cane at the carni

Damp, cloudy, cold—clearly it is chili weather. At home chili is a staple throughout the winter, but the lone time I tried to whip up a batch in Rome  was …how you say…schifoso. If you think subbing cream of tomato soup for condensed tomato soup will work, you are incorrect. 

Having brought three suitcases worth of kitchen supplies with me on my return from the States, I am ready to once again attempt American chili in my Italian kitchen. Except that I need ground turkey. Which involves going to the butcher. And translating “I need a pound of ground turkey” into Italian.

Even better, I had to take Stella with me to the butcher as on this outing we also needed to hit the vet.

Although Stella’s new rabbit, omega-3 and vitamin E  diet has allowed her emergence from the cone of shame, she now suffers from “itchy belly” aka she has two more vet bills before we encase her body in plaster and be done with it.

And off we went to the Super Carni. I had looked up how many grams made up one pound and I had looked up the word for turkey. I did not look up the phrase “please put it through the grinder” so we all got to play charades with that one. Thank the Lord the Italians I have met are patient and kind, because in their shoes I would so just tell me to get out and not return. Have you ever played charades and tried to adequately gesture the word “grind’? Serenity now!

Stella was meanwhile tied up outside the butcher on the dog hitching post . I knew she was still there ( as flop sweat rolled down my face and I tried to make meatball motions with my hands to the perplexed butcher ) because I could hear people crooning to her outside and the customers who entered the store were clucking over the poor cold dog . It’s 56 degrees. She is not cold. She can smell raw meat but has no way to get to it and it gives her the shakes.

Ground turkey successfully shoved into my purse, we went to the vet. Incidentally, our vet is a full-on knock-out with a nose ring. Plus she is super nice AND she is obviously pretty darn smart seeing as how she is a vet and all. And she calls Stella potato chip. What’s not to love?

The vet diagnosed Stella’a latest round of skin issues as needing to continue with her Front line treatment.  She fixed up our little potato chip and I tried to pay. Except my code fiscale did not match with my ID. The vet kept telling me to just come back and pay her tomorrow which somehow made me feel even jerkier.

And so this is a typical example of a day in my life. It takes a long time to accomplish small tasks and then an even longer time to recover from the embarrassing blunders made while trying to accomplish said tasks.