Ep. 1794 Livin' The Dolce Vita With Jeff Porter- Tips From Stevie | On The Road With Stevie Kim

The Italian wine podcast is the community driven platform for Italian wine Geeks around the world. Support the show by donating at italian wine podcast dot com. Donate five or more Euros, and we'll send you a copy of our latest book, my Italian GrapeGeek journal. Absolutely free. To get your free copy of my Italian GreatGeek journal, click support us at italian wine podcast dot com, or wherever you get your pots. Welcome to another episode of On the Road Edition, hosted by Stev Kim. Each week, she travels to incredible wine destinations interviewing some of the Italian wine scene's most interesting personalities, talking about wines, the foods, as well as the incredible travel destinations. Okay. I'm live. I hope, Jeff can join very soon. My name's Stevie Kim, and this is the Insta Live living the Dolce Vita. We usually have Jeff joining us. I hope he can join us. Where are you, Jeff? I don't see him. I see his mom, Betsy, but I don't see Jeff. As you know, this is where we get to ask Jeff Porter. He's just moved to Corino. He's almost Italian. And we just want to check up on him once a week and to see what he's up to, how he's adapting to the local environment. And I don't see Jeff yet. Okay. Here we go. I'm gonna invite him now. So we did the our first episode last week. I just wanna give a shout out also to Marco Parusa. He just sent me this lovely Jampa. You're in Torino. Right? You're inside today. Yes. It's it's cold outside. How are you? Can you hear me okay? See, can you hear me? Yeah. I can hear you now. Look. I have do you see what it says here? Oh, no. Busa. Yeah. Yeah. Lucia. So, Marco Paruso. I don't know if you know him. He just I do. Yeah. He was, you know, I met him on a plane. He sat right next to me. Of course, you know, I hate when that happens. Don't you hate that one happens? Like a producer's right next to you? I don't think that's ever happened to me before. Oh my god. It happens to me all the time. And you just, like, you're like, please, no, because you don't want to be rude. But, you know, on a plane, I'm just I just want to be do my thing, you know what kind of thing. And, of course, I met him and such a nice guy. So I went to see him and we were talking I put him on social media because he didn't believe in social media. And I'm not talking about like thirty years ago. I'm talking about like maybe just before the pandemic, you know. And, when I went to see him, he had this very nice jumper. And I was like, give me one. He's like, no, I don't have your size. So he taken him about five years to make me one, but Oh, nice. I finally have it. Yeah. I finally got one. So there you go. Does it just say on the tag size Stevie Kim? Yeah. I think Sabrina has like Dispoke. How nice. It's So, so I said I would wear it on the show today. How are you, Jeff? I'm well. Week two. Actually, it's the third week or week two of this, but the third week of living here. Listen, I it's so funny. Did you see that your mom wrote to you? I did. He's he's she said let me let me read what she said. Alright. Yes. Ask him if mom can plan to spend about three weeks in the family. So that is a request directly coming from your mom. No. She said, getting, of course. Yeah. Three weeks is kind of a betsy. I don't know. I think, you know, it's three weeks is a really, really long time. So I mean, Benjamin Franklin said after three days you know, fish smell bad, not that my mom's a fish. We're planning a week with my mom. We're just trying to find the right time where she can spend some time with her granddaughter, which is what she cares about. Right. Right. Well, also you, I think she adores your social. She's already invited me to your house. I hope you knew that. Perfect. Did I highly recommend taking up my mom on staying at her house. She's a good cook and she has a pretty good wine selection. Yeah. I I'm I'm looking forward to that next time I'm in Dallas. What have you been up to? Kind of the same routine. You're I've got Italian lessons. Bad food poisoning over the weekend. So on Sunday Oh, shit. Sunday and Monday, I was out. It was an ugly scene. So that's what I did that those two days. Have you identified the food? The the most likely culprit is some oysters, but it also could have been some, like, not perfectly washed mache. That's the only other thing I was thinking. I had, like, oysters in a salad. So Uh-huh. I mean, most likely it's an oyster, but I'm fine now. It's good. And then, yeah, we, you know, the the daily routine is I wake up, try to get a workout in, get my daughter ready for school, take her to the bus, and then my wife and I hustle to Italian class, We spend three hours there. And how's that going? What did you learn today? What are some of the phrases you learned today? Today, we were we were learning about the ear see verbs. Give me an example. So, like, when instead of saying, like, Io, Io La Vimba Mani. I watched the the the baby girl's hands. Right? It was Io, Io, Io Mani, I wash my own hands. Yeah. I which is important. I mean, that's how you It is very important to wash