Bird out of the Cage

Friday, March 18, 2011

"I've been demoted to a cutter!" -Janise, Marilena's Kitchen, Roma

Oh my goodness! I've forgotten how nice a "real," luxuriously clean, beautifully whatever temperature I want, for however long I want shower is. mmm :) So, so good. And the pleasant way to put a serene smile on my face. Perfection.

While I showered I had Janise head off to an adorably quaint little market that was through a beautiful courtyard full of orange trees, out a secret garden like, visibly antique, rod iron gateway crawling with luciously green vines, down or might I say up a whimsical cobble stone passageway lined with unique shops that lead up toward those steep steep stairs that at this time of day and given the weather conditions looked as though they just went on eternally as they disappeared into the dense, low hanging blanket of clouds that lay so thick they may just have been the actual stairway to heaven...but then again, I'm already in Heaven, right?

Breakfast: Hand picked wild strawberries, bananas, bread with that sung the song of fresh baked when crunched and pulled apart and makes you want to lick your finger and dab up every last crumb, incredible (and my new obsession) apricot jam, and of course my European lifeline: Nutella. Divine? Yes. There is no better word.

We descended from our 5 diamond accommodations, paid Christian, said our goodbyes, took the last pictures of paradise, and headed up those stairs to our favorite bus stop and off to Roma--la mia casa Italiana. Oh Roma!

This trip was via Napoli of course and I made sure when planning out our route back that we would have a layover there. I had a special treat up my sleeve for Janise. Upon my arrival to Italy my first time around I remember, with great detail, my first ever experience with Shwarma. I've been hooked ever since. And for the past two and a half years my senses have been tantalized by one of my best friend's descriptions of "the best Shwarma in the world." Unfortunately, for all our other friends back in the states, the hopes of ever trying such unprecidented perfection were as likely as their plans of ever traveling around Europe...sadly slim. You see this masterful creation happened to be in the far of land of Italy, in a little town called Napoli. Luckily for Janise and I we not only were heading straight there, BUT I had some pretty decent directions on how to find the original "Shwarma Shack." We went, we explored, I took a chance on a little alleyway which lead us the back way up just the street that we should be on, and in a moment of near desperation given the wanning time, stepped into the actually shop our director intended us to find. We hurried and purchased and literally ran back to the station in just the nick of time to step onto our train.

We each enjoyed the imfamous shwarma throughout the train ride back and yes, it was as incredible as described and not only blew my previous experience with shwarma out of the water, but I fear, as is the case for my dear friend, that my taste buds will never again be satisfied by any other shwarma. A stiff price to pay but totally worth it. It was a party in my mouth! I also skyped on the way back and confirmed our dinner arrangements. Done and done. Ristorante Marilena e Fabrizio Part 2: The Gnocchi Lesson.

I don't know if I mentioned this in my last post about dinner at Marilena's, but a good portion of the conversation that evening was spent discussing all the future cooking lessons we were going to have. I'm sure you're all thinking about how impossible that would be...me in California, Babak all over the place, Janise in Alaska or Seattle or on some island off the coast of Washington, Megan soon to be heading back to Rupert, ID, and then of course the Master Chef and her faithful sidekick, Marilena and Fabrizio in Roma. Oh, don't worry we got that all worked out real quick like...drum roll please...dun dun dun! Skype. Duh! We started scheduling our little lessons out right then, and once that started so did the cuisine request shout outs. Gnocchi top the charts and so tonight was the night. Oh my amazing!

Once again the Lord totally played that video game just right and Megan walked up right as I was turning down Marilena's street and after we grabbed some flowers and stopped off at a little pasticceria (pastry shop) around the corner, we arrived at their door just as they pulled up smiling, waving, laughing, and cheering loudly in Italian, seemingly having forgotten their motor scooter was stilling humming. It all just added to the beautiful sounds of a bustling Roman Friday evening. We couldn't really hear anything but the body language was clearly,

"I'm so excited you made it! I'm so sorry we're late!"

We headed up stairs, rolled up our sleeves, well, Marilena practically rolled them up for us shortly after helping us take off our coats, hanging our bags, shuffling us ALL into the kitchen, and starting to rattle off directions for each of us--love that woman--and..."hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go!"

Making gnocchi really isn't that difficult, what it is is totally time consuming and slightly manual labor :), well, at least my first assignment was. Ho-ly! I mean, I know I'm a soccer player and therefore lacking in the upper arm or I guess hand strength BUT really really? The potatoes were all cooked and ready to go. I started peeling and then Marilena pointed to a funny little contraption, one of which I totally want now, and the race began. Megan took over peeling and it was my duty to smash them as closely to rate of which she peeled...ha. ha. ha. Let's see if I can shed some light on this little thingy...oooh!!! Ok! So I'm assuming most of my readers have played with play-doh at some point in time in their lives, well, there's always a tool that you could put a ball of play-doh into and it would have a little lid that would cover it with a little handle and it would just send us all giggling to oblivion as you'd push down and the play-doh would slowly ooze out the bottom which was full of little holes. The result was spaghetti-like strands or strings of play-doh. At that time we would usually use it as fake pasta or hair for the little person we were creating. But on this magnificent evening this tool combine with potatoes led us to a brilliantly simple yet delectable fine dining experience.

