around the house

I know, I know...I've been a bit of a slacker on here since we've returned. I'm only averaging about one post per week, which is well below the norm during our time in Italy. I don't really have an excuse, but it's hard to focus when everything around the house is in disarray as we remodel a bit. We're nearing the end, and slowly some rooms are coming towards the final touches. Here is a small photo tour of some of the details I've had fun putting together...

painted floors • glass door knob on the closet • Italian book corner
We painted the ceilings a super light warm blueish-gray...Palest Pistachio. The walls, a mix of White Mosaic, Golden Straw, and Edgecomb Gray. After looking at eco-friendly, recycled options to replace the old carpet in the bedrooms, we decided that the best 'non-impact' way to remodel, was to use what we already had...so we ripped up the carpet, sanded the plywood, and painted over with a glossy warm charcoal porch paint Kendall Charcoal. Love it. Someone commented that it looks "Anthropologie-esque". If you know me, then you know this is a major compliment :)

Pick one room and make it yours.
Go slowly through the house.
Be polite, introduce yourself,
so it can introduce itself to you.
-Under the Tuscan Sun
painted wrought-iron vintage handles • an intersection of colors • wall corner details
In the office we did the same with the floors, got some great heavy, long black and white tapestries for the windows, and I even "shabby-chic"-ed (my made-up verb) an awesome vintage armoire we found at a store in town. The wrought-iron hardware on this piece is so unique, and I painted Chris' desk to match.

Artwork is making it's way back onto the walls, along with lots of new photos from our time in Italy. The kitchen and guest bath are the last on the agenda over the next 2 weeks...then I think we'll be able to take a sigh of relief.

banana blooms • hopper guest • heart-shaped cocoon
Not only has the inside of the house been bustling with activity...so has the outside. Since the summer has been a very tropical, rainy one this year, we've had 2 of our many banana trees actually produce fruit. I doubt that the bananas will reach full maturity, but it's nice to see the bunches hanging over the yard. Also, the area is experiencing a visit from a not-so-welcomed guest this season...these monstrous locust/grasshopper things that eat, eat, and eat. But they are colorful and interesting to look at. Fellow St. Augustine blogger SomePinkFlowers posted about this phenomenon this morning as well.

So these are just some of the happenings around our house these days...I'll keep you updated on the progress.

italian group meet-up

Last night I went to an Italian language group about 45 minutes north of St. Augustine. I found out about them through the website MeetUp.com. They normally meet every month on a Tuesday, but since every Tuesday, we normally host our 'community dinners' at our house I figured that I wouldn't be able to participate.

Luckily though, this month's meet-up came on the night where we had to cancel community dinner because of our house being in remodel-disarray. I asked a friend of mine from our old Italian group here in St. Augustine to come with me, and by 7pm we were sitting at an Italian restaurant with 6 other group members.

We were asked to bring a popular English song translated into Italian to share, while others guessed what it was. It was a pretty successful game, and we all enjoyed speaking to our waitress in Italian. She was so nice, and we found out that she is Albanian, but lived in Pistoia (near Florence) for a while. She came over a couple of times just to hear what we were saying and converse a bit. I ordered a calzone with spinach and 3 types of cheese...but only finished a little under half, since even the "small" was very large.

After dinner we went next door to a gelateria. There are two of these shops in that area, and supposedly it was started with recipes of the owner's Italian grandmother. The consistency was quite good, although it was "Americanized" as well, with flavors like 'cake batter', 'cookie dough', and 'french vanilla'. Most of the flavors looked enhanced with food coloring, but the pistachio was a brownish green (always a good sign, versus the fake brighter green), and was very tasty. I ended up ordering pistachio and brownie batter. I enjoyed it, although I only finished about 1/3 of my cup. A very obvious sign of the "American (over)portion size"...the "small" cup here was about the same amount as the 3rd largest size in Italy.

It was so refreshing to be able to converse in Italian again, even if it was only over dinner. And I was a bit surprised at how the language has almost seasoned in my mind, and now I'm a little less inhibited.

Another gelato update: there are 2 places in St. Augustine that I've been told about that sell gelato...I will be going soon and reporting back :)

through a florida creek

on our way • sun hat & spf • winding through the creek
This weekend we hung out with some friends from St. Augustine, who also have an apartment near Rome. When we were in Italy, we were able to get together with them on a couple of occasions, and it was nice seeing familiar faces which are a type of link for us to our time away.

