Italy | Adventures of an Expat Returned

The woods are lovely, ~~dark~~ golden and deep.

Those words kept running through my head as I watched the leaves beginning to turn in the woods behind my house. Only last week they were at the peak of their colorful glory, and shortly before that it seemed that they had just begun to lose their green.

Why does this qualify as a post for the Adventures of an Expat Returned? How is this a specifically newly-returned-to-America topic? Well, let’s begin with the fact that, while abroad, I nearly always lived in big cities. This means that I had very little access to nature except on weekend excursions, which were few and far between (that’s what happens when you work weekends). It is therefore relevant to my experience of returning to America, which has meant returning to live in a semi-rural area for the first time since I was a kid.

Umbrella pines on the Palatine Hill

Rome’s beauties tend to be of the architectural as opposed to the naturalistic variety. Of course, they do have some lovely public parks in Rome, my favorite of which was the Villa Borghese park (where you can find the famous Pincio Belvedere that is featured in pretty much any movie filmed in the Eternal City).

Your faithful writer sits atop a fallen umbrella pine near the outdoor hippodrome in Villa Borghese park

The umbrella pine is one of the symbols of Rome. It’s everywhere (although, having been brought over from North Africa during the time of the Ancient Roman Empire, it’s not truly native), it’s beautiful and it’s a conifer.

The steep, cypress-lined road that climbs to the Church of Santa Margherita above the famous little hill town of Cortona

If you think about it, Italy is famous for its conifers. Just think of Tuscany and what comes to mind? An avenue leading to a villa in the hills above Florence, perhaps, and it is lined with… cypresses, another gorgeous tree and, again, not deciduous.

Cypresses rise from behind every garden wall in here in the hills above Florence

Olive groves and cypresses are an integral part of the Tuscan hills’ distinctive beauty – and neither tree changes its colors in autumn

Despite having had access to places world-renowned for their beauty for many years, it had been a very long time since I’d seen the brilliant reds and yellows of a North American fall, the bright fiery shades of autumn I remember from my childhood.

And this is just my back yard. Imagine what it’s like down in the woods…

Lucky for me, I have my faithful steed…

…and a long and winding, well-kept trail…

…and woods wild and golden enough to satisfy your average hobbit’s sense of adventure

Further on, the golds begin to give way to a little more red

See the deer behind me? That’s how close (and tame) they were

I get off my bike to take a picture of those red leaves, and what should I see, not so very far off the trail?

Can you see mother doe in the background?

Can you see Mom in the background?

This is about as wild as it gets in the woods behind my house, but for someone who’s spent most of their life in the city, it qualifies as an adventure. And a little further along the trail…

A nice place to pause for awhile before our adventure continues

Thanks for coming along. Come back and visit soon for more rides through the autumn woods, as long as the leaves last.

– Jennifer

Villa Borghese (kcrobins.wordpress.com)
The two faces of Tuscany (bellotobarga.wordpress.com)
Roaming Roma – The perfect 24-48 hours in Italy’s ancient capital. (layoverescapades.wordpress.com)
The Golden Woods (scotnor.com)

And by the way, a big thank you to all of you who have followed and liked my blog lately. It’s great to have you here, and I hope you’ll keep on visiting!

Squash season has arrived. That doesn’t just mean it’s time for a Pumpkin Spice Latte. It means that, here in America, the displays of every supermarket and decorations at the front of every store – as well as the pastry cases in all the cafés – are suddenly, from one day to the next, filled with rows upon rows, mountains upon mountains of all things having to do with squash.

Display cases in front of my local Whole Foods Market at the beginning of squash season

Whole Foods Market presents arriving shoppers with a veritable mountain of gourds.

Living in Europe, this amazing variety of squash was one of the things that I missed most right around this time of year, because it never felt like the arrival of fall (sorry, my British friends, autumn) got the fanfare it deserved without these bright orange and green displays, evoking the color of the changing leaves on the trees.

My autumn table center piece, four fall gourds, complete with matching candle.

