Italy - Family Style

According to my sister Carrie's Ancestry.com DNA results, we are 22% Western European. Mostly French and Italian. I should have beautiful olive skin that tans quickly and effortlessly. I, however, take after the one British sod who weaseled his way into my genetic inheritance and will forever have skin that is a slight hue of purple. My Italian side is paternal. I have dozens of cousins still living in Italy. One is quite famous, or was quite famous. He will remain nameless so that my sister, Michal, doesn't drop dead from embarrassment as you read this. We, Michal and I, once picked up two hitchhikers in Yosemite. They were from Italy. I was quick to ask if they had heard of our cousin and he was like "are you kidding me...it's like telling me you're Brad Pitt's cousin". He was so proud to take a photo of us. Michal was mortified. Anyway, our cousin was a goalie. He was one of the top ten greatest goalies of his time. If he weren't my cousin, or if I lived in Alabama, I would have asked him to marry me. Moving on.

My great grandmother was born in Valdastico, Italy. She married my great grandfather and moved to America without ever seeing him. They made a home and business in Chicago before moving to the Los Angeles area. My great grandfather also had a side business, bootlegging. After his new wife arrived to the United States he put her on a train, while he drove, back to Illinois. He was subsequently pulled over, arrested and jailed for having illegal booze in his vehicle. For some reason I am very proud of this fact, that he was a bootlegger. It speaks to his character: bold, adventurous, fearless, daring. He also hopped trains, which is how he found California, where he would raise his three kids, one being my grandmother. My grandmother had four kids, one being my father. My great grandmother's brother had children (I think 11 or 12), one being a son and the father of the 7 men you see in the photo above. (They had a total of 9 kids, two have died within the past three years.) So, if you are still with me, I am pictured above with my third cousins: from left to right: Luigi, Antonio, Adriano, Valerio, Eugidio, Lorenso and Giorgio. Luigi lives in Venezuela and I am extremely lucky to have been in Italy (both times!) while he was here.

It's been 19 years since I've seen my cousins and Jason asks if I think they'll recognize me. I'm not sure they will, I'm less swollen than the last time. I recognize Giorgio and Ghislaine instantly from our train window. I run to Giorgio and he embraces me in a warm, welcoming hug. I do the same to Ghislaine, we don't stop smiling for a long time. After lunch and a quick tour of Vicenza we arrive to Valdastico. Not much has changed in 19 years, except for the addition of a good sized grocery store. Valdastico is a very small town in the valley of grand, lush, rolling mountains. It's beautiful, quiet and highly supportive of the afternoon nap. Giorgio lives in the home that they grew up in. Each of the 9 kids built a home here. A typical day for us in Valdastico: wake up at 8:00, have a breakfast of bread, butter and home made currant jam (with currants from the garden), tea for me and espresso with milk for Jason. Then we'd linger from house to house, looking at pictures, listening to them talk and gather up whatever we could put together, which, thanks to Italians talking with their hands and arms, was enough to get the gist. We smiled a lot.

Giorgio is the only one who speaks English in the group of 7. Ghislaine is able to understand and speak some and impressed us with her comments, questions and responses. Giorgio is also the driver, and a phenomenal gardner (more on the fruits of his labor later). Our first full day in Valdastico was spent driving through the picturesque mountains. First stop the Austrian-Hungarian fort looking across the mountain to the Italian fort, with Valdastico in the valley far below. Prior to WWII the Austrian border was about 1/4 mile from my family's home. It is marked with a photo (Giorgio's father is in it), a rock, a bridge and a flag.

Italy is about family, traditions and eating. Lucky me, I am related to some amazing cooks. I'll just list some of the incredible things we got to eat:

Fresh from the garden: green bean salad, zucchini risotto, pesto, tomatoes, cabbage salad. Giorgio has two flourishing gardens, one at their main house in Vicenza and the other in Valdastico. Everyday we were eating at least one thing from the garden. Valerio also has an impressive garden with plentiful zucchini blossoms. We didn't eat these, but any chef would be envious.

One of my absolute favorite meals of the trip so far was an off the beaten path farm/restaurant on the top of a hill. You'd never know this place existed and is only known by word of mouth. The animals, land and structure are community owned. For three months in the summer a family of a mother (she's a nurse and her employer gives her this time off), father, daughter and son (they live near Asiago, Italy) run the farm, making fresh homemade cheeses and salami's. These were the happiest cows and pigs I have ever seen, also the most robust utters I have ever seen.

The view from the secret restaurant

You arrive up a dirt road to a two-story building (pictures in the photo section of blog), you'd never even know anyone was there, let alone a restaurant. The structure is completely off the grid, the dining room is heated by a wood stove. There are no menus, no fancy decor, but once you walk through the front door you know it's a place you want to be. Everyone gets the same thing here: one large platter of salami, cheese and polenta.

The polenta is cooked to creamy perfection then grilled, I'm assuming over a wood grill, and served still piping hot. The salami is tender, delicate and robust in a way I did not know salami could be. There are two cheeses: one, very similar to an asiago and the other, a softer, creamier cheese similar to a jack cheese, but so much better. We just don't have cheese like this in the States. It's heaven, and made on site by the milk from the cows lingering just outside the front door. We have a refreshing, sweet red wine and complete the meal with espresso.

One my my most cherished activities - making gnocchi with Antoinette, she is the best cook in the family. Gnocchi is a process, but so worth the effort. We arrived once the potatoes had been boiled, riced and cooled.

I kneaded the potato, egg, flour and nutmeg mixture until she approved of the consistency, then broke of clumps, rolling them into long "worms", cut to size and then rolled off a fork or gnocchi board. This took some practice for me. We had gnocchi with pesto and then gnocchi with gorgonzola cream sauce. I ate until I was in pain.

I met dozens of cousins, young, old and somewhere in between. I fell in love with them all. I cried when we left, twice.

Giorgio insisted that we go to Bolzano and stay with my cousin Roberto and his family. In '97, I passed through Bolzano on my way to Salzburg from Valdastico and Roberto's parents stood on the train platform to wave to me. That memory continues to make me smile. He has three amazingly beautiful, sweet, intelligent, kind young adult children and the most welcoming, happy wife. We laughed, talked and ate into the early hours of night (pizza, green beans, tomato salad and gelato).

We toured the city and absolutely fell in love with the place, the backdrop of mountains, including the Dolomites, vineyards, fruit orchards, lakes, rivers, green space, fresh air and happy people. If we move to Italy, it will be to Bolzano. It will also be so that we can be closer to Roberto and his incredible family. They are some of the coolest people I have ever met.

We went to see Oetzi (Google him) and weren't disappointed.

Oetzi

We walked all through town, enjoying some fresh berries at the street market. And delicious Italian chocolates from the candy store.

And enjoyed the amazing views of the Dolomites.

Roberto and Antonella met us at the train station with our bags and invited us back, anytime. Little do they know that we will ask to move in with them, in about a year or two.