Food, wine and culture

We had our first meal at Bernardo’s, one of the kids’ favorites. Bernardo’s is a family
owned place where everyone feels like family. Ana and Noah and their friends eat their regularly and when they come in they know which wine they will order. We will never think of pizza the same again. Here it comes with a very thin crust, little or no tomato sauce and a wide variety of toppings including vegetables, salciccia, fresh or cured, proscuitto or panchetta. They even have one that is called an American that has french fries on top. Haven’t tried that one yet. Appetizers come as a plate of cheeses and meats, olives, and other antipastas. The house wines come in glass pitchers. A litre of vino rossi (red wine) is 6 euro. It is a dry, full bodied,very tasty wine. They also have vino blanco (white wine) that is also very good. It is generally more dry than most American whites and we have enjoyed that as well.
Sardegna has many wineries and each of the wines that we have sampled from them are excellant. A couple of our favorites so far are Dolia’s Monica diSardegna from Dolianova,Italy and Tanca Farra by Sella Mosca and Cannonau both from wineries in Alghero. Gambino wines are grown in volcanic soil on Mt Etna and are smooth, full bodied wines with both red and white varieties that we have savored.
When you go to a ristorante here, they expect you to stay for awhile. Some restaurants charge a sitting fee of about 2 euro, but then the table is yours for the night. There is no rushing of your orders, food and pressure about who needs that table next. The general pace of the daily living activities of the culture are more leisurely than ours. Food comes out when it is done and you may get a main course before the appetizer. If my food comes out before yours, then I eat when mine is there and you eat when yours comes out. After dinner at Bernardo’s a glass of lemon crème is served. It is a lemoncello based appertif that his wife, Pasquelina makes. When we were leaving the first night she also had us taste the cappuccino crème and the papaya crème. All are made with fresh fruits or other ingredients and grain alcohol. These drinks are served to help settle your meal.
There is another after dinner drink that is native to Sardengna. The Mirto berry grows wild here and is made into an appertif that is dual purposed…flavor and to help digest the food.
We went back to Bernardo’s the day after Xmas for lunch and when Ana walked in and asked if they were open, they said “ for you, yes” The plan was to give their friends Jenny and Cassie a taste of Italian pizza, but alas, they don’t make pizza for lunch. The pizzas are cooked in a wood oven that takes awhile to get and keep hot, so they don’t keep it going all day. Alas, we had to order from their leftover Christmas dinner and whatever else we wanted. Ernie had the last serving of lasagna and he said it was the best he’d ever had. Again, there was very little tomato sauce, not as much filling, but it was very flavorful and rich with cheeses.
Lemons, oranges and limes grow wild on trees on the island and are very fresh, the tomatoes are very rich with flavor. Food is more subtly spiced yet a delight to the taste buds. Perhaps like so many other things we do in the US, we’ve gotten used to the more is better theory for food seasoning as well.
We bought fresh gnocchi, ravioli, Genovese pesto and fresh produce for a salad at the SuperMercati(supermarket) for Xmas dinner. We left the pannetina with two loaves of foccacia, four loaves of rustica and two others for about 6 euro. We made a stop at the open market in town for clams and a butcher shop for more salsiccia(sausage). In the open market there is a meat market that has whole pig legs hanging, along with a boar’s head and a boar’s leg with the fur still on it. Ana knows enough Italian to order and get us by. The conversations of the Italians are fast and intense with feeling and expression. The passionate energy of their exchanges are in stark contrast to many of our more staid conversations. It is not unusual to see men in spirited conversation sitting with their caffe or wine or walking down the street. Women are often arm in arm as they walk along the piazza talking as they go.
Fashions here vary from the most contemporary to traditional. Generally they dress up more than the Americans, though you see lots of jeans but with high heeled, pointed toe boots on the women instead of more casual shoes. Most of the young people look like ours with the baggy jeans and sweatshirts for the guys and short skirts and skimpy tops for the girls.
The one area where the passion and aggression is very evident is in the driving. Everything that you might have heard about the crazy Italian drivers is true…and Ana has become one. You really have to to survive. The roads are very narrow, even in the countryside. As you can see from the picture of a street in Tempio, it is amazing that cars fit through the narrow cobblestone streets in the towns and the cars seems to go at two speeds….fast and braked. I have to wonder how long brakes last here as they are used often and hard.
Ernie and I just returned from another walk to the beach. After treasure hunting in the sand, I found a rock that was the perfect recliner to allow me to watch the clouds and seagulls fly around, see a sailboat as it cruised the opposite shore and breathe and breathe again and enjoy the sea.