Getting to Know Pelaverga

Getting to Know Pelaverga

I’ve been reading up on Pelaverga (a red wine varietal grown exclusively in my hometown of Verduno) and am abhorred ABHORRED (!!) with the strange and unusual information that’s out there.  Articles by famous critics describing this varietal as “slightly fizzy” with a “sweet strawberry” flavor.  Whaaaat?!?  That is so Not the Pelaverga I know and love.

I am hurt and offended by these misleading descriptions!

Now, I am no wine expert.  And I realize that everyone has the right to interpret wine as they experience it.  However, I have been living in Verduno, drinking Pelaverga on a regular basis for the past 12 years.  As such, I think I have a slightly more interesting reliable perspective than someone who is tasting it for the first time just to write a review.

Since these misguided (IMHO), tending-toward-negative descriptions have brought me to tears – and also driven me to drink *slugs back a hefty swig of Pelaverga directly from the bottle*  ah, I mean *genteelly sips a glass of Pelaverga* – I am determined to set the record straight once and for all!

I will delve into the true history of this varietal! *brandishes sword*  I will discuss in-depthly the true Pelaverga with the people who grow it, know it, live it and love it – discovering the nuances of each interpretation!  (Please bare with my drama queen tendencies – I swear, it’s the wine talking).

I hope you will join me as I embark on this exhilarating adventure; and, obviously, hit me up when you’re next in the area so we can drink some together!

Meet Valentino & Valentina

Meet Valentino & Valentina

For Valentine’s Day I created these two lovelies for Jackson and Sydney.  Accidentally fell in love with them along the way too.

I pretty much followed this tutorial for Valentina and this one for Valentino.  The mouse tutorial isn’t that great though – his neck was tricky and not easy to close.  I added rice to both of them to give them some weight (Valentino had no problem flying, but continued to face plant when trying to stand up).

Valentina’s hair was kind of tricky.  I didn’t feel like crocheting it, so I ended up following these directions:

 

faceI also didn’t have the right kind of paint for her face, so I embroidered it all, which was kind of a pain, but I’m pretty happy with the way it came out.  I was inspired by this doll to the left, who is absolutely gorgeous.

cda5495f82c847a53c9794e0d43f1ef8And, of course, after I finished Super Toppino, I found this felted mouse who is also incredibly adorable, with his little saddlebag and scarf.  And I love the lined, hooded cape on this other guy too. 1319705539_1

Easiest Mitered Corners Ever

miteredcornerOr “The LAST mitered corner tutorial you will EVER read”

A.K.A. “Mitered corners used to be a bitch.  Not anymore.”

I have developed (after reading thousands of tutorials) the perfect mitered corner system.  By “perfect” I mean:

  • Doesn’t involve any math
  • Easy to remember
  • No agonizing snipping-and-then…”oh-shit!” moments
  • No extra sewing involved
  • Corners stay closed
  • It’s fast

Without further ado, I share this method with you:

  1. Fold all sides in once to your desired hem width (I’m using 1/2 inch hems). Iron.
    Fold all sides over once and iron

    Step 1: Fold all sides in once and iron

    Step 1: I'm using 1/2 inch hems

    Step 1 Detail: I’m using 1/2 inch hems

  2. So, I fibbed: there is  a little math involved, but figure it out once and then forget about it.  Cut a piece of cardstock 1 inch tall. Length doesn’t matter.  (1″ works perfect for 1/2 inch hems.  If you’re using a different width hems, adjust accordingly.)

    Step 2: Cut cardstock 1" high

    Step 2: Cut cardstock 1″ high

  3. Unfold your hem and use your piece of cardstock as a guide to fold the corner up 1″ into a triangle. Iron.
    Step 3: Fold corner up 1"

    Step 3: Fold corner up 1″. Iron.

    Step 3 Detail: Fold corner up 1"

    Step 3 Detail: Fold corner up 1″. Iron.

  4. Now fold the tip of the corner straight down to meet the bottom fold. Iron.
    Step 4: Fold top corner down to meet bottom fold. Iron

    Step 4: Fold top corner down to meet bottom fold. Iron

    Step 4: Fold top corner down to meet bottom fold. Iron

    Step 4 Detail: Fold top corner down to meet bottom fold. Iron

  5. Place your fingernail in the center, where the tip of the corner meets the bottom folded edge.  Fold the sides in along the line you ironed in step 1.  The raw edges should meet up with the folded part of the triangle.
    Step 5: Fold edges in

    Step 5: Fold sides in

    Now fold the sides in again so they meet in the center.

    Step 5 Part 2: Fold the sides in again so they meet the center.

    Step 5 Detail: Fold the sides in again so they meet the center.

    Iron everything flat, quick! Your mitered corners should look like this:

    Step 5 Detail: Fold corners in again. Iron

    Step 5 Detail: Iron

And Voilà : perfect mitered corners in five easy steps!

