Whichever you like. Latin or Italian.
I will be there for the next few days making sure that my Pugliese or Apulian food is correctly seasoned and prepared. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.
I stopped dieting in preparation for the food trip because my face became unrecognizable. I was told today to sleep hanging upside down like a bat for a while, so that may illustrate my condition.
Ostuni, here I come. Here is something to amuse you while I am gone. And another, here.
March 28th, 2007
Lobsters haven’t gotten any cheaper in Italy and they are even rarer than before. So what else is luxurious, and do I need it? Domesticity is not my best fit. The only domestic thing I happily do is cook. The rest is just…groan… because you have to You don’t have to iron, not much. Unless you live in Umbria and you’re pootling along minding your own business and then you realize that your bed is wet. Permanently. Everything is wet, especially in winter, because if it isn’t raining it is just humid, and if it isn’t cold the heat doesn’t come on and it stays wet.
Out comes the iron because mildew is not bearable. For one who loves the smell of sheets fresh off the line, it’s torture. Ironing sheets is not the stupidest thing I ever have to do, but it is only a few inches above ironing underwear and socks. Weeks can pass when you can’t hang the clothes outside. If you have a lot of sheets you can have a clean bed, but where to keep the piles of dirty ones? And if the sheets have been stored with the least dampness remaining, they will smell musty while you are putting them on the bed.
In summer things dry very well, but they bake and they’re incredibly wrinkled and rough. Italian dryers are so tiny that even one sheet fills it and they come out wadded up like the used hankies of February. Not nice. Not the least bit as an empress should sleep.
I knew about steam presses because people who sew have them. I used to have a lot of people who sewed for me in my design work. They had them. I didn’t. Then I saw a late night TV ad for an expensive Swiss steam press and I looked it up on the internet. OVER $1000! Fuggedaboudit! But as little as I care for the domestic disciplines I kept wondering, “Does everybody pay so much for that?” An agriturismo owner told me he had one because they couldn’t turn the apartments over without it, or having the sheets professionally laundered at €8 per bed per week. With about sixteen beds, it wouldn’t take long to pay for even the pricey one. I only have four beds, but in an effort to be ecologically sensitive, I use cloth napkins, place mats and tablecloths, as well as small guest towels that aren’t as heavy to wash as terry cloth, or what is called spugna here.
As a former Olympic non-ironer, I didn’t always, OK, I seldom ironed those things, but that meant they were often damp, too. I went online and searched using words I supposed meant steam press. Surprise! After only a few tries I discovered that they don’t all cost a lot of money! People iron in Italy– bella figura and all that– plus the dampness. They often spend large amounts of money on irons with tanks that sit on the floor. But you still have to iron with those.
About two weeks ago I bought this. Now I can’t figure out what took me so long. It’s just about perfect for someone who despises ironing. I haven’t yet started to learn how to do difficult things, and I expect I will once in a while have to use a regular iron for a ruffle on a sham or something small and fluffy, but I’ve spent a total of maybe 2.5 hours in 3 tries and everything flat and easy is ironed. All my wool trousers are pressed and properly creased. My T shirts are in shock, because they have never even seen an iron before. My version of that is that I press them from the inside with my hot body.
It takes less than a half hour to press a top sheet, two shams and three pillowcases for my bed. It took perhaps an hour to do dozens of napkins and placemats. Big tablecloths took a little folding and planning, but every single one is pressed and ready to use. The steam released is so pervasive and strong that you don’t need to sprinkle, as a matter oif fact, dry things iron better than damp ones. So far it isn’t even boring, because I am learning. I’m looking for things to iron! I’ve either gone off my rocker, or this thing is so easy and pleasant that ironing is, dare I say, a little fun?
If you tell anyone who knows me they’ll never believe you anyway, because I proudly announce that it has been four months since I ironed. I want to be Janis Joplin, not June Cleaver.
I like to live well, I just don’t like the work that goes into it. Now if it would only wash the cooking pots.
March 28th, 2007
