Around 9:30 on Sunday night after a late Sunday lunch, Afrodite and I went out with her two friends Raffaele and Pietro to the lungomare, which is kind of like Oriental Parade, except way cooler. In order to get there, we had to drive through the city, which meant crazy traffic time. I'm not sure if you've ever heard about how they drive here, but the road code is pretty much "fai quello che vuoi" or "do what you want". As much as this sounds like it could work well, when you live in a city of 4 million people with 4 lane roads and no traffic lights or roundabouts, driving becomes more of an adventure sport for thrill seekers. Intersections become a mess of 16 lanes with people turning in all sorts of directions, weaving in and around and shouting furiously at one another. I had completely forgotten how insane it is. However, the danger is always worth it when you get to drive past ginormous castles and palaces. This was also my first time back in the city of Naples, and it was nice to see they have finally finished their third metro line, complete with new piazzas and shiny statues.
About 40 minutes later we made it to the lungomare, but the traffic was jam packed because it was a beautiful evening and the main roads are closed in summer for passengers, so we parked the car in the first place we saw (a mile away). Here, no matter where you park your car - in the city, in the country - a man will always creep out of the shadows and demand money to supposedly "guard" your car. The other night I asked if this happens everywhere, but apparently it's only in Naples; they invent jobs for themselves and every one accepts it.
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| Afrodite, Raffaele and me - I am not a giant, I swear! |
Anyway, off we went, wandering through a massive garden towards all the noise and light. I had never seen the lungomare like this before. There were so many people and everywhere you looked there were stalls selling bags, shoes, jewellery, toys with lights, gerbils and mice...the list goes on. The air smelt like sugar as we walked past the candyfloss makers and honey roasted almonds, huge caravans selling snacks absolutely covered in blow up hearts with love messages written on them: the best was a pair of lips with "kiss me baby" written on them. Other stalls were selling freshly steamed or flame-grilled corn, or "porchetta" which is the most disgusting thing in the world - raw pigs intestines with lemon and salt. I had one look and wanted to gag. And how could I forget the paninoteca! Where you go to dance and eat at the same time : ) I saw maybe two of them, blasting out dance music, with flashing lights everywhere, but you actually go there to get a panino (sandwich) or a pizzetta or kebab.
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| I almost bought this for Campbell |
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| La Paninoteca: look closely at the righthand side |
Unfortunately, this wasn't quite what we were after, so we kept walking for a few kilometres stopping to gaze at the beautiful (expensivissimo) palazzi (old apartment buildings), and the gorgeous ships and yachts in the marina. I tried to take photos of the lungomare because it's hard to explain it but night time photos can't capture the real effect of the lights that go for miles, but I couldn't do it justice. There were also lots of lanterns floating in the sky that people had bought in order to make a wish and then set free. But these were also very hard to capture because they fly up into the sky too quickly!
We found a nice chalet in the end where I had a gelato al bacio (an italian chocolate with hazelnut - it means "kiss"). It was to die for. Absolutely delicious. We spent the next hour or so with Raffaele trying out all his english on me before we decided to make our way back to the car just after midnight. There were still hundreds of people, even families with young children on the street, because it was the night before the holidays began, so everyone was in the mood to celebrate. One hour later we made it to the car with aching feet from wearing such high shoes, and made it home just before 2.
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| In front: my "coppa media di bacio" Left: Afro's frappe with Kinder gelato Right: Pietro's strawberry delight Behind to the left: il caffè |
The next morning (yesterday) we got ready to go to Baia to a relative's house for a festa. My family do this every year on the first of August, not just to celebrate the beginning of the holidays, but also to say goodbye to each other for the month, and to celebrate Gennaro's (a cousin's) birthday (he was 19 this year), and a wedding anniversary (of 30 years this year). We arrived around 10:30am to the a huge house with a beautiful blue pool, and immediately started piling on the sun lotion and getting ready to go swimming. When all twenty something of us had finally arrived, in came the metre long pizzas, bags of pizzette (little balls of peppery dough with chunks of salami in them), taralli (twisted rings of a type of dense savoury biscuit filled with almonds and pepper) and other snacks. I tried the little pizzette, which were delicious, but when I heard "sangria" it was all over for me.
