We clean up and make our way to Elda’s so that we arrive at 12:30pm. We find Maria Giulia sunning herself on the balcony. She’s not staying for lunch but just soaking up the sun. We join Elda in the dining room where it’s cool and comfortable. She and Cinzia have no problem talking in Italian. Elda has a good handle on which words Cinzia understand and she speaks slowly. I can even understand most of their conversation and chime in with a joke or question from time to time.
Lunch is served. The first course is homemade pasta that she rolled out and cut this morning. They’re a bit thicker than tagliatelle and served with a simple tomato and pork sauce tossed with some cheese. Once the pasta is eaten the bowl of pork and sauce arrives. The meat is always served after the pasta and never on top like in America. After this, she brings out freshly baked little prosciutto and cheese biscuits made with Parmigiano, pecorino, and gruyere cheese. They’re simple and delicious. Cinzia and I happily devour them. We finish with some sweets from the bettolaccia. Cinzia and I share one of the hazelnut and Nutella tarts which look to have been made in a cupcake mold. Very dense and just another way Italians have found to get Nutella into their pie-holes.
Conversation centers around the same topic that Italians always discuss during their meals – food. Food they’ve eaten. Food they’ve made. Food they’re going to eat. Cinzia has several photos on her phone that she shows Elda. Elda makes a wonderful Italian plum jam. We have her recipe, but not the steps. Cinzia makes fig jam, blueberry jam, and others at home, so the steps are all the same. For some reason we’ve made Elda’s plum jam recipe twice but it’s not the same, so we press her for the steps. First, pit and cut the plums into pieces (tinier pieces will produce smoother jam), toss with sugar, and leave covered to macerate for 24 hours. Then transfer to a large pot and work the mixture with an immersion blender until smooth. Simmer for 2-3 hours, then cover and let sit for another 24 hours. Finally, cook down the jam to the desired consistency before putting the final product in jars. We’ll be sure to follow these steps next year during Italian prune plum season (late July to early August).
We headed back to our place at 2:20pm to rest before the evening’s activities. Tonight there would be an evening of live music. A soprano, pianist, and flutist, would perform a concert in the piazzetta accompanied by a chorus of more than 20 – many from Torre Orsina. Yes, they preformed the theme from Il Padrino (The Godfather) among the dozen or so pieces. Cinzia enjoyed the performance while sipping a flute of prosecco. One of the songs, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, brought her to tears.
After the concert, Maria Giulia wanted to play a game of burraco – what else is new – and I was happy to oblige. She lost the last 2 hands without ever laying down a single card. We walked to the bettolaccia around midnight where we picked up a few individual size cherry crostata for €1 each. Maria Giulia ate hers while I carried my four up the hill to eat for breakfast the next day. This walk up and down the hill is burning a lot of calories, but I think that the crostate are winning, and my pancetta seems to agree.