Nesting al'Italia

Brian, post brining/battling into mini fridge/roasting in an shorting oven - Happy Thanksgiving!

Dubious - both about my carving skills only second time around and about how Brian would taste after all that battle

Green beans with mushrooms and pancetta; sweet potatoe casserole with toasted pecans; fennel sausage apple stuffing; creamy mashed potatoes. Not in photo - panettone stuffing

It's all Turkey

Buon appetito!

Wrestling with Brian till the bitter end of the last meat I could get off him. Luckily I had many willing leftover takers after that brining made Brian extra moist

My terrace in the morning, with a view of my happy place up on the Gianicolo

What better neighbors than a church, especially in Italy? Bring on your bells in exchange for light, privacy, and God

Festive nesting

I didn't mess around with teaching Italians how to carve pumpkins

Half devoured pumpkin cheese ball of glory

Serpent O prosciutto

One thing I will say about Italian pumpkin carvers - they are fastidious. Not one ounze (or gram) of pulp was left in these imported 'non-edible' zuccas

After all the craziness of the last year including six moves among five apartments (without even counting a temporary 'move' to SL); contracts of never longer than 4 months; and being surprised without a job for six weeks - I finally decided it was time to take the plunge and 'settle down'. Over the last three years I've lived in a constant state of never knowing what was next, being open to anything, applying to jobs in all corners of the Earth, committing to never buying anything that can't fit in a suitcase, and trying to live everyday as if it was my last in each place I've been. There's so much about all of this that's been amazing and has taught me a lot about what I'm capable of, how little I actually need, and how home really is a mental/heart state rather than a location. At the same time, it can be exhausting (while exhilarating) and also limiting in terms of experiencing normal life or having any ability to plan anything (yes there's a bit of Laurie in me).

So in the midst of having no job in early September and residing in a temporary apartment and counting how many pennies I had to determine whether this whole job thing was finally a sign to just come 'home' - I finally made a decision to commit to Italy, not for any set time frame or for any certain job or person, but just to mentally finally commit. That's right Italy I said it, we're going steady. And yes I can change my mind at any moment, and no I haven't stopped applying for jobs, but it has been extremely freeing to finally decide to be here no matter what - until I change my mind. So here's a few highlights of how I've been nesting over the last few months, and no not in all you preggers-minded way of preparing for little chickies, but in finally deciding I can buy a few sticks and branches and work on building something.

Every nest needs a terrace:  I've seen my fair share of apartments in Rome and each time I have to move I think, "ok this time I'll pay less, or this time I'll live in a  more convenient neighborhood, or this time I'll finally get a terrace". And then this time, I'll find it all. So as I set out in September searching for apartments I was mostly looking in more Roman neighborhoods, near the metro, at lower price points that still offered at least a balcony - and I saw a lot of decent places with no character. I moved a lot growing up with my Mom and she somehow always found amazing places at chance, and I like to think based on my current luck (knock on wood) I've gotten a bit of her gift/luck as well. So in my scouring  and seeing nothing that met my expectations, I finally decided to just give up and look again when I returned from the U.S., thereby saving myself almost a month of rent and just continuing to call Easybox my home. And then I saw an ad for a place in Trastevere = not near a metro, not a Roman neighborhood but rather then center of tourism and Americans, and not within my price range, but it had a terrace and was much lower in price than what Tvere normally goes for. I figured I had to come for a look, especially while I had no job and time to kill. Immediately upon walking in, I fell in love - with the landlord (Paola, an 75+ year old tiny Italian artist), with the space (3 levels of exposed wood beams, floor to ceiling windows looking out on a church which means no neighbors and lots of light), and then the terrace which is what living-in-Italy-dreams are made of. And then I noticed there was no furniture (please see above to not owning anything that can't fit in a suitcase).

To cut this already long story shorter - I hemmed and hawwed and thought back on how much my antness (see previous post) of living in a studio had served me, how I didn't need to own anything or deal with the hassle of furniture on a pedestrian only street in a heavily zoned neighborhood, but it always came back to the terrace. I decided to let myself be charmed and pretend like I just moved here, and live the tourist fantasy.  A few highlights of my decision - after trying to negotiate to pay less rent since I would have to buy all the furniture, my landlord informed me that since I was 'sweet' that she would pay for it all, I could just pick it out at IKEA. It didn't work out quite like that (by pick it out she meant I could pick a couch and then I'd come home to a different one, but hey it's a couch, albeit green).....After trying to negotiate not committing for a year, the landlord told me I had to give SIX months notice, and then finally agreed to THREE (FYI, I don't even have a contract for that long) and agreed to sign a contract on the back of an IKEA catalogue that I wrote in Italian (no, my Italian is not that good). So yes, with each apartment it gets more interesting. In order to pay my rent, I go to my landlord's house in Campo di Fiori (with an even more ridiculous terrace), we have dinner and she lets me pick out artwork, and makes me skype meet her daughter in Brazil.