They live on the Intracoastal (the waterway which flows between inlets and on the land-side of the island where we live), so we met with them plus another of their friends in the morning, and pushed out 3 kayaks and 1 canoe (which Chris and I shared). After crossing to the west side of the waterway at high tide, being careful not to disturb any of the oyster beds which lie just a couple feet below the surface, we went under a bridge and then kept rowing towards a marsh area.

approaching the creek • marsh below • cliffs by the water's edge
Since it was high tide, we were hoping to find a path through the reeds and grass to connect us with the protected Moses Creek. Luckily we glided quite effortlessly through the shortcut, and then began the zig-zagging through the marsh. Gliding through the water was fun as we chatted and kept our eyes out for wildlife. We saw many places where alligators used for a beach, but no sign of the large reptiles themselves...which I wasn't complaining about. Since there were 5 of us, we probably made enough noise to scare them off before we approached. A couple miles in, we stopped on a dock and ate a quick bite for lunch. Before getting back in the boats, we walked up to a small overlook cliff to see the winding creek below, and mentioned how it didn't feel like we were just a few miles from our house because this place was so secluded and peaceful. We continued up the creek for a bit more, and then turned around just as the tide shifted.

As we approached the southern end of the creek again, which feeds to the Intracoastal, we found the small path we'd used to enter several hours earlier, but now as the tide was emptying - we had to shimmy the canoe over the muck and grasses while jamming our ores in the mud. Finally we made it through and continued on open water back towards the house.


look closely: herons flying off • pink spoonbills in the tree • dolphin fin out of the water
Just before we left the marsh, we saw a tree full of the bright pink spoonbills, and several herons and cranes flying by. When we paddled through the open water though, we glided right by a pod of dolphins who were feeding on a large school of fish. I always love to see them come up out of the water, and this time it was so quiet that we could hear them breathe each time they surfaced. Unfortunately, every time I went to take a photo they were already back in the water or further away from us - but I did get a glimpse of a fin in one shot.

Being on the water, out in the sun, and rowing for hours, really made me collapse later in the afternoon, and my upper back and arms are still reminding me of the muscles that I used. It was such an enjoyable time to spend with friends, rowing, watching wildlife, and of course talking about our common affinity to Italy.

dust, fortunes, and magnets

Tonight we went out for dinner, since our kitchen is packed on all sides with our livingroom furniture. We've been redoing our house since we got back last month, and tackling the last major project since our 6 years owning our casa - replacing the ceilings. Augh. What a project. There is no easy or nice-and-neat way to do it. It is a major overhaul, and leaves the house in constant disarray, not to mention the million particles of drywall and spackle dust that finds themselves into every crevice of every piece of furniture, clothing, and even on shampoo bottles that are 3 feet back in a closet 2 rooms away from where the guys are working.

Oh, but the end is in sight...*wiping my glasses free of dust particles*...well, it may just be a mirage, but I do think I see the end.

Anyway, so since I almost literally have to do a one-handed cartwheel around the 2 stacked couches, computer desk, pile of canvas paintings, and mosaic tabletop to even reach the stove... we ate Chinese tonight.

...not order-in Chinese, but go-sit-in-the-plastic-teal-booths-with-pink-neon-lights-and-red-lanterns Chinese, complete with a good hour away from the mess at home.

All this is to say that we both got 2 of the BEST fortunes EVER in our cookies tonight.

Chris: "Be prepared for a sudden, needed, and happy change in plans!"
Mine: "Your career is moving more and more towards service to others."

Wow. Can you believe these were real fortunes, not even the half-formed statements that many of the cookies today now hold?! Not that I put any weight in these quotes between the wafers, but these were so good, I may even be tempted to try the "Lucky Numbers" at the bottom. Not to mention, they were so entertaining all by themselves (very telling of what we've been talking about recently), that they didn't even make us resort to our favorite Chinese dessert game of "In the Bedroom or On the Toilet" to make the quotes more interesting.

We've had a long running card on our refrigerator were an ever-growing list of good winners of this game are placed. You know, like, "The really great man is the man who makes everyone feel great...in the bedroom" or "Cleaning up the past will always clear up the future...on the toilet". There are even the 2-point scores like "Your infinite capacity for patience will be rewarded sooner or later...in the bedroom (or) on the toilet".

These are just some of the gems on our scorecard held by a magnet on our fridge.

Another great magnet game I've been loving lately, is the Magnetic Poetry. It's not just the normal stack of nouns, verbs, and extra consonants - but it's the ITALIAN version of this creative box of fun. My friend found this set for me in a flea market in Wyoming (of all places) - and gave it to me as a coming home present. I'm very fond of it and have fun putting small phrases and poems on a metal, antique writing hutch in our livingroom kitchen.

