A Trip to the North Fork

Yesterday, Tyler and I left the city to visit the North Fork of Long Island. We will be getting married out there next May and there are wedding related things to care of but, to be honest, we took the trip to escape the city and enjoy the excellent food and wine the region has to offer.

We do not own a car so we rely most often on our feet to get us places. It felt like a luxury to rent a car for the day, to ride east next to that long yellow line.

We discovered 88.3, WBGO, the jazz station, and listened with great interest to a program called Singers Unlimited with Michael Bourne. I was pleasantly surprised to turn on the station at the exact moment Rosemary Clooney sang out 'The Man That Got Away' which is, oddly enough, a song important to Rabbit Island, the work in progress I am frantically editing away at-- cutting and pasting and rewriting to get a framework worth working through.

I had forgotten what it was like to be in a car, to listen to the radio, to see a glimpse of something through glass and watch as it drifts away.

There were horses and farm stands, wine tastings and lunch beside the water. We found The Winemaker Studio, a little wooden tasting room where the winemakers in the region are selling their private labels. And when I learned what that meant, it took on even bigger meaning for me. Instead of making wine for the wineries and their owners, instead of adhering to the standards of an already established brand, they are making wine for themselves. And that's interesting...that makes me want to know more...

And of course, any time there is a sign pointing the way to cheese, I am happy. I am in a kind of heaven.

The Mozzarella Maker

I learned about Georgiana DePalma Tedone from the New York Times One in 8 Million Collection. Every Sunday in 2009 they profiled a New Yorker through a black and white photography slideshow overlayed with an audio interview. I heard some incredible stories, but one of them particularly stood out and that was 'The Mozzarella Maker'. Georgiana DePalma Tedone is 91 years old and has been making mozzarella by hand at her shop Tedone Latticini in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for 75 years. She wakes up every day at 2am, makes mozzarella for about 3-4 hours, then works in her shop for the rest of the day. 6 days a week.

I could not wait to meet this woman. With the day off for Martin Luther King Day, Tyler and I took a trip up there to get some mozzarella and see what her place was all about.

An old string of green tinsel was draped along-side the cheeses and meats hanging from the window of the unmarked storefront. There were a few religious figurines on the window ledge. The Virgin Mary's bright blue dress stood out in the dull light. When we walked in, there were no signs or prices in the bare white room. The deli case was completely fogged over so I couldn't quite tell what was in it. An old woman with white-as-snow hair sat at the cash register in a grey folding chair. Above her, a few foot-long wooden shelves held jars of, presumably, olives and sauces.

There wasn't much beyond that. The counter had a small grey basin with 2 balls of fresh mozzarella in plastic wrap. And there was a deli-slicer beside it. A fast-talking old Italian man asked us what we wanted.

"Mozzarella," we said.

"What else?" he demanded, "How about prosciutto? Do you need some meats? Why don't you take some of the prosciutto?"

We had heard that it was very difficult to leave there with just mozzarella. :-)

We looked at one another and shrugged, "We'll take a 1/4 pound."

As he took out a slab of prosciutto and placed it against the deli slicer, we tried to peer into the deli case to see what else might be in there.

"What kind of dried sausages are those?" Tyler asked.

"Sweet and spicy. I have fresh sausage too. Do you need some fresh sausage? 'Cause I've got fresh sausage. You can bbq it."

"That's ok, we don't have a grill," I said.

The old man laughed, then handed us a piece of proscuitto.

As soon as we began to eat, the old woman eyed us carefully. She spoke in her shaky voice, "Do you like it? That's the good stuff. The imported stuff."

"Of course," we nodded. The buttery prosciutto melted in our mouths.

"Try the provolone," she urged. A few pieces sat in a small clear Tupperware. It was, again, delicious.

As they rang us up, then packaged our meat and cheese, the old woman looked on with a smile, nodding appreciatively when we thanked her. I only noticed her eyes grow curious and large when we tried the food. And it reminded me of the Italian women in my family- watching your face as you try each meal, wanting to see your joy. Your satisfaction. Other than that, she didn't move from her folding chair. But this was her territory. I felt lucky to be a visitor.

I really hope you'll click on her story below. She is an amazing woman.

Georgiana DePalma Tedone: The Mozzarella Maker

I should eat more cheese...

I just returned (begrudgingly) from an 8 day trip to Southern France. I had been to the area once before, but it was a short trip to Nice where my friend Lynn and I quickly realized that the entire town was closed due to Easter Monday. The following day we spent at a tennis tournament in Monte Carlo and the third day we walked an empty, cold beach front in Cannes before skipping off to Barcelona (ah the life of a study abroad student with a 3 week spring break!)


This time around, I was fortunate enough to have some locals show me around. Tyler's Aunt and Uncle moved to a small village outside of Nice called Montauroux 10 years ago and they were kind enough to put us up and show us the area. We also spent 3 days in a university town called Aix-En-Provence, which was extremely charming. We took day trips to Cannes, Fayence, Nice, Cap Ferrat, Avignon, and Marseille. We drove around exquisite mountain ranges, toured vineyards with amazing backdrops of said mountain ranges, sat for long hours at cafes, and walked through charming, narrow, cobblestone streets. The food was terrific, each view was more beautiful and breathtaking than the next, and life was generally smooth and easy (besides abnormally small parking garages, manic drivers, and a bit of a language barrier.)


Things were different there, as you expect it to be in a foreign country, and I left with a simple thought: It's a different life. Sounds simple enough, pretty much a no-brainer, a 'duh' moment. But, I really wanted to think about what made it different. Sure, New York City doesn't have sunny weather year-round, nice beaches, picturesque mountain ranges with Alpes in the distance. It doesn't have farms and sheep and vineyards and olive trees. But these are obvious differences when you compare a concrete jungle to the Mediterranean. The most noticeable difference was really and truly the pace of life.






In France, life seemed to be enjoyed over a longer period of time. People sat in cafes sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes without thinking about who they were going to meet with next. People ate dinners without tapping their fingers wondering how fast the food would come or when they would get the bill. People worked knowing they would have 2 hours in the middle of the day to be with their friends and family. People opened bottles of wine, buttered croissants, and sliced cheese without thinking about calories.

Perhaps it was only because I happened to be enjoying a period of leisure that I thought everyone around me was too, but I constantly sensed that time was spent in a much more relaxed way. I, admittedly, found myself growing impatient with the pace of life. I found it difficult to embrace the crawling pace at which time moved. I didn't want to reject it but I often found it hard not to.


Taking this trip made me realize that there is always a choice with how we spend our time. It may seem like it is always out of our hands. That there are obligations that require us to spend our time the way we do: "I have to be at work at 9" "I have to pay my rent" "I have to support my family" "I have to meet this deadline" But we only have to because we've required ourselves to think that getting to work at 9 and meeting the deadline are the only ways to fulfill our obligations. There are other ways to spend our days and accomplish our goals and do the things we've required of ourselves by the choices we've made. Sometimes it takes a new perspective to see that.


As the year draws to a close and we start a new one, I don't want to reject that relaxed sense of time. I want to find a way to use it so that I am not always thinking about the next step, the next meal, the next person, the next big thing. I don't want to force my time forward so quickly and frenetically. I want to be able to sit for long periods of time and enjoy the things I'm meant to enjoy.


Like cheese.