El exito (And yes; I am aware that this is Spanish)

My bed smells like cigarette smoke and stale beer. This is the result of the end of my evening on Wednesday night... Scratch that, Thursday morning. It all began Wednesday with the coming of our Tex-Mex party at cafe il Poggo. I burned two cds with all the Robert Earl Keen and Jerry Jeff I could find to achieve the correct ambiance, and I went to work on the final prep for the feast. I was serving four courses including dessert plus margaritas, buckets of corona (they had never heard of this concept before) and tequila shooters. One little fact about working here is that Lorenza never knows how many people will actually be coming to events because apparently Italians do not care to make reservations or arrive in a timely manner. So what I am getting at is, that I have to be ready for anywhere from 20-40 people arriving whenever they feel like it and oh, they will probably eat for 60 people.

Menu

1st course- Selection of salsa, guacamole three ways and chile con queso in the style of Felix Restaurant in Houston.
2nd course- Quesadilla of beans and queso fresco
3rd course- Tacos de carnitas with traditional condiments
Dessert- Cheese cake (I know this is not Mexican but my host really wanted me to do it)

I ended up having everything ready with my avacados ripening just enough at the very last minute. We even made fresh tortillas right up until we served our second course. Everything went fairly smoothly and they sure did eat for more bodies than were present. We sold out of Corona (around 60 bottles), one bottle of tequila to a really rowdy group, countless glasses of prosecco, champagne, brunello, margaritas and shooters. And that is where things began to get a little fuzzy.

I met many of the large groups thanking them for coming and they bought me tequilla shots at the bar all night. Now, I like a cocktail but five shots of tequilla in a matter of thirty minutes is ridiculous. Somehow I managed to keep up with these Mexican/Italians and they had been drinking all night! To make matters worse (or better), I could not refuse a drink because most of these people were good friends of Lorenza and regulars of the cafe or restaurant. I like to think I was also helping out the business by selling alcohol. I was trapped in a precarious yet satisfying situation to say the least.

After drinking with the locals until about 12:30, or maybe it was 1:00am, they all convinced me to go to their house for spaghetti (these people just finished eating a four course meal only two hours earlier). I walked with them to one of the couple's homes, playing awful music on a severely out of tune guitar a man brought along with his sombrero. We arrived and all sat around a large kitchen table with two bottles of wine. They talked and I attempted to. We sat up for what must have been hours laughing, them smoking cigarettes (which by the way is an Italian birthright) and drinking wine. We ate a meal of course, fatty home made salami and wheat bread, followed by spaghetti boiled and then cooked with garlic and oil. This was perhaps one of the best meals of my life. It was so simple yet sublime. I have literally never experienced anything like that in my life and it was a perfect ending to the night.

I woke up the next morning with a headache and my sheets smelling to high heavens. All I can say is good thing the housekeeper was washing my sheets on Thursday.

The lights are fading

Everyone is going to bed and I am sitting in the bar/lounge, once again going over the events of tonight. Everything went fine; I came up with a new special using ribs that were going to be fed to the dogs?! We sold out. I have a Moretti next to me, the condensation dribbling down the glass like the sweat down my forehead in the kitchen earlier. I am thinking about what to do now... I have the day off tomorrow, so I could hike again down to the thermal baths, strap on my condom-like swim cap and let the healing begin, or I could just sleep in. The choices are limitless but I just realized my damn knee is swollen up like Hindenburg about to explode and I guess I will just prep tomorrow.

I am overly dramatic; my knee is actually much better and I expect tomorrow it will be almost as good as new. Wednesday we are hosting a "Tex-Mex" dinner/party for the locals and whoever else feels like giving new cuisine a try. Let me begin this actually by saying that my first love is interior Mexican food (disregarding French food of course and now regional Italian) and since I have been over here, I have actually noticed a similarity in culture and cuisine. Anyway, the party is set for Wednesday and I just got twenty avacados as green as my experience overseas before i came to Italy.

