THE NAME OF FOOD – Valentina Valestri

Rosano – New York

While talking with eyes lost in the memories, she soaks “bucaneve” biscuits in her cup of tea which she prepares every morning just like her grandmother did for her as a child, she smiles and, with wide eyes, she recounts her adventure.

New York has always been my dream. I departed in 2013 to work as an au pair. I had the very first encounter with the difficulties during the training period that the agency had us do: my English was purely scholastic and far below the level of all the other people I met during those hectic days. Nobody could understand me and I didn’t know what to do but communicate with gestures. I felt so ignorant!

The family that hosted me was wonderful: father of Italian origins, Danish mother with two little angels under my wings, 2 year old Sofia and 9 year old Elisa. Both parents were very busy at work and I had to follow the little ones in their daily rites, from breakfast, to school, to afternoon activities and to bedtime.

I stayed with them for two years. The visa for au-pairs is not extendable, so in the last period I attended a beautician school that allowed me to get hired at the studio I work for today. The co-workers are very welcoming. The center’s clients are people belonging to a high and very particular social class: they are celebrities who regularly use our SPA which opened a division also in Los Angeles.

What I love most about this city are people free to live together, mixed without prejudice or racism and the dynamism and speed with which things change, a very clear contrast with Rosano.

In Rosano everything has a name: tortelli and pizzetta of Lucia, Massimo’s salami and Aldo’s cheese are a warranty. You know who produces them, you know the story, the supply chain, you get the feeling of “home”. I often ask to send me food packages with these products. when Mom comes visiting she brings a suitcase full of “Bucaneve”(a brand of famous Italian biscuits) (here, I only found them last year in a small store where they are sold at 6 dollars a pack), cheese, salami, small pizzas and tortelli. I need to feed on my land and feel a bit at home.

I miss the window of the house from which I can see the Stone (Pietra di Bismantova), the green of the meadows; here I only see a brick building when I open the windows. I miss living at the slow pace of our areas where nothing or little changes. I miss my grandmother, taking care of the hens, I miss the duck that runs through the courtyard and then ends up on our table. I miss mom, even if we talk every day and she follow all of my adventures. But I don’t think I’ll be back to live here. When I return my first need is to find the flavors and fill my sight with the people I love the most. Once this need is satisfied, I feel the immobility asphyxiating me. A contrasting feeling: on one hand I miss my land and in New York I look for it and on the other I am scared and I flee it.

Italiano