Thanks to my tropical roots and ten consecutive years surviving cold winters, the summertime is and has always been my favorite time of year. Forget autumn foliage, white Christmases, and cherry blossoms. Blistering sun, sweltering heat, frizzy-hair-inducing humidity -- hands-down this is the time of year when I’m happiest.
Exciting things always happen in the summer, and this year proved to be no exception. Not only did we discover a little bun baking in the oven (more to come on that later), we also had a two-week family trip to Italy to look forward to. What more could we possible ask for?
An on-time departure would have been nice. Our trip got off to a rocky start courtesy of American Airlines, who decided to torture us with four hours of 30-minute delays before canceling our overnight flight to Madrid. Two Admirals Club lounge visits and an electric blue airport-shop blanket later, we sluggishly made our way back home, disappointment only partly offset by the prospect of trying out the British Airways Business class pods thanks to a rescheduled flight via London.
Despite an additional setback at Heathrow involving a painstakingly meticulous security agent determined to discover anthrax in my Mott’s applesauces, we finally landed in Rome. Although our weekend was cut short, it was enough time to revisit key staples; a stroll to the Spanish Steps for an early evening spritzer, a quick wish at the Fontana di Trevi, and a dubious meal at a tourist trap in Piazza Navona.
Fortunately for me and my then lime-sized fetus, the focus of this trip wasn’t centered strictly on wine-tasting. Instead, we took full advantage of the wide range of cultural events and festivities emblematic of summers in Europe. In Siena, a picturesque pedestrian hill town just 40 miles from Florence, the curved, nearly egg-shaped Piazza del Campo was colorfully decorated for the bi-annual Il Palio festival, a notorious horse-race dating back to the 17th century. Every year hundreds of zealous spectators gather in the center of the piazza to watch delegates from 10 of Siena’s 17 districts compete in a perilous saddle-free race around the square, each district represented by an improbable animal such as a porcupine, caterpillar, tortoise, and yes, even a snail. It was just days before the race and the anticipation was palatable, with die-hard fans gearing up for the festivities by reserving 300+ euro seats for 90 seconds of front-row action.
Our stay in Verona coincided with the inauguration of the Opera Festival; this is how it came to be that I had the privilege of spending my last minutes as a 28-year-old watching the dramatic death of La Traviata in the magical Arena di Verona (a 1st-century amphitheater turned open-air opera house). Venice had its Biennale art festival, Lucca its summer music festival, and in Perugia, our last stop, the small town buzzed with thousands of Umbrians celebrating the annual International Jazz festival.
Of course, there was always room for the occasional wine-tasting pit stop. In Montalcino we visited the Castello Banfi, a 7,000 acre wine estate where 20% of Italy’s Brunellos are made. A tasty three-course degustation lunch was followed by a rudimentary tour of the facilities, where I learned that Prosecco is just one type of Espumanti (Italy’s champagne), that Grappa is made from vinaccia (the leftover skins and seeds of the grape used to make wine), and that our 2009 trip to the Spanish wine country has forever transformed us into self-professed wine-tour snobs.
On my end, my inability to drink wine actually turned out to be an advantage, as it translated into increased intestinal capacity. In Siena we developed an infatuation with Pici, an extra-thick spaghetti so hearty and delicious that Carlos hand-carried bags of them for the remainder of the trip just so he could make them back home. Our Florentine food epiphany took place in a tiny local restaurant called Il Fagioli, where we were temporarily transported to chocolate lover’s paradise by the cantucci e vin santo -- freshly baked biscotti filled with the warmest, most decadently rich chocolate dipped in sweet Italian wine. In Venice we did our best to avoid the perils of dining al fresco and opted instead for the well-enclosed and very famed Harry’s Bar, home to the birth of the carpaccio. At 41 euros a pop, the enlightened raw meat was by no means wallet-friendly, but worth the splurge nonetheless. Equally delightful were the bacon and saffron pappardelle, the incredibly delicate veal cannelloni, and an outrageously fluffy vanilla cream cake.
The culinary peak of our travels culminated in Bologna, known as the gastronomic capital of Italy. A small, rose-colored city filled with culture and charm, Bologna is not often frequently visited by tourists, but turned out to be the site of some of the very best meals of our trip. The formula was simple; fresh ingredients, simple recipes, and most important of all, lots of TLC on the part of the most passionate nonnas in the nation. It was here that we met Manuela, the proud owner and quasi-dictator of Osteria La Traviata. “La sua specialità è la pasta,” she proclaimed early on, “fatto por me”. In other words, don’t bother eating anything but pasta, which I make with my own bare hands. We followed her instructions to the T and found that this was one tyranny worth succumbing to; silky tagliatelle with asparagus and pancetta, carefully crafted tortellini in brodo, artful tortelloni filled with ragú, and, perhaps most delicious of all, ricotta-filled tortelloni generously topped with black truffle. Dessert? The creamiest mascarpone, fatto por Manuela. After-dinner drink? A potent coffee-rum liqueur, fatto por Manuela. If there’s one lesson we learned in all of this, it is that the key to unlocking Carlos’ culinary potential lies somewhere deep within the heart of Manuela’s kitchen.
And just like that, in the same way that the glorious months of summer always seem to pass too quickly, our tour of Italy came and went. All that is left is a couple bags of Pici, a few hundred megabytes of photos, and renewed hopes for a future apprenticeship with a Manuela-style nonna.
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