As much as this blog is a bit schizoid, a certain theme seems to have emerged, which is why I sometimes feel I can't break from character and ooh and aaah over various things. Well, that's just silly, right? One thing I don't think I've emphasized enough is my adoration for Cristiano's nonna (seen at right with Cristiano in Greece in the late 1970s). Nonna is a seemingly simple woman but I swear, she needs a blog or we need to YouTube her in action. Born in Milan - Sesto San Giovanni, to be exact - she lived through World War II (they bombed the hell out of Sesto San Giovanni as it was the center of wartime arms-making in Italy and nonna saw some pretty atrocious things) and has plenty of those dramatic stories about having no food and having to subsist on polenta (and sometimes stray cats). She was a pre-teen when Milan was finally liberated by American soldiers and she remembers a "colored" soldier giving her her first piece of candy in many years. In fact, because of that, she has an affinity for the U.S. and when Cristiano and I got together, she remarked that she always knew her grandson would "marry well" (ha ha - what does that mean?). Nonna raised three kids, one of whom died in a motorbike accident, and did well for herself over the years by running a small clothing shop and buying and selling apartments. You could say nonna brought home the pancetta and fried it up in a pan. Married twice - her first husband also died in a motorbike accident - she's been a widow now for many years and has devoted her life to her children and grandchildren. At first glance, you'd think nonna was a subordinated woman. But you'd be oh so wrong. She's got a job to do and nobody is going to sit her down in a rocker. In her mind, she's a career woman and her career is taking care of her family. Go to the market with her and watch her scream down any vendor who tries to sell her sub-par produce. Her family gets only the best and she demands it even from that guy selling olives in barrels out of the back of his van. Nonna runs a tight ship...of taking care of everyone. It would seem oxymoronic but you've got to see her at work. She's going to wait on you hand and foot if she's got to bully you into submission. Sometimes it's difficult for the feminist in me to wrap my head around all of this and just sit back and let nonna "serve" me Sunday lunch. But she wouldn't have it any other way. I love how at the end of every meal, she sighs and says "Ma! Abbiamo mangiato anche oggi..." ("Well, we ate again today...") with both resignation and self-satisfaction.P.S. Yesterday, I promised a recipe for pasta with broccoli rabe and mine is something like this but with hot pepper and onion in the saute (four cloves of garlic is a lot, at least for my Northern Italian husband's stomach, so I use only two) into which I also add the chopped broccoli rabe directly. Cheese optional: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/350
Sorry for "cheating" but while I love cooking and I love writing, I can't get into writing recipes. And let's not discuss my photo taking...
8 comments:
Ah, nonnas. And nonnos as well.
There is not a group of people more beautiful than those that have lived and still smile and giggle and say little lines of perfection -- so simple and yet so profoundly moving.
This was a beautiful post.
Thanks, goodthomas! I am a fan of grandparents in general. Cristiano no longer has any nonnos but I remember all of my grandpas very well.
This post reminds me of one of my husband's aunts, who is quite a bit like Cristiano's nonna. She is seventy-six years old but gets more done in one day than I do in a week. At first I was put off by her pushiness and constant need to teach everyone how to do anyhting. I am so glad that I opened my mind to her, though, because she is a powerful and intelligent woman, (even if she didn't originally fit into my feminist ideas of what that means. I had to rethink some preconceptions after I met her, and I am thankful for that.)
Great post!
My australian Grandmother (Gran) is 96 years old. Her secret is that she never slows down. Well, she has slowed down a bit in the last 5 years or so but until she was about 90 she was still doing a lot of housework, cooking and gardening.
She's an Australian country woman of the old school even though she was transplanted to Sydney in her teens to work as a typist since there were no jobs in Moss Vale. When mum was growing up, she made all clothes (including underwear and socks) for all 4 children and herself, washed everything including nappies in a huge copper kettle in the backyard and cooked on the cheap.
Anyway one of my memories was a few years ago when there was a large brown snake (a bite kills you in about 5 minutes!) wrapped around the jackaranda tree in her suburban Sydney backyard. My aunt wanted to call WIRES (wildlife service) but Gran got out the garden shears and wanted to just go and cut the snake's head off! Apparently this is what they did when she was a kid. She also murdered the funnel web spiders (also lethal in a few minutes) which has built their webs in my mailbox (preventing me from getting the post for about a 2 weeks) by pouring boiling water on them. Soggy letters but it did the trick!
KC - yeah, Cristiano's nonna can be pushy but she's not a know-it-all and is actually open to learning from me. She learned how to make Chinese stir fry and guacamole (which she calls "pappa mole!" - ha ha) from me. I think there are many Italian women in that age bracket who are like that.
Kataroma - Cristiano's grandma also never misses a beat when it comes to drowning a mouse, etc. I think they grew up just doing what they had to do. As for creatures in Australia, that was one of the things that stuck out in my mind during my brief visit (blame it on the 10-day holiday mentality in the U.S. - I had to get back for work) to Sydney. Our friends explained what to do were we to wake up with a tarantula on our faces.
Well there actually aren't any tarantulas in Australia- those are American spiders - but there are some nasty small spiders.
But really, when you live in Australia you just never think about all the poisonous creatures. Part of it is that seeing one of these creatures is very rare and the danger is actually extremely small.
I thought about this recently though when I went for a walk in tall grass here and realised that I don't need to worry about poisonous snakes here in Italy.
It's like the way Italians never think about how dangerous it is for a 14 year old to drive a motorino. Just part of life.
kataroma
Well, the friends were American but they were living in Sydney, so I don't think they knew their proper spider names (though I'm pretty ignorant too when it comes to creepy crawlies). It's definitely not something that would keep me from living in Australia. I'm sure you just adapt. While 14-year-olds on scooters zig zagging in and out of traffic or women on bikes in rush-hour traffic with a kid on the back and a baby in front (all of them helmet-less) still takes me aback.
yeah - that makes sense, foreigners are often rather panicky about the poisonous creatures in Australia - but it really isn't anything you think about in daily life.
In Sydney there are two types of poisonous spiders to watch our for:
redback spiders - small round spider with a red blotch on the back and a close relation to the American black widow
funnelweb spiders- characterised by their funnel like webs (no duh!)
I think I saw a poisonous spider twice in the 15 years I lived in Oz.
kataroma
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