I am freaking out. The attitude is so chill and I thought I was a laid back person... I guess when it comes to my profession and things I take seriously, I am kind of a prick. I want to see this go perfectly and picking out Italian ingredients that represent and respect the Mexican ingredients is hard enough but getting twenty bright green avacados is basically a "come on pussy, prove it!" This is not meant toward my hosts in any way, because me in my bright wisdom did not think that fresh, ripe avacados would be difficult to find in a country not really famous for their avacado production and therefor did not request them early enough (Avacados are some of the slowest ripening fruits around, fyi). Beside that, everything is kosher and I am mostly ready for this Wednesday night. I made about sixty flour tortillas by hand (because it is impossible to find masa here) and I have about a million other things going right now, so if it all falls into place we should be successful

Just wanted to give a quick update until something more interesting happens. I will have visitors soon which is good and I will definitely write more about that. Happy 80th birthday B! I hope you are having fun in NOLA... Don't go to Rick's.

Out.

Cinque Terre

So I went to Cinque Terre last weekend, not really knowing anything about it. My original plans were messed up so I decided to go to Siena by myself before the mad Easter rush started on Saturday. I left Thursday afternoon on the bus to Siena, and when i arrived, a couple friends of mine from Texas A&M called me and told me to come to Cinque Terre. Me being the spontaneous human that I am, walked right back to the ticket counter and bought the first ticket to La Spezia (the connecting terminal) I could find.

I did not arrive to Cinque Terre until late Thursday night after getting lost twice and walking over three miles to figure it all out. The thing about Cinque Terre is, that it is not actually a town but five towns sandwiched between the Ligurian Sea and the Swiss Alps. I climbed a lot of stairs and walked up a lot of hills during my wandering around and I had only had a Snickers candy bar and Italy's version of Pringles for lunch as I was "on the go". Once I arrived in Riomaggiore, I met my friends at the top of more stairs but at a hostel surrounded by lemon trees and the most beautiful views imaginable.

We woke up the next morning and decided to hike the trail that runs through all five cities and take pictures. Because it was getting late and I was supposed to be back that evening, we decided to take a train to Montorosso where the nice sandy beaches are. After wine on the beach and walking around a little bit, we had lunch overlooking the ocean at what seemed to be a local joint and then I missed my train back to San Quirico. I had to improvise, so I decided to stay an extra night instead of risking getting stranded in Buonconvento (the closest train station) because the bus stopped running at 6:00pm. We drank wine with all of the dorm residents, went to Bar Centrale (Every town in Italy has a Bar Centrale, by the way) and when that closed down, we wandered off with some local Rastafarian gentleman. That was interesting, sitting there in his cramped one room apartment as he smoked hash and played bad reggae on his recorder only to be followed by excellent bongo drumming. We listened to Bob Marley and drank a few beers before walking back to the hostel later that night.

Overall, it was a great trip in a one of a kind place. Stealing lemons, eating anchovies and walking on the beach are all things that I have come to love and would do it all again in a heart beat.

Raw Meat... Not an Inuendo, just a shout-out.

As I stand here typing this entry on a raw meat cutting board, greasy from the fatty rib-eye quarter I was butchering earlier, I ponder why I am here in the first place. Definitely came about through diligent hard work and commitment to furthering my culinary education but the main reason is Mrs. Lissa Tyndall. She hooked me up fat. A year ago I was wondering what the hell I would do for my so-called "Internship" and I wish I could remember how it even came up in the first place, but Mrs. Tyndall did the leg work and introduced me to her friends in Tuscany. I am forever in her debt and will always be grateful for the kind things she has done for me in the process. Thank you Mrs. Tyndall!

I'm Tired

This title is as creative as I can be 30 minutes after my "shift". Today was Easter Sunday and surprisingly in a Catholic country it was busy for some reason (I literally worked from about 11am-11pm in a country not too famous for its long work day). That was ok; great even, because I got to run the whole service by myself. It was me and a dishwasher serving 24 in the main dining room and about 10 in the cafe/enoteca. In Italian dining that usually contains about 3 courses per person, so in general, a decent amount of work for a novice such as myself.

Normally i am not one to brag but I showed some serious chops tonight especially with a 4 course, 10 top in the formal restaurant. I'm pretty damn good. Tonight was a big test to see if I have what it takes to really work on a line... Saute, Grillardin, Garde-manger, Chef, Sous chef... I did everything and our dishwasher, Simone (God bless her), filled some of the Garde-manger duties while Lorenza was busy entertaining guests but helping when she could. Overall, it was a great experience. We served the most beautiful leg of lamb with roasted potatoes, and spring onions (gorgeous fucking onions) on our special Easter (Pasque) menu. This was a very nice plate of food and I was very proud to have a part in its production.

I'll write about my past two trips to Montepulciano and Cinque Terre later, when I have more energy.

I'm going to bed.