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| Gino with the massive pizza |
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| The beautiful pool! |
Afrodite had been telling me all about this famous sangria which comes served in a giant "concomero" (watermelon). What they do is take the biggest melon they can find, cut off the top of it, scoop out all the fruit, and freeze the shell. They then fill it with chunks of white, yellow and orange peaches, pears, apples, and green melon, and then a mixture of fruit juice and montepulciano di Abruzzo (delicious red wine) and some other form of fizzy home made white wine I think...because I saw them topping it up. You then pour yourself a drink with the ladle, and wow is it delicious!! It was even better when I found out there were two!
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| La sangria |
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| Lina and I with our Sangria |
With the sun too hot to bear, and Carmine on a never-ending mission to annoy anyone who is caught unaware, I was eager to get myself into the pool before he pushed me in. Sabatino (my uncle) wanted me to dive in from the dining board and so did I, but when I got to the end my heart was beating so hard I could see it coming out of my chest. I have a fear of belly-flopping, even though the diving board was only about 80cm high. By now, everyone had seen I was standing on the end and it was too late to turn back. Carmine had the camera ready, and everyone was chanting for me to get in. I was too scared to dive, but too scared to find out what would happen if I didn't jump with Sabatino waiting for me at the end of the diving board, so I jumped...and it was so worth it. The water was so refreshing, a nice change from the 30 degree heat. But I preferred to just tread water, while the women gossiped by the pool side, and the men played some kind of waterpolo at the other end.
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| Into the water I go - Sabatino is threatening me from the end |
We finally all sat down at the table with sangria in hand, attempted to take a full table photo but everyone was busy yelling at each other that we couldn't get everyone's attention at the same time. Plates passed around the place to try and get one of all three of the first course, Lina said grace for the table, and the eating commenced.
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| Pre-meal salutations, all 5 kilos lighter than we are now |
For il primo piatto we had not just one but two types of pasta: i) fusili con frutti di mare which is a spiral pasta with octopus, shrimps, mussels, olives and capsicum, and ii) papardelle con pomodori e mozzarella which was butterfly pasta with tomatoes and chunks of mozzarella. We also had l'insalata di riso or rice salad with corn, tuna and pieces of what I think was a ham sausage thing. You can put mayonnaise on this one if you like, but it's delicious by itself. It was my favourite one.
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| Top: fusilli con frutti di mare Bottom left: Farfalle con pomodori e mozarella Right: Insalta di riso No, I did not eat all this, but I did have more rice |
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| Zia Titina cutting la pizza di carne |
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| I contorni - Top: i funghi (mushrooms) Bottom Left: le melanzale (aubergine) Right: i carciofi (artichoke delight) |
After i secondi I had had enough of being at the table, but was stuck for what else to do. Luckily I spotted a couple of cute bicycles resting against the hedge, so I decided I would go fare un piccolo giro to see what else was in the street. My journey didn't last too long because I soon realised the brakes didn't work, so I wanted to steer clear of all cars. Upon my return, however, there was another course awaiting for me. I formaggi.
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| Me with the cute bicycle |
Now this next course was one of my favourites. Not only was there cheese, there were three different cheeses, salami and insalata. Allora, spiego. My excitement at the formaggio di Sardegna was nothing compared to my excitement when I saw a plate filled with boconcini. The women told me that this mozzarella is even better than anywhere else, because the buffalos live nearby. As soon as I tasted it, I believed every word she said. Mamma told me that the best mozzarella leaves milk on the knife when you cut it, not too much, it has to be the right amount. These boconcini more than satisfied the criteria, and by the looks the Carmine's face in the photo below, he also thought the same of this massive ball of mozzarella (eaten with a knife and fork).
