The Runaway Cook

Gnocchi con salsa di pomodoro

 billowy clouds of potato, oddly shaped and floating in a crock of rich red sauce


It's a still night here is Salerno and I'm wearing my black dress with little black sweater to keep the chill out. The sky is showing her sparkling starts and the water's edge is shimmering with the combination of light from town and milky way.  I've decided to find a little restaurant to eat some pizza and gnocchi this evening. Walking down the streets like walking through restaurant after restaurant. Everyone is seated outside under canopies and music plays softly blending from one block of seats to the next. 


Menus boast of pastas, seafood, pizzas, and wines, while waiters smile and say prego to everyone within seating range. Candles flicker and seems to whisper invites to us all. The cobblestone streets are full women in heels and med in smooth slacks. I can't help but walk with a a smile in the corner of my mouth. 


I picked a small restaurant of the main street, smackdab in the middle of this stretch of eateries. After margarita pizza I indulged in the best Gnocchi I have had to date. It seemed very authentic compared to other gnocchi I have eaten in the US and Italy. Rather than the perfect squares and ridged ovals these were pinched and slightly flattened dumplings of tender potato. 


Needless to say, I was very pleased. The icing to my cake was being able to get glimpses of flour poofing into clouds in the open kitchen right inside.






To make gnocchi at home try this recipe. I know gnocchi sounds difficult, but it's just a matter of 


2 lbs – 2 oz. whole baking potatoes
1 beaten egg
2-1/4 cups flour
1 hefty pinch of salt


1.  Add potatoes whole and skin-on in cool salted water, bring to boil and cook until fork tender.
2. Drain the potatoes immediately, then peel being careful not to burn yourself.
3. Pass the potatoes through a potato ricer or foodmill.
4. Add egg, flour and salt to riced potatoes.
5. Mix until crumbles form a pliable ball of dough.
6. Dust counter with flour and roll out a piece of dough with your hands until you have logs about 3/4 inch in diameter.
7. Cut the logs of dough into chunk about one inch long.
8. (OPTIONAL) Hold the tines of a fork against your work surface, then gently press and a piece of dough against the fork with your fingers (Will form a gnocchi with an indent on back from your finger and a grooves on the front from the tines of the fork).
9. Be careful with the gnocchi so they don’t loose their shape as you place them on a lightly flour plates. (don’t let them touch one another or they’ll stick).
10. In a pot of boiling water add the gnocchi carefully, one plateful at a time. As soon as they float, remove the gnocchis with a slotted spoon and set them and drain off the water. ( If making many of these it may be a good idea to shock in ice water then strain and set aside, however they will stick and don't keep well just sitting on the counter).
11. Add more gnocchi to the water and serve the others right away.


Cover in olive oil and basil, butter and garlic, parm, mushrooms, and thyme, or some delicious tomato sauce. MMMMM delish


Photo from: http://www.cookingwithpatty.com/italian/recipe/gnocchi-with-tomato-sauce/

Why is it that every place in italy seems to have different plugs? I mean I purchased this big, heavy converter from Amazon.com that claimed to work for plugs across Italy and Germany, but apparently Italy as many shapes and sizes of outlets as they do kinds of pasta.

So my friends,  this evening I am out looking for a converter plug. I have left my hostel in Salerno (yes I'm back in Salerno but actually visiting this town rather that getting out as fast as possible) and am walking between skinny brick alleys crayoned dark on the edges by vespa fumes and dirt. The sunlight skips through the hanging laundry, open shutters, and little mettle balconies. I need a general store but, it's late tonight and many of the stores or closing or closed in the main square. To top that off it's the weekend tomorrow and many stores will be closed, so it's now or never.

After about 20 minutes of meandering, I happened upon this small square with a grocery store, deli, general store and a couple white tents in the center. Steam is rising underneath the pale canopies, creating a foggy haze around the lamps. Th salty aroma is flooding this small piazza and people take gray paper cones filled with crisp fish, skin still gleaming beneath the crunchy film of batter.

Behind these steaming tents are several very steep steps leading to the cramped doorway leading to a room filled with little boxes and bottles smooshed together on shelves that line every wall. I scan the shelves looking for anything that resembles a plug or a cord, but see nothing.  

The hefty, 5-ft, older woman  heads my direction and says "prego" (welcome) then asks me what I want. I can't understand her and ask if she speaks english. She says no and we try to sign to each other which really doesn't work. She gets louder, as if yelling in Italian will somehow help me understand her. I am about to leave when she makes me to follow her out to the stoop. She stands there next to me and hollers will all her might does anyone speak English? and continues hollering "English" over and over. I am mortified and everyone in this small pizza, including the people frying the fish, are all staring at me on this pedestal of old steps.

