Bread obsession 8/07/09
There is a complete obsession with bread here. Mio marito is absolutely petrified of running out of bread during a night. It seems to be as bad as running out of wine. An absolute no-no. So he always buys abundant bread. Because one foul night we actually ran out and had to defrost some bread from the freezer, which wasn’t so bad anyway. Last night I passed la cameriera chopping away at more bread and said, Oh it’s a good night when we have to cut more bread! Pity she didn’t deal with me then, because my husband went to get more bread from the bar next door. The waitress then cut six baskets, and we still had 3 baguettes left almost complete. I just hate having all the extra bread, it is like with the eggs (the cook was using dozens of yolks for his semi-freddi and binning the eggwhites, until I spotted him and introduced the meringue). I hate seeing waste. So by now we have a square metre of bread stocked up in the freezer using up too much space.
The bread queston was the last in a whole line of stressful issues to deal with: mio marito was irritated at having to think about work issues as soon as he woke up (this job is neverending, it is true), which indirectly is my fault since I am pretty much useless: I can’t deal with the suppliers (the beer and spirits people speak in dialect, and don’t feel comfortable, plus my husband does the stock-taking and knows what is needed),I can’t go to the comune (town council) to deal with bureaucracy (it is totally incomprehensible), the commercialista and consulente (lawyer and accountant) both call him (and when I answer only leave brief messages reluctantly). I do my best to deal with the staff (hours, pay, what needs to be done), but they get offended either because I am too direct (fluent, but have not mastered yet the floweriness required for the delicate Sicilian anima when dealing with work issues), or merely because I am foreign, and female (in the case of male staff).
Plus I am doubly to blame because I actually manage to do some things for myself. Because while he is standing in come officialdom queue or in the checkout queue at the Coop after doing the restaurant shop, I am happily writing away on the computer or maybe warming up the vocal chords for a practice with one of the groups who will be playing soon at ours. But I need these escapes in order to survive this mad place. To put up with being in Sicily with all its frustrating contradictions, evil spies of the system, mafia rude boys and familial immersion ... Would he would ever try to do a similar thing in Ireland?
My man definitely needs a holiday. I can deal with it all. Bring it on. Give me the suppliers and accountants and staff. They’ll manage.
Lola
The bread queston was the last in a whole line of stressful issues to deal with: mio marito was irritated at having to think about work issues as soon as he woke up (this job is neverending, it is true), which indirectly is my fault since I am pretty much useless: I can’t deal with the suppliers (the beer and spirits people speak in dialect, and don’t feel comfortable, plus my husband does the stock-taking and knows what is needed),I can’t go to the comune (town council) to deal with bureaucracy (it is totally incomprehensible), the commercialista and consulente (lawyer and accountant) both call him (and when I answer only leave brief messages reluctantly). I do my best to deal with the staff (hours, pay, what needs to be done), but they get offended either because I am too direct (fluent, but have not mastered yet the floweriness required for the delicate Sicilian anima when dealing with work issues), or merely because I am foreign, and female (in the case of male staff).
Plus I am doubly to blame because I actually manage to do some things for myself. Because while he is standing in come officialdom queue or in the checkout queue at the Coop after doing the restaurant shop, I am happily writing away on the computer or maybe warming up the vocal chords for a practice with one of the groups who will be playing soon at ours. But I need these escapes in order to survive this mad place. To put up with being in Sicily with all its frustrating contradictions, evil spies of the system, mafia rude boys and familial immersion ... Would he would ever try to do a similar thing in Ireland?
My man definitely needs a holiday. I can deal with it all. Bring it on. Give me the suppliers and accountants and staff. They’ll manage.
Lola
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