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The long and winding road~

The book’s the thing…

It is cold and rainy here today and I just received my very first rejection from a literary agent—how cliché is that?

I am not too concerned about it because it was in response to a “cold call” e-mail query. It was to an agent listed in one of the many “Agents, Publisher, Editors” books I have researched. To date, I have sent out three e-mail queries, two of which are friends of friends. I have not heard back from those two yet. I hope no news is good news on that front.

For those of you who don’t know—and I didn’t either before starting this process—a “query letter” is used to solicit an agent into being interested enough in your material to actually want to see it. It is not an easy thing to write and there are many “how to” books on the subject. I tend to think it is a lot like auditioning for theatre—you have to be in the right place at the right time for the right people. As with anything artistic, getting your foot in the door long enough to spark some interest in your creation is always the most difficult thing. And I am at that point at the moment—a most difficult thing!

Patience is a virtue; however, although I think of myself as a very patient person, when it comes to waiting on a response about the book—I am not at all virtuous. All I can think about is all of the things that could have gone wrong with how I sent the queries. I become very OCD when something has to be perfect. I read and re-read a letter 100 times hunting for mistakes and, if something should fail in the course of the e-mail process—well, let’s just say that I have thought about hurling my laptop over the balcony and watching it explode into a hundred pieces as it hit the ground. Currently, I am keeping my Tosca tendencies in check. (http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?id=25 ) 

Time to change gears and get back to our vacation in Italy…

The third day of our recent vacation to Italy was a lot like today in Alabama—cold and rainy. We took the train from an overcast Rome to a very rainy and significantly chillier Vicenza, in the Veneto region of northern Italy.

Our first debacle of the day happened when we arrived at the Vicenza train station and went looking for the Avis car rental office. I had been mistakenly under the impression that Avis was located at the train station, but when we couldn’t find it I took a chance and put my basic Italian to the test. I went into a shop in the train station and asked the salesclerk if she knew where Avis or “via milano, 88” were located. She didn’t know about Avis, but she pointed and waved and gave directions indicating that it was a considerable distance to the address I had asked for.

“Let’s grab a cab,” Richard said, and off we went. “Ciao, ciao, ciao. Mille grazie!” I had to thank her for giving us directions—even though for the life of me, I wasn’t quite sure where she was directing us or what she was saying exactly.

With the help of the cab driver, we placed our luggage in the trunk and jumped into the backseat of the taxi. I was thrilled to be out of the rain.

“Dove?”—“Where?” the driver asked.

“Via Milano, 88,” I said. He paused and looked at us suspiciously.

“Dove?” he asked again, much more emphatic than the first time.

“Via Milano, 88, per favore.” I answered again, thinking that I was being considered rude for not saying “please” the first time.

“Via Milano è qua,”  he said, pointing to the road right in front of us.

“Qua? Davvero?”—“Here? Really?” I asked.

He went on to explain that we were parked on Via Milano and that number 88 was just “là”—“there” by the bus station, across the train station’s parking lot.

This is one of the times I wished I was fluent, so I could explain to him how the salesclerk made us believe that we’d need a taxi to get to Avis and, trusting her, we climbed into his car. But alas, I’m not, so I just felt like a fool.

He offered to drive us the block or two since it was raining, but we declined and sheepishly got out of his cab, unloaded our luggage, and without tipping him, headed off across the parking lot. We should have tipped him even though he took us nowhere. I felt bad for making him get wet loading and unloading our luggage in and out of his trunk.

We arrived wet in the bus station and there was no Avis there. Ugh. We headed back out into the rain and pulled our luggage further down the street searching out our unknown destination in the rain.

Avis was only a block past the bus station and when we walked in, dripping wet, I tried to make a joke with the guys working there by saying “Nuotiamo!”—“We are swimming.” They looked up at me as if I was speaking Martian and had no clue what I meant. I need to work on my pronunciation, I think—or, find a better audience.

The drive to our agriturismo, San Michele (http://www.agrismichele.it/Default.aspx?LAN=ENG ), was simple and we were greeted by four sheep when we parked the car. Cute, huh?

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

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FaceSpace - If Facebook and Myspace Merged | The Oatmeal

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Italia or bust...

We’re off on the road to Viterbo~

“Pronto.” Nonna answered the phone this morning when I called the house in Viterbo.

Italians do not say “Hello” or “Good Morning” when they answer the phone—they say “Pronto.” It literally translates as “ready.” Hmmm, that doesn’t seem quite right, but that is how the phone is answered. “Pronto” is only used when answering the phone and never as a written greeting or face-to-face encounter.

The rest of my phone call with her went exactly as it always does when I call. Here is an excerpt (**) from my manuscript (“Beyond the Pasta: 28 Days of Recipes, Language, and Life with an Italian Family”) describing how the conversation goes without fail:

**  “Ciao Nonna. Io Marco in America. Come stai?”

“Marco, ciao, ciao, ciao!! Sono bene, grazie. E tu?”

