在线英语听力室

VOA慢速英语2012THIS IS AMERICA--These Are Not Your Usual Businesses

时间:2012-01-09 04:01:24

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号:tingroom,领取免费英语资料大礼包。

(单词翻译)

THIS IS AMERICA - These Are Not Your Usual Businesses

 

BOB DOUGHTY1: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I'm Faith Lapidus. This week on our program, we meet an American in Italy who teaches travelers how to eat like an Italian. Then we take you to a Washington sandwich shop where an Iranian-American and his mother serve a world of flavors. And later we tell you about a business in California. It's called Rent a Grandma.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: Antoinette Mazzaglia -- Toni, for short -- is a food and wine expert. She was born in the United States but likes to say she is "one hundred percent Italian." All of her great-grandparents were born in Italy, and Ms. Mazzaglia spent a university semester studying there.

She fell in love with a man from the Tuscany region and decided2 to return. But she soon discovered that she was less in love with him than with the food of Florence, the Tuscan capital. She has lived in Florence for about ten years now.

Ms. Mazzaglia says she got tired of hearing visitors criticize the local food. So she decided to start a business called Taste Florence. Ms. Mazzaglia started the company four years ago with a simple goal.

ANTOINETTE MAZZAGLIA: "For visitors, when they come to the city, to not go away with a bad taste in their mouth."

Antoinette Mazzaglia, of Taste Florence, shows tourists how to read a wine label at the Golden View Open Bar overlooking3 Florence

That often happens to tourists looking for a restaurant after a long day of visiting museums.

ANTOINETTE MAZZAGLIA: "They're starving and they get a really bad sandwich in one of those little tourist trap places that has everything. If a place has panini, gelato, waffles – which, by the way, not Italian - and pizza -- there's a place like that right near the Uffizi -- it's probably going to be really bad. Because if you have time to make all that, you really didn't make it yourself."

Ms. Mazzaglia -- who speaks Italian -- takes people on guided visits of markets and specialty4 shops. They taste the so-called poor man's food based on beans, vegetables and wild game meats.

On this day, she leads a group of six Americans.

ANTOINETTE MAZZAGLIA: "Go ahead and start eating them. The one that is a little slightly more yellow, that's what they call crema. That has the egg yolk5. The other one is fior di latte -- it’s just milk, cream and sugar."

They try foods like Tuscan cheeses, meats and oils. Pennie DiMartino is from Long Island, New York. She came to Italy to eat food that her husband -- who is half-Italian -- does not know how to make. She tries some gelato, a frozen6 treat, with an eight-year-old balsamic vinegar poured on top.

PENNIE DiMARTINO: "It almost tastes like liquor, like if you put rum on ice cream. But better. It doesn't have a liquor aftertaste."

William Moore is a frequent traveler. He loves the art of Florence and Italy, but also enjoys studying the food.

WILLIAM MOORE: "You may not be able to appreciate every detail in every work of art at the Uffizi but you surely can appreciate a fantastic carbonara or what have you. We all come equipped with basic equipment -- the taste buds7 for that. You don't need a degree in art history to see the sort of subtle8 layers of this dish versus9 that."

(MUSIC)

Toni Mazzaglia teaches clients of Taste Florence about choosing good olive10 oils and wines. She says Americans are getting to know more about Italian foods by watching cooking shows on TV.

ANTOINETTE MAZZAGLIA: "Now we're starting to watch the Food Network and other fantastic networks that are giving us a wealth of chefs and programs where they travel to Italy, to all parts of Italy, and helping11 people understand there is a difference. Each region has its own food, each town has its own food, even across town in Florence you have two different plates."

This American businesswoman shows people how to eat and drink like Italians. Strangers in her group exchange e-mail addresses and promise to keep in touch. They learn in a day what Italians have been saying for centuries -- that the time you spend eating is never wasted.

(MUSIC)

FAITH LAPIDUS: Anyone can make a sandwich. It can be as simple as two pieces of bread with peanut butter and jelly12 -- or whatever -- in between. But Ali Bagheri makes a sandwich with an accent.

ALI BAGHERI: "Those of us in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe all pronounce the word sandwich 'sundevich.' So we joked around and we're like, 'SUNDEVICH!'"

Recently the Washington Post asked its readers "Who makes the best sandwiches in the D.C. area?" The winner: SUNdeVICH.

