Worst dry cleaners ever?

I consider myself a connoisseur of dry cleaners, and in my life I’ve had some of the best and the worst.  I love seeing how cleaners operate in different cities and countries because I like to see how different cultures innovate (or don’t innovate) what is essentially the same process no matter where you go.  My first dry cleaners was the best: New Orleans in the 90’s.  They had next day service and each shirt was only $1.50 – sigh…good times.  Then later, on the Air Force Base where I worked in Korea, there was a one-woman-show dry cleaners, and she memorized the last four digits of your SSN and as soon as you walked in the door she remembered your face and pulled your uniform off the rack.  Aside from superhuman feats of memory, I’ve also had everything in between.  Since I know no one will ever compare in price and service to my first experience in New Orleans, I’m usually very relaxed and patient if my clothes are ruined, lost, or not ready on time.  That’s why my cleaners here in Italy, which could certainly qualify as the worst dry cleaners on the planet, doesn’t bother me, I just sit back and enjoy the comedy of errors that they provide me each month.  This month’s show was the grand finale, though, and I may have to finally start the hunt for a new place.

It always starts out the same: I come in, full of promise that THIS time I will walk out with my clothes on my arm.  I give her my ticket or tell her my name (sometimes they don’t give you a receipt, it just depends on their mood when you drop it off).  She looks blankly at me, then starts a charade of a search around the shop: looking on racks, under counters, as if my shirt is a set of keys (they were just HERE!).  Inevitably the search moves to the back room where she and her coworkers will locate the shirt, determine its state of unfinishedness, and proceed with negotiations from there.  On this particular day, it was Emanuele who had the pleasure/misfortune of stopping by, and like me, he relished every detail.   After the initial search and back room conference she proudly produced one of the two sweaters, but was at a loss as to the whereabouts of the second. 

Woman: It’s not ready yet. (-1)

Coworker shouting from the back: (explaining why it was late) It was a big sweater! (-5)

Woman: (triumphantly realizing the receipt pick up date wasn’t until tomorrow, 1 week after dropoff) It’s not due until tomorrow! (+1) But you’d better come back the day after, just in case. (-2)

I was in no hurry to pick up winter sweaters in May, so I gave them SIX MORE DAYS to finish the sweater.  When I returned, after the prerequisite searching, she produced my crumpled sweater and told me to come back in the evening.  I said, if it wasn’t ready six days after you told me to come back, I’m not sure it will be ready tonight, and that she should call me when it was ready.  She said better yet, someone would stop by the house.  WHAT?!  If I had known they did home delivery I would have been using that all along!  I actually did receive my sweater that evening, to my surprise. 

We all know how important customer service is in the US, but it's just not a factor in Italy (although, arguably, you'd never get home delivery from a US cleaners).  If this happened in the US we'd demand managers, we'd facebook it, we'd tweet, we'd yelp, and maybe if we got enough hits we'd be "trending".  But I try not to be the Ugly Americana.  I just smile sweetly and go home and blog.

So what do you think?  Should I move on to another cleaners?  Or stay so long as they provide me with cultural anecdotes?

"Bon An" from Friuli

     This New Year's Eve, or Capodanno in Italian, we celebrated quietly at home with Emanuele's family.  We had just returned that day from the US, so I lacked the strength to infuse any American elements into the evening -- except teaching my in-laws to play the card game "Spoons"; this was truly an Italian New Year's Eve.  His mother cooked lentils and muset (also known as cotechino, a type of cured/boiled meat) which is a traditional Italian dish for New Year's Eve. 

 

 

     Then we watched the President's address which happens every NYE.  President Napolitano spoke for about 20 minutes in a "State of the Union" type of speech which centered on the economic crisis, the aging population in Italy, and he also responded to letters which citizens had written.  This was funny for me; I just couldn't imagine Obama addressing everyone on NYE, since many people go out to eat or to a bar, and no one wants to think about politics on a night that is supposed to be joyous.  This was followed by a song and dance show filmed in snow-covered Courmayeur that counted down at midnight. 

 

     At a certain point, fruit and nuts came out, and reminded me of when I was little and we actually would have mixed nuts at Christmastime.  Do we still do that in the US?  I think it's a tradition that needs to be revived. 

     Emanuele had bought some assorted fireworks that day -- they're legal in Italy depending on the type.  Larger towns typically have their own display, although this year the nearby town of Cervignano cancelled theirs because they wanted to be more friendly to pets and thought the fireworks would scare them.  Max watched his first fireworks with minimal interest.  We had just flown back from the US and he was out of it with the time change.

 

     We set off our fireworks just before midnight in the park in the center of town.  It was a ghost town, with the only other noise coming from a party.  No cars or anything drove through our piazza.  We went inside and toasted at midnight with spumante followed by panettone, the Christmas cake that I LOVE and that you find all during the holidays.

     Italians say Tanti Auguri (best wishes, all the best) for everything.  I keep wanting to run around saying the appropriate phrase for the appropriate holiday, in this case, Buon Anno, but everyone just replies with Auguri, so I don't know why I bother.  Buon Anno translates to Bon An in Friulano, so that's actually my greeting of choice, since I'm always trying to make Italians laugh at an American speaking Friulano. 

     Starting 2nd of January we get to start saying Buon Proseguimento which was a surprise to me when I heard it last year.  When you say this you're in essence wishing the continuation of good wishes.  When I asked how long I can keep saying this I got mixed responses -- some said through Ephiphany, some said mid-January, some said until the end of January.  As a newbie to the Italian language, I will say it as much as I can to practice and see what response I get. 

     New Year's Resolutions are, as expected, more popular in the US than Italy, since we are the kings of self improvement.  In fact when my brother-in-law was asked what his Buon Proposito would be, he said "I'm fine the way I am!". 

     Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and Bon An wherever you are!

 

 

Thanksgiving and how I learned the Italian word for "leftovers"

How do you baste a turkey when you can't find a baster anywhere in Italy?  Why, you use a giant syringe, of course.  Our Thanksgiving lunch went off without a hitch, but we definitely had many work arounds.  Here's Emanuele surgically basting our 24 pound turkey.

 

Since our house was too small to host 23 people, we held the lunch at my father-in-law's old nursery school which had been renovated and is used for events and parties.  The space had rustic brick floors, wood beams and a heating stove.  It was so cozy, and I decorated it with pumpkins, squashes and candles. 

Here we are preparing the buffet line and carving the turkey.  Italians don't have any holiday where they would ever cook a whole bird in an oven (maybe why we couldn't find a baster?), so everyone was very curious about the turkey, and especially the stuffing.  Why wasn't the stuffing stuffed inside the turkey?  I explained that because of contamination issues we're used to serving it outside the turkey.

Each dish had a little orange card on which I wrote the English name and an appropriate Italian translation.  The surprise hit was the broccoli casserole.  Some people went crazy for it.  As expected, the sweet potato casserole was not as popular since Italians don't like to mix sweet and savory.  People did seem to enjoy the stuffing, which was a pleasant surprise to me since it had dried cranberries in it.  Probably the biggest shock was how little everyone ate.  Here's a photo after everyone had gone through the line, and some people went twice.  As you can see, 23 people barely ate a third of most of the dishes.  Since Italian meals are usually served in courses and not buffet style, it must have seemed overwhelming to have so many dishes, so I shouldn't be surprised that they were a little timid.  You should have seen the looks on their faces when I told them that my American family of SIX eats the same amount if not more!  Fortunately I had brought along disposable plastic containers so I could introduce the American tradition of LEFTOVERS.  I found out there is actually an Italian word for it, "avanzi", and everyone liked being able to take home the things they liked best.

There wasn't much left over pie, however.  I served pecan, pumpkin, and coconut pies with whipped cream.  I took an informal vote and the pecan pie won hands down, followed by coconut.  The pumpkin pie was not popular at all, maybe due to the heavy spices?.  More for meee!  Everyone was really enamored with pecans -- they were in many of the dishes and I also served them roasted with in butter and Cajun salt for the aperitivo before the meal.  No one had ever really heard of them or had them before, and one friend liked them so much I promised to bring him back some from the US.  This made my southern heart burst with pride, since I associate pecans so much with growing up in the south. 

Finally, the Gratitude Tree.  I was a little nervous that my guests would be too skeptical to write down what they were thankful for, since expressing appreciation about life is definitely an American invention.  But I forgot that Italians don't like to go against the grain in social situations, so if your host asks you to write something down on a paper leaf, you do it or risk creating a "brutta figura" (bad impression).  Some comments were funny, some touching, and many wrote thanks for a beautiful meal.  My favorite was a three year old boy who wrote thanks for the Smithfield Ham.

The best part about sharing Thanksgiving for the first time with our friends and family was that apart from the novelty of the food, it was remarkably the same as every other Thanksgiving I've had with Americans:  people sitting around stuffed and happy, that one person who drank too much, kids running around screaming, several spirited games of foosball, announcement of a new baby, and so on.  Truly a holiday that crossed cultural boundaries.  Happy Thanksgiving from Friuli, yall!

Ramp up to Thanksgiving

Last year was our first Thanksgiving back in Italy.  I had big plans: Max was born at the beginning of November, my Mom arrived shortly after, and I had planned to make turkey, stuffing, sweet potato casserole and a pie while she was there.  WRONG! I was a new parent, and so my Thanksgiving consisted of me, the day before, telling Emanuele that if Max would just sleep for two hours then I could get the stuffing done -- a sentence that was immediately followed by Max crying and waking up.  Emanuele did manage to cook the turkey in Nonna's oven, and so five of us ate turkey and beans on Thanksgiving. 

This year I am determined to make up for last year, and probably I'm in over my head.  The old daycare building in our town is an event space, so I reserved it for a dinner of 15-20 people.  I've bought ingredients for the following menu:

Turkey/gravy
Smithfield Ham
Sausage Stuffing
Cranberry relish
Sweet potato casserole
Broccoli casserole
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Pecan Pie
Pumpkin Pie

I'm outsourcing green beans, mac and cheese, apple pie, rolls and wine to Italian friends and family.  So somehow all this food will be cooked by me and Emanuele on Saturday, reheated on Sunday, and the room will be beautifully decorated by noon.  We chose to have it the Sunday after Thanksgiving, since it's not a holiday here and what Italian wants to get off of work on a Thursday and go eat a huge American meal? 

My sister-in-law and her sister seem really excited about trying the food because they've always seen the turkey and cranberry sauce in the movies/television.  Everyone else has heard of the holiday, but no one knows quite what to expect.  I think they are all a little wary of our 24 pound turkey.  The one thing that I know will be hard for many folks to swallow is the American love of mixing sweet and savory -- in Friuli sweet things can only be eaten as dessert.  These dishes will undoubtedly be the most controversial:
Sweet Potato Casserole -- hands down the top offender, could only be served as a dessert in Friuli
Cranberry Sauce -- It's like putting jam on a steak!  I'm preparing a cranberry relish instead to make it less "marmalade-y"
Stuffing -- my recipe calls for dried cranberries and APPLES!  Will I have the nerve to add them both in? I'm imagining certain guests will pick them both out.

I've promised myself to be true to my American roots -- I'm not making anything that I wouldn't serve in the US.  I'm so excited to be sharing this holiday with my Italian family and friends -- delightful anecdotes and cultural confusion abound!