Many of my posts here are about the oddities I find living in Italy as an American, but the reverse holds true as well. Having spent so much time in Italy, when I come back to the states, there are things that are normal to Americans, but rub me the wrong way because of my time in Italy. One of these that really gets to me is how we describe food in the states.

Italian culture truly does revolve around food. It is so important, that an Italian company really can’t get away with slick marketing terms that are misleading. That is, if something is marketed as “fresh”, it damn well better have come from the farm 15 minutes ago. But in the states, all of these terms to describe food have become meaningless. So here is my list of terms I find to describe food in the states that make me say “Are you freaking kidding me???”

Fresh
How many times have you been in a restaurant that advertises “The Freshest Ingredients”? Really? Are you treating me like I was born yesterday? I mean, everyone does it, from chain restaurants to fast food establishments. That tomato that you advertised as “Fresh” likely came from a greenhouse on another continent weeks ago. Spare me.

Home Made
How many restaurants offer home-made pie? Home made meatloaf, home made just-about-everything? So, did your chef make this at his house this morning and bring it to work? Why on earth do we respond to this?

Artisan
So I walk into some fast food restaurant and see an “Artisan” sandwich advertised. ARTISAN? To begin with, How on earth does ARTISAN apply to food? Do they have some little old man in the back with a lifetime of experience sculpting the ingredients into a work of art? I mean, fast food assembly line sandwich shops advertise “artisan” food. Please!

Hand-Crafted
Put this up there with artisan. What is “Hand Crafted Roast Beef”, anyway? How do you hand-craft that? And if you do, do chain restaurants really do it? I think not, so why use the term and treat your customers like idiots?

Hand-Cut
Again, like Hand-crafted, and used ad nauseum. So the meat in your sandwich is hand cut. Does that make it better? Really? Do you honestly hand-cut it?

Pan-Fried
I see this on menus all the time, like Pan-Fried Salmon. I have just one question: How else would you fry the salmon? In a pressure cooker? In an oven? In the sink? I don’t get it.

Cooked to Perfection
How many times do you see a description on a menu that tells us the food is cooked to perfection? How else are they supposed to cook it otherwise?

100% Real
This fist struck me on a pizza box from Papa John’s. 100% Real Cheese? Are they telling me that other Pizza uses fake cheese? That may be so, and great that theirs is real… but what is the other pizza made of? How sad is it that we have to wonder if our cheese is actually cheese!

Real Fruit Flavor
I love seeing this on juice drinks. So which it? Real Fruit? Or Real Flavor? Are you telling me that the flavor is that of REAL fruit, but it is fake? Am I supposed to get excited that it doesn’t TASTE like artificial fruit, even though it really is artificial? Or are you trying to pull one over on me, thinking I will believe you are selling me real fruit, when in fact only the flavor is supposed to taste real? Huh??? Argh!!

Natural Cut
Hello Wendy’s! Are you trying to tell me that your “Natural Cut Fries” are naturally cut? Or that the fries are natural, and you cut them?  Perhaps they are natural fries that you cut naturally? Because a quick google search will show anyone that there is very little natural about Wendy’s natural cut fries.

OK, I’m done with my rant… for now.

I’m a big fan of recycling, and I was really happy to hear that our town, Soriano nel Cimino, was planning on implementing a recycling program.  Better yet, it would include garbage pick-up. Cool!  The fact is, that much of Italy is full of litter, many towns have garbage bins that overflow, and the concept of responsible dissposal isn’t quite what I am accustomed to.  So this is fantastic, right?  Ummm… not so much.

There is a popular joke that compares the strengths and weaknesses of various European societies.  It goes like this:

Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics German, the lovers French, and it’s all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the police are German, the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, and it’s all organized by the Italians.

If you are really familiar with these societies, this is quite funny.  The point here is that Italians are famous for being extremely disorganized, and that little problem often causes good ideas to turn into incredibly complicated nightmares.  The complexities cause people to ignore policy, and that causes the government to couple new programs with stiff non-compliance penalties.  So you end up with a bunch of complicated, impossible to understand or follow laws that have insane fines for non-compliance.  Such is my fear for our new recycling program that starts tomorrow.

The Way It Is Today

Before I get into the disaster that begins tomorrow, let me tell you how it is now.  There is no garbage pickup service. There are public bins all over town.  Residents generally keep a tiny trash can in their homes, and take the trash out daily.  This is good, since Italian homes are generally very small, so they don’t have room for large trashcans.  Some of the public locations have several bins, including various recycling containers.  It doesn’t matter much, because it is common that all bins get dumped in the same truck, anyway…  but we’ll not go there for now. The downside of this is obviously that some people have to walk a little to take their trash out, and the bins are unsightly… especially when they have not been emptied for days.

Soriano’s Recycling Extravaganza

Step right up and get a front-row ticket, ‘cuz this is gonna be the greatest show on earth! Tomorrow morning everything changes.  All public bins go the way of the Dodo.  Garbage pickup service begins.

Each home must now keep FIVE garbage cans in their home:

The standard can is for fruit, veggies, leftovers, coffee, tea bags, paper napkins and towels (only if dirty with water), etc.

Then you have a can with GREY bags that are provided by the city.  This is for most (but not all) plastic tableware, saran wrap, feminine pads, light bulbs, pens, cigarettes and lighters, rubber bands, feminine pads… I won’t do the whole list.

Next are the Light Blue bags, which are for other plastics that do not belong in the GREY bags. These include plastic bottles, Styrofoam, plastic bags, veggie and fruit nets…  again, I won’t go into the whole list, but be careful not to confuse plastic for the GREY bags with plastic for the Light Blue bags.  That would be non-compliance.  See below for the penalty!

Then we have the Green Bin, which is for cans, glass, lids (what kind?), and foil.

Finally, we have the Yellow Bin. This is for papers, newspaper, magazines, milk cartons, etc.  Be careful not to throw paper towels or napkins in here!!!  Those are for the Standard Can.

No Need To Remember All Of This.  We Have Labels!

Law requires all products to have a label that will assist you, so if you are not sure if a paper towel should be thrown in Grey Bag or the Blue Bag, just go back to the packaging of the paper towels (you still have it, right?) and see which of the above symbols it has.  Then compare that symbol with the bins and bags you have, and you are all set.  Don’t forget to do this for every little item you throw away, because a mistake is punishable by law.

Don’t Get Your Days and Times Mixed Up

Now they won’t have an army of trucks running around each day.  Instead, there is a pickup day for each bag or bin.  We will have pickup service five days a week, and each day has a corresponding bag.  Be sure not to put your blue bag out on green day, or your yellow bag on grey day.  These are serious offenses, of course.  But wait!  That’s not all!  You are allowed to put your bags and bins out between 10:00 PM and 4:00 AM.  Not before, not after.  If you have any plans of going to bed early tomorrow night, forget about it.

