Barley Salad

My friend from Montana sent me a package with barley. I did not make the connection that it is the equivalent of Italian farro, which I love. I cooked it in water until tender but al dente. I was left with a lot.

barley salad
This is a cold dish. You can add or remove any ingredients.

One cup of cold cooked barley
Half chopped green pepper
Half chopped red pepper
1/4 red onion
Shredded carrots
Mix lettuce
A spoon of sunflower seed toasted

dressing
Olive oil, mustard, garlic minced, half lemon, vinegar, salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, sprinkle with the dressing and serve cold- done!!

Spaghetti with mussels and clams

I have not posted in a while. I have been more than busy, super busy, yet I found time to cook, work out and enjoy the long days. Sitting in front of a computer after 12 hours has not being my priority. So since summer is coming up (at least in FL) I am cooking dishes that are very light and juicy. Today’s recipe is spaghetti with clams and mussels.

Spaghetti with mussels and clams x 4

a box of barilla pasta (wheat or regular)

about 8 clams

about 8 mussels

5 cherry tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

1/2 cup of bread crumbs

olive oil

dry chili red pepper, salt, pepper

one lemon

1/2 cup of parsley

dry fish eggs

white wine

Clean under running water the shells of the mussels and clams. make sure they are sealed. If they are semi open or opened they are bad and you need to throw them away. In the mean time heat olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, chili red pepper, lemon juice and parsley. When everything starts getting gold and cook add the clams and mussels pour some white wine and cover with lid. Pretty much you are steaming them until they open. This should take 15-20 minutes but keep checking. You will notice the color of the mussels changing.

Cook and drain the pasta. Add the pasta to the fish mixture and make sure to amalgamate all ingredients. Serve in four different bowls. Sprinkle with olive oil, dry fish eggs and bread crumbs. The bread crumbs absorbs excess oil or liquid.

I love this recipe. It NEVER tastes fishy, it is light, refreshing and yummy.

Photography

As I am approaching to teach an intro to media techniques in communication, I wanted to address what photography means to me, at least part of what it means to me.

Photography in brief is the process of forcing oneself to face his/her EGO, his/her inner self that is kept in the dark, in a deep well. The camera becomes nonetheless than the channel through which your secrets are revealed to the public. Photography is personal and powerful, and fearful. So here I am facing my fears, my hidden secrets, baring all I have got.

How do you cope with pain?

How do people cope with pain?

My dog Maya hasn’t been feeling good lately. After taking her to the vet for a urine infection (at least what we thought it was) last week and having been prescribed antibiotics Maya still was not feeling better. She was not cheerful, her gum were pale, her stomach bloated and she was just weak. Shawn and I took her to the vet on Saturday. I had to teach that morning until 1pm, then run to the rental propriety to fix the house. It had been one of this weeks full of bills and things to fix: the car wasn’t running properly, the dog was sick, the house needed to be fixed and assignments were due. I checked my phone and had two missed calls from the vet. I called him back and he said, “We have a bad problem, Maya is bleeding internally.” I was shocked and worried. I started sobbing. “She needs to be operated right way to stop the bleeding, but I can’t guarantee she will survive,” the vet continued. “Fuck,” I thought. I said, “please go head and operate on her, do whatever you need to do.” At that point I was trying to be rational, to think straight and not cry, because I knew crying it was just a waste of time in a matter like this. But it was not easy. I put the phone down after the phone call and cried some more. I knew I had to tell Shawn now, who was working on a panel for the house. “How do I get myself to walk outside and find the composure to repeat the same information so painful to hear?” I don’t think I did a “great job.” I walked outside, sobbing, mumbling words and I just said something in the line as, “Maya is going through surgery because she is bleeding and don’t know if she will make it.” At that point I was concerned Shawn would get mad for not making a decision about her surgery together. That was actually going through my mind as I was talking to the vet, but I ignored it. I wanted to act fast. We went inside the house; Shawn took a shower, changed and sat on the bed with Zoe, my other dog. He started crying. He cried and cried for hours and hours. I had never seen him crying so much. That prevented him from crying. Crying people freak me out, I can’t just stand them. I guess I didn’t want to be one of the people I could not stand them. I also felt I needed to be the strongest of the two. Only one can and should cry, let their emotions out.

