What Dreams May Come

Sunflower fields can be planted only every other year. They need a year to rest before producing those mesmerizing giants of the floral world. This summer is sunflower year in Abruzzo. As I make my way down the farm road leading west out of town, the fields change depending on the direction for which I view them. They are like thick velvet when you run your hands over it - as you change the nap, the color trans forms. So it is with the fields. As you move along they transform from green to hazy yellow to bright gold. Above is the wide wale corduroy of a newly cut hayfield, it's neat rows gracefully following the curves of the hill upon which they rest. Deep into the journey, the sun begins  its descent. It seems not to set,but to dip towards the earth, kissing those golden blooms on their brown little faces. The new grown hay switches over to iridescent green. Olive trees, always shining, take on an even brighter silvery sheen.

Sunday, during a duluvial rainstorm that kept three women penned up in my kitchen with no food and just a bottle of wine, I listened to a young woman, timid since her arrival here one week prior, open up about her fears and frustrations. About job, marriage, career. About her imagined life versus her "real" one. From underneath a reserved surface there emerged coals ready to ignite. As if while she was here she had allowed herself to lift the cover smothering the latent flame and permit it air to feed itself. She said she wanted to return. I was not surprised. I've seen it happen before. Part of the magic of this place - Castiglione M.R. specifically and Abruzzo in general, is the way it opens a window into your desires. What you would do and be if you didn't think you had to do or be something or someone else. Something about this place loosens the locks that keep a lid on those desires. It propels you forward into "Yes, and...." mode. It grants permission not only to dream but to consider the dream reality. What is it? Is it the expansiveness of the landscape? The openness of the people, who don't hesitate to touch you or hug you while you talk with them. The way they throw their arms wide as they approach an old friend, arms extended straight out to their sides, closing only when the friend can be folded inside them? Is it the way people's voices travel unhindered from balcony to street, from doorway to shop entrance? Is it the way music echoes from one town's patron saint celebration all the way across the valley to your own little terrazzo? Is it the way the mountains play hide and seek daily, now you see them in the morning, now you don't behind the clouds in the afternoon, so coy and mysterious and existing completely on their own terms? Do they simultaneously remind us of our own power to exist that way and how small we are? So we' d better get moving and take control over our own existence. Whatever the reason, this place has a tendency to open you to aspirations you've kept buried or pressed down. Maybe it has to do with seeing, day after day, the old women walk slowly, pausing often to catch their breath or adjust their posture to ease the pain in their backs, legs, hips, shoulders, as they steadily make their way to church or market or garden plot. Moving, moving, moving towards their goal no matter what. I am glad I have this place that can be a viewing stand in the midst of it all. A vantage from which to safely open yourself to your dreams and perhaps begin to move them into,the tangible realm.

Spoiled by the Unspoiled

It is difficult to chip away at a to-do list here. Each time I go out, I am diverted. Fiorina invites me to go for coffee. Arrigo wants to show me the best place to have lunch. A nameless woman asks me to do her  a favor: she is decorating the church for a wedding the following day. Could I pop in after mass and let her know that everything is in order? When I tell her I am happy to help, she runs inside the church and returns with five long-stemmed white roses. A gift for helping out. "Be careful of the thorns" she cautions as she gently lays the beauties in my arms.

Mr. Toto's Apricots

Today I had to go to our little "mercato" for bread, milk, and some fresh ricotta cheese. I love to have it for breakfast drizzled with chestnut honey. As I walked down the cobbled road on the west side of town, the first thing to distract me was the view of the Gran Sasso Mountains. They were in full view today, standing out in vibrant contrast against a blue sky. It was good to see them after several days of rain and threatening skies. The second tangent to keep me from going directly to the market was Mr. Toto'. Mr. Toto' is the man from whom I bought Casa da Carmine. He always waylays me with conversation or an invitation to his house to have a snack with him and his wife or an insistence that I go get a coffee with him. Today, as I approached him, he noticed me coming and threw his hands in the air. "Vieni qui!" He shouted. "Come here!" I did as he asked and when I reached him he asked if I had a plastic bag. The door to his car was open, so I thought he was cleaning up the trash in it. I said I was sorry, but I didn't have a bag. At which point, he produced a bulging sack of apricots. He pulled one out and tore it in half. "Taste!" he said. Mr. Toto' has a way of saying something as a command. I popped half of the fleshy fruit into my mouth and my eyes widened. It was warm and sweet and as soft and juicy as anything I'd ever eaten. More so. Mr. Toto' looked very satisfied. He had just driven back from his country house, where he had picked the fruit just an hour before. "No chemicals, no fertilizers, they are just as nature intended!" Then he ducked into his garage, found a plastic bag, and filled it with about a pound of the luscious fruit. I thanked him and started to walk away, but he called me back. The other half of the sample apricot was sitting on the roof of the car. "Eat this, too!" Toto' said. What could I do? I obeyed his command.

The Gran Sasso Mountains as seen from Casa da Carmine, and on the way to market

I love being distracted by good food. And there is plenty here. You can't find everything and anything. Only the things in season. Right now peaches, apricots, and cherries are in season. And figs! I love fresh figs, but they are nearly non-existent where I live in the US. So when they are in season here, I get really excited. I walked into Donatella's Ortofrutta the other day to see them lying in a basket, plump and bright purple and green. Donatella clapped her hands when she saw me, knowing how much I'd anticipated them. Donatella is perennially cheerful and enthusiastic. Her round face accommodates a ready smile. She has the tight, corkscrewing curls that remind us of our north African connection, starting at least as early as Antony and Cleopatra and probably before. She never tires of listening to me tell her stories in my halting and imperfect Italian. The day the figs came in, it was about how my grandfather used to tend his fig tree in the inhospitable winter environment of central New Jersey. How he would stuff newspapers among the branches and then wrap it in burlap so it wouldn't freeze. And how I would be the first to pull a fruit off of it in the summer, popping it immediately into my mouth. Donatella apologizes. She laughs her jolly laugh. "These aren't very fresh, " she confesses. "The truth is, I forgot to bring them here after I picked them this morning. Come back tomorrow morning and you can have fresh ones." I buy what she has - three large, teardrop-shaped pillows. They cost one euro. I promise her I'll be back in the morning for the more "fresh" ones. Then I skip back to my house, but not before being distracted once again by the mountains.