Unresolved Questions

There are more questions, of course.  So Paola made a call to the City Hall office that deals with these things.  The city will provide us with a certain number of bags.  Will they provide them regularly?  We don’t know.  What if we need more?  We don’t know. Are they rationed?  We don’t know. What if my bin is lost or stolen?  We don’t know.

The Old Lady and the Storm

Soriano is a hill town.  Tiny streets, winding curves, cobblestones and lots of hills.  I can imagine a winter storm (often) that would wash these bins all down the hills.  They will be everywhere.  They will be thrown together… it will be a mess.  The hills are filled with elderly women that have lived there for ages.  How will they find their bins?  We don’t know. How will this be dealt with?  We don’t know.

Penalty of Non-Compliance

Ok, I saved it for the end.  It is all so much more complicated than what I am saying here.  And Italians are great at ignoring laws, so you must strike fear in their hearts.  Should you elect not to comply with the above, you are to be fined €500.00.  That is roughly $700.00.

Is it just me, or is a disaster in the making?

I haven’t gone on an Italy rant for a while, but with healthcare and taxes filling the US airwaves, it has really made me think about taxes in Italy. I’ll not get into my opinion of these subjects in the US, since this is not the place for it. I also don’t want anyone to see this as a point of comparison, be it to say ‘at least we are not that bad’ on one side, or ‘hey! look at the road we are going down’ on the other. It is merely a subject on my mind right now, and Italian Tax Lunacy is truly epic.

OK, the prerequisite disclaimers are now out of the way. Italy is a wonderful place. It is beautiful, the culture is amazing, the people are warm, and the lifestyle is enviable. You simply cannot have all of this good without some utter evil to balance it all out. That evil comes in several forms, the largest of which is a department of the government called FINANZA. They are Italy’s answer to the IRS, but they are not government workers in suits that sit down and go over your tax returns with your accountant. No, they are a police force, complete with squad cars, military-style uniforms, arms, and a mission to fight crime. Tax crime.

Guardia di Finanza - The Italian version of the IRS

Piove, Governo Ladro!

Strictly translated, this means “It’s raining, Government Thief”. What it really means is that the government takes so much from us, in so many ways, that they have even found a way to steal the sunshine. There is an epic battle of taxes between the government (represented by the Finanza) and the people in Italy, and they have been waging it longer than anyone can remember. Italians are notorious for tax evasion, and the Italian government is notorious for Draconian taxation. A citizen will tell you that they take so much, he is forced to cheat in order to put food on the table. The government will argue that so many citizens cheat on their taxes, that they are forced to take special measures in order to collect. Can you say viscous circle? I knew you could.

I Cheat, You Cheat, We All Cheat on Taxes

I’m an American. I pay my taxes. I hate it, but I do it. If i can get a deduction, I’m all for it, but the concept of cheating on my taxes just doesn’t exist. I’ve never met another American that boasted about how he cheats on his taxes. But in Italy, you run across people every single day that will shout it from the tower (figuratively, of course). For these people, it is a matter of pride. Success in cheating on one’s taxes is a badge of honor. HA! I got the government thief! In fact, some estimates show that only 50% of Italians pay any income taxes at all. and a large majority of the remainder grossly underfile. Now, before I get chastised by anyone that lives in Italy and does pay their taxes, let me be clear. This rule does not apply to everyone. I know people that follow the letter of the law as they understand it. The key phrase here is ‘as they understand it’, because if you ask 10 tax lawyers, you will get 10 answers as to what is and what is not legal or appropriate. All 10 are right, and all 10 are wrong. But one thing I have noticed is that those that try to stay legal are generally the ones that are just scraping by. Sad, but true.

The Amnesty Countdown

I always wondered how people don’t get caught. I mean, if I don’t pay my income taxes, sooner or later it has to catch up with me, right? So I asked around, and what it all really boiled down to was ‘Amnesty’. Apparently every so many years, the government has traditionally enacted an amnesty program for tax evaders. If you don’t pay your taxes, the government bureaucracy is so crippled and slow, that by the time they could ever really do anything to you, amnesty typically kicks in. I know people that have had 75% of all of their back taxes slashed with no penalty. They paid their reduced amount, then went on to not pay taxes again… until the next amnesty program. How must the people that actually try follow the law feel, when they realize that by following the rules, they got what amounts to a 75% penalty compared to the cheaters? I suppose it is similar to how I feel as someone that actually pays his mortgage these days, thus cannot qualify for ‘Loan Modification’.

There’s a Tax For That

So how bad are the taxes? I won’t bore you with marginal tax rates and calculations. Instead, I’ll list some of the taxes and policies that have made me scratch my head and say WTF over the years…

Television Tax

Italy has a few state-run television channels called RAI. They pay for it through something called the ‘Canone RAI’, which is essentially the RAI Televition tax. Your are required to pay it if you own a television, and it is calculated based on how many televisions you have. Even if you are in an area that gets no reception, and/or your pay for satellite television service… you MUST pay this tax. The penalty for not paying it? Well, if you don’t pay it, they may come and inspect your home. Pay or have your televisions sequestered. There is good news, however. The tax rate is lower if you only have a black and white television!

When I originally lived in Italy, there was also a radio tax for automobiles. The Finanza would set up roadside traffic checks to make sure you paid your registration fees. While stopping you, they would inspect your car, and if you had a radio, they would check that you paid the radio tax. I was actually cited for this once. This tax no longer exists.

Modem Tax

In the late 90′s when the Internet was gaining strength in Italy, the government saw a growing potential source of revenue among small Internet providers. They instituted a special tax on modems that essentially killed this business, leaving it almost solely to the quasi state run phone company.

Website Tax

A few years later they decided that there was not only a special tax for those with websites, but as a webmaster, you were required to save a copy of your website and submit it to the government… Each time it changed. Consider our own site: we would be required to submit a new CD right now…. and another now… Oops, our dynamic site changes by the second so we need to submit it again now.

IVA

The IVA is the Italian sales tax, or VAT (Value Added Tax).  It is a flat 20% for all purchases, and is paid at all levels from manufacturing all the way down to consumer.  It is then refundable at each level until a product or service reaches the consumer, making for some very complicated paperwork and bureaucracy, of course.  The only exception to the 20% is a reduced 10% and 4% rate on what is considered to be ‘essentials’.  Before the formation of the EU, Italy’s IVA was somewhat more complicated.  The base rate was 19%, but there was a special 38% tax rate for ‘Luxury Goods’.  What was considered a luxury?  Any car that and an engine of more than 2,000cc was a luxury,  Your home stereo was a luxury, etc.  The reduced rate for essentials like food and clothing was 4% as it is now, but the one thing that always puzzled me was that shoes were not categorized as ‘essentials’!

