Back from the dead

It has been brought to my attention on more than one occasion, that I have been remiss at updating the Maura-in-Italy-weblog.  I have to admit, it is truly from my own speechlessness.  I have had so many adventures that it has been difficult to sit and assemble some sort of coherent chronicle to the different things that happen to me.  So fast forward 4 months from my last post, and I will try and pick up where I left off.

I remember back in my teenage years, when for me, true heaven was the dream of awaking in the Mediterranean sunshine, with the cypress kissed breezes blowing through my gauzey curtains.  I could picture so clearly the fresh, unsalted bread, the mounds of delicious butter, the glasses of clear red wine, the pasta with fresh tomato sauce, so fresh it seemed to taste like the sun.  I remember the days when the romanticism of the Italian hill towns spoke to me and when the thoughts of riding with a handsome Italian on the back of his classic Vespa were all that could get me through to my adulthood.

Well, thankfully, reality has checked in and I am slowly realizing that Italy is so much more than romance.  It's a new way of life.

I picked up my mom and Margaret at the Leonardo di Vinci airport last Friday in shockingly little traffic.  The road from Napoli to Roma has always been a trial for me.  I do not respond well to stressful driving conditions; as most of my friends know, I would prefer to never drive.  I got up the gumption to drive in to the Eternal city and, with the help of singing loudly to Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, I actually got to the right terminal, parked in the right parking garage, and picked up the right family members, all without hitting anyone, yelling things out the window at nearby drivers in my butchered Italian, or scaring my mom too much.  As I gracefully rolled through my first stop sign, my mom tasted the sweetness of the Italian way of life.  Va benne, my favorite expression which means "it's all good," has become her mantra as well.  While this is mainly because she has no choice, it is also because Italy has reeled her in, as it has for so many of us before her.

Days spent in Rome, Naples, Assisi, Florence and Verona were capped with gelato, pasta, wine, pizza, and Italian pastries.  I think I have inadvertently brought my mom and sister along with me on my gastronomical journey throughout the country.  The delights of different tastes have made me revel in the differences of the regions, and my guests plunged into the happiness that is Parmesan cheese and Mozzarella.  My mom is reeping the benfits of the Campania region now that we are home in Naples; Mozzaerlla di Buffala and ripe red tomataoes were the homemade antipasti we shared last night.  Margaret is enjoying her pizza namesake, the orginal pizza Margherita.  Here in the home of pizza, we are sampling our ways through the menus of the small ristorantes below my apartment and down my street.

While I am pleased to have shared my love of food with mia mamma e mia sorella, I sometimes miss the salads of Panera Bread and the ease with which we Americans can eat healthily.  My new year's resolution (two months in the making) is to try and learn to incorporate healthy eating habits with my love of Italian foods.

Who knows?  Maybe it will work.  But for now, I think I'll just have a little more gelato.