If Not Now When?

As you may know, on 13 February Italian women and their friends are occupying the piazze of Italian cities to defend the dignity of women and to say to men: if not now, when? It's time to befriend women. For further information visit:

http://senonoraquando13febbraio2011.wordpress.com/

As Italian women in New Zealand, we would like to support this very important initiative. We invite you all (women and men) to take part in the event that we will hold here on Monday, 14 February at 20,30 at the Dante rooms, to watch the brief documentary "Il corpo delle donne/Women's bodies" and to talk about it together. We would like to make our voice heard even from so far away! We look forward to having you with us! Please send this message to anyone you feel might be interested.

Address:

Freemans Bay Community Centre, 52 Hepburn Street, Freemans Bay, Auckland

Telephone: 09 376 3853, Email: info@dante.org.nz

The Dante Team

Silver beet Paneer e due paroline alle signore dei blog

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage, ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach.

One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer, spinach with paneer (or panir) cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet.

I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them.

In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds:

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp turmeric

1/3 tsp ground chili

then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet.

I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content of the pot with an immersion blender.

I added the paneer, cut into small squares (Vegans, you can add tofu), and cooked everything for 5 more minutes, tasted for salt, and served.

It was amazing, almost as good as the palak panir made with spinach!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Con questa ricetto supporto l'iniziativa Liberiamoci del maiale!

E adesso due paroline in italiano:

Quando ho cominciato questo blog non conoscevo molte bloggiste italiane (a parte Enza) e non mi sono mai preoccupata di tradurre, o di scrivere in due lingue (non comincerò a farlo ora, ho veramente poco tempo e mi piace venire qui per … rilassarmi!).

Ma vorrei dire una cosa alle bloggiste italiane: siete delle signore! Dove vivo la gente è sicuramente riservata e chiusa, ed a parte pochissime eccezioni (e guarda caso si tratta quasi sempre di neozelandesi di provenienza estera) non c’è molto scambio. Tutti guardano, leggono, a volte me lo dicono pure quando m’incontrano di persona che curiosano quotidianamente, eppure a parte qualche commentino su FB, veramente pochi offrono opinioni o commenti sul blog. Su nessun blog neozelandese infatti, a meno che non sia un blog di un giornale dove si parla di qualche cavolata sociale e allora tutti a buttare opinioni (spesso anonime) tipo “lettera al redattore”.

Naturalmente ci sono abituata, e poi pian piano ho cominciato a conoscere più bloggiste italiane, e ho notato subito la differenza: cordialità, voglia di esprimersi, interesse… insomma signore, nel mondo dei blog secondo me voi primeggiate!

Un saluto coridale alle tre civette golose che mi hanno appena passato questo award.

Per meritarmelo dicono che devo dire 7 cose di me:

1 Sono nata a Milano, madre bellunese e padre modenese.

2 Sono cresciuta a Sestola, in provincia di Modena.

3 Fin da piccola l’unica cosa che ho sempre desiderato è stata viaggiare.

4 A 19 anni ho lasciato il nido e me ne sono andata a Londra da sola, (e senza soldi!)

5 All’università ho studiato arte e tessili giapponesi del periodo Edo.

6 Mi sono sposata in Giappone con un neozelandese, che ama viaggiare.

7 Abbiamo due figli, adesso siamo in quattro che amiamo viaggiare!

E poi dovrei passare l’award a 10 nuovi blog conosciuti, che sono pochi se devo scegliere per merito (un’altra caratteristica dei blog italiani è che sono tutti molto belli e curati), comunque, senza offendere nessuno, ho messo i 10 nomi dei blog italiani che si sono appena iscritti come miei followers:

Pasticci e Pastrocchi, Duck, La Gaia Celiaca, Cardamomo & Co., Candy Floss, Gatti fili e farina,

, ti cucino cosi, viaggiare come mangiare, A la merenda sinoira, e cuocidicicuci

So che non tutte amano questo tipo di award, quindi non sentitevi obbligate a riceverlo e passarlo ;-)

Un forte abbraccio a tutte!

