I have found it quite interesting to view and understand the cuisine and preparation of world famous food here in Italy. I’ve perused hundreds of properties until I found my apartment. What was a huge surprise is that when Italians move, (sell the property) they take everything possible!
Including the kitchen, bathroom fixtures, lights – basically you can end up with 4 walls, a ceiling and floor. UNLESS you negotiate for everything to be left in the property. And be very specific what it is you are negotiating for. So I did. Including the furniture. Not that it was so great, not my taste, but I didn’t want to move in with nothing and sleep on the floor til I could find a place to buy furniture. That being said…the kitchen is the heart of the Italian home. How these women have cooked so many fabulous dishes with small kitchens, stoves, etc…is amazing.
Having said that, the kitchen in my apartment was at least 30-45 years old with some functional issues. And some ‘out of allowed’ building codes. So once I realized that I wanted something lovely to look at and make my proverbial pasta dish…replacing the kitchen has been an interesting journey. Photos show the old kitchen, the old kitchen removed, the bare walls, the bare walls with some paint and primer…and the new kitchen. The old kitchen is downstairs in the tavern. My son wants to make that a living space…hope he does. It would be very cool. But there are some real ‘nuances’ to an Italian kitchen in a 1200 year old building. The walls are not straight. No, I mean they are not even close. Not the surface, not the vertical…it is 1 foot of Italian plaster and apparently very common for ancient buildings. I have to make a lot of things work that are totally unusual to us in America. I just roll with it. The historic value of this building simply enchants me. I love it. So if something is out of sync, a rolling wave rather than a straight surface wall, so be it. That kind of vigor has its drawbacks though. And the story goes like this….I thought all I wanted was a new granite counter and probably repaint the cabinets. For the amount of $$ for the granite, I realized I could get an entire new kitchen and appliances for a couple grand more. The appliances are old. Very old.
Kitchens in Italy for the most part, are simply tacked onto a metal bar to hold them up. They are easily moved from the wall in compartment pieces. In fact, they are made to be modular and installed and removed fairly easy. That is why the Italians can remove the kitchen, tie off the plumbing fixtures and voila. Empty room with pipes for water and gas. I watched my old kitchen being un-installed and was thoroughly amazed. In America we anchor those cabinets to survive WWIII !!! Not here.
With the old kitchen removed and placed downstairs, I spent 8 hours over 2 days removing the wall paper behind the cabinets. Luckily it was a water based glue so a minimal amount of work, but so tedious and trying to remove glue residue, etc. Under the old wallpaper were stories of who painted the kitchen beige, green, cream and white. And now it is again painted and primed with white paint for its next iteration. When you view the photos, yes, you will gasp as I did. Nudity is not all it’s cracked up to be, in kitchens or humans.
The new kitchen has more cabinets as the refrigerator had to be freestanding across the room. The old kitchen had the gas cooktop and electric oven too close to the water heater. Yes that ugly whitish thing hanging down from the cabinet is the old water heater which will hopefully be moving onto a junkyard soon. But I digress.
In Australia, there is very little wood. Cabinets are particle board with a hard surface. The same in Italy. Very few new cabinets are made of wood. But I am happy with mine. I like something nice to look at and really, with all the wonderful food here, how much cooking would I be doing???
My next step is to get the plumbing (water) and gas hooked up and working so I can stop eating ‘pinza’ !! I have been ‘foraging’ for food the last couple days without a kitchen. It gets old. No water or gas/electric to cook..ugh.
But there is also some additional news…which has become an interesting anecdote to my Italian life here. And some lessons we might all embrace…let me explain. Last Thursday I took a long walk down the hill (‘off the rock’ as the villagers call it) to where the public high school is. I thought there might be a road there that would have less traffic. If there are no sidewalks, walking with or against Italian drivers on the street, is a death wish. I was looking for quiet long streets to nowhere. As there was not an additional street, I walked the parking lot turnaround and was passing the office of the high school. Now my initial thought was that I am asked many questions about America and life there. Why not volunteer as a guest lecturer or just an American volunteer? Then you start with the yeah, go do it, no I’m not…keep walking…then a very hard push to go volunteer. So into the office I went to speak to the secretaries who spoke no English. A passing student said “I can help…what are you asking?” As I’m explaining to him, along comes a man and woman who are listening to the struggling English of this very nice young boy, said we speak English, how can we help? And their English was much better. We started chatting and I shared how I lived here and wanted to offer something back to the community. The lady had to leave but I went outside with the man who told me he runs and English Class as a third party provider for the students and he is in need of a tutor for the coming week/year. He shared this would be for 6 classes – Monday thru Wednesday. Each class is 2 hours long. These are junior high kids and their parents pay extra for them to get more English language enhancement. We agreed to meet the next day and further discuss. Which we did. I do not have a teaching degree or certificate. Apparently not needed with a 4 year degree and I have an MBA – not that I think that matters. Let’s face it, when we were in Jr. High, it was the Beatles, dances, boys, local swimming hole, boys…etc. Hormones raging and absolutely no idea where we were going but hoping it was a party on Friday or Saturday night!!
I agreed to do it. Apparently his teacher in that time slot had just terminated. So sometimes things are just meant to be. The pay? Don’t ask. I see it as an exercise in learning more Italian and think it might be fun. That being said, this silly mother calls her master’s degreed in education daughter for pointers. When I told her the jr high kids, she was laughing out loud !! She was at her school teaching the little darlings. We did review some ideas but 2 hours? I’m into brevity but I have some ideas and will review the syllabus tomorrow and sit in on another class. Should be interesting. One thing Kelly (my daughter) did mention heartily, be sure to find out what you do with class disrupters and then ensure they know too. Any of you teachers out there who have some experience, wisdom, ideas and cautionary ideas…please do let me know. There is a Contact link on the Home page and allows for many words…I may need them.
On a good note, if I continue on with this, it gives me 4 days a week to see Italy! I can live with that!!!
Most days there is always some interesting ‘thing’ happening in my life – for which I am hugely grateful. Boring is a death knell for me. Plenty here to keep me busy for a long time.
And now the photos of the kitchen! Paint is my go to decor option!!!
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