Ferragosto

In Italy, August 15 is a national day of festa called Ferragosto. Perhaps it is better to wikipedia, but from what I gather, this is the day Mary died and was reborn in heaven. For those not so religiously inclined, it means another day of eating. And for Southern Italian families, even more so.

For us here in Fossacesia, Tonino, a family friend had organised for several families to go to a restaurant in a seaside area nearby called Lido La Foce (lido meaning beach area). Around 1:30pm after a morning at the beach in the sun, we drove around the Adriatic coast and through more vineyards and olive groves to find this restaurant sitting below the road, about 100m from the sea. The menu consisted of 10 courses, the consumption of which took approximately 5 hours.

The restaurant in an area surrounded by olive groves

Our table: there were in a group of 30

Menu

Drinks

Local white wine – still and sparkling

Lina and Gino: we were hungry and bored, hence the photo

Antipasti

1. Antipasti freddi:

Octopus and black olive salad

Prawn cocktail with rocket

Smoked salmon on bread

Marinated anchovies

Salad of fresh mussels, squid, cuttlefish, carrot and lettuce

Antipasti freddi

2. Cozze ripiene

Cozze ripiene

3. Antipasti caldi:

Grilled aubergine and zucchini

Crêpes with prawn crema

Cockle gratin

King prawn

Seafood and potato sauté

Antipasti Caldi

Primi piatti

1. Rintrocilo ai granchi e gamberi

Homemade pasta with a tomato, crab and giant prawn sugo

Afrodite eating her rintrocilo with king prawns

Lina got a whole crab in her pasta

2. Risotto alla pescatore

Risotto with mussels, cockles, prawns and coriander

Risotto alla pescatore

Secondi piatti

1. Pesce al forno

Whole-baked fish

Fish with two contorni: salad and potatoes

2. Frittura mista

Fried baby octopus, calamari and cuttlefish

La frittura mista

Contorni

Lettuce and tomato salad

Roasted potatoes

Frutta

Slices of watermelon

Cocomero!

Dolci

Tiramisù

Tiramisù: they almost went the whole day without using plastic plates

Digestivi

Liquori

Caffè

Caffè italiano

It took us about 2 hours just to get through the antipasti, and by the time the first primo piatto came out I needed a break from the table. To help with the digestive process I took intermittent strolls around the restaurant to see the beach, the gardens, the campsite next door, and watch the live music. By the time the secondo piatto finally came I really couldn’t stand being at the table any longer. Nevertheless, I was made to come back to the table and try the fish that had been placed at my seat in my absence. I’m glad I did because it ended up being deliciously tender and moist. I guess there is a reason this fish is called the “Queen of the Sea”.

The beach just down the driveway

Thankful that I didn’t receive my own plate of fried seafood, I congratulated myself with a sigh of relief that I had made it through the entire menu…until I realised there were still the contorni to go. Afrodite was quick to tell me that they had come on the plate with the fish, so I could relax again knowing that no more giant plates of food would be passed my way. That is until the huge platters of watermelon came out. I devoured three pieces in lieu of my tiramisù, which I gave to Afrodite. Finally we were ready for caffè and could get going. After 5 hours of lunch, we were more than ready.

That evening Lina, Afro and I spent the night at home playing cazzimma with a bit of nocino, and Gino went out to visit friends (who had invited us to eat more dessert). Around midnight Gino returned home with three cornetti: two chocolate ones for Afro and Lina, and a crema one for himself. I instead had a pistachio Magnum, which was too good to be true. Apparently they are knew in Italy this year, the icecream inside is green, though it’s difficult to see from the photo.

Afrodite and her chocolate cornetto

My pistachio flavoured Magnum

After a nice calorie-dense cornetto or gelato there is nothing better than going straight to bed and letting it pile right on. All I can say is I hope the food in Germany is nowhere near as good as it is in Italy, because I could sure do with a break, and I am positive that my jeans would agree!

Gnocchi (pron: nyoh-kee)

On Sunday I was hit with a brutal reminder that gluten intolerances and Italian food do not go well together, especially in large quantities. But I think everyone would agree that homemade gnocchi is too hard to resist. Even if it did follow a night of pizza.

