Monday, March 16, 2009

A Few Tidbits













Agnes Howard, co-professor with her husband Tal Howard, is an eager and generous teacher in all areas. Not only is she currently teaching the second half of Penn's history course, but she has informed me of the best wine bar in town and has already taught some of us several different traditional Italian recipes. Tonight she is also in charge of giving us a history of the order of nuns that occupy San Paolo. Last night a handful of us went to their apartment (though Tal is in the U.S. for a conference) and had some wine and appetizers with her and her kids. She made a white bean salad, a cauliflower, carrot and dill chop salad, a sun-dried tomato and olive oil dish and a sauteed eggplant and ricotta bruschetta. All the salads went on a round of bread and tasted great with a freshly opened bottle of wine. At the end of our time with her, she quickly showed us how to make homemade caramel and we dunked our fingers in for a quick treat before dinner.

Every Sunday night, a different group of students is in charge of cooking with Laura (R.A.) for everyone. Last night they made us Carbonara, which is quickly becoming my favorite dish here. It's the egg and bacon pasta, which sounds gross, but is done just right here in Italy. The eggs are not evident even when you know they're in there...somehow they just add tons of flavor and no weird texture or anything. We had a version of it at our restaurant the other day and I could have eaten pounds of it. Last night's version was slightly different, but still great with a little extra olive oil drizzled on it. This dinner was also serving as a combo birthday party for the February/October birthday people. Sharona made a delectable white cake with a Sydney Pollack frosting design. This was specifically for one of the program members who is trying to learn how to truly appreciate art in all forms. Who better to start with than Pollack? Baptism by fire. At any rate, it was gorgeous and tasted just as good as it looked.

Then we got wrangled into playing a silly concentration game by our resident aspiring Youth Minister (coincidentally the same person who needs lessons in art appreciation and one of the birthday people). There was a lot of arm flapping and silly noises, but everyone was getting the biggest a kick out of Penn's participation. He was dancing up a storm and making everyone lose concentration and get eliminated. He and our Director, Matt, were definitely the favorite participants. Both had very unique dance moves and hip-action.

Today we're finalizing our Sicily plans (if it's the last thing I do). We've decided to stay primarily in Taormina, per Uncle Steve's suggestion. We're red-eye training it there and flying back out of Palermo. It's been frustratingly tough to coordinate even just 5 of us going, but we're going to bite the bullet tonight and get it booked. If we can't get it together, we're just going to go all-out and run away to Ireland for St. Patty's...

7 comments:

  1. Gracie: You've got acting too deep in your blood. Sydney Pollack is the director who splashes actors all over the set... Jackson Pollack is the painter who splashes paint all over the canvas.

    Your blogs are starting to sound like an Anthony Bourdain soundtrack... but don't STOP! It has the makings of a cookbook you read in bed.

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  2. PS : Is that the Pope's hand? I can tell by his wedding ring.

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  3. Good food, good company, fun games...Grace's idea of a good night! Wish I could've seen Penn dancing!

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  4. When you guys get home and settled, ONE set of in-laws will be expecting regular invitations to sample marvelous "Cuisine Italiano". The other set of in-laws will be expecting refrigerated packages, sent FedEx Overnite.
    The closest I have ever been to seeing Penn dancing is when he is bowling on Wii...

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  5. Please tell me that Penn did the F2?

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  6. The best dancing I ever saw from Penn was a slow dance with Aaron. Aaron was singing "99 bottles of beer on the wall" like a valley girl, and Penn was talking like a pirate...or was that Grace? All I know for sure is that my husband and Penn were slow dancing. No joke! :)

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  7. Liz, Penn incorporated the F2 hip-action to keep beat in the concentration game. People couldn't believe their eyes.

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