Our house...is a very, very, very fine house...

 

Today we had the door to the balcony repaired.  We have no idea how old it is…25 years?  More?  Two double doors.  They look alright.  But during a storm or strong winds, they are weak.  The wind comes leaking in underneath.  The last big storm we had, while my husband was on the balcony taking hanging plants down and securing things, I had to hold the doors closed or they would have blown in, smacking the walls beside them.

Turns out that the locking mechanism within the doors was broken.  When?  Who knows?  Chissa?  It’s broken and useless.  No wonder the doors blew in. 

So our neighbor and friend, Domenico, took a while…a couple of days…to find the right part.  The part is attached to a new handle, as well, which is fine by me.  I have no love lost for the old handle.

He put it in today…had a cup of coffee with my husband….the cats steered clear…Scaredy cats!!  I had two in my lap, one on the couch, two on the bed and one hiding within layers of one of Harry’s beds.  Want to go outside?  Ummmmm….no thanks.

While all this was going on, I was doing my daily “Duolingo” lesson…Facebook stuff….and preparing dinner. 

Today was a bit of an adventure because I made my very first Tuna Casserole in Italy.  WHY did it take nearly two years?   …………………..

We bought tuna to catch street cats so we could get them sterilized.  The pictures on the products were always wonderful…but when I opened the cans…they were all in oil, not water….the smell was obnoxious and permeating.  It was gray tuna, looked like cat food.  So, that put me off buying tuna here. 

I should add I am “fish shy”…not a big fan…but I will take a can of tuna….from time to time.

One evening we went to a nearby pizza restaurant…we don’t frequent it often, but enough…..anyway….they got my order wrong.  I asked for a “Margarita con cipolle.”  That is a plain cheese pie with onions.  Somehow…somehow….I got tuna.  Tuna?  How does “cipolle” sound like “tonno?”I know they switched me with someone else, but it was really busy and crowded (before Covid)  and I did not want to send it back because I had already bitten into a piece.  So I sucked it up and hated it.  It was gray tuna and very “fishy”….bleh.

I’ve been searching for tuna in Italy.  Finally…finally…after nearly two years…….not only did we find white albacore tuna but it is packed in water rather than oil.  The can says “one drop of water” and they are not kidding!  I had a cat bowl nearby to drain the water into and out came…..”plip.”  Plip?  That’s it?  Yep…that’s it.  One plip.  No more water.

I was prepared for and waiting for the odor of tuna to waft across the room and overwhelm everything.  Nope.  Nothing.  

I was so happy!  I wanted to make a tuna casserole…the weather has changed…it’s Fall now…crisp, pleasant..time to cook!  I had the peas and pasta ready and I was dreading opening this can….and I was, as I often am, so wonderfully surprised at the superior product within.  It is not cheap here…in fact, it is one the rare things that is MORE expensive than in the US…..but it is spectacular.  It flaked out of the can..I did not have to fight with it…barely any water or odor.  And the finished product was delicious. 

Now that we have identified our “brand”…I can buy it in the future….tuna was never a “big” item on our list anyway, but I like knowing it’s there. 

We had the comfort of knowing our back door to the outside world is now securely in place against wind and storms.  And we had some comfort food from “back when” that is even better here.  Thank you, Italy.  I love you.