Italy Journal
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Sagra dei Peperoni (Pepper Festival) in Carmagnola
We have been looking forward to meeting Luca Immobilaire’s (real estate agent) girlfriend Lisa’s cousin Andy from Boston, and today the details were finalized. In the evening, we drove to nearby Carmagnola, where Lisa and her family live. There, we found Jezebel (GPS) useless. Many of the streets were blocked off, and Jezebel left us in a tizzy. Finally, we found the Queen Café but no parking available in sight, so Peter dropped me off with Luca and Lisa and went to park somewhere.
It had been rainy off and on all day, so it was a cool evening. We stayed at an outside table for aperitivo. Peter finally arrived from the parking space search, and they introduced us to Andy, who is not 17 like I had assumed. He owns his own business in Boston and has visited family in Carmagnola about 18 times. He has learned to speak Italian over the years, and throughout the evening many people came up and greeted him like long lost friends. He is obviously considered one of the locals by the locals, and he enjoys that privilege. He is a very gregarious man, and we thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him throughout the evening.
We learned that the café is owned by Lisa’s family; and we were so pleased that her mother, father and aunt were there. They seemed to appreciate the conversation we had with them about how much we love their daughter/niece. Lisa’s aunt, the doctor, was immediately curious about my cast and started giving me suggestions about exercises and massage to do to make that arm strong again. It must be nice to have a medical doctor in the family!!! (Right, Nick?) It certainly was helpful to me.
When we left the café, we discovered why so many of the streets were blocked. Four of the large squares of the small town were filled with Pepperoni Festival items. Fortunately, one of those squares had a huge tent covering more than 60 tables with chairs. At different times throughout the evening, an orchestra played, and dancing broke out under the tent. In addition, outlining that square were food booths, where we purchased tasting plates of pepper sandwiches, pepper pizza, and many more foods, which included the stars of the festival – bell peppers! We enjoyed our endless tapas dishes with Super beer, which happened to be the only beer I have ever liked. Amazing! Then, we found that one of the food stands was from Agrigelateria, a place that some of the students in Peter’s cohort had mentioned to us. Why not? We had their gelato for dessert, even though it was raining again and cold by then. We hope to visit their production location sometime soon.
It was a bellissimo evening, and Lisa sent us off with an invitation to return one evening before Andy leaves for Boston to have dinner in the restaurant above the Queen Café. We hope we can work that out. We really enjoy being with Luca, Lisa and Andy.
Love to all of you!
Colleen
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