Just when I think, "God what is going to happen next?" an older gentleman  peeks out from the grocer's canopy. He motions me over and I step over the line of tile that marks the boarder of the piazza from the inside of his 7'x15' shop. flats of fruit and shelves of juice and water make me think there's probably not a plug here either.  I speak with the old man, whose kind eyes reassure my thoroughly embarrassed self and he explains that all the stores selling that item are closed and will be closed tomorrow.

My eyes let out the whimper that I make inside me. He smiles, and tells me to wait right there. He leaves to the back room and I decide to buy some peaches, oranges, and water while I wait.  Finally he comes back and in his hards are a few black converter plugs. he says he didn't know which plug was american so he just grabbed all he had hoping one would work. I am in awe at his sweetness. He indeed found an american plug. When I ask him how much I owe him. He wont take a cent. I insist but he also insists.

"When are you leaving Salerno?"
"Tuesday."
"Then just bring it back before you go. (Very big smile)"

Although some of them yell, curse at me in a foreign language, and scoff at my American tendencies and accent, there are some that make me shed tears from their kindness. But, I love them all anyway!

However, I have a feeling that the little, old man from Salerno will always have a special place in my heart.

Original photo from:http://www.landbigfish.com/images/recipes/BEER-BATTER-FRIED_SARDINES.jpg

So I have stepped outside for the first time, and at 8am, Salerno is already steamy as the sun is just peeking over the buildings.

I better get a move on, since I have more traveling to do. I need to find an Internet source to let my family know I'm alive, tell the hostel that I had booked for yesterday and today that my planes we changed, making me arrive in Salerno too late to check in, oh and email the Mozzarella farm that I need to visit them later in the week, there's no way I can do that today.

So when one doesn't speak Italian and they are traveling in a less touristy Italian town, how the heck do you figure out where to go and who to ask? The Polizia! Dressed in navy blue uniforms with badges and official-looking white hats, they are sure to be trustworthy and hopefully can speak english.

The first police man I came to was chubby, grey-haired man walking leisurely along the wide sidewalk of the main street. I hollered, "Me scusa. Parla inglesi?" which means, "Excuse me. Do you speak English?"
"Un poco." He said, which means, "a little".
I ask him where I can find the internet. He doesn't know what I mean. So I say, computer, web, in-ter-net, email.
"Ahhhhhhh! Email-uh, si, si, si! You need internet-ta point-te?"
"SI!"

He continued to give me directions. Which, in the end I realized were perfect directions, but in my sleepless state and they only confused me further. He said walk three stoplights down and it is on the right across from "Camera" something. Now the word "camera" in english means a camera shop full of electronics right. In Italian, "camera" means "room" so what I thought would be an electronics shop was actually a large hotel, which is a great landmark when trying to find a little teeny "internet point."

I walk down the street and seem to not be getting there, I can't tell if he meant just the changing stoplights or the red blinking lights too. I ask another policeman if he speaks english and he says no and sorry. I keep walking, stop, turnaround and walk more, then stop and sit and nearly start to cry. I get up and decide to just start walking back to the train station and just get out of here.

Just then the second policeman stops me. He motions me to wait, and he asks another policeman to come over. He speaks German and Italian, uffda! I start saying "dove e internet" nobody can understand the way I say internet, oy! So I say, email. They both say si a million times and motion me to follow them. We walk a bit the he tells me to stop and the two men walk talk to yet another policeman. They tell him the whole story, from what I can tell, and this man listens to me speak in english then tells them internet point and email, they all bounce and nod as everyone loudly says "si si si si si si", and we are off.

We walk a ways and again stop. These men are ridiculous but sweet. Just to be absolutely certain, they go into a small drugstore and bring out a man who can speak english decently. They tell him to listen to me. I tell him what I need and he then tells the pack of policemen what I need. They all say, you guessed it SI! hahahahahaha.

After just two more blocks of walking we are there. They tell me it opens at 9am, 45 minutes from now. I say grazia a million times and wait.

Luckily the women that owns this shop speaks english and was able to tell me where to get a ticket for and where to hop on the bus to Amalfi. Lord I just want to go to sleep. . . 31 hours and counting.

Snap! Whoa, oh shoot, you nearly fell asleep again. Ok so what was that sound? Snap! ohhhhh-hoo-ho, it's paint. Look at the ceiling over there, it's covered in the curling dandruff of old off-white-colored paint that seems to be randomly falling to the ground. Wow that last piece was pretty big, and it happened to land right next to that also "pretty big" bug in pacing in the crease where the clammy wall meets the dirty floor.