“Io bene. Bene, bene.”

“Alessandra, Marco è al telefono! Marco è al telefono!!”

Instantly, I am right there with Nonna—she is holding the receiver of the green house phone, sitting in the chair next to the telephone table under the shelving filled with liquor bottles, and shouting upstairs for Alessandra to come down. In the distance, Alessandra is repeatedly yelling, “Marco, Marco” as I hear the second story door open and her shoes clicking down the tiled staircase. Tequilla and Brighitta [the family’s dogs] are never far behind her and at some point, while she descends, they start barking. It is a cacophony of sounds—Alessandra and Nonna taking turns yelling “MARCO, MARCO,” while the dogs howl, growl, and bark until Alessandra arrives, breathless and panting, at the phone.

“Ciao, ciao… ciao… ciao, ciao, Marco!”

I almost weep every time I call because the love coming back at me through the phone is so tangible. **

I wanted to make sure that they were going to be home when Richard and I are in Viterbo—and they are going to be home. To my great delight, Alessandra has invited us to stay with them, since she does not have a student. Besides seeing the family, I need to go back to Viterbo to take a couple of photos for the book. Also, I am going to take video of us with the family to post on the blog when we return. Now that we are going to be staying with them, I hope I can get some video of Nonna and I cooking together. Let’s hope it turns out.

Viterbo wasn’t the only place I called this morning. I made reservations at two restaurants in Rome we have eaten at before (check out the Roman restaurants listed in the Oct 21 entry) and at one new restaurant (http://www.pierluigi.it/index.php) that was recommended to us by an Italian woman who was working at Richard’s photo shoot as the assistant to the photographer. I went up and crashed the shoot for dinner on Wednesday night, and it was a great opportunity to brush up my Italian before we leave this Friday. She was impressed that I knew as much as I do, considering I have really only had one month of lessons—4 years ago. I really think she was just being kind and supportive, as most Italians are when you attempt to speak their language.

Susan Ferrier was the interior designer of the home and her work was truly inspired and beautiful. (http://www.mcalpineboothferrier.com/index.cfm)

Christopher Baker was the photographer at the shoot and he also recommended a couple of restaurants in Rome and gave some insightful tips into Venice. I am looking forward to seeing how those pan out—and then I’ll pass them along. Over dinner we discussed my book and he had some great pointers about the process of getting published. He has worked on over 13 books and one of his many projects, in particular, sounded really interesting. He traveled to Holland and spent months photographing and interviewing some of the world’s leading authorities on tulips. His book about that journey sounded incredible and I truly want to check it out.(http://www.amazon.com/Tulipa-Photographers-Botanical-Christopher-Baker/dp/B00006K13J/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1) 

It is amazing how Richard and I ran into people in the middle of the Alabama countryside who were passionate about recommending restaurants and travel tips in Italia. We always seem to have people like that drop into our lives—people who have experienced a thing that Richard and I are about to go do. 

While we are in Italy, I am going to try to continue to post on this blog—hopefully, including photos, too. I guess we’ll see how well this blogsite’s formatting works via e-mail and cell phone from Italy.

My next post should be from Italy!

Ciao e a presto~

Mark  

(**the photo is of the official crest of the city of Viterbo from above the entrance into City Hall—the lion and the palm symbolize Viterbo. http://www.viterboonline.com/ )

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Pasta del giorno...

It is more than just about the food~

For me, cooking has always been about more than just the finished product on a plate. It is about the journey you take while getting to that plate.

As a child, my mom got up every morning and cooked my breakfast. Sometimes, it was as simple as pouring cereal into a bowl or as involved as making pancakes shaped like animals. She really had it easy after a while because the only animal I really ever wanted was Mickey Mouse. But still, she cooked for me. Those silent, intimate early morning moments of sitting at the kitchen table while she stirred the cooking oatmeal are burned deep into my memory. For a child, those moments are never realized for they are until much later in life; however, for a child they do provide solace and comfort. Of course, as soon as my brother and sisters woke up and shuffled or bounded into the kitchen turning on the AM radio to WLS (www.wlshistory.com), the mood was destroyed—but never forgotten.

My great-grandmother (Big Gram) used to cook for us when we visited her in Ohio. All of our favorite desserts were prepared in anticipation of our arrival, and after crawling out of the car, crippled by the eight hour drive inside the over-packed family station wagon, we couldn’t hobble up her limestone front steps fast enough to get to the kitchen. She always prepared my dad’s favorite foods—simple, unassuming dishes that, no doubt, made him feel like the prodigal son returned home.

