Stone knives and animal skins

One of the great paradoxes of my life (at least, my life of the moment), is that Italians care deeply about food, have the highest quality of produce I've ever seen, and seem able to make big feasts, and yet their kitchens often look like this:

 This is, in fact, the kitchen in my apartment, midway through cooking dinner tonight.  You might notice the plate being used as a lid, beccause the only lid is on the pasta water.  You might notice the complete lack of steam coming from said pasta water, even though it had been on the burner, on high, for half an hour.  You probably can't notice that only two of these burners are on at a time, and only one on high, because our landlady assured us that two burners on high would blow the power.  She also told me to be sure to turn the water heater off before I turned the stove on, for the same reason.  Italy does not always feel like a first world country.  It's certainly not a developing nation.  Is there a category for degenerating nations?

Before you feel too bad for me, or think I'm complaining, you should probably know that the rest of the apartment looks like this:

and is located here:

So, no -- I'm not complaining.  Just acknowledging that Italian appliances are not up to Spokane standards.

Last night, Jeremy and I went out to eat, partly out of exhaustion and partly out of necessity, since all the supermarkets are closed on Sundays.  We ate at a little place behind the Duomo called Osteria della Gambera, and it was half good, half outstanding.  Jeremy had a free form ravioli stuffed with mozarella di bufalo and porcinis that was terrific.  The cheese was creamy and the mushrooms had a deep, rich, grilled/smoked flavor that filled your head when you bit into it.  My tagliattelli primi was good, but not that good.  For our secundi, our ordering fates reversed.  He had a very nice agnello, three thin lamb chops in a hazelnut crust.  The lamb was flavorful and tender, but looked overcooked.  I had seppie aristoto (roasted cuttlefish) on a broad bean puree which was a knockout.  The grilling/roasting process had intensified the sweetness of the cuttlefish, which was almost the consistency of great pasta:  tender, but with a little resistance.  So, so good.  We had a bottle of Montefalco, an Umbrian red wine, which was also fantastic. Bigger than a Chianti, but similarly great with food.  It was not a cheap meal, which is fine because it was a memorable one.

Today, we were back at the supermarket, where they had fresh porcini.  It took me three times longer than it should have, but dinner turned out well.  Oreccette with porcini and cream, chicken thighs glazed with balsamic, insalata verdura and some more Montefalco.  Yum!  (Note:  very un-Italian of us to eat the meat and the pasta at the same time.  Old habits die hard, I suppose.)

In non-food news, we had our first day of school this morning.  We had to take a written test, in which we were given four paragraphs in Italian, in increasing difficulty, with several words missing or letters missing from words.  We had to fill in the blanks.  It might as well have been letter-salad for me at first, but eventually I managed to get most of the first two paragraphs filled in.  I made some stuff up, forgot stuff I should have known, and guessed wildly, but I don't think it was a total embarrassment. Then there was the oral test.  Again, the beginning consisted of blank incomprehension, but I was able to ask them to slow down, and then I got along okay.  I screwed up some verb tenses, but could answer most of their questions.  I was not so sophisticated as Jeremy, who I believe even pulled out a correctly formed and used present participle!  At the end of the day, we were placed in the 1B group -- still beginners, but at least not complete beginners.

We are also tired almost beyond bearing.  Neither of us slept more than a handful of hours last night, since our bodies thought we were trying to sleep through the day.  We managed to take only short naps this afternoon, so hopefully we will make it through the night tonight.  Fun new Italy fact:  here, there are no over-the-counter sleep aids.  No Nyquil, not Excedrin Pm, nothing.  I guess we are going to have to beat this jet lag the old fashioned way -- stumble through our first days like zombi americani.  So, it is off to sleep for me at nine pm, just when the rest of Perugia is heading out for passagiare and cena.