Fight the Power as an Italian or at Least Wander Around It*

Italian anti-Fascist fighters, November 1944

Oh dear Lord. Please no one ask me what I think of the woman who identifies as a black person when, in fact, she's a white person. I just don't have it in me to join the discussion and will leave it to less exhausted finer minds than mine to figure it all out. I'm generally fascinated by these kinds of things, but lately I've felt nearly comatose and even bored when the newest wild story comes out. I know that says more about me than anyone else and is probably indicative of mild depression or at least a dissociative disorder, but it's the truth. I'm having a hard time not saying I don't care when people ask me what I think about anything these days. Ironically, one of the things I'll be working on beginning next week when I leave for my residency at Hedgebrook involves my own wrestling with identity -- both mine and my daughter's. Hopefully, I'll be out of this funk and able to organize my thoughts and care.

As I drove around the shitty this afternoon, listening to the interminable talk about the woman who identified as black but who was really white, I did think about my own ethnic identity -- how I'm one-half Italian, one-quarter Syrian and one-quarter Scotch English. If people ask me what I am, I tend to say Italian because I definitely identify more with my Italian ancestry than the Middle Eastern or northern European. I can't tell you why exactly, but I feel Italian. Yesterday's post provoked some really great comments, including Mary Moon stating that she'd heard Italians don't believe in God so much as God's mother. Ha! That's true of me!




I was also thinking about The Powers That Be today, mainly because I got a letter in the mail informing me that our insurance company, Assurant, will no longer be in the health insurance marketplace as of January 2016 so we'll have to start looking for a new individual plan in November during that open season which sounds like we're all going hunting (and wouldn't you love to hunt down an insurance company and hang it, stuffed on your wall?) but actually means you're allowed to enroll in a certain window. Insurance companies and the whole healthcare system in this joint are kind of fascist, don't you think? God, I wish I could say that I don't care, but I'm going to have to care and scurry around and do all the stuff that needs to be done, including making sure that Sophie's Providers are covered and that her drugs are covered and that we can afford the premium and it's all so exhausting and I just don't care.

On the other hand, I've been engaged with one of my favorite Realm of Caring people, Heather, on Facebook who has done an incredible amount of work with this medical marijuana thing. She's one of my heroes, to tell you the truth, and just a pleasure to know as a person. She's indefatigable -- probably not unlike one of those Italian anti-Fascist fighters even if she doesn't exactly identify as one. She shared my recent blog post titled Access Public Service Announcement where I took to task the head of the American Epilepsy Society who was just so dooooooown on that recent Dateline special. It turns out that I did a radio show back in April, and the doctor with whom I spoke was the very same one! You can listen to it here. She was equally as dooooooooown on the radio show, too, and Heather and I can't figure out why these people aren't more excited by our stories (Heather's son has been seizure-free with CBD for nearly two years!). I said would it kill them to express some enthusiasm and marvel a bit because they've been stymied so long? Then again, maybe they just don't care, and lord (or given my Italian identity should I say Mary) knows, I understand that.








*This post is a ramble, a wander and it might make no sense. Read at your leisure.

Far From the Tree and Corragio e Molto Forte

Last night, my dear friend Moye and I went downtown to hear Andrew Solomon discuss his recent masterpiece Far From the Tree. I know that many of you have read the book or at least heard about it, but if you haven't, here's a short video that will warm you up:

* FAR FROM THE TREE - book trailer * from Nick Davis on Vimeo.

Solomon was one of the most charming and articulate speakers that I've ever heard, and both Moye and I were overwhelmed by the enormity of his accomplishment. We bought the book and afterward stood in line to have him sign our copies. I told him that I was the parent of a child with multiple severe disabilities and then I thanked him for connecting so many, for voicing so much, for his kindness and intelligence. As you can see in the above photo, he wrote me a simple message, but it took my breath away.

My father, for years and years and years, has always whispered those words to me or said them aloud: Corragio e Molto Forte

Courage and much strength.

Afternoon Coffee with Cugina Elizabeth and a Giveaway!

Please sit down and let me pour you a cup of coffee and introduce you to one of my many cousins from the Italian side of the family. His name is Michele Aquino, and he recently wrote a book titled The Coffee Book Project, influenced by a recent trip through the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and his experiences there. Michele says:

The Coffee Book Project is all about reading, learning, and sharing! While I was living on a coffee farm in Central America, I started letting the local kids borrow children's books and I was inspired by how excited they were to have books to read. This little illustrated book aims to teach coffee drinkers a bit more about the on-the-farm steps involved in coffee processing while generating some funds to support literacy and creativity in rural coffee producing villages.

The book is small but quite beautiful, charmingly illustrated, and very interesting and informative. If you purchase one, a significant portion of the proceeds goes toward increasing literacy efforts in Nicaragua. The money will be donated as books for children in impoverished villages where books are a rarity. You can read more about the project at the website. Barista Magazine has a nice article, too.

Please consider purchasing The Coffee Book Project online.

And the first three people to comment here about how they like their coffee get a free copy from me, Cugina Elizabeth. I'll randomly select two more for a free copy as well -- just make sure you leave your email!