By now, I’m sure you have got the gist that every Sunday is a festa, and therefore every Sunday we have a big lunch. But this Sunday Afrodite arrived with her auntie, uncle and young cousin, Francesco, and we also invited Carmine and his friend Vincenzo over. So we were 9 in total.

Rather than write about our lunch, which was full of family dramas, I thought I would write about the gnocchi-making process. A while ago I asked Lina if we could make gnocchi together because it’s something I’d never made before. It turns out it is surprisingly easy. Mind you, all I had to do in the end was lay out the gnocchi for drying and cut some tomatoes. So maybe it’s not as easy as it looks.

To begin with, you must first peel and boil the potatoes, and mash them until smooth. Lina says you need approximately one potato per person, and 100g of flour per person (but it depends on the potato), some salt and one egg. It is also necessary to kneed the dough on either a wooden or marble bench top/board.

Gnocchi

Step 1: place the potato on the board in a ball, surround with a ring of flour, sprinkle potato with salt, and crack one egg on the top.

Step 2: squeeze the egg through the potato, and gently mix through, folding the potato as necessary until all flour is used. Continue to add more flour until the right consistency is reached. Try and maintain the pasta in a ball.

Step 3: one at a time, cut a small piece off the ball of dough, roll into a skinny snake, and cut the snake into 1cm pieces.

Step 4: (the painful stage) with one finger, press quite firmly whilst rolling each 1cm piece on the doughy and floury board (this part is necessary). You must put enough pressure when rolling the dough such that the gnocchi become kind of like shells; on the inside it should be a bit empty.

Rolling gnocchi

I’m useless at the rolling part, so luckily by this stage Carmine, who goes to a hospitality school (a type of college) and has made gnocchi for us before, had arrived and could help out with rolling the thousand little pieces of pasta.

Carmine rolling gnocchi; me placing them on the table

Step 5: place the gnocchi on a tablecloth to dry out a bit, sprinkle with extra flour if necessary.

A whole table full of gnocchi

Sugo

Step 6: cut the pomordori into 1cm cubes.

Me dicing the tomatoes - I needed to actually help

Step 7: pour about 1cm deep of oil into a pot, add one clove of finely diced garlic and heat. When oil is hot place the diced tomatoes into the hot oil and leave to cook until softened.

Home-made sugo

Putting all together

Step 8: dice the fior di latte into little cubes. This cheese is like mozzarella but much less salty, and much drier (though it still comes swimming in liquid).

Carmine dicing the fior di latte

Step 9: bring a large pot of salty water to a rolling boil, place the gnocchi into the water, ensuring that you stir the water so they don’t stick together. Cook until the gnocchi float – only a few minutes – and then drain.

Stress levels were high

Step 10: stir the gnocchi through the tomato sugo, spoon onto plates, and sprinkle with the fior di latte and fresh basil. Devour.

The disaster plate of gnocchi

Although our gnocchi were delicious, because it was so hot, and we had to wait so long for the others down at the beach while we drank aperitives and snacked on pretzel sticks to stave off hunger, the pasta had started to melt a bit, and they didn’t turn out as expected. In fact, Lina ended up mashing a whole lot of the gnocchi together and then throwing it on the table in fury, so we were a few short. Instead of going “short”, however, she cooked a whole other packet of fusili pasta that were the colours of the Italian flag. But unlike the boys, I couldn’t even manage my first plate of pasta let alone a second.

Fusili

After our pasta we had a dish of pork fillets slowly cooked on top of peas and finely diced carrots with a delicious smelling herb called “pepper herb” or something of the sort. Our contorno (side dish) was a mixture of cubes of aubergine, red, yellow and green capsicums, and potatoes cooked in lots of (read “too much”) oil, but was tasty nonetheless. All of which was followed with fruit and caffè as normal.

Our delicious contorno of aubergine, capsicums and potato

To get a break from the craziness back at home, I went down to the beach with Carmine and Vincenzo for a few hours to lie in the sun and chat. We walked home around 7pm and discovered that Lina had just finished making a fresh batch of ciambelle (Neapolitan donuts) with the leftover gnocchi pasta. All she did was add a bit of lievitor to make the dough rise and some water before deep-frying spoonfulls of the mixture, and then rolling in white sugar. Real ciambelle are the size of your hand with a whole in the middle. Even though I have never tried them, these seemed to be much better because they were fresh and warm. Besides, homemade food wins [almost] every time. 