So, there you have it: dust, fortunes, and magnets.

...more to come on why the fortunes were so relevant...

italian fever

Bridge of Lions - St. Augustine, Florida • Ponte Vecchio - Firenze, Italia
Italy fever has officially set in.

I figured that during June, our first month back, we would be busy enough getting back into the swing of things, that we wouldn't have much time to think about le cose Italiane...and this turned out to be mostly true. Our first four weeks were filled with 'welcome back' get-togethers, dinners with friends, lots of reunions, and our friends' wedding. Chris was getting acclimated to his new job, and I was slowly re-learning the office life. For a couple of weeks, our time in Italy felt more like a dream than a past reality, and only when I exchanged emails or photos with friends still in Florence, did it sink in that we really did live there.

Our evening walks on the beach were taking the place of our evening gelato passeggiate, and our conversation surprisingly wasn't filled with longings of Italy, but just of the daily happenings here. I immediately didn't like having a car again, or having to always drive places to get anything done, but as the time has passed, this began to feel quite normal (even though I would rather be in a city where I could walk most places). Our oven didn't get touched for the first 3 weeks, as our diets had changed to accommodate only 2 gas burners in our Florence apartment...but now I'm back to baking regularly, especially now that I'm making all homemade breads.

We took a trip to the local wine shop to see if we could find any names that we recognized...but we only found a small handful, and the prices were very disappointing. We did go home with a Chianti though, and have since found a decent olive oil, coffee, and pasta to add to the pantry.

The daily caffe and ciambella has been replaced by a morning Acai smoothie, and (unfortunately) our favorite pesto has not been replaced by anything...as there seems to be NO decent substitute this side of the Atlantic. *I still have a couple of places to check on this, but at least can order from ItalyByMail.com. I also may have to take up homemade stuffed pasta-making as well, because we're still searching for good tortellini.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida • Monterosso, Cinque Terre, Italia
But now, that July is almost halfway over, signaling our 6th week back in the States, I've already shed some tears (a couple of times), and have the constant urge to read Italian blogs, books, and travel sites, watch Italian movies (which I watched La Dolce Vita last week and had to turn the English subtitles OFF as they were too distracting :) good sign...), and now our evening strolls on the beach are filled with conversations once again of the bel paese.

At this point, we don't know what our future holds, and we're committed here for a while more...but we do see living in Italy once again and look forward to visits in the meantime. It's a daily balancing act with emotions, dreams, and expectations - but I know the track our lives have taken over the past couple of years has changed our outlook on possibilities and given us a more well-rounded perspective on what "home" means.

For now, I will try everyday to be thankful for my blessings, for the present moment I'm in, and for the people I'm surrounded by. I will remind myself that life is now and not always in the future, and that I'm fortunate to have more than one place to call (and feel at) home.

...but I'd still love to find a good gelateria around here in the meantime :)

independence weekend

We've been enjoying our long weekend, thanks to 56 delegates who signed our Declaration of Independence from England in 1776. July 4th is now celebrated as our official holiday, complete with corn on the cob, ice cream, bike rides, cook-outs, checkered tablecloths, and of course lots of fireworks (and sparklers). We had a lot of fun making Sparkler Art like last year with friends.

_____________________________________

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is one of the most famous inclusions of "unalienable rights" in the Declaration, and although America is far from perfect, I'm thankful for this foundation of values that has pushed us along. I also think that living abroad has helped me see more clearly some of the good things about my home country.

I'm glad for the amount of time we spent in Italy, because we were able to scratch the surface a bit with how the system over there works, and how many people feel about their life, government, and future. We talked with so many younger people (20s-30s) who thought we were crazy for being Americans wanting to live in Italy. When we told them that we were even going to stay longer if Chris' work visa came through in time, their jaws dropped even further towards the ground, always repeating the same thing, "Ma dai! PERCHE?!?! Gli americani che vogliono vivere e lavorare QUI in Italia?!" (Come on! WHY? Americans who want to live and work here in Italy?) They just couldn't grasp why we would ever consider this, when most of them talked to us about wishing they could have the opportunity to move to, and work in America.

The more we heard this, the more we noticed a similar sentiment throughout the country...that most people are not born with this built-in feeling of "If I work hard enough, study long enough, try hard enough...I can do whatever I want, be whatever I want, be as successful as I want", like I feel many people have in America. The US is a country of opportunity, and there are so many stories of people coming from nothing to be one of the most successful people in the world. This is almost unheard of in Italy. Plus, wages are so low and it almost doesn't matter what you do - your salary will, more than likely, be sub-par. Many people shared with us that even if they studied for years at university, excelled, and received a degree, that they could still work retail at the newspaper stand and make generally the same amount.