Income Tax

Income tax in Italy ranges between 23% and 43%, which may not seem so bad until you have to actually pay them and learn that Italians don’t enjoy the ability to apply tax deductions anything like what you may be accustomed to.  In addition to that is a concept of minimum base income that I have never fully understood.  Perhaps someone will comment and clarify it for me? As it has been explained to me by several people, if you are self-employed, what you earn is not initially assumed based on what you declare.  Instead, it is based on what you have and what you do.  In other words, if I own a clothing store that is 100 square meters in size, there is an assumption that this type of store should make a certain amount of money.  I pay that, and if I didn’t make that much, it is my responsibility to prove that I didn’t and file for a refund after the fact.  In other words, you can potentially pay more in tax than you grossed.  Similarly, it has been explained that your base minimum income is assumed by your possessions. That is to say that if I own a home of 200 square meters, and I have a certain car, and I own a motorcycle…  I must make a certain amount of money to support that lifestyle, so that is the minimum I am taxed on.  So if your favorite aunt passes away and leaves you her home at the beach, a car, and a boat…. the government may see you as a very high income earner with a fleet of vehicles and a beach house for weekend getaways.

Get Your Scontrino.

The ‘scontrino’ is your receipt when you make a purchase at a store.  Back to tax enforcement, this is another process that has been relaxed, thankfully.  The Finanza is charged with not only making sure you pay your taxes, but also making sure you are equipped to do so.  This means that if you have a store, you must have an approved cash register that prints receipts in a certain way.  In addition, you are required by law to provide a receipt to every customer.  So far, so good, right?  But the customer is also required by law to obtain the receipt, and to take it with him as he leaves the store.  So until recently, you could walk into a store and buy a pack of gum.  Maybe you simply threw the receipt in the trash, or you left it as you exited.  As you left the store, you could have been approached by a Finanza officer who would ask you to show your receipt.  If you failed to produce it, they would detain you and bring you back to the store.  Once there, the clerk would have to prove they gave you a receipt.  If he couldn’t, he would get a large fine.  Either way, you would have been fined for not being able to produce it on demand.

This would get taken to the extreme.  For example, I knew an owner of a small grocery/deli.  One day he was hungry and made himself a sandwich.  As he was eating the sandwich, a Finanza officer entered his store and demanded to see the receipt for the sandwich he had just made for himself.  Naturally he was dumbfounded, and wound up paying a fine equivalent to $500.00.

Another time, my father-in-law was chatting with the same man in his store.  They were very close friends.  He had spent about an hour chatting, as they often did.  The man offered him a slice of pizza as they were talking, and when he left, he was still eating it.  My father-in-law was instantly approached by a Finanza officer who demanded a receipt for the pizza slice.  He explained that there was none as it was just a friendly gesture of kindness from a close friend, not a purchase.  The result:  They were both fined.  The store owner should have rung up the pizza slice, and placed the retail value in the register in order to offer it to his friend.

Not only could they charge the store, but the finanza could also perform an instant on-site audit.  They could actually walk into the store, close you down and say “Pull out your books”.

Would You Like a Fattura or a Ricevuta?

Since the taxes in Italy are so high and complicated, there is an underground economy.  When you make a large purchase, you will often find people quoting you TWO prices:  One ‘with fattura’, and one without.  The Fattura is essentially the fiscal invoice.  If you are given one, the income cannot be hidden.  If they don’t give you one, and you pay cash… well, let’s just say that they save a bundle.  What always amazes me is how out in the open this is.  It is just the way things are done, and isn’t hush hush at all.

Tax the tax with another tax, why don’t we?

I’ve touched on a few taxes and processes, but Italy is replete with taxes on just about everything.  I could go on forever talking about inheritance tax, gift tax, double-payroll tax, capital gains tax, and the notorious “Once in a While Tax“, but this is getting fairly long.

OK I’m Done

There is my rant.  I feel better now.  Actually, I must admit that for now, I am happy to be in a position to have our company incorporated in the US, such that the lion share of our taxes are based on US income.  FOR NOW, we don’t have a quasi-military strike force there to protect the world from evil would-be shopkeepers that rob the system by offering slices of pizza to their friends.

Traveling to Italy, some visitors notice various oddities about Italian culture that seem to defy explanation.  Some are rooted in the socio-political history of the country, some are rooted in religious tradition, and others… the ones that are often the most seemingly nonsensical,  grew out of old wives tales.

One that has frustrated me for years is how Italians fear the dreaded ‘cold in your stomach’ and the almost-as-tragic ’draft’ (colpo d’aria).  It can kill you, and the causes are many.  Did he swim too soon after having eaten?  Did he have a cold beverage on a hot day?  Did she leave the house with wet hair?  Did he sleep in an air conditioned room?  All of these things are sufficient for most self-respecting Italians to shrug and utter the word ‘Beh’ while hearing your fate, signaling to all within earshot that everyone is in agreement:  Whatever happened to you, you were asking for it!

A Californian Might Cramp Up

When I was growing up in Los Angeles, our mothers loosely passed own a twenty minute rule.  It was the amount of time we must wait before jumping back in the ocean or pool after having eaten lunch.  They worried that we might get a cramp, which could actually be a big deal in the cold Pacific Ocean with its strong currents.  Some of my friends had no such rule, while others had as much as a one hour rule.  Whatever it was, it was never respected, and never enforced.

Is there any validity to the rule?  I really cannot say.  But I am a person who spent years of his life going to the beach practically every day.  I’ve never seen it.  Not once.  And if it is going to happen, the cold Pacific waters would be the perfect place. Keep in mind that I am not talking about someone getting pulled down in the cold current.  This is something completely different.

Sound The Alarm!  They Are Swimming At 2PM!

Italians have their own ‘when to swim after you eat’ rule, and they take is very seriously.  The general rule is 2 1/2 hours.  Let’s say that slowly: TWO-AND-ONE-HALF-HOURS.  Children are raised with this rule, not being told that they risk a little cramp.  No, they risk the killer of thousands.  The Cold In The Stomach. You can get it.. and you can die!   Mothers obey the law.  Fathers live by it, Doctors defend it, and lifeguards at the beach may actually defend you from it.