The local Methodist church up the hill from my childhood home offered neighborhood summer programs to occupy our time and get us out from under our mom's feet for more than two seconds. Most of us in the neighborhood weren’t Methodist and I doubt that most of the kids cared at all about the subjects or activities that were offered. It was just something to do. One summer, a cooking class was offered. Trust me, it wasn’t Julia Child or Emeril, and I think the hardest thing we ever did was open cans and jars. Wait, I do remember making a cake or maybe it was brownies. Hmmm. Regardless, I really enjoyed that class. I liked the idea of creating something that I could share with other people, even if it did involve a can of creamed soup.

For a brief time after college, I worked for a manufacturing company in customer service. The second floor administrative department had a holiday covered-dish lunch during the week of Thanksgiving where the company provided the turkey and drinks, and all of the employees would sign up to bring their most prized covered-dishes to round out the meal. I signed up for GRAVY that year, not because it was a category on the list—but because it WASN’T on the list. I was horrified that we were going to be fed turkey with all the holiday trimmings and there was going to be no gravy. How can anyone eat mashed potatoes, dressing, and Thanksgiving turkey without gravy? NO GRAVY. How could anyone be thankful for that? I made gravy for 200 people that year. Don’t ask.

In 2005, I lived with an Italian family in Viterbo, Italy, and took cooking lessons from Nonna, the grandmother—another culinary milestone in my life. That experience is what my book is about. This November, it will be complete enough to starting sending queries to literary agents. I’ll let you know the progress of that process as it unfolds.

I had so much fun in 2005 that when Richard and I went back to Italy in 2007 with his nephew, Paul, and his nephew’s wife, Rachel, I made sure that they got a taste of what an Italian cooking lesson is all about. The agriturismo (http://www.italylogue.com/agriturismo ) that we stayed in just outside of Castellina in Chianti (http://www.castellina.com/history.htm ) was charming. They had vineyards and olive groves that they harvested to produce their own wine, extra-virgin olive oil, and honey, too. (I forgot to mention that they had bees.) I secretly arranged with the owner’s wife, Giuliana (Julianna), to have her give us a cooking lesson. Giuliana did not speak any English but she arranged for her daughter to be there and help translate. Her English was much better than my Italian and between the two of us the language barrier was overcome.

With the guidance of Giuliana and her daughter, we prepared a torte with Limoncello (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limoncello ), skewered pieces of chicken and lamb seasoned with salt, pepper, and fresh sage which was then roasted over a fire in the dining room fireplace, and we made fresh pasta. Paul was really excited about roasting the meat on a rotisserie over hot wood coals in the fireplace—he loves to grill. We had great fun with our household aprons on. Giuliana and her daughter got a big laugh out of seeing the three of us men in women’s aprons. I think Paul would have worn a dress in order to cook meat in the fireplace.

We laughed and had a great lesson, which was only topped by the three-hour dinner with Giuliana’s family and friends on their farm (http://www.tuscanenterprises.com/index.php?p=dettaglio_immobile&l=eng&cod=040102). Our lesson tasted better than we imagined—that may have been helped by the bottomless glasses of the family’s wine we drank. We had new friends in this foreign land—all brought together by the journey to the plate.

If you have the chance to cook with or for someone you love, I suggest you do it. The time spent will be worth more than gold—and the memory will be priceless.

Buon Appetito!

Mark

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Italy's most famous dessert~

"Back at the house Nonna pulled out several mixing bowls and a foil pan to assemble it in. There is going to be nothing glamorous about how we serve this tiramisù. Alessandra started making espresso and Nonna guided me through the recipe. I separated egg yolks into one bowl and the whites into another and began the long, arduous process of creaming things together by hand with a wire whisk. Nonna added sugar to the yolks and told me to whisk them together until the yolks turned a very pale yellow and the sugar, which was added in batches, had fully dissolved into the yolks.

“Ancora.” (“More.”) Nonna said, after checking the mixture. I had been whisking it for five minutes and my arm was getting tired and it looked pretty good to me, but no—“Ancora, Marco.”

“Marco, if the zucchero is not completely dissolved into the yolks then the filling will not have a very good texture. It must be smooth now, since the tiramisù doesn’t get cooked,” Alessandra said, trying to explain why I needed to continue whisking. “Besides, you are a strong man and this should be easy for you,” implying that normally a woman would be doing this task, and since I am of the stronger sex this should be simple. I wanted to remind her that there is a reason why women are the ones who give birth—men could never handle the pain. So, on I whisked for what seemed to be 20 minutes before Nonna finally said that I had achieved the correct texture—a perfectly smooth, pale yellow ribbon of batter drizzled off the whisk as she inspected my work.

“Perfetto. Adesso, aggiungere e mescolare il mascarpone…a mano.” (“Perfect. Now, add and stir in the mascarpone…by hand.”) Nonna said, smiling at me, already knowing what my response would be.

