Closets: I love them. They use up those odd corners where you can't place furniture, they are invisible, they are indistructible, they can hold a firightening amount of stuff. Unknown in Italy.

Zip lock bags: someone tried to market them back in the early 1980's. Why they were a faliure is still a mistery.

Salad dressings: Ok, vinaigrette is great and it's simple to make. But there are other salad dressings out there. Why no Italian ever uses anything but oilive oil, vinnegar and salt on his salad? Also, why do people look at me as though I had gone crazy if I make a light dressing with yogurt instead of using the boring vinaigrette?

Other stuff?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: AliceTwain,

Cabinets? Do you man closets?

Vinagrettes are just fine-) I think most of the more complex dressings are designed to hide what's underneath.

Ziplock bags seem to come up in every discussion of this type. We use ziplock bags when we travel....to keep bottles of shampoo or whatever from leaking on everything in the suitcase. We use them to bring back coffee creamer from the states...takes up a lot less room than the jar! We used them to store things in the freezer....for the gtg I used a LARGE (2 galloon size) to mix the panzanella and keep it in the fridge...the bowl wouldn't fit but the bag did.

Ziplock bags seem to be at the top of American expats list of things they want someone to bring them! So Alice....why do YOU think they didn't catch on? Too expensive? Too wasteful?

One thing I brough back with me last time was paper plates. I think the plastic ones sold here are too small and too wasteful. I went to the thrift store and found some rattan holders for the plates and now I can have the stability of a plastic plate but feel much less guilty when throwing away the paper plate.

And yes, I too am confused about what you mean by cabinets....can you clarify?

They were supposed to be closets, but I was still quite sleepy (at that time of the day!). Now I fixed the message.

Ziplocks... Who knows? besides they are wasteful, but just as much as the plastic bags used here and which require to be knotted or latched. And they are not that wasteful is you use them more than once, for several uses it is possible (for instance, if the shampoo hasn't leaked why throw the bag away? It can be reused until it lasts). I use plastic bags for my spare shoes whe traveling, and also in that case I use the bag more than once; actually as long as it doesn't get too holey. Yet, ina large bag of the kind that's commonly found here you have to chose wether to leave the bag open and let the shoe and dirt flow out, or to knot it if you have enough slack, and winter shoes don't leave you with enough slack!

Regarding dressings, they do not have to be so thick and strong to cover the tastes. A dressing other than vinaigrette (or a flavored vinaigrette) can infact exhalt the flavor of the vegetables if it's donme properly. Sure, most industrial dressings are just too bulky (in terms of flavor) to allow you to taste anything of the salad. For instnace, if you prepare a simple tomato and cucumber salad and garnish it with a sauce made with a little white yogurt (sugarless!), a pinch of salt, a couple spoonfuls of olive oil and a finely minched garlic clove, you can still taste the vegetable, but the sauce (do not use too much!) will add its own flavor to the mixture making the salad more interesting.

Hey Alice, I have a huge walk in closet in my apartment. Its the first one I have seen here I think! As for vinaigrette, I just remembered the red rasberries in my refrigerator. Rasberry vinaigrette is great, best this time of year.

Closets are something you love if you have them but if you've never had them they seem like a waste of space. How big is the average Italian home? Homes are getting so large in North America that wasting space is almost an architect's real job.

Do ziplocks not get used commerically in Italy? A main market for them here is small factories. They're great for sticking small items in . They stay dust free. Loose parts don't get lost. It's a lot cheaper then getting a more complicated setup or having custom bags made up.

Personally I think it would be a lot cheaper to have a closet built in to the house than to have to go out and buy an armadio...or maybe 2 or 3! Then of course you'd need the latest American closet designs....rods of varying heights and lengths so that you can maximize your storage space.

While we were in the states I visited Lowes...one of my favorite places! They had something that can be used to coat terra cotta pots to make them waterproof....which would also keep the water from evaporating from them so quickly. I would have brought some back with me but it only came in a gallon size bucket and was pretty heavy. Anything like this in Italy?

nick, in italy businesses that have to send off lots of stuff have heat sealing machines: they have long tubes of plastic wrap that get cut and heat-sealed around the object. Even smaller businesses use regular or bubble-wrap lined paper sleeves. As it is, when we receive an Item from abroad that is packaged with a zip-lock (usually computer parts) we tend to treasury the bag...

OHHH Two of my most favorite things! Closets and ziplock bags! (Seriously!) hehe

I wish wish wish we had closets in our house. Our bedrooms are on the second floor, and we have a sloped ceiling. When we bought it, we didn't think too much about the layout of the bedrooms. Well BIG mistake - because of the layout of the room, and the slope of the ceilings it is impossible to have large armadio in our master bedroom!!! So our smaller second bedroom IS the closet - and it is imposssible to have more then one TALL armadio in there also. The person that designed these rooms is a moron (or a man) hahha because thereis no "closet" space. Ihave tried and tried to figure out how we coud do built in closets some how. Never ending frustration.

I love my zilocks, and I brought some XL ones back last time, and I used them to store my sweaters. Very handy.

For another item - how about sour cream. Why is that impossible to find here? I looove it. :OP
(I knnow you can fake it with other things, but it is not the same)

I love ranch dressing! I used to miss that a lot, but figured maybe I was better off without it... I did bring some of those dry mix packs to make my own here. They are pretty good.