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| I boconcini and l'insalata |
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| A very content Carmine with his own mozzarella |
Along with the boconcini we had salami, copicollo (sort of like a cross between prosciutto crudo and salami), a very aged sheep's cheese from Sardegna (Sardinia) that you eat with honey, and another cheese that was very similar but much younger that you eat by itself. At first I wasn't so sure about cheese and honey, though now I come to think of it, I used to eat honey and cheese on crackers all the time when I was younger. But this piccante cheese was absolutely delicious with the sweetness of the honey. The only thing stopping me from eating more was knowing how much was still left to go.
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| Sabatino cutting the capicollo |
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| The cheese from Sardinia |
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| My plate - I took a tiny selection of everything to try |
By this time I had really really had enough, and out came sacks of peanuts in their shells, and little cracker things. Afro and Sabatino had put themselves to bed in the sun loungers, but I wasn't in the mood to sleep. Instead, Carmine invited me to play a type of volleyball with him and Gennaro for a bit, probably not realising how uncoordinated I am. I lost basically straight away and decided that swimming would be a better idea. This kept me busy for quite a while until Lina told me there was concomero to eat. Watermelon! My favourite! I was out in a flash to eat some peaches, watermelon and another melon that I call "grande giallo" because when I arrived for the first time 4 years ago, I couldn't speak Italian. So in order to ask what were the huge yellow balls of fruit everywhere, "grande giallo" or "big yellow" was the only way I figured I could do it. I will take a photo of one later to show...But they are delicious. I had them for dessert tonight too.
After la frutta I went to sunbathe and try to waste time reading trashy magazines in Italian. During this time another couple arrived who hadn't yet eaten. So as soon as they sat at the table, out came all the food...again. They were told I was Australian, which infuriated me, but I soon came to realise that people will just never understand that New Zealand is a country in itself, and that my name is said Cheyne, not Cheela, as some people tried to rename me yesterday. Except this man who was at the table didn't just want to know about New Zealand, he wanted me to sit beside him and drink sangria and eat formaggio for company, even though he already had about ten people around him. I happily moved down to the end of the table and took the roles of sangria pourer, fruit provider (leftover from the sangria), conversation starter and cheese eater. It was delightful talking with them and telling them about New Zealand, and then explaining how I feel about the Italian way of life and Naples. By this stage it was around 7:30, so I wanted to relax a little bit inside.
Finally, around quarter past 8 all of the dolci started coming out on to the table. This time, instead of buying typical desserts, this amazing lady had not only cooked all the food I've already talked about, but also four different cakes. Incredibile! First there was the torta caprese which is chocolate and almond, then there was la torta caprese al limone (almonds and lemon), then a cheesecake (said with an Italian accent, and made with ricotta, not cream cheese), and then the torta di gelato (icecream cake). Before we could eat, however, we sang happy birthday about seven times to Gennaro because there were no candles, and then there weren't enough, and then no cameras etc etc, and congratulated the couple on their 30th wedding anniversary.
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| From the top: la torta caprese al limone, cheesecake, torta caprese classica, torta di gelato, i biscotti di mandorle |
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| Singing happy birthday to Gennaro |
Like everyone else, I managed to eat a piece of every single one of them, accompagnied by a delicious red prosecco. All of the cakes were delicious: the two torta capresi are great because they still have chunks of almonds and aren't too heavy or sweet, the cheesecake was amazing (despite my insistence that I hate it) because it was made with ricotta so it was like eating marshmallow, but the best of all was the gelato cake made with the sponge biscuits used for tiramisu to line the bowl, and then three layers of gelato: chocolate, panna and coffee, all frozen and then inversed on a plate. Ohhh all were soooo soooo delicioius!
With polished plates, this really was all we could take. We were completely destroyed and it was time to head home. After 8 hours of eating, you would think so too. I think we did pretty well, though I sure hope the food doesn't keep coming like this because I just can't keep up! Starting tomorrow, when we leave for Abruzzo, I am pretty sure it will slow down. Especially since we all have to look good at the beach in our bikinis!!! Now, I don't think there is internet in Abruzzo, so I will write my blogs during the month, and then post them as soon as I have internet. Sorry!!! I will try my best!
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