My first ever blog entry
My niece with her butterfly that she nurtured from a caterpillar
Today is the first day that the thought of writing a blog did not make me sick to my stomach. It’s also my niece Kelly’s 5th birthday, and two days ago it was my 33rd birthday. So it’s feeling like a moment to be bold, for myself and for my niece. She’s already a bold, chatty, outspoken kid. She could Facetime with me for 30 minutes without even noticing- a rare thing for a 5 year-old. One of my favorite things she said on a recent video call was “Yeah, this is a bit of a quiet year”. So true, Kelly. This year is muted, for sure. Celebrations, gatherings, travel. Everything is slow and careful and subdued. Her 4 years of prior experience have taught her this, as well as my 32. She gets it. She’s ahead of her time.
Last week my brother gave me the fantastic compliment of saying that Kelly looks like me sometimes. She’ll turn her head or he’ll catch an angle of her and he sees his 3-years-younger sister in his daughter’s face. I see it too and it makes me happy to know we’re not only nearly birthday twins but also nearly face twins.
So, you may be wondering how a “furloughed” American living in Florence with no children or pets, who shares with her partner a small one-bedroom apartment with no balcony or terrace (contrary to those videos you’ve seen of Italians singing from their balconies during quarantine, not all apartments here have enviable outdoor space) has been spending her time for the last 3.5 months. Welp, mostly eating. Not to a gluttonous degree, but it really seemed like the only thing that could motivate me to get out of bed and not sulk about the situation in the world and on a more micro level MY LIFE, was food. Growing it, prepping it, cooking it, sharing it with Massi, or sharing it with no one. These were the things that made me happy during those walled-in months.
Whether it was growing two separate sourdough starter sisters from a small mixture of flour and water that came to be like my quarantine children that I named, nurtured, and cared for until they could be safely tucked away in the fridge; or the myriad sourdough discard recipes that made many days feel like I was running a very small-scale bakery out of our very small-scale apartment; or anticipating the arrival of our market delivery from our buddy the fishmonger who brought us fresh food that lasted us more than a week and gave me my first opportunity in a week to get real fresh air from the outdoors; or preparing Easter lunch, usually an important feast to be eaten among family and the perfect occasion to bring out your “nice dishes” for Jesus; these are the things that got me up in the morning.
Now that the lockdown has ended and we’re slowly and cautiously starting to develop a “new normal”, I can enjoy some of the pre-2020 freedoms I used to take for granted, like riding my bike with no police-authorized destination or seeing friends in person, although now instead of the double cheek kiss we greet one another with awkward Biden-Sanders elbow bumps.
For me, this period of staying inside and focusing on the bare minimum of tasks granted me a certain amount of much-needed calm and even some insight: what things in my life make me happy and what don’t, what things I want to improve about myself and what I’m already pretty good at, what gaps there are in my education that are now my responsibility to fill in and try to introduce early on to my facetwin niece and 2 year-old nephew.
And this. This probably-self-indulgent activity that might give myself and others some of that calm that comes from connecting and feeling less alone in a new world that has a higher capacity for loneliness.
I’m a firm believer of the concept of showing your love with food. The time and precision and warmth that one puts into food is part of how I share my heart with people. So, if you’d like to follow my trials and tribulations of cooking and also the tidbits of my Italian life along the way, stay tuned. Be prepared for some oversharing, over-swearing, and truly awkward moments.
From my kitchen with love,
Jackie
