I’m sitting here trying not to listen to Alvin and the Chipmunks, which the kids are watching. I have a low tolerance for squeaky voices, which makes my adoration of my daughter all the more remarkable since she was very squeaky for a number of years. But that’s beside the point.
Yesterday, I made a new friend. “Will you be my best friend?” I asked her. No, just kidding; I was channelling my 8 year old self there for a minute. It’s the voices, the voices. Not to mention the spunky beat. Augh.
We do not own this movie. We will never own this movie.
When we lived in France, I made friends with an Italian woman named Angela. She had a son in Abel’s class. “I speak American,” she told me the first time we met, just outside the elementary school. “I used to live in Chicago.” She pronounced it with a hard CH, CHick-AH-go.
Depending on my schedule, which varied daily, I used to sometimes follow her home from dropping off our children. Her house had pictures of saints and her mother in her coffin. Her sons were named things like Anthony and Joseph; they wore gold jewellery and leather jackets and rode fast motorcycles and they would ask her for more money. “But I already gave-a you da money!” she would shout at them, gesticulating with her arms. “But I need-a more-a!” Anthony or Joseph or Giovanni (I forget his real name but it was just as Italian) would shout back, arms just as active. I would stare, bemused. Wasn’t this behaviour just a cheap American stereotype of Italians? Apparently not. We saw this when we visited Italy and couldn’t find our hotel. “It’s-a no-a far-a!” said the Italians we asked, gesticulating helpfully down the street. “Are you for real?” said Donn.
It was in Angela’s kitchen that I really learned to love Italian coffee. Living in France, I learned to drink café noir, just a shot of espresso in a demitasse cup, black, sipped slowly and made to last for hours while you chat with a friend. I had thought that was strong. The Italians use the same amount of coffee and the same size cups, but half the water so that the coffee is twice as strong. You can get this coffee anywhere in Italy, even in the roadside stops next to gas stations. It will ruin you for American coffee; especially the frou-frou kind.
The other day (ok the other month but then I got sick and then I got busy), I met one of my new neighbours. She is Italian, married to a Moroccan, and has a daughter in Ilsa’s class at school. “Drop by any time,” she urged me. So on Sunday afternoon, I took a plate of my home-made fudge and did just that.
She made me coffee (swoon!), thereby cementing our friendship, at least from my side. She liked the fudge a lot too, so I could see this being mutually beneficial. I don’t know what the magic is. She uses Lavazza coffee; I use Lavazza coffee. She uses a stove-top machine, as did Angela. I have 2 or 3 stove-top machines in Mauritania and I have used them plenty, but it’s never as good. I believe Italian women are blessed at birth by the coffee fairy (or maybe at their first communion? I‘m not Catholic so I don‘t know), while the rest of us have to labour and strive and make mistakes along the long hard path to coffee nirvana. I can make French coffee, which is very good, but Italian coffee continues to elude me.
She sent me home with samples of herbs from their land, located just outside the city, and half a dozen roses, red and yellow and pink. Their scent fills the room as I type; they are full-blown today and beginning to droop. “It’s not really the season for roses,” she told me, but the blooms are still beautiful.
Some might think I take coffee too seriously, which I don’t. But I’m not as bad as some! I’ve been very amused by this interaction lately. First, read this NY Times article, which scooped this very funny post by Wacky Mommy’s husband. It was picked up by Starbucks themselves, and then mocked mercilessly by a French blogger! It has had me in stitches. Enjoy!
EDITED TO ADD:
Here is a rough translation of the first two paragraphs of the French blogger.
“It’s happening already, just as we predicted. First they kept giving their
coffees names that were more and more complicated and they came up with
fantastic combos (the vanilla caramel frappucino double shot soy latte with
tomato soup to go…who’s it for?). Now the coffee sellers have surpassed
themselves.
Whoever wants to become a “barista” (the new glamourous name for the guys
behind the espresso machines) must pass an entrance test for NASA in order
to get a 5th-grade job.”
…the rest just explains it…
21 comments
December 30, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Robin
Love it!! I haven’t read More Hockey in ages, apparently I’ve been missing some great stuff.
The original post was a scream, but it was BBB who really speared it with the addition of tomato soup into the coffee description.
Man I could really go for a good cup of Italian coffee right now…
December 30, 2008 at 3:28 pm
ladyfi
I love coffee. Don’t take it too seriously, but it has to be good coffee!
And I agree – the Italians are born with genes that help them gesticulate wildly and make excellent coffee!
http://ladyfi.wordpress.com/
December 30, 2008 at 4:42 pm
jolyn
I so loved this post and the memories it brought back of our three years we lived in Italy. My husband and 13yo son and I still pine. My son attended grades 3-5 at an Italian school (as opposed to the American school on base) and he talked about how LOUD the kids were in his class and this one boy in particular who would break out in his opera singing voice loud enough for the whole (albeit very small) school to hear, wide stance, arms spread, leaning back with mouth open wide . “He’s actually pretty good,” my son would always say. Could you imagine a 10yo boy singing opera in the hallways of an American school?
Did you ever watch your friend fill the stovetop maker with the grounds? They pack it in there pretty good. Mmmm. I almost can’t drink coffee when I go out; it’s so weak. Enjoy your new friendship!
