Sparkling Day!

It Journal

June 9, 2012

The day started early, and the painter Lino actually arrived at 8AM, as he said he would! Brenda, Heidi and I left mid morning for a lovely time at the artisan street market in Dogliani. Peach and strawberry juice, sausages and nociolla sweets were our special finds. Then, we took a long walk beside the river there to get a little exercise. It was a lovely, not too hot day, and I had not ever been anywhere in Dogliani except the street market, so it was a fun time to see a little more of the sweet little town.

After another yummy lunch of leftover pizza and roasted veggies at home in Bra, Brenda and I drove out to the Big Store to deliver some of Peter’s dry cleaning, pick up some more clean clothes and get a few things from the store. We barely got back in time (we knew we shouldn’t have stopped for gelato!!!) to leave again for our sparkling wine tasting date at  the Contratto Vineyard in Canelli with Swiss Emanuel and his sister Barbara, whom he lovingly called Barbly. It was another great day of learning all about the history of this stunning, wonderful facility, and everybody took home some bottles of the wines. These wines are sold in the US, and the one I liked best was Millesimato. Peter’s favorite, though, was  La Spinetta Barolo. We really enjoyed our time there with a great guide, and we’d love to take some of Peter’s cohort students there soon. I think they’d really love both of the places we have visited this weekend.

Peter stopped at Eataly on the way back home and picked up plenty of milk and yogurt so that I can make biscuits for the school group when we take our lunch there on Tuesday. Several of the students have had birthdays in the last few weeks, so this is a great opportunity for me to treat everyone. Maya Brazil said she would plan on staying at the school to have lunch with us Tuesday. She is the only one who actually lives in Pollenzo, so she usually goes to her apartment for lunch and a siesta. That’ll be really nice if she will join us.

We’d had cheese and bread sticks with our tastings, and we didn’t think we were hungry, but the more Peter talked about the gnocci with pesto he was thinking of putting with some more of his fresh roasted vegetables, the more we thought we might be able to eat a little more. It was scrumptious, as we knew it would be.

At my suggestion, the rest went out for a walk and gelato while I cleaned up the kitchen, and  later I got to Skype with Cati, Arne and Harldur for a few minutes before Harldur took his nap. He sang some wonderful songs for us from the latest surprise I sent him from Italy…a music cd. Cati told me Harldur went to the dentist for the first time this week, and everything was just fine with his teeth. He did great at his first dental appointment, as I knew he would. She also said that Hugo has decided to skip crawling and is pulling himself up all the time now. They are sure that he is going to take off walking any day now! The boy is just 6 months old, so…”we’ll see!.” He’s a pretty strong guy, though. I was also glad to hear that Cati had submitted a professional article for publication last week. She said it was the first one she has submitted for publication since she graduated. I didn’t get a chance to ask her if it is the article she plans to present at the Boston conference in September (on her way to Atlanta for Kyle/Victoria’s wedding).

I hope all is well with everyone.  As you can see, we are fine here!

Love to all, Colleen