While waiting for the vet to call us back I started thinking about the way people cope with pain. What do they do? How do they act? How do they occupy the longest 3 hours of their life waiting for life or death? Silence was in the house, the laundry was not running, the TV off, radio off. We did not talk, but sat next to each other, occasionally hugging each other when needed. But it seemed that Shawn had to let those tears run down his blue eyes without interruptions. I on the other hand had to do things. I had to occupy my mind, my hands, my legs. I organized the kitchen, I cleaned the dishes, I folded the laundry, I put away the laundry, I read, I watched TV, anything to get me out of pessimistic thoughts. There were still there but farther away.

When the phone rang Shawn would not pick up the phone. He said, “Gin, the phone is ringing, pick it up,” when he was next to me, meaning that he could have easily picked the phone up. I thought, “Why me?” I had no desire to know, but I also was dying to know. It’s strange. I never felt that way. The vet called. We found out that Maya had a tumor that rupture in her spleen contributing to her bleeding. The tumor had being removed and was sent to the pathologist to determine if it’s benign or malignant. We could not see her until Monday. And Monday is not here yet.

Maya means water in Jordanian.

youth

While digging into old boxes, trying to organize my house, getting rid off of items I barely know exist, because they are hidden in boxes in the attic, I came across old journals, pictures and other items paper items where I used to write or scribble nonsensical poetry or thoughts. I started thinking about the era before blogs, social media and electronic archive….There is certaintly a lack of hand personalized creativity with computers. At the time I was 18 I still used my pencil and marker to express emotions: wether it was a skull or a text it really did not matter. With blogs you can’t really express your inner creativity, unless you are a photoshop pro, but even so, it will lose the power of expression without devoted time. The point of my lingering story is that I need to get rid off of paper, without actually losing the content so I thought I would archive my youth in here. It is going to be pretty interesting ..to me…

GAK

Memoirs of an Italian living in United States

Memoir of America

As I stepped out the airplane in Cleveland, Ohio with my guitar as my only companion, a sudden overwhelming yet capturing smell of pop-corn and butter ran across my nose. Around me, men and women in uniforms were walking by while multiracial people created an abstract colorful canvas like one of the many fascinating abstract Pollock’s paintings. That was my first reaction to America-colorful and artificial flavoring. Before landing in Cleveland, my understanding of American culture was based on American toys like Barbie and Fisher’s Price, American movies, my trip to Disneyworld, and the many trips to MacDonald’s while traveling and living through out the world with my parents. Cleveland, Ohio, like Tallahassee, Florida, was nothing like movies, and Americans were nothing like Barbie and Ken.

When I first came to United States I was 17 years old, did not understand or speak American and was about to spend 8 months with a host American family never met before, while attending my senior year at an American high school of 1,894 students, 75% of which were African Americans. I was a minority for the first time in my life. For the first time in my life I was going to interact with people of a different ethnicity without being on vacation in some foreign beautiful countries. I was not scared. I was excited and curious: eager to learn about the variety of cultures within one culture.

My Italian high school had only white people, none of which were foreign. Everyone knew each other, every parent had known each other from previous generation and so on.

There are obviously many events, objects, people, places that impacted, created, and changed my view of American culture. For the matter of today memoir I am going to focus on few items that particularly impressed me because so deviant from my culture.

American Supermarkets

American supermarkets are big. They occupy big lots of land where a large parking lot is built visible from any corner of the road. The parking lot is built right in front of the building. Rather than hiding it from the view of an individual the parking lot becomes the attraction of the driver. Supermarkets are usually built at intersections to attract more people and make them easy to reach.

As you walk in the store the temperature drops down to 63 degree, or 17 Celsius (you might notice that Americans like to keep their a/c very low everywhere). Employees wear the same uniform and are devoted to different job: stocking the vegetables sprinkled by an automatic irrigation system; packing the grocery for their customers; helping customers to carry their bags outside the store; and finding lost carts to nicely reorganize. Team-work seems a must in the grocery store.

