Il mercato & the Peanut Butter Complex

I'm SO excited! A friend of mine is in town for the week and I haven't seen her since I left Italy a few months ago. She stayed three months longer than I did..because...well, she's cool like that. She's an American too. From Chicago - not as grand as NY of course, but I forgive her.

We don't have to do much to have fun... honestly, just running into the nearest Dunkin Donuts does it for me. Granted, we talked over millions of cups of espresso while over there but it just wasn't the same. I longed for my toasted almond coffee with milk and 2 sugars so much that I found "Sciroppo di latte di mandorla" in the mercato and desperately tried to recreate it. Umm, yeah, not so much. I like the feeling of a big, hot mug in my hand with steam rising up and all. The itty bitty espresso cup just wasn't doing it for me.

Oh, and that's another thing... the market. There is no such thing as a supermarket where I was. Maybe, somewhere in the big city, but even then - COOP doesn't really measure up with Stop & Shop.

The market was walking distance from my casetta. I had to walk past an olive grove and take the shortcut through someone's vineyard to get there. And it had only two aisles. That's right. TWO. The shelves were no higher than five feet tall so everyone was able to see the entire store. There was no overhead cheesy music playing, no "attention shopper" announcements or price check nonsense. They had crazy inconvenient hours like 1-4 monday through wednesday and 12-5 on thursday and friday I think. There was another market in the village but I never went. I had grown kind of fond with this itty bitty one. Even if it was the size of my kitchen in the States. It had everything I needed anyhow. But that was just it - it had the basic necessities and the creamy goodness of Skippy peanut butter and honey mustard never makes the cut of basic necessities.

This is a big one. I call it, The Peanut Butter Complex. I never grew up with peanut butter in my home. It had been years since I've even eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I can't put my finger on it but for some reason, I had to have it even more so when I was in Italy. I drove my roomies crazy. They'd roll their eyes at me and say, "ANCORAAAA con questo penoo bahre?" -"It's just peanut butter" my roomies would tell me over and over.

It doesn't matter... I have it now that I'm back and I'm thinking a peanut butter and banana sandwich is the way to go for breakfast right about now.

ciao.