A Day in Napoli

Part of our Area Orientation extravaganza included a one-day trip down into Naples and back with a Navy sponsored tour guide. In addition to getting people out of the comfort (or lack thereof) of the Navy Lodge and into the Neapolitan culture, this trip also exposes us new Americans to the Italian public transportation and the general hustle and bustle that Naples has to offer.

This is moderate to low hustle and bustle.

Yesterday I (Danielle) took advantage of this guided trip and experienced a little bit of Italy’s third largest city! (Who can guess what the biggest city in Italy is?)

The day started with an early morning bus ride from Support Site to the Campi Flegrei train station. We could see the Naples soccer stadium from the outside of the train station, though I’ve been warned to never, ever attend an Italian soccer game. Unless I’m cool with loss of life or limb.

Once inside, we bought giornaliero tickets, or “all day” tickets. After validating the ticket (basically, turning it ‘on’) we hopped on the train to Montesanto, which dropped us off right at the bottom of the funicolari, which took us up to Vomero.

A random Napoli ally… 

(Are you impressed at all my name-dropping? I’m totally not looking it up as I go along either)

Vomero, as you might have guessed by the use of a funicular, is pretty high up there. At the top, we had a beautiful view of the Bay of Naples, but I forgot to take a picture. You’re welcome.

Anyway, Vomero is a high-end residential and shopping area. The town was getting ready for San Valentino, or St. Valentine’s Day, which meant there were a bountiful number of chocolate tents all over the place. Here, we started the day right—by stopping in a café for a little caffè and cornetti.

In Italy, you pay an extra fee for the privilege of sitting at a table. Usually about €1/person.

From there, our guide gave us a little over an hour to explore the area, which included a large open air market that offered clothing, shoes, and miscellaneous knick-knacks in addition to fresh produce and fish (I didn’t see any meat, strangely enough).

We caught the funicular back down to Montesanto and got back on the train to Piazza Cavour. From here we had time to wander around a bit, walking down to the water’s edge. We had a clear view of Monte Vesuvio.

 And here you have a clear view of me. And a bus.

We met up for lunch at the Galleria Umberto, a public shopping gallery built in recent Italian history- 1880s. This place was similar to an upscale (really upscale) indoor American mall. You know, one that was built a hundred years ago…

We had lunch at a little pizzeria that was running a special—one margheritta pizza and a coke for €6. The pizza, in my opinion, was only so-so (but better than anything you’d ever get in the States). And I’ve had pizza at four different restaurants now, so I’m basically an expert on Italian pizza.

We continued our walking tour after lunch where our tour guide pointed out the birthplace of pizza- Pizzeria Brandi. Did you know that pizza originated in Napoli?

Just after the neon green “farmacia” sign there’s a vertical sign that says “Brandi” and then a sign below that saying “pizzeria.”

So pizza used to be food for the poor. It was sold on streets and would never have been made in Italian restaurant kitchens. When King Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Savoy came to visit Naples, they requested a pizza. The queen’s favorite colors were the colors of Italy—green, white, and red. Our tour guide said the name of the cook who made the King and Queen their meal, Brandi, made what would soon be known as the “Margherita” pizza, with red tomato sauce, green basil, and white mozzarella cheese.

You know, just walking under 500+ years of history… (I totally made that number up, by the way)

We concluded our day with a walk through an upscale shopping street (think Magnificent Mile), where pedestrians fought cars and motorcycles for space on the allegedly motor-free street. It was Napoli chaos at its finest.

Mmmmmm, smell that diesel!

One thing I noticed through out the day was just how many people were walking dogs. I must have seen two-dozen dogs walking up and down the streets, visiting cafes with their owners, and just soaking up the sun. I’m not sure Roscoe Zeh-Dog is ready for the full on Napoli experience, but it’s comforting to know we’re not the only dog lovers here.

Some guy hanging out with 8-10 dogs. Not sure if the dogs are homeless, or if the guy is homeless, or maybe this is just the local dog shelter and he’s adopting them out?

I certainly enjoyed exploring the city of Naples, but I still wouldn’t consider myself a big city gal. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll definitely go back (especially since we’ll be a short 20 minute train ride away!), but I think I’d rather visit the rolling wine vineyards of Tuscany or visit the cliffs of the Amalfi Coast, or maybe even the sandy white beaches of Sicily. Oh the tyranny of so many adventurous choices!

(Rome is Italy’s biggest city, followed by Milan)

Learning to Cook Italian

Last week, I (David) attended a couple of cooking demonstrations that Fleet and Family Services put on.