Le ciambelle

That night we (Gino, Lina, Afro and I) went with some family friends to the Sagra della Marrocha, which is Abruzzese for corn cobs. The sagra was in a beautiful little town nearby, and was much bigger than the previous one, with far more tables and a bigger stage complete with several singers and orchestra. Given how much we had already eaten that day, we shared a plate that came with bruschette, a selection of salami and formaggi from the region, a bit of bread made from corn (gluten free!), the most delicious prosciutto crudo I have ever eaten, slices of fresh rockmelon, and a roasted cob of corn. Then we all got our own corncobs (a disaster in itself because they were all over-boiled and had turned to plastic).

We stayed here chatting and watching the synchronized group dances, waiting for the raffle numbers to be read out at 11:30. Around 11 the polenta (more corn-related food) was ready, and everyone went to buy bowls of creamed polenta covered in some sort of lamb and tomato sauce. It smelt quite nice, but not really my thing so I didn’t try it, despite several people on several occasions insisting (quite severely) that I try the dish. They are very pushy here when it comes to food.

When we discovered we hadn’t won the box of famous bocconotti nor the giant leg of prosciutto crudo, we went back to the car and drove home around midnight. It was a good night, but New Zealand’s sweet corn is ten thousand times better. This is not the end of the eating, however…next blog: ferragosto. If I thought I had seen lots of food before, this was a whole other story!

Il Castello

On Saturday night, I went to a restaurant called Il Castello for an evening of eating, singing and dancing. It wasn’t until I noticed the huge queue of cars all driving in the same direction that I realised we were a group of 40 all heading for the same restaurant about 30 minutes away from home. The whole way Lina tried to explain who was who, for example: insert name is so-and-so’s cousin’s mother-in-law. After a couple of explanations I gave up on trying to follow and instead gazed at the amazing moonrise, if such a thing exists. There was a full moon on Saturday night, and the view over the countryside was stunning.

When we arrived at this place at first I was disappointed because I realised it wasn’t “a castle”. Instead the restaurant was called “the castle” and therefore themed in this manner. But it turned out to be cooler than expected with lots of different castle-shaped buildings, outdoor areas, gazebos, and gardens complete with willow trees, fountains and armour statues.

Me and the armour statue in front of the castle below

One part of the castle: the Lancelot Room

The inside was themed just as thoroughly, with a Count as the head waiter dressed head to toe in costume, windows looking out onto the gardens and other castles, a twenty-metre long banquet table for us and a karaoke screen at the front of the restaurant.

After yelling at me for taking a photo of  him, the Count invited
me to get a photo on his terms 

In a group of over 40 people it can take a long time to get organised, but we eventually sorted ourselves out and could finally commence the feast. To start with there were plates of orzo (barley), tuna and corn salad, stuffed and fried pumpkin flowers, delicious cauliflower salad with lots of chilli and lemon, and some sort of mini puff pastry thing with spinach in it.

The table is so long I couldn't take fit it all in the photo

These were followed by my favourite stuffed olives I have written, and molten pieces of mozzarella wrapped in pancetta.

The stuffed olives

Inside of stuffed olives

 However, the main reason for going to the Castello is for the unlimited metre long pizzas that continue to arrive until you have eaten as much as you can possibly stand. Rather than being one flavour, each pizza consisted of several flavours, including: anchovy; prosciutto crudo; mushrooms; meatball, black olive, and grilled red capsicum; and just grilled red capsicum and black olives. All of the which were smothered in cheese.

The ginormous pizza

This gesture means buono

To accompany our feast, there was also a continual flow of jugs of the delicious, frizzante Pignoletto wine, and a few bottles of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

Throughout the evening everyone joined in on the karaoke, whether they were dancing or singing along. There were songs in italiano, inglese, romano, and napolitano, which gave me a good opportunity to remind Gino why I refuse to learn napolitano. Google it. When you see the written language, you too will feel my pain. It is like listening to a blur of words all twisted and mushed together.