“A mano, davvero?”

“Si, si Marco, a mano.”

“Okay,” I said and slowly started whisking in the mascarpone cheese in batches.

      My arm was throbbing with pain and I expected it to twist off and go flying across the room at any moment, at which point I am not sure if I would have yelled “GOOOAL!” or “Disastro!” I guess that would have depended on whether or not my disembodied arm, still clutching the whisk, had hit something that would make a crashing sound—“GOOOAL!” But should it only fly off and hit the floor, well, then “Disastro!” would be more appropriate."

Cream Filling (single batch):
4 egg yolks
½ cup sugar
2 egg whites
Pinch Salt
1 cup heavy whipping cream
18 ounces mascarpone, room temperature

For assembly:
2 (7.05-ounce) packages of ITALIAN lady fingers (not all will be used). I used Vicenzi brand “Vicenzovo”
purchased at the World Market store.
6 double espressos (not 12 single espressos, but 6 double espressos). Do not use coffee (it is not strong
enough).
Unsweetened cocoa, to dust over top

NOTE:
For an 11x13” casserole or cake pan I make a DOUBLE batch of the cream filling. If you use a smaller pan (8”x10”) you can use a single batch of cream filling. But, I recommend the 11x13 and a double batch of cream filling. Regardless of pan size: You do not have to double the lady fingers or espresso amounts for a double batch of filling. You just need the extra filling due to the size of the pan. Otherwise, the tiramisù isn’t moist enough.

PREPARATION DIRECTIONS:
-Combine egg yolks and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat with a mixer on medium speed until the sugar is dissolved and the egg yolks are light in color (5-10 minutes). Make sure the sugar is dissolved, otherwise the cream will be grainy.
-In a separate bowl, whip egg whites with a pinch of salt to stiff peaks.
-In a chilled bowl, whip heavy cream to soft peaks.

-Add mascarpone, a quarter at a time, to the egg yolk/sugar mixture beating until smooth with each addition.
-Using a spatula, carefully FOLD the egg whites into the egg yolk/mascarpone mixture. Do not over mix or you will deflate the egg whites.
-Using a spatula, carefully FOLD the whipped cream into the egg yolk/mascarpone/egg white mixture.

TO ASSEMBLE:
-Spread some of the cream mixture in the bottom of the pan. Only a thin layer is needed here.
-Place the double espressos in a small container (I use a shallow, square Zip-Loc/Glad disposable container). Dip each ladyfinger, one at a time, into the espresso. The secret is to put the ladyfinger in, turn it over, and immediately remove it from the espresso shaking off any extra drops of espresso. Do NOT let it soak in the espresso. The ladyfingers are amazingly absorbent. SO, it is literally: into coffee, turn, remove, shake off and then place on top of the cream layer in bottom of the pan. Place the ladyfingers next to each other so they touch. At the end of the pan, break the ladyfingers (before you dip) to size to fit the last row.
-Spread a layer of the cream mixture (1/3) over the ladyfingers (this can be a thicker layer than the bottom).
-Dip and layer another row of ladyfingers TURNING AND LAYERING THEM IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION from the first layer. Again, break the ladyfingers at the end if necessary to make them fit.
-Spread another layer of the cream mixture (another 1/3).
-Dip and layer the final row of ladyfingers turning and layering in THE SAME DIRECTION as the first layer but make sure the broken ladyfingers are at the opposite side of the pan from the first layer.
-Top with remaining cream (the last 1/3).
-Dust top with a solid layer of cocoa so the cream is no longer visible.
-Refrigerate for at least 4-6 hours to allow the ladyfingers to absorb the cream. Actually, 8+ hours is best.

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"Beyond the Pasta" takes a step forward~

Biba Caggiano says, "Mark, you have captured the essence of the Italian people."

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"All it takes is some flour and a couple of eggs..."

"There is nothing as simple as, or more difficult than, the beginning."~

Starting something completely new is never easy. There is the fear of not getting it "exactly" right or not meeting expectations. For the longest time I was terrified to make pasta. What can be so complicated about some flour and a couple of eggs? Nothing. But after a rather rough first attempt, and slowly perfecting my technique in Italy, there is now nothing difficult about making pasta.

This is the first post...the first attempt at a blog...my blog about Italy. My Italy. What can be so complicated about that? Hopefully, nothing.

Through photos, recipes, La Parola del Giorno--The Word of the Day, and commentary on the progress of getting my manuscript published, I am going to share my Italy with you, and in doing so, hopefully take us all on un bello viaggio. 

Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao...

Mark

-the manuscript is entitled "Beyond The Pasta: 28 Days of Recipes, Language, and Life with an Italian Family."

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New 1TB

Checking out Flickr groups while waiting for my data to transfer to a new 1TB WD My Book Studio

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