The first one was about cooking the Italian desserts castagnole and chiacchiere. We went to a local cafe and pastry shop where they took us to the back to make them. The image below shows the two of them. Castagnole are the small round ones on the right, while chiacchiere are the strip-like ones on the left.

They’re desserts commonly made in conjunction with Carnevale, which is their Mardi Gras celebration. Both are variants of fried dough, and the name of chiacchiere refers to chatting with other people (because you eat them while doing so).

The doughs are different, despite them being cooked the same way. The recipe we got for castagnole was:

• 200 grams of 00 (double zero) flour
• Pinch of salt
• 30 grams of butter
• 8 grams of baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 50 grams white sugar

You’ll see the 00 flour again. Apparently it’s the key to real Italian cooking, because that’s why they use for most (if not all? I’m not sure) of their dishes that involve flour.

You mix it all up together in a bowl with your hands, because that way it’s entirely hand made. You let it cool overnight in the fridge before pulling it out the next day to make. You then take pieces of dough, roll them between your hands like a (not-hollow) tube, then cut the tube into even, small pieces. Fry them in oil that’s about 170 degrees C until they’re golden brown, and them top with powdered sugar at the end.

They have a doughnut-like taste and feel to them, but even with the powdered sugar, they’re nowhere near as sweet as American doughnuts are. They’re dangerous to have around, though, because it’s very easy to just sit there and keep popping them into your mouth.

The chiacchiere recipe was as follows:

• 300 grams 00 flour
• Pinch of salt
• 16 grams white sugar
• 3 eggs
• Sweet white wine

You mix everything but the wine together, again with your hands, and then add the wine little by little until it’s no longer dry. This also needs to chill overnight in the fridge.

When you’re ready to make it, you roll it out on a lightly floured counter. Poke it with a fork throughout, or else they’ll puff up when frying. Then you can use a pizza cutter to cut it into rectangles or triangles or rhombuses or whatever you want. They also fry at around 170 degrees C until golden brown. As you saw in the photo, they also get a dusting of powdered sugar.

These taste quite a bit like funnel cake, and they’re best hot right out of the fryer. Once they cool they’re still good, but they get to be crunchy. With the powdered sugar, that means messy.

Later in the week I attended another class on how to make lasagna. It also is a food that’s associated with Carnevale. You can find it in restaurants* and some folks will make it at times throughout the year, but traditionally, it’s a once-a-year food. The reason is that it’s filling, so it’s a good thing right to have before the fasting Lent brings, and it’s expensive, which is an issue especially in the less prosperous south of Italy. Eating lasagna in July for Italians would be kind of like having a Thanksgiving turkey with all the fixings in April for Americans.

Our guide was the chef of the restaurant, Salvatore. He didn’t really give us a recipe for anything other than the pasta (one egg for every 100 grams of 00 flour) and the tomato sauce (olive oil, onions, and the tomatoes that come in glass jars). He did recommend using sheep’s milk ricotta, though. The only ingredients were the lasagna noodles, tomato sauce, ricotta cheese (mixed with a little sauce to melt it and thin it out), parmesan cheese, dry mozzarella cheese, pork sausage, and small beef meatballs. Apparently kids love the meatballs in lasagna.

Everything was cooked ahead of time, so after assembling, all there was to do was to bake for 30 minutes at 175 degrees C.

This shows him making the bottom layer. He put down some sauce and then the first row of lasagna noodles. The noodles are arranged horizontally, and he kind of just spread out some parmesan, ricotta, mozzarella, and sausage out. He’s about to put down tomato sauce before another layer of noodles. He alternated the noodles’ alignment, so the next layer had them done 90 degrees different than the bottom.

I’m not sure there was a definite rhyme or reason to the order in which he put things in there, other than that there was tomato sauce directly below the first three layers of noodles. For the fourth and final, he put it on the top rather than on the bottom. Here’s the final product:

Salvatore warned against putting cheese on the top, since it would burn. A little bit of the sauce did, but by the time it was served to us out in the dining room, that part had been removed.

It was very good, but it’s only one variant. Lasagna can be done with spinach or vegetables or whatever else you want in it. As with so much Italian cooking, there’s not one canonical lasagna that everyone uses. Everyone kind of has their own.

*Tiziana, the kind woman from Fleet and Family who organized the trip and translated, actually warned us not to eat lasagna at a restaurant in Italy. Apparently a lot of places use leftover food and throw it together in the lasagna. Unless it’s a really great restaurant, pass on the lasagna in Italy.

