, just above grains.

Chiaro o Scuro?

Perhaps no institution better depicts the integration of wine into Italian life than the vini. The word means wines, but I’m referring to the vest-pocket shops that sell wine and snacks.

The vini are informal gathering places. They provide an opportunity to linger and visit with old friends or stop for a quick snack and a nourishing sip of wine. All in all, vini are a time-honored and textured way to touch the pulse of Italy.

My favorite vini are the Florentine hole-in-the-wall shops. They show up every couple of blocks and are often so unobtrusive that, save for the customers milling in front, you could walk right past them.

The vini present an austere, chest-high wooden counter. On one side of the counter is an assortment of crostini: pieces of toasted bread slathered with cooked chicken liver, stacked with salami or prosciutto, or spiked with tuna, onions, olive oil, and pepper. At the other side of the counter is a tower of sturdy glass gotti, oversized shot glasses. No fancy stemmed glassware here; these beauties are heavy-duty. Wine in a gotto may be savored sip by sip or gulped to wash down a quick crostino.

Behind the counter is a narrow bin, filled with wine bottles attended to by the ruddy-faced proprietors. No matter which vini I recall, the proprietors are brothers. You can tell they are brothers by their facial similarities, but they are identical twins in their passion for wine.

And behind the brothers: a steep, creaking stairway down to a grotto where the liquid inventory is stored.

The vini serve an array of patrons. The old-timers belly up to the counter and grunt their preference. For these veterans, it is not a matter of a particular vintage, grower, or grape type. A simple scuro or chiaro suffices. Scuro, which means dark, is Florentine slang for vino rosso, red wine. Chiaro means clear or light, code for vino bianco, white wine. I don’t see these boys drinking much chiaro.

Other customers are a bit more discriminating, but no less appreciative. They inquire as to what is available. Some even seek recommendations.

Whatever the level of engagement, the proprietors meet it: civil, knowledgeable, but never overbearing.

On a hot summer afternoon during a recent visit to Florence, I stopped at one of my favorite vini near Piazza Signoria. I spotted the familiar knot of patrons: the old-timers, the business types in their suits, some young couples, even a few savvy tourists.

I worked my way up to the counter, fully expecting to greet the old brothers I remembered from the last time I had been here.

Much to my amazement, the old vini was now staffed by a pair of young gentlemen with fresh complexions and quietly efficient manners.

You could tell they were brothers by their facial similarities, but they were identical twins in their passion for wine.

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Salute!