Spring has sprung

"Spring has sprung, grass has ris, I wonder where the birdies is?" -- nuggets of wisdom passed down from my father. 

Well, the birdies were tweeting today and not only on Twitter. We had lots and lots of rain today, a crash of thunder followed by more rain, then wind. Through it all, except for the thunder crash, the birdies were noisily doing what birdies do outside my window (except where the screens keep them from roosting). 

After all the wind, the sun appeared and I ran outside to take this photo. I ran because our weather has been so unpredictable, I didn't want to be caught in an unexpected snowstorm -- like the one we had ten days ago. 

But I'm not really worried about snow. I'm worried about crows. Our house is on their sunset flight path, which is an amazing sight to watch. I'm not so worried about their daily flight. I'm worried about their stops. 

Every couple of years they nest nearby and aggressively swoop, making contact with anything that appears to threaten their young 'uns. Like pathetic me, in the morning before coffee, dragging myself to the bus stop -- a threat?

We used to wave our arms wildly and shout disparaging remarks trying to intimidate them into moving to another back yard. Because we were scared. 

And then I watched Joshua Klein's TED Talk on "The amazing intelligence of crows." We were right to be scared. Crows are smart and they're going to take over the world. We were left with two choices: 1) sell the house and move to the desert; or 2) be nice to the crows. 

We're trying option 2, which includes speaking gently in short sentences, moving smoothly without sudden jerks or leaps off the ground, and leaving small twigs in easily accessible places, all the while wondering where the birdies is.

 

Happy birthday nonna

Nonna Filomena would have been 112 today. It's hard to believe I'm living in the third century since my grandmother was born. 

Because I'm near the end of the grandkids I only remember the older skinny version of nonna. She was an incredible 80-something who I'm sure passed down the obsessive compulsive disorder of cleaning the house before the cleaning lady arrived. I don't do it to the degree that nonna did. She would straddle the stairwell (feet on the railings!) to clean the light fixture so her cleaner wouldn't have to do it. I don't think the cleaning lady phase lasted very long since there wasn't much to do. Probably a thoughtful idea from one of her children but not very practical. 

After nonno died, we would visit once a week. In winter we would pass the time together watching tv shows: MASH, the short-lived Planet of the Apes, and her favourite, the Lawrence Welk Show. Nonna always laughed along with the MASH laugh track but I'm sure she didn't catch most of its humour. As young kids, I'm sure we didn't either.

Lawrence Welk would have been 106 last week.

Sick Days

I've been away from blogging for awhile due to a lingering cold/flu bug. I've now entered the world of the walking sick like so many of my friends, co-workers and neighbours. It seems like the longer I'm sick the more I retreat into my Italianism. 

I started off thinking healthy: "eat miso soup with lots of vegetables." So I made delicious udon soup from my friend Eric's recipe. I ate it every day. No change. 

Vegetables were clearly not the cure for my Mediterranean DNA. So I finished off my Polish chocolate hoping an interlude would help. Yummy, but no change.

Then I wondered "What would my nonnas do?" How about those olive oil cures? I wasn't sure how to do this, so I channeled Nonna Fausta and imagined what she would do. I don't think she would have used a microwave to warm the olive oil but it was fast and I was obviously delirious.

The warm olive oil felt really good in my ear (don't tell my doctor) and on my swollen throat but it didn't cure me either. 

I spent a week curled up in front of bad daytime TV. To my surprise there were no less than three TV commercials using Italian songs as their soundtracks. One was a pizza ad with Dean Martin singing C'e la luna mezzo mare. Another was a guy in love with his digital phone singing "senza te" and a third was a mozzarella ad featuring Umberto Tozzi's Ti Amo. If anyone knows the connection between daytime TV and Italian soundtracks, please enlighten me.

A nasty side effect of being sick was not getting my hair cut when it was due. Now my hair has grown wildly out of control and looks an awful lot like my great-Zia's hair when she was a Calabrese youngster in the early 20th century. The higher the hair, the closer to heaven...?

Getting back to soup. I shifted from Japanese udon to pasta fagioli, using my cousin Donnie's recipe from our family cookbook, "Cucina di Cugini."  Mmmm good comfort food. I had it two days in a row and I'm actually feeling better.

There must be something to that curative olive oil, but I was supposed to EAT it. Tonight, continuing with the success of the Italian theme, I made salsiccia e peperoni. On Mark Bittman's recommendation, despite believing that it's a mortal sin, I spread mustard on my Italian bread. 

I think my sick days are over.

Moose cookie in the snow

The snow seems to be making most people happier: more smiles, hellos and head nods as we slip and slide along the sidewalks together. The snow has made our household absolutely giddy causing us to release our moose cookies to their natural habitat.

More moose photos on Flickr.

Vancouver joins the rest of Canada

Vancouver is under siege by a full-on Canadian winter. Most winters we live in blissful smugness with temperatures that stay well above freezing.

I grew up in the Interior so it’s made me a little nostalgic for my youth. It’s even given me the chance to re-use my 80s leg warmers as boot-top extenders. (I’ve never needed high boots here until now.)

My uncle says all this white stuff is a sure sign that our carbon tax has stopped global warming.

Pizzelle

Pizzelle are one of the few traditional Italian cookies that I can make on my own. But this year I was lucky to have my mom's help with them. We traditionally make them for Christmas. This year we added a "secret ingredient" we picked up in Calabria. Any guesses on what it is?

Making scalille

It's been far too long since my last post. I'll try to get back into the weekly swing and catch up with my Europe trip stories and photos.

About a week after we got back home, mom & dad arrived from their trip to Egypt. They stayed with us for a couple of weeks so they could come to our annual cousins' party. Lucky for me, mom was able to show us how to make scalille (or scaledde, literally, little ladders).

I have fond childhood memories of the epic making of scalille by a kitchen full of nonnas and zias. One of the few things I wanted from my last nonna's house was her board and her scalille stick.



It's a very simple recipe but requires great skill to wind the dough around a stick, creating the final design. These are traditional Calabrese cookies that my family makes at Christmas time. They were a hit at the cousins' party. Yum!

Find my recipe here.

I'm submitting this cookie to Food Blogga's Eat Christmas Cookies event. Check out the amazing cookies on the round-up page!