#65: The Cheese Shark
Ciao Nonni!
I hope you've been keeping well, and you've managed to hunt down a decent panettone to enjoy.
I certainly have. A few, in fact.
There are two clear categories for panettone. Boxed versions that can be bought at the supermarket, and locally-made from the pasticceria.
When it comes to the supermarket varieties, I have a clear frontrunner at the moment. The brand Maina sells a Panettone Classico at Esselunga, and for about five euro you can buy a kilogram of happiness. Just another reason why living in Italy is magical. I remember buying a $75 panettone from Lygon Street and being disappointed. But my quest continues.
I haven't done much research on the local handmade offerings yet, but hopefully I can change that soon. It is excellent having visitors coming, as I can get through each loaf faster by sharing and therefore buy more to try.
Speaking of fantastic local produce, there is a weekly farmers market held every Wednesday evening in our local piazza. It is small, but the quality of the food available is exceptional. One of the stalls sells locally made cheeses, and they are fabulous. But of course, there is a catch.
La signora who runs the stall is an absolute shark.
Every time I have been there, she has sold me the most enormous chunks of cheese. No matter what I say, I never walk away with anything less than 15 euro for a single doorstop of cheese.
When I went last week, I was determined to wrest back control. I approached, and she looked stony-faced as usual. As is standard, her only smile was reserved for the kids. She quickly cut them each a wedge of cheese to try while I chose what I wanted.
I picked out a pecorino that looked amazing, and she asked me how much I wanted.
Just a little, I said. It's just me and the kids at home this week. Which was a lie, but I needed to provide some rationale for really not wanting 3kg.
She held her knife at a point on the wheel and asked if this was ok. It would have sent me away with a portion I could barely carry on my own.
No, I said. That's way too much. A quarter of that, please. She moved the knife in about 2cm, and said, here?
No. I said. I was holding firm. It's still way too much. Dai, come on.
She let out an exasperated and quite aggressive sigh, and moved her knife to what would roughly be half of what she originally suggested. And still probably double what I wanted.
OK, fine. Sick of the charade, and still too Australian to want to continue the incredibly awkward exchange any longer, I agreed.
At the moment right before her knife made contact with the cheese, she lunged about four inches to the right and cut on such a diagonal that the end result was a chunk that would feed an army for a week. Before I could say a word, she was wrapping and weighing it.
I was gobsmacked in the face of this baldfaced manoeuvre. I literally couldn't form the words in Italian to address such a blatant disregard for what I had requested. With my wallet 17 euros lighter (!) I left, feeling completely defeated. In one brutal swing of her knife, she had completely cut me back down to the lowest rung of the ladder. It was the most intense version of tourist treatment I'd experienced in many months.
The following day, I was in my Italian class. We were talking about local markets, and our teacher spoke about the very same farmers market. She mentioned the excellent cheese stall, and then went on to warn us about the cheese lady.
WHAT? I exclaimed. She absolutely fleeced me last night! I felt like the biggest chump.
Nicole laughed and said that she does it to everyone. From the most hapless tourist, through to locals who have lived here for generations, no one escapes. She herself has had huge arguments with the woman, and still left with more than she wanted. I'm not sure if it made me feel better, but it certainly helped with mending my very bruised ego to know that it wasn't just me being the "easy target".
Anyway, the cheese is fantastic, which I guess is how she stays in business. And knowing what I know about Italians, I'm sure there are many who look forward to their weekly duel with her over portion sizes.
Speaking of Italians, the kids are becoming more so by the day. Raffaella (as she is called at school by both her teachers and her fellow classmates) has come out with some amazing Italian-isms recently. My favourite was recently when I was packing her morning tea (merenda) for school the other morning.
The instructions from the teachers is that merenda should be only fruits and vegetables (apple, pear, carrot, finnochio, etc) but that they will also accept a small yogurt. No biscuits or other snacks are allowed. Which is fine with me.
On her first day, I sent Raff with an apple and a banana. I put them in her backpack in a paper bag, whole.
Apparently this caused quite the scene at school, and led to the teachers having to cut the fruit for her. I was then told off at pick up. It was reminiscent of last year when I sent Leo to childcare in bare feet (in the middle of a summer heat wave and before he could walk) and they scolded me for not having him in shoes, or at least socks. Eye roll.
So now I cut the fruit up, but I draw the line at peeling it like all the other parents do. We seem to have reached an uneasy truce here.
But anyway, I was packing merenda and I couldn't fit the apple slices and the yogurt in the usual lunchbox. It's ok, I thought. I'll put the apple in the snack box, and put the yogurt separately in the bag in a zip loc bag. Raffy gave me a look, and suggested in that way she has, that I should try to find a better solution. Why? I asked. This is fine.
Her response? It's just not nice. I can almost imagine an Italian saying "ma non è bella" in that way they do, where something not being beautiful is a perfectly rational reason for being deeply unsatisfied.
In the interests of not wanting to scar her for life, I dutifully found another, less ugly solution.
Hopefully all of these "foreign mother" trials I am putting my children through will be character building... Time will tell I guess.
All of my love!
Kate