I like the cardstock method because you don’t have to fuss with a measuring tape and an iron at the same time.  If you use white cardstock, you can spray it and iron it without worrying about it melting or burning up or seeping dye into your fabric.  And if you’re making 8,000 napkins and tablecloths like I am at the moment, the pre-measured card lets you work faster since you don’t have to find the end of the tape measure, figure out where an inch is, position it so it doesn’t get burned, blah blah blah.

For me, it was fastest to fold all four sides 1/2″ in once and iron.  Then fold and iron the triangle up and down – repeat for all corners. I try to do this without putting the iron down – it involves some concentration and dexterity, but is faster when you get the hang of it. Then, one by one, I finish the miters by folding the sides in to meet up in the center.  You might find it easier to follow all the steps through on one corner before moving on to the next.  I found it works best to spray an iron each time you iron so the folded edges automatically tend to meet up in the right places.

If you have any suggestions, questions or suggestions for improvement, by all means, let me know!

Embracing a Foreign Identity

largeAt the gym tonight, I was able to recognize (perhaps for the first time) the hilarity in one of the many grin-and-bear-it situations we expats deal with on a daily basis.

An English girl named “Rain” was signing up for next week’s lessons and pronouncing her name “the Italian way” for the receptionist: “rAY-Nuh”.  Even though she’s come three times a week for the past two months, it’s still not easy for the girls at the front desk to comprehend the foreign sound of her name.  She had to repeat it three times before the girl was like, “Oh! Rainuh!”

Uh…Yeah, kinda.

I am not insinuating that the girls at the desk are slow. I am just reminding you all (all 9 of you reading this post) what a challenge it is and how instinctively averse we are to digesting information outside our cultural comfort zone.

Assimilating yourself into a foreign culture is not a task to underestimate.

When you make your big move, life feels very vacationy and romantic.  I’m not talking laying-on-the-beach-drinking-out-of-a-coconut vacationy.

You’re working your ass off trying to make a living – and the qualifications you slaved to accumulate for the first half of your life don’t “translate” into your new country.  (3 cheers for 18 hour workdays on minimum wage!)

In addition, you understand about 30% of what everyone’s saying most of the time and can’t communicate precisely what is is you want to say with the subtle undertones necessary .  Completely forget about communicating strong emotions. Half the time you break out in your mother tongue – which entirely defeats your meager attempts at expressing your soul-shattering sentiments. The other half of the time you botch your sentences with a cleaver because the emotion gets in the way of the logical translating part of your brain.  In my opinion these parts of the brain (uh, at least, of my brain) are two south poles.

Don’t even go there.

To worsen the situation, as an English major, I tend to take extravagant liberties with language.  I love creating new words because they sort of sound like another word or just feel good in your mouth.  The temptation of mixing TWO languages in this way is overwhelming.  You can imagine the gratification when you combine two seemingly-random words from two different languages into a perfect new exemplar of multi-linguarality.

But when you’re speaking a language you don’t have an expert handle on, it’s best to avoid taking such liberties.  Trust me, no one has any clue what you’re trying to say – even when you stick to sentences that use the simplistic grammatical standards of a  3-year old.

Get creative and the entire conversation is shot to hell.

No, I’m talking about the planning stage of a vacation.  You know, when you’re still browsing rental house catalogs, imagining how wonderful you would feel staying in a 10 bedroom beach front property with private pool and live in housekeeper/personal trainer/Michelin star chef.  How could you not be your best you and have a relaxing, time-of-your-life experience in that house?  You get totally caught up in the glamour of vacation and forget about your real-world limitations.  Ahhem, it would take you three years of shiny new minimum wage paychecks to pay for one week at Barbie’s dreamhouse.

That’s what being an expat is like at the beginning.

Of course, you tend not to realize you’re living in Dream World because you’re busy trying to solve the conundrums of everyday life.  Inside, your heart is shouting with joy at your new, sophisticated life abroad while the rest of you is muddling around Clueless and Illiterate.

So, anyways, back to the gym.  One of my new acquaintances – and might I just say that in two months of Fight Club I’ve made more promising acquaintances than I have in the last nine years in this country.  I love this place and I love the people that come here.  I love the friendly staff who always acknowledge you with a genuinely friendly smile.  They seem so grateful that YOU – YOU are there with them.  I love the camaraderie during the classes and afterwards in the locker room.  Tonight was an atypical class – usually we sweat a lot and are barely able to walk back to our cars (perhaps I should speak for myself, but I get the feeling I’m not the only one – ha! ANOTHER thing I love about this place!!).  Tonight we didn’t sweat much but worked on technical form and some of the girls were kind of bummed because they felt like they hadn’t burned as many calories as usual, “Damn, I totally overdid it at lunch and now I have to eat broth for dinner to make up for it!”

