Under My Skin

   Ufizzi (image courtesy VirtualUfizzi.com)

Perhaps it is the book, recommended to me by a friend after I returned from Taormina, and which I just finished, Elizabeth Street – a story based in history, of a Hoboken, NJ family which emigrated from near Naples in the early 20th century, as did many of our ancestors.   I could not read it quickly – I needed to read it slowly…… Perhaps it is that sensation that occurs each year following something very profound that happens to you, so profound, that the sensation of being there returns,  year after year, at the same time – calling out – “I belong there, I belong there”……… that ten-day-period beginning on July 4, 2010 which is forever embedded into my soul.  Perhaps it is the changes in me……….

For the past couple of years, I have been fighting with my previously impenetrable love affair with Cape Cod.  Born 36 years ago when I first met my husband and firmly saturated for the years hence, I have been a fixture here, exploring and adoring.

My trips to Italy in June 2007, on July 4, 2011 and this year in May, appear to have further rocked me off my foundation and sewn the seeds of a restlessness I have yet to conquer.  Even worse, I have enduring difficulties with the idea that I would ever want to conquer it.  That this sensation and deeply embedded feeling came to me at all is indeed a great shock for I never would have thought it even remotely possible.  And yet it is so.  Worse yet, it has left with me with an infestation of guilt and sense of traitorism.  For, as planned, we expected to settle here some day for at least part of the year as “retirees”.  I confess that since those fateful trips, the concept of “retiree” has, well, been “retired”.

The July trip to Italy, while supposedly a celebration of  Christin’s graduation from college, wound up cascading me far down into the abyss that opened as a little sever in 2007.  That trip began as we hightailed it back to New Jersey on July 3 that year and took our “bargain” tickets in hand off to the airport.  That Ryan was allowed to tag along at the last minute, unexpectedly, is another story I’ll choose to skip here.  Anyway, the point is that another love affair wriggled it’s way into my heart and my infatuation with Italy in the height of Summer was cemented.

I had yet to understand the affect that the previous trip had had.  In 2007, the three of us had traveled to Rome for a week to rendezvous with Ryan’s school trip and to see him sing Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica on Father’s Day and later at Piazza del Popolo.   This was an experience which will forever be etched in my mind, heart and soul.  Amazing.  I think I can credit this week with the inception of the weakening of my resolve for the Cape.  It was after that trip that I purposefully chose to ignore the beginnings of my unhinging, yet at the same time,  I knew that I was indelibly hooked on something else.  That I could not acknowledge my conflicted heart back then only served to leave that sown seed untended – for a little.

Now I am working on coming to grips with my conflict.  What happens to a person when they are in one beautiful, amazing place but finds oneself yearning to be in another?  That I was forever ruined when I walked the steps of the Ufizzi is an understatement.  Each and every Piazza warmed my heart and sunk into my soul, a love so deep and a feeling so infested with the “I belong here” that I have been wrestling with it ever since.   And so, I am spending my days here in Orleans, feasting my eyes on the brilliant blue water and sky in front of my face and working to re-embed by psyche here, for practical as well as sanity purposes, and yet I am, in my heart, dreaming of spending my Summer at the beach in Puglia, as introduced and saturated in Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter.

Well, this is all seriously impractical and crazy of course, but as it stands, I will never be the same.  The heat of Summer here leaves me wanting, for walking in sandals and skirt, along the Canals of Venice, rankling with the hoards of Japanese tourists with their parasols and sitting in Harry’s Bar.  I have been ruined I know.  And with this I shall have to deal, forever.

The reality of a cheating heart is, at it’s foundation, a repugnant thought and so, I sit here with this conflict.  My once-embedded craving for security and permanence has been soundly replaced with my unleashed wonder  and wanderlust.  This Spring’s trip to Rome, Positano and Taormina only served to confirm to me my sinful obsession.  I will count the days till my next visit, all the while trying to re-attach myself to this place on US soil.   Well, I have now acknowledged in front of my eyes, in print, what has been festering for a long while.  What to do with this?  I don’t know.  Meanwhile, I’ll try to work on something a little more practical while  (in my mind, planning my next venture).

The heat and humidity on the Cape since Thursday has been unsettling for early Summer, creating a sensation for escape.  But to where?   Hopes for those cool crisp days and nights I covet remain.  Yesterday, it was 5pm before we could comfortably sit outside on the deck.  After ticking down the list of possible restaurants, George and I settled on the simplicity of steamers and grilled fish on the deck – a perfect celebration of a cooling off evening:

  a great recipe begins with great fish – Nauset’s finest!

SWORDFISH WITH WARM LEMON/HERB/SHALLOT/JALAPENO COMPOTE

1 1/4 lbs freshest swordfish 1 1/2″ thick

extra virgin olive oil

2 tblsp melted butter

1 large shallot, sliced lengthwise

one whole lemon, peel of one whole lemon, removed with a sharp peeler into long strips, and cut into julienne

5 fresh basil leaves

2 stems fresh thyme

2 slices ripe tomato, chopped

1/8 cup dry white wine

1 good slice of a jalapeno pepper, minced

salt and freshly ground pepper

a sprinkling of crushed red pepper

Preheat grill to medium.  Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over swordfish.   Set aside.

In a saucepan, cover bottom with extra virgin olive oil and warm gently.  Add melted butter, shallots, lemon peel, and saute for 5 minutes on low.  Add herbs, the basil having been cut into chiffonade and the thyme removed from the stem.  Add the wine, tomato, peppers and salt and pepper.  Cook on low until the shallots are soft, translucent and just begin to caramelize and the sauce becomes reduced to a thick consistency – this should take an additional 10 – 15 minutes or so.  Keep compote slightly warmed.

Squeeze juice from the lemon onto the fish and set the lemon halves on the fire to roast.  Place fish on the grill and cook on one side for about 5 minutes, depending on thickness of the fish.  Do not turn until the fish moves freely from the grill.  Turn and baste the fish with the hot lemon juice remaining in the whole grilled lemon.  Grill the fish for an additional 4-5 minutes or until just cooked through.  Remove to plate to rest for a few minutes.  Meanwhile, re-heat the compote if it has cooled.  Spoon the compote over the fish and serve immediately.  Enjoy!

Today I will be busy, making pies and scones.  Perhaps that will ground me a little more.  I don’t know if I will ever get comfortable with being in one place and dreaming of another, but these are at least, very comforting:

  

and, a bird built this and had her babies in my basket at the front door just since Father’s Day:

   ahhhh, nesting