your hands. I I I completely agree. And we've learned we we we there's a lot of role play in the class today. I I was Louisa in our in our play at school today going in and out of the cafe or the cafeteria. Ordering coffee and, and organizing time. We just did, like, time. We've done, Ire, arere, arere, verbs, irregular verbs, now this year to say thing. The conjugation game is is a, is a rough one. How did you, like, before you moved to Italy, I have so many questions for you. Yeah. Okay. Shoot. So I guess number one, why did you move to Italy? Cause you were born and raised in New York. Right? No. I was born actually in Korea. You were born in Korea. And I grew up stateside. But, you know, as you know, your American, in America, you get two weeks of holidays, right, mostly when you're at the entry level position. And when I started my, like, first real job I worked for, you won't believe this, but Price Waterhouse. Mhmm. So and, I had two weeks of holidays, and I said the year after I was like, that's it. I'm taking a year off, you know, So I took a sabbatical actually. I was planning to go back because I wanted to go sailing for two months in Greece with some professional sailors actually. So they recruited me as a crew, and I stopped in Italy because I had some friends in Verona. That's how it started. Wow. Yeah. Crazy. Right? And then they Did did you meet your husband on that first faithful trip? Or is that later? No. No. He's not. He doesn't sail. No. I came back. And then, I mean, it was very, very tough sailing for two months. I nearly died twice. So Were you like crewing for like a big yacht with guests? No. Not big yacht. It was two racing sailboats. So there were there were a couple and they were both captains and so it was more like a race, you know, between them and it was terrible. Because they were like so fanatical about sailing. We didn't we didn't really do anything on land. You just saw the Aegean. That's it. Yep. And it was it was actually kind of awful. I have to be honest. It was so intense. I mean, athletically, really challenging, but exciting, but it was just not fun. Do you still sail? No. That was it. That just I grew up sailing. I love I love sailing. I was after those two months, I was like, that's it. I'm done. That was my career in sailing. Then I came back and I had stayed with a friend of mine and then I met a woman who had a language school. It's not very original. So this woman asked me to teach a doctor. My I I do have one husband. He's a medical doctor and he was doing his first speech, at Cambridge and Oxford. He needed kind of an intense intensive course. So, that's how I met him and then, yep, kind of rest his history. Wow. And so after your trip to Greece, did you go back to New York? No. I took a year in sabbatical. So I stayed in Italy. Oh, okay. Alright. And then I was planning to go back. I was planning to go back to law school, actually. But then I met the husband and, you know, then I did my MBA actually in Milan. So I decided to Abakoni. Yeah, Bakoni. Because at that time, there was only Bakoni. I'm kind of old. So, that's what I did. And that's it. And it was easier for me to have moved here than rather than him moving to stateside because you know, then he would have had to start all over again. Right. Wow. That's that's so cool. Oh, there's, Federico. He's the president. Say hello, hi, Jeff Federico. You know, it's it's it's with the goods and the bats. Right? So with any place like New York, there's goods and the bads, right? They always ask you federico c ciao ciao. So, you know, it's like when I'm in verona, I miss New York, and you'll get to that because now you're so enthralled with being in Italy, right? Everything is just fantastic. Then you get to a point where everything is, like, fucking annoying because everything is, everything, like, is so bureaucratic. And at the time when I came, the supermarkets were not open during lunchtime and in the evening nor the weekends. So what do you think about that? You know? So everything was completely frustrating. You go to the post office and you have to, like, wait hours, hours and hours, and then they say, it's the wrong cue. You know, shit like that. It would just Right. Yeah. It would just drive me nuts. So I had that moment where it's like, I hate everything. Right? And then you get to, I think, a certain point, and you taste the good and the bad. You know, often when I'm in Italy, I feel like I'm more American, if you will. But once I go back to America, I'm like, no. No. No. I'm more European. And I think it'll be exciting for you to go through the, you know, the the life cycles of that, you know, whole being adapted to the Italian community. So I'm excited for you. It's it's good fun, but you have to you know, as you are. Yeah. So you have to embrace it. Don't fight it. That's that's one suggestion I have. I think, like, I was gonna ask you. And for those that are watching, please ask any questions or if you if you live in Italy and you're an ex Pat, or you're also, someone who's who's born and raised in Italy, and you have some thoughts or ideas we wanna hear hear about that