December 30, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Wacky Mommy
We lived by a coffeeshop once (oh, wait — i’m in Portland. Anywhere you live here is by a coffeeshop…) anyway. It’s this place in Southeast — Schondecken.
http://www.mapclicks.com/schondecken-coffee-roasters
On their reader board out front, all it ever said was YOU NEED A CUP OF COFFEE. And we were all, “Damn straight.” Steve still says that to me, ALL CAPS, every morning. hahahahaha.
Also, they gave our dog a job, which was so sweet of them, no? Cuz he was a big baby and had to be around people All. Day. Long.
Glad you made a new friend! It’s like dating, isn’t it?
December 30, 2008 at 8:37 pm
poppy fields
LOL! This after an afternoon where I was forced to sip the very WORST tipid weak coffee of my life. On our way home from the mountains, we stopped at my husband’s uncle’s house for coffee and a visit. And these people are Italians from Venice and are supposed to be Catholic, but they must have missed the coffee fairy part and they certainly wouldn’t have passed the five page questionnaire. Oh yuck, I still cringe when thinking about it.
I’m glad you met a friend that makes good coffee and likes fudge, what a great combo.
Wishing you lots of good coffees in 2009 🙂
December 30, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Nan
Was it the fudge that worked?
December 30, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Tonggu Momma
If I could, I would have an IV line connected at all times to deliver coffee to my bloodstream. Only then I wouldn’t be able to savor it… the smell, the taste, the heat from the mug on my hands. Aaahh…
Thanks for the links – they had me rolling. And just know that I STILL haven’t sent out our Christmas/ New Years cards. I will send one, but it will probably be closer to Chinese New Year. I will, however, add candy canes for the children.
Happy New Year! May it be merry and bright – and filled with new friends, Italian or otherwise. 🙂
December 30, 2008 at 11:27 pm
LG
I love the Chipmunks movie where they go around the world in a balloon. There is a great line: “What about my couscous?” which makes me laugh now that I live in couscous land. I think this was Joanna and Nathan’s favorite video and I have ALL the songs memorized. Jojo didn’t nap, so perhaps I was just thankful she loved the music! And “what about my coucous?”
Off to banc D’arguin tomorrow with Gagnes.
December 30, 2008 at 11:29 pm
LG
Oh, and the other part in the movie was the wacko housekeeper who would sing, and she was a huge lady, and she reminded me so much of my housekeeper in my first African home who sang and swayed as she worked (in about as zany a manner as the chipmunk’s lady)! But she didn’t drive a caddy.
December 30, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Kim
I will go to great lengths to get good coffee. I am, in fact, a bit of a coffee snob. I won’t offend my taste buds with bad coffee. Unless I have to, like when we are visiting someone’s house and they offer it and you can’t really say no. But I sip teeny tiny little sips infrequently then.
Have never had Italian coffee. I like frou frou myself. Am missing good coffee house brew that’s smooth and not too bitter. The best coffee we’ve had here is actually from a gas station. The YPF stations all across Argentina put in really nice machines and taught their people how to make a great cup of coffee. My favorite is the café con leche.
Fudge sounds SO GOOD right now.
December 31, 2008 at 12:32 am
Mary-LUE
I don’t read French! I need a translation.
(I’m jealous of your opportunity to go hang out, drink coffee, and eat fudge. It sounds delightful!)
December 31, 2008 at 3:12 am
Wacky Mommy
ML, the translation is here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbienbienbien.net%2F2008%2F12%2F29%2Fle-cafe-complique-ou-comment-choisir-entre-astronaute-et-barista%2F&sl=fr&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
December 31, 2008 at 8:43 am
ladyfi
Thanks for the book tip by the way!
http://ladyfi.wordpress.com/
December 31, 2008 at 6:09 pm
gretchen from lifenut
Fudge, coffee, roses, a new friend…sounds like a lovely time!
I know about German coffee—my dad’s all-German family makes the worst coffee. Soooo bitter. Not strong, just bitter. I don’t know how they do it. I know why—because it isn’t cool to drink a beer at 6am.
December 31, 2008 at 8:13 pm
jean
Well I’m almost embarrassed to say this, but I don’t drink coffee. I never developed a taste for it. However, I love the smell of it. Now as far as the movie? I loved it. I think we own it.
December 31, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Beck
I only started drinking coffee in this past year. I WAS MISSING OUT.
I love that making a new friend feeling.
One of my daughters – the oldest – has a squeaky voice like Minnie Mouse. THe other daughter – the youngest – has a deep gravley voice. Like a stevedore.
January 1, 2009 at 4:40 am
LIB
When Leslie first met me, she didn’t say, “Will you be my best friend?” But she DID say, “Can Kaleb & I come over to play?”
And, you know how well that turned out.
January 1, 2009 at 5:45 am
Linda
I make horrible coffee because I don’t drink it. I can’t tie my neck scarvees like French women either. It must be genetic.
January 2, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Maddy
I’m a coffee fiend myself. I worry though…………
…..’I used to sometimes follow her home’…….this is not good!
I make perfect espresso now, but that’s because I have a machine so I can’t really claim to take the credit.
Best wishes
January 6, 2009 at 11:26 pm
LG
my son has informed me that there is a NEW chipmunks movie and an OLD chipmunks movie…. who knew?
February 23, 2009 at 3:28 pm
In Which We Practice our French « Planet Nomad
[…] week, we went out again, this time to the house of a girl in Ilsa’s class. This is my Italian friend that I mentioned before; she invited us for pizza. I don’t know about you, but when an Italian […]