This may not seem like such a big deal, but think about it like this:  You take your family on a vacation to the beach. The kids are excited.  Each day you wake up at 8:00 AM.  You have a bite to eat at 9AM, and head to the beach.  The clock starts.  The kids had food, so they are trapped by the sand, looking at the water until 11:30AM.  Lunch is at 1:00PM, so you need to start heading back by 12:30PM.  You finish lunch by 2:00PM.  The clock starts again, meaning no water until 4:30 PM.  If the kids are lucky, mom and dad may give them another hour in the water.  If not, they may deem the air too cold for swimming by that time.  Fear of the cold in the stomach means that the kids only got 1 or 2 hours in the water.  But at least they are alive, right?

While my wife is Italian, she quickly learned of the deception she had grown up with after moving to the states.  Still, we always spent our summers in Italy.  One day at the beach, our child jumped in the water at about 2:00 PM.  Almost instantly, a lifeguard started running, as if to save her.  She cannot swim now.  It is too soon after lunch! Don’t you know she will catch the cold her her stomach?  Paola went on to say that she hadn’t had any lunch, but it didn’t matter.  It would seem that since the collective of Italy had just eaten, she could somehow catch the cold in her stomach by proxy.  We have seen it countless times.  If we are swimming at a time that doesn’t sync up correctly with cold-free times, people look at us as though we are from Mars.

Five Out of Five Doctors Agree

I’ve spoken with Italian doctors over and over, and they talk about all the medical evidence for the 2 1/2 hour rule.  In order to properly digest, we need X amount of time, and going into the water will cause the digestion to cease, thereby causing a — blah blah blah blah blah — you can die.  Each and every time I look at them and ask how it is that in my country of 300 million people, more than 20,000 kilometers of beaches, and over 10 million swimming pools, we have no such rule?  Are our doctors idiots?  Are we misdiagnosing thousands of people?  Was that jellyfish sting I got out at Zuma Beach really a symptom of the cold in my stomach?  Invariably they look at me in disbelief.  Somehow I must be misinformed, because this is a serious condition.

And Then It Hit Her… She Had Been Living a Lie

Wanna have some fun?  Take a visiting Italian to the beach, and don’t forget to bring a video camera.  Years ago we had an 18 year old girl named Catia visiting us from Italy.  One day we all went to Raging Waters, a water park just outside of Los Angeles.  We all spent the morning having a blast, and around 1:00 we had some sandwiches for lunch.  Our toddler daughter wolfed it down, and was chomping at the bit to get back in the water.  Paola and I did the same.  As we went back toward the water, we looked back and saw Catia holding back where we had been eating.  She said she didn’t feel like going back in.  We knew what was going on, of course.

We went on to explain that we had no such rule here, but she kept shaking her head in disbelief.  All the doctors say it, after all. Why would they if it were untrue?  Everyone knows this!  We finally gave up and said “Look at all of those people.  By this time, all of them have had something to eat.  Do you see anyone screaming in agony?  Do you see an ambulance anywhere?  We’re going back in the water, and if you want, you can stay here with your belief.”

We proceeded to go back into the water.  After about ten minutes we saw her edging closer and closer with a look of utter confusion on her face.  You could see her looking around, noticing that people were, in fact, not dropping like flies.  Finally she got to the edge of the water, and actually dipped her toe in, then quickly pulled back.  It was as though getting the toe wet would be the ultimate test.  She was still alive.  Then she walked in to her ankles.  Still alive.  Knees.  Still alive.  Waist deep.  Still alive.  By the time she was fully in the water, she had an expression that I’ll never forget.  She had been living a lie.  She went on to enjoy the rest of the day.

On the way home that evening, she was in absolute shock.  How was this possible?  When she went back to Italy, she told people. Naturally, people told her she had just been lucky to have survived that time, but I’m pretty sure she was now cured.

There Are Easier Ways To Get Killed By The Cold

I’ve been going on about swimming, but if you want, there are far more efficient ways to off yourself.

Beware of Ice

You will find while traveling in Italy, you will not get ice in your beverage, with few exceptions.  Nowadays, the ice in your drink rule has been relaxed, but you will still see it in more remote villages.  The belief is that, especially on a hot day, ice in your beverage will cause it to get too cold.  When the super-cooled liquid comes in contact with your warm stomach, you will have caught the cold in your stomach, as if you had been swimming after having eaten.  I have had people refuse to give me ice for this reason… out of concern for me!  What I have never been able to grasp is why the same person that would refuse me ice would happily serve me a Gelato (Ice Cream) or Granita (Essentially a Slurpee).  In some twisted reasoning, that is somehow different?

Cover Your Children

In a practice that I believe borders on child abuse, you will find that many Italian mothers believe that they must always dress their children in warm clothing, even in blistering summer heat.  Go to Rome on a 95 degree day, and you will see women pushing strollers with toddlers that are dressed for winter.  Their stomachs must be completely covered to protect them from the cold in the stomach, and the rest of their body (especially the neck) must be protected from the draft.  That same mother will then hop in the car and let her toddler roam free with no car seat, and no seat belt.  Perhaps all of the extra clothing will protect them in a crash?

Air Conditioning Fa Male

Now we are getting away from the cold in your stomach, and into the realm of the ‘draft’.  Air conditioning is gaining more and more popularity in Italy, but when we remodeled our house ten years ago, we were the first in our area to have it.  Growing up in Southern California, I never knew life without central air.  But when I first liven in Italy, it was prohibitively expensive.   People used to say that they didn’t have a/c because ‘fa male’, meaning it is bad for you.  Falling prices have made it popular, so it appears that they meant to say ‘it is bad for your wallet’.  Anyhow, Having air conditioning is one thing.  Using it… well, that is quite another thing.

Air conditioning produces cold air.  As long as you are moving around, apparently you are fine.  But at night, when you are laying still, you have a problem. The warmer the ambient temperature without the a/c, the worse the problem.  The cold air will come in contact with you (pray to God it is not your stomach!), and you will get the  ’colpo d’aria’.. the draft.  While not likely to kill you, you are certain to wake with temporary paralysis that can last days.  You will likely suffer from a bad case of Bronchitis, and life will be utterly miserable.  Is it worth it?

Some will argue that you risk a similar fate if you turn on a fan or open the window, so take such risks a fair amount of caution .  Now try to imagine living life in the hot summer with no a/c and closed windows! Doesn’t suffocation ‘fa male’ ?   In fact, you will find a very small selection of ceiling fans in Italy!

Wet Hair At The Beach: OK!  Wet Hair At Home: Beware!

I used to own a motorcycle in Italy.  I would wake up in the morning, get showered, get ready, and ride into town. My hair would still be a little wet, since I have always had short hair. People would look at me as though I had been skydiving with a hefty bag as a parachute.  That crazy American!  He’s certainly going to get himself sick or die from the draft with wet hair!  So i would ask:  What do you do when you are at the beach?  When you have been swimming, do you run somewhere to blow dry your hair?  How on earth do you survive otherwise?  The universal response:  Beh, that’s different.  How?