A few growing pains of my new American dreampad - you can't use the stove and oven at the same time or it shorts the electricity (please see below for how helpful this was for Thanksgiving); my neighbor has three cats that like to use my terrace plants as litterboxes and/or my bed as their napping space (I have a lot of windows which also happen to be catdoors); it's 50 meters from the biggest hotspot for weekend partying so basically I don't have to leave home to dance to Lady Gaga or hear the latest tourism gossip; the house was built for tiny people so I'm constantly hitting my head and having to bend my knees to open doors/drawers, etc.

And remember how I didn't want to own anything that couldn't fit in a suitcase? Well I now own a sofabed that was moved in through the window (I live on the 4th floor), I built a closet I purchased that is meant for babies cause I live in tiny house, and a drill with every drillbit named Dexter. If owning a drill isn't nesting, I don't know what is.

Zany for Zucca - I arrived back to Italy only one week before Halloween with no furntiure, but of course in my typical fashion had already promised every Italian/German/Croatian I knew that I would show them what Halloween was about. Before Dexter and I even had a chance to fully bond, I invited 10 people here to carve pumpkins. Only problem - Italy's pumpkins are our squash. One benefit to living in the heart of American touristville is that there are actually places that sell our pumpkins, but at a price - 3 EURO a kilo. When I purchased them I asked the guy why they were so much more than Italian pumpkins, to which he told me "They're not edible since there's no pumpkin meat inside, and they're imported". Umm, ok I get half your logic, but since they're not 'edible' shouldn't I get a discount? And can't you tell I'm American and I KNOW that they ARE edible? I know the conversion is hard to grasp so to bring it home for you I spent 50 dollars on three normal sized pumpkins, all for my commitment to representing America and bringing joy and cultural exchange to so many. I also made giant balls of cheese in the shape of pumpkins (three kinds), a pastry puff stuffed serpent with prosciutto, spinach, and cheese inside; pumpkin risotto, and pumpkin soup. And then repeat 3 times, since word got out, and apparently our American flair with pumpkins is something of a novelty. I still haven't figured out how we decided to turn the pumpkin sweet when the rest of the world could only figure out that it could be savory.  Needless to say, I don't need to see an Italian or an American, sweet or savory, pumpkin for a long time to come.

Many thanks (a lot) - And after all that pumpkin hosting, I still had to represent America with Thanksgiving. You may remember that last year I set myself a grand challenge with cooking a turkey for the first time for 16 coworkers including my boss in a tiny kitchen. Well, one year later, in typical Elizabeth fashion I a) didn't learn my lesson; b) felt the need to set myself a new challenge; and c) I have more friends (thankfully). All of this amounted to deciding to host TWO thanksgivings with a house that hasn't been fully Dexterized, and a stove and oven that can't operate at the same time, a fridge the size of a colleg dorm mini-fridge, on a pedestrian only street with no elevator. While I haven't learned all my lessons, there are a few things I took from last year - 1) I know where to find sweet potatoes, 2) I'm not carrying a turkey home in my backpack, 3) everyone loves Kentucky Derby Pie. Last year I horrified Italians with serving marshmallows on sweet potatoes. This year I horrified them by making stuffing out of panettone - some things stay the same, Italians horror at our American ideas of cooking. A few other menu highlights - I named the 16lb turkey Brian this year and it made our level of intimacy during the brining/shoving him into the mini-fridge/soaking myself with brine process while wrestling with him much more meaningful; ricotta stuffed dates wrapped in pancetta are always a hit although extremely time consuming to prepare; making a cheese tray in leaf/flower cookie cutter shapes to make a wreath makes up for the fact that the cheese is cheap. And after getting to express my thanks twice this year (once with an International crowd in English, and once with an Italian crowd in Italian) and again having foreigners not believe me that we really say what we're thankful for and try to resist doing it themselves in the name of it being cheesy - the thing everyone mentioned after the fact wasn't the food (which got them all there), but how nice it was to reflect and say Thanks (a lot).