Ciao amici! Happy Easter (Pasqua) and welcome to the start of spring here in Italy. You'll recall we were stranded back in Atlanta last March and April, so we're experiencing la primavera for the first time right now. In a sharp contrast to Atlanta where it feels like spring in mid-February, it started to feel like springtime, oddly enough, right around the vernal equinox. The weather has gone from dreary to lovely in the last three weeks; here in Italy March definitely "comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb."
There are signs of spring everywhere—it's obviously planting season, as there's pollen everywhere, and when the wind is right, you can smell the fertilizer on the nearby fields!
As you know, Italian cooking strives to be local and seasonal, and this is the time for asparagus, cherries, and strawberries; the market is teeming with them, as well as the always splendid pomodori. It's also a good time for herbs, and of course we love the mosquito-repelling geraniums at the flower market.
Springtime at the market: Pomodori, fragole, basilico, asparagina stacked like cordwood
There are other signs of spring in the air, some universal and some uniquely Italian. I'll let you decide which is which!
(Slow-Moving Construction): There's a rumor that they are going to lay some fiber-optic cable in town... It's great to see upgrades to the infrastructure here, but we're just waiting for them to dig up the cobblestones and discover some Roman ruins, like last year at Piazza Cavour. Then we'll be swarmed with some earnest but slow-moving archaeology students, softly brushing what's left of an old lead pipe for two weeks.
April Fools Day: We don't celebrate April Fools' Day here in Italy, but there is a close cousin—Pesce d'Aprile! See the link for more details, but the trick of the day is for children to secretly stick a picture of a fish (pesce) on the back of a classmate and yell "Pesce d'Aprile. It's all good clean fun here in Italia!
Queues at the Gelateria: You know we love our gelato here, and I've always been astounded how these Gelateria's stay in business, when (a) they only charge €2-3 for a cup or cone, and (b) they usually have a great, high-rent storefront location right in town, but they are closed, or have limited days/hours, for a good portion of the year. Well, I'm not worried about them anymore—since early March, these guys are making up for lost time.
We adopted the tradition of the evening passeggiata as soon as we arrived in 2019, but we've added the tradition of a pre-dinner gelato over the last few weeks. It's gone from a special treat, to a daily ritual for us. It's fun to see what sapori (flavors) are available—we were excited to see cioccolato alla menta make a comeback this week, and our friends Ginger and Elisa at Pino Pistacchio introduced us to their newest flavor—"Rafaello," an otherworldly coconut-almond concoction/confection. As we continue to seek little pleasures these days, our daily stop here is truly "il nostro momento di gioia."
More signs of spring: trees blooming, rosé prosecco (!), lizards scurrying everywhere
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A brief (and Groundhog Day-like) update—yes, you may have read we are still in lockdown here, almost all of the country is 'zona rossa' (red) and unfortunately there's no sense it'll end soon. Next date for an update is April 20, but tbh my optimism for any near-term improvement has faded—we've pretty much resigned ourselves to knowing we'll be heading back to the U.S. before it gets anywhere close to normal here.
So we're thankful we did a good amount of travel when we first arrived, and then again briefly last summer—I just wish there was more travel to blog about for you all.
For now, we'll keep it local—as one of our favorite caffe owners, Georgia (see left), says, "we're safe and healthy so we can't complain."
Indeed, we're making the most of it, even if that means graduating to 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzles and binging on random shows like NBC's Mister Mayor! (a really good show from Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, who brought us Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt).
As always, thanks for reading and keep in touch. We look forward to seeing everyone in a few months!