Updated 02/2010

Olive Garden is one of those places that really sets my blood to boil. Every time I hear the word ‘Hospitaliano’ I begin to cringe and twitch. When I hear them say ‘When you’re here, you’re family’, I can’t help but visualize the corporate offices of a chain with nearly 700 cookie-cutter restaurants. I’d just love to show up there one day waving my hands saying ‘Ciao!!! It’s cousin Michael’. I wonder what kind of Hospitaliano I will receive when I help myself (as family would) in their executive lunchroom at the corporate HQ. Better yet, after you leave an Olive Garden, how many people that work there know your name, let alone consider you family? Do we actually buy into this stuff?

I’ve Got Your Hospitaliano Right Here

OK, marketing marketing marketing. But now their commercials focus on their ‘Culinary Institute’ in Tuscany? They imply that their chefs all go there to learn how to make true Italian food with the freshest of ingredients. They learn from a local grandmother, then come back to their local Olive Garden and you get the benefit of their new-found talents. Yeah, Right! This is just over the top. Is Olive Garden actually trying to imply now that they serve authentic Italian food? Do they really want us to believe that it is the real thing? Fresh? We are talking about a Boil-a-meal-in-a-bag-then-serve chain here, people. Their recipes are at best ‘Italian Inspired’, but by no means Italian. It would be like having someone serve you a sausage and call it a hot dog.

Their latest commercial talked about how their chefs came back from Italy with their new recipe, ‘Chicken Crostina’ . Ummm… sorry folks, no such thing, and I can most certainly guarantee that the grandmother shown teaching the chefs in the commercial wouldn’t put an Olive Garden Chicken Crostina in her mouth to save her life, let alone teach anyone to make it.

A Dose of Reality

So what is this ‘Cooking Institute’ all about? I did a little research, and I put some two and two together. It appears that someone in corporate found an independent cooking school in Tuscany and made a deal with them. Olive Garden ranks all of their chefs and managers (as any corporation would), and the top 100 win a one-week trip to Italy the following year. It appears that they send 10 of their people at a time. It sounds like a great performance perk, and they are certainly getting a ton of marketing mileage out of it. However, I can pretty much guarantee that they come home and look at the food they make at their local Olive Garden and simply shake their heads, having finally experienced the real thing. In any case, they then go back to their ‘line chef’ system and feed you the same junk they always have. Sigh.

Are You Looking for Something AUTHENTIC?

Some have asked why my opinion is so strong on this subject.  Simply put, I own a cooking school in Italy that actually DOES create a family experience.  We actually DO teach authentic home-style Tuscan cooking, and our vacations are the stuff of dreams.  So since you probably arrived here while searching Google for information about Olive Garden’s cooking school, please do me one little favor:  Have a look at our website and check out what we are all about.  If you are really considering a cooking vacation in Italy, I think what we have will be EXACTLY what you are dreaming of.

Click here to see our cooking vacation pages.

Win a Trip to the Culinary Institute?

Hey, it’s a great promotion!  However, if you are hoping to learn the secrets of Chicken-Gnocchi-Alfrefo Soup or Deep Fried Lasagna Bites, it just isn’t going to happen.  I suspect that you will get a more authentic experience, and by the time you come home to Olive Garden, you will be squarely in my camp.

On a Final Note

Speaking of the grandmother… there is this promotional video.  Listen to what she says and you really need to ask yourself why the company that promotes this video doesn’t follow the advice

“My daughter speaks perfect English. After all, she spent a month in England with a native family”. That was the quote that caused me to simply give up, and it speaks volumes about Italian culture and the denial so many of them live in.

It happened this past October. I was in a local barber shop in Soriano nel Cimino. The barber was telling me of the frustrations he had been experiencing as he tried to communicate with the American tourists that t=started coming over the past few years. They would come into the shop, looking for a haircut, but he had difficulty communicating with them. After all, he doesn’t speak a word of English, and it certainly helps to know what kind of cut your customer desires.

I certainly understood, and promptly offered to help him. I explained that I would create a list of common (and not so common) terms that a barber would need to use, along with their Italian translations. He could simply give the sheet of paper to customers and solve most of his problems. I had done similar things for local restaurants, an ice cream stand, etc.

Imagine my surprise when he declined the offer. He explained that he had been asking his daughter to do such a list for him, but she lives far away, is busy, and has had no time. He explained that his daughter had studied English in school, and was therefore fluent in English. I explained to him that while she may have excellent English skills, it was highly unlikely that she would have many barber shop terms in her vocabulary. After all, what are the chances that she learned ‘buzz cut’ or ‘mullet’ in her studies?
I continued to explain that he had an American sitting in the chair, and while his daughter may be fluent in English, it could never be at my level, since it is my mother tongue. Additionally, I was there, ready to help, and he had said that she had no time to help him.

That is when he delivered the line. His daughter speaks perfect English because she spent a month in England. At that point, it becomes clear that there is no sense in continuing, but it illustrates a reality in Italian culture.

As visitors travel Italy, they invariably notice that signs, menus, notices, etc. are translated so poorly that they are all but incomprehensible. This isn’t limited to barber shops and little local businesses. The problem exists in government, major corporations; just about anywhere you see English translations. You see it in airports, major hotels, government websites… everywhere!

It’s the pride. Why have a non-Italian do a translation when we have a daughter, or a cousin, or a friend who claims to speak perfect English? It may spill over into the belief that the native-English speaking person can’t possibly do as good a job because they may not understand the nuances of Italian. I really don’t know.

Here is another great example: Soriano nel Cimino’s tourist board has a website, of course. Have a look at their home page . If that isn’t enough, keep digging on the site and try to read it. The kicker here is that for two years I have been offering to fix it for them… for free. I even went so far as to re-translate the site for them, and e-mail them a list of the mistakes with the changes they need to make. That was more than a year ago. I have explained to them in person why “The lucky hilly position” makes no sense in English. I explained how “the ideal place where to spend” is grammatically offensive. Did they change it? Why not? Nobody will tell, but I think it might hurt someone’s pride, so it is better to live in denial.

OK, I just felt like venting. I’m done for now.

Face it, I’m back in the states for a few months, so I just don’t have much material for the blog these days.  I mean, when I am in Italy, I could write several posts a day, but I am sitting here in Florida, what to contribute to THIS blog?

That said, little things catch my attention here and there, and while I was clicking away on Youtube, I stumbled across another one that had me rolling on the floor.

If you have read deeper into my blog, you certainly know the disdain I have for Olive Garden  — actually, any massive chain restaurant, but I am about Italy, so Olive Garden really hits a nerve.

