1.9 WAY too long between posts! I’m so behind.

Saturday I took Mamma down to Salsomaggiore for the first time. We went over to one of the bancomats to get cash, but when we asked it for 250E it said “contact your bank.” What? So annoying. Turns out her bank is convinced that if you need money and are abroad all at the same time you must be running some sort of scam, so they won’t let her take more than 200E ($250) a day. I like my bank better – they let me take up to $2000 a day (which is the only way I managed to pay for my car!). We walked through the main part of town through the public park and up to “I Marziani” (The Martians!) to see about getting another grounded computer adapter. Success! The lady at the cash register asked if Mamma were my grandmother (erk) and I thought she asked is she THE grandmother, which of course she is, so I said yes (another erk, oh well). However, the lady then proceeded to tell me, “You must hope that you are as beautiful as your grandmother when you are so old.” I wanted to get a cast iron skillet too, but they only had fancy French ones for $75. I will continue the hunt.

We went to the grocery store and got lovely steaks for dinner (I NEVER spend this for steaks at home, but $12/lb is the minimum they cost here, ack) and Mamma wanted to get wine. I don’t drink it. I don’t appreciate it, and I don’t care for the ones that pair better with food. Give me a sparkly moscato and really, I’m happy. But she wanted something I would drink. There was a white wine right in front of me that was secco. Meh. But next to it was the same brand, another white, on this this one was “amabile.” Amiable. Ok, I’m in – I want to know what “amiable” wine is like! (I have no idea what the cut was of the steaks, but they were AMAZING. Still haven’t cracked the amiable wine.)

A note on food generally: The Italians eat much less junk than we do, mostly because there’s not that much junk in the store to get. At home they say “stay to the outside of the store” because the prepared stuff is all in the aisles. There’s about one full aisle of prepared stuff in any of the grocery stores we go to. Now, admittedly, the grocery stores here are significantly smaller than at home. “Supermarket” is any market having a square footage between 2000 and 25000 sq ft. That’s a lot of leeway for what constitutes a SUPER market. The IperCoop (HyperCoop), or anything calling itself a “hypermarket” has to be more than 250000 sf. They have more junk. But turns out, not a ton more. The Italians just don’t do prepared food. Frozen premade pizza dough? Absolutely. Frozen premade pizzas? Yeah, but literally like 3 brands with 2 kinds apiece. Dried pasta? Barilla is after all locally made, so yes, tons. Premade pasta dishes (chef boyardee type stuff): haven’t seen any yet. Closest I’ve found is a can of couscous and tuna salad. The Italians eat a lot of tuna, so premade tuna salads turn up. But seriously, that’s about it. Premade spaghetti sauce comes in pomodoro (plain tomato), basilico, and bolognese (with ground beef already in it). Put your own damn mushrooms in it! It means a lot more cooking, but we’re also eating MUCH better food. And once a week I go to the panificio and get fresh bread, focaccia, pasta and gnocchi. Fresh stuff is better than packaged crap. Who knew.

When we got home that afternoon it was time to get ready for the wedding. Federica Berzieri, daughter of the local landowner (apparently nearly everything I can see from my patio belongs to his family) was getting married, and because Besozzola’s church is still a church – Berzieri’s is short and squat and has been converted to a little town office building (yes, their town is in fact their town J ) – they were having it here. I had to move my car so they could use my space (I park next to the church) to set up the reception tent. I helped set up the tent for a bit (turns out I have experience putting up PVC pipe pavilions J ) and chatted with the various cousins who were doing the work. I asked one of them, “Would it be ok if we came and watched the wedding?”

He gave me a somewhat blank look. “A wedding is a village festival. You live in the village.” Another cousin came to the rescue. “She is American, she does not know. Of course we wish you to come, and to the reception too.”

So we got kinda dressed up (it was pouring rain at 4:30, though it was down to misty by 4:50, and opinions were divided on how much to dress – the actual wedding guests ranged from cocktail dresses and tuxes down to jeans and sweaters) and went over to wait for the bride and groom to arrive. A few minutes before 5 a very fancy car pulled up, bringing what I can only describe as An Event swathed in vast amounts of while muslin and tulle, with her face completely covered with an enormous tulle veil. When she got out of the car it immediately became obvious that this was a joke – one of the groom’s friends “elegantly” dressed – as the crowd started chanting “Kiss her! Kiss her!” The fancy car drove away and returned about 15 minutes later with the real bride, interestingly, NOT wearing white, but a deep rose ballgown with silk flowers all over it, and no veil at all.

The church is tiny and was packed to the rafters with family and people who actually knew them, so we didn’t go to the mass, but hung out with the rest of the hangers-on outside, drinking prosecco and eating parmesan. We Americans don’t really think of just hacking hunks of parmesan to eat off a great huge wheel of the stuff. But when you’ve got amazing locally-made parmesan (the caseificio, cheese factory, this wheel came from is visible across the valley), it’s definitely time to indulge.

Once everyone came out, I found the father of the bride and introduced myself, and said as best I could, congratulations, she is lovely, thank you for letting us come. He enjoined me to eat more cheese and drink more prosecco. And as he is the local “principe” I figured that was pretty much an order, so far be it from ME….