ALI BAGHERI: "We never thought we would win. We just wanted to capture a little bit of market share so our name remained on there. Next thing we know, they’re coming in like, 'You won, this happened,' and then the line went out the door."

CUSTOMERS: "I heard that it got an award for the best sandwich in DC. Our neighbor told us about it." "I used to work at an Iranian-Mediterranean restaurant and it was delicious, and I remember the meat, the kubideh kabob. I've never been to Iran, but I love Iranian food, and it seems very authentic13."

Mr. Bagheri is an Iranian-American who opened his sandwich shop in July. SUNdeVICH offers flavors from around the world. The menu reads like the stamps on a passport. Sandwiches are named for cities.

ALI BAGHERI: "Every city really reflects on the flavor profile. It's important that we stay true to what the inspiration14 was, but still put our own spin on it."

His mother works with him, but this is Mr. Bagheri's kitchen.

ALI BAGHERI: "It's funny to have the tables turned -- that watching her little by little, and now she asks me, 'Hey taste this. Is this OK? Does this need salt?'"

They use local ingredients to make popular choices like beef tongue sandwiches and kabob.

ALI BAGHERI: "We don't have a freezer. We don't have walk-in coolers. We prep what we can for the day. We sell what we can for the day. And then we start again tomorrow."

(MUSIC)

You can watch a video about SUNdeVICH at voanews.cn.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: Todd Pliss is a former teacher. He started a company in Los Angeles called Rent a Grandma. He says he got the idea when he was teaching children in Hollywood.

TODD PLISS: "I would hear these horror stories all the time, like the sitter that almost burned down the house when she forgot there was dinner on the stove, or the nanny that fell asleep and locked the kids outside the house."

Rent a Grandma provides care for children, the elderly and pets. Prices for these services range from fourteen dollars an hour to more than twenty dollars an hour. Mr. Pliss says the women go through an interview process and background check. The business has gotten a lot of media attention. Mr. Pliss says he has been flooded with calls from women who want to work for his company.

TODD PLISS: "The economy is not good and I see that. And grandmas -- sometimes I have them crying on the phone to me. We had a grandma who's living in her car. The economy is terrible, and a lot of these grandmas can't find work."

The good news for Americans age fifty-five and older is that their unemployment rate is lower than the national average. The bad news is that unemployed15 older workers take longer to find a job than younger workers. Mr. Pliss says ninety percent of the women who contact him for a job cannot find work. He says among them are teachers and lawyers.

TODD PLISS: "Whether people say it or not, there's definitely age discrimination. Companies can't officially say that. But I see it a lot because these women, a lot of them, are educated; they've got decades of experience -- not just in the nannying, child care world, but in the real world."

Women who want to apply to become a "Grandma" have to pay a twenty-five dollar processing and membership16 fee. The frequently asked questions on the company's website do not say anything about having to actually be a grandmother. The grandmas are advertised as age fifty-plus and English speaking, and many are shown with pictures on the site.

The service is available in Los Angeles County and a franchise17 operation recently started in Dallas, Texas. The company aims to expand nationally, and Mr. Pliss says parents as far away as Europe have contacted him.

Finding child care can be stressful for many parents. Anna Marie Caldwell rented one of the grandmas, Jane Mertes, to care for her three daughters when she was not home.

ANNA MARIE CALDWELL: "She was part of the family. She was helping out cooking, cleaning, helping with homework, playing with the kids."

JANE MERTES: "When you work with children you have a responsibility and an obligation18 to make a difference in their lives and maybe teach them something that their parents didn't know or just a different perspective."

Ms. Caldwell says hiring an older person is different from using a teenage babysitter.

ANNA MARIE CALDWELL: "They bring a lot of knowledge to the table, a lot of experience and a lot of confidence in their decision making and they're not usually as distracted19 as, say, a teenager or something could be."

(MUSIC)

We have a video about Rent a Grandma at voanews.cn.

(MUSIC)

FAITH LAPIDUS: Our program was produced by Brianna Blake, with reporting by Nancy Greenleese, Arash Arabasadi and Elizabeth Lee. I'm Faith Lapidus.

BOB DOUGHTY: And I'm Bob Doughty. You can find transcripts20 and MP3s of our programs at voanews.cn. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.