So you will certainly appreciate why I love this video….

I love Football (Go USC!) & Baseball (Go Dodgers!).. I’m an American after all.  But I have never been able to sink my heart into Soccer. So having spent all of these years in Italy, I’ve never been to a serious professional Soccer match.  I’ve been to the small ones, but never ‘Stadium Sized’ games.  That changed yesterday.

I’ll write this article aimed at people that are not up to speed in the world of European Soccer, so I ask those of you that are in the know to be patient with me.

I was invited to go to a match between AS Roma (Rome) and Juventus (Turin).  They are the Italian Soccer equivalent of the Yankees vs. the Red Sox, with Juventus being the Yankees.  You know, the team that has a huge following all over the country (and the world), not just mainly in their home town.  It was held at Rome’s Olympic Stadium.

I was far more focused on the experience than the game itself.  After all, I could care less if ‘Totti must die’ or not.  Still, I was there with a group of six die hard Juventus fans, who graciously shared a ‘nearly impossible to procure’ ticket to the game.  Many envious people felt the ‘golden ticket’ had been wasted on me.  That said, for my own personal safety I was a Juventus fan yesterday.

The experience began with the walk up to the stadium.  Vendors abound were selling flags, shirts, banners, towels, etc. proclaiming that ‘Juve must die’ and ‘Juve I hate you’, etc.  Juve is short for Juventus, in the same way that we say ‘SC’ for ‘USC’.  There was no pro-Juventus paraphernalia to be found.  In fact, I noted that none of the fans wore anything pro-Juventus.  Odd, considering what a huge following they had all over the country.

After a bit, we arrived at security check #1.  Then #2, then #3.  Then a caged fortress-like area where we inserted our tickets.  Then yet another security check.  Each person was individually patted down, made to empty their pockets and bags, then checked again, and again at a series of checkpoints.  Nothing was allowed in.  There were literally thousands of police in full riot gear everywhere you looked, forming lines, ready for the worst.  I think I would have an easier time getting into the White House than the Soccer game yesterday.

The moment we walked through the gates, I witnessed people opening their bags and getting shirts, hats, flags, etc. out.  All Black and White… Juventus colors.  They had been afraid to wear their gear outside of the protection of the ‘Juventus Section’ of the stadium.

As we walked into the stadium, I quickly learned that all of the security was outside.  It was pure chaos as we attempted to find our seats… until I learned that seat assignments have no meaning.  Everyone just crowded in wherever they could.  Aisles, stairs, etc. were all fair play for seats.

As we tried to make our way to a place where we could see the game, I suddenly heard a roar of screaming and felt the pressure of thousands of people pouncing around me, pushing me (and everyone) violently to one direction.  As I looked up, completely confused, I saw a chair flying over the big fence into the stands where I was. Thousands of people were rushing away from the area… into me.  Then another… and another…. Bottles, small objects, etc.  It was mayhem.  I noted that everyone on the other side of the fence was wearing Red and Yellow, while those on my side were wearing black and white.  I was within 20 feet of the giant divider between Juventus fans and Roma fans.  THANK GOD FOR THE MASSIVE BARRIER!

Riot Police stormed the area and calmed things down, after a fashion.  We continued to slowly make our way to a better place in the stadium.  Pushing and shoving to move foot by foot was the order of the day.

Once we were settled in our chosen location, one thing became utterly clear.  I was in that spot for the duration.  The stairway was completely blocked by fans and there was no way to move away from my two square feet of stadium floor.  I had skipped lunch earlier, thinking I would get a bite at the game.  HA!  A couple hours earlier I passed up an opportunity to go to the bathroom, thinking I’d just wait until I got to the stadium.  HA!  Here I was, committed whether I liked it or not.

The game is about to begin.  Friends, this is no USC game.  This is no Dodgers game.  Picture in your mind those three or four crazy diehard fans you see on TV all painted up and screaming at football games…  now picture 80,000 of them!  The next 90 minutes will determine the future of mankind…. The fate of the world.  This is life or death.  Oh, I neglected to add that while these are two bitter rivals, this is not a championship game.  It is merely the 4^th regular season game.  Still, if it were not for the riot police and the massive barriers between the opposing fans, people would most certainly die today.

The gladiators take the field and the game begins.  I quickly learn that there are two contests going on here.  The first is the actual game on the field, and the second is a war of chanting between the fans of each side.  I took far more interest in the later.  They chant and chant and chant.  There is a chant for everything.  Oh look!  The ball is 3 and a half feet off the ground in the far left hand corner after having bounced off of someone’s left knee!  Let’s all do the ‘ball is 3 and a half feet off the ground in the far left hand corner after having bounced off of someone’s left knee’ chant!!!!  And while we do it, let’s all 80,000 of us jump up and down to see if the stadium floor can take the force of our weight without collapsing and killing us all.  Yeah!  That would be fun, wouldn’t it ?  Hey!  Someone on the field is hurt!  Cool, it’s a player from the opposing team…  Let’s all do the ‘Devi Morire’  (YOU MUST DIE!) chant!   Look, the referee clearly made a bad call!  Let’s all do the ‘Arbitro Cornuto’ (Referee, your wife cheats on you) chant!   WAIT!!!  A player hit the ball with his head and caused it to bounce off the top-right corner of the goal!!!  Now we have to the ‘A player just hit the ball with his head and caused it to bounce off the top-right corner of the goal’ chant!!  Let’s jump up and down even harder now.  Maybe we can collapse the stands THIS TIME!

A GOAL IS SCORED!  Where better to find entertainment than the fence dividing the fans. If the Romans scored, hoards of Romans are pounding at the fence, throwing things over it at the Juventus fans, screaming at them with only the bitterest hatred.  Juventus fans are quiet and deflated.  When Juventus scores, the same holds true in reverse.  Of course when it settles down, if we scored we all get to do the ‘We just scored and you evil stupid ignorant jerks have to go home’ chant.  I just kept saying to myself ‘People.. it’s only a game’.

Finally the game is over.  As it turned out yesterday, the game was a tie at 2 – 2. Rome had been winning, but with only 3 minutes left in the game, Juventus scored to tie it up.  To my surprise, this was a massive moral victory for the Juventus fans, so the ‘Romanisti’ left deflated while Juventus fans celebrated.  Apparently, Rome was slightly ahead of Juventus in the overall standings, and a tie causes Rome to lose standings, while Juventus gains.

