cheesy

Where does cheesy come from? Somehow I found myself trying to define the word "cheesy" to Ivano yesterday...and he didn't seem to think there was an exact same word in Italian. And this makes sense to me. Saying something is "cheesy" is not exactly the nicest thing to say, unless of course you are talking to a pot of mac and cheese.

I think I know why Italians don't use the word "cheesy" like we do. Their cheese is actually good. I'm now remembering how this whole conversation came up. I said something was "formagg-ico" which is a fake Italian word that I made up as a translation for the word "chees-y". We're being pretty disrespectful to cheese to pull it into the word "cheesy". How dare we? Oh yeah, because American Cheese is really a "cheese product." And we sell cheese in a spray can. And procoessed cheese food in thin rectagles wrapped in plastic is what cheese is to lots of folk. And lets not even get into velveeta. Contrast this to the hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano in our fridge. We brought back a kilo of Parm from Italy over christmas...and it's still good. I shredded two thirds of a cup and folded it into the mushroom risotto I made for dinner just now. the risotto recipe also calls for a half cup of dry white wine. Which rules because it means I have to open a bottle of white wine every time I make risotto, which means that by the time the risotto is ready, I've got a healthy buzz going, which makes the warm and fuzzy risotto all the more warm and fuzzy. MMM. And we followed the mushroom risotto tonight with fresh organic strawberries and now the chamomile is steeping on the counter and italian music is playing on the stereo. It's been an Italian kind of day. I made a frittata for lunch. I transplated several basil seedlings into larger pots with grand hopes for a summer filled with fresh homemade pesto. This morning I ordered seeds online from a company that sells Italian vegetable seeds. I bought fava beans, radicchio and rapini seeds. MMM. Italian balcony. I showed ivano the different radicchio seeds I had to choose from, and before I knew it, he was on the phone with his dad, Gerardo, and we were discussing what kinds of seeds to order from "Italian Seed and Tool.com" Yes, it sounds like a porno site, but it's not! Unless you're like me and totally get off on Italian seeds.