By midnight we had to leave the restaurant, so after a quick caffè at the bar, we all drove back together. Instead of going home, however, Gino drove us to a darkish spot along the lungomare so we could walk down to the beach and try to spot some shooting stars. Here, around August 10 is the Night of San Lorenzo, and there are supposed to be tonnes of shooting stars. Unfortunately, it was not our lucky night, probably because it was a full moon, so we gave up and headed home for a well-deserved rest.

Instead of continuing on to Sunday’s antics, I will write smaller blogs more often now, as they’re much easier to follow (for those quite short of time), and also much less time-consuming for me. I hope this is helpful!

L'inizio delle sagre

Wednesday night was a night full of fun, laughter and frivolity. It was the night of my first sagra, the sagra of the arrosticini. Arrosticini, it turns out, are not in fact the little fried things I thought they were, but are actually (lamb) kebabs. However, whatever food this sagra was for, it did not matter to me. I was only in for the wine; that famous Montepulciano d’Abruzzo I have mentioned so often.

A 5 litre bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

Late on Wednesday night, we went along with two other families to a vineyard-come-grape-processing factory on the outskirts of Fossacesia. I had already eaten because I don’t particularly like lamb or fries. Nevertheless, as soon as Gino stopped the car I jumped outside to see what was going on, not really knowing what to expect. To one side there was a stage with live music, a dance floor separating the stage from the rows and rows of long tables for dining, and to the left near the factory were a whole lot of gazebos with people selling the food and drinks. You pay at the cashier’s gazebo in return for tickets and then take the tickets to the correct stand to receive your order.

Even though this was the 18^th Sagra of the Arrosticini, they were selling various foods such as Italian sausages in a bun, tomato salad, fries, gnocchetti con sugo e salscicca (a type of pasta with tomato and sausage), those lamb kebabs, some “bruschetta” which was like greasy, oily white toast, and fresh rockmelon. Or you could buy a set of things for much cheaper, which most people did. Then there were snacks: long bags of fresh unshelled peanuts, lupini and pistachios. And then there was the wine and other such drinks.

Ciro (Gino's youngest brother) passing a bag of peanuts to Gino

These are lupini: nibble open the side and eat the legume in the middle.
Salty and nutty but cold texture.

I wanted a glass of wine and felt bad for asking because they cost €2.90, but I got one anyway and was confused why Gino (the lover of all wines) didn’t want one too. When I went to get my wine I wanted to know how much it cost to buy a bottle incase I wanted to purchase a bottle to take away, and all three of the people serving me stopped and were like “ahhh….€2.90. You want this one don’t you?” Then it all made sense. No wonder Gino was confused when I asked why he hadn’t got any wine for himself. I excused my ignorance by being from New Zealand where wine is infinitely more expensive and ran off gleefully with a whole bottle of liquid gold and three glasses to start drinking it whilst waiting in line with Gino.

Il vino 

Gino is more of a natural than I

Lina and I with our wine

Gino’s brother, Ciro, and a friend, Lello (the best hairdresser in the world), came and found me by myself, drinking my wine, and took me to find us a table. When you purchase your food at a sagra, they also give you a couple of chequered plastic tablecloths, so we were able to set the table and wait for the food to arrive. Ciro left his 4-year-old daughter, Fabiola, with me who continued to show me her bracelets and teach me Italian while everyone was still waiting in line. It’s actually really interesting having young children around because Fabiola can’t really grasp the fact that I’m not Italian, and she ends up having to explain things so that I can better understand. I generally know what she’s talking about, but I knew we were in trouble when neither her nor I knew the word for “goosebumps”. We had to ask another lady, but for future reference, they are called “brividi”.

Fabiola: by this stage she was flinging peanut shells everywhere

Once everyone was seated we did our “cheers” with the wine and everyone started eating. Others had bought bags of nuts and lupini for the table, so we all sort of munched and drank away, enjoying the music, and huddling from the cold wind.

Our table, sorry it's a dark photo - I'm clearly not the photographer
Lello, Daniela and their two sons are in the front

Gino eating, again. Kebabs, bruschetta, salscicca, fries,  melon and red wine

At a certain point the people at the table next to us opened up a bottle of prosecco and the cork went flying, blasting our table with wine. Luckily it landed all over Lello and his wife, Daniela, opposite us, but instead of just accepting an apology, Daniela made the most of the opportunity and said “the least you could do is give me a bit too”. I think this is where the bottle of champagne came from when I arrived back at the table much later.

