Genova, day 1. Setting up the apartment

October 20, 2007, Saturday

Time to inventory the apartment to see what groceries and other items I need. The kitchen has 3 pots (7 liters, 5 liters, 1.5 liters), one skillet (non-stick and badly scarred), a bread knife, an assortment of dishes, cutlery, and one abused caffe moka pot.

So I needed to get at least a decent chef knife and a decent skillet/sauté pan. And a new caffe moka pot. Plus groceries: pasta, olive oil, garlic, onions, etc. Of course I didn’t remember everything on the first round (besides, I couldn’t have carried everything in one go). So back out. As in most of Europe, there are specialty stores for some kinds of foodstuffs: meat and/or cheese, bread, pastries/desserts. Also as in other parts of Europe, which is way ahead of the US in this regard, they irradiate some perishable items: like milk and eggs. They keep them on the regular grocery shelf, not refrigerated. Just in case I needed some, I got a small carton of cream that way (it has an expiration date of Jan 28, 2008).

I found, by accident, a shop that sells kitchen stuff. Just what I needed for the knife and pan. It was one of those places that have stuff piled, stacked, shelved, nook and crannied everywhere. And one shopkeeper, a nice woman who put up with my broken Italian. I wanted some tongs, and not knowing the Italian for it, I mimed it. She thought I meant a hot-pad. Then she thought maybe a lobster cracker. Finally, after some more words and gestures, she got it. All she had were tongs that looked like brobdingnagian tweezers, long and thin. Hardly something you’d want to use with pasta or to turn over a cotolette.

Then I went into the bread shop. “What did I want?”, they said. I looked at the variety of shapes of breads and thought: okay, steady now. And blurted out: “Io sono un Americano, e parlo solo un poco Italiano” or I’m an American and I speak only a little Italian. So the first thing they propose is a loaf that is a bit crunchy on the outside, but soft on the inside (they think I want something like Wonder bread). But then I saw a few loaves with names I knew, but I wanted to try some of the other shapes. I got one roll that was good for two meals and another item that looked vaguely like the head on a stalk of wheat, but with grains that were about 3 inches long and 1-1/2 inches wide (and yes, it was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside).

I went to the cheese shop for Parmigiano. The chef at La Strada, one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Palo Alto, said I should really try some Castelmagno. This is a cheese made in a town of the same name east of Genova and that is aged in caves with a special kind of mold that causes the rind of the cheese to turn brown. He said it was the ultimate Italian cheese, and could I send him back a round of it. Well, I checked. A round is 5-6kg, at close to 30 euro/kg, and then shipping…. Sorry Donato, you’ll have to get your Castelmagno yourself. But I did get a chunk. It’s a semi-hard cheese and tastes a bit nutty, with a hint of blue about it. It’s more crumbly than Parmigiano, with almost a chalky texture. And it’s pretty good stuff to taste.

It’s a strange thing. I can understand a lot of what people say to me, but I can’t say much back. And local customs vary. In other parts of Italy they greet you with Buongiorno (or Good Day). Here often they say Salve (which I think means Hail, at least that’s what it means in Latin, as in “Salve Maria” or “Hail, Mary”). I suspect it’s like going from Germany, where they say they say Guten Tag (Good Day), to Austria where they say “Gruss Gott” or God’s Greetings.

Well, back up the stairs one more time. Dinner tonight is chicken sauted with garlic and mixed with penne rigate and pesto Genovese. Side salad. Nebbiolo d’Alba. My first self-cooked meal in Italy (I almost said my first home cooked meal in Italy, but I’ve had home cooked in Rome at Marco Sampaolo’s parents’).