Nona Maria

No news is good news, as they say. Nothing too exciting has happened recently, but I thought I'd break the radio silence and let you all know that we are well. Well and overfed. We've been helping out in the vineyards of our host's neighbor, Maria. The work is fairly easy. Our only task is to fill up a large cart with grapes each day, something which can be accomplished in as little as four hours. This cart is then taken to a local cooperative, where the grapes are sold. I believe that the fields are planted entirely with Barbera grapes, which are generally used to make table wines and in blends with other stronger tasting grapes. With lunch each day we've been provided with two bottles of their homemade wine. It's not fantastic, but it goes well with the food.

Ah, the food. Italian farmers eat huge lunches and in return for helping with the harvest, Nona Maria has been feeding us lunch. Eating lunch wears me out. I'm not tired when we break for lunch, but afterward, it is all I can do to stagger back to my bed and pass out for an hour. Lunch includes, but is not limited to, salami, a pasta course, a meat course, a vegetable and side dish course, a cheese course, dessert, coffee and a shot of limoncello. By itself, this would be a tremendous endeavor, but Nona Maria is there the whole time insisting that we consume ever larger quantities of food. We've become quite adept at using the word "basta" (enough), but it seems to only marginally reduce the amount of food she puts on our plates.

Luckily, today we have a break from Maria's kitchen. We're hanging around Il Cuccio doing yard work and gardening. Lunch today was reasonably small and I'm spending my siesta time writing this update instead of lying in a food induced coma. Tomorrow evening Maria has promised to get the brick oven fired up to make pizzas. She says there will be 20 different kinds of pizza and there is no doubt in my mind that she is underestimating by at least 10. But in the morning, I think we will all be venturing out to Asti. The Saturday morning market will be fun and also that amazing gelateria near the train station needs to be visited again.

Ciao a tutti.