Another girl, the new acquaintance who later inspired me with her grin-and-bear-it experience, jumped right in and said (in Italian), “We’ve got to stay positive!”  At this point, we were all rallied around her in varying degrees of semi-cladness. (Semi-cladness is totally a word),

“Sessions like this are JUST as important as the super-calorie-burning sessions because they teach us how to workout without hurting ourselves.”

Then another girl jumped in with a story about how her boyfriend, a Super Built Gym Guy, was constantly icing his shoulder or knee when he worked out at a different place (with ice, not frosting).  Since he joined Black Bull (our gym) he hasn’t felt pain once.  She was like,

“We’ve all been here for a couple months now and have any of you gotten hurt?  (she intuitively knew the answer because we all watch out for each other).  “No, none of you have had problems like that and it’s specifically because they teach us proper technique like they did tonight.”

Then, as we’re cheering and circling around doing Rocky punches in the air in our underwear, a fourth girl jumps in with,

“Hey, look on the bright side: you can have a ton of sex tonight to make  up for the calories we didn’t burn in class!”

I haven’t felt girly camaraderie like this in…a long time.

And it feels.so.good.

So, I guess I’ve come full circle:  through the romance of a new life in a new country, to the harsh reality of being an outsider far FAR away from home, to finally feeling welcomed into a group of peers.

Barely moved out of  Barbie dreamhouse and already neck-deep in Disney schmoozieness (also definitely a word).

Maybe this is what being an expat is really all about.

F.Y.I.  The “Italian version” of my name is equally as amusing as Rain’s (who’s British by the way).  And aren’t her parents great for giving her such an awesome name (like my parents too)?  “Rain” for a little girl born in a place where it’s always raining.  They must think of the sun every time they look at her.

download (1)There are various Italian butcherings (go ahead, look it up in the dictionary, I dare you!) to both my first and last name. When I say, “Crane,” it sounds like crin (pronounced Cr(a)eeen), which is Piemontese dialect for “pig”.  Mmm. Not a particularly nice picture, but if you look on the bright side, lots of wonderful things can be associated to pigs: bacon, pork belly, Miss Piggy, Pumbaa, the 3 little pigs (have you read this version?), Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web…Despair not!

downloadIf you say “Crane”, pronouncing it the American way, and the person you’re talking to knows a little English, they might say, “OH! Like a gru, right?”  Gru means crane, as in the machine with hoist, wire ropes or chain used for lifting materials on a construction site.  I guess this association works, as I am tall and am now learning how to lift heavy things.

But if you talk to your average Italian, you’ll have to pronounce “Crane” the Italian way, “Crawhh-neigh”, which sounds like some sort of weird petri-dish breeding experiment gone wrong.  A cross between a crab and a horse perhaps? (The first syllable sounds like “Craw”, which reminds me of “crawl” or “claw” which makes me think of a crab).

Phew.  Let’s just leave “Shira” for another day…

Verduno Vineyard Trail

Verduno Vineyard Trail

A new friend introduced me to this pretty awesome trail through the vineyards of Verduno a couple weeks ago.  It’s very picturesque and just the right difficulty for us semi-couch potato types.  There are enough hills to keep it interesting without making it overly challenging.  We were both sweating by the end, but it was more of a pilates sweat than a super- cardio sweat.  It’s a dirt road with some rocks and you’re not likely to run into anyone else.  We went at 7:30pm and on the way back the sun was starting to set.

 

 

Garden 2013: Day 1

Garden 2013: Day 1

I finally started cleaning up the garden yesterday.   Little late this year, but it’s been raining constantly.  I never cease to be amazed at the amount of weedage that grows in a couple weeks of warmish weather.  According to the neighborhood gardeners, my sunny plot isn’t the only one that’s especially verdant this year: the weeds are prolific everywhere.  Perhaps its because we live in Verduno. Ha! (Verde = “green” in Italian)

Below are the before and after pictures of my work thus far. The first couple days of cleanup are always overwhelming. More than “gardening” it feels like (barely checked) annihilation or extreme refuse removal.

Towards the end of my two hour pulling spree I usually start to get a little creeped out by all the spiders and bugs whose homes I’ve just destroyed. It wasn’t just by chance that I was attacked by an army of angry red ants who seemed to be looking for a new home inside my glove after I accidentally threw theirs into the compost pile. Payback baby.

On a positive note, I have six small fig trees that are about three years old and are full of fruit! These trees spontaneously sprouted from a beautiful old tree that my neighbor cut down about 4 years ago. In other news, my scraggly little rosemary plant has tripled in size and turned into a rather large rosemary hedge! The spring onions are taking over everywhere. If anyone needs some, PLEASE stop by and I’ll give you and your cousins and your Uncle Frank as many as you want.

Here are some pictures…though it doesn’t look like much at this point:

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