Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Sunday, Cremona

We all went to Mass at 10.00 on Sunday. Mattia wasn't in the pew with us but then Rosa pointed to the front and there he was, accompanying the choir with his guitar! I used my iPhone to record the musical parts of the service. I want to enjoy this day again on Sundays in California. I love our local church! Don Attila smiled a greeting to me when we entered. Just at end of Mass, Rosa told me I could go forward and film Mattia. I thought I was being discrete, but afterward Mattia told me everyone wanted to know who was taking his picture..

The Nativity scene was under construction in the back of the church. I've been lucky to have spent one Christmas here many years ago.

With my new camera, I took a better picture of my special saint, Santa Rita.

We had a restful day at home. I was hoping for snow and lots of it. Marina was wishing for only rain. It did snow but there was no accumulation.

Rosa and I tried to make grissini (breadsticks) using a recipe I brought. I've made them in California and they were really delicious. In Italy they were a failure. I learned something new about leavening. Here there are two types used for bread: chemical and natural. The natural one is yeast, exactly like I use. The other does rise the dough but it's without the fresh bread smell we associate with homemade bread. Secondly, I learned that we could not use Marina's oven as a warm spot to let the bread rise. When I suggested this method, Rosa told me the oven goes into an automatic self-cleaning mode after it's turned off.

Our sad looking breadstick dough did not rise. We rolled it out anyhow, hoping some (chemical) leavening action might take place during a slow bake. When I applied the thyme-olive oil-parmigiano cheese onto the dough, Rosa declared the grissini American not Italian. Still persevering, we baked them. There was absolutely no odor of baking bread. We pulled them out and declared them crunchy breadsticks. I noticed Marina steered clear of them and I was not surprised. They were not taste tempting, although the men did bravely try them.

After our breadstick dough was made, I was already feeling doubtful. When Marta arrived to make pizza for our dinner, she pulled real yeast from the refrigerator and made her dough. She carefully made 8 individual mounds of dough and placed them inside of a plastic box. Then, she secured the lid.

A few hours later I noticed her dough was not rising quickly but it was rising! Our dough just sat there. It was a cold cold day and the dough was not much warmer than we were. We snuggled under quilts and watched TV in the afternoon.

Homemade pizza for dinner was fabulous. A few years ago, they bought an unusual appliance which sits in top of the stove (as needed). It uses both gas and electricity to cook one pizza in about 5 minutes.



Italian pizza is the best!

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