TIRAMISU FOR BREAKFAST EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE

I feel like I should rename this blog "Tiramisus I Have Known." Because that's quickly what this blog is going to become if the Bolognese don't stop throwing tiramisu at me. I'm not complaining, mind you.

As some of you may know, my favoritest dessert in the history of evar is tiramisu. One of my main goals for this semester is to go on a pilgrimage to Le Beccherie in Treviso, the birthplace of tiramisu. It will be the happiest day of my life, except for my wedding to Rahmbo. (IT WILL HAPPEN. You'll see. I'll seduce him with my tiramisu.)

A quick rundown on tiramisu. Basically you mix egg yolk, mascarpone and sugar. Then you take some eggwhites and mix it in to make the filling fluffy. You take savoiardi/ ladyfingers and dip them in a liquid of your choice, usually coffee or a liquor. You put the ladyfingers in a pan with high sides, put a layer of the custard on top, rinse and repeat until you fill the pan or run out. Then you refrigerate the delicious creature overnight. Once it's ready, you eat it and orgasm because tiramisu is the best dessert ever. (For what it's worth, I dip my ladyfingers in a mixture of coffee and kahlua.)

My first Italian tiramisu was last Wednesday. It was my housemate Giorgia's birthday and she made a tiramisu for dessert. Her tiramisu was delicious. The bottom layer of ladyfingers were soaked in coffee, the top in rum. The filling was fairly solid and thick, like cream cheese. She told me that I should have the leftovers for breakfast. Best breakfast ever.

Tonight, we had a cooking lesson with a professional chef! We made traditional biscotti with her (almonds, orange juice, and lemon rind), and she had already prepared a boatload of polenta. She also gave us something to try that she found at the bottom of her polenta bag. I have no idea what it was, but it looks like those long, brown seed pods you find in New York City parks in the fall. Anyway, this thing tasted like Parmesan cheese and figs at the same time. A miraculous product of nature. She had also prepared for us 1) Bolognese sauce 2) beef, peas, and tomato sauce stew 3) sauteed artichoke, mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, and potatoes and 4) a magical cheese that one traditionally mixes with polenta. It might actually be more orgasmic than tiramisu. I'll find out the name of this thing and I will blog about it forever. Stay tuned.

And for dessert? Oh, dessert. We had our biscotti, of course. And tiramisu. Loads of tiramisu. Mountains of tiramisu. Two bowls bigger than my head of tiramisu. Like some more traditional tiramisu recipes, the filling was a little runny. Our chef had dipped the savoiardi in brandy and sprinkled chocolate shavings on top. But here is where her brilliance lay: in between the savoiardi and the filling lay a layer of chocolate gelato. Chocolate gelato. Brilliant. Someone give this woman a Nobel Peace Prize. There were plenty of leftovers, so guess what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow? Yessssss.

Seeing Green

So, basically, this article, "Therapists Report Increase in Green Disputes" by Leslie Kaufman, made me want to stick my finger down my throat. It's about couples who have been fighting more frequently and even getting divorced because of perceived differences in environmental values. Here's the opener:

Gordon Fleming is, by his own account, an environmentally sensitive guy.

He bikes 12 1/2 miles to and from his job at a software company outside Santa Barbara, Calif. He recycles as much as possible and takes reusable bags to the grocery store.

Still, his girlfriend, Shelly Cobb, feels he has not gone far enough.

Ms. Cobb chides him for running the water too long while he shaves or showers. And she finds it “depressing,” she tells him, that he continues to buy a steady stream of items online when her aim is for them to lead a less materialistic life.

Mr. Fleming, who says he became committed to Ms. Cobb “before her high-priestess phase,” describes their conflicts as good-natured — mostly.

But he refuses to go out to eat sushi with her anymore, he said, because he cannot stand to hear her quiz the waiters.

“None of it is sustainable or local,” he said, “and I am not eating cod or rockfish.”

Aw, poor widdle baby boomers can't agree on how to save the planet. Talk about first world problems. 

Green issues are so tough. There is just so much waste in the world and there's really no way to stop it. Looking at my desk right now, I see my computer--which may or may not be scrapped for parts eventually--my deoderant--completely unrecyclable--my glasses case, my pen, etc., etc. There's no way to preserve or save these things. Once they've been used, man, they've been used. Attitudes can be truly risible--take, for example, my boss from last summer, who bitched when he saw a receipt with unnecessary text at the bottom, and, when he went to file them, would tear off the unnecessary part and then bitch again about the waste. But sometimes all of this packaging is really unneccessary. For example, in Italy, they sell bananas in a bunch or in prepackaged plastic containers. I confess, I was lazy and bought some prepackaged bananas because I didn't feel like weighing and printing out a price sticker-thingy for the fresh ones, but all of that packaging was just such a waste. That plastic can never be reused. Also, in Italy, they don't recycle paper, and it always makes me wince a little bit to throw all of it out. 

Another problem I have with green issues is that, for the moment at least, it's a wealthy man's (or in this case, woman's) sport. The Obamas have really done a great thing with their garden--gardens are cheap and easy to maintain, but only if you have the space, time, and knowledge to do it. Also, think about the effect organic farming will have on the big food industries: do you think that, as more industrial farms switch to organic products, it will stop the exploitation of migrant workers? Hell no. If anything, it might accelerate the problem. So even if you're doing something good for the planet, you're not necessarily helping humanity. This constant politicization of every choice--from the food we eat to the clothes that we wear--is exhausting, tiresome, and helps very few people (except for the inventors laughing all the way to the bank). Every choice we make will hurt someone or waste something. Instead of going crazy and trying to be as self-sustaining as possible, we should try to find solutions, if they exist, that actually make sense.

Do Not Wok

Okay, so, aside from that absolutely terrible pun, I made a pretty big mistake last night. I went to an Italian Chinese restaurant last night. 01/ 16 NEVER FORGET!!!!!!!!

All of the kids in my program were going to go to a certain restaurant, but because we hadn't made a reservation they couldn't take us. We then decided to split up. There's a Chinese restaurant near our program office so, just for funsies, my group decided to go there. Food in Italy is good. Cheap food in Italy is especially good. Chinese food is good. Chinese food is cheap. Ergo, Chinese food in Italy must be good. Right? Right?!

We got to the restaurant and there was a table set for eight. Great! Perfect! There was a "riservato" card on the table, but we just assumed that, like in most restaurants, it was put there to make the restaurant look more popular. And it was plenty popular--almost every table was full. Oh, I had dreams of delicious scallion pancakes and Chinese eggplant in chili sauce and chicken and scallions and and and... Well, we got the menu and none of that was on it. But I noticed that they had veal! Wow! Veal in a Chinese restaurant, how novel. Why don't I get the veal with ginger. Oh, I could just imagine it, veal in brown sauce with scallions and fresh ginger. Well, it took the waiter almost fifteen minutes to take our order. And a half hour to get our drinks. And another half hour to get our appetizers. And another half hour for our food to actually come. And when it finally did come, we almost didn't care what it tasted like. And it tasted like salt and oil. Oil. Tons of it. In the States even shitty Chinese food tastes like something. You know, something other than salt and oil. My dish had salty veal with pickled ginger, because the meat clearly wasn't salty enough. So we paid about six euro (about nine bucks) each for shitty Chinese food and I dare you to find a worse place Stateside.

All was not lost. Because we were all still hungry, we went to a caffe nearby. I got a dessert called a casetta. It's orange sponge cake covered in a layer of cream, wrapped up in a layer of bright green marzipan, and topped with almonds and a maraschino cherry. Heaven in my mouth. I almost forgot about the veal.