The bottle of champagne that somebody bought for us

Whilst people were finishing their meals, Lina and I went into the store to have a look at all of the foods, honeys, liqueurs and, of course, the wines. Apart from the 5l bottle of wine that we found, we also saw these huge metal, keg-like canisters (no doubt full of wine) and then a dispensary station where table wine was filled into 5l plastic bottles upon request with a pump quite like at a petrol station: white, rosé and red. I had to get a photo:

Kegs of table wine

The pumps of wine: white, rosé and red. €5 for 5L

All I bought here was a bottle of red wine to take to Germany for Campbell’s birthday, but as of tonight, it has already been devoured (sorry, sweetie! : ) I’ll get you another! At €2.90 it wasn’t too much of a pricey birthday present.)

Back at the table, after a bit of champagne and a peer-pressured sip of grappa (an amaro, or digestive) we joined in on the group dancing, even though none of us knew the moves. I thought it would be quite wise to sort of step in the back and follow along, not realising that each dance rotates around in a square so that you are only in the back row for about a quarter of the song and the rest you are in front of the audience. Nonetheless, I tried my best to pick up the moves and every time I managed to grasp the sequence right at the very end of the song. Perfect timing! Even still, I had tonnes of fun and gave up only once when I almost got run over, but by 12 it was really cold and it was time to head home.

The stage, tables and dancefloor

Gino, Daniela and I dancing at the back (the front).
None of us knew what we were doing

The night did not stop there, however. Given I was with my “parents”, it didn’t, by any means, become more outrageous, but was memorable nevertheless. We were all excited for frutte, dolci, liquori e caffè when we arrived home. Sadly I had already eaten the last peach, so there was no fruit, so instead, I started making espresso and getting out the liqueurs. The seal on the caffè macchinetta is a little bit loose, so sometimes the coffee comes out the side and we have to tighten it half way through the coffee-making process. I don’t like doing it because it’s too hot, so I asked Gino to give me a hand and passed him the teatowel. He picked up the macchinetta to tighten it, and the next thing you know the lid goes flying off (the metal having snapped near the handle) and scorching hot coffee spilt all over Gino’s forearm causing him to scream in pain as the macchinetta flew through the air, dousing the entire kitchen in a dripping black mess.

At first we were all shocked. Lina had to explain to Gino what had just happened as I ran to the freezer to find as many icepacks as possible. Once Gino had relaxed a bit, Lina started cleaning up the kitchen, but then (completely in character) Gino pipes up “heeeyyy, get us some nocino, a dolce and some caffè!!” This only made me laugh because he’s basically crippled in pain on a lounger with an arm smothered in cream and iceblocks on his feet and arm, but still wants dessert and liqueurs.

So I start making some more coffee, scared it might break again and getting out the liqueurs. I joke that we should play cazzimma (a card game that takes ages), but just as Lina went to sit down after cleaning the entire kitchen, the minute she touched the chair, one of the chair legs snapped off and she went skidding to the ground whacking her head on the corner of the cupboard and twisting both wrists on impact. This was the end of it for me. I could not breath because I was laughing so hard. Lina couldn’t move because she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but thank God ended up finding it hysterical. Gino immediately leapt to his feet to help Lina – cripple helping a cripple, go figure. Meanwhile, all I can do is find the fastest route to my camera to get a photo of the hysterics. At least now it is forever in my memory.

Lina immediately after the chair leg snapped off and Gino coming to the
rescue with burn cream on his arm

As I was taking the photo I swore I would not move and did not want to go to bed for fear that it would be my turn next. I then proceeded to stand like a candle for the next few minutes and refused to move. I was safe yesterday, but today is a whole other story. My turn was to come, and came it did.

I’ll come back to what happened in between (i.e the other festa I went to with Lina) but for now I need to elaborate. So this evening Carmine and his friend, Vincenzo, came over just as we were going out to do grocery shopping at 5:30 – I mention this because he told me I have to write it in my blog. When I told him it wasn’t important enough he uninvited me to everything, so I’m making it up to him.  Anyway, by 8:30 we came home and we were starving – the supermarket is huge and Italians are even worse with times when they are on holiday.