You would think that was a good thing, right?  I’m with Juventus fans, so I should be happy for them, of course.  However, there is a catch for someone like me that can really care less.  Remember the whole violence problem?  In order to protect the Juventus fans from the angry Roma fans, the powers that be emptied the stadium of Roma fans and COMPLETELY cleared the neighborhood outside before they let us move from our section of the stadium.  We were held captive for a full hour and a half… unable to move, go to the bathroom, anything.  So here I am, desperately hungry and in need of a bathroom, holding it while I watched the Romanisti leave.  My only thought was why on earth couldn’t I have been with Roma fans????

Finally they let us go, and while I was told there were bathrooms around, I couldn’t find one to save my life.  So we exited the stadium.  As we left, I watched the hoards of Juventus fans change out of their Black and white gear into non-denominational clothing out of fear.  We left the stadium, and out of utter desperation I found a bush.  Ahhhhhhhh.  A marked benefit of being male.

One more new experience marked off.  Now where can I find a Dodger Dog?

On Tuesday, December 19th at around 4:30 PM we sat at the departure gate in Los Angeles waiting to board our flight.  It had already been a very long day for us, and we were looking forward to a 10 hour flight to London with a connection that would take us to Rome.  It was me, Paola, our 17 year old daughter, and our 7 year old son.

I remember thinking and commenting at that time that if all went well, we would be getting in our rental car at Rome in about 16 hours, then make the hour and fifteen minute drive to Soriano, and finally be in our own beds.  The worst case scenario was that we would miss our connection.  After all, we only had a one hour layover at London Heathrow, so we might miss our connecting flight and have an additional 2 hour delay.

That worst case scenario was a dreaded thought at the time, but looking back, all I can say is:  IF ONLY!

The flight to London was uneventful.  I didn’t sleep, but I rarely do.  Still, I had a decent seat and the crew was good, which can make all the difference.

About 20 minutes before we were scheduled to land, however, the announcement came over the intercom stating that we would have to circle over London for 45 minutes before landing.  Oddly, he also assured us that we had enough fuel… duh!

OK, at this point we figure we will either miss our flight or with any luck, our connection will be late, too… IF ONLY!

The Adventure Begins
We landed.  We were about an hour late, but we had been told that many flights were also late. Cool.  We got off the plane and proceeded to the transit area where we would find our gate and figure out if we would make our flight.  It is 6:30 AM on Wednesday back in Los Angeles.  I have now been up for 24 hours.

The moment we got to the transit area, we were greeted by hundreds and hundreds of people looking just as confused as us.  Something was clearly not as it should be.  We couldn’t find our flight on the monitor, so we proceeded to an ‘Information’ line.    I kept looking at the monitor and every few seconds the word ‘CANCELED’ would appear next to a scheduled flight.  Not good.

After a bit a woman comes to us with a sheet of paper.  She said that some flights are being canceled due to fog.  As it turns out, ours was one of them.  She explained that we would need to proceed to baggage claim, get our luggage, and then go to the British Airways ticket desk to get ourselves rescheduled on the next flight to Rome.  At this point we are not happy campers.   How inconvenient that we have to get our bags, go through customs, and navigate Heathrow to get a new ticket… only to come right back here.  Why can’t they reschedule us here? Whatever… we’ll deal with it and get to Rome a bit more tired… IF ONLY!

We made the trek to baggage claim and waited… and waited… and waited.  No bags.  Finally someone explains that we were given bad information.  Our bags were in ‘holding’ and would be automatically placed on the next Rome flight.  Well, that certainly makes more sense.  He explained that we did still need to clear customs and go to BA ticketing.  So we left.

We went through customs and entered Heathrow.  For those that don’t know, Heathrow is enormous and very confusing.  We walked and walked and walked and walked to find British airways ticketing.  When we got to the general area, we were greeted by thousands of people crowding the terminal, looking as confused as we did.  We finally found a BA employee who explained where the line was for ticketing.  She warned us that the line was ‘dreadfully long’ due to the fog problems, and that everyone we saw in the terminal was in the same situation as we were.

We went to the end of the line, and it was by all definitions ‘dreadfully long’.  We figured that we would never make the next flight.  I was then informed that what I believed to have been the end of the line was merely a break in the line to allow people to cross to the exit.  The end of the line was ‘down there’.  As I ventured ‘down there’ I would get to what I thought was the end, only to find it wrap around another corridor… and another… and another… and another.  My conservative estimate is that the line was roughly 3/4 mile long.  This does not look good at all.  As we stand in the line, we move forward roughly 50 feet in a half hour.  It didn’t take long to do the math on this one and figure out that we were not going anywhere today.

I decided to venture toward the front of the line to hover and gather all of the intel that I could.  The first thing that really struck me was that all of the airport employees were just as confused as we were.  They were overwhelmed and had no plan of action.  They were winging it.  The next thing to happen was ‘The letter’.  They began to hand out apology letters.  I truly felt bad for these people, as they were dealing with thousands of angry travelers while they were doing the best they could…. And the best they could do at this point was an apology letter.

At one point, toward the front of the line a British Airways employee who was helping another passenger asked me if I had a pen.  I said I would go grab one for him, so I started running back to Paola, who was way back in line still.  I got the pen, gave it to the man, and he told me to stay there next to him.  As it turns out, he was British Airways Executive Vice President for the Americas, who just happened to have flown in from New York that day.  He told me that standing in that line was an act of absolute futility, and then got out his cell phone and called his New York office. He got us rescheduled on a flight the next day and said that BA would pay for our hotel that night.  He scribbled some information on paper and gave me instructions.  WOW!  Good thing we had that pen. 

I got Paola and the kids out of the line.  The apology letter had a list of hotels, but I figured that with the thousands of people that were stranded, we would be wasting our time trying to get one of those.  When I am in London, I usually stay at the Paddington Hilton because the Heathrow Express takes you straight to Paddington station in 15 minutes, and the hotel is an escalator away from the trains.  We quickly booked a room there, called some close friends that live in London and boarded the train.

We spent a nice evening with friends we would not have otherwise seen.  This wasn’t so bad, after all.  We’ll be rested and on a flight to Rome tomorrow… IF ONLY!

That night we were watching the news, and the Heathrow situation was the top story.  80,000 passengers were stranded at Heathrow.  All flights that day after we had arrived had been canceled, and they expected the fog to last for a few days.  Already, 350 flights had been canceled for the following day.

We tried to call British airways and the airport over and over to see how we were affected, but their lines were beyond capacity and there was no hope of getting through.  Even the New York office was impossible.  I tried their website, but their system wasn’t responding to the load.  We had no way of getting any information.  The following morning nothing had changed, so we figured our only option was to go back to Heathrow to get the lay of the land.

