Tag Italian

What Do You Think?

Michael 3 Comments

For the last two weeks I’ve been torturing myself. It started innocently enough with me making a shot of espresso. No, the espresso isn’t torturing me. I don’t make the best espresso but I’ve yet to poison myself or do permanent damage to my remaining insides. No that wasn’t it. What it was was the label. It taunted me into thinking in Italian. Or rather, trying to think in Italian.

I’ve heard the true mark of fluency is thinking the language you are speaking. Thinking in your native language, transposing to the interpreted language, then speaking (or hearing in the interpreted language, transposing, then understanding) works, but you miss the nuances that make any language magical. In its language of course. Now this is all theoretical because I haven’t thought in Italian in well over 50 years. And frankly, back then I wasn’t so good at it. Back then I wasn’t so good thinking in English!

So why the sudden thought to think in some language other than that in which over 100% of my conversations occur? (For the math wizards, I’m including those conversations in dreams.) It was that darn label. Medaglia d’Oro. All together now, Gold Medal. Even those without a non-food Italian word in their vocabulary can think that one through, with or without mental transpositioning. Clearly it’s all the general anesthesia I’ve been given lately that convinced me I could speak Italian again.

Okay, “again” is relative. The last time I really knew as sure as I could what people were saying when they were saying it in that language was 1963. ish. That’s when my grandma, my mother’s mother, the last of the nonne e nonni, passed away. And with her passed the custom of speaking Italian in the house but only English outside. Which was really good advice for even though the little town I grew up in was heavily populated with first generation Italians, the were from a variety of villages from 3 separate regions, each with its own dialect that could be almost as foreign as English. Thus English was the natural language to speak outside the home (imagine that) but Italian was fine for family conversations. As my generation entered school, English became the full time language taking a break only at large family gatherings on Sundays and holidays.

About 10 years ago I had a grand idea of refreshing my familial language and enrolled in “Italians for Tourists” at the local community college. It seemed to fit since there was also the possibility of a Mediterranean wine cruise and I thought it might be nice to be able to understand what was going on in at least one country’s vineyards. Well, that was a waste of $37!

With that failed experiment on my language resume it’s no wonder the last two weeks have been torture. I’ve finally come to realize that linguistic thinking, like playing nice with others, is learned easily in our youths but fades quickly when not in constant use. I think I’ll stop trying to think in Italian. And I’ll think it in English!

As for playing nice with others. That’s something I can keep working on in any language.

20190812_122423

Food Fight

Michael 2 Comments

I was making the morning coffee the other day and took a moment to bask in the aroma wafting through the apartment. It made me appreciate the small space as just the right size that it can distribute something so aromatic to every corner of my little world. Of course there is the converse that small space dwellers must also consider. Quite fortunately, not nearly as often as the good stuff. That’s when I started thinking, I really have to remember I’m retired. I don’t have to think anymore. But then…

I like the smell of coffee. Coffee beans, coffee roasting, coffee grinding, coffee brewing. But I know that not everybody likes it. I don’t understand it, but I know it. What makes that happen? It’s the same smell. Why does one person like it and one doesn’t? Or in the case of coffee, why do 7 billion people like it and, assuming that about 500 million haven’t had the pleasure of smelling it yet, 23 don’t. And while we’re at it, what makes cilantro taste earthy and sharp to some, bright and citrus-y to others, and like soap to still more? Then I started thinking more…

I was out of cilantro. I needed cilantro because I was planning on using up some leftover chicken in a stir fry that evening and I always (ok, almost always) use cilantro in my stir fries. If you toss in some peanut butter it gives it a Thai flair. To me. I think so. I don’t know what someone from Bangkok would think of it. No need to get started thinking more. But then…

Thai has gotten very popular around here. Maybe elsewhere Thai food has always been popular, but here? Not so much. Now? Oh, yeah. You can’t swing a leftover chicken around without hitting a Thai restaurant. Before, if you wanted take-out it used to be nothing but Chinese, sandwiches, and pizza. And then I was wondering how close to real is the Thai take-out? How close is the Chinese? For that matter, how close are the sandwiches? OK, maybe too far with that one. But what about the pizza? I never doubted pizza before. I know that most of the pizza isn’t anything at all like real pizza because most of it isn’t at all close to my pizza. But then, I wouldn’t have expected it because very few of the pizza masters were of the same Neapolitan background as my mother, AKA my pizza master. You’d think I would stop there but no. Forget about the pizza palaces, I can only think of one authentic full service Italian restaurant nearby. Probably for the same reason and even there I could have stopped but I was on a roll. And I don’t mean a pepperoni roll. What was I thinking…

Pepperoni roll my eye. That’s nothing but a Stromboli. Not a calzone! A calzone is pizza dough covered with mozzarella, folded in half, baked, and if you wish lightly sauced by the lucky person who gets to eat it right out of the oven. I know. Calzones originated in Naples. The Stromboli is just a pizza with whatever toppings you want, like pepperoni, but rolled up. People always get things wrong. Look at yams and sweet potatoes. Consider all the people who think peanuts are nuts. Still, those are completely different animals. You want a couple of things just as confused as the Stromboli and calzone, see il maccherone versus le macaron, or more familiarly the macaroon and macaron. But the people who do know the difference at least know how to pronounce each of them. Unlike… (yes, more thinking)

What is it with gnocchi? Nobody who is Italian, other than Italian celebrity chefs who don’t want to alienate their celebrity clientele, says “No-Key.” It’s “nyock-ee”!  It comes from the Italian word nocca, which means knuckle. (No, not knot. Knuckle. Just what it looks like. Wrinkles and all. Trust me.) And don’t ask for a plate of gnocchis. Gnocchi is plural. If you really want just one, order a gnoccho. But I bet you can’t eat just one. Anyway, if you forget, the boys of winter don’t play Ho-Key, they play hockey! And that got me to thinking…

I have to send in my payment for next year’s tickets. I gotta go!

(In case you were wondering, yes this is the famous sticky note post. Famous to me. I’ve been staring at that hunk of paper for over a week now. Thank Heaven I can throw the note away. Or do you say throw away the note. You know, I’ve been thinking about that…)