Thigsa that don't seem very popular:

Plastic hangers
Carpet (don't know if this is a benefit, I just never see it)
Window Screens (A MUST have in my opinion)
Gas Grills
Ice cubes (hehe)
Ceiling fans

Well, screens are not that uncommon. Pay a visit to Mantova: in there each and every home must have the, or the inhabitants end up by being abducted by swarms of mosquitoes. I have screens and plan to have them in Tuscany too, when I will move (if). The same goes for ceiling fans: not impossible to find and I will have one in my bedroom.
Luca objects to screens because "nobody else has them". My reply is that "Once we will have installed them, the neighbors will start installing them too!". On the other hand, we have had a ceiling fan on a very rural rental in Maremma, and Luca fell in love with it, so he has no objections to a nice big ceiling fan in our bedroom.

Regarding carpet: the 1970's were a carpeting rage. Everybody wanted to have carpet, and nearly everybody did. The bad part came when the same people decided it was time to change it, and found the underside to have become quite disgusting. Carptes dropped back off our style in the 1980's.

If the room with the sloped ceiling is big enough just build a wall. Stick a door on it. You've now got a closet-).

The other choice would be to find a cabinet maker to build you a custom wardrobe. This might end up costing more then wall.

Gas grills yuck-) Charcoal-))

We are the absolutely ONLY people I know around here that have screens. And nobody I know has ceiling fans. I don't know one person in the states who doesn't have screens!

God, I know, we I lifted up my old carpets (in states) the stuff underneath was gross! I love hardwood floors, and the beautiful marble floors you find here!

My mom did that in the house where I grew up; she (or rather her husband) simply cut off the lowest part of the room and made it a walk-in closet; on the lowest wall they put shelves and on the high wall they put up a rack to hang shirts and dresses on. Very handy and smart, since you couldn't use that part of the room for many other things anyway. Of course that room was quite big to begin with so the space wasn't missed.

Nick - I wish it were that easy. If it were, I think I would have solved that problem a while ago.. ;O) The shape of the rooms, where the windows are and how the slopes are... not so easy.

Gas grills vs. charcoal - I guess purists love the charcoal but for two reasons I prefer gas:
1. When you want to cook a quick piece of steak or fish, you just walk out and push a button, and WALLA you can cook.
2. We live in a complex that is suurounded by others, and we do not want to choke everyone out by burning charcoal. So my reason for adding GAS GRILLS to this chain is because the question was "things that aren't so popular here, but could be beneficial" and since most people live on top of each other here, I would think gas grills would be more useful.

Nick: the problem with yor plan is that if you do such a thing, you need to first have a perofessional (arichitect, building engineer or geometra) to draw the thing, doing all the maths involved and which most people just forego because, heck! it's just a tiny wall!! Than you have to present it to your local comune and get a permission to do it. Or you can do it the Italian way and just start working than wait for the next "condono".
Yet, Sara, with a whole room that already has doors and windows, you may consider simply adding racks like these, and maybe top each rack with a protective sleeve (a huge one) to keep dust off.

Call it a room divider-) Don't call it a wall. Room divider is furniture so you wouldn't need planning approval for that. Would you? The slope of the cieling really shouldn't be an issue. You're building right up to it. Easy enough to be lazy and not go all the way. Turn the gap into a place to put a plant? Or other small things. I'm having trouble imagine a room that you couldn't fit a false wall in. Now if the room is too small and you don't want to lose the space that's a problem.

Charcoal really shouldn't be smokey. Can't use it indoors but on a balcony it shouldn't be a problem.

Don't some of the stoves have built-in gas grills? That lets you use gas indoors when the weather is less then thrilling.

I don't know...my husband thinks that the charcoal grill would be too smokey/stinky where we live. I like gas better anyway. Much faster and easier. I love to cook fish, but don't like to in our house, it tends to be stinky. I want to be able to cook meat/fish outside almost every day - not hassle with the charcoal everytime.

I too love the convenience of gas grill (aNd logs) but find that they don't get nearly as hot as a charcoal grill....and when I'm grillin' a steak I want those coals HOTHOTHOT!

.. not to mention how much better the taste gets from charcoal..

Here is the room - see if you can figure it out. haha It is messy because it is so packed! 4 wardrobes, my dressing table, a linen "clooset" a dryer, and my shoes, plus storage on top. Now, how to design a room and closet, that can hold all that, and not block the door or the window...?

I am not sure if you can tell how lame the layout of the room is by these pics.



edited to fix photo size

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cristina,

other view

If you have a solution, let me know! :O)

edited to fix photo size

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cristina,

we bought cheap wardrobes from Ikea, until we could figure out what to do. I hate this layout. i hate the wardrobes, and I hate having all this crap showing. I would love to have it all stored in a nice BIG closet!

That is funny how people like the differnt grills. I had a gas one in Seattle and LOVED it, cooked steaks and crab legs and salmon and yummy things all the time. Never felt like it wasn't doing a good job. My dad and brother both have the mother of all gas grills, and they are COOL! I don;t like the mess of the charcoal ones too, now that I think about it. I used tohave a Weber kettle, and always had to clean up all the burnt coals, made a boc mess, worried about starting my trees on fire.. *blech* gas all the way for me baby!

Sara... uhm... what shoe size do you wear? You could always send some to me, I love the look of those pink-purple sandals...
Honestly, to build a closet for all that stuff and still have some room left might be a little over the top, at least for me. Are you in dire need of the room as a room, or can it remain a closet?

Where is the room?

The best way to grill meat is over a hardwood fire. Charcoal is next. Hardwood fire takes even longer to get going right then charcoal.

With a chimeny starter charcoal is pretty easy to start. Light the starter and go get everything ready.