After putting all the shopping away, organising the pantry and fridge and preparing our dinners (we eat different things), Gino reached into the cupboard and pulled out a ginormous bottle of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo to have with dinner. He wanted to put it in the freezer to make it a bit fresher despite my insistence against this. Finally, well after 9, he let me go to get it out of the freezer. I open the freezer door, and before I realise what has happened, there is an almighty CRASH as blood red liquid splashes all over the floor and up the walls and glass flies across the room.

The Tragedy of the Wine. Note the murderscene-type footprints

I was absolutely stunned this time because I swear something has happened to this house. How else could we have so much bad luck in two days? Thank Christ my feet were apart so this giant bottle didn’t break the arches of my feet. The glass did, however, cut my toe open so it was off to the bathroom we went to bathe the wine from my feet and legs and stop my foot from bleeding.

Lina repairing my foot in the bathroom sink

Even though this had sort of caused an argument between Lina and Gino, and everyone was a bit serious, while my feet were being mended, I just had to ask Gino to go and get the camera. It’s a bit of a joke really, but so are our lives these days, so it’s only fair.

Having seen the state of the power cords from my seat and the extent of the glass and wine, I suggested we should clean. But Lina insisted “No! Mangiamo!” so eat we did. But not without the wine. Lina kindly reminded me that I had that bottle I bought for Campbell, and that we could drink it and buy him another one. I was open to the suggestion so we ate and drank our laughter and sorrows away. It was only when the doorbell rang that we all looked at each other and then slowly at the blood-like mess dripping down the walls and spilt all over the floor. It looked like a murder scene and none of us wanted to answer the door.

Gino went to the door and opened it very slowly with the sound of glass scraping along the tiles. You should have seen this poor man’s eyes when he peaked around the door only to see that we were eating normally, as if nothing had happened. God only knows what went through his mind, but I told him the body was in the next room. Gino quickly gave him a glass of the new wine, which he downed in one gulp before taking a phone number and leaving. He hesitantly came back a few minutes later to check he had taken the right number, but I don’t think we will see him in a while.

A while later, after an absolutely delicious meal of chickpea, rocket and Tuscan vegetable salad, with grilled zucchini and various cheeses, Lina spent 1 and a half hours cleaning the entire kitchen. But now we are all safe and clean and I think I need to go to bed and finish this tomorrow because it’s well after 1am.

The day following the first night of incidents was Thursday, a day much like most others: lots of beach and sun, but no swimming due to the wind which has now died down (taking with it my allergies). Lunch was another amazing caprese salad (mozzarella and tomatoes with a bit of basil, oregano and garlic) accompanied with a huge plate of blanched fresh green beans. I wasn’t feeling so well so I slept for three hours in the afternoon and then had a bit of a mental when I woke up and the dog was barking and there were about 9 people over all yelling. Instead of imploding, I went out for a walk and by the time I came back I had decided I didn’t want to go out anymore. This upset Lina, so I changed my mind and got ready (even though it was freezing outside) and we went to the Festa Gabbiano (meaning seagull) along the lungomare for dinner.

Both terrible, but this was the view from our table looking out a the street
These gazeboes are the food and drink stalls.

These are the market stalls

This festa wasn’t as big as the sagra the previous night, but it was still enjoyable. It was laid out in a U-shape off the road with the food stall and bar to the left a market game thing to the right, all the long tables in the centre and a stage with music at the back. The style of the festa was different too. There were two different primi piatti and about 8 or 9 secondi piatti, and then there were also snacks, and after 11pm cornetti caldi, panini etc. Lina and I decided we would get one primo each: I got the risotto di frutti di mare (seafood) and Lina got a type of casareccia (homemade) pasta that I cannot recall the name of, but it’s like spaghetti, except much thicker. My risotto came with mussels, prawns, cockles and a bit of octopus, and Lina’s pasta (which was really really good just by the way) came with tomato sugo and crab (but I didn’t see any crabmeat in it).