Alessandra

Ads, diets, bikinis and Italian women

No recipes today, just a little bla bla bla, it is meant to be ironic, absolutely not offense to those who are sincerely in need of a diet...just an observation from someone who has returned for a few months and she is now looking around, a little surprised really.

And then I wanted a break from showing only beautiful landscapes and cities. There are many problems in this country, and how women see themselves (or are represented in the media) is a real tragedy.

How lovely summer is approaching, soon school will be ending and the Nation is dreaming of beaches and holidays.

I look at an ‘intelligent’ women magazine which should be a good mixture of interesting current affairs articles, some intellectual and artistic stimuli, no gossip… and just a little fashion. Ads of bikini are everywhere, beautiful bikinis of course, worn by even more beautiful (and sometime a bit too unrealistic) models. Most women on Italian beaches seem to wear bikinis, no matter what their age, a sight that shocked an Australian friend of mine who was convinced that Italian women were stylish until she saw them at the beach. I remain of the opinion that you can wear what you like at the beach, but at the same time I find it really really really negative that so many women are actually desperate and depressed because they do not look like the models of the bikini they bought.

The worst thing is that it is contagious! Usually I arrive in summer, wear what I have and be done with it. Now I have seen the slow work of advertising and brain washing (and I very rarely watch TV!) that sets in, starting slowly from January 1^st for the more 'serious', and escalating in spring for the late starters with one every two ad pages dedicated to stomach, hips, legs, and secret fat tissues. The other half is bikinis.

And then I see that also half of the Italian bloggers seem to be on a diet.

Good on you to diet if you are fat, a must if you are obese, and ethically correct if you are eating like a pig while so many people in the world go hungry. But I could not believe that so many Italian bloggers can be on a diet all at the same time. This is not normal!!! Maybe it is because I don’t know what they look like (I only read their blogs or comments to other blogs) and maybe they are really fat, or could it be some sort of Italian tradition for May? Or some kind of blog solidarity (you diet - I should too, sort of thing)?

…or maybe they are just comparing themselves with those models whose bikini they would like to wear. Please someone tell me that I am wrong!

Because if these Italian bloggers are anything like the women I meet on the street and in the shops everyday (i.e. normal women) They cannot be possibly be all that fat!!!

And here comes my second discovery: in Italy the not-fat are told that they have many other PROBLEMS!

I have ‘learned’ here that often your tummy is not fat, just ‘bloated’! Of course that you can cure, the ads say, just by taking some fermented milky/yogurty mini drinks, or by buying some ‘stronger’ versions of miracle bacteria in the chemist shop or health food shop. I have been looking at my own reflection on the shop windows where these ‘cures’ are advertised, wandering if I am also ‘bloated’, since this aliment doesn’t exist in New Zealand (unless you drink a lot of beer). Maybe I got it here!?! Mmmmh, I feel a bit soft...possibly I could do some abdominals to shape up a bit, those seem to work well for everyone in every country, and they are free…

But it doesn’t stop here: I have ‘learned’ from an ad in one of the major newspapers that cellulite in Italy is actually an illness and can be cured with a medicine. Funny, In New Zealand it is not an illness. It is something that 80-90% of women get, to different degrees, because they are women. Oh dear, I thought that I was normal, and now I read that I am sick!!! And no abdominals will work for cellulite!

I could go on: in fact there are problems, illnesses, aliments, unevenness and scary fat tissue everywhere in this country. But never fear: there are remedies for everything, from creams to lotions to pills to cures to cosmetic surgery. Fancy that! Some even work at night while you sleep, some will give you instant results, and some will be long lasting. Obviously none of them is free...

I’ll go for the abdominals for a bit more tone; I won’t diet because I believe in eating well, eating little and eating ethically everyday (and this includes the occasional ‘treat’, which for me is delicatessen food, never junk food). I won’t take a medicine for cellulite because a good scrub and some massages (self made) when putting on moisturizers do miracles anyway, and I am sure that with what I eat and drink I cannot possibly be ‘bloated’: normal adult women do not have an 'ironing board' stomach (or worse, a concave stomach) when standing up!

Now, I just hope that this summer I won’t break into tears if the bikini will make me look like an healthy and normally shaped 40 years old mother of two rather than a photographically enhanced 17 years old lingerie model.