Pizza weekend!

 20.10 Francesco and Emanuele fired up pizza oven tonight, so I hung out there till about 10. The girls were invited, but there aren’t any other kids over there, and they get tired of listening to a lot of Italian they don’t understand, so they were content to let me bring them a couple pieces of pizza and stayed home. Francesco’s brother Alberto and his fiancee Cinzia, momndad Eva and Maurizio, and friend Anna, who lives near Florence, with her boyfriend Paolo, were all in attendance, so lots of new people to talk to. Anna has invited us to stay with her when we go to Firenze again. She lives about 30 minutes out of town but says the bus goes right by her house so it’s easy to get into town. She was a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to seeing her again. Must ask Francesco what kind of sausages his mother brought – they were YUM.

21.10 Festa d’Otonno in Pellegrino – complete with a bouncy house! Bought some flea market books for girls to work on – a Mickey Mouse graphic novel, the Italian translation of the Disney adaption of the Sword in the Stone (Whew! Say THAT three times fast), a book about animals who build their own houses, a Pooh story, and a Richard Scarry story. Elise didn’t feel well and stayed home. While Ro played with the big kids in the bouncy house, I bought jewelry and discovered crema di marrone, chestnut cream. The lady making the crepes was kind enough to impart the recipe: 2 parts marrone from grocery store (apparently comes in a bottle) 1 part mascarpone, and choc chips. Basically the insides of cannoli, only better. Use for crepes, frosting for cakes or cooking, or frankly eat with spoon.

As we were coming home from the festa we ran into Emanuele – more pizza! And a gerzillion people! Francesco’s birthday is this week, so it was effectively his birthday party. Didn’t get to actually meet fully half the people there, but I did chat with another Angela, another Cinzia and her husband Corrado, and got to hang out with Stefania and Federica and Gianluca for a bit (inasmuch as anyone ever hangs out with Gianluca, who seems a pleasant enough, if somewhat antisocial, sort. Federica more than makes up for him!). Emanuele bought a bottle of fragolino for me to taste – strawberry and grape liqueur. Very satisfactory. Took a little margherita and focaccia home, and got Rose a small swish of zucchero filato (cotton candy). Sat up WAY too late talking to Eric Rapp, and remembered that as miserable as working at Paramount was, some very good people came into my life as a result. Even when life was sucky there were some amazingly good times. Eric also did me the supreme disservice of introducing me to David Foster Wallace via the review of Garner’s Dictionary. I remember seeing on Slate that he had committed suicide, and frankly not thinking much of it. I had, after all, never heard of the man. But it turns out he and his family are responsible for this little gem:

When idiots in this world appear
And fail to be concise or clear
And solecisms rend the ear
The cry goes up both far and near
For Blunder Dog
Blunder Dog!

 Oh David Foster Wallace, I didn't even KNOW I would miss you. Now I have to find his books and read them. I’m told they’re on the dense side, but at least from the dictionary review and from “Consider the Lobster,” this was a man after my own heart.