A different cut

It has been freezing cold here, colder than normal for this time of year I am told, and the temperatures and a sick little one have kept us mostly home-bound all week. There have been cries by all of us that it is time to go home: Italian life, school, and work are now routine, and some days it seems all we do is bicker in our small apartment and contemplate new ways to eat pasta. It has been a giant homesick groan of a week, even though Montana is not offering much right now, with its own cold temps and February doldrums.

It wasn't just us: people in town seemed grumpy, too. One elderly man cut me in line at the supermarket when he saw I had a cart full of food to check-out [and two young children in tow, one coughing and clearly sick].
"I want this bread," he grumbled as he pushed in front of me and thrust his bread in front of the checker's nose.
"You first have to ask the woman you just cut in front of," replied the clerk, gesturing to me.
"Ha! No way! Let me pay for my bread."
"No! You have to ask her." The clerk was now standing her ground.
"I will not!" he shouted and then gestured to all of my food with a sideways head sweep.
"Please, go ahead," I said to the clerk, and then smiled at him sweetly, while my two-year-old made her way to the gum display, picked out all the gum with pink packaging, and put them all in our cart. I really wanted to speak better Italian at that moment, as my lack of flexibility in the language sometimes makes me seem more polite than I feel. I kept the smile on my face as I brought Rachel closer to me and fished out five or six packages of strawberry blast chewing gum from my cart while Rachel complained.

I am constantly letting people with a few things to buy cut in front of me, since I have noticed that is the custom here.  It is just that it is usually the pensioners who want to cut, with their milk and bread and a tomato [and time on their hands], while I am trying to get through the store as quickly as possible with my ticking time bomb [a two-year-old].  Since the grocers do not bag your food here, I am always in a frantic rush to at once pay, bag my food, and watch for Rachel so she doesn't run for the door, steal some candy, or worse.

Generally, though, I enjoy shopping in Mantova. So, at 3:30 this afternoon, as Michael carted Allie off to a gymnastics performance in a neighboring town, I declared to the remaining three children [and to myself] that it was TIME TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE. I bundled the little one in her coziest winter gear, fortified the others with platitudes of my youth [getting out will do us some good] and made for downtown Mantova.

The best way to shop in Italy is to find the perfect store for your focaccia, your cured meats, your torts, your fruit, and to get to know the owners. We have been here long enough that I now have "my people." My often-frequented store owners know me, if not by name than by sight, and offer the kids special sweets and sometimes a story. The stores I frequent staff people [generally family members] who are patient with my children and tolerant of my Italian.

Today, just when hungry bellies needed it most, the fococceria owner gave the kids little pizza puffs for free. Then, as a conversation with a shop owner took a turn into verbs I did not know, the owner gave me a pass. The owner, a kind and robust middle-aged man who owns a delightful bakery and pastry shop on the corner of our street, told us about his time in New York City visiting his son who lived there.  He only knew how to say "chicken," so when he was by himself eating he had chicken every time. He got really tired of American chicken. I think he said it was too fatty.
"Don't worry about your Italian so much." he said, and with a wave called my eldest daughter beautiful and wished us a pleasant walk home.

The walk home was biting cold. But with bags of food made [or cut] by people I like, Rachel quiet in her stroller from the cold and the dark, Nick at my side skipping, and my eldest daughter recounting a story from her Italian history class, I felt good.
"I think we will miss it here, though, " I said to Maddy in a moment of silence as we scrunched up our noses to keep the falling snow off of our faces.
"Oh Mom," she said, turning her face to me while letting her eyes linger on a chocolate tort placed lovingly in a baker's window, "I know we will."

The rest of the walk home was quiet.

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