分享到:


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 doughty Jk5zg     
adj.勇猛的,坚强的
参考例句:
  • Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质:脾气倔强,性格刚强。
  • The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。
2 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
3 overlooking 02f13402b531fc102ec151f39ba72951     
v.忽视( overlook的现在分词 );监督;俯视;(对不良现象等)不予理会
参考例句:
  • The house is in an elevated position, overlooking the town. 这栋房子地势较高,可以俯瞰全城。
  • The house sits high on a hill overlooking a lake. 房子高高地坐落在可以俯瞰湖水的小山上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
4 specialty SrGy7     
n.(speciality)特性,特质;专业,专长
参考例句:
  • Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
  • His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。
5 yolk BVTzt     
n.蛋黄,卵黄
参考例句:
  • This dish would be more delicious with some yolk powder.加点蛋黄粉,这道菜就会更好吃。
  • Egg yolk serves as the emulsifying agent in salad dressing.在色拉调味时,蛋黄能作为乳化剂。
6 frozen 2sVz6q     
adj.冻结的,冰冻的
参考例句:
  • He was frozen to death on a snowing night.在一个风雪的晚上,他被冻死了。
  • The weather is cold and the ground is frozen.天寒地冻。
7 buds af72d0de2dddfb4371bde9057112ba09     
芽( bud的名词复数 ); 苞; 半开的花; 未长大的叶
参考例句:
  • the first buds appearing in spring 春天的初芽
  • Willow trees breaking out into buds foretell the coming of spring. 柳枝绽青报春来。
8 subtle Vs1wn     
adj.难于觉察或描述的,精巧的
参考例句:
  • Her whole attitude had undergone a subtle change.她的整个态度发生了微妙的变化。
  • There's a subtle hint of garlic in the sauce.调味汁里稍微有一点蒜味。
9 versus wi7wU     
prep.以…为对手,对;与…相比之下
参考例句:
  • The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
  • The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。
10 olive yI2x1     
n.橄榄,橄榄树,橄榄色;adj.黄绿色的,黄褐色的,橄榄色的
参考例句:
  • Have you eaten a kind of fruit called olive?你吃过橄榄这种水果吗?
  • She likes olive because It'symbolizes peace.她喜欢橄榄色因为它象征着和平。
11 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
12 jelly KaBz4     
n.冻,果子冻,胶状物
参考例句:
  • We had toast and jelly at breakfast.我们早餐吃的是烤面包和果冻。
  • The medicine was a clear jelly.这种药是透明的胶状物。
13 authentic ZuZzs     
a.真的,真正的;可靠的,可信的,有根据的
参考例句:
  • This is an authentic news report. We can depend on it. 这是篇可靠的新闻报道, 我们相信它。
  • Autumn is also the authentic season of renewal. 秋天才是真正的除旧布新的季节。
14 inspiration SbLzL     
n.灵感,鼓励者,吸气
参考例句:
  • These events provided the inspiration for his first novel.这些事件给了他创作第一部小说的灵感。
  • What an inspiration she was to all around her!她对于她周围所有的人是一种多么大的鼓舞!
15 unemployed lfIz5Q     
adj.失业的,没有工作的;未动用的,闲置的
参考例句:
  • There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
  • The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。
16 membership ECnx7     
n.成员资格,会员全体,从属关系
参考例句:
  • I must renew my membership of the sailing club.我必须延续我的航海俱乐部会员的资格。
  • He made up his mind to apply for membership in the Party.他决心申请入党。
17 franchise BQnzu     
n.特许,特权,专营权,特许权
参考例句:
  • Catering in the schools is run on a franchise basis.学校餐饮服务以特许权经营。
  • The United States granted the franchise to women in 1920.美国于1920年给妇女以参政权。
18 obligation v5yzC     
n.(法律、道德上的)义务,责任
参考例句:
  • Every player is under an obligation to keep the rules.每个选手都必须遵守这些规则。
  • It is the obligation of citizens to perform military service.服兵役是每个公民的义务。
19 distracted puKz3d     
a.注意力分散的,思想不集中的
参考例句:
  • When working, one should concentrate and not allow oneself to be distracted. 工作时要集中精力,不要分心。
  • Noise outside distracted her mind from her studies. 门外的噪音使她心神不宁,无法集中注意力学习。
20 transcripts 525c0b10bb61e5ddfdd47d7faa92db26     
n.抄本( transcript的名词复数 );转写本;文字本;副本
参考例句:
  • Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样,都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
  • You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书,你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

本文本内容来源于互联网抓取和网友提交,仅供参考,部分栏目没有内容,如果您有更合适的内容,欢迎 点击提交 分享给大家。