too. But, like, my biggest pet peeve and this is even long before I came came here, is there's a preponderance of line cutting. Oh. I hate with a passion, people who cut lines anywhere in the world. Oh. I think there's a special place in hell for line cutters. Oh, honey. You're in the wrong country. No. I number one, the problem of the line cutting is you have to identify the line. A hundred percent. But once the line is Because when it's very horizontal, you know, you don't need You don't need to move forward. Yeah. You don't know you don't even know where to where it starts and where it ends, right? Because Right. Typically, let's let's talk about where you do where you're queued up. Taxy cues. You have an a clue. Like, you have an a clue. They're like three, four, five different you know, station. So, like, where do you go? And then they fight, right, then the farting starts. Right? So it's it's a mess, but you are in the wrong country, honey. For lines, man. Yeah. It's it's it's a challenge for me. My my daughter, my daughter has issue with it too, which is pretty funny. Have you gone to the post office or Yeah. We've been met the banks. Seem like the post office, we went to to put on our paperwork to get the promessa, Lisa Joanna, to get the appointment for the questura. Mhmm. Which for those that are, like, if you're interested in this process, to get the visa, there's all these different steps. And, like, to get this appointment at the questura, which is the place where you get your residency card, you have to go to the post office but a special post office that's only open at a specific time, and you have to make sure they're the right person is there, and you have to get a stamp at a tobacco, not at post office, and you turn in this paperwork, and they give you this receipt and you have a meeting three months later. They had put out the the stanchion with the with the things, and everybody was queued up. And this was an all bun. I was very, like Right. Right. Right. Right. I liked it. I was very germ. And then at the grocery store yesterday, we were at at the grocery store in that lunch rush time. There's this this nice grocery store inside the Tarino train station that pets sell some, like, to Gohoot. That was that's pretty good that we're picking up after class. The line was really long. And all these people, you could see probing. Can I can I fit in the line here? You could see it. And people are like, no. No. No. I was I was proud of my fellow line Yeah. I maybe I don't have a lot of experience in Piamonte, you know? Maybe they tend to be a little bit more. I mean, of course, this is all a very gross generalization. Right. Right. It's like sweeping generalization of the entire population inhabitants of Piamonte Piamonte, but I I don't really have that much experience in Piamonte. I have to be honest. Well, you gotta come visit Tarina. We can't respond here. It's a beautiful city. You know, it it reminds me a lot in some ways of just, you know, how pretty, like, Verona is. Right? And you've got in Verona, you've got those really beautiful walkways with the marble and all the pretty shops. And, like, Tarino has a a few of those really just beautiful Gallerias and gorgeous vias that are just like, you know, all baroque and seventeenth centuryed out. And it's it's it's really stunning. Even if the weather's been kind of crap recently, the sun just came out. But, in the fog, it's pretty. It's a special place. Coming back to America, Van Italy International Academy, the ultimate Italian wine qualification will be held in New York City from four to six March twenty twenty four. Have you got what it takes to become the next Italian wine ambassador? Find out as benitezalee dot com. Now I have a a few more questions for you. So if you were to say, these are the three phrases. Everybody who's living in Italian has to know what are your three top phrases. Oh, wow. I would say, which I use all the time is Porta Pattinson. Porta Pattinson. Yeah. Which means just be patient. Porta. Or if there are more people, you say Porta Pattinsona. Then anything anything that comes after, they're they're kinder. You say just, you know, put that in, pot, you know, I'm like, then you make it you you can say, like, you know, I'm Jeff, you know, and I, you know, I don't speak Italian very well. Can you help me? Instead of just saying, can you help me? Yeah. You know, if you you kind of like have them lower their god. Right? Oh, I like that. Yeah. Well, that's one thing that I use. I think it's quite useful. What else? I don't know. I mean, of course, you already know how to ask where the bathroom is. Right? Calodry. Yeah. And then, the other thing is, of course, wifi, you know. So, like, I first ask, is there wifi? So is this their wifi? Is this their WiFi? Yeah. So, like, you have to ask if it exists because you take it for granted, right, that there is. So, like, for me, WiFi is very, very important. Right? Because otherwise, we can't connect and you can't work and you can't do anything. I'm not really allergic to anything. So, like, I would say, like, if you are are you allergic to anything, you know, or, like, you know, your, daughter or anything, that's what I No. None of us. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, that's something that I would be. And something that it's now, now it's quite common, but when you go to restaurants in the past, you could not, do the doggy bag. Right? Yeah. Porta vio. Yeah. Yes. So postal. Right? So, like, can I take this with me? Then they'll say yes and they will bring like your tray and then you have to kind of do it yourself, cut. But in the past, that was completely like a faux pas. Yeah. You know? I went to yeah. I went to eat like burrito with the, you know, like The typical dish from verona is this like polito, misto. Right? Do you know? It's it's a boiled meat with with with, it's like gravy, but have you ever had that? Yeah. I've had it in Yeah. Yeah. So it's like Pera, which is the bread crumbspeaks kind of gravy, but usually they give you so much meat. Right? So, like, I took my siblings out. There was so much leftover. You know, and they give you a lot of things that I personally don't need, like, tongue and, you know, the whole thing. Right? So That's like my favorite part, tongue and salsa verde. Oh, really? Yeah. I gotta take you out when when you when you're here in their time. Yeah. This is like a typical you know, Verneast ish. So for the very first time, I ask, you know, this place, this restaurant that hadn't been in a while, if we can take it, you know, away for the dogs. I mean, literally for the dogs. Right. Right. Because I have dogs. I mean, they're tiny, but they love the animals. They're still like meat. Yeah. Yeah. They they love it. Right? So, yeah. So those are three things that I think kinda come come in handy. So Camilo asked Kaykoza, chi concirria. So where do you recommend? In in Camilo, is that recommending for Belita Misto or where I got my haircut? So if it's like for Bolita Misto, of course, in the city, there's like Lokanda, Castal vecchio, which is easy. I don't know if you've been. It's a little on more the glam side, but the the kind of the famous one is called Chikarelli and it's a bit outside of Corona. Right? It's kind of in bum fuck if you will. But it that's kind of like where everybody used to go. So that's where I took my siblings. Oh, Camilo was giving a a good phrase for me to learn. Keikoza. Keikoza, she conceived. Yeah. Yeah. What do you recommend? Yeah. That's good. I find it useful in restaurants. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that you can see. Yeah. Oh, or you can say, like, or like your signature dish or your, you know, your house recommendation. No. That doesn't make sense at all. No. It doesn't make sense. Okay, man. It's like it's like, what do you prefer? Right? Yeah. Yeah. No. No. No. Jeff. No. No. No. You would just say, what would you recommend? Which is what, you know, what, coming of the sun. It goes that she conciliar. Listen. I think I'm I I think it's almost time to close-up, but listen. How do you want to go forward with our Insta Live? Should we talk about, like, at least one thing, like, maybe something wine related, food related, travel related? I think both. I was gonna I I had one more question kind of about that Okay. Of you and your experience. So, like, I know you're super busy now. Your IC, you're all over Italy all the time, but when you wanna take a day trip from verona. Yeah. Like, where do you go for you? Not for a wine thing. Like, where do you go to, like, like, I guess in three seasons? So in winter, where do you go summer, spring fall? What are your your favorite kind of day trips away from blowing? I love the day trips. Of course, you know, Venice. Right? Yes. It's it's easy. It's one hour away. It's an hour away from here on the train. So it's very, very easy. And how can you, like, get tired of going to Venice? Right? Just walk around. It's something, you know, do some, you know, small food, have a wine. Just, you know, that's a really good day trip to just do nothing. The other day trip that you need to call is to Monteva. I've just been I love Monteva. It's small and especially now they have the tortellini Dizuka, which is where it's from originally. You know, with a little bit of amareto. I'd love it. Right. I just did that with my, siblings. So those are two places that I go. And then of course, you know, I'm in Verona. So I go to Valpolice. You know, if you go even just like ten minutes away and then you can just go for a walk in in in the middle of the vineyards and it's just, you know, Verona is really lovely because of that if you want to just go for the nature walk. I mean, it's such a beautiful city. And then, like, you have all those hills around. It's just Yeah. I I I really love I don't know if you've been, you've been to, Bertani in Waipulichlet, like, near the villa, which is it's confusing because as you know, Bertani sold to, the Angelini pharmaceuticals. So the Bertani domain belongs to the Angeli. But the villa, the family bought back Mosconi Verthani, which is called Villa Santa Maria and Pieve, and they're right next to each other. So it's very confusing. But when you go there, you can walk starting from the villa, which is