I made it through about 90% of the potatoes before my forearms and hands just couldn't do it anymore and I passed the task onto the fabulously strong Megan. From there we took the mass of spaghetti noodled potatoes and placed it on the table and added flour and a little water (and a pinch of salt for those that want). We pretty much just eye-balled it, kneaded it up, and were left with the perfect mound of "dough" if you will, ready to be played with. The next assignments were dividing out the mound, rolling out each section into real long quarter of an inch thick snakes, cutting each snake up into inch length segments, and then...and oh was this a trial at first for all of us who tried, the ever elusive two finger roll down the cheese grater (fine grate) for design, texture, and forming into the tradition gnocchi shape.

To start, I rolled and cut with Ali at my opposite doing the same. Marilena then set to the task of instructing Megan and Janise on the finger rolling of the dough as well as the perfect placement on the cook-prep cloth which laid across the entire counter to our side--after rolled you don't want them to touch because they'll stick to eachother. Oh how I love Marilena. So much patience. Such a funny way of showing it :). Megan picked up on it by the time I had finished cutting up my first section, but Janise, oh poor Janise...actually, I don't know if it's "poor Janise" or "poor Marilena," all I know is that I don't know if any of us have ever laughed so hard! Marilena honestly just could not fathom how hard it was for Janise to "master" this art. And Janise, bless her heart, she tried soooooo hard and with a smile the entire time. I think it was probably a good thing that we had already spent a couple days with Marilena by this point so we knew that despite the volume of her voice rapidly increasing and her spontaneous aggressive outbursts of movement and words coupled with some beautifully good old fashion Italian mannerisms as she'd grab the cheese grate right out of Megan or Janise's hands to try for the 5 billionth time (or so it seemed to her) to show Janise just how it's done, often times even grabbing each of her hands herself and trying to work her through the proper movement, that she really wasn't "mad" per say, just really enthusiastic in her demonstration and persistent desire for her to "get it." bahahahahahaha!!!! Janise was such a good sport, and the rest of us all did everything we could to try and stay productive and precise in our assigned tasks so as not to draw any attention to our peripheral glances, uncontrollable raised eyebrows, and cheeks flushing with the strain of trying to not only keep a straight-ish face, but also keep the eruptions into ab workout laughter to a minimum. Eventually, Marilena took the knife from me, hand it off to Janise and I was set to the task of rolling gnocchi...

I must admit it took me a few times, and I likewise drew the unsatisfied attention of my dear Master Chef, but eventually I think I really got the hang of it. I even got a couple of loud applauses and cheerful kitchen dances from Marilena in praise of a couple of my inch by half an inch pieces of texturized dough. Mostly probably because of her relief that it was almost done. :)

We each grabbed a corner of the cooking cloth and slowly poured the gnocchi into a steaming pot of water. From here we just waited for them to bob up to the surface then we'd scoop them into a strainer, bounce them over the sink until every last drop was gone (to the best of our ability...we gave that job to Fabrizio because that job got the most criticism and little temper tantrums of them all). We'd made the sauce simultaneously with the gnocchi making process as well as the stuffed egg plant course, so from here it was off to the table to enjoy, flour covered and all.

Let's just say we indulged the bulge. And the bulge hurt. I was pretty much at about a third trimester food baby by the time she allowed us to stop eating. Boy oh boy was I glad we didn't have a dance after party after all that. There was a fruit course and two dessert courses as well. Which reminds me, I really need to get the recipe for the one desserts she made--apparently it's how she won over Fabrizio, and after one bite we all understood why.

Over all I think it was an incredibly successful, fun filled, fulfilling evening. As they say about a good movie, we laughed, we cried, there was suspense, and there was joy. We went, we made, we ate, we loved, we learned, we lived. And oh how glorious it was!!!

We said near tearful goodbyes as well as plotted our next possible opportunities to squeeze in future encounters before Janise and I had to catch our train, plane, and automobile out of not only this majestically mystifying country, but out of this beloved continent.

The metro is under construction for a while so being that it was after 11pm we had to catch a bus back to Piazza Venezia and then walk home from there. The four of us left together and as soon as we hit the streets and were clearly out of sight or sound of our favorite Roma Mamma we all about doubled over on the street and had to stop a second and take a breather because of how stuffed we all were. We regain composure, all embraced, and waddled off in opposite directions.

Maybe for the first time in my life I was actually on the verge of sharing my dinner with the sidewalk while we waited for the bus. Gratefully my stomach decided it wanted to keep it all to itself. I am shocked and amazed to say that other than around Chinese New Year during my mission I don't think I have EVER eaten so much food in my life! Oh but it was soooo good :)

We made it back safely and stayed up a few more hours catching up with Sepideh and the girls, skyping, chatting, emailing, calling, and me, blogging about the past week's adventures.

Roma is not over for me yet so I didn't have to say goodbye...but who am I kidding...at the rate I'm going, despite it being round two for me here, I don't believe you can ever take Roma out of this girl's heart. Part of me just is completely at home here...

...maybe I've been doing some research about moving and living here for an extended period of time...

...ah, time. Only it truly knows what my future holds.

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