In the Words of Bananarama: Robert De Niro Is Talking Italian

How far would you go to get a cooking gadget? B and I recently realized that we would go pretty far – as far as purchasing something on Italian eBay. Who knew the Italians have their own eBay – in Italian? It started one Sunday morning. Our ritual on Sunday mornings includes watching something recorded previously on Tivo as we slowly drink our coffee. This particular morning, we were watching Restaurant Makeover, the Food Network show that involves major revamps of both interior and menu. The owner of the College Street Bar in Toronto (Valerie from the restaurant could not have been nicer when we emailed them about the Cubo) had grown bored with his restaurant design and menu. His chef, Alfredo (Italian!) was very competent and excited about a new menu. In preparation of a new appetizer, the chef proceeded to pull out a stainless steel cube with vertical slots all the way around that he brought back from a trip to Italy. He then took marinated meat and layered it into the cube, pushing each layer down tight. Once he had it sufficiently layered, he put the lid on top of the cube, which had 100 little holes. These holes allowed him to put bamboo skewers through the meat. Once complete, he took a knife and sliced through each slot. The result – 100 beautiful tiny spiedini or what we call “mini kabobs.” We begin our day obsessed to own the spiedini maker.

How hard would it be to find this item – after all, we were sure any kitchen gadget store would have it. In Italy maybe. We tried a multitude of search terms to no avail. Finally, after a slew of creative search terms we came across a youtube video of the exact item in Restaurant Makeover and we learned that the device was called – sure enough – Cubo! Mind you the video and the device looked like an infomercial and we were sure that if we could understand the Italian, it that it would say “only $19.95 – but wait there is more …” Armed with the name and the company, we continued to Google the device – really how hard could it be to get this item that we had to have.

The answer was that it was really hard. Finally, after about an hour search, we found the Cubo on Italian eBay. As we try to decipher the Italian, we see that the Cubo is about $125. Yes – we admit it is expensive but we had to have it! Next, does the vendor deliver to the U.S.? B proceeds to ask a question but changes her plan of action – why not Skype the vendor? Before I could query about when she learned Italian, she has pushed the Skype and it is ringing. B – being B – of course forgot to plug in a microphone.

On the other line: “allo? allo? … allo?” Silence – well actually laughter because this poor guy has received a call on Sunday evening from someone in the U.S. that couldn’t even remember to plug in a microphone before calling. Naturally, once she got the microphone plugged in and redialed, he wisely chose not to answer the phone.

After looking more closely at his site, we realized that he did not ship to the U.S. Luckily, there was a vendor and he did ship to the U.S. Our dream was materializing. I start pushing buttons that looked like the right buttons – compralo subito? I think that might be the purchase button. As I navigated through the Italian eBay buttons, I wondered if I wasn’t just setting up my bank accounts in some Italian’s name. Nahhh, it is eBay, just Italian eBay – how unsafe could it actually be? After all, those guys in Godfather seem so nice and honest. I push another button and we are routed to the vendor’s website that contains not only the Cubo but also a range of motorbikes, buses, and “Bambola indiana Nenufar in biscuit puppet shirley's.” Biscuit puppets? I said to B – well we just bought the Cubo and B responds “or a Small Italian Bus.”

It turned out that we did purchase the Cubo and the vendor, Marcello, could not have been nicer. He sent the Cubo out the next day via UPS (real UPS, not Italian UPS) and we received it in three days. We received a nice email from him proudly stating “I sended the Cubo.” We were so excited that he sended the Cubo! And the quality? Not infomercial cheap – it is heavy duty, solid, excellent quality. Well worth the price in Euros.

We had a party prior to the social event of the season in our neighborhood, the Grand Rapids Apple Butter Festival (which we avoid at all costs – the real fun is the night before all the hoards of Crap Seekers – er, I mean “Craft Seekers” descend on our little berg of 1000). In our usual large party fashion (about 30), we supplied the protein units and everyone else brings a side. Not only did we provide smoked pork, we made lamb spiedini! Mind you, making the spiedini in the Cubo is nothing short of a full workout by Jillian but the result … priceless. They were a huge hit and gone within an hour. We made a dish of Tzakiki for dipping, the perfect combination with the lamb.

Thinking that we may not always wish to make 100 speidini, we had a friend who is a major handy person make us a stainless steel sheet that slides through the slots, allowing us to decide the number of spiedini that we want to make. Thanks Ray!

The gadget bug caught us again on a Sunday morning, this time on CBS Sunday Fluff – cooking on salt slabs. Now we admit our amateur cooking skills – many of you are probably already familiar with this concept but – as I mentioned – we live in northwest Ohio. Luckily, the adventure in finding the slabs was much easier and we have two coming our way. Next fantasy foodie – spiedini cooked on salt slabs!