The Road to Rome: Bourguignon

Yesterday, Saturday, was a good day. I got to sleep in, which was wonderful. I woke up at about 9, took my time getting dressed, and went to check the Mass schedule at the church in Crenna. I got to the church at 10, and the next Mass started at 11, so I went home, had breakfast, and did some laundry. I ended up leaving the house at about 3 to 11, so I got to Mass a few minutes late. I thought I wouldn't have any problem getting a seat, considering it was a Holy Day of Obligation, and not many Italians go to Mass regularly anyway, but I was wrong! The church was packed. I ended up sitting on the floor, in one of the little side chapels. I didn't have any idea what was going on for most of the Mass, considering I couldn't see, and things were too echo-y to understand. I do know that 3 babies got baptized. After Mass, I walked straight into centro (the center of my town will now be referred to as "centro") to meet Mari for lunch. Mari and I were supposed to meet at 1, and I got there at 12:30, so I sat in the piazza and enjoyed the blue sky. We haven't had blue sky for a very, very long time. I had almost forgotten what the sky looked like without clouds. Anyway, Mari got to centro, locked her bike up, and we started looking for a place to eat. Mari lives in Gallarate, so she knows all the places, but we couldn't decide between pizza and piadina. Piadine are essentially grilled wraps. We decided on piadine, and I followed her into a little bar/restaurant.

It took us a long time to decide on what to get, because all the piadine looked so good! I ended up getting "speck brie salsa rosa" and she got "cotto brie e salsa rosa" Brie is the kind of cheese, salsa rosa the sauce, and speck and cotto are kinds of meat. Cotto is a kind of prosciutto, it's cooked. Prosciutto crudo is raw, as is speck. Speck has kind of a smokey flavor, but Mari told me it isn't smoked meat. My piadina was really delicious, and Mari and I had a nice conversation. We talked about school, and I tried to describe what Spirit week is like. I don't think I did a very good job explaining, although Mari was impressed that Seniors get to wear togas to school. We were both kind of sleepy, probably because the restaurant was dark, so we decided to go for a walk around the piazza. The day had started of warm and sunny, but when we went out of the restaurant, we were met by strong, cold winds. Mari suggested we get crepes, so we walked to a little geleteria. Silly me, I got gelato in my crepe. Gelato and cold, strong winds do not go well together. I ate the crepe, and Mari and I continued talking about school. After a bit, though, we were both very cold, and Mari's boyfriend was coming to pick her up, so I walked home.

When I got home, I watched a bit of TV with my little sister, and layed out my laundry to dry. Later that evening, my host mother, father, little sister, and I took my older sister to the train station, so she could go home to Milano. After dropping her off, we went to look at ski goggles for my little host sister. My host mom bought me gloves for when we go to the mountains, and my little sister got a whole new ski suit. We came home, and my host mom told me we were having guests for dinner.

Dinner was quite an affair. It was called "Bourguignon", and essentially, it was fondue. Only instead of dipping marshmellows in melted chocolate, we dipped raw meat into really hot oil. We all enjoyed frying our own little pieces of meat, especially Bea and Gioia. There was also a variety of sauces to dip the cooked meat in, which added to the fun.

In Italy, they don't cooke meat to be well done. Ever. Mostly everyone eats their meat "al sangue" which translates literally to "bloody." Even I have come to prefer eating bloody meat over something thats been cooked properly. My dad would be proud of me!

Gioia's parents brought dessert. They picked up 2 cakes from a bakery, and they were delicious. The square cake was some kind of creamy lemony thing with rasperry in the middle, and the round one was light, shortbread flavored cake, with whipped cream, regular cream, and frutta di bosco (refers to strawberries, rasperries, and blueberries. A bosco is a "patch" as in "strawberry patch") My host mom usually tries to put seconds on my plate at dinner, or make me finish the rest. This time, when she asked me to finish the rest of the cake, I didn't complain.