Benvenuti a Casa!

After looking at more than 25 different homes, I think we finally found “the one.” This is very exciting news! A lot of people take an entire month and view over 40 homes before settling on a property, so we’re grateful to have found such a (seemingly) wonderful place, and so quickly!

Interesting to note, Italian landlords make significantly more profit by renting to Americans. A typical Italian rent would be €400 per month, while the Navy gives more than three times that (higher ranked individuals and more dependents get more, obviously). This means that landlords usually bend over backwards to get us into their homes, especially since they know they’ll have a steady rent for 2-3 years.

While we were looking at homes (the realtor picks you up right outside the base), we experienced every type of landlord from the totally disinterested and slightly irritated to the super welcoming, invite you into his home and serve you limoncello type. One gentleman gave us a bottle of his homemade wine (we didn’t end up choosing that home, which is just as well because the wine was so-so).

The view within walking distance from the wine-property

The home we settled on is in a very safe area with the landlord’s entire family living up and down the gated, private road. He and his wife and two dogs live in the home adjacent to where we’ll be living, and right above us is an American couple whose husband also works at the same base as me.

There is a great yard for the dogs to run around in, our very own lemon tree (the wife makes amazing crema di limoncello!), and a gorgeous view of farmland and the Mediterranean. They also grow much of their own produce, so I’m hoping they’ll share their surplus with us!

I love that this home has so many handcrafted personal touches. It’s certainly going to be the largest home we’ve ever lived in! And a yard? We’ve never had that!

Our very own walk way entrance

Less than a mile away, there are grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, a mozzarella store, and many other gastronomical eccentricities that we’re looking forward to taking full advantage of once we get settled in. There is also what looks like a beautiful park that we can take the dogs to. Oh, did I mention we’re also within walking distance of the beach?

We’ve been told it will take a couple of weeks to get the paperwork filled out and the inspections cleared (the Navy requires certain things of each home and each landlord, for example security systems in the house and an adequate daily supply of bottled water for drinking). We should probably be out of the Navy Lodge by the beginning of next month and into our new home.

This should be interesting seeing as how our car finally got sent on its way to Germany after sitting in Norfolk for two weeks. I’ll be depending on the generosity of coworkers who live nearby to give me rides to and from work, and we’ll probably end up having to rent a car here and there.

Arco Felice- A very old (95 AD) arch, built by the Romans, that I will go under daily. 

Which should prove to be the most interesting of all since they really only drive manuals over here. And guess who doesn’t know how to drive a manual?

That’s right, David. I can’t wait to watch him learn, though!

House Hunting and Other Adventures

It’s been a busy past week.

We got word last Wednesday that we were cleared to live off of the Support Site (the residential base). It was a big relief because the time we’ve spent here on base has shown how limiting it is. There is one restaurant—not a good one—and a Navy Exchange and Commissary. That’s… about it. Almost nothing is within walking distance because the Navy built this place in the middle of nowhere, and that’s inconvenient with our car still in Virginia.

We’ve made up for the isolation on Support Site by getting out with realtors a lot. We looked at 24 potential places over the last seven days with three different real estate agents. We’re looking in areas where we have already have friends who live there. As soon as we’ve got a place picked out for sure, we’ll post some pictures of it.

This is a view from near one of the places we saw. Unfortunately, the house didn’t match it.

Danielle has been getting checked into work this week, while I (David) have been doing a few different things. I’ve been getting grocery shopping and laundry done, as well as doing some things for the house hunt.

The Navy sponsors activities for anyone who can do them, though they’re mostly marketed for dependents who live on Support Site. I did one today, which was going out to a shopping mall. It was pretty similar to American malls, except that it didn’t have a food court but did have a large grocery store attached. It was probably about half food and half home goods, so it was closer to a Super Target than a Publix.

The wine section had a selection of choices no more than €3. Perfecto.

I got some Italian food there like olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pasta, tomatoes, and basil. The stuff at the Commissary is not so great, so we figured we’d get the Italian stuff from an Italian store. There were a few strange sites, like ketchup made with balsamic vinegar and this branding curiosity:

The dogs have been doing well despite being cooped up a lot. Beyond the orientation and housing searches, it’s been very rainy. We’ve probably only had about three days without any rain, and they’re whatever the opposite of water dogs are. They’re hanging in there though, and we get them out as much as we can.

We’re getting a little settled in, with jet lag definitely gone and something of a routine beginning. It’ll get disrupted once the moving process starts, but getting out of Support Site and into a real home will be worth it.