This is the picture of me that Thomas drew. He drew it in under 10 minuets.
After he drew it, he asked me if I liked it.
And I really do like it. I am thinking about getting it framed.
It’s me but then again it’s not me.
But he did draw me at if I had a lot of attitude, didn’t he?
Gustiamo Warehouse
1715 West Farms Road
Over the weekend, I was blessed enough to work in Gustiamo’s wearhouse for the first time.
It was an experience.
My favorite moment over all was lunch time when everyone sit around the wooden table and begin to eat.
Everyone in the office eat at the same time and they eat together. The table is usually set by one or two people.
The meals are usually prepared in advance by Anne, Martina, Stefano or Beatrice and (between talking with my sister who is an employee there and my own observations) are most of the time healthy.
On Saturday, when we sat down to eat, I tasted two products from Gustiamo and a salad made by Martina’s daughter that I plan to make for my family.
The salad was made up of spinach leaves, pears and walnuts. I loved the pears in the salad and tried the same approach when I made salad last night. I sliced up tomato’s, added lettuce, diced up apples.
The first Gustiamo product I tasted was the salted anchovies from Cetara by Nettuno. Anchovies are small fish that are very salty with a few bones. I wouldn’t suggest eating the fish by itself. However, it’s good, it’s not to salty to enjoy.
The anchovies can not top the salmon from Bethel, Alaska but it’s better then the whiteys from Price Choice.
After we finished our meals, Stefano suggested that we eat something sweet. And of course we all agreed.
We had Cioccolato La Molina. Chocolate with hazelnuts. Scrumptious. It was so good that I saved a small piece for my sister. She almost didn’t get any. I kept nibbling it.
Another reason why I enjoyed lunch time is not only because of the food that is brought to the table but also becuase of the conversation. It amazes me that talking about food can be so interesting and lead to so many topics. It makes food exciting to me.
Lastly, I learned that Gustiamo is a ‘chic’ way of saying ‘come taste with me’ and mangiamo means ‘let’s eat’.
So, next time my family is waiting for me to say ‘time to eat!’ , I’m going to surprise them and say ‘mangiamo!’
In my high school. There was a poster of a Maya Angelou poem in the third floor. I think that was my favorite poster throughout the entire school. I fell in love with Angelou right away. I even felt I loved the person who took the time to hang the poster on the wall! Everytime I was having a bad day, I would run up to the third floor and read the poem. It was like my own personal gas station. And it pumped me until I had enough courage to go through the day.
The title is: Still I Rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Il Cantuccio NYC
91 Christopher Street
At the beginning of the week, Tuesday the 14th, I button up my coat, put on my black gloves and ventured down to 91 Christopher Street to participate in Gustiamo‘s tasting at Il Cantuccio.
When I walked in, I was glad! It was so cold outside.
Apparently, there were a lot of other people who felt the same way because once people came in, they took a while to leave. Some customers were there when I came and still there when I left.
Since I arrived an hour early, I spoke to Thomas for a little bit. Thomas is a cartoonist artist from Italy who draws very well. He uses Il Cantuccio to reach out to people about his art.
I asked him if he ever drew Obama and he said no, he only draw ‘real’ people. To which I replied, but you drew Bush!? (Last week he was extremely proud to show me a picture that he drew of President Bush.) So, what’s the difference?
Instead of answering my question he acted like he didn’t understand me.
Which makes me really want to know why he never drew/ draws Obama.
There was a couple behind us who was interested in his art. The husband thought his drawings were good but sad. He said everyone looked angry. He said that Thomas didn’t draw the people looking happy. Then he (the husband) asked me if Thomas drew me happy. He said he bet he did considering the smile I had.
But I think Thomas drew me as a black girl with a lot attitude.
It was still early when the couple started talking to me about learning languages. The old man sitting at the next table joined us. He was learning both Spanish and Italian at the same time.
He expressed how much he wish he started learning when he was younger. He was already fluent in French. The couple was visiting from Ohio and were just happy to be in a ‘different’ environment. They wanted to know if I spoke Italian since basically everyone in the restaurant spoke it.
I told them I was learning.
When Gustiamo finally started the tasting, we had Schiacciata with two kinds of marmalade’s. I think they actually sell more kinds but we only opened two for the tasting.
The marmalade was made on San Matteo Farm in Sicilia, Italy. The marmalade is not like the marmalade one can buy from Price Choice or Fine Fare it tastes much better. They are made with wheat syrup instead of castor sugar and the fruit bits are tasty.
The type of marmalade I tasted were: Organic Apple and Rosemary and Organic Apple and Grapefruit.
And of course the schiacciata was good. That’s just a given. It was the longest piece of bread ever and tasted so good! (I want some right now!)
One lady who came to the tasting couldn’t believe there was no sugar in the marmalade. She kept shaking her head and looking at the jar trying to read it- she couldn’t understand the writing because it’s written in Italian.
She kept saying, it has to be some type of sugar in here!
Yep, it’s healthy and good for you and will win your taste buds over.
To order a jar visit http://www.gustiamo.com/cgi-bin/front_end/prodotto?id=164
To end the night, I asked Giovanni to teach me one how to say one thing in Italian.
To cut: di tagliare 
Today my brother came back home from school.
He is the baby in my family so his achievements are always celebrated. He made A’s on all his finals and had a great first semester of college.
I am very proud of him but at the same time have to keep pushing myself to continue to achieve my goals.
I have to keep moving, keep flying so that my brother would have to reach his goals.
No matter how close he think he is to sitting beside me to rest; as soon as he gets close, I have to move again.
We have to keep succeeding and moving on so that the next generation can come in with great confidence.
Time wait for no man, we can choose to act on our God-given stages or play dead.
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