At the food tent to collect our tray of food. This shows everyone lining up.
Behind the girls serving is a table with plates of food ready to be handed out

This man was serving risotto and pasta from huge trays
The huge pot is filled with mussels

For the secondi, we decided to share a plate of cozze ripiene which are mussels stuffed with breadcrumbs and cheese and then cooked in a tomato sugo, and a plate of these little cheese and egg balls (like meatballs but white in colour and quite spongy) that are also cooked in a tomato/capsicum sugo. I have since found out they are called (in dialect): pallotte cac'e ove. The mussels were delicious, even if the photo doesn’t do them justice, but those little ball things were not for me. The consistency was odd, so I only ate one of them. All of this came with the best bread ever: soft and warm on the inside, and crusty on the outside – like all bread here. I also bought us some beer (in training for Germany).

Lina eating her pasta, risotto in front,
stuffed mussels front right, and the pallotte in the back.

Some friends came to join us while we ate, and as we were finishing, Gino arrived too. But it was too cold, so it was off home we went, arm in arm to drink nocino and play cazzissima until 1am.

Apart from lots more beach and tanning, since our trip to the supermarket I have more food for show-and-tell. I just ate lunch and I think I am about to pop, thank goodness there are only two more weeks of all this food… sometimes so good can become too good.

Anyway, the food. To start with, I have now tried two more dolci typical to Abruzzo. First, there are real bocconotti from the pasticceria. These are like little Christmas mince tarts (short pastry), except on the inside is a dense, dark cocoa/chocolate and nutty filling, and then they are dusted with icing sugar.

I bocconotti

The inside of a bocconotte

Then there are the cellucci; these other little croissant-shaped pastries made from a sugarless, eggless pastry (so it’s not sweet), filled with a dark dried grape mix that’s really tangy. On the outside the pastries are lightly coated in castor sugar. They are really nice, and not rich or sweet, if like me you want a dolce that’s not too intense.

I cellepieni or cjiellip jiene in the local dialect (Abruzzese)

At the supermarket we also purchased some mortadella because I never tried it when I was last here. In Naples they have huge mortadella, like I’m talking a 25cm radius, with a different coloured heart in the centre. But here, we found one that was three rings of various meat colours, and then the face of a little bear in the centre. Very cute, but possible not as tasty as the one we purchased, with peppercorns and pistachios through it. It’s really finely sliced so that you just get the flavour, rather than big chunky pieces of nuts. The aroma is to die for. I tried it last night and asked why I had never tried it before, to which Lina confirmed that it is exceptionally fatty. But I have been told we are yet to go to a sagra where they make a ginormous panino di mortadella with bread straight out of the oven, so this won’t be my last time to try it.

Mortadella

While I was at it, I thought I would take photos of the beautiful lunch I made us, which was basically just a giant salad of tomatoes, celery, rocket, green olives and onion, served with prosciutto crudo, prosciutto cotto, mortadella and freshly baked bread. Hopefully it will help you understand why my stomach is aching:

Our lunch

My plate of salad, prosciutto cotto and prosciutto crudo (in the back)

Prosciutto crudo

I’m still waiting to hear whether I am going along to this MASSIVE and I mean MASSIVE dinner tonight, which is apparently at a castle. I intend to go, but am a bit scared after Gino read me the menu last night… one course here is enough to feed a family, but seven or eight is insipid… luckily I have ZERO appetite right now.

The reason I’m not sure I’m going is because this morning two other big families arrived who have teenage girls and they asked if I wanted to spend the evening with them. So I’ll know soon if their families are going too, if not then we’ll just go out somewhere here. They’re so sweet, they were asking what I eat in New Zealand starting from breakfast right through the day. I couldn’t lie to them: I love porridge, though I made it clear that my taste does not represent the majority of New Zealanders. They had no idea what porridge was, so Pina made me google it on her cellphone. Wikipedia seemed to have an adequate description, but I don’t think “a soup of boiled oats served with cream and sugar” is a fair representation.

Then when I told them I love sushi and eat it quite often for lunch at university, all four of the girls were like “wowwww, I want to try it! I’ve never tried sushi!” Can you believe it? As much as Italian food is amazing, they don’t eat anything other than Italian food here. It’s really strange, so in a sense we are quite lucky that we get such variation in our culture. I promised them I would go to the biggest supermarket I could find and make them sushi one night. Fingers crossed they have nori. I know I saw Kikkoman soya sauce there, but nori might be pushing it.

But I think this is long enough for now! Sorry, I had lots to say! I hope you are still finding my blog interesting, and I thank you for following me! Pass on the link to others!!

Grazie!! E ciaoooooo!