Communiste

My Uncle Tony (Anthony Romano, on the left) and my father, (Michele Benito on the right) are talking to their Sister Mary in New Jersey. Uncle Tony and my father are fraternal twins, and they like to mess with her. They sound so much alike that she thought she was talking only to my father. Henry and Oliver thought this was hysterical, but my mother and I just rolled our eyes.

Fun fact: My father and Uncle Tony were born the fourth and fifth children in New York City to my grandmother Josephine who was a recent immigrant from southern Italy. She could neither read nor write in Italian or English, was a devout Catholic and retained her thick accent until the day she died at nearly ninety years old. Her surprise twins (she didn't know she was carrying two until she gave birth) were named after Benito Mussolini, a hero, at the time, to southern Italian peasants. Romano was Mussolini's youngest son. Evidently, anything bad in the world was quickly called communiste in my Noni's thick Italian accent. Bad actions were all those things that went against the norm: not going to mass, late garbage pick-up, etc. I have only fond memories of my grandmother, although I'm certain I would have been called communiste if she were alive.

The Truth at Last**

Grandma Josephine, my Nonni

Speaking from my own experience, I would argue that the best mothers are Italian-Americans, in part because they are warm and affectionate, but mostly because of the manicotti. When I was a kid, my own Irish-American mother was a terrible cook, so I would dutifully eat the remains of whatever luckless animal she'd just burned to a crisp, puke it up and then run down the street to Richie Giardinelli's house, where his mother was always baking ziti or cooking up a fresh pot of meatballs or making manicotti.

I never met anyone who was more beloved by her kids than Mrs. Giardinelli, though she wasn't much different from all the other Italian-American mothers I have known. Italian-American moms love their kids, they look out for their kids, they defend their kids, and because of that their kids generally grow up to be pillars of the community. If I had to do it all over again, I'd come back as an Italian-American kid—in part because of the warmth, the affection, the passion and the generosity, but mostly because of the manicotti.

-- Joe Queenan, from Why Italian Moms Are The Best

** This is no way denigrates my own mother's mothering. She was the best of mothers, but she was half Syrian and half Scotch-English. Despite that, she could cook very, very well!

Parsley

I wish that parsley fresh plucked from a kitchen garden and placed in a blue vase would take me to the Italian countryside. But when I pinch a leaf and roll it between my fingers, the whiff of green and bits that stain is just parsley.

Small Stone 17

Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails

Are you starting to think that I'm being driven to drink as my post yesterday and now, today, is about alcohol? A few comments yesterday expressed concern; I believe there were even subtle suggestions that alcohol isn't the answer.

I want to allay your fears. I'd make the point that I've never been a drinker and can't imagine becoming an alcoholic at the age of 48. I guess you never know, but like I explained yesterday, drinking doesn't make me do anything other than feel sleepy, and I don't really enjoy the sleepy feeling. I'd also add that I'm a very social person, and when I drink I become increasingly not-so-social (again, the sleepiness) and would rather disappear -- to bed, preferably. Alone.

So. If you're new to the blog (and I have gotten some new readers who are very welcome!), you might also think that The Husband has a Mistress. I have gotten comments expressing wonder, astonishment and even admiration that my tolerance is such that I can joke about The Mistress. I'll allay your fears here as well. The Mistress is my husband's Job. He is a chef and literally works 12-20 hours a day six days and sometimes seven days a week. The Mistress is demanding and The Husband has little to any sway over those demands. 

So, we've cleared those things up.

What about the title of this post? It's the title of a book that my son Henry gave me for Christmas. It's very cool, and he was very proud that he got it for me from my favorite bookstore, helped by my favorite bookstore maven, Liz. Here's a little excerpt from the book:

Cocktails were morning drinks. Drinking in the morning often means getting over what you were drinking last night, and that kind of behavior is what they used to call dissipated. If that wasn't sufficiently nefarious, cocktails contained bitters. Bitters may sound benign to modern ears, but at the dawn of the nineteenth century, they were medicine. Adding them to cocktails was the equivalent of dousing one's beer with Nyquil. No one knows for sure how the cocktail got its name, but I am certain it was because these were your wake-up call -- like a rooster heralding the early morning light. And the plumage? Those spicy bitters... If you drank a cocktail, you were a little dangerous, and therein lay the seeds of its fame.

I have to admit that I love both of these words, both as descriptors and for themselves:

dissipated and bitters.

Since I've talked about alcoholism and mistresses, dissipation, bitters and my own tolerance for all of them, including a bit of Tolstoy love yesterday, I think I'll also include a recipe from the book for a drink that might really rock your world. Here it is:

Shake the following otherwise bourgeois ingredients in a cocktail shaker, and strain into a cocktail glass:

1 ounce gin
1 ounce orange juice
1/2 ounce cherry brandy (Cherry Heering is recommended)
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

What about the photo at the top of the post? Well, that's my paternal grandfather, an Italian immigrant who owned a bar and grill in Harlem. That photo is one of my favorites and causes the most ruckus when I ask the viewer to pick out my grandfather in the bunch. While you might be tempted to think otherwise, there is no alcoholism that I know of in my family.

Carol of the Day (for my dad, of course)

I'm posting it again and saying it again: Mario Lanza makes me glad to be Italian.

(It might tell you to go to YouTube to listen -- click on it anyway and listen!)