But, they eat well, seem to enjoy a slower and rich way of living, and have some of the most beautiful and historic places on earth :)

Seriously, we did hear a report like this on the Italian radio once saying how many things were wrong with the government, economics, and labor issues...but they had to find the things to be enjoyed and proud of - like food, richness of life, and landscapes. There is something, for sure, that drew (and still draws) us to the bel paese, but I'm very thankful to have opportunity in our lives being American...and the option to share our lives with two homes.

a bread revolution

this week's flowers • first cut on the loaf • fresh ciabatta
This post was one I'd planned on writing since we returned, but just today when I was actually putting out my dough ball to rise, I took a break to catch up on blogs, and came across, Jenn The Leftover Queen who just posted "Speaking of Baked Goods...Bread Rant". Her post pretty much sums up what I've been feeling about the basic baked good since moving back from Italy. First off, the prices of groceries have gone up everywhere, so we noticed a significant cost increase in the bread we used to purchase. Actually I hardly ever go down the 'bread aisle' at the supermarket, because it's been years since we've had the packaged breads at our house. We switched, instead, to the fresh bakery bread, but I've noticed that the ingredient list on the back of the package is a little more than just flour, yeast, and salt.

This expanding list of components, the quick rise of prices, and the fact that we became quite accustomed to the simple breads in Italy, led me to research how to make simple, cheap, and YUMMY bread at home.

I've never had much luck with dealing with yeast. I can cook, bake, and do most of it without a recipe...but yeast always kicked my butt. I found a great recipe for ciabatta bread online, and decided to try it. By the second try, it was coming out a bit fluffy, and now by the 4th attempt, I think it's about right. Ciabatta was my favorite bread that we kept on hand in Italy. Chris really liked the Tuscan bread, but since it's made without salt, I never developed a craving for it. Ciabatta is crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, a little flatter than traditional loaves, and adds a small bit of milk and olive oil to the dough.

Since we've tried to simplify our kitchen gadgets and electronics, we don't have an electric mixer at all (let alone a fancy one with a dough handle). All the recipes I found either included instructions for a bread maker or at least a mixer. I think the reason I initially had problems with my dough rising, was that I over kneaded, but now I just lightly knead and do this pull and twist method with the dough ball in my hands.

The only thing about this recipe, is that you have to have some time to make it as it passes through several steps of rising along the timeline of about a day and a half. Oh, but it's worth it...and really quite easy.

YUMMY ITALIAN-STYLE CIABATTA
inspired by recipe on Recipezaar and modified by Erin

INGREDIENTS

FOR SPONGE
• 1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons water (105-115 F)
• 1/3 cup room-temp water
• 1 cup bread flour
FOR BREAD
• 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons warm milk (105-115 F)
• 2/3 cup room-temp water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cups bread flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

DIRECTIONS
• Make sponge: Stir together, warm water and yeast. Let stand 5 minutes, until creamy. Transfer yeast mixture to another bowl and add room-temp water and flour. Stir for 4 minutes. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let stand at cool room temp at least 12 hours and up to 1 day.

• Make bread: Stir together yeast and milk in small bowl and let stand 5 minutes, until creamy. In bowl, blend together milk mixture, sponge, water, oil and flour at until flour is moistened. Lightly knead for 3 minutes. Add salt and lightly knead for 4 more minutes. Scrape dough into oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap, until doubled- about 1 1/2 hours. Note: Dough will be VERY sticky!

• Graciously flour a cutting board, and turn out dough into a well-formed oblong oval. Dip fingers in flour and dimple loaves. Dust tops with flour. Cover with dampened kitchen towel and let rise 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until almost doubled.

• At least 45 minutes before baking bread, pre-heat pizza stone on lowest oven rack position at 425°F. Transfer loaf onto stone and bake for 20 minutes or until pale golden.

We're lovin' this bread and even though it doesn't have big enough slices to make a sandwich, it fulfills our craving for simple, tasty bread in the meantime. *PLUS, takes less than $1 in ingredients to make!*. Jenn mentioned a recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread on her post, and tips to make bread with about 5-minutes/day!

"JUST SAY NO" to the never-ending lists of ingredients that are bad for your health (and don't even taste that good) and JOIN THE BREAD REVOLUTION!

To all the other bloggers who want to join in, post your favorite bread recipe and make sure to leave a comment to let us know where to find you!