the villa, Moscone, but then go through the bertani estates, which belongs to the Angelini, and you can go all the way to the top and come back down. And that's literally ten minutes away from verona. So that's a really nice That's amazing. If you want to and it's beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. So that's something that I would do. Yeah. We are gonna Next week, I've got some work, some, like, new vintage tastings to do. Until next week, I'll be in the long a tasting at the consortium of Big. They've organized, like, all the new vintage for me to taste for the magazine. Hey, Anthony. We got Anthony Jiggler. Yeah. It's kind of early for Anthony, but Yeah. And then the family and I are are popping off to Rome the following weekend because there's a three day weekend at school. So it'll be our first trip on the fetcheroosa together. Where are you going? It's a Rome to Rome, Oh, I'm I'll be in Rome, but this Sunday, because Monday we're going to see the pope. Oh, nice. You got an audience with the pope. Nice. With a bunch of producers, actually. I think they're about fifty. That's amazing. Yeah. Say hi to Frank? One. I'm I'm actually agnostic. So, like, I wasn't even sure, like, I, you know, but I think it I mean, it's pretty cool. Yeah. But I thought, I mean, Federica, who was on before. He's trying to, like, I, I guess, like, convert me. He's like, he's going to touch you and you know, magic will happen. I was like, okay, we'll see about that. But anyway, so, yeah, pretty, pretty excited. Good luck. Yeah. So I we're, we'll be there Monday. So I'm gonna go down. The protocol is really, strictive. You have to be. Yeah. So I'm going to try to go there a little bit early and Wait. That's this Sunday, January. Monday. Monday. Oh, Monday. January. Oh, yes. Audrey is like just a casual visit to see the pope. Like my first time, Audrey, believe it or not. First time. Most people only get one time with the pope. Oh, okay. Most people get never. You think about it. Yeah. So we have yeah. It's a bunch of producers actually. We I think they're about fifty producers. That's amazing. He's the vicar of Christ. I mean, that's awesome. Are you religious? Are you spiritual? Yeah. I I I I was spiritual. I was raised in the church, but I I don't go to church anymore. Yeah. Not not Catholic, but it's just like I love historical and political figures, and I I really like this pope personally. Yes. I don't even know what the protocol is like taking, you know, obviously no selfies, but you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't even know. I'll I'll I don't know. I kinda think you could get, you know, I bet you could do it. I he seems super like down. Yeah. I think, but I think he's actually not terribly well. So is this a joke Pope's favorite wine? I'm really curious. Oh, pups. That's bev. Hi, Beverly. I don't know. I don't know. I think, Vinetley has donated some wine. So it's kind of I imagine their wine cellar's pretty good. Yeah. So I'll keep so you guys just, you know, I know a lot of you guys, follow me. So you'll, you know, you'll see something. That's amazing. Yeah. So, yeah. But Yeah. Getting back to us. So I would I think what we're going to do is, okay, so Beverly has this question and we will definitely ask what the Pope's favorite wine is. If you have any other questions for the pope or Jeffrey or myself, then just I'm going to post this on Insta, and then just on the comment section, just come back with us with some questions for next week. Okay. Sophie with the pope. Yeah. Richard. I mean, I think I'm not sure I can do that. Yeah. I'm gonna ask him to hold him. No. Because there'll be so many of us. Right? It's going to be like I think, like, very quick. Yeah. I He's gotta touch you according to your friends. So it's like that. Yeah. I I'm pretty, yeah. I mean, I've never done it, so it's pretty exciting and and it's also a great, you know, occasion for us to connect with other producer. It's it's a social occasion. We're not working, so I'm pretty excited about that. So until next Friday. Next Friday. Sorry. That's Thursday. That's Thursday. That's Thursday. Hop us one, join us, me and Jeff to shoot the shit about Italian lifestyle, Italian living, and and sometimes we'll have some wine. You know what? I need to get more wine in my house. Yes. So we can also think about drinking wine together. Tell us what you guys would like to for us to do. Advance Happy Birthday, Jeff. When is your birthday? It's on Sunday. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm sorry. Completely missed that. I got so excited about the Pope. Okay. Alright. It's only it's only, you know, it's not like a super important birthday, but, you know, it's a birthday. Okay. Alright, Jeff. Hi. Okay. Okay. Thank you for joining us on another installment of all the Road Edition hosted by Stevie Kim. Join her again next week for more interesting content in the Italian wine scene. You can also find us at Italian wine podcast dot com or wherever you get your pods. You can also check out our YouTube channel. Mama jumbo shrimp to watch these interviews and the footage captured of each location.