The first time I went inside a supermarket, like a kid in a candy store, I was hypnotized by the large and endless selection of items and their packaging size. There was an aisle just for breakfast cereals. There were cereals of any type: banana, oat-meal, crispy, colorful cereals, chocolate flavored, strawberry, low calories, power energy and so on. The options were endless and they differentiated by their diverse packaging. Iconic images were printed on the cover of each cereal box trying to catch the attention of the target consumer. Cereals for kids had bright colors and funny animal characters portrayed in action poses. Cereals for women stress the importance of maintaining a healthy life style and a slim figure. The cereal aisles of the supermarket like any other American store had a purpose; appeal to a very specific and narrow target audience while promoting the capitalistic economy of the country.

SIZE MATTERS

Everything is America is GIANT. Food portions are so big they can fit an entire family in Italy. Drinks at MacDonald’s are so big I need two hands to hold one cup. Even people are big. They drive big cars jumping from one lane to another  on a 6 lane highway that wraps around the city like a snake.  “Why does everything need to be so big in America?” I always wondered.

OPTIONS

Ordering food or drinks in any type of restaurant, bar, coffee shop, or fast food requires a set of communicative skills that are native to the target culture of a country. In United States ordering a simple coffee might take 10 minutes, depending on how fast the buyer is accustomed to endless options.

In my country, Italy, when you go to a bar and you order a coffee all you have to do is ask for “one espresso”. In less than one minute you had successfully paid and enjoyed your drink.

In United States drinking coffee, like ordering food, becomes a personal experience like going to the salon to get a relaxing manicure, expect the relaxing part. First, you quickly have to identify the endless options on the menu. Coffee is not served only warm; it can also be served with ice, or with crunch ice.  Once you have proudly selected your choice and you feel less stress about interacting with the sale person, you have to undergo selective questions regarding your coffee similar to an interrogation. To please the consumer, most of the restaurants, coffee shops, etc provide OPTIONS. Some of the questions asked in regards to your coffee could vary from: “Do you want decaf or regular?” “Do you want house coffee, Puerto Rican etc?” “Do you want flavor in your coffee?” “Do you want it iced, warm or frappuccino?” “What size do you want?” “Large, medium or small?” “Do you want skim, 2% or whole milk?” “Do you want soy milk?” “Do you want whipped cream?“ Chains like Starbucks confuses me even more when categorizing their cup size using incorrect Italian terminology. Their “grande size”, which in Italian means BIG, translates into small size. That is just stupid in any level.

At the end of an exhausting interpersonal interaction with the sale associate you can finally deserve your drink. You have successful bought your first coffee!

PEOPLE ARE NICE WITH ME –WHY?

When you walk in a store, sale associates greet you and welcome you in the store. They provide their name attempting to establish a close relationship. They smile and compliment you. At restaurants, your personal waitress or waiter states her/his name and makes sure to contribute to the enjoyment of your experience at that restaurant. If it’s even your b-day all the waiters of the restaurant gather around you singing the Happy B-day song, while bringing a free dessert with candles.

If you are staying over friends’ s house, or friends’ s of friends’ s house, the first thing they will ever tell you is the following: “You are at your home here, just open the refrigerator when you are hungry and make yourself at home.” They mean it too!

In school professors, teachers, and TAs undergo trainings on how to respectfully treat students. Positive reinforcement is key to a successful teaching environment and teachers are not in any way allow to disrespect students.

In addition, relationships between students and teachers are more personal. This does not happen in Italy. Students are called only by their last name to reinforce a differentiation of status. As the teacher enters the room everyone stands up as a form of respect. Italian language has a formal form that is specifically devoted to differentiate classes based on their social and economical status. In addition, it is not uncommon for teachers to offend students in class as they feel they can use their power against students. In America that just does not happen.

Americans are so polite to strangers that it appears fake to the mind of a foreign person. It is actually quite annoying if you come from a country like Italy were rarely, and I might stress rarely, people in retail business for example say hi to you or devote their time to their customers.  In America, don’t be surprised if a stranger female or male compliments on your clothes, your hair, or your eyeglasses while you are just struggling to buy your coffee. People here are just nice. There is a certain goodness never seen anywhere in the world.  

I have now lived in United States for 11 years. I have lived in Ohio, in the north, and now Florida. Things that used to surprise me have become a routine that I have embedded in my own identity, but there are still so many differences that make me want to take my camera out and take a picture.