Lay days

Remember (of course you do – it was less than a week ago!) Marisa had us doing a tour of southern Italy looking for a ristorante that served both pizza and gelato. Well Marisa, God bless her soul, had yet another sudden urge for gelato two nights later! [No. She is NOT pregnant! If she is it’s another immaculate conception and, besides, she wouldn’t think of raising another child when she is already on the age pension!]

Domenico and I had already decided that the night was to be another designated “lay day” - a rest from social activity. We had enjoyed a very nice lunch at Cafe Tomassini (Domenico’s place next door) and I was to take my sister-in-law to Fiumicino for an early morning flight to Atlanta (USA) the following day, necessitating arousal at 5am. We had agreed that a local gelato at an early hour would be acceptable, allowing for an early night so, when Marisa rang at 6:30pm with her lust for an ice cream I thought: “OK. A five kilometre drive, pick up two local Lariano ladies with Domenico, slip down a gelato and back to the bunk at a reasonable hour.” I saddled up the Peugeot and away we went on the pick up circuit.

Now you might be thinking: “He’s just turned seventy. He is a man of the world and he’s at least half smart. He is used to learning lessons” – or at the very least you’d think: “Once bitten, twice shy”. Well think what you like, I got sucked in twice within two days!

Coming out of Franca’s place I turned into Lariano’s main, central piazza (Santa Eurasia) and asked the question: “Well folks, where are we headed?” whereupon (of course) Domenico says: “Just go the same way as Lorenza’s – you know the way”. Yes, I do know the way to Lorenza’s place – in the bush between Cave and Genazzano, thirty kilometres away! So much for the gelato close by and so much for the early night! I laughed all the way to the Cave gelateria, thinking: “What bloody mug would fall for the same lurk virtually on consecutive nights?”

Yes, we did get home past midnight and no, I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep before battling ten thousand Italiani want-to-be Grand Prix drivers on Rome’s Raccordo (the autostrada that circum-navigates Rome) at six o’clock the same morning but I did have a bloody enjoyable night over a gelato in Cave with what ended up being half a dozen minstrels. I don’t regret my gullibility for a moment and I am certain it will continue!

Happy reading
Bryan

It’s Sunday. A day designated by Domenico and I as another “lay day”. He is going off somewhere within driving distance to see, and to have lunch and spend some special time with, his younger brother and soul mate. He said that he’ll be in touch about the social engagements for tonight and I said: “Mate. You can devote a day in the year to your brother. We can designate this as this week’s “lay day”. We can set aside one day in this week for rest and being with family. That’s OK and I think most people would regard that as being quite reasonable in the circumstances.”

So he bade me “Buona notte” at our respective doors (which are alongside each other, not two metres apart) and we parted at 1am with that understanding, plus he presented me with about 15 snails that had been captured in the “wild” (ie in the garden) by his girlfriend, Lorenza [you need to keep that between us. All hell will break loose here if others (girls) get the idea that there’s anyone special. Remember, we are dealing with octogenarians here!] and prepared and cooked by Silvana, a distant relative of Domenico’s by marriage and who lives a couple of doors up the road.

We were staggering home from a late night at the Valmontone Snails festa where I had consumed a bucket load of snails and I wasn’t absolutely convinced that another dose of snails within twenty-four hours was a wise health initiative but, hell, life throws us challenges for which we are usually ill-prepared so, fuck it, just suck it and see!

So I have the Silvana snails in the saucepan warming up and some veggies on the boil and I have opened a bottle of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico, a white wine off the shelf at Eurospin valued at 2;78 euros and I am about to settle in to a Sunday lunch solo.

Well, here is my assessment:

* I am not a white wine drinker. I bought the bottle in case complete strangers dropped in unannounced and they liked white wine. Also it was on the same shelf as the prosecco bottles so I assumed (erroneously) that it was frizzante and I thought it worth a try. Anyway it was quite OK and certainly fulfilled its primary purpose of making me feel good.
* The wild snails were different and pleasingly so from the cultivated species consumed the night before.
* The tiny ones were a challenge. The bigger ones presented themselves very nicely but the bambini were a tougher assignment. We needed a sledgehammer rather than a toothpick to prize the little bludgers from their homes. The message to Lorenza is “leave the tiny buggers and concentrate on their parents. The little ones are NEXT year’s tucker”.
* It is good to have cooked veggies as an accompaniment.
* You don’t need a full bottle of Verdicchio for one person. For two it’s good.

[As an aside, you need to know that, in order to eat snails you need something to extract them from their shells. Usually a toothpick is the weapon of choice. So, when preparing a meal of snails, the meal is going no-where until you provide toothpicks. I didn’t have any so I scrambled up the 20 metres to the convenience store but, lo and behold (or, as the locals would say, “Allora”) the bloody store was closed for Domenica so I did the only thing a man could do in the circumstances - I went to Silvana’s front door (immediately across from Roberto’s convenience store) and yelled out “Silvana. I need a bloody toothpick!” Whereupon she arose slowly from her siesta, came to the door with a queried look on her face and I explained that I appreciated her snails but I needed a toothpick to savour them. She understood immediately, a reasonable language barrier notwithstanding and brought me her toothpick dispenser. I said I needed uno solo but in the scramble to get one out the top flew off and fifty-seven toothpicks bounced along the road outside her door. I got what I needed, offered to reconstruct the toothpick situation but was advised that Silvana could deal with it whereupon I rapidly took my leave. No doubt when Roberto reopens on Lunedi I will replace the whole bloody pack of Silvana’s now depleted stock of toothpicks.]

Well, that’s what it is like in the small country villages. You never quite know what is in store, what you are going to eat next, where it will come from and how you are going to deal with the consequences. It’s dangerous work but someone has to do it!