Oh - zucchini is in season now, too! Moist and sweet. Yes, zucchini can have flavor! Here's a quick, simple recipe to try with yours. Make sure they're fresh from the garden! Donatella wouldn't have it any other way!

Zucchini Chips
1 medium zucchini, sliced thin - about 1/4"
bread crumbs, grated as fine as you can get them*
grated parmagiano cheese*
extra virgin olive oil - about 1/2 cup
bit of salt
* the amount of these can vary. You'll have to experiment

Place the sliced zucchini in a bowl and pour the olive oil over them. Toss to coat both sides of all slices with the oil. Add more if needed to do this.

Mix the cheese and the bread crumbs together in another bowl.

Place the zucchini slices on an oiled baking pan. Sprinkle each with a bit of salt.
Spoon a mound of the cheese/bread crumb mixture on each zucchini slice. Fill them but don't let the mixture spill over.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is browned and the zucchini is crispy.
Buon appetito!

Ben tornata!

"Ben tornata!" This is what I have been hearing several times daily for the past ten days from each of the people I encounter. "Ben tornata!" Welcome back!" It is usually accompanied by a handshake, a hug, a kiss, or all three.
Most people are still here in their same houses. One lovely young woman has married since last year and is expecting a baby in September. The kind and comic owner of the tabachi, who loved Elvis Presley and was proud to greet me in English has died. But it is still beautiful and the mountains faithfully greet you each day: bold in purple and draped in snow, or dark and ominous and sulking behind slate grey thunderheads. I literally run towards them every other day.
There is a road that undulates due west of town. It goes downhill for about 1/2 a kilometer, then rises up and down alternatively for the next 1 1/2 kilometers. I run it every other day. Or rather, I alternate bouncing pokily along downhill and then slog the uphills. But it provides a good, solid hour of cardiovascular activity and helps to quiet my chattering brain. It winds through farmland, sunflower fields, and olive groves as it meanders towards the mountains. This week I was stopped mid-run twice by the farming activity. Once by mechanized activity, once by human-powered work. Both equally fascinating.

Farm Hills of Castiglione Messer Raimondo

As I came around a curve where the hard road turns to fine, white dust, I heard the motor before I saw the tractor. There were rows of hay making neat corduroy stripes between olive trees on a hillside. The hill must be at least a 30 degree incline. The tractor was chugging straight uphill, dragging what I soon realized was a baler behind it. I surmised this, because as the tractor moved uphill the stripe in its path disappeared. I knew it had to be going into the equipment the tractor pulled behind it - to be gathered into the characteristic round bales of hay that dot the hillsides here. The tractor kept moving up and up - the hill must be at least 400 yards long. The olive trees looked like those little tufts of fake green you put around a train set at Christmas. The entire way up, the farmer never jettisoned his harvest. The weight he was pulling must have been tremendous. When he reached the top of the hill, he turned, becoming perpendicular to the hill's slope. The baler moved in perfect balance behind. Then he made a tight turn and started downward with the baler and its weight now chasing behind. The movement was sure, slow, and steady. All the while one of the large, white Abruzzese sheep dogs was leaping and running back and forth in and around the tractor's path. Yet the farmer kept going. No fear or hesitation, even with the looming weight behind that could sweep him away at any moment in one crushing move. When he got to the bottom of the hill, the farmer released the gathered hay in one neat, spiraled deep yellow bundle. Then he and the dog turned and went back up another tidy row.

Guest enjoying Abruzzo's Bounty

I continued running towards the peaks, which were now rumbling and nearly obscured in darkness. I thought it best to turn and head back to town.
Castiglione Messer Raimondo sat before me like the entrance to a magical kingdom, it's church bell tower and the huge iron cross that adorns the church roof a beacon to me. It curves gracefully in a honey-colored cluster of stone houses along a plateau that eventually leads to a main road and the Adriatic. I was traversing the shadowland between worlds as I ran - from one fantasy-like realm to another. As I rounded another curve, to my left was another cultivated field. This one planted in sunflowers. It was also being tended. A man in grey cotton pants and a flannel shirt, who looked to be about  70 years old or so, was moving slowly through the green and sepia field. It was about the size of a football field, with the seating at one end zone included. The man had a back-pack-like contraption on his shoulders, and a hose that led from it dangled from his hand. He moved slowly through the cultivated rows, spraying each plant. Moving with methodical determination from one to another. I watched for about 10 minutes. He moved about 20 feet.
I saw this man two days later. This time he was sitting in the field, his bowed legs as straight out in front of him as he could get them. By the time I rounded the curve and was losing site of him, he pulled himself up and began to chop at each row with a hand-held hoe with a rough, faded wooden handle.
This is the foundation of the food eaten here. This brave. loving tending of the land. No wonder I feel so good eating here. I'm absorbing the love that went into producing the food I consume. Tonight, I am following the advice of Donatella, the farmer and owner of the Frutavendola: I've made a salad of her "ugly" tomatoes (we call them "heirloom"; here they are simply tomatoes that have not been genetically modified over the years to be perfectly smooth, evenly red, and mealy), basil, thinly sliced red onions, and salt. I eat and am happified from the inside out. Ben tornata, indeed!