We woke up (Paola couldn’t sleep that night)   and quickly got showered and to the trains..  Once we arrived at Heathrow, we found that gigantic line again, only now it was worse!  Now there was a giant line that wrapped around outside in the freezing cold fog that brought you to a tent where they would give you a ‘Lottery Ticket’ that would give you the right to be in the ‘dreadfully long’ line.  OK, I’ll hover at the front again and gather intel!  All the while, we are trying to call the numbers we have for BA, but there was just no hope of getting through.

I was able to find out that our flight was, in fact, canceled.  At best, we might get out in a day or two.  At this point we decided the best bet was to get off the Island any way we could.  The first thought was to rent a car.  We quickly found out that while we could do that, all of the ferries were backed up with people that had the same thought we had.

The next idea was train.  We could take the EuroStar to Paris (Through the Chunnel) then get a train or a car in Paris to Rome.  Or perhaps we could fly from Paris to Rome.  We made some calls and were told that the flight would cost us around $2,600.00.  Screw that… we’ll do the train.  Some calls were made, and we had instructions and times.  We would get to the station in London, and then purchase the tickets through to Rome.  We would take a night train, and arrive in Rome the following morning.  Cool… IF ONLY.

We got our tickets for the Eurostar, but as we entered the station, we learned that you are technically in France at that point, and you had to purchase tickets outside the station.   Unfortunately, we were not allowed outside the station at that point, so we had to buy the tickets once we arrived in Paris.  Keep in mind that we were told that we might not be able to get a ticket for the Rome train, so time was of the essence. 

During the train ride to Paris, we kept calling British Airways in hopes of getting information.  Remember, our suitcases are somewhere at Heathrow, and perhaps they could get us on a Paris-Rome flight.  Nothing. 

Finally we arrive in Paris and start to make a run for the subways so we can get to the station where the Rome train leaves from and try to get on it.  I decided to try British airways one more time and somehow I finally got through.    The woman on the other end suggested that I should go the airport and see if BA would get us on a flight.  She said there were two flights for Rome, but she couldn’t do the booking.

With a quick change of plans, we took the subway to the airport and walked and walked and walked to find the BA desk.  When we got there, we found another long line.  We left long lines of people trying to leave London, and here we found a long line of people trying to go TO London.  Again, I hovered for intel.  Unfortunately, I don’t have much luck finding helpful French people.  After a bit, a very nice Hungarian lady from a different airline decided she wanted to make my day a little better.  She was able to produce four tickets to Rome that night for us.

We boarded the flight and made it to Rome.  We finally made it to Soriano at 1:00 AM Friday morning.  All in all, our day had started 58 hours prior.  That moment back in Los Angeles when I dreaded the thought that my bed was 16 hours away was actually 48 hours away.  It never felt so good.

We left Los Angeles on December 19th. We were supposed to arrive in Soriano on December 20th.  We arrived on December 23rd.  The following day one suitcase arrived.  All of our Christmas presents are somewhere in London.  On December 26, another suitcase arrived.  As of now, we have no information on the other four… which have the presents.  I‘m at the point that I am driving to Rome daily to check for the suitcases (they rarely answer the phones), and have gotten on a first name basis with many of the customs Agents at FCO .
 
The funny thing is that while it was crazy, especially with a Teenage daughter and a 7-year-old son, we were all troopers and laughed all the way.  Oddly, it is a wonderful memory, and I am sure that I will look back at this as one of the best Christmas Holidays of our lives.

I’ve been back in Los Angeles for a week now, and last night we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner for the first time since I got back.  This may not seem like a big deal, but for us it is always a tragedy.

The restaurant was Pomodoro in Woodland Hills.  I don’t want to say it is a bad place by American standards.  Actually, it is one of the better chains.  It is just that I was in Italy having the real thing a week ago, and by those standards, even the best place in the states simply stinks.

To give you an example of what I mean, let me go back about a month.  I was having a mega craving for roasted chicken and roasted potatoes.  In the states, we would generally call it Tuscan chicken, since it is generally a central Italian thing.  In Soriano, there is a place that makes roasted chicken and potatoes that are to die for, and this craving I was having needed to be addressed.

We decided to go to a place called Rosti in Westlake Village.  It is a tiny chain of just 4 restaurants.  We had been there in the past many times, and it had always been good.  In fact, it has always been the closest thing to real central Italian food we had ever eaten in the states.  The problem was that I was craving the real thing, not the ‘closest thing’.  I had the memory of Italy in my head, not the memory of a cheap imitation of Italy.

So we go to Rosti and order Caprese, followed by roasted chicken and potatoes.

The Caprese was a disaster.  But t wasn’t their fault… it was ours.  We had the memory of the real thing.  Caprese is pretty simple… it is hard to mess up.  I mean, Mozzarella, Tomato, basil, and oil… How hard can it be?  The problem is that the tomatoes we get here in L.A. taste like water, not tomatoes.  The mozzarella is never fresh, and even at best, it has absolutely no flavor. So in the end, you get something that looks like Caprese, but tastes like nothing.

Then came the main course.  The plate looked awesome!  There were my potatoes and my roasted chicken… Yummmmm!!!  That is, until my knife hit the chicken.  It didn’t feel right.  When I tasted it, I suddenly frowned and wondered how they got the chicken flavor out of the chicken.  Then I tried the potatoes, and I could feel the effects of the microwave used to heat them in my mouth.  I was devastated.  It was like craving an In n’ Out burger and settling for a Big Mac.  The problem was that this is as good as it gets.  The only way to satisfy the craving was 8.000 miles away.  Why can’t we make decent Italian food here?

Actually, it is our own fault.  We live in a move ‘em in and move ‘em out country. It starts with the farmers and ends with your meal.  The farmers mass produce everything, having to make a bigger tomato that gets to the market faster so they can grow more tomatoes.  Technology gets us bigger and cheaper tomatoes faster than ever. The price of this is flavor.  The chicken ranchers are replaced by chicken ‘mills’ that pump them full of hormones, giving us bigger chickens than ever.  They are big and cheap, so who will notice that they don’t actually taste like chickens?  

As we walk into restaurants they take our orders as soon as possible and deliver us our food as quickly as possible.  We mistake this for good and fast service, but it isn’t that at all.  In fact, they want us in and out quickly so they can get reuse your table as many times as possible that evening.  But food just doesn’t cook that fast, now does it?  So they have to precook as much as possible.  They can’t waste the time and energy to make things from scratch, so they buy the majority of what you eat in frozen form from a huge distributor.  Food is prepped quickly and reheated so that they can use fewer people in the kitchen with higher efficiency, all the while getting your order to you in lightning speed. 

The process is beautiful, and the only thing you lose along the way is flavor.   But even that is ok, since we are preconditioned to think that is the way it is supposed to be.

Then we wonder why the Italian food is so much better in Italy.  Go figure!