The Finer Things

(Written in major food coma state)

Just finished my second camp. It was the worst group of kids I’ve ever had. One boy punched another and gave him a bruise on the side of his head that shows no signs of going away. Two kids spat in a boy’s face today, and I could go on and on but bottom line… rough class. And there were only 8 of them. 

BUT, I have a nice family here and the dad is probably the best host cook I’ve had, although my policeman chef host dad last summer makes it tough to call. My host family is from Tuscany, although the camp is in Lombardia (where Milan is). This explains the amazing cooking. They moved here a few year’s ago for the mom’s job, and my dad is a stay-at-home-Dad (very rare here). I asked him what his job was and he said “Mom.” Not sure how I feel about that…

I have two host siblings, a brother and sister, both in elementary school. They’ve become more attached to me in one week than any of my previous host siblings, and I think part of that is that they were very close to their tutor brother last year (who’s a friend of my brother’s from Northwestern). They literally cling to me at camp, it’s not something I’m used to and I really enjoy it most of the time but there are times when it's pretty annoying. I’m sure when I leave they’ll continue playing the version of baseball I’ve taught them, with chairs as bases, no foul territory, and the rule that you must try to run all the way around the bases every time.

Each night we eat as if we are at a restaurant. A new bottle of wine every night, first place, second plate, and dessert. The food every night is delicious and beautifully presented, the pasta with fish (pictured), fish on a bed of potato shavings topped with tomatoes (pictured), and tomato soup were my favorites. Tonight I had wild rice mushroom risotto with porcini mushrooms picked by my host mom’s dad, followed by caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella, asiago and parmesean chesse with candied fruit, and two servings of panna cotta (one with raspberries, one with chocolate). This is why I am in a food coma.

Cooking is just one of the fine arts Giuseppe enjoys and educates me about. 50s-70s Italian singers is another. As are amplifiers and opera. I’ve watched pieces of four documentaries on musicians in the last six days, looked at pictures of food at fancy restaurants online, read reviews of amplifiers, and listened to opera singers on his attic stereo system. If Giuseppe were a character in The Office, he would surely be in The Finer Things club.

Back to camp… unfortunately there aren’t too many stories to share from this week. But one bright spot was a 9 year-old who speaks great English and loves The Eagles. He would wander around singing “Take It Easy” in gibberish until he got to the title words. I tried to load a video but after an hour it was still trying...

The Director was really nice and got as tired of the kids as we did. I asked her on Tuesday if she wanted to have a meeting after camp to discuss how things were going and she fake shot herself in the head. And yesterday as we were doing closing games she came up to me and said “We have 15 minutes.” I said “Ok, thanks.”  She kept looking at me and said “I can’t believe we have 15 more minutes.” The supportive group of tutors was also helpful.

For the show I produced Grease.  I had 4 girls and 4 boys who couldn't agree on anything so it was a good gendered compromise... song/dance for the girls, cars and fighting for the boys.  But the boys stole the show with their Grease Lightning dance.  And they collaborated to make a couple impressive cars.  Of course there was a 15-minute deafening argument over whether to use red or fuscia for 3 letters on one of them but they got over it.

As for trips in the area, we went to Sabbioneta and Mantova on Saturday. Sabbioneta was built as the ideal Renaissance town, and has star-like walls around the city. We spent a little time there and went into The Count’s antique shop. I didn’t really understand who The Count is, but apparently he’s still alive, and from spending 20 minutes in this shop, all I can say for sure is that he is a hoarder.

Mantova was nice, they had a medieval fair going on that we explored. Reminded me of Renaissance Fairs in the US, but weird that it was a medieval far across the street from a legit medieval castle. And last night we went to Cremona, home of Stradivari and the rest of the best violin makers. 

And tomorrow… Tuscany. I am pretty sure I’ll have a host family there. I’ve never been so excited for a camp, there could be tough kids again but at least I’ll be in Tuscany. And Chicago in 9 days!