For the duration of my stay in Italy, the only members of the squash family I ever saw in supermarkets were green (and the occasional yellow) zucchini squash and the Italian zucca, which, when you see it on sale in a supermarket, is similar to a pumpkin, but not quite. In truth, the Italian word zucca translates as our term squash, and not just pumpkin. Indeed, even a search for the Italian word for gourd will return the same word, zucca, again. I assume that this is one of those cases where the lack of a thing made it unnecessary to have a name for it. (By the way, this is also the case with squirrels and chipmunks. Having no chipmunks, in Italy the word scoiattolo – literally, squirrel – is used to refer to both. Italian zooligists know that the Italian word for chipmunk is tamia, but the layman has never heard that term in his life. Ask any Italian what kind of animal Alvin and his friends are, and they will blithely tell you that they’re squirrels. No joke.)

How many times I wished I could roast a nice butternut squash for my Italian friends! Alas, living in Italy, such a thing was not to be. Acorn squash, spaghetti squash and all the other lovely varieties that we take for granted (butternut is my personal favorite), in Italy no one has ever heard of, unless they’ve spent some time over here in the States.

A pumpkin spice latte cupcake my sister bought for me. She knows me well.

The other thing that shocks most Italians is the use of pumpkin or zucchini in anything sweet. Mention zucchini or pumpkin bread or muffins, pumpkin cookies, cakes or pie and they look at you as though you have gone insane. In Italian cuisine, squash stays firmly ensconced in the land of the savory. As with most Italian food, the recipes are wonderful, as those who have tried ravioli di zucca can attest. Put it in front of them, however, and even Italians will go ga-ga over a good pumpkin muffin (as my former roommates in Rome might confirm).

On the sweeter side, the pumpkin spice latte cupcake you see in the photo here is from Sweet Therapy bakery (their tag line: baked intervention – another example of American advertising with a sense of humor).

Another thing we like to do in America is drink our pumpkin-related beverages. We break them out the first time we wake up to find a chill in the air. I’m not talking just about the by-now-famous Pumpkin Spice Latte, which, thanks to Starbucks, is fairly well known even abroad. I’m talking about the kind you have to be legal age to drink. Now, my Italian friends might cite Rabarbaro Zucca (a rhubarb-squash digestif) as an example of the fact that they do this too. It’s true. But one bitter after-dinner concoction cannot compete with entire shelves in supermarkets stocked overnight with dozens of varieties of pumpkin ales and ciders. There isn’t a self-respecting brewery in the country that can get away with not making some pumpkin offering come fall.

Pumpkin cider, pumpkin ale and – for you teetotalers out there – a pumpkin pie soda. These are just a few of the pumpkin-themed beverages available in America this time of year, and it just wouldn’t feel like autumn without them.

Now, we started out this post with a mention of Pumpkin Spice Latte (for my Italian friends out there, latte, in American café parlance, does not mean plain milk, but caffè latte. We abbreviate. I know, it’s confusing.). We have continued to mention it throughout the post, so I think that you foreigners out there deserve an explanation. Starbucks made the pumpkin-spice flavored coffee beverage famous, but now even McDonalds has one on sale (I have not dared to try it, and I probably never will). You non-Americans out there might be confused by the term “pumpkin spice” . Well, what we mean is generally not that that these beverages are somehow made from actual pumpkin, but that they are flavored with all of the same spices that go into a pumpkin pie: cinnamon (most importantly) followed by nutmeg, ginger and clove (that’s my grandma’s famous blend, although I’m sure different families have different recipes).

When I lived in Italy, there would always come a morning in early October when I would wake up pining for pumpkin spice latte. My mom sent me along this recipe:

Spices in the pot, ready to be whisked.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Ingredients:
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. allspice
Enough milk to fill your mug (any kind will do, even soy or almond if you are so inclined)
1 shot of espresso coffee (I make mine in a moka stovetop coffee machine, like the one you see in the picture on the left)

Prepare your espresso coffee. When it is ready, measure out your milk and pour it into a small pot. Add spices while milk is heating and whisk until they are no longer clumped together. Heat until milk is steaming but do not boil. Pour the mixture into your mug and add the coffee. Sweeten to taste (I find honey, agave or brown sugar all complement the spices nicely).